FEAR & GREED | Business NewsSean Aylmer and Michael Thompson go head to head on the top business stories of the week, with Adam Lang adjudicating.
This is the weekend edition of Fear and Greed, daily business news for people who make their own decisions. I'm Michael Thompson, and good morning, Sean. Aylmer.
Good morning, Michael, Sean.
Our weekend show. It's all about the two of us, each nominating what we think is the biggest business story of the week, the most remarkable business story, a sleeper story, so one flying under the radar, a little bit always good fun that one, and then our favorite business story of the week. And because it is a competition, because we need a winner here, we are joined every week by a judge whose duty it is to separate you from me. It's very very easy for him to do. Our judge is our Fear and Greed colleague, Adam Lang Adam, good morning.
Good morning, Michael, Good morning Sean. We all love a winner, don't we.
We do, Adam. I just want to point out that normally Michael calls you an esteemed judge this morning the adjective yep. Just keep that in mind.
I'm trying to do this quickly. I'm just like, I know, distractions this week. I tend to kind of spear off in different directions, and I get a little bit kind of carried away on different things, and this week no distractions. It is all business, sure, Sean. Shall we get straight into it, the biggest story of the week. See already doing it pretty good. Suck on them, I going first.
Suck on that Mark markets make back to the Simpsons. Markets. Markets, Markets, That's what the story was.
You know.
While half the world i e. The miserable bunch of economists out there, seem to think that we're heading for a rate hike, investors are on a tear, pushing the SMPAX two hundred towards a record high this week. Comwealth Bank is on a particular run, pushing through one hundred and thirty dollars for the first time. It's now worth two hundred and seventeen billion dollars. Come off Bank now bhp' two hundred and twenty one billion dollars not that long ago. There's about a fifty billion dollar difference. Come off bank has more than thirty percent over the past twelve months or so, so BHP is actually down quite incredible. Come off Bank is now about twice the size of the next biggest bank, which is National Australia. There are a bunch of companies hitting record highs or multi year highs this week that are from across the economy. So JB Highfi the retailer was one, Bendigo Bank was another ARIA. The online Property Group insurance breaker is Steadfast Technology one, which is software outfit online accounting software company zero. It just shows how widespread this market run is at the moment. The other three major banks, for example, they're all near multi year highs. Wall Street's going crazy too. The S and P five hundred closed above fifty six hundred points for the first time this week. Apple's value is at that three and a half three point six trillion US dollar mark. It's just crazy. I mean, it's appreciated ten percent this month, which is three hundred and forty billion US dollars. This is what it's gone up in a twelve day period. Now, three hundred and forty billion US dollars is more than the total value of BHPN Common Bank put together. It is quite phenomenal. Microsoft and Video their value isn't far behind Apple. The six largest companies on the S and P five hundred, so we're talking Apple, Microsoft, and VideA, Alphabet, Amazon are met up. They're worth about twenty four trillion Australian dollars. The point is the market is on a share The Japanese share markets at a record level, the UK's foot season't far off. The stock's Europe six hundred, which measures the biggest six hundred companies in the euroregion. Well, that's near a record high too. Everything's going crazy. And then and then Friday morning, Australian time, why do we get US inflation figures? They come out, they're weaker than expected. We should all be so excited about that. Surely that means a rate cut in the world's biggest economy. Yeah, let's buy shares. What happens the market falls. People on a dime start worrying about a recession. Markets drop, talk about fickle, you know, the whole run up, inflation is coming down. Let's buy chairs. And then inflation does come down, it's like, oh dear, we maybe we're going into recession. Fickle fickle, fickle, crazy world out there. Obviously, this impacts anyone who invests, which, of course there are all US people with superannuation funds. Crazy week really, particularly because of that CPI number in the US, which just changed the whole outlook. On a dime even though it was a good news. Michael, stuck on that and try and beat it.
I'll tell you what about three or four times there, I thought you were wrapping up. It sounded like you'd finished, and then all of a sudden, you just get this just little extra burst and you add on another story that.
It happens when it's so excited. I mean when markets are happening.
