Don’t try to hold back the tide. September 26, 2025

28:00And if we want to have, if we, community service obligation wise, if the view is you should be able to access an in-person representative of a bank, of a big 20 bank, whatever the biggest banks are. I don't think the Tasmanian Regional Bank needs to have a presence in Perth or Broome, right? So there's a rule somewhere there, but Australia Post is easy. There's Australia Post branch everywhere because we have parcels and letters delivered. Simply saying I can walk in there and do my Commonwealth Bank business and my Bendigo Bank business and my Bank of Queensland business is an absolute no-brainer to me.

28:33But keeping branches open, there's no justification for it other than pure politics and pure noise and shock jockery because they don't want to do it. You don't want to do it. You're probably not using cash anyway. Yes, you want to talk to someone. You made the point, Ram. Maybe the other thing is we make them have call centres that are appropriately staffed or wherever else as well. But making keep branches open is just – we've talked about progress before and productivity. It's the equivalent of making people farm by hand just because we like the idea. Yes. It makes no sense in 2025. And to your point, even less sense in 2035.

29:04Oh, it's just – yeah. They are slowly being disrupted and you can fight it. And we know what it's like when you try and fight new technologies. Say slowly then suddenly for me, go on. Gradually then suddenly. Thank you. I mean, that's just the lesson from history, right? Yes, exactly. It just is every single time. And so I do get the end of an era. It's sort of sad. The world is changing. Yeah. And people don't want it to change and they like what we used to do and I get it, right? Sure. But, I mean, I kind of like having penicillin and telecommunications. And cars. And cars. And, you know. And cheap food.

29:50You've got to move forward. We don't have to move forward, but it is reckless to ignore something that is better, faster, stronger just for the sake of some, you know. Nothing reckless, but outright damaging, at least relative to a counterfactual. We are choosing to be less healthy, less wealthy, have less choice, less leisure time, because we want to pretend that the 1940s can exist forever. Well, it's actually even existential, ultimately, because if you don't, your other countries will. Yes, 100%. AI is exactly that. So imagine us running on a 1920s-style financial system while the rest of the world is doing its thing.

30:29That's right. No business comes here. We lose jobs. we slowly just get hollowed out and we just become like some weird, like North Korea-esque kind of province, right? That's like, well, do you, is that, it's like, oh, it's, it's a shame that an 84 year old can't go to the bank and push 500, five cent pieces across the counter and count them out individually to the eternal frustration of everyone behind them. However, you know, it's also not good to be a defunct failing state either. So, you know. And there's no easy – it's not a binary choice. There's no easy – it's not obviously one or the other.

31:04Well, it is – probably obviously is neither. But by having some ability to access – because, as you say, banking is a fundamental part of what we do. Having reasonable, available, accessible access to that for everybody makes some degree of sense. There is some – again, human rights are probably too strong. We overused the phrase, I think. But there is some – I think we probably all agree, or maybe you don't, but I think we probably all agree that having the 85-year-old have an option so they don't feel completely excluded from the financial system is important. That doesn't mean you can't close a branch anywhere because we just want the branch to be open.

31:34It doesn't work that way. Well said. Well said. Motley Fool Money. For more, subscribe to the free newsletter at fool.com.au forward slash listener.

31:46If you're not cranky yet, Mount Isa. Turns out, we found out during the week, that surprising absolutely nobody who has even slightly paid interest to politics, there is now, you know the worst part about this? It's bipartisan, which means neither party is going to criticise the other because they're all in on the grift, right? Yeah. So the Labor, Federal Labor Government and the Queensland LNP Government, and yes, insert a pox on both their houses right now, have agreed together to make an offer to keep the Mount Isa copper smelter open, owned by multinational mining company, Glencore. Apparently, Glencore has asked for$600 million over three years.

32:26No guarantee that's the last money they're going to ask for, by the way. So let's not just say, well,$600 million, if it keeps over 25 years, it'd be great. Still probably wouldn't, but it's almost certainly not going to be the last time they put their hand down. They want to keep the copper smelter open. In fact, they don't want it. Glencore doesn't care. Glencore wants to get paid by a patsy, i.e. the state and federal governments, to just run an operation, run a suboptimal, sub-stime, money-losing business. Glencore will do it because they can. Do you mean I can run a bad business and you'll pay me to do that?

32:56Oh, Glencore is, I've only got praise for Glencore. Like, they're not the bad guys here. I mean, they're the easy targets. But just to be clear, screw them as well, right? Yeah, right. They're no angels. But when you look at the scenario here, when you say who is wronging me as an Australian citizen, like my own government and the alternative government, they are screwing me. Glencore is just doing, they're just being rational. Like if you were them, wouldn't, and you can, you're in the boardroom and going, they're actually like, we've got this thing. It's completely uneconomic. It's not worthwhile.

