Australias largest building and construction materials supplier Boral [ASX:BLD] has returned to its former glory with significant gains across most metrics in a challenging economic climate.

Boral also told shareholders it will continue raising the price of cement, gravel, and asphalt in the new financial year as soaring interest rates push down the construction of new homes.

Shares of the company were up by 8.12%, trading at $4.72 per share this afternoon, as the results understandably enthused investors.

Boral has seen its share price rise by 63.28% in the past 12 months, outperforming the sector by almost 50% this year.

Source: TradingView

Borals FY23 results

Boral beat most expectations and guidance this year with a strong earnings report today.

The companys net revenue rose 17% to $3.5 billion in the year to 30 June, while earnings jumped 38% to $454.4 million. Operating cash flow lifted 65.5% to $358.7 million.

However, Borals statutory net profit after tax came in at $148.1 million for the 2023 financial year, down from $150 million in the previous year. This also included a post-tax income of $977.6 million from the sale of its US business, Eco Material Technologies.

In other disappointing news for shareholders, the company will also not pay dividends this year.

Boral CEO Vik Bansal said he expects cost pressures to linger for the next 1218 months, which the company will pass on to its customers.

However, he signalled that the increases wouldnt be as sharp as last financial year.

There will be price increases because cost will increase.

Im not saying the price is going to remain steady. All Im saying is the rate of increase will slow down.

Bansal said he was bullish about starting the new financial year and boasted abou...

Ive just arrived in Melbourne from the Southern Highlands on an overnight train, my first time travelling long distance this way. On several occasions, Ive driven up and down the Hume Highway enjoying the rolling hills, pastures with cattle, lamb and horses, and taking stops in several towns along the way.

You might ask why I didnt hop on a planelike the late North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-Il, whose fear of flying due to security concerns meant he only travelled in his bulletproof train?

No, Ive flown on planes before. I last flew in May 2022 to Melbourne but experienced both a delay and a cancellation. I couldve arrived home at the same time had I hopped behind the wheel!

Thanks to the vaccine mandates, the airline industry has never been the same again. Several pilots and ground staff were dismissed for refusing to comply, causing a significant staff shortage.

I recognise that things are starting to improve with Jetstar recently appealing to the public, giving them a second chance now that delays and cancellation rates are falling. But until these mandates lift, expect domestic flights to continue experiencing further disruptions.

So Ill stick with driving or taking the train when I travel to Melbourne.

The myth of vaccine efficacy exposed

My article today isnt about my travels. Its about digging deeper into vaccine mandates and their impact on our society.

The world was conditioned in the last few years to believe that vaccine mandates would be the most effective way against the Wuhan virus, reducing transmissions, hospitalisations and deaths.

Since these mandates, the number of cases and deaths around the world didnt fall. The data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed that it rose. Furthermore, word spread that some fell ill, experienced serious side effects, or even died after taking these drugs. Some of you mightve been affected or knew relatives or friends who were.

These mandates divided society as some trusted it was done in our best interest while others believed something nefarious was at hand. However, the plot turned with the release of Matt Taibbis Twitter Files and, more recently, the Facebook Files revealing the collusion between governments, public health agencies, vaccine manufacturers and the media to quash dissenting views. My...

The current economy is in terrific shape especially compared to what most economists expected. Every day, confidence in a soft-landing increases, and even the Fed seems convinced, despite an unprecedented rapid rise in interest rates.

current GDP growth of 2.4%, well ahead of expectations. Inflation is at 3%, down from 10% just last year. Unemployment is at a 54-year low, at 3.7%, despite predictions that unemployment would substantially increase. Wage growth has been particularly strong at around 4%, and most commodity prices are down some 50%, with some down considerably more. 

Saved the economy? New ages of prosperity?

Why doesnt he get credit? Why not give Harry Truman credit for the urban renewal program in Nagasaki after 1945? Why not give Chief Sitting Bull credit for reducing payroll costs in the seventh Cavalry?

Plague of the black debt

Wage growth is not particularly strong at all. Because there is none. Adjust the 4% growth to inflation, using the core measure, and you get real wage growth at MINUS 0.8%. And how about that 2.4% GDP growth? Strip out the Feds transfer payments and boondoggles, and growth flattens out. Because what Biden did was nothing more than continue the bonehead policies of his predecessor: stimmies to the voters, subsidies to crony industries, gifts to Zelensky et aland enough weapons to keep the killing machine in gear.

This is fiscal inflation. It helps delay a correctionfor a while. But it gives us a Banana Republic deficit at 8% of GDPnational debt accumulating at US$5 billion per dayrising bond yieldsand an upcoming headache that is going to be one for the record books. All this debt will eventually have to be rolled over at higher ratesand inflated away.

