A week of ‘popular nonsense’. April 3, 2026

26:27But let's not give everyone's. I mean, that's silly. That's just really, really dumb. Like especially in a fiscally constrained world where we're already spending more than we need to. And then at the same time, the RBA goes, hey, everyone, you're spending too much. you know, you need to slow it. We're going to have to put interest rates up on you. And then the government's going, well, hold my beer. Let me actively work against that directive for you. So we're sort of, we're not operating on a unified front. We're not operating within the rules of economics that at this point should be very, very well understood.

27:05Because these aren't weird, wonkish, highly nuanced sort of, this is year nine economic supply and demand, right? And yeah, the price of oil has gone up. You know, how do we get people to sort of moderate their spend? Well, because the price has gone up. That's what price signals do. That's what happens. That is now incentivizing EV purchases. It is incentivizing suppliers to reroute. I mean, these things will happen without any necessarily centrally coordinated action because we will moderate our behavior. It's like, wow, there's not enough of it there. Price has gone up. That will do it. Actually, let's interrupt that price signal.

27:44and pretend that that's not true. You know, and it just, it sounds good, but there's no free lunch. There are always strings attached to this. And I just, it's not that, okay, we can do it if people want. Like if it feels like a good idea, then fine. But at the same time, we also have to consider the consequences of that. There's another side of the coin. There is always say it. It's true in life. It's definitely true in market and economics. There's no such thing as a free lunch. Are we going to do this? Okay, great. Just don't come, don't at me years down the track when we're drowning in debt and we're dealing with a stagflationary environment.

28:22How did we get here? We got here because we did stupid stuff, right? Rather than, I mean, and there is no policy announcement from an iconocrat that is going to rebuild a refinery in the Middle East and open up the Strait of Homoz. It's just not going to happen. That's the problem. I don't want to be like too Captain Obvious here, but it's like that is why the price of oil has gone up, right? It's not something I can give a speech or a TikTok and then all of a sudden correct that, particularly while, as you say, like the orange man is going to come out and give a speech anytime soon. It could be on the eve of World War III or we could be on the eve of a period of prosperity and peace unlike the world has ever seen.

29:00Who knows? Both of those and everything in between is on the table, right? Like I don't know, dude. I'm just flabbergasted. The reality is bad stuff has happened and is happening and there aren't any easy solutions. That's just the starting point, right? So we have to – it's like any difficulty you have in life if you've got family members or friends that are doing a tough time. You reach a point where it's like we just have to have an honest and frank conversation because this is the reality of the situation. How does it help if you're going to do an intervention with a friend who's struggling with a drug addiction to just not confront reality as it is?

29:41Like you're dead in the water before you even start trying to remedy the situation. Right. And that's what we do. And it's just it's just too infuriating to hear the coverage out there because everyone is right to be angry. Let's get that out of the way. Absolutely. Like things have not gone well. But then it's just that knee jerk. The government should do something. And it's just like, well, they will do something. Right. But what they will do is that they will put a band-aid here and create a massive problem down the track and over there. It's your point earlier about very concentrated benefits, very diffuse costs, and that's what's going to happen.

30:17Can I just say one other thing about that speech? Did you see that this really triggered me? Albo saying that free markets have failed us? Oh, we're about to get on to that one. That's exactly where we're going next. Go for it. No, let's do that. That's a great place to kick off. So I was going to – I will – he's going to give a speech at the National Press Club. I don't envy him in one particular way. He's going to be speaking at the National Press Club, apparently at the same time Trump's going to give his address. And I suppose at some point the first question will be, Prime Minister, the US President just said this.

30:48What do you think? He's going to have no idea and have to try and guess his way through the response, which will be a challenge. I mean, I love that, though. At least – like, give us what your impressions are. Like to have a raw reaction rather than something that has gone through the process, all the PR and everything else is like, what do you think? And it's like, you should be able to answer that. I mean, if we're electing people who are incapable of thinking independently and giving an initial reaction, I was like, you can't do that. But we're going to give you incredible power and control over the country.

31:22It feels like it's like, you know, that kind of is a requirement of the job that you should be able to answer questions without notice, right? It's crazy, hey. Anyway, so the PM is going to speak at the press club. And again, Lister, you will know what he said before we do. Although, as is the case, they always leak the full script of it so it gets reported in the morning press. Because again, spin management is also garbage. It's just, you know, we are woefully underserved. um here here's some of the quotes mate and and you know let's go with it um i'm going to read from a phil courier's article in the fin i'll quote where quotes are needed but uh courier writes albanese will tell the press club the economic mindset that quote put our nation in this position of vulnerability end quote would not quote take us out of it quote that mindset said it was okay to cut tape and training to dare manufacturing and industry to go offshore to put multinational firms ahead of Australian gas users to close our refineries, store our fuel reserves in Texas, and run the national energy grid into the ground.

32:21And that Australia could get away with this because there would be always someone else somewhere else who would sell us what we needed cheaper than we could make it ourselves, end quote. And we are now in 1950s protectionist Australia, and we are going to pay a massive price for this series of vanity projects. Yep, absolutely. I feel it's a little harsh too, to lay the blame there at the feet of free markets. It must be that because it's not that it's the government's fault. It's got nothing to do with the policy decisions around that. It definitely got nothing. Because it was the free market who decided to put the strategic petroleum reserve in Texas.

32:59That's what the free market decided to do. And the free market cut TAFE and training. Yes, that's exactly what the, you know, it's just, it'd be different. I was like, actually, it's really complicated. And it looks like, no, no, no. No, it's as obvious as the nose on your face that one has very little to do with the other. I said to you off air, I think you need a good few generations between the last failed socialist experiment and now to forget how bad it always turns out, right? I need to use a better word for it because that word is too loaded these days. But I mean in the traditional, originally conceived sense of it before anyone starts adding me about Norway or whatever.

33:41but i mean communism is probably the better word or central centrally planned economic thinking is is just i mean at this point that the evidence is so overwhelming it's how we take it seriously it is it is the economic equivalent of the flat earth theory is what it is and it's not that it doesn't have a great appeal it's not that it doesn't initially sort of seem to make sense but there is an empiricism that we need to bring to bear here You know, which is just sort of like if you have tried something 50 times and it has failed miserably 50 times, at what point do you say, let's just not do that again?

34:20I mean, you can borrow aspects of it. Nothing's black and white. And it always feels, especially in my conversations, that it's sort of like, oh, so laissez-faire, anarcho-capital. No, no. No, just not the extreme of that spectrum there because it just, I mean, again, I don't know. It's like trying to have an argument with someone about what color the sky is when you're both looking at it. And one person goes, no, it's clearly purple. It's like, no, it's blue. Look at it. I don't know what, you don't know where to go with some of these things because it's just like it's right there. It's right there, you know, in terms of the observable facts.

