Celebrating episode #1,000. May 1, 2026

25:39We just never stopped doing it because we get so many great questions and it was always kind of fun to answer. I will say, mate, the low light of Motley Fool Money, I think it's pretty clear. So there's two things about the episode. Can you narrow it down to just one? Oh, yeah, no, I can. I can. So we've only ever missed one scheduled episode. That was when I was in hospital, was Crook with Ammonia. So we've done pretty well over 10 years. That's right. We managed to get that all the way through. Just that one episode. Is that after you did Kokoda or something? Oh, it was 2018. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

26:07Yep. So that's the only one we've ever missed scheduled-wise. We did have one episode that didn't go out on time, but it was recorded as a scheduling drama. So only twice have we had sort of problems, but once we've only missed it. The low light, though, wasn't that, mate. The low light, it turns out, you would think missing an episode might have been. There was one time when I was flying solo and I did the podcast. It was just short while I was like, well, I guess I was going to do it myself. and so I did and because what do you do you've got to fill some time so I did a bit of a So I wasn't I wasn't there No No and so I did it myself and I got a well meaning message from a listener who said thanks for trying Scott but maybe next time if you're by yourself just give the episode a miss which particularly personally Brutal I know right Brutal like thanks for trying but maybe don't next time I was like okay So at least we've got that.

26:58I'm impressed that you gave it a go. I don't know what I would do. It's much easier with someone. A conversation is much easier than a monologue or a soliloquy. You know, it's like just... I could probably do it. I'm not saying I couldn't do it. It would be very, very bad. Here's what I prepared earlier, apparently. So that was the first and last time. And then I'm going to jinx us now, mate, because you and I have said for pretty much 10 entire years, you know what we should do? We should do an extra episode, just put it in the can, just in case we ever need to roll it out. Right. We've never ever got around to it.

27:32Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've always been hand to mouth. And as I said, apart from that pneumonia episode, or lack thereof, we've actually done reasonably well to try and make it through. We've pretty much delivered. How's that for work ethic? Either walkable or bad luck. All right. I think we're probably the only podcast that does it over Christmas and all of that kind of stuff as well. Yeah, so only one missed episode in the last thousand, which I'm, so this would be episode 1001 otherwise. So there you go. Wow. Yeah, yeah. I think that's a pretty good result. Speaking of the mailbag though, mate, one thing, again, we had to have some listeners write in and sort of ask us questions or remind us of things.

28:08I was, so two questions I really got. One of our listeners did write in and ask what strawman.com was. That's right. Yes. Private online investment club. Pay attention. Not only just private, Australia's premier. That's right. Thank you. Online investment club. Thank you. Yes, that's right. So that's important. That was a long-running shtick. Well, that went for a while. Speaking of long-running shticks, I listened to Ryder and asked about your feats of endurance and fitness and strength. It seemed to have tapered off just a little bit in recent months. I reached the bottom of that creativity while I really ran out of ideas.

28:45Look, I'm nothing from a stickler for a long-running bad joke, so I was very happy to keep it going for as long as we probably get away with it. Now it's morphed into bend the knee and kiss the ring, which is the latest one. We'll see how long that is. Wait for that to wear out. It's welcome if it hasn't already. Yeah, exactly. I was dared also from another listener to just throw topics at you that would get you riled up just for the sheer fun of this episode. But I did say we didn't have four hours. There's no challenge in that. Anyway, you're going to do that just by accident. We don't have four hours, so we decided not to do that one.

29:18Yeah, it's been a great thousand episodes, mate. I don't have any particular other reminiscences or topics. Anything else that comes to mind for you? Not really, but I guess I wanted to say, in thinking about this episode, I just really want to say a really heartfelt thank you to people who have listened. I know there's some very small minority perhaps, but some people who have pretty much been there from the start. And it's kind of like, aside from being kind of surprised surprised by the level of masochistic tendency that's there. It's like, it's humbling. And I really do appreciate it. We sort of joke, not joke that we would do it anyway if no one was listening because it's fun to talk to you.

30:03And our wife would make us. And we're just, yeah, there's a therapy dimension to it. But yeah, we really do appreciate it. I said to you off air before, I think, and this is never planned, but I think sort of evolved this way is that when you, and you know, I've listened to a lot of finance podcasts over the years and God, for the most, patting ourselves on the back here, but I think the problem most of them have is that they're often done by very smart people, good investors, all of that, but God, it's dry. Oh my God, it is so dry. And it does a disservice in a way because it's sort of like, it's probably great for the hyper-technical people who really just want to get into the weeds and that's great.

30:40And there's definitely a place for it. But it's also, I think the problem with it is it can overwhelm people. It makes it think that it's not few, it's not achievable. You've got to leave this one to the experts, or even if you can push through all of that, it's hard work and it's boring and it's all of these kinds of things. And I think accidentally more than anything else, we've just, we've, people probably tell me I'm wrong here, but I feel as though being a little bit more casual about it, avoiding the jargon, cutting through all the nonsense is probably our shtick in terms of I haven't come across too many other finance podcasts that do it that way.

31:22And it's a shame. I don't know. Maybe I'm talking to people who are 10 times the listenership and I'm saying, oh, I'm feeling sorry for you. You poor people, that's right. If you're going to do this podcasting, you'd be successful. Yeah, exactly. My consulting service is open for anyone who's interested. But I don't know. I like to think that it – I actually – I think that's actually true of anything, no matter what you're talking about. I've got kids at school, obviously, at the moment, and there's like the usual, I hate mass, mass is boring, or I hate this. And I've always thought, yeah, it's actually not, but I'm sure it is in your particular experience because it's the person who's exposing it to you and how they expose it to you.

32:04I maintain, and I more and more believe this as I've gotten older, that you can take literally any topic and make it interesting. You know, you get a sense of that with some of the TED Talks. Like, oh, here's someone talking about some weird niche. I'm like, I am totally not interested in that. Fifteen minutes later, you're sharing amongst every WhatsApp group you remember. I was like, that was just brilliant, you know. The world is a fascinating place, and there's a lot of interesting things to sort of talk about. And we're lucky in this sort of niche because finance is ostensibly about money.

32:38But it's so, I often say this, it's so much broader than that. You need to sort of have an eye to everything from geopolitics to economics to, you know, psychology, sociology, politics. It's a field that takes you everywhere. and it makes it endlessly fascinating. So, yeah, I wouldn't be anywhere else, mate. And thanks to our audience for listening and thanks to you for putting up with me, I suppose, as well. Because you do have the patience of a saint, particularly when I'm on a bit of a, let's call it a fringe rant. So I do appreciate the platform. I don't know how many people would put up with a lot of this nonsense.

33:22No, not in the slightest, mate. I am going to, yeah, so firstly, thank you too. So 10 years ago, we decided we'd try and do this thing and see if we could make something of it. And I don't think you and I had any sense of what we might be able to do with it. And certainly we wouldn't have pretended it could get to 1 ,000 episodes. Mate, you were the OG. You did step away for a short period of time. You left the Motley Fool to start, strawman.com, Australia's premier online investment club, TM, which was great. But thankfully, through a confluence of circumstances, you did come back to the pod and it's been awesome.

33:49Before, during and after, mate. So thank you for everything you've contributed to it and the passion and the intellect and the thoughts and the Bitcoin rants and the sound money rants and the inflation rants. Inflation rants. Hold that thought. Hold that thought, listeners. We'll get back to that. But a genuine heartfelt thank you, mate. Thanks for everything you've put into it. To our listeners, as you've already said, mate, thanks for listening. Hopefully some of this walk down memory lane wasn't too self-indulgent. I mean, it was very self-indulgent, but hopefully if you've been around for at least a little bit of time, the jokes make sense and you feel like you're inside the club.

34:21And I think to your point, mate, That's what I've really loved about Motley Fool Money as a podcast. Podcast is a broadcast medium. It's not two-way. It can't be two-way. By definition, it's pre-recorded or podcasts are, as you'd like to say. That's another inside joke for everybody. Tony Martin does Sizzletown, though. That's a live podcast, which is a running joke there. There you go. But our listeners have been along for the journey, and they respond to us on social media. And we honestly genuinely love the feedback. and no one loves being criticized, but we really appreciate the negative or the constructive feedback.

34:55Oh, the pushback is great. Yes. But we love that you've invested in the podcast and you're here and it does feel like we're talking to friends at least indirectly, right? There's that sense of we're not just sitting here doing the whole here is the news and letting it go out into the world. We do feel like we kind of know our listeners and we feel like you know us and hopefully if we brought anything into that, it does feel like a bit of a club. It feels like a conversation or at least a small venue rather than a broadcast venue where it's like, hey, here's what we're doing. Here's what we're thinking.