33:33We've got to shut it down. And someone goes, I wonder if we could get their government to like fund the operation for us. Yes. And they go, no one's, no way. They're not that dumb. Oh, no. I beg to differ. Turns out. I mean, let's just. You guys don't really want to give us$600 million, do you? Really, you do? I mean, you want to actively, you want me to put some time aside so you can give me some money. Okay, okay. That's the point on the conference call where they all like push their face into a pillow and go, woohoo! All the cameras go off the Zoom call where they dance around the room high-fiving each other.

34:13Okay, let's regain our composure. And like all the, I am so sick of doing this on the podcast Because if it's not a regional airline or some, like, failing, you know, mine somewhere, like, every other week we're talking about the government bailing out a failing business. Now, the political angle here is, but the workers, there's 600 workers. There's 600 workers. Do the mass. It's really easy to do. 600 million. Yeah, that's right. To save 600 workers. Can we just give them all a million? For three years. Three years. $333 ,000 a year per worker to keep the smelter open. Unbelievable. Like I would actually say, well, this is why we have a fair and well-funded welfare system for exactly this kind of thing.

35:05So whether they work for Glencore or whether they work for Woolies or whether they work for the local plumber, who gives the stuff? If you're down and out in your luck, I'm not saying throw you on the trash heap. But why did these particular workers get such special consideration? And let's be real. It's not even about the bloody workers. because it's about bloody crank or who's got, who can afford it, right? They don't need this. And if they don't want to do it, they can close it down. And if we did even want to give them some special extra welfare on top, let's, I reckon if you went down to the plant and said, Hey, who would like$200 ,000 to walk away?

35:37In cash right now. In cash right now. And like, there'd be like three diehards left. And it's like, well, you're taking it. Right. And, and so we would save a fortune. You can feel good about the workers and you can stick the big middle finger to Glencore. And we can stop wasting resources because that's what it means to be uneconomic, right? You just can't compete. People don't want to pay what you need to sell it for to be viable. In other words, no one wants this at this price. You can't deliver it. Shut it down. We're wasting resources. The opportunity cost is legion. This is the thing we always have to ask ourselves.

36:14What else could we spend$600 million on? Correct. I reckon there's probably some some healthcare workers out there right now going, we could take some of that. You know, I reckon there's some teachers out there right now or, you know, fireys or, you know, again, I always make the point, the people out there, all the people who kept on working through COVID, that if you want to know who actually does stuff that matters, it's the garbos, the nurses, these people that we just can't live without. It's like, well, what about that, you know? Can we just pay some debt off, please? we could also do that well this is worse mate because we're not only not using it to pay off the debt I know this is really obvious but someone's got to say it where does that$600 million come from it comes from them taxing us but they already don't tax enough to cover their expenditures so they're going to borrow the money so the kids are going to pay for it and if you don't pay for it directly you'll be paid for it when the central bank comes in and buys it all up and dilutes the hell out of the rest of us It's just like the piper has to be paid.

37:19Not only are we spending, to your point,$600 million, we're going to then spend$30-odd million a year thereafter forever because we increased the national debt by that amount. And when you say, well, we'll pay some of it down, the money you're paying down, if you're paying that off, could have been paying other debt off in the first place. So every time you add to the debt, unless the total debt decreases, you are adding effectively an endless perpetual, let me spit that one out, interest payment. So$30 million a year effectively from here to eternity. Yep. to save for three years worth of savings for Mount Isle, which may or may not be enough, and may or may not close down in three years.

37:53Or they come back to the table and say, you know how we needed$600 million three years ago? Well, now we need another$500 million. Or we'll shut it down. I mean, we did it for Holden and Ford for 40 years. Some numbers from Bernard Keene during the week. Really great article on Crikey. He's blocked me on Twitter. Bernard, I don't know why he's blocking me on Twitter. I'm not that offensive. You got blocked. Right? By Bernard Keene. Anyway, great. So I posted some screenshots for Twitter. if you want to check it out. Just a... I mean, I don't always agree with Bernard Keane. I may have criticised him at some point.

38:21Maybe that's why he blocked him, which is like something I said, maybe, because he's got his views and that's fine. Paves of skin, I guess. I don't know. I don't want to bag him. You can bag him. He's already blocked me. He can block you now too. That's at sage underscore simian burn if you're listening. The... It's just a scathing, scathing, and just beautifully written. He's a very good writer and he just absolutely nails both parties, right? The... And it's about the future made in Australia stuff and it's about, you know, Hastie wants to bloody fund more subsidies for Australia and, again, it pox on both their houses.