34:54And yet here we are debating it. That's the part that I struggle with. It's sort of like you can't have an intelligent, informed, open debate when neither of you agree on what the facts are. It's dead in the water. Again, it's just like, well, how do we even start to sort this, you know, straighten this out a little bit if you've got your facts and I've got my facts? I think at the very least we need to sort of say, look, here's how things have gone, you know. and and but i don't know i i guess i guess it's easier to make these statements too i i do very much acknowledge the fact that for the you know the average quote-unquote working family mum and dad are work to the bone you're just trying to get the kids to school and pay the mortgage and do all this kind of stuff and also you need to be an expert you know um in in in macroeconomics and you know it's hard right you know and and it's and frankly if you'd ask me my opinion on some of these things 20 years ago i've got to cringe myself i would slap myself so hard but i'm very forgiving of it because it just sort of like that there are there are certain ideas that are very very appealing at a high level so i really do kind of get that so it's not a case of survival of the fittest you know the market will figure it all out and if you can't contribute then you need to be on the scrappy but it's it's not it's all nonsense and it just i don't i don't want to get into that but it's just that there is something to be said very much to be said about the fact is when we start seeing very difficult problems in the world and we start to apply solutions that are just demonstrably flawed from the get-go yeah you know you you got to call it as it is it's just i don't know so when it comes to this stuff this is where I think it's, you've got to be careful of being an answer looking for a problem, right?

36:52And I don't want to get political or ideological or philosophical necessarily, or at least I don't want to apply those things to other people. More political or ideological. Well, I don't want to apply this to other people necessarily, but it does strike me that a government that has its roots in industrial protection and protectionism, and the idea that, oh, thank goodness we've got an excuse to do the thing we actually really wanted to do anyway, kind of seems to bubble up, you know? Yeah, yeah. To link together, and this quote again, he's gone, okay to cut TAFE and training. To dare manufacturing initially to go offshore.

37:23Okay, they're pretty different. But multinational firms ahead of Australian gas users, well, that's a different thing again. Close our refineries. Well, we didn't close the refineries. We just chose not to bail out refineries. These are all, they've been grouped together really nicely to say, this thing doesn't work and I have a better solution for all these things. They're all the same problem. and I just think that gets into the realm of kind of convenient bedfellows that you can kind of group together and therefore justify what you want to do and I don't think there's particular value in that he's not wrong in some of the examples that he uses we've talked about productivity before and I suspect we might in hindsight look back and say an investment by government in education in particular is one of those things they can't do much about productivity that's one of the things they probably can and maybe should do or at least be part of the policy suite.

38:12That makes some sense, right? But dare manufacturing to go offshore, it's like, no, we just stopped throwing money at them. It's been phrased as some kind of, you know, we made a bet with them and they called our bluff. It's like, well, no, we just said we're not going to use taxpayers' money from hardworking people, from constructive businesses who are efficient and profitable and competitive, and we're taking all that money. From nurses and shift workers. No, it's just chief workers. We're taking all that money and throwing it at stuff that we can't do well just so we can say we do it. And we're adding policy over the top of that that actually makes it more – like that's – I mean, you speak to business like, well, we would love to do it here, but it's just too onerous.

38:53It's too hard to do it. And by the way, sometimes that's fine. If we can have cheaper shirts because the Bangladeshi workers work for a cheaper price than the Australian workers, well, that's okay. There was a Made in Australia campaign and plenty of people said, I would buy Australian clothing and footwear, except none of us did, so they went to a cheaper place. We bought their stuff instead. That's the market making a choice, right? Yeah, yeah. And so it's kind of like... I've got a very quick aside here. I have a friend here who's very anti-Elon, right? And I made mention that I'd like a Tesla.

39:22And, oh, you bloody Elon. Whoa, it's actually gotten... I just like the car. Anyway, I'm sorry. And they said, BYD, BYD, you've got to go BYD. And I was like, also the Chinese Communist Party. that's cool oh that's different you know and it's kind of like you've got to it's very easy to I mean I don't know the world's more complicated isn't it it really is you know and that's kind of my point about bringing all this back to a single point of like just you know there's some and you know what they're not saying the word neoliberal but I bet that's what they desperately want to say so they say this whole thing was a mistake we're going to fix it take us back to the 70s or the 50s and when everything was so much better right because actually hang on how is it better and someone will say well mum could stay at home and we only needed one car and that's all fine.

40:08But just think about what you're actually giving up. The rose-coloured glasses. I'm a big fan of nostalgia, right? And I think there's a lot of stuff that we have left behind from the past that we really shouldn't have and things that we could learn from and bring back and there's a lot of that. To lay it at the foot of, if we do anything that happened in the 70s, then life will be like the 70s again. There's a very, very, very large logical leap you've got to take to kind of do that part of it, right? It's like, if only we made stuff again then we have a King's World in the driveway and the kids will be playing on the street and bare feet and mum be home baking Anza pickies and it'd be all great.

40:38It's like yeah, I mean like I said, I'm a romantic, I'm happy to renacise that past as well as to anybody right and remember all the good things and there were some wonderful things about it but somehow to say if we took industrial policy back to the 70s everything would be solved. So no, no, no our standard of living would be materially lower if we're going to put money to TAFE and training if we're going to somehow bring manufacturing industry back on shore in theory, we're not going to ask them nicely, we're going to make it worth their while If we're going to, you know, backstop refineries, if we're going to, you know, these things cost money.

41:11And so by definition, we either have less services or pay more tax. And that's okay too, but let's recognize we are going to take efficient. That's what I was saying before. We're taking efficient value creation and using it to prop up inefficiencies. We are literally making ourselves worse as a policy. Now, really quickly, people will say, oh, sovereignty, national security, blah, blah, blah. We've addressed this a dozen times. I've done it many, many times on social media this week because it's one of those things that people love to complain about. We are not fixing any significant problems by making steel in Australia or refining fuel in Australia.

41:46Firstly, you're going to refine the crude that you're importing anyway. Or if you're going to try and drill it here for, obviously, costs that are not cost-effective, those other companies will already be doing it. Man, Exxon's not stupid. They'd be drilling the hell out of it, right? There's money to be made? Nah. No, no, no. We'll do it. But the government could do it. It's like we're going to literally do those things which are – it's going to cost – we're going to be less well off. Now, you can decide I want to have – by the way, let's write inflation at the same time. So we just started by talking about saying inflation means people can't afford less stuff, right?

42:18This policy would do exactly that on steroids. And this is where it's – you put too many adult conversations around. This is the – we should just do these things. Should we? Who's going to pay for them? Oh, I don't know. How much is it going to cost? Oh, I don't know. how much tax are you prepared to pay personally extra? So you can say, I fund that big refining thing over there. I feel really good about it. No, I don't have to pay the tax. Gina pays the tax. That's the other one. No, the billionaire's paying. It's like, I get that too. And yes, they should pay more tax, but do the math. Tax them at 100%.

42:50It doesn't fix it, right? We're all going to put our shoulder to the wheel. That's what you've got to recognise. It's very easy to talk about higher taxes and government using that to redistribute. Yeah, but it's not my tax, someone else's tax, right? Madness. Oh, dear. Motley Fool Money. For more, subscribe to the free newsletter at fool.com.au forward slash listener.

