It's quite a technical speech from the RBA's Assistant Governor  - you might like to give it a miss if monetary policy isn't your thing.

...conditions in global bond markets have been strained recently following the failure of Silicon Valley Bank in the United States. Volatility in Australian financial markets has picked up but markets are still functioning and, most importantly, Australian banks are unquestionably strong – the banks’ capital and liquidity positions are well above APRA’s regulatory requirements. Banks are already well advanced on their bond issuance plans for the year and could defer their bond issuance for a while. Even if markets remain strained for a time, Australian banks’ issuance will continue to benefit from the strength of their balance sheets.

The unwinding of unconventional monetary policies

We are currently pursuing passive QT, whereby we allow our holdings of government bonds to roll off as they mature.^[1] The next maturity of substance is $13 billion of the April 2023 Australian Government bond. Some central banks have slowed QT by reinvesting some of their maturing bonds; others have done the opposite, pushing QT along by selling bonds well ahead of maturity.

While QT will contribute to a moderate decline in our balance sheet over the next few years, the roll-off of the Bank’s Term Funding Facility (TFF) will lead to a sizeable reduction in our balance sheet this year and next (Graph 1).

Banks are preparing for that in advance. When the time comes, they will use some of the balances held in their Exchange Settlement (ES) accounts at the Reserve Bank to repay loans they have obtained under the TFF. In return, they will receive back the collateral secured against those loans. If that collateral was in the form of securities issued by the Australian Government or the states and territories, there will be no net effect on a bank’s liquid asset ratio. But much of the collateral pledged for the TFF was in the form of self-securitised assets, which do not count towards a bank’s liquidity for regulatory purposes. Accordingly, as they run down their ES balances to repay funds borrowed under the TFF, banks will need to obtain high-quality liquid assets (HQLA).^[2] They could also source more of their funding in products like term deposits to reduce the amount of liquid assets they need to hold.

Meanwhile, banks have been issuing more long-term bonds in what had been relatively favourable conditions in global bond markets. Our liaison with the banks suggests they are planning for further issuance of bonds as they prepare for the roll-off of the first tranche of $76 billion of the TFF between April and September this year.

However, conditions in global bond markets have been strained recently following the failure of Silicon Valley Bank in the United States. Volatility in Australian financial markets has picked up but markets are still functioning and, most importantly, Australian banks are unquestionably strong – the banks’ capital and liquidity positions are well above APRA’s regulatory requirements. Banks are already well advanced on their bond issuance plans for the year and could defer their bond issuance for a while. Even if markets remain strained for a time, Australian banks’ issuance will continue to benefit from the strength of their balance sheets.

As loans from the TFF mature and are replaced with funding at higher cost, this will tend to push up banks’ funding costs. The TFF accounted for around 5 per cent of banks’ overall funding at its peak. However, much of the funding was hedged, either by issuing term-matched fixed-rate mortgages or by using derivatives to convert the fixed rate TFF payments back to floating rates. Hence, the rise in the cash rate and interest rates more broadly has already had some effect on the cost of banks’ funding from the TFF.

New Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data on individual income taxes for tax year 2020 shows the federal income tax system continues to be progressive as high-income taxpayers pay the highest average income tax rates.[1] Average tax rates for all income groups remained lower in 2020, three years after the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, than they were in 2017 prior to the reform.

• In 2020, taxpayers filed 157.5 million tax returns, reported earning nearly $12.5 trillion in adjusted gross income (AGI), and paid $1.7 trillion in individual income taxes.
• The average income tax rate in 2020 was 13.6 percent. The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid a 25.99 percent average rate, more than eight times higher than the 3.1 percent average rate paid by the bottom half of taxpayers.
• The top 1 percent’s income share rose from 20.1 percent in 2019 to 22.2 percent in 2020 and its share of federal income taxes paid rose from 38.8 percent to 42.3 percent.
• The top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97.7 percent of all federal individual income taxes, while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 2.3 percent.
• The 2020 figures include pandemic-related tax items such as the non-refundable part of the first two rounds of Recovery Rebates and the $10,200 unemployment compensation exclusion.

https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-income-tax-data/

And Part Two - here's Bill's intro:

I'm grateful that Laura Tingle was prepared to tolerate an old bloke with a GoPro, again. I also acknowledge that Laura even seemed to refrain from requesting intervention from a security guy who came around behind me... OTOH, I still think their ABC sucks for failing to cover the story of Jon Stephens' pedophilia (for which he remained convicted at the time of his death), while banging on incessantly about George Pell's alleged pedophilia, his conviction for which had been quashed, 7-NIL, by the High Court, prior to HIS death.