38:50And he just absolutely nails it. Something like$23 ,000 a year per worker we were spending per year to keep Holden and Ford alive. And at the same time, up until relatively recently, a long time ago now, but, you know, late 70s, we had 60 % import tariffs. So not only would we be subsidising Holden and Ford with money, we're only applying tariffs on the imports so we can protect the industry that, by the way, is now gone. And you know what? There are probably some people, maybe not listening, maybe, who didn't work after that. I feel really bad for those people. But the money we've saved since, Joe Hockey and Tony Abbott, blah, blah, blah, I hate them, actually said, this is stupid, let's kill this thing off.

39:25The money we've saved since in the what? How many years has that been? 10 years, 12 years? I can only imagine how much we've saved. But we could have paid those workers double, triple, quadruple, their dole payment and still come out miles and miles ahead. Oh, 100%. And, you know, it just makes no sense. Here's the other thing too. I always feel for the – we talked a little while ago, you know, you walk down some main streets and there's just so many small businesses closing. Now, in aggregate, small business employs much more than the big end of town, much more. You want to talk about 600 workers.

39:59You add up all of the, you know, small shops that have closed. It's far bigger than that. And you can imagine the small business are only going, well, can I have – can you bail me out? Like, can I have a commitment for, you know, proportionally the same amount of money and then a commitment to go and go unfunded? Like, no one would do it. It's purely because of the optics of it. It's just you're invisible, so no one sees it, no one complains, and your tragedy is yours alone, and it's hidden from the rest of us. But I just, I'm really dumbfounded as to how easy it is for these companies to pull one over on the government.

40:39like oh but it's votes though this is the thing but who's voting for who is that I mean you use the car example industry as an example it's like the first order thinking is I feel for these people losing their yes let's do something yes but it's only because you haven't thought it through what you're okay but it does mean more tax or more debt and higher priced cars than you would otherwise and lower quality cars sorry you just you just said that voters hadn't thought something through well okay i guess but that i'm not i'm not meaning to be cynical but my honestly the number of people who reply we've had some people reply to us on twitter who don't on email who don't agree with us on the podcast i have i have legion multiples of that on twitter every time i say down i's a stupid the number of responses i get around national security or jobs or the economy or manufacturing oh we only do holes and baristas and all the other stuff that people throw at us and by the way imagine then weaponising Bob Catter out of Mount Isa if you're the Queensland government where 60 % of people live outside the cities and want to believe that somehow we can keep the past alive and the nostalgia vote and the Albanese let those jobs die, he let Mount Isa close, he's destroying the Australian economy you think about all that and someone in the political strategy room in both the state LNP government and the federal labour government go oh we could just give them 600 million bucks so easy to spend other people's money right so easy to spend other people's money i don't like being cynical i'm generally not the cynic but i look at this and i could be i may be over cynical mate you might be entirely right but honestly people aren't thinking the way you're thinking that that is fundamental yes we should save those jobs we're wasting money on paying dull budgets their welfare but this welfare is good because it saves some jobs and they're hard-working jobs and they're mining jobs and they're the the the i'm a million percent sure the political thinking is simply there are enough people out there who will hate us if we don't do this that we're just going to do it with other people's money because it doesn't cost us a cent and we get to keep the votes the risk is being a little bit more fiscally responsible and risking some votes which option do you choose a or b if you're in government you're like oh just spend the money guys who cares well at least we'll be in government still let's not risk losing votes and maybe maybe you lose no votes but here's the thing let's say you don't do it and you lose no votes you know worse off because it's still other people's money so you spend 600 million dollars worth of taxpayers money and secure those votes or do you spend nothing and risk those votes?

43:00And maybe it's no votes, maybe it's a million votes, maybe it's a change of government. It's probably certainly not. But you can't look at it and go, well, screw it to send it to spend the money. I am firmly of that belief. I hear that. I guess that the surprising thing is, is that the other party doesn't just make the point. Like, it's not a hard point. But this is what I'm saying. This is what the worst part of Man Isar specifically. In Victoria, you know, so the other thing was, I'm sorry, was effectively Labor Premier, Labor Prime Minister. It's like, okay, just call it partisan. Here you've got a Labor federal government and an LLP state government.

43:32So who's going to complain? The federal Libs aren't going to complain. State Labor's not going to complain. So this is even easier than ever. We say, you know, sometimes pollies want party people in their own party on both sides of this. If you're negotiating with the feds to get some more funding, it helps if he's on your team. In this case, when you're both throwing money in, where is the opposition? There is none because the federal opposition is the state government and the state opposition is the federal government. So no one, you won't hear a peep out of politicians on either side of politics.

43:58Bob Catter just wants more money because he wants more money and he's entitled to fight his game as a local MP. So who's standing up saying, guys, this is stupid? Shane Oliver, Chris Richardson, sorry, who's excellent, by the way. If you're not following Chris Richardson on Twitter and LinkedIn, do so. Fabi's brilliant. He's doing it. We're doing it. Who else is doing it? Future Made in Australia sounds good. We want to make things here because we don't want just baristas and hairdressers. So we should make some stuff. I know good olders, we used to make things here. That was a better time. Back to our point about Westpac, and that's exactly what it is.

