Mailbag: Do we tax mining companies enough? June 29, 2025

24:09Think about what you need to deliver that kind of service. So you need trucks and pickers and that kind of thing. But you also need really strong buying groups. You need logistics, infrastructure, warehouses, trucks. They've got it. They've got a really good ERP, an enterprise resource planning system. Yep, got that. They kind of got it. They've got then, if you and I were setting something up, we need to stand all of that stuff up from the get-go. Yes. They've already got it. And you know what? They will do it as long as it makes economic sense for them to do it. And they'll be doing it with an incumbent advantage that others don't.

24:45So I'm not saying the listener is wrong. And to just touch on that point of is it possible that you're biased and your view is being coloured by your own experience? Well, yeah, no, it's not possible. It's absolutely true in all situations. That's true of all of us. So I don't deny that. And I don't even deny the point that's being made, that, yeah, it's super convenient. I think it's likewise the way of the future. But I wouldn't be making an investment or not making an investment in Woolworths in particular based on a concern of that trend growing because they'll probably get to partake in it even with a new and very, very well capitalised competitor that's there.

25:27And also it might take ages. Let's say that Amazon grows to 30 % of the online delivery market over the next 10 years. that's going to definitely dent things, but it's probably not going to, it's not going to turn it from an incredible investment to a terrible investment. Yeah. You know, the magnitude of difference is not going to be that much. So I do think just in general we do underestimate those things. My go-to example, and I've used it a million times on the pod, is that you can still get the yellow pages. Yes. I cut mine the other day. I thought of you when I picked it up off the lawn. you have to pinch yourself to go what who not that who is using it but what businesses are advertising like no I'm not spending money to place an ad in this thing that like only 80 year olds read you know it's it's it's but it just it's so it shows you how slow things are to change Yeah, yeah.

26:26So, yeah, I think I don't know what I'm really, I'm not really disagreeing with the premise here, just I wouldn't overestimate the pace and magnitude of that impact. I think that's true. I, though also, for what it's worth, wouldn't underestimate it either. Yeah. Because the mosaics of the world, yes, crappy business, yes, not particularly relevant, but in part went broke because they didn't have an online solution. Yeah. You know, people like I own shares of Adair still, I think somewhat like 20-something percent of its sales are online. For almost every retailer now, its largest single point of transaction is not a store but the online fulfilment.

27:05Which, again, it's not going to be over anytime soon. Can I steal one of yours? Slowly then suddenly. Yes. Gradually then suddenly. Thank you. It's not fine, but it's a great one. Because at a unit economics level, that's going to start happening. And I suspect, I've said before, Soliloo Premium Investments have been closing stores for years. No one else does because you don't want to close stores because it makes you look bad. It's all like, I don't care. I'm not making money. I'm going to close this thing. I would suspect that over time that's kind of the, yeah, I, it's slow, slow, slow, and then it just passes the tipping point of, okay, now we're not profitable.

27:44And now not only we're not profitable at a single store level, but all of a sudden it's multiple stores at a time because you just, costs keep growing, stores don't grow. My, to your point, mate, you asked about Myer. Myer's physical stores are flat revenue-wise. Now, I guarantee you their costs are not flat at a store level. So what does that mean? Store by store, they're making less money. Now, they're hiding it with your own – what's that hiding? It sounds like I'm being deliberate. Maybe they are, but they're probably not. The reality is it's masking that decline in those stores. At some point, someone looks at that and goes, well, hang on.

28:14We've gone from 10 % margins to 5 % margins to 3 % margins to 1 % margins to, okay, now, this year, whatever year this is, 2026, 2031, 2048, now they've gone to negative. And so how long do we keep this open? Well, okay, maybe a bit longer because we desperately try and keep it alive. Maybe a bit longer because the storefront's operators are branding excites for the online business. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, and then not. And by the way, it's not going to be every store. But I like JB Hi-Fi a lot. I own shows and Harvey Norman, by the way, same kind of thing. In 15 years' time, they've got to have fewer stores, don't they?

28:44I mean, at 20 % of their sales online is one thing. At 25 % is another thing. 30 % is another thing. 35 % is another thing. At 40 % is another thing. 50%, 55%. How big do they get before the individual stores stop making money? I just, I can't see how the market grows fast enough. I mean, is it possible? Yes, mathematically. Of course, there are ways it happens. But I find it really, really hard to believe that whatever the growth they get at physical store level is not continually outpaced by online until, I mean, in 2050, who doesn't shop online? I'm the person who needs it desperately now, you know, because Amazon will have, you know, a two-hour delivery to 70 % of the country.