35:24Thanks for giving us the feedback. Thanks for engaging in the jokes, right? The bend the knee, kiss the ring stuff, as you say, mate. All that stuff, just really, really, really good. And we should really appreciate it. A big thanks to Link Kelly. Link, hopefully, fast forward through a lot of this stuff and hopefully here's this bit. He produces the podcast for us. So Andrew and I get online and we just natter away and then we press end and then walk away. And Link's got to do the work. White gloves, baby. Maybe. Exactly. Link's got to do the job of, I won't say make us sound good because that's not, you know, he's not a miracle worker.

35:54No, he's not that good. Not that good. But I think every episode we've ever done, I think, maybe not the very early ones, but he's been with us for almost the entire duration, if not the entire time. Yeah, thanks, Link. He's just a fantastic, trusted, and he looks after us. He calls me afterwards, oh, what about this? Have you thought about that? Or what do we do this? So not just handling the editing, but kind of, you know, really engaged and involved in the resources. Handling the talent as well. That's the worst job in the world, isn't it? Guess what, Link? You get to work with Scott and Andrew.

36:21Oh, God, really? Yeah. Oh, God. What did I do wrong? To Claire Weaver from Listener, who is kind of our key touchpoint. Thank you for being so positive and so engaged with it. She's helped us make a bit of a bigger deal of the 1 ,000th episode just because it's notable for them as well as for us. And the Listener family, thanks for doing what you guys do for us. Speaking of white gloves, we do nothing other than talk and hit end. We put the biography together, the little bio, the write-up, and then link on the team, make it all happen. They deal with all the back-end stuff. Never have to worry about it.

36:52It's just been an absolute pleasure dealing with those guys right from the Triple M days right through. Thanks to Mike Fitzpatrick for calling us up and saying, hey, do you guys want to have a go at a pilot and see if it comes or something? Sorry, Mike, you've unleashed a – you may wish you hadn't, but here we are, so thank you for doing that. I think it's everybody, mate. Also, too, just on that, you know – the best sign of competence is when you're almost unaware of all of these things. Just you hearing you talk about that. I mean, you just, I do. I shouldn't put you on, but I just like, oh yeah.

37:23I totally, yeah. But if there were like snafus and mistakes and things not right, you would hear about them and they'd be much more obvious. And it's, I don't know what my point is, but it is something that I've noticed. I think people who work in big organizations notice this as well. It's sort of like the squeaky wheel gets the grease. And if you're squeaking for the right or the wrong reasons. And it's only, competence is only, not only, but is often only obvious in hindsight when that person goes. It's like, oh, my God, all this stuff's going wrong. What's going on? It's like, oh, yeah, Bev left.

37:58Oh, was she doing, yeah. And you never thought to, like, the appreciation wasn't, it wasn't that you didn't appreciate, you were ignorant of the effort and the work and stuff that went in there. And it's just like the fact that we could have done a thousand and I've never had anyone sort of say, oh, there was a massive problem with this or that didn't get uploaded or this was edited wrongly. It's just like just testament to the professionalism of everyone you mentioned. So, yeah, well said, mate. Thanks, guys. A bit of a pullback of the curtain. You showed me take a photo of us and it wasn't for any reason, for related social media or anything else.

38:31And just fun behind the curtains on episode a thousand. I got a message from Link literally as we were chatting about five minutes ago saying, is everything okay? you guys normally started recording by now and you haven't started recording. And I've gone, oh no, we've screwed up the film. It's my first half hour of the episode. Turns out it was a podcast recording software issue. And so it's like, oh no, it's there. It's like, oh, thank God. Oh man. I think it was, speaking of snafus, I think only once we've had to start again. Like properly. Like we've, you know, I've screwed up the intro a couple of times.

39:02Yes, yes. I think only once in that thousand, we've actually gone, bugger, we have to record the next, the first 20 minutes again or whatever else it was. I can't remember what that was for, but. but yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty, it's pretty raw and unfiltered kind of stuff. There's more than one occasion when you just, you log off and you go cringe. Did I, did I say that? Good luck, Claire. Cause you know, at least this is the other thing that they've been lovely to about too, is listener is an audio production company and they take their audio really serious. Their production values really seriously, right?

39:32And they should, cause that's what they do. And so if you listen to some of their other podcasts, They're beautifully produced and there's sounds and there's scripts and there's drama. And it's a different type of podcast. And they've just been really lovely. Claire, every now and again, will call me and say, anything we need to do is say, no, no, we'll just chat and send you the file when it's done. And they could be like, well, no, there needs to be shorter. It needs to be musical. There needs to be production values. No, no. That's such a great point. Let's do our thing, right? And in someone else's hands, this is a very different podcast.

39:58And maybe better. Who knows? Probably better. Yeah, probably better. But just let's do our thing. and it's unusual for them because they normally have producers listening at the time and going through the whole lot and they're just going to say, yeah, cool, we trust you guys. Do your thing. If your listeners are happy, then, you know, we're happy. We're happy. Link's done a great job, as I say. It's just worked beautifully. So, yeah, thanks to everyone who's involved behind the scenes. Thank you mostly, though, to our listeners who hang around because, as Andrew said, we'd probably record it anyway.

40:23We'd probably just record the file and then save it on our desktop and then go home. The fact that you actually care enough to spend a bit of time with us, we really appreciate. So, yes, the first 40 minutes this podcast was entirely self-indulgent. But hopefully, it's kind of on your behalf. And I could chat more than a thousand times, right? But the idea of having people actually stop and listen to this and hopefully like it and engage with it when it makes sense to do so, just really, really, really appreciate. So thank you. Yeah. Teamwork makes the dream work, 100%. That's a bonus. Yes. Yeah.

40:51One team, one dream, et cetera, et cetera. There's a geese analogy somewhere there. There probably is somewhere, yes. Yeah, the flying geese, they did the V formation. Yeah, yeah. Anyway. Hey, let's make an awkward segue, mate. I, last Friday, I just finished saying, that was probably self-indulgent. Let's move on. Can I be even more self-indulgent? Do it. You sure? I think so. How's that mute button for Andrew? So here's the thing. I wrote a book. Hey! I wrote a book. So last Friday, I mentioned I had a special announcement. A tome. A tome. A tome. Yes, let's go with tome. I like it. yeah, I wrote a book.

41:33So it's already available for order. Now, I'll be really clear. So I work for The Motley Fool. Everyone knows this is Motley Fool money. It's not a Motley Fool book. I say that only just to make sure that everyone's very clear about what's going on here. The Motley Fool's very happy for me to write it. They've approved me writing it. They had complete veto rights over the text and have exced exactly zero of those veto rights. They were happy with what I wrote. But it's not a formal Motley Fool owned property. I get a phone call from a publisher, Wiley, who had been great to deal with. at the very beginning of this year and said, hey, have you ever thought about writing a book?

42:04I said, funnily enough, yeah, I have. She said, well, do you want to do one? I was like, well, let's talk about what it might be. And we had a chat and did that. It's like, great, great, great. And then a few days later, I got a phone call saying, do you reckon you can do it in six weeks? Because I wanted to hit some publishing deadlines for this year. So, yeah, I had a very, very busy January and February. I don't know how you do that, dude. We're doing a full-time job. I couldn't have done it if I had a six-week sabbatical and just like. Well, see, I think because I was not a monthly full worker, I couldn't do it during work hours.

42:29So, yeah, it was a full-on period. Well done. My lovely office. So, what's it about? Flower arranging or, you know? Yeah, origami. Origami. Yes, okay. I'm running the second version of the Bitcoin. No, I'm kidding. So, it's called the One Page Investment Plan. Nice. But there's only one page and you're speaking to him, my friend. Thank you. You know what? Someone asked you, did you see that on socials? no you actually you make that point and I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do it quickly enough as you know we do this things live I've actually been a bit absent from Twitter absent from Twitter I haven't well things I haven't so you know how things go insta official yeah so Wiley made this insta official on Wednesday I had no idea it was going to say oh there it is okay now it's up now it's in the world so that happened that'll happen very very quickly so that was a bit of a surprise and I wasn't quite ready for it so I haven't even done anything on my own this is literally the first time I've gone on, hey, everybody, here's a thing.

43:26So now you know that's what's been going on. And yes, it absolutely is happening. I want to ask you about it too, but also I don't want to give too much away. I want people to buy the book and soak up the wisdom. But give us the rough idea. Is it basically what it says on the tin? Yeah. So before I do, I will just because Tim Branson on Instagram replied, Oh, Tim. G'day, Tim. Does the one page refer to any specific capital P page of notoriety? No, I missed that. I'm sorry. With a smile. So, yes, Tim, well done. So, mate, here's the thing. You and I have talked a lot about – the genesis was kind of about conversations to some degree, where it's like good financial advice should only be one page long.