44:27It's that thinking that's really, really prevalent amongst too many people for the police to bother risking it. It drives you mad. That's why we've got to separate money and state, honestly. When you give, and it's not an anti-government thing, but it just is. It solves so many. All it does is enforce reality onto the situation. So we as a populist, so a government gets to go, we're going to save these 600 workers jobs. And we go, okay, cool. and they go, well, we're going to have to increase your taxes to do that. And then we as a society might go, and then all the people who are for it might go, yeah, I'm happy for that.

45:01Okay, cool. But we're just recognizing the reality of the situation. When we pretend that it's costless, and that's the mistake, and that's the thing that people easily miss, they think it's like it's a victimless crime. And it's just that the crime is spread over all of us in a very slow, pernicious, indirect kind of way that it's like someone stealing the petrol out of your tank at night. But rather than like siphoning off everything, they just take a couple litres every night and you just don't. Gosh, I'm filling up the car a lot more than I did. It's hard to blame. Maybe I'll just blame someone from overseas or something.

45:40You know, it's just, it's very difficult to kind of do. And look, it's never going to happen. I'll shut up about it. But it just, when you really stop to think about it, But it's like, it would be a really good thing if all we did was just say, we just take away the money printer from you. It just enforces discipline. So we don't have to rely on the trust me bro angle of it. It's like, oh, don't worry, I'll do the right thing. Really? But it's like, well, you have to do the right thing. Zero evidence. Yeah, that's right. In the same way that you have to do the right thing or I have to do the right thing.

46:09And every single list that has to do the right thing because none of us have a money printer. right so so when when tough decisions are made and opportunity cost rears its ugly head it's like oh i have to make a choice here it's like yes you do yes you do i hear you i hear you um i think we can agree that uh paying corporates corporate welfare just to save some jobs for political purposes is absolutely mad by the way i want to i'll do this again and people will email again that's okay by the way we're always up for different views i again the national security angle comes up well we have to be able to smelt copper national security um so firstly that's rubbish complete total rubbish um for two reasons one is we actually already do smelt copper in the bhp olympic damn i think it is out of australia so we have the national capacity secondly and this is my view of this for yla it's fine to say we should have copper because that's important national security and that's okay but then you have to we have to then bring in the old analogy of the chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

47:07So, okay, we've got the copper smelting chain, the link, that's intact. Great. Do we make our own uniforms for our army? No. Okay, we should do that. All right, what about tank? We don't make it. Okay, let's make some tanks. All right, cool. What about planes? Don't make any of those. Should do that. Okay, cool. What about computer chips? Don't make any of those. Oh, we should do that. Okay, cool. What about silicon? No, we don't make any of those. Okay, we should do that. Okay, cool. What about wire? We don't have that. That's not good. What about some of those elements we actually don't have on shore.

47:33We're going to invade another country and annex them so we have that access to those elements. And I'm being flippant, but only a little bit, because as soon as you say national security, and again, I have every sympathy for that view. You can have a view. I don't necessarily agree because I think it's too costly, but you can have a view that we should be self-sufficient on national security guards. That's fine. But as soon as you're not self-sufficient on one of the things, the other things don't matter. We have our own copper. Great. Can you do anything with it? No, because you're out to build tanks.

47:59What's the point of having copper then? Well, at least we've got it. For what purpose? Because we've got it. What are you doing with it? Nothing. So where's the national security benefit? It genuinely doesn't exist. And I don't mean to be flippant about it. National security may well be an issue. If China comes over to the horizon, we are screwed. But if we're serious about that, we would need to have 100 ,000 tanks right around the coastline, right? We would need to have sea defences and air defences right around the coastline, or at least the north and east and probably northwest. because frankly, if it's all there, they'll come in via Adelaide if they really want to come in.

48:34Like it's, just the idea that, and I - And it tanks, by the way, a tank in the modern age is just so - It drives us. Yeah, yeah. Right. But it's kind of, it's just that point of like, unless you're going to do all of the things, doing some of the things is not, it just makes no sense. Logically, it falls down. And again, I want people, if it makes you uncomfortable, that's okay. Because I want you to really, really think it through. If this is the only link in the chain that's broken, There's every reason to do it. If you think we should build all of the links, that's okay too. But then that's not about Mount Isa Coppa.

49:04You should be saying outright, we need to do this list of 145 different things that unless we do them all, we don't have joined up national security. And that's okay too. By the way, speaking of the dark ages, we'd go back to 1850s living standards. So just be careful what you wish for. You want to have your own phones and computers and televisions and cameras and silicon chips and sheet metal and trains and planes and drones. I don't honestly know how anybody can reasonably say that national security is an issue with copper unless you can do all the other things as well. By the way, the other thing about Mount Isa, you know why it's struggling?

