As Canada and Australia vote, the pendulum of our times is swinging towards competence and away from chaos and culture wars, away from celebrity politicians and back towards bland technocrats who talk about “hinge moments” and “missions”.


Josie's column in the Post quotes hedge fund manager Ray Dalio’s observation of five forces changing the world from the one we used to know:

- Enormous debt has financed the US stock market expansion while governments are stuck in persistent large deficits.

- Vast inequality in income, education and opportunity is creating political dysfunction.

- Geopolitics are realigning as the post-war US hegemony in the global order ends.

- Natural disasters and pandemics have increased, and amplified population movements.

- AI and technology are reshaping the global economy at warp speed.

Our political culture evolved when the pace of change was more foreseeable, and there was time to adjust. Now, change is abrupt and the familiar is swept away when we reach for reassurance. The trick of the populist is to find a villain to blame for the costs of change. Outsiders usually. Or elite institutions.

Those people who said we shouldn’t sign the Trans-Pacific-Partnerships must be happy that America has finally freed itself from the tyranny of being able to buy stuff from other countries.

Joining TPP made us part of a non-tariff bloc comprising 34% of global trade. The US comprises 15%. We are better placed than the Heard and McDonald Islands, which have been singled out for tariffs despite having a population of no-one but rock-hopper penguins.

If I buy a packet of freshly baked hot cross buns for $5, then the US logic says I would be better off if I charged myself $10 for them.

But tariffs might not be inflationary. Following the US stock market crash in 1929. President Herbert Hoover signed into law the Smoot-Hawley Tariff. Trading partners suffered reduced output, and so did the United States. “The Smoot-Hawley tariff ignited an international trade war and helped sink our country into the Great Depression,” President Ronald Reagan said in 1986.

It is foolhardy to believe this will all blow over in four years and normality will be restored.

Read Josie's Post column about America's trade craziness.