43:16Speaking of socialising losses, the government is going to announce, apparently at the same press club, and again, listening, you'll know this by now, a billion dollars in interest-free loans for struggling small businesses. Because that's what we're in the business of now. Yep. I tell you what. So here's what I... No, this ATO and various regulatory bodies, I am merely being hypothetical, but I will take advantage of that. I will seek to take advantage of any loan. It's interest-free, did you say? Interest-free? Yes, interest-free. Yeah, government-free generous. Fantastic. I'll take as much as I can and I'll buy some shares with it for the business.

43:57You know, maybe I'll... Actually, screw that. Why don't I give myself a massive pay rise? You know, and a dividend for all the shareholders. That's fantastic. We'll love all that. Yeah, we'll probably eventually go out of business, but then the legal entity that owes the money is gone. So sorry, we defaulted on our loan, but it's okay. I got a massive bonus and a big pay rise. I took that free money and I invested it elsewhere. Oh, and by the way, massively stimulatory and inflationary inducing kind of things. This is like genius top to bottom, top to bottom. Oh, and ostensibly we're doing it for the companies that aren't viable anyway, right?

44:37It's sort of like, okay. And so again, where's the money come from? From the people that are doing reasonably well. We'll take it from them. We'll give it to those who can't run their business badly. We'll give no strings attached. And it doesn't really matter because, you know, pink bats and solar subsidies and every other government program, which is NDI is completely rorted. This one won't be rotted and people only who genuinely need it will take the money and then they'll take that money and they'll only invest it prudently and productively in a way that generates a really attractive return because that is guaranteed what's going to happen or maybe not.

45:12I don't know. What do you think? Surely I'm going to have thought of that through already. No. Just great to say. It's like the Dr. Evil thing, but billion, gazillion, gazillion dollars. Just like, wow, that sounds great. Fantastic. You know what I love about this? and so there's two i have well i have lots of issues with this the two big ones are firstly government cannot be in the business of protecting business from itself the the very idea of business is i have a better idea we call it creative destruction and yes it's darwinian and if it kind of makes you feel like it's a bit tasteless and a bit you know harsh and what okay but that's life when i start a business i go into business to take money off somebody else not not directly not deliberately, but I'm saying to someone, come on, please use my service or buy my good.

45:58Yeah, Scott's Cafe is opening up Main Street, a barrel. It's like, every other cafe owner there has just gone crap. Yep. Or, I come up with a brand new thing. I'm going to create mud shakes and I'm going to sell mud shakes no one else is selling. And you're going to say, well, that's innovation, that's new and that doesn't compete with anybody. Of course it does. Because you've only got$20 and soon it'll be$15 because of inflation, but you're going to take that$20 and say, well, I was going to buy a shirt with it but I'll buy one of your mud shakes Scott because that sounds that sounds better and so every time I spend a buck I am choosing to spend it with somebody not with somebody else it's opportunity cost you talk about all the time Ram and in all sorts of areas and straight out spending that's what it is so every time someone starts a business they say I think I've got a thing that people are going to prefer over the other use for their money and that's normal and natural and fine and yes it's greedy and yes it's capitalistic and if you have a problem with that and that's cool too but if you're right it's only because people have you haven't you haven't The thing to always remember with this is in the situation you're laying out, nowhere along this line are you pulling out a gun and pointing it at someone's head and say, buy my mud shake.

46:59You're saying, here is something for sale. If you voluntarily decide that you want it, then you can have it. And the person is only obviously doing that because like, yeah, I want it. I want the mud shake. It's fantastic. That's what I want. So like who's, you know, it's like, it's kind of like all you're, all you're doing is creating value for, if you're successful, is creating value for other people. And if you are not successful, and again, it's not, it sounds harsh, but it's just like, it's, it's just the world is already hard. You've got to start with that. It's not like it's some perfect utopia of abundance.

47:36And we're creating a problem. Overlaying this system that is, you know, it's like the world is already scarce. things are scarce things are limited demands are unwanted but it's just sort of like well I'm gonna I'm gonna create value for people I'm gonna get rewarded I'm not creating value people I'm gonna struggle and it's sort of like that is the very mechanism that actually makes us have this incredible abundance right and and we we reward those who who help us and if you don't if you don't help if you're not if you're not helping collectively in in society I mean, it sucks, but again, not to throw you on the trashy, but absolutely, we need to look after people and encourage people to try and not be too punitive of failure and the rest of it.

48:16But it is just pure madness. I'm sorry, probably sealing your thunder here, but to say that those who aren't creating value, not by anyone's definition other than the very people who elect not to participate in that venture, as a customer, they don't want it. We don't want it. We don't want the Australian cars. We don't want this. We don't want Scott's mud shakes. It's like, no, but. Well, we're going to give him money to continue. Scott's mud shakes suck. No one wants them. Are they right? Are they wrong? I don't know. They're right in their minds that they're right because they just don't want them.

48:46But it's like, you know what? Let's give Scott some money. Where's the money come from? Off from you. Oh, but what? It's okay. We're going to make sure that he continues to sell his mud shakes no matter what. No matter how terrible they are. No matter how few people want them. It's like, but Jane is over here. She's actually got, she's just had to go with chocolate instead of mud. because she's not an idiot. And it's like, yeah, but she can't get off the ground because you've got, and you know, maybe we should put some regulations around the mud shake industry for jobs, right? Just to make sure that, you know, all the great employment opportunities that Scott is creating.

49:18It's like, we're completely wasting our time and wasting our resources. And it's the people you don't see that are victims in that it's the person who didn't have the opportunity to start the business, that wasn't able to find a place in the market because they were up against someone who was politically protected, either indirectly through subsidies or regulated. This is crony capitalism. This is the thing that everyone should be very angry about. Sorry, mate. I've jumped in and run with it. You go. I'll add a couple of things. The people I employ are going to be employed to be funded by the taxpayer where they could have actually been doing other work more efficiently, actually creating more value.

49:56So it's just me and my business money I get. It's the capital, in this case the labour, the capital, the human capital, that I drag away from more efficient uses to inefficient and unproductive uses. That is a waste. And then you've got the reality of, again, the bit I'm talking about distasteful, mate, is I understand people might think, okay, well, if I'm getting into business, I'm wrecking someone else's business and that kind of sucks and that's bad and not nice. And if your person wants things to be nice, capitalism isn't for you because it just results in choice resulting in some business failing because they cease, as you say, mate, to deliver what people want.

50:27And that's... Sorry, I'm so sorry. I just got to interview very quickly. But what always people forget with that is everyone is a capitalist. That's wrong. I had this conversation with my mate just the other day. And it's just sort of like, yeah, but you've got a job. It's like, yeah. It's like, well, that means that someone else doesn't have that job. You've got that job. Right? So you have competed in the marketplace for Labor and you won. And you winning means that everyone else who applied for that job has lost. But your rationale, your ideology now says that you should take one for the team and quit your job so someone else can have a job.

