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Damien Grant is an Auckland business owner, a member of the Taxpayers Union and a regular opinion contributor to Stuff, writing from a libertarian perspective.

OPINION: The Prime Minister can shuffle her front bench, sack a few lame ducks and shovel even more responsibility onto her few capable ministers. It will not work.

Her administration is caught in a death-spiral from which there is no return, and from which there will be no respite.

This government is done. Their poll numbers are buoyant but, as we have been taught many times in recent years, polls are misleading and unreliable.

READ MORE:* What the polls show: National nears pre-pandemic support, Labour's reign vulnerable* Chris Hipkins as Police Minister may be 'window dressing for the public' - Mark Mitchell* Can Labour attack Christopher Luxon and 'be kind' at the same time?

The one thing a poll can tell you with certainty is the trend; and the trend is clear. The electorate has tired of this government, or, perhaps, they have simply tired of its leader.

Ardern is trapped by her past success, and her past mistakes. She has one achievement: Covid.

Everything else has been a failure or of no enduring electoral weight, and more concerning for the ninth floor, she appears to be losing control of her own party.

She can sack Poto Williams, but she lacks the mana to fire Nanaia Mahuta, a much larger electoral liability but with a lot more political oomph.

ROBERT KITCHIN/Stuff

Damien Grant sees Nanaia Mahuta as an electoral liability for Jacinda Ardern, but the strength of the Mori caucus offers Mahuta protection.

The Prime Minister is unwilling or, more likely, unable to stand up to the Mori caucus, whose demands on issues like co-governance is proving a marketing bonanza to the Taxpayers Union, whose Three Waters rural road-show is playing to packed halls.

Defenders of Ardern will point to her outstanding performance in the aftermath of the Christchurch terror attack and the response to White Island, and in moments of crisis this Prime Minister has no equal. It is difficult to envision Luxon acting with such pathos or empathy.

Yet none of it matters. Even the Covid response is looking tattered in retrospect, with the missteps of not ordering stock in time, border failures, and the public relations disaster of how the parliamentary lawn protest was handled.

Within the political right, there is a belief that they are now a government in waiting. Christopher Luxon is confident. David Seymour is fizzing in anticipation. Chris Bishop, Nicola Willis, Brooke van Velden and even Todd Muller are waiting to get their mittens onto the levers of state.

Chris McKeen/Stuff

Christopher Luxon is talking the talk, but it may be what he hasnt said or done which will really count come the next election.

The mood of the boardroom, at least from my anecdotal encounters, is an expectation, even anticipation, that the irresponsible and unresponsive Ardern ministry will soon be swept away.

Well. Maybe.

Elections are tricky things. Favourites do not always win, and we should never underestimate the power of office, nor the ferocity of an incumbent with her back to the wall and everything to play for.

Few electoral certainties are more famous than Thomas E Dewey, the clean-cut Republican with the Freddie Mercury moustache, pegged to defeat incumbent Harry S Truman in the 1948 presidential election.

Deweys defeat is notable because it was unexpected, but it is also relevant because he was the front-runner and took the path often favoured by front-runners play it safe.

Brook Mitchell/Getty Images

Scott Morrison surprised everyone with his come-from-behind victory in Australias 2019 election. He is pictured with his family on that election night.

He ran a campaign so bland that one paper mocked that he had four stump speeches that could be summarised as: Agriculture is important. Our rivers are full of fish. You cannot have freedom without liberty. Our future lies ahead.

Across the Tasman we saw a similar result in 2019, when the unpopular Liberal administration headed by Scott Morrison held onto power against predictions of certain defeat.

Morrison had been consistently behind in the polls, but when the time came to vote for change, many Australians mysteriously decided not to.

Labour leader Bill Shorten ran a risk-adverse campaign, avoiding big commitments, that was later de-constructed by his party as lacking a political strategy and with a cluttered policy agenda.

Perhaps the most relevant upset, when looking at our upcoming election, is the 1992 election in the United Kingdom.

Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

John Major may not have been Britains highest performing prime minister, but he still managed to win when it mattered.

John Major was the dour and unimpressive successor to Margaret Thatcher, whose government was grappling with falling house prices, 10% interest rates, rising unemployment and dismal polling. Yet his Conservatives snatched a remarkable win against the run of play.

Voters, it has been claimed, simply didnt find opposition leader Neil Kinnock convincing, and the Tories were successful in painting Labour as lacking fiscal responsibility.

Opinion polls are like by-elections and high-school sweethearts an opportunity to experiment without having to make a serious commitment. What matters is what voters will do once in the cardboard confines of a polling booth.

National is too confident. They are standing at the edge of the dance, waiting for the voter to tire of their current partner rather than seeking to cut in. It is significant that the Taxpayers Union, and not the National Party, is holding rallies against Three Waters.

SUPPLIED/Stuff

The Prime Minister enjoys a moment Chris Luxon is unlikely to ever have, getting US airtime with Stephen Colbert.

For all her failings, Ardern retains enormous respect and, in some quarters, genuine affection. Many voters secretly quite like the fact that our Prime Minister is feted on the global stage.

Chris Luxon isnt a celebrity. He will not be invited to meet Stephen Colbert. Anthony Albanese will not give him a hug. Ardern has a cachet he lacks and, maybe, voters will pause before letting her go.

And here is the real challenge for National. Economic uncertainty has fallen over the country like a hoar frost, and if this uncertainty is matched with a savage downturn, two things will come into play.

First, if it is a global meltdown, Ardern and Grant Robertson will not be held responsible, any more than they were held responsible for Covid.

Stuff

Damien Grant is an Auckland business owner, a member of the Taxpayers' Union and a regular opinion contributor for Stuff, writing from a libertarian perspective.

Second, who are voters going to trust more to look after them: the empathetic Ardern and her big-spending, fiscally irresponsible Robertson, or the former airline executive?

Luxon hasnt made it clear what National would do if elected, other than a few populist policies. He is playing it safe.

Because they have not defined themselves, National and its leader is providing the Government the opportunity to do it for them, which partly explains why we are seeing Labour running negative attacks on Luxon.

It would take a massive effort for National to lose the next election, against an unpopular administration which has lost its mandate and credibility. They seem up for that challenge.

Read this article:
The Ardern Government is in a death spiral with no hope... or is it? - Stuff

I have been married three times, and I would like to think that makes me equipped to tell the difference between love and lust. Most of us realise we are in love in the most unromantic of situations. For me, it was when I was heavily pregnant, had severe vertigo and had just vomited in the doctors surgery.

Ive wet myself, I announced a few minutes later, mortified and weeping in the passenger seat of my husbands prized black VW Golf, convinced he was ready to jump ship.

Its OK, darling, he whispered, leaning over to buckle my belly into the seat. In that moment, I knew that this really was love. It wasnt that I didnt think I loved him before, but age had altered the way I felt about things. I had said it to someone else before, and it hadnt worked out, and I wondered what that elusive glue was that kept couples happy together for ever.

I was 39, and he was 48. We had been together for three years, marrying seven months after wed met. We had both been in relationships that had changed us. They had shaped us into people who could build a life together.

My husband and I come from similar backgrounds: our mothers were both raised in Karachi and we grew up speaking English and Urdu, navigating what it meant to be of Pakistani heritage in Britain, and Muslim. Despite these similarities, we chose different ends of the spectrum of life as our starting points He went backpacking across the globe in his 20s; I got married.

He used to describe himself as a liberal libertarian, open to all the experiences of life. I was an uptight, conservative Muslim woman, who was once nicknamed the runaway bride because I had left two arranged marriages. He spent his life avoiding girls like me, and if wed met earlier it would never have worked. Ironically, it was the very things that I thought would put someone off me that he had liked: I had a juicy past, I had lived on the edges of acceptability, albeit reluctantly, and I had nothing to hide.

