Commodities | Fund Manager | Mining & Energy Investment | Geologist | Navigating the future of natural resources
Perth, Western Australia
Joined January 2012
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Sam Berridge retweeted
This is a terrific and terrifying read from @insteconomics
Australia truly is the anti-Abundance nation
It's self-inflicted damage
We keep shooting ourselves in the foot and then wondering why we can't sprint anymore
Planning regulations add $42,000 in compliance costs to an attic renovation -- for no discernible benefit (other than as a make-work scheme for consultants).
stephenkirchner.substack.com…
Impressive stats...
ELON MUSK: SpaceX took the team that dominates space and “applied that same team to the deployment of terrestrial compute.”
“This is a bit like the New York Yankees playing in little league. It’s not fair.”
SpaceX puts almost 90% of all mass into orbit. China is roughly 6%. The rest of the world combined, including the rest of the U.S., is about 4%.
That’s “an order of magnitude greater” than all its space competitors combined.
Now that team is deploying power, cooling, and infrastructure “vastly faster than anyone else, and may at some point be faster than everyone else combined.”
“Let that sink in for a minute.”
Essential viewing for all millennials and Gen Z. Your hopes and dreams will evaporate in taxes under the new system.
Go build your wealth in Dubai or Singapore etc. if you want to get ahead.
This is pretty bad. Another once highly regarded Australian institution found to be cooking the books for reasons up to your imagination...
"The audit also found that at Sydney Observatory, maximum temperature adjustments were positive in every year from 1910 to 2020, amounting to 110 years of one-way changes with no net cooling adjustment applied."
“These are not subtle statistical anomalies; they are obvious patterns of human intervention that should have been flagged by any competent quality control system,” Mr Berger said.
Mr Berger is a former computer engineer and specialist in data-based deception analysis. He has assisted the FBI with deception training and develops specialist software to conduct forensic analysis of big data.
theaustralian.com.au/nation/…
A half-full glass for those in need. Every now and again commodity equities become completely detached from the price of the commodity they produce, but it doesn't last forever.
Chart 1 spodumene vs PLS & LTR back in 2022.
Chart 2 uranium vs a couple of producers.
Chart 3 NdPr vs rare earth producers.
The rates of pay for unskilled labourer vs doctors in this are astounding.
An X user fact checked my ‘unskilled labourers on Taxpayer funded sites in Victoria get double the pay of resident Doctors in Taxpayer funded hospitals on Sundays”. Truth is I’d already done this, I don’t post without checking, but I’m happy for anyone else to do it too. The @victorianlabor Government are controlled by the CFMEU, not the medical association, so the union get all the cash to go as slow as possible on worksites and sick honest Victorian’s have to go without proper care. There are so many brand new hospital wards empty in new Victorian Hospitals because the Labor/CFMEU coalition gouge so much taxpayer money during the hospital builds there’s none left to make any use of the new buildings to fulfill their purpose. How long as a state are we going to allow this to happen?
The new ‘integrity not optional’ Premier @BenCarrollMP is just lying his way through this election campaign, with every scare tactic under the sun again, so it leads me to believe that integrity will always be optional while @victorianlabor run Victoria.
Fact review
For 8 ordinary hours on a Sunday, first-year public hospital doctors get $517.42 while general unskilled labourers on the Suburban Rail Loop get $1,023.44 to $1,155.28 (including site allowance) — about twice to a bit over twice the doctor.
First-year doctor — Enterprise Agreement AE518015
Weekly base (first full pay period on/after 1 March 2025): $1,638.49 (HM11 Intern)
Ordinary hourly rate = weekly ÷ 38 = $43.1182/hour
Sunday ordinary hours: 150% (cl 37.2(a))
Calculation: $1,638.49 ÷ 38 × 1.5 × 8 = $517.42
SRL Unskilled TW1–TW4 — Enterprise Agreement AE532306
Sunday = double base (cls 39.7 / 44); site $11.15/hr all hours (PPC 1 July 2026)
TW1: $58.39 → $934.24 @ 2× + site = $1,023.44
TW2: $65.20 → $1,043.20 @ 2x + site = $1,132.40
TW3: $66.07 → $1,057.12 @ 2x + site = $1,146.32
TW4: $66.63 → $1,066.08 @ 2x + site = $1,155.28
References
AE518015:
[dms.fwc.gov.au/document-view…](dms.fwc.gov.au/document-view…)
Wages (FFPPOA 1 Mar 2025):
[westernhealth.org.au/sites/d…](westernhealth.org.au/sites/d…)
AE532306:
[fwc.gov.au/document-view/agr…](fwc.gov.au/document-view/agr…)
Well... he's certainly trying.