51:04No, I'm not doing that. No, I'm not blaming you for not doing that. But that's just the reality of the situation. So whether a business is selling mudshakes, milkshakes or whatever, or you are selling your labor, we are all engaged in owning something of value, whether it's a piece of capital equipment or your own time and labor, and we are trading that to someone else. That is what is happening. So if you want to sort of propose this ideology, then fine, but you have to live it. You have to go with those ideals, which means that you have to start sacrificing your opportunities and your jobs and your earning capacity so that someone else can have it because that's what you're asking of other people to do.

51:41And it's very easy when it's not you. But again, it sounds like defense of big business and it's not. It's just defense of anyone being able to voluntarily create value and if are successful in that, be rewarded. And if not being successful, not being rewarded. That's all it is. Sorry. Go back with what you were saying. No, love it. I probably, so the point I just want to make, the other side of that, which is the same thing you were saying just from a different angle, is no one, I don't go into the, sorry about the mud shakes idea, guys, it came to my head, so I'm used to keep stuck with it. I go into the mud shake business to make some money.

52:15I'm choosing to take a risk. You evil bugger. Well, not so much that, but I'm saying I go into trying to make money and try and actually, you know, achieve world domination in the mud shake industry. and in doing so, I take the risk that my mud shakes might suck and I might lose my money and that is literally capitalism 101, right? I'm going to put some money down, try and build a business. If it works, I create Apple. If it doesn't, I create the laser disc and either way, I'm making the choice and I'm going to win or I'm going to lose. When we say, well, if you win, you get to keep it but if you lose, we'll fund you.

52:50That's literally capitalism for the winners and socialism for the losers. It's right. But it also makes no economic sense because we need, if we want to improve, we're talking about productivity. We're talking about, you know, if this was the case, we'd still be using tape decks instead of hard drives because, well, if the hard drives work, we'll destroy the tape deck industry. So let's actually prop up the computer deck industry. We'll make government use the computer decks. We'll give them all, you know, interest-free loans so they don't go broke because there might be better technology. And so what are you doing?

53:18I've said a million times, we're still, if that was the case, we'd still be funding Gold Rush towns in Ballarat and we'd still be, we'd have legions of coopers and blacksmiths and, you know, farriers because we said, well, we can't let that die. We've got to prop them up. If they're struggling small businesses because people aren't using horses anymore, we've got to go and get the farriers some money. And people aren't using... It seems like a silly example, but it's spot on. It's not. It's not. That's exactly right. It's spot on. If you're silly because it's a long time ago, people look back at now and say, I mean, people will understand the intent of, it would be nice if it would be nice to everybody.

53:52Yeah, sure. Sure. But if we want to actually improve, be more productive, have higher standard of living for everybody, not just the bloke who makes the new fangled steel barrels, but for the cooper who gets another job working in the factory, for the farrier who decides to go into some other industry, the cars replace horses, we get better and faster and more efficient, and so on and so on. It seems obvious to me, and maybe that means I'm not thinking it through in the way our listeners are thinking it through, but if you're giving money to struggling small businesses, here's the last thing, Matt, quickly.

54:24Who lends money to a struggling business? You're going broke? Here's more of my money. So you struggle, yeah. You do it because it's not your money. Nothing easier in the world than spending other people's money, my friend. So that's the thing. And look, again, I get, and someone made the point, maybe you could make an argument for propping up trucking companies for three months if the entire industry goes broke because no one can afford to put stuff on trucks because the fuel price is up or something, right? Sure. If there's a genuine short-term issue that needs to be resolved and it's genuinely A, short-term, and B, you know, you go from being a fantastic business to for three months struggling until things settle down, okay, if we want to kind of retain that capacity, maybe, I guess, for a really short time.

55:11But if I'm selling mud shakes and I've got fuel people coming in for the mud shakes because they're paying too much for petrol, I mean, they can't love the mud shakes much if they're happy to give them up really easily and really quickly. They don't really have a great business. And so the chances of you going broke subsequently or during this period after I get your money. So now the taxpayer is on the hook for a no interest loan. presumably, I can't imagine there's legions of government employees out there writing mortgages over capital goods that they can reclaim or repusiness if things go badly.

55:38It's going to be one of those, here's some money, would you mind paying us back in 12 months if you're still around? Spend it how you like. Right? I mean, without being unkind, it's like wandering down to, I was going to choose an area, a group of people. I won't, that sounds a bit harsh. You don't go to a group of losers and offer to throw them money and hope they pay you back in a year's time. You just don't because they're not going to. Junkies under the bridge. Yeah, I'm sure that they will take this money and spend it wisely. I'm pretty confident I'll get my money. But you know what? I'm so confident I won't even charge any interest because I essentially see it as risk-free.

56:16I don't understand the concept of inflation or time value of money. Anyway, I think we've probably done that to death. But the idea is crazy. It really is crazy. And I bet we do need to backfill it a little bit here because I think you touched on it there with the trucking examples. Like, well, what about? There is an emergency. If these trucks aren't driving goods around, then things are going to get very bad. So that's actually a really good point, and we need to account for that. Super short term, though, by the way, not for three years, just to kind of get over a hump. If there's a real issue of my business is solid at sound, I've been making money for years, all of a sudden I've gone from 10%, 15 % profit margins to losing money, and I can't do this more than three months because I haven't got enough capital in the business.

56:57Do you really want the trucking fleet of the country to shut down? Probably not. Okay, here's a 2 % loan or a 3 % loan, only for you because you had a five-year track record of ultra-high profitability and things will sort out at some point and stabilize, you're a good risk. That's very different to you're struggling business, here's the money. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. I mean, you could almost make the point too here is that, I mean, the moral hazard thing is a word that really was gained a bit of prominence in 2009 after the GSE, but then quickly got forgotten about here. But when there's this implicit guarantee, what it actually does is it incentivizes for very fragile systems.

57:37Now, in a world that was, now let's just do this as a thought exercise. I'm not proposing this literally and seriously, but in a world where it's just like, it's impossible to get any kind of subsidy, you know, people running these kinds of businesses would probably have a pretty healthy balance sheet as a buffer, you know, because if things go bad, if we're running a business where a three-month disruption is an existential risk, we're not running a good business. But it's just like, actually, that's exactly the rational way to run it when you know that you are going to get bailed out and get easy support.

58:09So again, it's complicated, but we are incentivizing against that. Now, if you wanted to sort of run further with that sort of process, what would happen there? Well, the trucking operator who's really just riding as close to the wind, as sailing as close to the wind as they possibly can, you know, really on an oily rag here, not very efficient, not very robust. Yeah, you're going to go out of business. But the person who's been running their business extremely well, extremely effectively, because people like using them, they're reliable, they're on time, they do all the things. That's why they are successful, you know, and they've built up a buffer.

58:45It's like, oh, we'll take your flight, we'll buy it off you, and we'll do it. And again, we have a system which sort of corrects itself. The other thing is as well is like if you're going to, I said this to you off air, It's not that we shouldn't have support mechanisms. I'm just generally as a rule against specific support programs. It's like because you have to – here's the current thing that we're dealing with, but next year it'll be a different thing, and then it'll be a different thing after that. So why don't we just have it such that if you get into trouble because you are a shift worker or a nurse or a truckie or whatever it happens to be, there is a safety net there that makes sure that, you know, if you're sick, you get healthcare, that you've got food on the table and you've got a roof over you.