44:10Yes, you can always have individual tax strategies and you can do this and you can do that and whatever, whatever. But bottom line, at the end of the day, good financial advice, good investing is not that hard. And so the idea is, and so the joke's going to be, hey, Scott, you wrote a 200-something page book about a one-page plan. Couldn't have just been a pamphlet? And the answer is absolutely yes, it could have been. But I wrote it because, you know, I've talked about Morgan Housel before, who's got a great line, which is, you know, most books should be articles, most articles should be tweets, and most tweets should never be written.

44:40And he's right to some degree, but that's the bit I do disagree with him about a little bit, because the topic, you can share the reference, you can share the information, you can share the rational, do this, right? But why does our podcast work? Why do books work? Why do, because humans like stories. And so we absorb things. You can say to someone, do this, okay. But then if you say, well, here's the story behind it, it just makes it more powerful. So I basically say in the book, mate, there's a one-page investment. You can just rip the one page out of the book and take that away and do that and you'll be fine.

45:11Perfectly fine. You've talked about, though, hope not being an investment strategy, and I've talked about the need for a conviction in a strategy, not just the idea. And so that combination is really what the book is about. It's about taking that one-page investing plan, which you can literally, please don't rip it out of the book in a bookshop, please buy the book, but you can take that out and just do that. But the understanding of why, the how, the commitment to stick with it, and we've talked about that a lot. When things get tough, are you going to stick with it? and saying, well, Phillips wrote one line in a one-page document and said, just do this.

45:43Some people would be like, okay, cool, I trust him. I know him. I'm going to do it. That's fine. But that's not advice. It's education, just to be clear. So, you know, you can say, just do that. And that's one thing. But when you understand fully the rationale behind it, the past experience we just talked about, a thousand episodes worth of history and saying, hey, this is what you should do. And hopefully we've had an impact on people. This one is a how-to for the psychology and the process of good long-term investing is what it's about. That's very much the idea. It's everything from working hard and making as much money as you reasonably can through to thinking about how to manage the portfolio in retirement.

46:24It's a life cycle or a lifetime book that's supposed to give the framework, the structure, the backbone, the skeleton to just doing this thing well. And, you know, thank me for everybody. If you listen to the podcast, I get it. That's cool. But I think most people hopefully will at least either nod along with it. I hope it will reinforce their commitment and their confidence, their dedication to the course. Or if there are people who are either new to investing, have never invested, have not been investing long, are hitting their first down market or share price that's fallen or something else.

46:55I hope it's a bit of a touchstone. I hope it's kind of a bit of a way that people say, okay, yeah, that's right. I know you said do this. Here's why you said do this. I remember. I get it. I can take that with me. So that's kind of the idea, mate. An investing companion, if you like, to keep you on the straight and narrow, but not in a boring way and hopefully not in a preachy way, just in a, hey, here's why I think it works and here's some stuff you can take with you. I think that's super important. There's a lot of things in life in general where it's kind of like you probably have a decent sense of what you need to do.

47:26But I think most people, certainly for me, I need to know why. Like, it's not that I don't believe the prescription, but I also, I think anyone who's got any curiosity, I just like, yeah, but yeah, okay, I know that's true. I can actually see that's true just from history to a large degree. But why? Why is that true? Why would that continue? And the reason it's important, well, you know, there's just, there is knowledge for knowledge sake and just satisfying one's own curiosity. but things that we've long said, I, in the heat of the moment, a lot of rational thinking just goes out the door, you know?

48:04And so when you've got a, when you, you know, you really do quote unquote get it and it's like, yeah, here's the thing that you need to do, but you actually in your heart of hearts know why you need to do it and why it's important. You'll just stick to it. Right. You know, it's like two people can know what to do, but if one is only just following a set of instructions and one is actually moving from a position of understanding and wisdom, dare I say. Right. Huge difference. Huge difference. That's awesome, man. I can't wait to read it. Let me put this. I haven't mentioned this to you yet. Have you got someone to do the audio book?

48:41Because I'm just saying these dulcet tones are up to the side. So funnily enough, so good news actually. So the book's available for pre-order now. The public cash date is until August. Can I do a really quick plug? I will answer your question in a minute. Hell yeah. The quick plug is that pre-orders help tell other book retailers that this thing has leaks. So if you can demonstrate some decent pre-sale demand, pre-order demand, they kind of go, okay, cool, this book's real, I'll buy an extra couple of copies for the bookshop, I'll make sure I stock it here and there and online and all that kind of stuff.

49:14And it helps the publisher kind of manage their print run. So it's available for pre-order as a physical book already. The e-book comes out day and date and you can't pre-order the e-book for whatever reason, it just comes out and you can buy it. And the audio book, we haven't got a date for yet. We have got an audio book publisher who's actually picked it up, which is kind of exciting. So not sure who's going to narrate it yet, but the publisher's working all that stuff out. But I will pass on your interest. Thank you. No one needs this nasal e-voice in there. More than that is already there.

49:45If you get Leonard Nimoy or someone like that, you're laughing. You know he's dead now, right? So is it - Oh, of course, I guess. How did I not know that? That would be great. That'd be impressive. If I get learning more from now, that'd solve some questions. There is AI. There is AI. Yeah, that's right. That's right. So yeah, look, I just - Yeah, so anyway, I hate self-promotion. I cringe, right? But because I just know that's how it works. And here's the problem with writing a book. If you write something you think is worth sharing, you want as many people as possible to see it, but to do that they've got to buy the book.

50:20And so it's kind of like you can either entirely crave like, I want to make, by the way, you don't make any money as an author. The very first publisher I spoke to said, if you're doing this for the money, don't. Only do it if you've got money. Because the market's not that big, right? So just if you work out your hourly rate, you'd never do it. Only do it if you're actually passionate about it. And frankly, people listen to this podcast, they know what we're like, mate. So yes, I am passionate about it. So if you are interested in the book and you want to buy the one-page investing plan, can I ask you, have a look.

50:45If you don't want to do it, I'm not asking for anything they don't want to do, but if you are keen, if you look at it and go, yeah, that's for me, if you could put a pre-order in, that would really help me basically kind of make it noticeable, right? Gets it on the charts and it gets publishers interested and retailers interested and all that kind of stuff. So if you do have a look and you say, do you want to buy it, if you could put a pre-order in, that would be really helpful because it helps the kind of up the charts a little bit and kind of demonstrates interest and then, yeah, hopefully it's a bit of a snowball from there.

51:12And if you're listening to this, I figure you probably hope I've got something worth saying. so hopefully you'll think the book is useful for either you if you're listening or maybe a loved one. And again, I'm not going to do the Christmas present. I probably will buy Christmas. I don't know the Christmas present thing yet but if it's something that you think is useful and might be useful to you or to a loved one, maybe have a think about it. If it's right for you, then please buy a copy and buy a pre-sale copy if you wouldn't mind just because it helps get it up the thing. If you don't want to buy it, no pressure from me at all.

51:38Obviously, the great thing about podcasts is I don't have to look anyone in the eye and ask them to do anything. So if you like, shut up, then just ignore it and keep moving. but if you do want to buy it the one page investing plan it's called it's available on Amazon and Booktopia probably among other places I suspect at this page but Amazon's probably the best place to grab it just because it's there and whatever you can find a bit more about it on that site I've got a page on my website scottphillips.com.au has a page about it and I'll put it on the social so yeah I wanted to do the grand announcement here Ram but Wiley as I said did the Insta official thing a couple of days earlier I went oh bugger so this is as official and as early as I could do it I want to let our podcast listeners know first because they are the super fans.

52:16So thank you for being a super fan. If you're interested, look up the one-page investing plan, Scott Phillips, and you'll find it. Mother's Day is just around the corner. There you go. There's a gift idea for you. Boom, right there. Yep, pre-order a book. Mum, here's a book you'll have in three months' time. No, it's really impressive, mate. I am impressed. It is something that I think anyone with something they feel they want to say, which is most human beings, right? entertain the idea at some point you know even if it's gonna it was like no one's gonna read it there is sometimes there is just something inside of you you need to get out right and it's not until you start putting pen to paper the risk is really hard to do communicating is hard right communicating in a concise uh clear manner just it is like the ultimate sort of skill in so many ways so i'm just i'm blown away by anyone who can do it um so yeah well done i look forward to reading it.

53:10What you mean is anyone who do it well? Yes. Yes, very much so. Writing books is nothing. If no one likes it, no one buys it, then it's just still something I did. You know what I do like, actually? I can say this without any pang of conscience, because I didn't do it. My commissioning editor, Jordan Lottis, who does a wonderful job, she came up with the subtitle, which is Start Simple, Stay Patient, Build Serious Wealth. And actually, that was perfect. Isn't that great? I came up with the title, so the title was mine, but the subtitle is just so much better. It's like, that's what it is. That's what it does.