49:40The mine's empty. There's no copper left. It happens with mines. Can we do the Eric Banner? Copper. No copper. Copper, no. There's no copper here. So you know what they're going to do? They're going to truck or train copper concentrate in from elsewhere to the middle of, I'll say it was a second nowhere. I've been through Mount Isa. Great town. But then I truck or train stuff in from everywhere else to Mount Isa so they can smelt it and then truck it back out again. We are not a clever country. How can anyone call us a clever country with a straight face? That is great. It would still be dumb if it was 10 ,000 workers.

50:15It's 600 workers. It's 600. We're talking about Cobb Bank. I think they've got 40 ,000 workers, right? Just put things in context here. It's madness. By the way, ANZ laying off 4 ,500. Right. Like seven times the number. Yeah. The lesson is, if anyone's young, make sure that you're going into a career in aviation or smelting because your job is guaranteed. Go and work for the Whale of Steelworks. You'll be sweet for life. Just impossible to lose your job, no matter how little sense it makes. Let's go back to Maya. speaking of businesses that don't make sense yeah right so well and we mentioned the online stuff and I want to come back to that because I Maya is a dead man walking it is it is a burning platform in its I'm not saying the business will go broke so let me be really clear there are ways you can fix or moderate salvage something from this but it's current department store business is a dead man walking here's the numbers from during the week 0.5 % of the like for like sales growth If you are a low margin retailer, which is almost a tautology because all retailers are low margin almost always, and you have modest to flat sales growth, and you have your costs, we've talked about inflation, costs going up at, call it average inflation of 3 % was out this week.

51:36Your operating leverage, which is normally when you're growing and you keep your costs steady, your profit grows faster than your costs, which is wonderful. If you're not growing, operating leverage goes in reverse. Your costs grow faster than your sales and your profit absolutely tanks. It's not theoretical. Myer's 0.5 % sales growth led to a 30 % reduction in underlying profit growth. Made a loss overall because it wrote down some assets. That's neither here nor there for this purpose. That simple reality is what has cost Myer shares 25 % during the week. And you can cut costs. We're talking about cost-cutting banks and miners are cutting costs.

52:14Where's Myer going to cut costs? You can hold a rave in a mire and not see a staff member, right? The chance of the – what are they going to cut? Short of self-checkout and nobody else in the store, you've got to unpack your own boxes from the pallets out the back and self-checkout on the way through. Where are the cost cuts coming from? They're not, right? They've done it and they've done it, probably to the point of costing themselves too much money. The fundamental problem is not the staffing levels or the cost levels. It's the fact department stores have no future. I say no future if I do have a Maya tomorrow first thing I do is negotiate exits from every lease other than Brisbane Melbourne and Sydney CBD stores why because you've not enough foot traffic going through these stores anymore if you've got a regional Maya regional DJs it's the middle of nowhere no one's shopping there having them open just for the sake of saying we've got that store is just madness by the way 30 % reduction in profit half a percent increase in sales their online store is growing faster than that so the non-online store, the physical retail stores start going backwards and costs are going up.

53:18I don't know how you can genuinely run Maya or be on the board of Maya, with respect to everyone who's doing that now, and believe that somehow you can revitalize this business. I don't know where you think the customers are coming from. Head in the sand. It's all it is. I'm not dancing on the grave here. I'm not celebrating this. No. None of this stuff, am I? But we've got to look at the bigger picture here, right? This is just how we allocate resources the most efficient way possible for our shared prosperity. And when you doggedly stick at something that is clearly uneconomic and not working, no one – I mean, they're very tiny self-interested groups that do benefit, but to everyone else's detriment here.

54:04and I've said to you before and on air I think the pursuit of growth has probably been ironically one of the more damaging aspects economically and this kind of falls under that it needs a little bit of unpacking it's like what? why would we not want to grow? it's like we do want to grow but you want to grow in a way that is sensible like what's the point of trying to grow if it's massively capital intensive with a hugely uncertain payoff and incredible amounts of risk. It's sort of like, well, yeah, if it comes through, it's good. But if not, it's like an incredible waste. Like, why would we do that?

54:44But egos are huge and hope springs eternal. And you kind of say, why are they in the boardroom not doing this? Because people just aren't good at dealing with reality and the harsh truth of things. And the boardroom discussion needs to be, guys, it was a good multi-decade run we had a good run we had a great run but the world has changed it's maybe it's not fair maybe it's not right but it's not something we have to guess at we can see no one well not no one much every year that goes by fewer and fewer people are coming through the that's just the reality of like we can deny that or we can embrace that and and if we embrace that To your point, well, let's manage this.