I often ask him what made him pursue me. I fancied you, he says. It never fails to raise a smile, because who doesnt want to be lusted after? I never knew how nice it would be to be with someone who speaks Urdu, he once added, thoughtfully.

Esther Perel, the author of Mating in Captivity says, Love is a vessel that contains both security and adventure. For my husband and me, our diversity of thought brings the adventure, and the familiarity of our experiences offers security. It has been the bridge between lust and love.

Single friends ask how I knew I could trust that it would be different this time, how I knew that he was the one; the answer is that I didnt. I just knew what I wanted my life to look like, and I could see he wanted the same, and that was what made it worth taking the risk. So, I made myself vulnerable. Life had taught me that whatever happened, I would handle it.

It is always in the most ordinary moments that I have felt extraordinary love for my husband. Like the Valentines Day after our first child was born, when I was breastfeeding in bed, exhausted from motherhood. He brought me a cup of tea and a packet of cheese-and-onion crisps my favourite. I cried. It was confirmation that he knew me, the tiny things about me, like the way I take my tea, or the fact that I dont like sultanas in scones, or the kind of things I watch on TV.

My Nani used to say that it takes 20 years to fall in love, and I would laugh at her practicality, teasing her about whether she had ever really loved her husband, since she had become a widow at 35. But she always smiled when she spoke of my grandfather. Her marriage had been arranged when she was 18, so there hadnt been a long courtship.

I now understand that she was teaching me about true love, that it grows with the years of incremental kindness. Its a lesson I am reminded of every time my husband hands me a cup of tea at the end of a long day.

Read the original here:
Three marriages have taught me what true love looks like a cup of tea and some cheese and onion crisps - The Guardian

By Zoe Han

An overly consolidated market and lack of support for breastfeeding moms are some of the factors contributing to the formula shortage, experts said.

What can be done to prevent shortages of baby formula, tampons and other consumer products?

The U.S. Senate's Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights Subcommittee held a hearing this week to look at the baby-formula market in the U.S., and broader issue of supply-chain issues.

A national infant formula shortage has forced some desperate parents to drive long hours and scour stores and websites to find a formula for their babies. For the seven days ending May 29, 73% of baby formula products nationwide were out of stock, according to Datasembly, a retail-tracking group. And in some states such as California and Georgia, the out-of-stock rates were at more than 90%.

Baby formula isn't the only product vulnerable to sudden shortages; many industries are overly consolidated and overly reliant on a few big players, said one expert at the hearing.

"There are dozens, if not hundreds, of industries that would result in effects that would be far more devastating than what we've seen here," Barry Lynn, executive director of the liberal think tank Open Markets Institute in Washington, D.C., told the Senate hearing of the baby-formula supply-chain shortage.

One example: more than 95% of ingredients in generic drugs come from China, and their supply could easily be disrupted by diplomatic issues between the U.S. and China, Lynn said.

Baby formula stock was already running low before Abbott Laboratories, which controls 40% of the formula market, closed a Michigan manufacturing facility in February. As such, experts say the infant formula shortage was a storm waiting to happen. For decades, the U.S. infant formula market has been controlled by just a few major players.

Heavy tariffs and strict labeling regulations from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have made it difficult for other players to enter the market, analysts say. In fact, the onerous process to become a baby-formula manufacturer in the U.S. has resulted in only one new manufacturer successfully registering with FDA in the past 15 years, said Scott Lincicome, director of general economics and trade at the libertarian think tank Cato Institute, at the hearing.

"Today's producer concentration and any resulting problems are primarily the result of federal government policy, not any sort of natural, private-market failure," Lincicome told the hearing.

"I'm really frustrated," said Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey, at the hearing. "Four companies have gained control over the formula market through acquisitions. It leads to a lack of innovation and leads to a lack of resiliency and a consolidated market."

Abbott (ABT), Mead Johnson Nutrition (owned by Reckitt ), Perrigo (PRGO), and Nestl USA (NESN.EB) are the four major players in the baby-formula market in the U.S. The Biden administration invoked the Defense Production Act on May 18 to speed up formula production and import formula from abroad for additional supply.