53:38That's why It's why you wrote the book and it's very, very clever. So, yeah. Anyway, let's move on, mate. But, yeah, the one-page investing plan if you can. Just remember me when you're on the international book tour. As I said, mate, she said don't calculate your hourly rate. This will be – it's a passion project. I mean, there'll be some pocket money in it. Can I say the author cut on a book is as small as you think it might be? Right. The retailer makes multiples of what the author makes. It's an interesting kind of – Well, it's not as other retailers as a group are doing great either though, right?

54:06Right. Like, so, yeah. Anyway, but yeah, so not that I'm unhappy about it. They're doing the work. If they want to take the margin, they'll sell for what they can. That's commerce, right? We talk about that all the time. So anyway. Should we move on? Well, yeah, I was going to go on a tangent there. Well, what the hell? It's our brain. Well, I mean, there's a lot of – it feels – I don't know if it's just Twitter or whatever, but it feels increasingly like there is almost an animosity in a certain segment of society towards any kind of profit-making enterprise, you know? Yeah, yeah. And I'm the first to sort of pick up the pickaxe and the torch, you know, and march on the castle when it's really egregious, unfair kind of stuff.

54:52But I think a lot of things are easily missed when you take too myopic a view. The music industry is great. You've reminded me because the book industry is the great one as well, because every now and then, I don't know what the exact numbers are, but I would bet my left arm that there is a Pareto distribution of sorts, whereas something like, and it's probably even worse than this, like that just sort of, that's the 80-20 rule, you know. So basically 80 % of the authors that they backed really probably lose money and 20 % make all the money. It's probably 595 or something like that. I'm sure that's right.

55:27And so you'll see every now and again, oh, publisher did this, they signed this person up, they wrote a book, and they made a squillion dollars. Is this money for jam? Look at the margins, rah, rah, rah. What you don't see, though, is that those activities have to account for all of the losses for the enterprise to remain viable. Now, it's not too controversial a statement when it comes to writing books, but things like medicines are a little more complicated. Things like oil and gas, dare I say, are a little bit more complicated. And, again, I really don't want to defend some of these enterprises because they are really not.

56:00And I'm really not because there's absolutely things to get your blood boiling and get very furious about. But I think the criticisms that get leveled sometimes are a little bit too myopic and miss out on the reality of that kind of stuff, you know. So it's sort of like, you know, Colts and Woolies are the other ones. Oh, I found this packet of Bickies and look at this and the margin is insane. But what's the average over time? What does that matter, you know? And you have to fold all of this kind of stuff in. So anyway, I hope you're in the 20%, not the 80 % when it comes to the book. I don't know what my point is.

56:38That's up to our listeners. They can choose to make me in the 20 % or the 80 % if they want. So that's no pressure. But you know, don't let it be in vain. Don't let it be in vain, please. No, mate, thank you. You're very calm, Matt. Thanks again, both you and listeners, for letting me be entirely self-indulgent for that one. So it's kind of cool and just a really fun thing to have done. It's kind of nice to see that. The cover is not released yet. The cover has been done, so I've seen a digital version of that. You can pre-order a copy and all that kind of fun stuff. I did have someone on Insta speaking to Insta saying they wanted a – can long-time listeners get a signed copy?

57:11As I said, unfortunately, the author margin is so small, this one, that it would cost me about 10 times what I'd get out of it, send out free copies. But I'm happy to sign some if people want to have them signed. I was asked by the publisher, hey, do you want to do a book launch? and I said oh if it helps I'll show it I said no it doesn't help I'll just say the author can celebrate I'm like we know to stroke the right ego that's what it was it was almost like they asked very nicely but afterwards I'm like they just asked because they felt like they should do you really want to have one because it doesn't help anything it's not going to be worthwhile but you can do it if you want so that was interesting so I may do something actually around here I get plenty of people sorry I mean Barrel as people know and I get plenty of people who just like the fact the barrel pops up on the TV screen.

57:57So I might do something. I'm just a little bookshop here. There's a little independent bookshop here, the bookshop barrel, which is quite cool. So we'll see. I want you to rock up in a tweed jacket with a scarf and a beret. If you don't, I'll be very disappointed. I don't know. And you must have leather patches on the elbows. Of course, of course. You know. A pipe? I was going to say a pipe, yes. Is that too Sherlock Holmes? No, absolutely not. I want the full author vibe from you. oh hell yeah hell yeah okay okay an off the chart sense of self-worth they have to call people dear and yeah that's right that's right lovey and all that sort of stuff that's right oh dear that would be a thing wouldn't it not sure about that we'll see how it goes it's so funny Motley Fool Money for more subscribe to the free newsletter at fool.com.au forward slash listener

58:50Mates, you have warned slash invited slash threatened our listeners with a conversation about inflation for the past hour. So if I didn't get to it, it would explode off air. It would have been a thousandth episode if we didn't at least do one pet topic, right? That's true. That's true. That's true. So let's do that. This week, 4.6 % for the year to March, up from 3.7 % for the year to February. Obviously, transport. I was asked on TV, what's causing that? I was like, I appreciate the question. We all know. It's fuel prices, which have been up and down and backwards over the past month and a half.

59:24And again, by the way, this is March data. and we're now at the end of it. In fact, this is the first day of May when this goes out. We're recording it on the last day of April. So, I mean, we're still a month delayed and we know kind of what's been up and down over time since then. The core inflation stayed steady at 3.3%. Most concerning for me, mate, not only was core inflation still high, but actually I'll come back to that. It's never been in the target range since COVID, right? And almost every category was either flat or up. So while people will say, including the politicians, oh, it's just oil.

59:54Oil is absolutely responsible for the bump up. Totally, by definition, right? But the fact we're still at 3.3%. I had someone on Twitter say to me, oh, yeah, but Coors is only 3.3%. That's a great result. And I just thought it was really interesting. Well, when someone's hitting you over the head with a steel baseball bat, and then they move to like a balsa wood bat, it's like, I'll take it, I suppose. And that was it. It's that full recency bias of it's been so high in the past few years. 3.3 % feels good. Like it genuinely feels like, oh, it's only 3.3%. Well, that's okay then. I'm only losing 40 % of my purchasing power over every decade.

1:00:27That's it. And that's the point you need to keep making to people because it doesn't feel like. It feels, firstly, less than it used to be. And 3 % doesn't feel like a lot. It's only 3%. I mean, you know, 3 % of anything is a small amount of money. And so it's not a huge problem, is it? Until you do do that, as you say, Matt, that zoom out. But I'm probably still going to fund you on to rent, so let's do it. Oh, there's so much to say. So if I want to steal my neighbour's petrol, I just siphon out five litres a day. That's right. I don't drain the tank. Like, he's going to wise up to that very quickly.

1:01:00And, you know, I'm going to – so you do it slowly. The best way to steal anything is slowly and in a way that's not easily noticed. Hello to all the central bankers listening. Yeah. Well, I guess you made the key point that I wanted to make, which is that it's – No, no, you did it really well. there's so much to say on it. It's not to, it really isn't, please believe me when I say this, just to try and make it negative for the sake of, you know, the bar humbugness of that. But it is a real thing, right? And I just feel as though, as always the case with financial and economic reporting, it's very shallow.

1:01:39And so I feel like it needs to be rounded out a bit, not to try and prosecute an agenda, although let's be real, there's part of that. If we end up there, so hit. That's just where we found ourselves, then okay. But also, I mean, too often these things get thrown around as if they're sort of obvious and self-evident and it just means what it means and there's no need to sort of pick at it. And I just think there's a couple of things that's sort of interesting about all of this. The first one is that, yes, even if you take out petrol, you're still at a very, very high rate. It doesn't feel high, but it is very high and it's even above what they actually target, right?

1:02:20So that's a real thing. The other thing, and I've made the point many times, is that this is an average that is relevant to no one because the standard deviations around it, like some people will find that their personal inflation target was personal inflation rate was not that much. Others, it was really bad. Let's focus on the bad because that's actually not because that's more fun and pessimism is cooler. as everyone knows, but because that's actually most people on a numerical basis. And so I dug into some of the methodologies that's on the ABS website. And so the weighting of fuel is 3.3%.

1:03:01So it's a basket of goods. So we throw in some housing and we sort of, well, housing's usually about 23 % of the average person's expenditure. There's about 60 % of our audience who are driving right now who just careen into the side of the road like, effing what? I can tell you right now, I'm spending more than my take home pay on that. But put yourself in that situation and like, think about what it costs to fill up the car on, or cars on a weekly basis, right? And ask yourself, is that 3.3 % of your take home pay? And I don't have to guess because the ABS actually publishes living cost index indices.