Either that or you're just trying to wring every last little drop of hope out of that story. Sean, Yes, there are markets. There's a lot more happening than just markets, and I think we need to be a podcast with a more kind of holistic, more global view, encompassing politics and a bit more than that.
Go on.
I didn't think this last week. I didn't think this last week obviously when John you were doing US politics. But I am fickle like that, just like markets and just like the world. I changed my stance on this as quickly and easily as Adam changes his judging criteria.
Oh oh, Michael, that's not fair. No one is as fickle as Adam on judging criteria.
Come on, that's right. I should be easier on myself, be kind to myself now, the biggest story this week. It does come out of the US. It is not inflation figures. It does involve Australia too. It is politics, but it's more than politics. The headline feels like I was building to something just there.
There was quite a lot of melodrama.
It's got to be big. No, no, no, something we haven't heard of.
It's a new story, Sean, It's just we haven't really talked about much before.
Is it brief? Michael?
It's about Joe Biden. I'm trying to be fast and you two keep interrupting. Oh my god, Joe Biden, who's that?
Do?
Go on? Adam? Adam? As a judge, can you can you? I was gonna ask you to mute or muzzle sure while I talk. There is a complete lack of respect. They did it in the presidential debate.
To turn the MIC's off. Okay, good idea.
Didn't that work well for Joe Biden? Didn't help him? That is my story.
How far into this How far into this segment are we? And Mike hasn't told us.
I will not be swayed by you, Sean. I will not be kind of you will be delayed though, I will not be diverted from my course. The headline this week the biggest story this week, and there's a few elements to this, but the headline continues to be Joe Biden, who has been trying to defend his position as the Democrat candidate for the presidential election in November, following the disastrous debate I just mentioned. But while last week, when Sewan you talked about this story, it was a lot of the calls for him to go, it was just whispers and it was commentators.
Really, so you're taking my story from last week is the biggest story this week.
I thought she turned him off.
Adam, I haven't used that drastic measure yet, then use it.
I implore you, the people imploy you. Last week it was whispers and commentators and Sean Aylmer. This week the story changed and it stepped up not just one, not just two, but it stepped up about a dozen notches because now it's actually people within the party who are saying it's time to go, notably Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who reportedly told donors that he's open to replacing Joe Biden. Party heavyweight Nancy Pelosi too. She said that Biden has a decision to make. Now. That's not exactly unequivocal support for the eighty one year old, is it. There's been talk about neurologists visiting the White House. Donald Trump has fired up again now after being quiet for a little bit, attacking both Biden and his most likely replacement, Vice President Karmala Harris, as well as challenging Biden to another debate. Now. One of the most interesting interventions I reckon this week has been from actor George Clooney, who is a lifelong Democrat, one of the biggest fundraisers for the party, who wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times calling on Biden to go, saying that he saved democracy in twenty twenty and now he needs to do it again by standing aside. Wow, that is it's certainly got the headlines. It's certainly got it.
Would you vote on the back of what George Clooney says, Michael.
Well, I don't know why his opinion is worth any less than anyone else, And to me, more or more, I would argue that that as a voice within the party and someone who has been so well established and entrenched within the party, that it actually probably does carry more weight than most people who are outside of the party. The commentators saying he should go.
He doesn't even even the US.
Considering the amount of money that he has raised, and really that is what this is all about. And there's a lot of the questions are about will they be able to take the money that has been raised for Biden and Harris and put those behind two new candidates, And he's saying, well, yes, of course we can, because after all, he raised most of it. Anyway, Joe Biden getting back on track. Look at that he's been hosting the NATO summit in the US this week and he has declared that Ukraine can and will stop Vladimir Putin. Of course, everyone's just been waiting.
When is this going to finish?
Well, I got off to a bumpy start because of your interruptions.
Back on it, Michael, bring us home.