Abbot, Mead Johnson Nutrition and Nestl USA did not respond immediately to a request for comment. A Perrigo spokesman said the company's products constitute about 8% of the total infant formula market. "The Company is doing everything possible to provide as much infant formula to its retail partners during this challenging time," the spokesman told MarketWatch. "During the three months ending March 31, 2022, we shipped 37% more formula vs. the same period last year."

While U.S. businesses and consumers have encountered numerous shortages due to supply chain disruption during the COVID-19 pandemic, infant formula is different from industries such as semiconductors and automobiles: Just 2% of baby formula products are imported into the U.S.

Tariffs on infant formula range can be as high as to 17.5%.

"Supply, diversity, economic openness [and] low trade barriers really does help in terms of having a better, more stable market," Lincicome said.

At the same time, increasing infrastructure support for breastfeeding would help to alleviate the weight of the demand for infant formula, Ginger Carney, director of clinical nutrition at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., told the Senate hearing.

Carney said breast milk is the optimal choice for infant nutrition, but not all mothers are able to support their babies this way. Many mothers set out to breastfeed but have problems doing it, either because of a lack of educational support or other road blocks, such as going back to work.

"Many mothers may start out breastfeeding, and then they breastfeed for a few weeks for as long as they have maternity leave," Carney said. "And I've noticed a huge drop once mothers have to return to work."

Most employers and workplaces don't provide mothers with a private, clean place for mothers to pump their milk, Carney said, and mothers may feel embarrassed or concerned about retaliation if they take breaks during work to pump. Lower-wage mothers can be subjected to discrimination, Carney said.

It's also a logistical challenge; breast milk must be refrigerated and stored in special storage bags or clean, food-grade containers, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Moms who want to pump at work and transport the milk back to their babies need to have all of this equipment with them, as well as a place to plug in the breast pump and keep the milk cool.

Carney used the example of a new mother working at a fast-food outlet. "What are you going to do if you gotta go take a break and say, 'Oh, watch the window. I've gotta go to pump my milk?' They're just not able to do that. It's just not accepted as the norm," Carney said.

-Zoe Han

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

06-19-22 1340ET

Link:
'4 companies have gained control over the formula market': Lawmakers and women's health advocates debate solutions to baby-formula shortage -...

Last Saturdays terror attack on Kabuls Karte Parwan Gurdwara that killed three people including an Afghan Sikh shows again Taliban is not in full control. IS claimed credit for the attack. Ten months after Taliban takeover, the Afghan economy has gone into a tailspin, hunger is acute, womens rights are disappearing. And attacks like the latest makes many Afghan nationals, as well as a few remaining Indians, desperate to fly out to India.

Following Talibans takeover, GoI instituted an e-emergency visa category for Afghan nationals wanting to travel to India. But these visa applications are backed up with only around 200 being cleared till last December. True, GoI yesterday cleared over 100 e-emergency visas for Afghan Sikhs and Hindus, a day after the gurdwara attack. But such selective clearance of visas is poor policy. Indian efforts over the last two decades created considerable goodwill among the Afghan people. Squandering that now will only work to the advantage of Pakistan and China.

Another problem is the lack of flights between India and Afghanistan, making it extremely difficult for those who want to get out. Afghanistans airspace was shut for non-defence flights to, from and over the country starting August 16 last year. True, there have been some special evacuation fights like the recent one on June 15. But these are simply not enough. With India now officially engaging Taliban, GoI must clear more flights between the two countries, starting with Afghan carriers. Simultaneously, it must expedite e-emergency and medical visas for Afghan nationals, as well as student visas for Afghan students accepted by Indian universities. This is an easy way for India to retain its strategic interests in Afghanistan.

This piece appeared as an editorial opinion in the print edition of The Times of India.

END OF ARTICLE

Read more here:
Fly them out: Latest Kabul attack adds to desperation of those who want to leave Afghanistan. GoI must help - Times of India

People in Afghanistan are offering to sell their organs to make enough money to survive, as the cost of living crisis plunges the country into deeper poverty.