Thirty years ago, we published a small booklet, written by our friend, James Dale Davidson, entitled The Plague of the Black Debt: How to Survive the Coming Depression. We warned that US debt was getting out of control.

Back in 1993, US federal debt was just over US$4 trillion. There was still time to bring it down. And for a while, in the late 90s, it actually did go down as the Clinton Administration ran a few serendipitous surpluses. But then, along came George W Bush with his War on Terrorand the debt pile grew quickly.

Empire of debt

In 2005, with Addison Wiggin, we wrote a book, Empire of Debt. Our theme was that the attempt to bring the whole world under the US thumb funded by borrowing money would lead to big trouble. The accumulated debt would end up making us weaker, not stronger. By then, US debt had doubled to US$8 trillion.

And now, empire spending including money for soldiers, spooks, the World Bank and embassies, et al has risen to US$1.5 trillion PER YEAR. Total US Governm...

Multinational PSC Insurance Group [ASX:PSI] has announced that it has entered into a binding scheme implementation deed to acquire all of the shares of Ensurance [ASX:ENA] for $25.2 million.

Shares of PSC were down by 1.22% today while Ensurance saw its shares explode in morning trading, with shares up 33.75%, trading at 26.8 cents per share.

PSC Insurance specialises in turnaround acquisitions within the insurance sector, with a long track record of reviving businesses that operate within Australia, the UK, Hong Kong, and NZ.

It has had a slow and steady year of growth with shares of PSC up by 8.04% in the past 12 months.

The only notable shift from its usual trading occurred right before the end of the financial year, which saw a massive jump.

This had some market watchers accusing funds of attempting to take advantage of the relatively low liquidity in PSC to boost their period-end performance.

Source: TradingView

PSC offers $25.2 million for Ensurance

PSC Insurance has issued a bid for Ensurance today. To fund the acquisition, PSC will issue 5 million shares to ENA shareholders and pay any difference in value to the $25.2 million remaining in cash.

The purchase price represents an implied valuation of Ensurance of $18 million plus $7 million in assets, largely represented in cash held by the company.

The valuation represents a 40% premium to ENAs closing price on Monday of 20 cents a share.

Ensurance operates an Australian-based underwriting business specialising in construction and terrorism & sabotage underwriting across Australia and the UK.

PSC said the acquisition will add a high-growth operation and new product suite to PSCs Australian Specialty businesses led by PSCs Adam Burgess.

PSC expects an annualise...

It rechristened its territories
As the Banana Republics,
And over the sleeping dead,
Over the restless heroes
Who brought about the greatness,
The liberty and the flags,
It established a comic opera

-Pablo Neruda

Angels gasped. And the dead generations rolled their dry eyes in disbelief.

Americans thought they could turn Nicaragua, Honduras, Haiti and Venezuela into dynamic democracies just like their own country. They sent in troopsPeace Corps volunteersdo-goodersconsultantsentrepreneursinvestorsmoney. They scarcely noticed as their own homeland went bananas.

Two important things happened last weekeach signalling another milestone passed. While we were at an opera in Austria, an ex-president was indictedand Fitch downgraded the most important asset in the entire world US Government debt.

No one is above the law, said the mainstream press with the mock piety of those who fashion the laws to suit themselves.

Respectfully broke

This is the first time an ex-president has been charged with a criminal offence. Our guess is it wont be the last. Becausethats what they do in Banana Republics. And over in the GOP, lawyers are already at work building a cage in which to lock up Joe Biden for conspiring with his son to peddle influence in Ukraine.

As to the downgrade of US Treasury bondsit doesnt matter was the near-universal refrain. The economy is strong. You cant look at it as though it were a private business or a household.

You cant? Oh yes you can.

The US is going broke, just like a private business. But in the real economy, companies cant print money to cover their excess expenses and hide their shame. Nor do they have the biggest spade in the world the worlds reserve currency to dig a hole for themselves. When a private business or household takes on too much debt, lenders pull back. On Main Street, businesses and households still go broke in a common, respectable way.

Not so the US Government. Its bankruptcy will be one for the record books. It will pay its debts with cheap, printing press money.

And there, front and centre, is El Jefe, Joe Bidenwith his Bidenomics. Does anyone know what it is? Does Joe have any idea what he is talking about? The poor man cant carry a tunelet alone a coherent economic policy. The signature element of Bidenomics, as near as we can determine, is simply Chiquita Finance. You enjoy the warm weather as long as possible spend, spend, spendborrow, borrowborrow. And then, on a cold day, you pour gasoline over your head and set yourself on fire. And heres the latest from MarketWise: The US debt will rise by more than US$5 billion every single day for the next decade:

As the investment world still comes to grips with the Fitch Ratings dec...