Come on, I need to tell you something that happened right good, Yeah, there you go. No, And it happened on kind of Friday morning, Australian time. Everyone had been waiting for Joe Biden potentially to make a gaff and he made one, a big one on Friday morning, where he accidentally introduced Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenski at NATO, not as President Zelenski but as President Putin. Ooops, yes, which is which is quite the gaff and the reaction in the room that there was basically just a collective like that. Yes, yes, indeed, And and he did try and recover, he did try and kind of salvage it, and basically said after he introduced, he goes, ladies and gentlemen, President Putin, President Putin. We're going to beat President Putin. Here's President Zelenski. I'm so focused on beating Putin. We've got to worry about it anyway, here's mister president seamless. Yeah, and it's not going to do anything at all to kind of a lay concerns. And that's and very quickly, that's where Australia comes into the story. Invited to the summit, he said he couldn't go Definity prime minute to Richard Marles Wentz. Instead, we need to be there because there is a big focus on storing up support in our own region. Even though this is NATO, we are talking about the Indo Pacific really here then as well, because of China and the growing threat of China and speaking of China speaking of our region. This week, Penny Wog the music I Chinese.
You can get rid of him?
No, no, I need a swelling orchestra beneath me right now because I'm building here. This week, Penny Wog identified a Chinese government backed hacking group as being behind a series of attacks on Australian government and networks for organizations. This is a big, big, big mood, escalating the battle over cybercrime and making diplomacy with China, our major trading partner, just a little bit more challenging. There. Ego all one story, the biggest of the week, my Lord Michael.
Last week's motto was victoria per brevitatum.
Didn't work for me last week, so I've given up on it. This week.
On this one, I have to say that US inflation Trump's Biden. Sean wins.
Oh, I like it. US inflation, Trump's Biden.
Thanks Sean, thanks for noticing.
Nice.
I noticed. I just didn't care.
Let's I'm I'm going to move on, Michael, because, like I think we're about fifteen minutes into the show. We've got like seven minutes to the rest of it. Michael, please, okay, most remarkable story I'm contrite.
I'm feeling bad. I shouldn't have gone on for as long as I did.
But even there, we go, right, I say, what's the most remarkable story? Michael just takes off talking about himself. Nothing to do with the story thus far, Michael, focus, concentrate eight. You've had a difficult childhood, You've had a difficult parenthood. You've got like lots of problems with you. I know that, right, but let's just focus, sorry, mister missus Thompson.
Lovely people they do. Listen, did you know as.
I said, lovely people? Yeah? And your brother's a great guy. Your sister's lovely. I mean I've met both of them. Two out of three, ain't bad.
Actually, I'll give it. Give a quick birthday shout out to the original Maya, my brother Andy, because he has single handedly spread the word through probably half of the act from day one.
Birthday Andy.
Anyway, Now, Sewan, please don't interrupt me because I'm trying to stay on track. I said an irony and losing my train of thought even as I'm trying to say saying on track, what is remarkable this week?
Go on?
Is the state of the Australian media the biggest single story in this particular subject matter. This week's a merger between.
Subject matter I think I can't quite remember what I'm saying. Yeah, a merger between Go On, Come.
On, Paramount and independent studio Skydance, which will give Skydance control of the broader company to be called New Paramount. I like that worked for New Coke. This is a big Hollywood story, right because it means billionaire David Ellison will control CBSMTV, the Paramount Movie Studio and a bunch of other assets. Why does it affect the Australian media, Very good question, Michael, because Paramount is looking for three billion dollars in savings and it owns Network ten, which is facing its own challenges right now, the most pressing of which is a shrinking advertising market and audiences getting their content from elsewhere. It might be a somewhat uneasy time at Channel ten for a little while. And it's a common story though throughout much of the me because just this week we've had layoffs in the Pedestrian Group, following a swathe of redundancies at seven West Media, in other parts of nine Entertainment News Corp and other media organizations warning that their revenue is going to be hit big time if Meta goes ahead with its threatened newsband. It is a remarkable story. It is a brief story, thank you, because it just keeps ongoing. And I was listening to an excellent podcast this week with a commentary from people who know this space very well. It was called The Umbrella Cast and just and really excellent podcast titles.
Suck up to Adam.
Adam co hosts the Umbrella Cast, and it really just shows no sign of letting up anytime soon. That's it, short, sharp, brief, like very remarkable.
Adam, When were you CEO of mcquari Media?
Twenty nineteen is when I finished.
You started twenty seventeen, let's say, though.