59:27We will do that. I just don't need to account for every single set of scenarios that will lead you into that kind of thing because now I have a program for this. And we all know that once a program is there, it's very hard to get rid of, right? So that's there. It's legacy. That's forever. And now there's a cyclone and bananas are expensive. Okay, so I guess we've got to give, you know, support to the banana industry. And then we've got to do this here. And it's all very well-intended. It's like, why don't we just say, whatever happens, if you get into trouble, there is support. That way it's one size fits all.

59:55It's very, very adaptable. And it doesn't distort all the mechanisms and the incentives within the system that actually allow for a better process and outcome for everyone in aggregate, which is the important thing. So this is just, it's just an interest-free, like it's just, it's crazy. We don't have any, it'd be different as well as like, oh, it turns out that we've got a sovereign wealth fund the size of Christmas and a massive surplus. And we've just, you know, we have got so much padding in the system that we can afford to do this. No, we're already drowning in debt and spending well beyond our means.

1:00:31And we're going to do it, right? And we're going to do it at the same time that other people just over there are saying that, no, we're spending too much and we need to cause you to spend less. So we're going to make your mortgage. We're acting diametrically opposed to other apparently good ideas. And it's a mess. It's a massive waste of money. the main people that will benefit are the people that probably have not run things well and because not not by my definition of what I think is value but by the very definition of the people that they offer their services to and it's it's just it's I don't know what to say again I know I know how harsh it sounds but it's just you've got to all I think you always must start with the reality that we're a bunch of hairless apes on a rock spinning through space right it's not I agree.

1:01:22It sucks, right? It really does. But the history of humanity is one of just brutal, brutal, you know, conditions and things that are really unfair. And like, you know, in ways that you can't even conceive of as a modern human for much of history. And it's like, so when bad things happen, whatever approach that we take must recognize that that is it. And that just conjuring up extra digits in a database or pieces of paper do not fix that, right? We've got to start with that very real premise. And that any solutions that require a redistribution, that's fine too. I'm actually all for a bit of redistribution where it's appropriate.

1:02:05But we have to do it in a very sensible, flexible, fair kind of way. And I think why people get so angry with some of this stuff, my usual story of being in the car and listening to the radio. You know, the latest thing now is the gas companies. You know, we've got to reserve enough gas and this and that. And everyone's ringing up and everyone's angry at the gas companies. I get it. They're assholes. I'm first to admit that. But you're angry at the wrong thing here. all that they the the horse has bolted we're in this situation because when you set things up in the first place you were allowed for this like hey can we can we drill for however you do it for gas yes you can what are the conditions here are the conditions great okay so we commit a few billion dollars and do this over yep absolutely great oh there's a crisis oh no we're going to do this like whoa whoa whoa I can understand I can actually understand it's like hey you're moving the goal goalposts on us here.

1:03:02Now, maybe the goalposts were in a really bad spot to begin with. And frankly, they were in a really bad spot and they're really wrong. But you've created this problem out of the gate. It was a flawed design from the get-so. So be angry, but don't be angry at this current thing right now and what the gas companies are saying in reaction to that. They've actually got a reasonable point that's there. If the system was designed properly in the first place here. We wouldn't actually be having this conversation to begin with. And more to the point, when people generally get upset about some of these sort of, what's seen as sort of like, to use Albo's word, the failure of the free market, the irony of ironies here is that it's actually the opposite of a free market because the things that people get really angry about, the big oligopolies, the very big multinational companies, They operate with a degree of privilege and political connectivity and regulatory moats that the small business owner could only dream of.

1:04:03And we look at them as if it's the free market's fault. It's actually the opposite of the free market. We tend to, because they've got such incredible lobbying power, you know, we actually sort of say, no, it's a market that's freer for some than others, you know. And I don't know, there's so many examples I could go to. My favorite one is force the banks. If you think there's a free market, try opening your bank. Good luck with that. See how free the market is when you try and get into that line of trade. Hey, let's go to the banks or a bank in particular. Now, I'm going to ask you to refrain from sharing your usual thoughts about the Reserve Bank.

1:04:48No promises. I don't know your thoughts on this one. I think I know, but I will share mine. I'll ask you for yours. Go for it. The Reserve Bank this week announced that from October 1, they would ban retailers passing on surcharges from card companies as additional costs to consumers when they pay for products in store. And I think this is a really, really good idea. I'll tell you why. But first I'll go back. We've talked about this a little bit before, but not for a while. The RBA years ago, I don't know, more than 10, maybe more than 15, when credit cards were relatively little used. These days, people will probably know.

1:05:22The last data was 2023, and cash is now$1.07 spent in the economy. Now, three years later, when it was the next set of numbers, well, it's going to be well under 10%. If it's 5%, I'd be shocked, but it'll flatline it somewhere, right? So we all use cards now, but 15 years ago, it would have been not exactly 100 % reversed, but pretty close. A very reasonably small minority, maybe 10%, 20 % of transactions using cards. and the rbo said hey we think competition is good and we all go yeah we think it's good too and card companies basically charge the retailers to use the cards the retailers got to accept them or not and some don't accept amex or didn't accept amex and some still don't but that really you can choose to accept or not but you can't really there's no price discovery there's no rationality in terms of which card is used and there's no way to incentivize consumers or make consumers aware of how they could save some money by using different payment methods so what we'll do is will allow the retailers to charge, on charge effectively, that cost to the consumer.

1:06:21So you can choose to use Visa because it's cheaper than Amex or FPOS because it's cheaper than Visa or cash because it's cheaper than FPOS. And the consumer can make that choice. Free open market, anyone can choose. The price signals are there. It should be a good thing. And apparently from all reports, it actually was for a while because people did actually start using cheaper methods of payment. It did, not meaningfully, but noticeably. Price signals work. Go figure. It noticeably changed what was going on. And so it made sense to, the experiment was worth trying and the results for a little while at least were pretty good.

1:06:50Fast forward to 2024, five, six, when I started talking about this stuff. And as I said already, 85 % of our transactions are on card and it's gone from being a price signal to essentially for most people, for most transactions, most of the time, and nothing's absolute, so don't at me. For most people, most of the time, they've gone to a situation where the surcharge, frankly, is not really known. Yes, it's got to be displayed, but who really looks for it? So was the price signal really a signal in any material way? Maybe, maybe not. And because we all use cards so frequently, it went from a decision point to a, that sucks, but I'm going to search.

1:07:25All right, fine. Here's the bloody card. I'll tap it. It's only a few cents. And so while the price signal didn't break down entirely, or maybe not at all, it simply wasn't big enough to actually move transactions. And in fact, because the cards had gone the other way, card became the default method of payment. And so it wasn't even really an incentive to use cash in any meaningful way either. And so the price signal is a signal, but it was a weaker signal over time, and it created a whole lot of grief and kind of then became a sneaky additional cost rather than overt price signaling in the way that it was meant to be.