Christian Aid warned that rocketing fuel and food prices were forcing families to make desperate decisions and may soon begin to sell their children.

One cannot imagine the situation of poor families. People are openly offering to sell their body parts to manage the price hike, said the charitys Afghanistan country manager Subrata De.

Very soon Afghanistan will experience another round of an extreme humanitarian situation where families will be forced to sell their children.

Aid workers in Herat found that the cost of a 16L oil pack has risen from 3000 Afghani (27) to 4300 Afghani (39) in just one week.

The size of bread in Herat bakeries has also reduced significantly after flour prices doubled in the last month.

Other living costs have been on the rise since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August, which destabilised the country and caused mass job losses.

International aid to Afghanistan, including from the UK, has also been slashed or diverted away from government-controlled programmes.

The cost of public transport has risen from 10 Afghani or 20 Afghani (less than a penny) per journey to between 30 and 50, Christian Aid reports, while the price of a 50kg sack of wheat flour has risen from 2,000 Afghani (18) to 3,500 (32).

But in a new report seen by i, Christian Aid also warned that soaring costs were leaving aid agencies struggling to meet the growing demand.

Ray Hasan, Head of Asia, Middle East, Latin America, Caribbean and Global Programmes said that the cost of living crisis was having serious impacts on our work.

The food we distribute is more expensive now and sometimes we have to cut back on certain items like oil so that we can help more people with the basics. Cash distributions are less meaningful than they used to be, he told i.

The cost of our supplies is going up. We are identifying those that are most in need but the numbers are growing rapidly as more and more people are struggling to get enough food to eat.

The global hunger crisis has been partly driven by the war in Ukraine, which has disrupted essential food supplies from both Ukraine and Russia.

Both countries are large-scale producers of wheat and oil; prior to the war, Ukraine exported an average of 6 million tons of grain and oilseed a month, falling to just 200,000 in March.

And the shortages are hitting some of the worlds poorest countries.

Russia and Ukraine account for 100 per cent of Somalia and Benins wheat imports, and more than 90 per cent in Laos, according to the Christian Aid report.

They also constitute more than 80 per cent of Egypts wheat imports and 75 per cent of Sudans, as well as 95 per cent of sunflower imports to China and India.

But the crisis had been unfolding before the renewed conflict in Ukraine, largely as a result of repeated and severe droughts in countries including Ethiopia.

In the Dawa zone of the Somali region, admission rates for malnutrition at Save the Children nutrition centres increased by more than 320 per cent from September 2021 to January 2022.

Items the charity distributes in Afghanistan, such as flour, vegetable oil, soya, sugar, soap and shampoo have become much more expensive, head of humanitarian Michael Mosselmans said.

We are therefore buyingfewer, and more people are at risk without our support.

And it is a picture the agency is seeing beyond Afghanistan.

The situation is also worsening in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the $14 a month that was previously given to families to help them buy food can no longer cover the same number of supplies.

In Zimbabwe, food prices in May were 154.6 per cent higher than the previous year, with year-on-year inflation at 131.7 per cent.

Christian Aid workers in Burundi reported cities and rural areas running out of fuel, causing tensions in local communities and preventing farmers from taking their goods to market.

But despite the scale of the problem, Christian Aid are concerned that the crisis is not receiving enough international attention or action.

The alarms are sounding, and urgent action is needed now, wrote Mr Mosselmans. This is a point reinforced by polling we commissioned which showed only 23 per cent of those the British public are aware of the crisis in the Horn of Africa, compared to 91 per cent for the war in Ukraine.

The charity is calling for an urgent shift towards a more sustainable food system in which countries are less dependent on imported goods and on fossil fuels.

It urged the UK Government to accelerate its path to net zero, push all G7 countries to uphold their famine commitments, and to raise its aid commitment back to 0.7 per cent of gross national income, in addition to its Ukraine aid.

View original post here:
Afghans offer to sell their organs for money as inflation soars, charity warns - iNews