The Albanese Government has stepped in to ensure small businesses and other taxpayers have until the end of June next year before the ATO phases out credit card payments.
This decision is about putting small business first.
Australian businesses have said the ATO’s announced timeframe that followed the RBA's surcharging reforms was inadequate and we have taken these concerns seriously and acted on them.
Labor will always back small businesses because we know how important they are to our communities and to our economy.
The Van Eck Rare Earth and Critical Minerals ETF (white) has detached from rare earth prices (blue).
i.e. Share prices are falling, but earnings (all other things being equal) are stable.
it's quite simple really...
🚨🚨🚨Don’t waste your time listening to the gaslighting grub Jim 💀Reaper @JEChalmers - this is what is happening in Australia.
Nice and simple.
Sam Berridge retweeted
We should be asking the question that if we have "rising unemployment, falling house prices and sluggish economic growth" then why is inflation above the RBA's target band and there's upside risks? It is certainty not all driven by global oil prices.
The Reserve Bank has lifted interest rates to a 15-year high despite rising unemployment, falling house prices and sluggish economic growth. smh.com.au/politics/federal/…
Sam Berridge retweeted
One of the aspects of the Tickle v Giggle case that doesn’t get the attention it should is the punishment for a reaction deemed offensive - without complaint or evidence - during cross examination in court. It is a direct attack of free speech, in my opinion.
We laugh about it - because it is laughable - that I was fined $10,000 for laughing. It was a maybe 3 second laugh - I’ve even been told 3 seconds is an exaggeration, I don’t know - at evidence presented to me by the other side - their evidence - at something designed specifically to illicit a laugh, and BAM. $10,000.
I swore to tell the truth, and I did. My instinctual reactions were true.
It means that, from now on, even during cross examination you’re not free of punishment if you do or say something that could be deemed *offensive*. Even if those asking you the questions brought in the offensive material.
This is the Australian way, apparently.
The censorship industrial complex is going on the offensive. New legislation being field tested in Australia would give the government the power to run AI bot networks/sock puppets, apparently to secretly influence & manipulate online debates. Creepy af. H/t @NAffects @MikeNayna
Sam Berridge retweeted
The censorship industrial complex is going on the offensive. New legislation being field tested in Australia would give the government the power to run AI bot networks/sock puppets, apparently to secretly influence & manipulate online debates. Creepy af. H/t @NAffects @MikeNayna
This is like telling your scuba diving partner to grow some gills as their tanks run out.
The most important imperative for Australia is to get rid of diesel. It is a no brainer for the economy, for national security and the environment. But there is no policy
reneweconomy.com.au/australi…
Sam Berridge retweeted
This is the most damning and outrageous draft-final change in the latest ISP.
In the draft, just Stage 1, ie one 500KV line, modelled to New England.
Ongoing analysis and stakeholder engagement needed "to ascertain whether the second stage will optimise benefits to consumers..."
Crystal clear that AEMO knows full well that there are no projects likely to close in the REZ, and this will be a white-elephant, with terrible costs imposed on consumers with no chance of proportional benefit.
So what happened with the analysis and stakeholder engagement?
Well, one stakeholder trumped all others. The NSW government wrote and declared that they're doing both lines, in a single project, and asked for it to be treated as 'anticipated' which makes it a sunk-cost in the ISP, so AEMO would not do any further analysis on whether it makes economic sense for consumers.
The sheer bloody-mindedness of this move is just breathtaking.
There can be no pretense now that the ISP does anything at all to coordinate investment or protect consumers.
A supremely arrogant government can just over-rule the community, and consumer interests, and the ISP just nods along, puts it all in the path called 'optimal'. 1/
Sam Berridge retweeted
BREAKING
Trump Administration warns it will treat as censorship 'facilitating censorship' Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's proposed crackdown on algorithms.
Source: au.usembassy.gov/u-s-governm… – at Weehawken, NJ
Despite batteries getting cheaper, the relevant department in WA has pivoted back to gas as the lowest-cost means of peaking capacity.
The history of BRCP pricing in the chart below tells a story of ideological capture. Specifically, the mental gymnastics required to squeeze batteries in as the benchmark technology - which is supposed to be the cheapest option - while at the same time having to jack up prices by 113% over two years to make batteries viable.
Only to realise 4hr or even 6hr batteries still need gas backup thereafter. So you may as well get rid of the battery and just use gas instead.
Unfortunately for WA, we dumped $2bn worth of batteries into the grid over those two years, which will never pay for themselves.
And the increase in gas costs from 2026 to 2029? That's mostly a function of increased turbine costs, as datacentres bid up the world's supply of generators in search for cheap, dispatchable energy.