But I know twenty twelve was Fairfax Radio Network and then twenty nineteen is when I finished up as Macquarie Media.
Yeah, in all that time, right, have you ever not been talking about saving costs all the time, all the time. So that's twelve years of it. Interesting that Michael brings up it as the most remarkable story this week anyway, Who cares about media? Michael? Who cares the diminishing industry unlike the miners and the most remarkable story. This week's comes from the miners. BHP came out and said it will suspend nickel mining. Yep, the whole lot just stop mining nickel after massive losses and a move that pretty much casts out over thousands of jobs in Western Australia certainly won't help relations with the Albanezi government. BHP announced the suspension late on Thursday night. It said there'll be a full year loss on Nicola four one hundred and fifty million dollars. It blamed a global over supply of nickel that comes from Chinese back producers mining in Indonesia. BHP set will try and find jobs for as many workers as possible, but certainly there will be redundancies. There's been a bunch of nickel minds closed in Western Australia, including some owned by Andrew and Nikola Forest. A few things remarkable about this story. I think it's totally remarkable that BHP can just wake up one morning go they were not going to mind nickel anymore. I mean they have put four point four billion dollars into the nickel business since twenty twenty. Last year they raided off about five point four billion dollars and the value of its nickel business given what it hoped wouldn't happen but actually has happened this week, quite incredible. It's also incredible that what China has done in Indonesia can hurt Australia so much. The BHP nickel business, let alone the others. It's been losing about fifty million dollars a month. It's just a remarkable business story. Now that the basis of this is that nickel prices have gone from about twenty five thousand US dollars at ton eighteen months ago to about sixteen seventeen thousand US dollars a ton. So the proverbial ass has fallen out of the market, no doubt about it. But for bh but BHV just comes this week and says, no, we're not going to mind nickel. That's that. I think that is remarkable.
Over to you, Adam, you are right, Sean, it is remarkable. I actually love it. I love the fact that you know, mine sometimes closed because the prices they're getting are not sufficient to sustain the business model. So this is mine as meeting the market. We've seen coal prices change a lot, iron or change a lot. Sometimes mines are started again because the price has changed.
I think it's great, but that plays them down. That that's what's remarkable.
What do they do do they just pause them or put them?
Well, they slow production and sometimes do is mothballs, which is probably what they'll do with these minds. But they think there's an oversupply of nickel until the end of this decade. Yeah, so moth boiling for five or six years. There's a big cost to restart them.
Yeah, and they never did and yeah, exactly, and then maybe bring it back. So brilliant story.
Thanks, But I went first go on, well.
Look, you know there is a high risk of subjective bias, is there?
You must be kidding me, Oh my god.
Disruption in the media industry I think has never been bigger. And I'm saying that when also we're going through when Napster ripped apart the record business, the music industry. So this one is Look, it's been coming for a long time, that the level of disruptions we found has hit I think an inflection point. Where As Michael said, the international media producers which are no longer say the old television stations or radio stations or masterthead print news organizations that we knew. It is meta, it is TikTok, it is Instagram, etc. These are big media companies and they are not regulated for content here, they don't pay tax here, and yet we allow them in. And I think this is symbolic of that change around the world, but also really crystallizing in Australia at the moment. So I do think it's the remarkable story of the week for me.
That was me. Sorry, we're both as shocked as each other.
Adam One, all this is good news. All right, we will take a quick break and we will come back with the sleeper story of the week. All right, Sean, we're looking for the sleeper story. This is one that's not getting the attention that it deserves, or it's going to be a bigger story further down the track. What have you found for us this week?
I appreciate that the world says you shouldn't abuse your customers. However, listeners out.
There, you've had enough of abusing us in here. You're going to abuse everyone listening.
Today going broader. Listeners out there, get over yourselves enough. You're all miserable. In fact, Australians are a miserable bunch of people.
This is an unorthodox approach. Yep.