1:07:56And so my take on this is I think the RBA has done the right thing. I think sometimes people are just allowed to choose what they want, and the vast, vast, vast bulk of people, from my experience across the world. I think other than people yelling at me because I don't want the fuel excite reduced, the thing that people are most agreed on when I see and talk to them and engage with them is that the surcharge was just annoying and not very useful and not changing behaviour much. So public opinion does count because we can choose suboptimal stuff if we want. We don't have to be rational. We can be whatever.

1:08:25But also economically, my take honestly is it went from a price signal to a sneaky surcharge that we didn't really see and realise. and so i kind of almost jumped the shark to a five dollar coffee that's really five dollars and eight cents but i don't really remember or see it's that price until i tap in which case it's not really it's a sneaky additional surcharge rather than a genuine price signal so from to my to my mind this is just a smart thing to do because people want it and economically the case for the surcharge being separate while rational and maybe in theoretically still justified to some degree i think effectively just broke down because the way we change how we pay so i'm a fan of the change i think it makes sense um put the price on the coffee on the menu and i don't buy the coffee right exactly and that which is fine i'm against it are you the change yeah tell me what yeah well i mean you're gonna pay either way right i mean we can shuffle the cards and we can we can the different way but but again but you know how much you're paying up front is my argument it's on the menu price rather than a i gotta remember there's a 1.6 search judge at this cafe and a 1.2 there and if i look at the menu i can kind of find it but i don't ever really consciously make that decision on the base of a menu price.

1:09:31Same reason that GST is not, we don't have prices plus GST. The government made businesses say price, including GST, so they couldn't effectively underquote the price. That's my argument. You can go, sorry. Yeah, no, I mean, I just think it's more downstream of more fundamental root causes of it as well. So, you know, the initial point is you're going to pay either way, right? It was like with the afterpay business. Remember that when that was more of a thing and we were more just sort of discussing it. And it's just sort of like, there are that and it's not wrong right there are there are costs with service delivery and and you need to cover those costs and you need a sufficient return to make it worthwhile doing in the first place so i don't blame the cafe owner who's like well i'm being slogged with these charges i need to sort of pass it on i mean i you can change the rules it's like okay well the coffee's more expensive and you can feel better about it but it's kind of like i prefer the illusion of it being gone rather than it actually being gone.

1:10:25And what really matters is how much I'm sort of paying. Yes. But, and so, yes, I agree with you. I think it would be better if it was more upfront. I would probably say in a very free and open market, people would just prefer the coffee shops that do do that because I really don't. I go to Scott's cafe and he always does this stupid search and it just annoys me and I'm not going there anyway. Again, preferences will kind of tend to win out. But my more fundamental point is that this is exactly what I was talking about before, actually. Try setting up a credit card company. Actually, it's more complex than that because Visa and MasterCard, they have these sort of global sort of networks, but they must be issued through what's called an ADI, an authorized deposit taking institution, i.e.

1:11:11a bank, right? And so the, and to have a bank, you have this massive licensing wall that you must sort of get through. So when you are a coffee shop owner or you mow lawns or you're a barber or whatever the small business happens to be, it's like no one carries cash. What businesses don't accept it these days? Very, very few. Because when you do, it's like, yes, you might be able to sort of sneak away with paying sort of less GST or whatever. But you're just like a lot of people won't go there because a lot of people don't have cash there. It's like, okay, right. I've got to have some kind of FPOS terminal and card payment point of sale system.

1:11:48Okay, fine, I have to do that. What are my choices? Well, fundamentally not many. Fundamentally not many. And that's where our problem lies. I mean, if they're not going to go down this path, but I mean, if there was sort of some open, free, decentralized payment network, hey, I might help. I'm just saying that might give people some choice. People will choose it if they like it, man. I'm sure people will choose it if they like it. Actually, squares. Anyway, there's some really interesting stuff happening on that front. For no other reason than that, then I want the choice. I want the flexibility.

1:12:19I want the lower costs, right? And it's a lovely demonstration of what happens when that is there. It's sort of like, you know, why does Visa charge these things? Because they can. Totally. Why do the banks charge what they do? Because they can. Now, how do we – so you go, that's not right. It's like, well, how do you fix it? There's basically two ways. Oversimplifying it, but it's like you can get a big nasty man with a stick saying, don't do that, or I'll whack you if you do it, or you can just give people a lot more choices. Like, I'm just not going to that place because it's not a good deal.

1:12:56Here's a better service at a better price than I'm going to do that. It always comes back to, in my mind, just making sure that this is way more open. So it's great. I'm being a little bit pedantic and ideological here, maybe very much so. But it's just like it is a sign of the current zeitgeist and our time. When there is something like this happening, the only conceivable solution is a regulatory one. And again, the irony being is that what it actually does is just entrench the power of the incumbents. We've seen it again and again and again and again. So you're right, mate. Look, I don't really, I don't strongly disagree.

1:13:33Yes, given the way things are, yes, it makes it a bit cleaner and a bit nicer. But, you know, it's just like it doesn't address the root cause of the problem. And the root cause of the problem is that we allow a very, very, very small set of very, very privileged institutions to have this incredible power. And we make it incredibly difficult, if not almost impossible, for anyone else to come in and put their snout in the same trough. Because it's a very good trough. to have your snout in. So it's sort of like the banks, the banks are very happy with the scenario here. And I'm sure that when they hear these things being discussed, it's like, yeah, yeah, the RBA should totally do that.

1:14:14Right. Because let's make the shop owner, the bad guy here for, for, for adding a surcharge. Don't look at us. It's nothing to do with us. Right. And, and that, you know. Here's my, here's my other thought actually on that. It's not a major one, a major reason, but I kind of like that for the most part.

1:14:36There's a thousand people who go to the cafe and individually we all care a little bit because we've got to pay our eight cents or six cents of surcharge. The small business now says, well, I've got to incorporate that 60 grand a year or whatever it is into my pricing in general. So they do that. But they've got a 60 grand bill and that is a really, really, really big and worthwhile conversation for them to have with somebody that does kind of change things a little bit because I suspect you're right there whether they should be able to charge or how much they should be able to charge and that kind of stuff.

1:15:01But I suspect a small business who passes on a six cent surcharge cares less about it than a small business who's got to pay a$60 ,000 bill. And I suspect that probably leads to better negotiations by more small businesses. Not in total. Maybe it's not enough to matter. Maybe, but you're the weakest hand at the table, right? I've got a little bit more negotiating, but okay, don't use this, bro. Because I tell you what, you can go with cash if you like. Like there's F-Pos terminal, there's terminal providers out there and there's other, like, you know, I'm just making the point, there's other payment networks that you can choose, F-Pos providers.