1:03:39There's actually a whole bunch of subtle things that they sort of publish when you sort of look at it, which tries to address some of these questions. So let's look at things like, I don't know, shelter, health, like medicine, food, fuel. When you look at all of those things and you look at the proportion that is spent on a minimum wage earner, it is well above it. So there'll be people, this is why it's a little, I get a little bit irritated. It's almost like an unintentional gaslighting from economists that, oh, it's really not that bad. The economy is in great shape. But it's just like we all live in our own bubbles.

1:04:15There is a very significant, again, a majority of people out there whose personal rate of inflation is well above 4.6%. They don't get to do a hedonic adjustment. They don't get to do a, oh, I'm removing this cost because it's a volatile item, right? For a lot of these people, it's like, well, I can tell you right now. In In fact, I looked it up for the person on the minimum wage, which is about$94 ,000 a year, I'm reliably informed. Minimum wage? That'd be average wage, I think. Sorry, sorry, median. Sorry, you're right. Median wage. Median wage, which is even better. The average is higher than that because, you know, the Gina Reinhart sort of skew everything up there.

1:04:56But the housing cost is closer to 65%. So it's about three times higher than what is accounted for in the basket. And so with any economic data, I can cut it to prove any kind of point. And I'm very hyper aware of that. But I do think it's still worth pointing out that, again, if this was just, oh, I'm going to selectively look at the bottom 3 % and tell how bad it is for that, and therefore everything's a disaster, when others would argue, actually, we're all being lifted up. and it's more about the total than the distribution and all of these sort of clever arguments, a majority of people I think will be looking at this and going this is actually way worse than that.

1:05:34And in fact, if I cumulatively add it up since pre-COVID times in the last seven years, it's probably life has gotten a lot harder. And I just make that point. And I think often when we or anyone sort of discussing this, whether or not that sounds right, I think very much depends on your personal bubble. So there's, and again, I know I've made this point a lot as well, but there's very much a K-shaped sort of recovery that we've had. If you have assets, and for most Australians, if you own a house or you're in the process of paying off a house, it's not as though you haven't felt the cost of living pressures, but man, it's pretty, well, I wouldn't say easy.

1:06:18It's easier to deal with a 30 % increase in the cost of living over the last six years if your asset value has gone up 87%, right? Like, and particularly if that asset value is a million dollar home. Like, yeah, things feel a bit more expensive at the petrol pump and at the supermarket and all the rest of it. But I'm just, I'm on a net basis far richer than I was. And so those people aren't wrong. And there's a lot of people in this category. Mate, I'm in this category. You're in this category, right? Let's be real about it. And so that's not a flex, right? But it's acknowledging that when I look at things, it's sort of like, yeah, I grumble about all of this stuff.

1:07:04But then you've got to look at the person who is renting. Like rents have gone up so much. In fact, I looked this up as well. and I think what gets lost in all of these numbers with adjustments and dollar terms and rates of change and the rest of it is that we move away from what really matters as a human being. And what really matters is how long do I have to go to work this week to pay for what I need to pay for? Time is money, money is time, and it's more than just a cute saying. It's actually literally true. And if you want to look at, let's go back 20 years, the average worker had to work.

1:07:41So this is the person, I should say the median worker, on the median rate of pay, had to work 17 hours in a 40-hour work week, about 2.2 odd days, to pay for the essentials. So when you take, you just look at the non-discretionary components of the CPI, the food, the healthcare, the petrol, the shelter, that kind of thing. Fast forward to today, 2026, that same median person is now having to spend 17.4 hours to cover the same thing. I'll admit, mate, when I started going down this road, I thought this is going to be so devastating. The prejudice was just oozing out of me. The bias, you know, it's going to be double.

1:08:24It's like, oh, it's not that bad. Bugger, bugger. Well, it's kind of like 3.5 is not that bad when you've been dealing with 6%. That's it, that's it. But it really got me thinking, and I'm going to try and do this. I'm not going to do a good job of it. But I would say this, and I'd love the pushback or I'd love a different perspective on it. We've got to, as a country, I suppose, or just people, stop talking about the economy as if the only thing that matters is the rate of unemployment and the level of GDP growth. I'll put this to you as I would say what matters, what is a good economy and what is an economy that improves?

1:09:09Is it that I'm doing more stuff and making more stuff? Well, if I make double the amount of stuff, but I've worked four times as long, aren't I going backwards? So that's not a good measure. I would say that the only test, the only rational test of economic progress is that we, on average, as a society, are getting more stuff for less work. I think that's pretty good. More stuff or better stuff. Yeah. Or the same stuff, but working less for it. Yes, I think. And you know what? One of those combinations, because if that is not true, sorry, I'll shut up in a minute. If that is not true, what's the bloody point?

1:09:48What do you want for your kids? I want a bigger economy because that's better, right? I don't give a crap. I'm not the economy. Every single one of us live in our own heads. We all have our own subjective experience. And you can tell me from your ivory tower until the cows come home about whatever economic measure you want. But if I am working harder every day to get what I used to get, and here's the other thing. Over that 20-year period, I put it to you, have we gotten better at making stuff? Have we gotten more efficient? We know that the productivity is not great, but it's still positive and it's still moving forward.

1:10:24We've had 20 years of enhanced productivity, maybe not at the rate we'd like, but still getting a lot better. And yet when you look at the essentials, we're working longer than ever. now that strikes me you can we talked before about you know when we were earlier on the episode joking about these arbitrary definitions of correction and crash and recession we are when i say we i would say there is a very significant proportion of the population at least 30 percent who would who have been in a recession for a long long time because things on that measure which I think is a pretty sound, rational kind of definition of what matters when we talk about the economy, is life's gotten harder.

1:11:11The usual pushback is, oh, but you've got to make the hedonic adjustment. Yeah, housing's more expensive, but it's a better house now. Or yeah, yeah, you know, your iPhone hasn't got any cheaper, but now it's 10 times as many megapixels in your thing or whatever. And I feel as though that's a bit of a sleight of hand because technology always moves forward. Technology is a consequence of innovation risk. you know, there's always an incentive to do that because if you get it right, you can make a lot of money. And that is true in any kind of system. So to point at someone who made something better and then say, that's okay that you're working longer just to have a house and to put food on the table, it kind of, it muddies the water here.

1:11:53But you can even go a step further and say, well, okay, let's just strip out that. You know what was the same in 2006 is the same as today is going to be the same in 2046? A steak, a kilowatt hour, a litre of unleaded petrol. There's actually, when you go down it, like we love to look at our gadgets in our pocket, go look how advanced we're, look how far we've come. A steak is a steak is a steak. A pound of minced beef, you know, I'm going blank here, but, you know, I'm trying to think of a non-meat-based good. loaf of bread i got a big barbecue recently i'm all about meat at the moment yeah and apple and like you know these things yeah and again what what is so stark here is we have gotten better at making them we've gotten more efficient in every single way shape or form and and and in the future i'm going to go out there i don't care what ai is going to do i probably will eat bread, buy milk, buy steak or buy vegetables, whatever, you know, whatever I like to sort of eat.

1:12:59I'm still going to be using a kilowatt of hour, you know, I will still have an energy demand. And those things have gotten at best, they've held part. And that's the other, yes, it's gone up, but wages have gone up. But it's like, yeah, but not, one, there's a lag and two, not to the almost in step, but not in step. And so I just put it to you and it's not to be, sorry, Matt, I will shut up after this. It's not to be bar humbug for the start of it, but I think this is what so many of the politicians sort of miss and want. Why is everyone so disgruntled for? It doesn't make any sense. I'm doing really well.

1:13:32My investment properties are up, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Everyone's whinging. And it's like, that's it, Einstein. That's as simple as that. You know, point to an iPhone and say, shut up and be happy for the fact that you're working longer than ever. It's like, it is really, let me put it this way. It is nowhere near as good as it should have been given the technological progress that we have made. Life should be getting easier. We should all have a lot more stuff or should be working a lot less. If those things aren't true, we are not progressing as an economy. That's the point I wanted to make.

1:14:06So I 98.36 % agree with you. I think you're absolutely right. It is, we should be measuring our prosperity by what we have versus what we have to put in above a certain level of utility, to use the economist's word. In other words, I've only got to work an hour a week. Yeah, but you're eating flour and water. Okay, well, I could work more and have more. Okay, so there's also working more and having more if that's what we choose. Except that, that's kind of part of the problem, right? Because everything you say is true. There's two additions, not objections, not disagreements, two additions I would make.

1:14:45First thing is the hedonic adjustment is actually real, not only at a product-by-product base, it's just at a human level. So the poverty line has lifted over the last 50 years, partly, decently, because we have a new standard of what minimum acceptable living standards are. If we lived with 1950s standards of living, we would all have a lot more. And so there is that, the heroic adjustment is really real. And it's not to say what you said is not right, but it's just we need to keep it into account. Because if I said I'll have a black and white TV, one car, you know, a washing machine, no tumble dryer, no air conditioning, how much would that cost me to live?