55:29Let's transition to a smaller business. No board is going to do that because it's almost like an instantly dismissible offense. But as a shareholder, I would be like, well, look, we're on a path to oblivion here. If we continue to put our head in the sand, we're just going to run. Eventually, we're going to run out of cash, right? And we won't be here at all. We're worried about losing jobs. We're going to lose every job, including ours. That's not good. Or we can transition to focus on the things that are economic and that make sense, and we can right-size the business. That means being a much smaller business, but it means being a viable, profitable business.

56:08Well, here's the thing, Matt. I want to run people about American Express. Think about American Express. What do you think? You think charge cards? Well, you think credit cards, right? So credit cards. Let's talk about credit cards. Let's go back to the very beginning. Amex was Cobb & Co. It was a stagecoach company that sent valuables in mail. right that died then they were a traveller's check company remember traveller's checks kids no you don't because they were a very very long time ago I went to America in 1988 I think it was took traveller's checks and I cashed one at a shop to buy some Oakley sunglasses and I was very Oakley blades no less oh I had a pair of them I will find a photo and I will not share it with anybody that was so cool and then they went to the charge card business the green Amex don't live home without it right and the idea of a charge card was you charge it up and you paid it all off in one lump sum at the end of the month.

56:55That was the only option. Then they went to credit cards. So I say that actually kind of in part, you say no board's going to do it. Some boards do. The smart boards absolutely say, guys, we could keep trying to run the stagecoach thing because that's what we used to do. And let's find ways of getting people to use stagecoaches more. That's what we need to do. What we need to do is let's cut some costs. We'll go from two horses to one and we'll overload the coach. And let's find reasons. Well, how can we make people use stagecoaches? Maybe if we make them prettier. Maybe if we offer a particular, and the analogy breaks down here.

57:25Maya's trying different brands. It's trying different promotional strategies. It's whatever, whatever. Guys, the department store had a great run. The shopping center is the new department store. You don't need a shopping center inside a shopping center. You've got Sports Girl and you've got... I'm trying to think of fashion names. Don't look at me. No, don't tell me about it, right? What's a man? Roger David. They probably don't exist either anymore. That's all I know. Do you know how long it's been to a shopping center? a very, very bloody long time. That's a thing. There's something right there.

57:58Well, that's it. So not only is the shopping centre the new department store, the internet's the new shopping centre. And you're still trying to run a department store business, guys. Like, really? What are you trying to do here? And ironically, while it's not a pleasant transition to undertake, if you recognise the reality and you act fast, it actually is a huge opportunity. Arguably right now, the Murdoch empire should be the largest online business in the world. Arguably, Maya should be the biggest online retailer in the country. It's like, oh, crap, there's a thing called the internet. Okay, we're going to be disrupted.

58:34So let's pretend that that's not happening and go, la, la, la, la, la. Wait 10 years before we finally stand up a really crappy website just because we've got no choice while we continue to do this other thing. Pop out more newspapers and try to be able to buy them. Yep. Right. Like, exactly. Had they recognized the reality of the situation early enough, let's think about it. They've got the buying power. They've got the distribution centers. They've got the brand relationships. They've got the retail know-how. I mean, retail is retail, right? Like, whether it's, I mean, I guess there are certain very obvious structural differences, but at a broad enough level, it's kind of the same thing, right?

59:16You guys should absolutely, you've never given someone like Amazon or Kogan or anyone like that the opportunity to stand up because they never could have competed against your offering because you could have taken those rivers of gold that were coming your way and made the most incredible website and shopping experience that there ever was. And such that, yes, you actively killed your own business. It's the Amazon example right there with them killing their book business for e-books, right? It was painful but necessary. And look how that turned out. and that the denying of reality just never leads anywhere good.

59:51You know, whether it's what we're, all the things we've talked about today in some way has been a denial of reality, right? Yes, yes. And it's just like, I get things are uncomfortable. I get things aren't as we would like them to be, but it is what it is. And the longer that you deny that, the worse it's going to get. All of this is to say, if anyone out there is holding my shares, we can't give advice. But if I could give advice, I would say, you're on the Titanic. Get out. There are periods, and I know people who have done well out of my eye because they get to a point like it's dirt cheap, that it's probably worth a little bit more.

1:00:25So if you want to like pick up pennies in front of a steamroller and sort of short to medium term trade on a valuation base, I guess good luck to you. There's probably someone who will make a go of that. But if you're looking to take apart ownership in a business that you think has a long, bright future, my humble opinion I put to you is this is not it. Now, I will only hold out a little bit of alternative hope, mate. And that is just because, as it stands now, Meijer as a business, for all of its troubles, is worth apparently$812 million. Now, that is 12.4 times current levels of earnings. I wouldn't, I'm not buying them.