1:15:34It just, it changes, it makes, actually, it's a good example, yeah. I'm not going to negotiate my eight cent coffee price because I probably don't care enough in an individual transaction and that's not necessarily good or bad and you're right, it's the market doing the market thing so I'm not, it's not good or bad other than I just think if you say you're a retailer, you can pass on the charge, do you care which service you use? Well, not really because Joe's paying it when he buys his coffee. that so you cover it but now you've got an incentive to actually reduce the size of your bill from your payment processor that you really didn't have before i think there's a bit of you're right they're not going to out out negotiate visa or mastercard but i do suspect there might be a little more focused by some cafes to this morning or or you know on monday saying right well if i'm gonna have to pay the bill i'll collect it so it's fine i could pass it through but i can actually reduce what i pay to these guys now i'm incentivized to do it i could be wrong.

1:16:21I suspect there might be something in that. Yeah. I mean, there is, what is very interesting is that when you talk about competition here, in terms of payment providers and point of sale system, that is a different story. There is a million of them out there. And one of the things I learned, actually, I was at the full, I think, when this epiphany dropped, and it's a good one, which is that in any sort of value chain, as the economists call it, value tends to accrue one or two nodes. Yes. So, you know, at one point, you know, airlines are a good example, right? Sort of like you sort of, someone somewhere is digging up or getting bauxite, right?

1:17:01And they're turning that into aluminium and then there's some wiring and then there's this and then at the end of the day, you've got to play this or fly somewhere, right? And there's a whole series of coordination that sort of makes me be able to jump onto a computer, press some buttons and then go to the airport, arrive, scan something and fly somewhere. That's ultimately what is being delivered here. But that value chain, if you think about what needs to go on to allow that to happen, there's like a thousand different providers in different parts of the world all coordinating seamlessly and invisibly and through Adam Smith's invisible hand.

1:17:34It's wonderful. But you tend to find that most of the margins through that value chain are razor thin and then in one area they're super fat, right? And it's that area, right? It's airlines and airports. Yeah. It's kind of now when I look at just what we're talking about here, it's sort of like, because there's a bunch of them that have been listed on the ASX, there's global players. They're not great businesses in and of themselves. They're very cutthroat, you know, because especially in a world where software is easier and easier to write, it's kind of like, I've got a really pretty system where you can like tap a card and process it and you can keep track of your sales and it'll do reports.

1:18:15Like, great, you know, my 14-year-old can whip that up, can vibe code that up in an afternoon. That's super easy. Where does the value accrue? Oh, it actually, when you strip it away and you look at the whole sequence of events, it's the banks and MasterCard debates. It's like, oh, that's where all the margins are, right? And it just proves the point that it's sort of like, well, there are the areas where there is clearly extreme market power because if there wasn't market power, they wouldn't be able to charge those margins. They wouldn't hold all the cards. So we can faff around with all this other kind of stuff.

1:18:46At the end of the day, they're still there. They're the only ones that are there. It's a beautiful, tidy little niche club that you want to belong to because that's where the value accrues. And it's like what we're doing, and not that we shouldn't do anything, but what we're doing is we're fiddling around at the edges, which is really just not the problem here, right? You know, it's sort of like it's the person who takes a Zempic but then has, you know, 10 ,000 calories every day and only eats at McDonald's. And it's like, yeah, you're kind of addressing the issue, but there's a more fundamental thing at play here that would be far more effective, right?

1:19:20So look, I'm pushing back just more for the sake of having a more rounded conversation. I don't, I'm not particularly against what the RBA is being proposed, but I just find it very, I can imagine if I was the person with the banking license, if I was the person with Visa and Masa, I love when this stuff happens. I love it because we're distracted with our bread and our circuses, you know, and it's like, oh, the government's doing something. It's like, just as long as no one mentioned my name, right? And then after this is all done and everyone feels good and frankly, everyone's still paying the same amount because that price just gets paid.

1:19:57Absolutely nothing changes. And importantly, my margins and my market power do not change because no one can connect the dots. Not that it's that hard. It's just a bit more difficult to see. You know, no one can connect the dots. It's actually, I am charging, you know, extortionate prices. Why? Because I can, because there's no competitive sort of threat for me that is going to ever force me to do it. And people who are supposedly sort of regulating this space are too dim-witted or simple or conflicted to be able to actually recognize that there is a chain of value creation here. And we're just going to focus on this little more visible thing at the surface.

1:20:33and we're going to forget the massive 90 % of the iceberg that sits underneath the water. So I don't necessarily disagree with you, but the banks are either running a really nice bait and switch here or they genuinely seem to care that this is happening. Because their submissions to the... The former. 100 % the former. I think that's way too simple. We're talking about the banks here, dude. But why they're arguing against you, you just play dead. They're known for them to be... The banking, bloody Simon Birmingham, who's now left parliament, who's now head of the ABA is out there saying you shouldn't do this.

1:21:03Oh, that's so surprising. Well, that's another issue that's really surprising. But my point is you play dead, right? Because if you do protest too much and they actually listen to you, then you're screwed. I mean, if you genuinely don't want this to happen, you're not going to risk being too publicly critical of it just in case they actually listen to it. Oh, no, we were trying to bluff you. We were kidding. We were running the double agent thing and you bought it. I think you're playing the game. I think you've got to protest a little bit, right? So funnily enough, the banks actually complained.

1:21:28They are very, very smart people. like they're thinking beyond the next political term. They're very much aware of their power and their influence and their structural advantage. That's why you get a connected politician to run your lobby group, right? That's why you have extremely well-funded group. You want that perception of caring and doing something and, you know, pushing back a little bit where necessary, but it's sort of like at the end of the day, Back to the gentleman's club and the cognac and the cigars, like, hey, to evil. The system continues, right? And people feel as though that something was actually achieved.

1:22:13I'm going to suggest your hat is a little more off-wall than normal, that's all I'm going to say. Yeah, yeah. It's not even necessarily something that has to be coordinated. It's just something where people recognise advantage advantage and play to the incentives that are afforded to them. I don't need to sort of have my underground evil lair where we all gather, you know, every full moon and sacrifice a goat and wear long robes and sort of have evil conversations. It's like, hey, this is a really good gravy train. I love this gravy train. I am going to stay on this gravy train. I'm going to do whatever I can to stay on this for as long as possible.

1:22:52I don't even need to talk to my other mates who are also on the train because they also know which side their bread is buttered. That's the game theory we've talked about before. It's game theory, right? Every time. That being said, would you be surprised if they were an underground basement of the full moon? No, not really. But I do think that the conspiracy nuts, they just, they invoke a mechanism that's just not even necessary, right? Yeah, so true. People will always play to their self-interest. We all do. We all do, right? It's one of the... Go on. No, no, no, go. I don't want to open another conversation in 23 minutes in but tell what we're up to we're only halfway through no we're done thankfully for everyone we're almost done I do wonder and I don't have an answer and if you have one a short one we'll do it but I do wonder how we think competition policy has did a really good job when businesses weren't as clever and as cynical and as experienced and had the benefit of others experiences as they do now and when it was kind of like I will meet in the pub behind the wall and we'll get the paper bag out, we'll do our thing, and we'll agree to fix some prices.