1:15:26The answer would be probably a third of what I spend now. Yeah. Okay. Now, do I want to do that? No. So the headhonic adjustment is really limited. I say that because part of it is, you know, we should have more with less or the same with less. Most people, because they're headhonic adjustment over here. You're saying if we do the same amount of work, but it's better, that's the adjustment. Or we work more because we want even more. That would be okay too. And well, once I say it's okay, I think it's a stupid thing to do. But I'm also mindful that humans are humans, right? So kind of like I'm doing it.

1:15:53I am calling myself stupid and without a second's hesitation, right? Because I could go back to 1990 living standards. No, 2000 living standards if I wanted to. And I could work less and do it. Or I could retire early. I would push back on that. I would push back on that. Only because you can't. because the cars are available in 1992, aren't available today. The TVs from back then are not available today. So what you really need when you buy a car is not the Bluetooth speaker and the on-screen display. What you need is transport, right? And so all you can do, we can't choose the backgrounds of our circumstances.

1:16:31You know, all I know is I need to be out of the rain and I need food in my stomach and I need transport. And if I get sick, I need to go see a GP. Now, the GP might be doing slightly different stuff than they were in 1992 or whenever. But, you know, that requirement as a service is still, it's, I would just, it's not that you're wrong there. I think there's a valid point to it. But it's sort of like, it's an intellectual argument that's not practically achievable. Because it almost, which economists are great at this, is it almost puts the blame on the person. And hey, things have not gotten nearly as good as they should have, but it's your fault for wanting better.

1:17:12And it's like, well, show me the life, show me the 1992 options that I can purchase and live. I just don't have it. And the other thing you notice with the March of Human Progress is that luxuries very soon become essentials. Correct. And there is no - That's my point. That's my point. Yeah. There's no better point, well, there's no better example than things like the internet and the smartphone. You'll see plenty of homeless people with the smartphone. How many TVs? How big of the TVs? Yeah. How do you apply for a job without it? How do you stay in contact? Is it a luxury to have the internet or is it an absolutely essential utility?

1:17:45Are you going to send your kids to school without, you know, access to the internet? Yeah, that's right. That's right. No, it's not a luxury. And then to say, ah, but so you should be happy. So I just push back a little bit on that point. I think it's worth pointing out the fact that we – my point is that the poverty line grew because we said that the basics – there are more basics that we assume people should have. I'm not saying this wrong, mate. So which takes me to my second point, right? So that was my first point. It links in because the challenge is, and it's not, again, you're not wrong about anything you say.

1:18:20The question is how do you measure that? Because we're really talking about, I've said it a million times, right? GDP is fine. Even better is GDP per capita. Even better than that is GDP per capita in some sort of distribution sense. So averages higher a lot, as you've already pointed out. That's better than GDP per capita averaged out or in deciles or quartiles is living standards, which are measured by real incomes, not just GDP per capita. Even better than that is quality of life. And that gets stupidly squishy because it has to and it should, right? I value my leisure time. Can I count that?

1:18:54No. Can I work it out per hour? No. Can I put it into a GDP or real wage number? No. I like to sit on the balcony and sit my cognac in my pre-jacket with my patches and look at the birds. And I want to do that more. Okay, well, I did it twice as much. Where do I sit that in the national accounts? Well, you can't. What about personal accounts? Well, you can't. Bank balance? No. It doesn't shop at all. It just doesn't, right? And so I say that because it's adding to your point. But I want to make the broader point that even any of the stats, we say GDP sucks, there's lots that are better. Wherever we stop on that, even your point about the more for less or more for more or less for the same or whatever those numbers are, that's still an economic measurement.

1:19:36And it's a very, very, very reasonable one. I would just go a little bit further. And you know what I talked about before. At some point, I'm going to retire. I'm going to be very, very happy and I'm going to be unproductive and uneconomic and I'm going to drag down the national averages and I'm going to be happy, right? Yeah. And so an economist would say, oh, my God, the economy's got worse. The country's worse. We're worse off now. It's like, dude, I'm retired. I'm doing whatever the hell I want. I'm really happy. Thanks very much. And by the same token, someone who couldn't afford to live in the heart of the CBD or whatever now has to commute for two hours.

1:20:03Exactly. They're doing the same job, but now actually they're helping the economy because now they're having to commute for two hours and spend all that extra money on fuel. This is a good thing. An economist will look at that, not overtly, but like indirectly go, oh, that's a good thing. More money was spent. Exactly. Yeah, but I have to, I used to be able to, a lovely 15-minute walk to work now. It's a two-hour commute each way, stuck in traffic where I want to kill myself because I just, who likes traffic, right? But the economy's bigger now. But the economy's bigger. Exactly. And he's got unproductive, you know, you reduce the velocity of money or some BS, you know, and it's just, not to completely diminish everything there, but it's just, we too often miss, I think what the quote unquote man in the street would recognize as economic progress.

1:20:55the punter what what it means why does the economy matter other than the two nerds on a podcast can talk about gdp figures and the rest like it matters because it is it is a it is the mechanism by which we satisfy our needs and wants and it there is there is nothing that makes more sense than as a species striving towards a a more for less or and that that that sounds hedonistic like we must want more and we must and i'm not even saying that it's either that right or the same but for less like who here listening if given the opportunity if i could wave a wand and say you can have everything you have now but you only have to work half as much yeah who wouldn't take that deal right now some people go well can i work the same but earn twice as much yeah you can either of those options personally subjective whatever you want to do no one no one unless you're an idiot goes, you know what?

1:21:58I would love to have a little bit less for the same amount of effort. Thank you. And here's the final point that I'll make, which I just, I think it's the thousandth episode and I've just, I can't let it go past without having a go at the central bank, modern economic mindset. So if all of this setting of interest rates and money manipulation was a, and I use the word manipulation just in the standard definition of the word. I don't mean to load that. I mean, when you are changing something, you are manipulating it, right? But let's drop the baggage and let's say, actually, it's worthwhile doing that.

1:22:38We want inflation, but if we do it right, we'll have two to 3 % inflation, but real wages will grow even faster. So I put it to you. If we have over a 20-year, so there's volatility, there's short-term factors, but when you look over a multi-decade kind of timeframe, and we have actually seen real wages lag that, it is empirical evidence, black and white, that the policy hasn't worked. In other words, I could totally get on board with inflation is good. It's like, okay, it sucks. I don't like things getting more expensive, but it stimulates all this economic growth and it means that I can get more for less or work less for the same.

1:23:28Like those starting points. And I'm not making a value judgment. I'm stating empirical fact here. And even though, as I said to you, I was a little bit surprised that it wasn't worse than it was, but we have gone backwards in spite of all of this kind of stuff. And we're working longer. and so all the things are going the wrong way. All of the things are going, and okay, I've got an electric vehicle that can self-drive and do all this stuff, but when it comes to having somewhere to live, eating food, seeing the GP and having transport, those essential items, and particularly because, again, we're just talking about the average and it looks bad with the average, and you want to take a bottom third of the population, it's probably about bottom 40-odd percent or something, but I'm talking literally millions and millions of households have been far worse than that.

1:24:18It's not to be a doomer for the sake of it. It's just pointing it out. It's just like, this is not good. This is not what we should aim for. And if someone out there is going to sit in Martin Place and tell me, I'm going to put your interest rate up because there's a war in the Middle East, because you're buying too much bread and milk and all this kind of stuff, I would at least go, okay, but can you point to me a period, any meaningful period since you guys formed where this has actually led to an increase in real purchasing power over time and it hasn't so it's failed by its own measure even if you accept the philosophy so it's a bizarre thing that like even if even if monetary manipulation was a good thing we should still see deflation in real terms and an increase in purchasing power is a better way to put at it.

1:25:10And I find it really stark and I would love, not for as a gotcha, but as a genuine talk me off this ledge here, what am I missing? I would love to do a Lex Friedman six hour long deep dive interview with Michelle Bullock or any of the people at the RBA and say, point to how this has helped and use figures, use your own figures and show that. Because when I look at your figures, things have gotten backwards. The only exception is when you look at the top. And that's been the other great theme of our time is this growing wealth disparity as well. So it's sort of like, cool. It's kind of nice for those people.

1:25:52And frankly, I'm putting myself within those people. We tend to talk about billionaires. Ah, bloody this and that. And it's just like, actually, what you really like, any sort of household with a combined income of sort to like 250 ,000, 300 ,000, which is a lot of money, right? But actually there's millions of households on that who own their house and have bought assets who have share portfolios. Actually, life is good, man. Life is really, really, really good. And so I don't, but to have this challenge put to the powers that be, it's just like, well, that's just as wrong as me pointing at the bottom 1 % and saying, see how crap things are, you guys have failed.