Superb, thank you Earl!

One way the city has made the streets more interesting is birds. Digital birds. Here’s what it’s about. 🦜🦆🦉🐓 pic.twitter.com/qIp6cVE6Kn

— Julian O'Shea (@julianoshea) March 17, 2023

“I will be referred to as a woman, as female, as a feminist… there isn’t a misogynist alive who has the chops to change my mind. But they’ll call me a TERF regardless & Im at the point when I just don’t f***ing care”

It is worth listening to every bit of this magnificent speech pic.twitter.com/1eUrIMfjJc

— Sall Grover (@salltweets) March 18, 2023

Hate to be the Russian local police station warrants guy who gets this Interpol warrant to execute!

No more overseas jaunts for Vlad.

On 22 February 2023, I submitted applications to Pre-Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Court for warrants of arrest in the context of the Situation in Ukraine.

Today, the Pre-Trial Chamber has issued arrest warrants in relation to the following two individuals:

• Mr Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation; and
• Ms Maria Lvova-Belova, Commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the  President of the Russian Federation.

On the basis of evidence collected and analysed by my Office pursuant to its independent investigations, the Pre-Trial Chamber has confirmed that there are reasonable grounds to believe that President Putin and Ms Lvova-Belova bear criminal responsibility for the unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation, contrary to article 8(2)(a)(vii) and article 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute.

Incidents identified by my Office include the deportation of at least hundreds of children taken from orphanages and children’s care homes. Many of these children, we allege, have since been given for adoption in the Russian Federation. The law was changed in the Russian Federation, through Presidential decrees issued by President Putin, to expedite the conferral of Russian citizenship, making it easier for them to be adopted by Russian families.

My Office alleges that these acts, amongst others, demonstrate an intention to permanently remove these children from their own country. At the time of these deportations, the Ukrainian children were protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

We also underlined in our application that most acts in this pattern of deportations were carried out in the context of the acts of aggression committed by Russian military forces against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine which began in 2014. 

In September last year, I addressed the United Nations Security Council and emphasised that the investigation of alleged illegal deportation of children from Ukraine was a priority for my Office. The human impact of these crimes was also made clear during my most recent visit to Ukraine. While there, I visited one of the care homes from which children were allegedly taken, close to the current frontlines of the conflict. The accounts of those who had cared for these children, and their fears as to what had become of them, underlined the urgent need for action.

We must ensure that those responsible for alleged crimes are held accountable and that children are returned to their families and communities. As I stated at the time, we cannot allow children to be treated as if they are the spoils of war.

Since taking up my position as Prosecutor, I have emphasised that the law must provide shelter to the most vulnerable on the front lines, and that we also must put the experiences of children in conflict at the centre of our work. To do this, we have sought to bring our work closer to communities, draw on advanced technological tools and, crucially, build innovative partnerships in support of our investigative work.

I am grateful for the support of many partners of the Office that have allowed us to move forward rapidly in the collection of evidence. I wish to express my thanks in particular  to the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine whose engagement has been essential in supporting the work my Office has carried out, including on the ground in Ukraine. Our participation in the Joint Investigation Team with national authorities from seven States, under the auspices of Eurojust, has also facilitated swift access to relevant information and evidence.

I will also continue to seek cooperation from the Russian Federation in relation to the Situation in Ukraine, and ensure my Office fully meets its responsibility pursuant to article 54 of the Rome Statute to investigate incriminating and exonerating circumstances equally.

Whilst today is a first, concrete step with respect to the Situation in Ukraine, my Office continues to develop multiple, interconnected lines of investigation.

As I stated when in Bucha last May, Ukraine is a crime scene that encompasses a complex and broad range of alleged international crimes. We will not hesitate to submit further applications for warrants of arrest when the evidence requires us to do so.

You look at the bright smiles and cheesy grins and ask yourself … would Laurie Oakes have behaved like this?

TV try-hard mini celebrities claiming to be journalists queuing up to get a picture with Therapeutic Albo and Labor’s Chris Minns.

Any wonder the public has no confidence in their independence or interest in mainstream news.

The selfie/idiot generation has taken over.

This is what really goes on when the cameramen stop recording.