1:23:59It's kind of matured past that point. One of the reasons I kind of – I don't love more regulation, but part of the extra regulation is just the arms race of you found a new way to screw me, okay, I'm going to have to ban that. And you found a new other way to screw me, okay, I'm going to have to ban that. And there's some justification to some of that because they're getting clever. It's the old arms race, right? And it's the spy and counter-espionizer. all those arms races are real to some degree. But I do wonder how competition policy evolves in a world of game theory where mutual self-interest or mutually held self-interest is enough.

1:24:36Because that's kind of... Things start to break down a bit there. Connison and Elegant, the easiest example. I don't think you have an answer. I'm not saying it's not... I don't know what I would do because they're not going to do anything illegal. It's perfectly rational to have your self-interest. As long as the other guy does the same thing, you never have to even meet them. They don't even know you exist. As long as you just do the right thing and they do the right thing for themselves, competition is meaningfully retarded or restricted or reduced. And I don't really know how I would fix it, but I do think it's probably the next battleground for competition policy.

1:25:09Again, you know, I've talked a lot about making the rules and getting off the field. I think the rules around that are not easy to form and not easy to implement. I don't know how I'd do it. I shouldn't suggest it's easy. No, it's not. Honestly, you are. Sorry. No, I was thinking, okay, so what would we do myself? Not you're wrong, just that I wonder what we do in that context. I didn't have an answer, so I was asking the question. I think where we go, like as a general sort of North Star, I think where we go wrong with this stuff is we get too prescriptive and too prescriptive and too preemptive.

1:25:39And that's difficult because the world is always changing. So you just like the more specific things are, the more easier they are to go around. So you want sort of more general sort of aspirational kind of goals here. What do we want? We want free open markets, healthy competition. We don't want people to build up too much structural advantage, these kinds of things. And we don't want preemptive. I think preemptive is too difficult to do because you just - That's a good point. Think of the resources that are required to have a pair of eyes inside every business to make sure they're doing the right thing.

1:26:18And that also every pair of eyes is conflicted, ethical, honest, capable. It's too hard to do. So I'm very much in favor of sort of the Singaporean approach, which is just sort of like some big general rules. We're just going to assume that you do the right thing. But if you're caught doing the wrong thing, there are very, very, very strict penalties for that. And it's more like it feels better to sort of stop it from happening in the first place. But we don't it's it's not the minority report. We don't have precogs. We can't you know, it's happening everywhere. And it's just like but the thing is now when it happens, it's sort of like, oh, you can't be a director for five years and you're going to have to lose your very high paying job for a little bit.

1:27:00Like, OK, so so I don't go to jail. There's no serious fine. I don't lose my license. No, no, God, no. Oh, heavens for fair. No, none of that. It's like, oh, okay. Now, I just feel as though if there was very serious ramifications for you doing the wrong thing, does that mean that no one does the wrong thing? No. But I think it's far more effective and far more efficiently delivered sort of regulation in the sense that, you know, you don't. And here's the problem we think is most people, despite our cynicism or my cynicism, most people most of the time are good, well-meaning. Most of us are. You know, serial killers are the minority, right, or the really patently evil person.

1:27:45There's not a lot of them around. But when you start treating everyone that way, you know, it's like it's very hard to – you end up putting a lot of burden and implied guilt on people, which just, again, makes for far less productivity, far less efficiency, far more barriers to starting a business, all of the things that we want to do, right, when it's kind of like why don't we just assume, like imagine if we did the same with murder. We're just going to assume that everyone's a murderer. So every day someone's going to come around to your house and make sure that you haven't murdered someone.

1:28:25It's like that's going to slow the murder rate. It's like, yeah, maybe, but at what, this is a dumb example, But at what cost? You know, how do we actually do that? And does it really ever stop the truly evil people anyway? Why don't we just do it the same way? It's like we're just going to say that this is bad. And if you get caught doing it, there's really, really, really serious consequences to it. It's just a far smarter, more effective, more efficient way, I think. Yeah, it's fair. I think that's right, though. I don't know that addresses when the law isn't broken because law is not suitable given the kind of mutual interest game theory problem.

1:28:58of in either of your scenarios there, there's no law being broken as yet because the law isn't written that way to, and if you could write a law that way, it's almost my point of kind of like, I don't disagree with you. I think it's important to have certain rules that prevent rather than just punish in the sense that if there's harm being done in the action, yes, we jail murderers. We also actively try to stop the murdering people. We don't just go, well, how about it? But if you do the wrong thing, You know, there is value, I think, in diversion. And I think there's some value there. But again, I don't think either of those two necessarily addresses the question of how do you set laws, either of prevention or punishment, for mutual self-interest, game theory kind of competitive dynamics that actually do reduce competition.

1:29:42I don't have a good answer as to what I would do. Of course, you're right. And I shouldn't try and suggest a black and white dichotomy here. It's not that. My point is more that when these discussions happen, it is all about the preventative regulation. It is. Like so many things in life, there's a very broad spectrum and there's a very big middle ground. It's just that the pendulum is way up that end of the table. It's like, literally, white-collar crime is just like, you know, it's just, we just, it's wide open, right? And it's kind of like I'm not saying that don't do anything to try and prevent it.

1:30:21I'm not saying that at all. I'm just sort of saying can we try and sort of shift that, shift our position on the spectrum a little bit more and stop pretending that we can precog every possible problem and prevent it and do it in an effective and efficient way because there's just, I mean, again, we can debate exactly the finer points of it and what we should be doing, you know, as our political class should be doing. but we don't. We're very shallow, very myopic. We're very of the view that, you know, if only someone could make a rule somewhere then that will stop all of this happening. When you can just look around and go, oh my gosh, I mean, there's malarkey going top to bottom, up and down all over the country and kinds of the shenanigans that corporations are pulling here.

1:31:08You know, it's just like we're just so far away. Wherever the ideal point is, I don't think anyone could ever know for sure. My only argument is we're just a long way away from it. And in trying to address it, we push more to the wrong extreme rather than trying to go perhaps more to a more compromising middle ground, a more effective middle ground, I should say. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. I think we've probably done it to death today, an hour and a half in. I think we've – that's a big sigh. Time flies when you're having fun. I was just like, you know, there was a lot to say. There was. We got through a lot of it, which is actually not bad for us.

1:31:41That was, by my count, five different topics, which is, you know, Not exactly a post-war record, but it's not miles off. We did okay. We did okay this week. Will you come back on Sunday and add to the audio brilliance? Depending on what this speech from Trump says, then yes. Well, we'll have recorded it by then. What happens as a result? That's a whole different question. Yes. So we'll be back in the next 15 minutes after I let the dog out and have a drink of coffee, and I look forward to it. Whether it gets on the podcast feed may indeed depend on Trump. But until then, thanks for listening. Have a great weekend and fall.

1:32:13Cheers. The Motley Fool and people appearing in this program may have positions in the companies mentioned. General advice only. Please speak to your financial professional to understand how it may pertain to your situation. Subscribe to the free newsletter at fool.com.au forward slash listener. The Motley Fool operates under financial services license 400691.