1:26:31They go, well, that's not fair. You've got to look at the average. And that's all I'm saying. Look at the median, in fact, is even better. And when you've got a significant number and more, you know, I'm talking very, very significant number of going backward over a very, very long period of time, even though there's been no technical, quote unquote, recession, even though productivity has moved forward, not as much as we like, but it has sort of still nevertheless moved forward. even though we've had in these incredible mind bending technology, altering, you know, breakthroughs in terms of engineering and the rest of it, even though that we've got this globalization, I can buy things for a fraction of a fraction of a, you know, what I used to be able to pay for in Australia is now made in China.

1:27:14All of that, all of that. And life for, for most of us is getting backwards. It's just a fail. I'm sorry, I'm on a roll, but I'll shut up now. But it's like, where's the rationale for it? You're either incompetent at your job or the whole thing is a bust as a concept. I've got to say, mate, for all of that, what's remarkable too is we have failed spectacularly in Australia specifically. So there is a broad conversation. So true. And I think it's actually, you'll take exception to this, that's fine. With all the luck that we've had. Well, but it's broader than just inflation. And I know you all say it's at the heart of everything, and I'm sure that's true in an absolute sense.

1:27:54But I don't think we've printed any more money than the US, for example. In fact, I'm sure we haven't. And yet our results are worse. And so I think the other thing is... And we're sitting on trillions of dollars worth of natural resources, right? So I don't want to set you off on another one. Housing has got to be at the core of this. Because if you... It is. You mentioned the proportion of income spent on these things. If you're able to reduce that component of outlay and then look at what happens to real wages, then look at what happens to prices, things change remarkably. And I think there is definitely that component, which is just, yes, it's money printing.

1:28:30Yes, it's inflation broadly. By definition, it's true. But the lack of productivity growth, the lack of economic advancement outside asset prices is a really significant portion of it. So I think if you take that, and then, look, I mean, I'm not going to start on a sovereign wealth fund because we've done enough ranting today, but Norway's funding 25 % of its national budget is funded by proceeds from its sovereign wealth fund. Now, here's the thing. Actually, I wasn't going to go off on it. I'm going off on a very short one. A very, very, very short one. Do it. If, imagine being in Australia, and either you get to, well, we don't all get to choose, but we can choose as a country.

1:29:07We've got three choices. Imagine, imagine if we put aside, now, people say Australia's structure is not the same as Norway's. I don't care. It's not... Let's see the directionally for a second. We could have 25 % more government services. We could have free university. We could have free... Whatever the hell you want. We could pay less tax. So the first one is you have more government services. So the government could do more stuff. Here's 25 % more money, federal government. Oh, great. We get to have no tolls on our roads. Or we get to have 25 % more parks. Or we get to have better bridges. Or we get to have better healthcare.

1:29:40We get to have shorter queues at hospitals. We get to have more kids, all that good stuff, right? That's all really positive. The second bit is the bit where we say, or we can pay 25 % less tax. So imagine then at an individual level. Either or, sign me up. Or somewhere in between. The third one is, what if you had 10 % more staff and 15 % less tax? Or 20 % more staff and 5 % less tax? Or 23 % more staff and 2 % less tax? Or 2 % more staff and 23 % less tax? And by the way, this isn't a one-off sugar hit. This is imperpetuity funding. Yes, literally. And none of that will go up. So Norway's currently having 25 % of its budget funded by the Sovereign Wealth Fund.

1:30:15They're still growing the fund. The fund is going to give out more money in 5 and 10 and 15 and 20 years' time. Does that get to 30%, 35, 50? I don't know what the number is. I mean, eventually, frankly, Norway funds its entire government expenditure from the smarts of putting some money aside once upon a time. It's really, really that simple. Well, Saudi's similar, right? Yeah. With their natural endowment. And we have that choice. We absolutely have that choice. We can do those things should we choose to. So I think, you know, look, you and I have our own hobby horses, mate, but I think we could probably reasonably agree.

1:30:50If we could reduce inflation, preferably to zero, but, you know, even just directionally, if we could reduce inflation, if we could reduce the cost of housing. Can I refine that? Please, please, please. I don't even care about inflation. What I want is I want my purchasing power to increase. Fair. I know it's a pedantic sort of difference. It feels as though, but it's not. No, it's important. Yeah, it's a good point. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So inflation 3%, cool. I don't care. I get a 6 % pay rise each year. Sign me up. I don't have a problem with that. I mean, there's this issue with the cash you hold deteriorating, but that's a second order, sound money kind of conversation.

1:31:21Feel free, by the way, to get those thousand episodes. Two of those, you want sound money. I won. Yeah, great purchasing power. Absolutely. I mean, that's a general, but housing in particular, more affordable housing, i.e. housing as a lower multiple of incomes or a lower proportion of your income. and a sovereign wealth that actually captured the value of our assets for us. Surprise, that'd be a remarkable thing, wouldn't it? Such a no-brainer. Any combination of those three, let alone all three together and to the full, it's an enormous opportunity. It's huge. Can I say one more thing on that as well?

1:31:57It's very easy to say, wouldn't it be great if this, this and this? Like, yeah. But the follow-up to that isn't that it's like, here's a four million page report on how to do it and it's just super hard, but I think if we get enough geniuses in the room, we can thread the needle. Everything that you've said there is like, we can figure it out. We just stopped doing it. We can figure it out. In fact, people have figured it out. So this isn't like, oh, wouldn't it be great and we could do this and if only someone was smart enough to figure it out. Like, no, no, no. We know how to do it, you know.

1:32:28Take your finger away from the bloody money printer button. Step one, right? Stop distorting interest rates artificially too low. stop you know sending you know finite assets or giving them away like just this is really really really easy stuff and it would have such a radical improvement on things and it's just like it makes you weep it's i think the reason we tolerate it is it's the petrol analogy again like you're only the the theft is sort of theft isn't the right shouldn't use the right word but the pain is very gradual, right? So you don't notice it. But also, you know, and again, we forget this in Australia, life is still pretty, despite all my humbuggery, you know, things are pretty good.

1:33:16I wouldn't live anywhere else. And like life in a lot of ways is getting better. So it's not being negative for the sake of it. It's about sort of saying what you don't see is the silent evidence of history, of the alternate history. It's just like, yeah, things have gotten better for a lot of people in a lot of ways. My point is, is that things should have gotten a lot better for a lot more people, not through some magic, you know, sprinkling of economic fairy dust that somehow makes it all happen. But just by doing very common sense, clear things. And again, I'll point out here, because this is usually the other retort here is that it's sort of someone will find some area which doesn't solve every single problem for every single person straight away in an instant in time.

1:33:59And therefore, it's not worth doing. It seems as though things that you're suggesting, like I'm sure you've had that. I think a sovereign welfare is like, oh, but this, this, this. And they'll find this narrow, legitimate, but narrow negative on it. and it's sort of like you're not looking at it holistically or in aggregate Scott's not proposing this because he thinks that we it leads us into a promised land of paradise that no one shall ever want for anything more it's just it's just better it's like the analogy I always give it it's like self-driving cars you know the benchmark isn't no accidents it's just less accidents than humans have people will still die in in self-driving electric vehicles right I still think we should do it you know i think that life for most australians would be better if we stopped doing all this stupid stuff but still some people will still um have more privilege than others and things will still be unequal and they'll still be suffering in the world yeah absolutely and we should do everything we can try to to fix it but some of these problems are really hard my point is that some of these problems are not that hard they're really not that hard and it's about direction not not not absolutely okay not only perfectly the enemy of the good so if we made things a lot better but it wasn't perfect would we do that no no it needs to be perfect yeah so let's just keep doing this really dumb thing right right because which itself is even worse right i just i i've so i've i've got a a interlocutor on on twitter who every time i mention norway so i was not the same as norway for these reasons we're like yeah right okay sure but but i'm missing the forest for the trees yes yes you're right okay good so let's accept that now let's move on do something more like norway but it's not the same i know that's the point I get that on Singapore.

1:35:36Oh, there's these things. Yeah, Singapore has got its problem. Believe you me. And I would not paper over them anyway. Let's just learn from it. Yeah. So it's just like there are lessons there to be had, you know? That's crazy. You know, the great example here is I was just reading a bit more on the history of China after Mao. It's just like it's sort of this, even to this day, we call it a communist country. It's like, no, it's a market-driven economy. with sort of a totalitarian wrapper around the top of it. But something like 70 % of jobs are in the private sector, I think. But what it gets to is that prices are determined through market interaction.