I think there are a lot of things going really well in the economy right now. It's much much better than many other economies. Okay, I admit there are some who are finding it a bit tougher, renters who don't earn much income of finding it hard, but that's probably always been the case. As Jackie's mum says, spark up, oh good, spark up people the labor market. It's strong. Unemployment rate about four percent. Wow, all my life to have an unemployment rate about four percent, I would have been delighted with that, not that it was really relevant, but still people have jobs. Inflation is falling. Okay, it's a rocky road. They've been a few scares along the way, but the trend is down. We've all just received a tax cut just a couple of weeks ago, part of the Stage three taxation changes. There's been all sorts of indexation to payments that kicked it on July one. Yet yet we are still a gloomy, grumpy, miserable bunch, as judged by the Westpac Melbourne Institute Consumer Sentient Survey. I mean, even interest rates aren't that high. I mean we're all worried about it. But prior to the two thousand and seven global financial crisis, rates were always way above what they are now. It's just that we've had this phenomenal fifteen year period which started with a global financial crisis went through to COVID, where rates were incredibly low, But that's actually not normal where we are now. They're actually relatively If you take out that fifteen year period, rates are actually low right now compared to the pre two thousand and seven period. It's just that we got used to a good thing during COVID. We're now suffering an interestraight hangar Yet consumers, it's too pessimistic that mood does absolutely nothing to help the economy because grumpy people mostly not always mostly don't spend as much as happy people. But if we all wake up to ourselves and realize things aren't too bad and stop talking down the economy, things actually might be a lot better. So the sleeper part of this story is the world's not going to end. Nothing's too bad. It's you know, wake up to yourselves. Spark up listeners, spark up, start spending money, get over yourselves. Off we go a little aggressive perhabs However, Michaeh.
I don't mean to be a bit of a downer here, Sean, but got a bit of a sleeper story here for you, and it's probably gonna disappoint way to sell it in No, no, no, in terms of it is a bit of a it's a bit worrying about the economy, it's not.
It's not all kind of no Pollyanna here.
No, it's not.
No.
I'm a realist here, and you do need to brace your cells for this because I'm doing it again. I'm venturing into unfamiliar territory, but I have to because I have uncovered the sleeper story of a lifetime. This is my watergate. Did you know? Did you know that the RBA index of commodity prices has fallen twenty six percent that's right, twenty six percent from its peak in October twenty twenty two in both Australian and US dollar terms.
So how can that work when there's an exchange?
Just Adam, please, can you please stop him interrupting? I just want to get through my story just once.
I am actually really anticipating a wonderful tale here, So go ahead, Michael.
I'd stick to the script.
If I was you, Michael, as written by someone else.
I have no script and it has not been written by in it. This is entirely off the cuff. No one is talking about it, and of course it has huge implications for Australian export receipts, national income, and of course, of course it goes without saying the performance of the economy. You may not want to take my word for it, because I don't have the best track record in this space. Look at the markets from their peaks, BHP down around kind of seventeen percent, Rio down ten percent, four to squ down twenty four percent. The worrying thing here for me, right with all the hype and the discussion of interest rate hikes, is that the RBA, the government and many financial markets will actually just be blindsided if the trend of falling commodity prices continues, taking the economy down with it. Adam, Adam, do you remember Paul Keating's nineteen eighty six Banana Republic comments. I remember them well. I was three and a half months old at the time. They were driven, of course, by a collapse in commodity prices, and I'm sure I'm not okay, I'm not sure that things are that bad.
I'm sure, I'm not sure. Maybe I am, I'm not.
But what's the script say?
The script says nothing. This is coming out of my head. I know that I, for one, will be watching the commodity price developments like a hawk, admittedly one of those hawks that doesn't really know what it's looking at, but I will be watching it, So buddy closely. And while I'm on a roll here, while I'm talking about exports, I need to address the Aussie dollar, okay, because we do tend to focus on the Aussie dollar versus the US dollar, and obviously wherever Shawn's going on holidays. On that score, we're above sixty seven cents, which is in itself pretty solid, of course, but but on a trade weighted index, which is obviously more relevant for Australian exports as it calculates an index for the Aussie dollar according to the currencies of the countries that we trade with, it is at its highest level in more than two years. Look at the versus the yen versus the Euro. No wonder holiday makers are rejoicing. No wonder, Shan is booking holidays left, right and center. The bad news is that this is hurting Australian exports just at the time that commodity prices are falling on the back of global economic weakness, but more particularly the slump in China. Because you look at the waiting here, and just for background, I suppose you need to consider that the Chinese rend minbi has has a weight of thirty point seven percent in the trade weighted index, because that's the share of Australian exports that go to China.