1:01:07If you gave me yours, I would sell them and take the money. But I also wouldn't rule out the fact that at some level of market cap, market value, call it what you want, they can deliver a – if they were to make those harder decisions. Yes, I agree. Because to the point I made before – To shun growth and go for right sizing. Well, I would suspect – and I have no basis for this, so I need to be a little bit careful. Don't do anything about this. Don't act on my words here. I would suspect a decent chunk of their stores are losing money outright. Oh, yeah. In other words, closing those stores tomorrow would actually increase profits.

1:01:39Now, if they can grow their online sales, and I don't know what the actual reasonable recent growth rate looks like. I'm desperately scrolling through the presentation as I talk. But it's possible that a Maya online portal in 10 years' time and a couple of stores in the CBDs that actually are profitable because they've got enough footfall to going through the place, maybe in that circumstance, they actually do make money and maybe they can actually justify the current market cap. So I'm not saying the business is definitely going to go broke. I don't know, to your point, it requires them to make some hard decisions at some point.

1:02:12The longer they take to make those decisions, the less the business is worth almost by definition. So that's kind of important.

1:02:20It's just worth, I think, to my mind, calling that out because the results may not be the results we expect in that context of maybe they can do something with the business at the current, not the current level, to justify the current level of valuation if things improve. So just to give you a number, online sales,$819 million, I found it. Total sales,$3.7 billion, right? So$1 in, what is that? $1 in,$2 in nine is now online, 22 odd percent. That's a profitable, maybe it's not a profitable channel, but if it's a profitable channel and online sales are up 15%, total sales up 0.5, you can reverse engineer that one, but if$80 million was up 15%, what's that?

1:03:07I'm going to call it$100 million of extra sales. Total sales for Meijer up half of 1 % on$3.5 billion. In other words, physical sales went backwards is really what they're saying, if I've done the maths properly. It sounds right. That's telling you everything you need to know, which is they've got to close those stores. By the way, the other thing about Meijer, sorry, we don't want to talk too long about it, but they also now own the ex-premier investments brands, which are better than the Meijer brands, so Just Jeans and JJs and other stuff. And it's possible those businesses actually end up saving the Meyer organization, even if the brand – it's a bit like Berkshire Hathaway, right?

1:03:39It was once a group of textile mills. The company logo and name survive. The stock code survives. The mills have been closed down years ago. It may well be that Meyer Group ends up owning Meyer's online retail store and JJ's, Just Jeans, Portman's, Doddy, Jackie E, and may just make something out of that. I don't know. I will say. I agree. Yeah. Go on. No, go on. No, no. It's salvageable. It's just, it's not if you deny, if you think you're going back to your former glory days, that's where it's not salvageable. Correct. But it takes really hard decisions. We've got to close. And you've got to make it.

1:04:12We've got to lay off people. We've got to do all these horrible, horrible, horrible things. But it's either we do it or reality is, exactly, that's my point. Reality will assert itself at some point, right? Or they're going to bail out. Like I always tell the government, they're going to cost jobs. There you go. Actually, now that you say it, yes, That's what I would be doing as the chairman. If I was on my board, I would buy a copper smelter. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it still works. Yes. Oh, we are doomed. I can't be that negative, but I'll tell you what, we're going the wrong direction on a road of knots.

1:04:50This is why economics is such an important thing of study, right? Like it's not, I always make this point, but it's not some weird abstract academic kind of thing. It is how we coordinate society. It's so important. And when you have our leaders completely illiterate in the subject, it's like we're not going to put an astronaut in space who's never flown a plane before, right? Like it's just dumb. Yeah, yeah. And yet our leaders, like they're not past the year six level of economics. And even then, like not really. It's kind of like that to me is just a big miss. you know I mean cynical again you know what worries me more than that mate it's not they don't know but they do know yeah right yeah because whether Jim Chalmers as treasurer or Angus Taylor is Angus Taylor still who's the shadow treasurer of those days no idea is it Gus I don't know who he is so much relevance they've lost already oh yeah you know what man a whole different conversation yeah they don't I mean look I would love to go back to the days of the Hawke and Howard governments where the ministers genuinely gave Kim Beasley just loved the hell out of defense, right?

1:06:00We had industry ministers who loved the hell out of the portfolios they were in. John Hewson, God love him, was just a deeply – he genuinely wanted to fix the country economically. Couldn't sell the politics, but knew what he wanted to do, right? These days, you come from central casting. You're a union hack or an accountant or a political staffer. Choose your political party. You rock up. He's like, I would like a seat, please. He's like, well, I've been nice to the right people for the last five years, and I promise I'll vote the way you tell me to. so can I have a seat in parliament please and say yes you can and then you turn up I mean that I wish they were policy wonks they're not that would be okay because guess what they've got hundreds of thousands of public servants who can give them the answers all Treasury Chalmers need to do is ask Treasury guys I don't care what the answer is don't tell me what I want to hear just tell me what to do best oh good glad you asked Treasurer for God's sake don't give anyone an answer oh okay now try and tell me what I want to hear let's change it up a little bit you know they don't need to be experts because they've got the experts who have got hundreds, thousands of years of combined expertise who can do this.