1:36:19And again, people go, oh, but here's a narrow example. Yes, I know that there are absolutely state control. I'm not that dumb. And absolutely, there's a spectrum here. And on the slider of that spectrum, things are much closer to communism than they are to laissez-faire free market capitalism as well. But the reason I pointed out is because one, it is very much majority driven market based economy with all the usual funny buggers and crony capitalistic crap that goes around all of that. But if ever you needed evidence of a good system, right? Literal famines, literal famines agrarian culture uh scratching the living in the dirt to in fact i i would say the richest country on if you look at it in terms of gdp it's second if you look at it in terms of purchasing power parity which just a fancy way of saying how much can i get for the work that i do which call me crazy i think that's probably a better measure um they they passed the us in 2017 or something like that, right?

1:37:20And it's like, again, it's not to shift the conversation too much, but sometimes you can really look at clear evidence of things. Poland is a wonderful example as well. Singapore is a great example. Hong Kong is a great example. East Germany, West Germany, great example. North Korea, South Korea, great example. A whole bunch of stuff that's happened in Latin American countries, you know, on to Chavez and all this. Like just, you know, Argentina used to be the richest country on earth a century ago. until you know and it's sort of like i just making the point here that we started off by reminiscing on how in 10 years we haven't really said anything new or not original we're just saying the same ancient wisdom that we didn't invent right you know we've said nothing on the shoulders of giants right it is all it is and and manga talks about this all the time you know no one's too smart so smart that they can figure everything out for themselves but it's just like it strikes me that i'm really nervous in the current climate where populism is on the rise where living standards for a lot of people are and this is for full circle just back to inflation you're just genuinely empirically objectively getting worse for for millions and millions and millions of households and and the things that i think that we're saying it's not so much that people there can't be nuance and there can't be debate but it's just rejected out of hand that's that's what pulls makes me pull my hair it's just like if i'm if what i am saying is so crazy and ridiculous and reckless show it to me don't just wave your hands around and make a statement as if it's a self-evident truth when you know like show me the data and how this is better and and i i can point to a million things again it's not as an usher us into a golden age of prosperity that likes of the world has never seen before but actually in that direction right right yeah just better i don't know dude i don't know i just i just yeah and just to sort of say yeah but you've got an iphone and things a little bit better than they were it's just like yeah but the and so and so what am i saying with all of this kind of stuff i come back to the i come back to the you can rant and rave but but also just just consider that i think with your investing and with your personal finances, with all of this kind of stuff, I think it leads you, we can do it.

1:39:45We're not out of time now. We'll do it in another episode, but, and we've touched on it before anyway, so it's no great surprise. You can't choose the game you're playing, but you can choose the way that you play the game. And that's where my thinking's really evolved in the last 10 years. I didn't understand money back then. And I didn't understand how the system worked. I still don't, but I feel I've got a better handle on it. And I I think the reason that is worth talking about is not because it's just inherently interesting in and of itself, but we are ostensibly a finance and investing podcast.

1:40:15And it's an important kind of mental model to have if you're going to be allocating capital and selling your time, your resources, all your capital in any way, shape or form to improve your quality of life. You've got to make sure you're playing the right game for the environment you find yourself in. Yeah, nicely put. I want to finish, mate, just by kind of drawing a couple of threads from what you said. And it's kind of, it's a nice bookend to the podcast because you said before, for all the things we just ranted about, there's no way you'd rather live. And so I think that's kind of, you know, my general refrain is we are incredibly bloody lucky, but we can always be better.

1:40:53Absolutely. And keeping those two things in your head at the same, it's really important, right? Running down the country because, oh, this is bad, that's bad. And it's like, well, it's bad relative to where you'd like it to be. It may have been bad relative to where it was X years ago, but man, I wouldn't swap our problems for anyone's. And so the answer here is not go to live in somewhere else. I mean, you can if you want, knock yourself out. But it's not that. It's we are bloody lucky and we are very well off and we are very, you know, things are objectively great, right? But they're not as good as some.

1:41:22In some cases, they have been and certainly not as good as they could be. And so the call is let's take the great stuff and improve it because why the hell wouldn't you? And the right framework is not just make the GDP number bigger. It is all those things we've just spent time talking about, which is actually let's make life better. Let's make sure people have a better quality of life, not standard of living, not GDP per capita, not even real wages. Although, again, they'd be better than nothing. But overall, are you having a better life? Is life better now than it was five years? No, not if you're crook and not if you've got problems.

1:41:55Just objectively, is the quality of your life better overall? And yes, on average. And yes, averages even hide a lot of stuff. Medians hide a lot of stuff. Just because Gina's better off doesn't mean I am. Just because I'm better off doesn't mean you are. Just because you're better off doesn't mean I am. But overall, are we going in the right direction? And that's not a – it shouldn't be a difficult question. Well, I don't think we are. I don't think we are. I don't think we are. I mean, I think over a 100-year period, over a 50-year period, yeah, but over the last 20, 30 years, I just – on the numbers, we're standing still.

1:42:23Particularly the last 10, actually. I'm not sure it's the last 20 or 30, but the last 10 in particular where you see real wages genuinely drop away. I think 2016 or 17, I think, was the top. I've got some numbers. Where's the numbers? I can't find them now. That's a long period of time. It is a long period of time. Yeah. That's a long period of time. So real wages grew. I mean, there were drops. There were drops in 2005, drops in 2008, obviously. So it goes up and down because averages do that. But broadly, the line was up and to the right between 2002 and 2019. And we went from a base index of 100 to index of 117.

1:42:56This is some numbers in macro business via the ABS. Up to 117, the index. So, 17 % increase in real wages over that 27-year period. From there, the index of 117, we fell to 108. Now, that feels good because it's still better than 100, but we lost half of the gains between 2020 and 2022 that we'd made over the previous two decades or best part of. And we're still not back. The level we are now, according to their numbers, actually, I've got, yeah, RBA projection numbers suggest by 2027 we'll be at 2011 levels. So, we've had a lost 17 years. That is just, I won't say objectively true because we haven't got there yet.

1:43:32It may differ by the time we get there. So just hold that asterisk because it's important. But if the RBA is right with their projection, it'll be roughly right within whatever percent because it's not like an economic forecast. It's like real wages are going to be up or minus. The range is going to be a percentage point either way in terms of wages versus inflation because it probably just will. We will be at 2011 levels in 2027. I mean, that is an indictment. That is an indictment in a world where we have had China gobbling up anything we can dig out of the ground, you know, where asset values are going through.

1:44:04Imagine how wealth moves all over that period of time. And it's not just even that. And again, it's a two-speed economy. So your perspective on it will depend on where you sort of sit in it. And, you know, there's just probably not a lot of people at the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum listening to this, not because they're not interested or not capable. Dude, I have not listened to that. I've got no money to invest. What are you talking about? Like, oh, should I do that? Should I? I got nothing left after I go to the doctor and pay for the food and put petrol in the car. And it is, as I say, it is absolute.

1:44:37Would I change it? No, I'm happy to be here. But for a lot of people, that is not true. And it's just, as I say, there's nothing more to sort of flog this horse with other than to say in objective empirical terms, for very, very significant parts of our wonderfully blessed country, we are going backwards. We are going backwards. And so, you know, even if you want to use GDP, you've often said, well, let's use GDP per capita at the very least. Like that's been in a recession for two years or something. Seven of the last nine quarters or something, yeah. Like this is not good news in any way, shape or form.

1:45:16And, you know, I always think too, don't forget the Greeks looked around at their civilization in awe. And it's like, no one has ever had it this way. The Romans did the same, you know, and it's sort of like, and they would have said, gosh, at least we're not the Gauls over in France, those godless heathens, you know, still living in the mud or whatever. And it's like, oh, but, and it's not to diminish that point, but other than just to sort of say, you know, isn't the whole point, the whole point that you'd even study economics in the first place is to understand how we make the lot of the ordinary man better and as collectively as a society better off that's it that's the whole point like what to what other end is there if not that and and and i just look at it and weep and if i get gaslit by one more senior economist at a bank telling me how great things are i'm just going to scream because and i and i say that as someone who's actually benefited from the system, right?

1:46:14And it just, I don't know. Shut up. I'm just going around in circles at this point, choking on my own rage. This is probably the longest episode ever, I suspect, which is probably justified for our 1 ,000th episode. So if you made it this far, as always, thanks, Mum. But anyone else who's happened to fall asleep while this has been on and just woken up, you're welcome. You're welcome. Thank you for being part of our journey. Thanks for listening to the 1 ,000th episode. Here's to the next 1 ,000, mate. Hopefully in 2036, we're celebrating 2 ,000th episode of Motley for Money, But until then, until Sunday when Andrew will be back, I know, for the mailbag.

1:46:46Fool on.