Here’s what you need to know today

• Data from the AFR: over the past two years, Australian households experienced the largest fall in disposable incomes across the OECD. Their analysis suggests the average Australian has seen an 8% fall in inflation-adjusted household disposable income.
  
  

• Tension is building between Australia’s private hospital operators and private health insurers over who should cover the growing costs of healthcare in Australia. Australia’s largest private hospital operator, Ramsay Health Care, has now said it would refuse to deal with health insurers that did not agree to cover a bigger portion of cost surges in future.
  
  

• Ramsay isn’t alone. In August alone, St Vincent’s almost walked away from a deal with NIB and UnitingCare Queensland threatened to walk away from an agreement with Australian Health Service Alliance.
  
  

• Brazil’s Supreme Court followed through on its threat and on Saturday blocked Twitter (X) in the country. This dispute started after Twitter (X) refused to take down dozens of accounts at the request of the Brazilian government. Brazil has also frozen Starlink’s assets, an unrelated company also owned by Elon Musk.
  
  

• Israel and Hamas agreed to a three-day humanitarian pause in Gaza to allow children to receive polio vaccinations. This came after the WHO last week confirmed Gaza’s first case of polio in 25 years.
  
  

• Inflation continues to come down around the world. Germany’s annual rate of inflation fell to 1.9% in August, down from 2.3% in July. Spain’s came in at 2.4%, down from 2.9%. The European Central Bank has already cut rates once this year, and will consider a second rate cut in September.
  
  

• India’s GDP growth slowed to an annual rate of 6.7%, the lowest in 5 quarters. For comparison, the same time last year it was a 8.2%. While slowing, India’s economy remains the fastest growing of all major economies.
  
  

• In the South China Sea, waters disputed by a number of South East Asian nations, a Chinese coastguard vessel allegedly rammed a Philippine Coast Guard vessel three times. This is the 5th collision in the past month. Australia and the US condemned China’s actions.

What the…?

The headline says it all: Self-healing ‘living skin’ can make robots more humanlike - and it looks just as creepy as you’d expect.

Using a combination of cultured cells and silicone, Japanese researchers have created a skin that can repair itself in a manner similar to the way human skin heals. Did anyone ask for this for robots? We don’t think so. What problem is it solving? We don’t know. But we guess its now a thing.

Investing is a lifelong journey

Here’s what you can learn today.

The World’s Coffee Mostly Comes From Two Countries. That’s a Problem

Over the past few years, the world has been grappling with rising prices in every category as inflation takes hold. But one of the more potent symbols of our cost-of-living crisis has been the rising price of coffee.

Stories of the $9 latte have been clickbait fodder and outraged social media. The bad news is, the vulnerabilities in the world’s coffee supply chain means these cost spikes may not be going away.

While 40 countries grow coffee beans, there are two dominant players in the market. Brazil has a 40% share of global coffee production and Vietnam is 17%. The growing concentration in this market makes it more vulnerable to price spikes if bad weather hits both markets (as it did this year as drought hit both Brazil and Vietnam).

This year’s droughts are seen as a sign of things to come with climate change. So the coffee industry is scrambling to build resilience into their supply chains. Starbucks has been distributing trees and offering loans to producers in Peru, Rawanda and Tanzania. Lavazza SpA is working on a 20-year project to revive Cuba’s coffee industry. Nestle’s Nespresso is investing $20 million into the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s coffee industry.

The world’s coffee consumption is not going anywhere. Where that coffee is produced will likely change over time. And the fragility of a global supply chain with two dominant producers is a lesson for us all, whatever industry we’re in.

Today’s sponsor is J.P. Morgan Asset Management

This email and its associated content has been issued and verified by Equity Mates Media. J.P. Morgan Asset Management has not reviewed and takes no responsibility for the accuracy of the content of the email or any liability for any statement or misstatement therein.

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