1:07:03So to your point, I don't think the government doesn't know. I don't think the LNP government in Queensland doesn't know. I think they absolutely know and don't care. That's the hardest part, right? Because education doesn't fix it. They don't need the education. They need the will. They need the national interest. They need some sort of, you know. Well, I guess they can get away with it because of the ignorance of wider population. Yes, that's absolutely true. You know, because if every single citizen in the country was well-versed in this stuff, they would see through it and they just wouldn't get away with it.

1:07:30Correct. I mean, even with that, I pull back from that a little bit because it just feels that, well, on top of all the other things I need to do in muddling through life, I now need to be an expert on this. Yes, yes. I mean, I would probably argue that some high school level study would go a long way. Yeah, you know, there's a few sort of eternal truths and stuff. But anyway, it's depressing. I think economics, you know, it's funny. maybe people say I would say this because I love economics, I love finance, is what I do. But I would suspect it should be made compulsory as a subject and not because people need to understand the algebra of, I can't remember now, remember the national income?

1:08:12Y equals M minus X. Remember that one? It's the imports minus exports plus whatever, whatever. You don't need to understand that stuff. You mentioned it's the way we coordinate stuff. I think that's absolutely right. I refer to it as applied psychology. I think that's equally right. and the combination of that is the point. And so the kind of idea of how the world works. Yeah, English is important. Yeah, maths is important. We should absolutely do both those things as well. So basic scientific knowledge wouldn't hurt, particularly in the world of climate change and other things, some scientific understanding.

1:08:40If the scientific method is kind of useful to know, think about, speaking about Tylenol. Again, we won't go back there. So important. But the economic stuff is just, that's right, you're a scientist by training. The economic stuff is just, hey, you kind of need to know the basic fundamental elements of how the world works. why this matters, because it is how we – it's not only how we coordinate. It's not something you get to choose. Right. Yes, exactly. It's not like you can't – that's the thing that people miss. People think that there are various different schools of thought and they're all equivalent and you get to choose which one you want.

1:09:13But it's like, no, we live on a planet that's hurtling through space with obeying the laws of physics. The world just works the way it does. So it's like we had a go at MMT not too long ago as well. Modern monetary theory, yes. Yeah, it just doesn't and can't work once you understand some basic kinds of things. And so we need to, there are certain things you can have a slightly different opinion on, but you can't deny that the earth goes around the sun, right? And when countries try to do this, and we've got historical examples as long as you're on, it's like it never ends well. It never ends well.

1:09:52If printing money solved all our problems, Latin America would be the richest place on earth. Exactly. Everyone would be driving a Ferrari in Cuba instead of a car from 1950s America. And debt matters and inflation matters and where you spend your money matters. Opportunity cost is a concept. Yes. Like just that. It's not the algebra of economics. It's just, hey, here's how supply and demand works. Here's what opportunity cost means. Here's what debt does. Those things aren't. Here's what inflation does, to your very point. Money printing. here's what it does if you do this this oh oh that's interesting i had someone ask me about on twitter and really really thoughtful um nime and nims if you if you're listening um hey explain to me about the fact that you know if the cost of um of discretion non-discretion items is going up how does it help to you know if interest rates going up can't fix that demand because it's non-discretion how does it help so great question comes down to aggregate demand and the other things we otherwise would buy and substitution effects and those are just some really important and nims asked the question which is brilliant because that's what you want to do right but those who don't ask the question and assume it's how we end up with an uninformed populace and we get taken advantage of by our politics back to the votes how many votes would they lose if they said hey guys we're going to give a foreign company an amount of money that's going to cost us $30 million a year forever including your kids do you want to do that?

1:11:10well that sounds like a lot yeah it is we shouldn't do that then no we shouldn't okay good idea let's not do that instead it's we could save some jobs and it's only debt and who cares and it's a big number anyway and don't worry, don't worry, you're pretty little head about it and that's where we end up in this situation. Separate money and state, my friend. Solves a lot of problems. Solves a lot of problems. Fix the money, fix the world. A hundred percent. On that slightly depressing note because I've been dragged down that same rabbit hole yet again. You keep opening these doors, mate. I'm going to walk through them.

1:11:41Just quietly. That would be true if not every door to you looked like a big B sign. Well, you can't unsee it I can't close all the doors. You can build any more doors. I can't close them fast enough. See, I want to come back on Sunday. I just don't know. Should we do a Sunday podcast? Look, 100 % we should do one. All right. Let's hope we can avoid Bitcoin. We won't. No, we won't. Until then, I'm going to cry into my beer. Fool on. Cheers. 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.

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