Surprise, surprise, surpriseFitch Ratings downgraded its US debt rating from AAA to AA+.

Is the US at risk of default?

No.

If the US Government needs money to meet its obligations, itll be printed. But, as we now know, too much money printing can lead to inflation.

A future filled with inflationary waves is a very real prospectlike it was in the 1970s. And thats not good news for holders of debt issued at lower rates or share investors.

Over 40 years ago, it took a US 10-year bond rate of 15.5% to slay the inflationary dragon.

In the early 1980s, total US debt (private, corporate and public) was around US$5 trillion.

As rates (the cost of debt) trended down, the volume of debt trended up.

In 2020, the US 10-year bond rate went to a low of just0.5%thats 15% lower than it was in 1982.

Obviously, when the cost of borrowing is SO cheap, resisting the temptation to gear-up is almost impossible. Since 2020, the US debt has gone from US$75 trillion to US$95 trillion.

The math is staggeringover the past four decades, the US debt burden has increased by US$90 trillion.

However, the days of cheap money appear to be over. The cost of debt is rising, which explains why Fitch has concerns over a blowout in future Federal budgets.

How will successive administrations be able to afford the interest bill WITHOUT printing?

The answer isthey cant.

The prospect of persistent global inflationary pressures is unnerving bond markets. Pressures are building.

This is why the Bank of Japan (BoJ) has started taking steps to be less controlling with its yield curve c...

Surging sea levels will inundate the coasts. This is false. Sea levels have risen at the same pace for 100 years, unaffected by climate change or human activity. The rate of increase is about seven inches per 100 years. Thats barely enough to get your feet wet in 2121 if it persists, which it may not.

Hurricanes are becoming more powerful and more frequent. This is false. The 2014 US National Climate Assessment said, There has been no significant trend in the global number of tropical cyclones nor has there been any trend identified in the number of US land-falling hurricanes. There is evidence that property damage from hurricanes is increasing. Does this mean hurricanes are getting stronger? Not at all. It just means that rich owners with subsidised insurance are building mansions on sandbars where they dont belong. Thats not climate change. Its stupidity.

Tornadoes are more powerful and more frequent. This is false. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) records from 19542014 show the number of tornadoes in the US of EF1 or greater (EF is the Enhanced Fujita Scale of tornado strength) is fairly consistent at about 400, with occasional spikes in 1973, 1982, 2008, and 2011. The number of tornadoes in the US of EF3 or greater has been steady at around 40, with spikes in 1957, 1965, 1973, and 2011. No correlation has been shown between tornado strength and CO₂ emissions.

Snowstorms are becoming more frequent with greater accumulation of snow. This is false. Snowstorms are highly localised so, of course, measurements vary, with some locations getting more snow, some less. A chart of annual snowfall in Washington, DC, from 18892018 shows the annual snowfall in inches has been trending downward for the entire 130-year period. If climate change has any impact at all, it is causing less snow. And there is no correlation between climate change and an increase in CO₂ emissions.

Wildfires are destroying larger areas more frequently than ever before. This is false. Satellite data from NASA reveals that the global area burned annually by fires from 19982015 has declined by about 25%.

Similar data exists for ice sheets, droughts, floods, and other weather-related outcomes. In short, none of the extreme outcomes that the climate alarmists shout about are true. And there is no conclusive evidence that any extreme weather, when it does occur, is caused by human activity or CO₂ emissions.

It is true that CO₂ emissions are increasing. Its also true that scientists have detected a slight trend toward global warming.

There is no clear evidence that human-caused CO₂ emissions are the principal source...

A few months ago, I joined an editorial ideas meeting in Melbourne and net zero unexpectedly popped up at the top of the agenda. What struck me was how far behind Australia is. Not in achieving net zero, but in discovering its thorny implications.

My work in Europe with Nigel Farage and keeping up with daily German news had highlighted just how controversial saving the planet had already become over there. Australia just hadnt gone through the same reckoningyet.

Since then, net zeros challenges have become part of Australias news cycle too. The public has discovered what Europes power bill payers learned about a year earlier.

The cost of achieving net zero has been underestimated by an order of magnitude thatd make a government public transport feasibility study look conservative.

The feasibility of a net zero energy system has been overestimated by an amount thatd get Elon Musk arrested for false advertising.

There simply arent enough mineable resources needed to build a net-zero energy system anyway.

Living standards under net zero would be worse than the Second World War rationing.