Of course it does. I've forgotten that.
The Japanese yen has a weight of twelve and a half percent, the euro nine point two percent, the US dollar only eight point two percent. You bundle it all together.
What are commodity's priced in?
You bundle it all together. This is the sleeper story of the century and one that I've come up with.
Entirely on my own. Adam, Now, can I sorry, can I reach buff something here? Because just as you were crapping on there, do you Reserve Bank index of commodity prices are off? Definitely, they are off from their all time high, but remain higher than at any point over the first past thirty years except for around twenty ten. The index at the moments it's about eighty the Banana Republic period, it's at about twenty.
So yeah, as I said, I'm sure it's not as bad now.
Just as much as I admire your spirit and whoever helped you out on this, whoever helped you out on this, it's just not right. I mean, commodity prices are off, but they are still around. I mean, outside the last few years, they are still much much higher than the last thirty years. Michael, can you rebut that? Please?
Yes? I can, Hey, Siri called Stephen coucoulis my I can't. I can't rebut it right now, Sean, the cup's not answering. We haven't got time and look, and just to clarify it, just make it one hundred percent clear that this is entirely my own work. It did not. It was not an unsolicited sleeper story that just arrived in my inbox from my good friend and ally economist Stephen Couldculus. Who wants to see me take you both down.
Stephen, Stephen, I know Stephen listens on a Saturday. Shame shame, shame, Stephen.
He'll enjoy hearing that.
Dear Adam, you've got to judge.
You have left me with a very difficult choice both of you, Michael's original work on the one hand, and Sean calling us all a bunch of misery guts so difficult, difficult, difficult. I'm going to give this one for theater and Melodra to Michael. I know that's going to cause a backlash.
You know what, It was my work, but I would like to dedicate part of the victory to Stephen could cool.
Oh it wasn't, but you were a very good actor, Michael, very good.
I do my best. Shall we to inhabit the mind and body of an economist? Favorite story?
My favorite story is a title suck to Adam. Right, it's all about Telstra putting up mobile phone price is that first glance, it may not look like a positive story, but it is because Adam, it just shows that microeconomic reform works. And come on, Adam, you love that when you might reform m.
You two need to get a room.
Tell us true this week and now sarrange of price hikes for its mobile plans from prepaid, postpaid, all those things. Some of the increases were pretty big. The biggest ones were nudging ten percent after some voted phone the numbers two and three providers did something similar earlier in the year. But because of reforms over the years, including forcing carriers to allow people to take their phone numbers with them when they change providers, there's competition in the market. It wasn't just a few years ago. It was dominated by Telstra. Now there is. I can use Telstra plan or an Optis plan, or a votaphone or Aldi or all sorts of other plans. And why because of microeconomic reform. Little things in life like the ability to shift your number of cross providers reflect microeconomic reform, which happens all the time. Microeconomic reforms aimed at improving living standards through increasing productive and allocative efficiency. Oh good words, HM, nice allocate of efficiency. It's easier to change banks nowadays. That's because of microeconomic reform. It's easier to change telco providers. There's much bigger things like the privatization of comof Bank and Telstra. They're all microeconomic reforms too, But it's these little ones which I think are really important because inevitably they introduce competition into the marketplace. Consumers are better off, but so to a business's tels needs to make money for its shareholders. It doesn't have a moral obligation anymore to make sure it has low mobile phone plans because it services everyone in the country, because there's four or five, or six or eight other providers out there. So this story is my favorite because it just shows how microeconomic reform can improve society.
Favorite story, and I will keep this very very quick because I know I went a little bit longer.
There.
Sure for a podcast called Fear and Greed, this story would would fit, I think quite comfortably into the greed category. The number of millionaires in Australia is set to jump by at least twenty percent in the next four years. The UBS Global Wealth Report has revealed that Australian's wealth grew by nearly ten percent last year. That is twice the average rate of the fifty six other countries studied in the report. And this growth is really because higher home values, superannuation balances, gifts and inheritance. In fact, and I love this stat The median wealth per adult in Australia is almost four hundred thousand dollars, sitting behind only Luxembourg in the rankings. Luxembourg is tiny six hundred and fifty three thousand people. We could take them in a fight and then we would be number one.
How about any golf game to see who could hit further Australia.
Biden and Trump stuff?
Are you going to carry your own bag? That was the worst line of the entire thing. It's like, oh and it felt like you thought he'd kind of landed a killer blow there whether you carry your own bag? And I was like, oh God, anyway, it all comes back to Biden and Trump, doesn't it Anyway? Where was I, Oh, that's right, we should take over Luxembourg really kind of threw myself off back to the numbers because these are staggering. Currently Australia is home to one point nine million millionaires and that's based on US dollars, so and Ausie dollars the number would probably be higher, and it's going to hit two point three million by twenty twenty eight. But this is really one for the demographers really, And I know, Adam, you kind of consider yourself a bit of an amateur demographer because you like looking at data and census and social trends and changes and all that kind of fun stuff. Because the big story here is the social change that we are seeing, the intergenerational wealth transfer as older baby boomers pass away and pass on wealth. There's a lot more talk about about this at the moment as the younger baby boomers as well enter retirement and the rise of a movement called this Ski movement. Have you seen this, these spending kids inheritance, ye movement using those retirement savings for holidays, for experiences, for new cars, all that kind of thing. Some say it's selfish, it's and it's usually younger people that are saying that, and probably the one that are kind of relying on that inheritance in order to get into the housing market. But I think, go for it. I say it's your money, spend it, make the most of it, expecting an inheritance and expecting older relatives to penny pinch in retirement because you want to inherit more. I think that is the heart of entitlement. You put all of this together, right, You put that the huge sums of money, the demographic and social change, the rise of the Ski movement, the entitlement and the opportunity to take on Luxembourg in a fight that we can probably win. This is my favorite story of the week.
I do not understand a word you just said.
I think this question marks over whether I understood it, Adam so Sean wins.
Yeah. For reform, I say, and not just that. Michael. The millionaire's stories interesting. It's actually staggering, isn't it that in a population of twenty seven million people that we are registered of having one point nine millionaires already and it's going to grow to two point three in the next four years. What an incredible wealthy Nathan nation we actually have. Kind of reinforces Sean's point on the sleeper story relative to that, perhaps we are a miserable.
But we are a miserable bunch.
Yeah, spark, I'm Australia. The Telstra mobile prices story. I love this. Actually, I think it's healthy that prices go up. We know that most things are more expensive and so it's logical they have to be communication plans that almost a necessity these days, like if you're going to operate at a standard of living that we want.
Not for my mother.
Oh okay, So you know Telstra in May announced twenty eight hundred redundancies ten percent of their workforce. That is an example of this industry, their company in change and transition. We've probably all seen a bunch of different branding ads. Those brilliant stop motion ads that are on they're branding themselves differently, and yes they're charging more for their product, and if they create a good service, yes they should be able to charge accordingly. All of these are examples of Telstra meeting the market. So beyond that, Sean, your microeconomic reform example is brilliant, and I think it also encourages me that we've got an appetite for more macro economic reform. So you in your favorite story of the week.
Mm hmm, God, look at that face. It's just.
The debarcle.
The commodities debarkle was not a debarcle. It was a it was a triumph of economic something or other.
It's a triumph of melodrama, let's face it.
Yeah, really, that's all I bring to this show to all right, what was the what was the final score breakdown?
Michael ninety one points? Oh, Sean ninety two points.
I slaved over that story.
You did it very well, I think, Michael, it's a moral for you. It's a moral loss. Look, thank you very much, Adam, and thank you Sean. Thank you, Michael, thank you Michael.
Make sure you're following the podcast, and please join us online on LinkedIn, Instagram, x TikTok and Facebook. I'm Michael Thompson, and that was fear and greed. Business News have a great weekend.