Green energy is not cheaper once you factor in energy storage and transmission costs.

The cost of updating the power grid alone is prohibitive.

And so on and so forththe revelations have been flowing.

Today, I want to update you on your future once more. Because, once again, Europe is leading the way on net zero. Or should I say out of net zero?

In the UK, which The Telegraph declared, is a world leader in net zero fantasies and delusions, the worm has already turned. This could be the beginning of the end of net zero, it says. Why? Every net zero policy has been a flop and you are paying the price, reads another headline.

Even the politicians have woken up, in the only way they know how. The UK Government recently faced a series of by-elections. It lost two seats but managed to hold onto one where a peculiar local issue dominated the debate.

The London Mayor wants to expand the Ultra-Low Emissions Zone into that electorate, which wouldve cost local drivers a lot of money. The Government opposed the change, and so it held onto the seat.

This seems to have caused some sort of political awakening for the Government in the UK. It has realised that neutering net zero is its only hope of getting re-elected. The slogan, Dont elect Labour, theyll only do more of what weve been up to isnt going to fly.

The biggest question in UK politics now is just how far the Government will go in undermining its own net zero policy. And the answer appears to be quite far, with hundreds of new oil and gas licenses to be issued in the North Sea for a start. Most of those would be worse than worthless under net zero commitments

Its not just those in government who have woken up. Former Brexit negotiator Lord Frost...

Responsiblestatecraft.org:

The left claims that racism and other intolerances in the ranks have caused Americans to turn against the military; the right says woke politics are at the root of increasing alienation. Perhaps the culture indeed is responsible for the 25% shortfall in recruitment but beware of partisan narratives that appear to speak for everyone and explain trends so neatly. Never is anything that simple.

Nope. Not that simple. The right supposedly thinks the military is too woke. The left supposedly thinks it is not woke enough. But what if the real reason Americans are losing faith in the Pentagon is neither? What if they are losing faith in Congressin the White Houseboth political partiesin the Supreme Courtand in the whole shebang?

They, the elite

What if The People are catching on? What if they are realising that the military works for the eliteand that the elite deciders work for themselves, not for The People?

Why do we have US$32 trillion of federal debt? Why do the Feds continue to add more?   

Bloomberg reports:

The Treasury Department increased its net borrowing estimate for the July through September quarter to US$1 trillion, well up from the US$733 billion amount it had predicted in early May.

US$1 trillion dollars in just three months. And every penny of it will be paid one way or another by The People. Wars, boondoggles, claptrap programs why are there so many of them?

And yes, the superficial reasons for these things are obvious: they pay off for the deciders.

Bloomberg again: Lockheed Is Reaping US$2.3 Billion So Far Restocking the Pentagon:

Pushing to restock depleted US weapons stockpiles, the Pentagon has already committed almost US$2.3 billion of a potential US$6 billion to Lockheed Martin Corp, the top maker of munitions that the US has provided Ukraine in its fight against Russias invasion, according to new Defence Department data.

Unequal men

But in this sea of woe, woke, and weirdthere are deeper currents. Megapolitics is the term coined by our friends, James Davidson and Lord Rees Mogg, to describe them. Largely invisible, rarely understood, and impossible to contradict, they sweep us along like plastic bottles on a flood tide.

All men are created equal is an idea. The 375 Zulu warriors killed at Rorkes Drift was a fact. And behind that fact was another one: the handful of English soldiers who killed them had rifles. The Zulus had spears. For hundreds of years, the power relationship was so unequal that Europeans were able to colonise much of the worldwhile neither Africans, Asians, nor the Indians of North or South America colonised any p...

Many people arent aware that theres a difference between science and The Science^TM.

This isnt a conspiracy theory. Theres a logical reasoning underpinning it.

And your health and well-being rely heavily on being able to discern the two.

The truth is that many things we think are scientifically proven are nothing further from the truth. Rather, they are cleverly designed marketing strategies by governments, large corporations and other institutions to assure their intended audience of the benefits of a certain product.

Some of you mightve been around when doctors endorsed smoking as a healthy habit. They even used consensus data such as this poster to make it appear as if its scientifically proven:

In hindsight, we realise the absurdity and the deception behind it. We dont know who these many doctors are, their credentials, or the grounds on which they gave their opinion. Tobacco companies engaged in unethical means to extract the desired outcome. This included distributing cigarette packs to doctors, asking loaded questions, and changing the narrative on the health

Nowadays, we know theres empirical data to show that smoking can cause different forms of cancer as well as damage to the respiratory system. And tobacco companies paid dearly for it when the truth came out. However, theyd made billions and the compensation was likely a slap on the wrist especially g...