29:22And by the way, if you're not within a three-hour delivery range, you're not next to a store. So you might as well, if you've got to drive six hours to get there, you might as well get delivered. I just find it really hard to believe that, yes, there'll be incidental shopping. Yes, some people like to go and try it on, look at it, see the colour, see how the lounge feels. But, oh, man, in economics they say, and I think science is the same, economic history kind of or change precedes one funeral at a time. I love that saying. I kind of feel like the same with shopping, right? I just, are our kids going to want to go to the shop or are they going to buy it online?

29:48They're going to buy it online. So anyway, I could be entirely wrong by this. I don't do thematic calls as a matter of course. And certainly if I do have a view on e-commerce, which I do, it doesn't mean I buy every e-commerce player. I'm going to buy the ones I think are worth buying. But, yeah, I can't see it not being the case. But I could be entirely wrong. Well, you don't have – I mean, here's the beauty of investing, right, or one of the beauties is that you don't have to make a decision now and then lock it in and then that's it. La, la, la, hands in ears, eyes closed. I made my decision.

30:16and I have to, no matter what, I can't change course. So the good thing about this as a risk factor is it's right there with spotlights all over and everyone's talking about it. It's like, yeah, it's a risk. Now, knowing that it's a risk, you can keep an eye out for it, right? It's the things you don't see that really blindside you and can really undo you. And because of the slow-moving nature of this, like on our timeframes, it feels pretty slow-moving. It's kind of like you'll get some signal as to, wow, they're really not doing well on the online front. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm out. Maybe I'll take a small loss there.

30:57Or holy moly, they're doing really great. Oh, they're just nailing this omni-channel stuff and this online. I'm going to double down. That's the beauty of it. We talked in a recent podcast about not having to forecast, but just having to scenario plan. And that's exactly this. It's exactly this. I think this, here's my view. today. And it might be a different view tomorrow as the facts change or as my reasoning change. Why wouldn't it change? Right? Like, and, and, and so I'm really glad it's been raised because you can, you can put it on there as a, as something to look out for as a risk factor.

31:31And you know what? You start thinking about it, you'll find a dozen others as well. And they should all be on your radar. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So I just make that point. It's, It's this idea that you must make a decision now and then that's it no matter what. Yep. I hated Bitcoin at one stage. Look how things have changed. Yes, how things change, exactly. Mate, I'm going to go back because just for this is done in real time. While you were chatting, I managed to get our data provider to provide me with the total returns for the Australian stock market in different currencies. Okay. So just for the fun, just for a bit of colour and context.

32:12So the Australian market, the total returns, that includes dividends, of the ASX 200 over the past 10 years. So just set that up. 10 years, ASX 200 total returns. 72.09 % in total. Not compounded, not per year because it's just too hard to do. I've got the numbers in front of me. 72.09 % in Australian dollars. So that's the return, right? Okay. In yen, 109%. So if you invested in Japanese yen, you want to compare it against yen, the straight mark is even better than we think. In euros, 58.5%. In US dollars, 32.6%. So it depends. It matters. Who knows? All that kind of good stuff. Again, I say that only because we were talking about it and to provide a bit of context for those who are interested in what that actually looks like.

33:01That's the answer. So it's been an interesting journey. um yeah i don't i don't really know what to what's with that specifically but that that's where that that's where the numbers actually i mean we're using a ruler to measure things but we're using it's like you're using feet and inches i'm using centimeters and in fact even over time my definition of centimeters changes and your your your your definition of of feet and inches change and i know that sounds ridiculous but that's exactly what happens with currencies and that's That's why it's a little bit tricky when you think about it that way.

33:36But as I say, everything is relative. You can measure it in any kind of unit that you want. I will actually say, even though I hit the 10-year button, they gave me different data. So I'm going to go back and correct the record, mate. That was a five-year number. I was going to say, it seemed low after 10 years. Well, it's not a bunch of over 10 years. In Aussie dollars. Over 10 years? Well, it changes again, right? So over 10 years, the ASX went 99.3%. Right. 58 % in euro, 46 % in US dollars, 126 % in yen. Okay. So, again, it's kind of like, well, what number do you want to choose? What changed in the meantime?

34:13Euros became better and US dollars became better. It all depends. Yeah. All right. Interesting. Yeah, it's lovely to chat. Here's a question from Sarah. I feel bad already in advance because I've sent you the question. So I'm going to ask you to be kind, Ram. Okay. Hi, Scott Andrew. I listen to your podcast mainly on the bus to work and at the gym while pondering my next life move. Please don't make life decisions after listening to us. Please. I love that you explain the economy and the stock market in a way that is easy to understand, which is what I need while I'm sleep-deprived and overwhelmed with life in general.

34:46So thank you. I'm a mum to five-year-old twins and have been in corporate roles, technology projects, for almost 20 years. My husband and I are about to sell our family home, which is a relatively new build in South Brisbane, and buy our forever home on the Gold Coast with the equity, effectively having no mortgage on our principal place of residence. That's a very good result. I know you talk about not paying off houses and being smart about where we could use that money, well, Andrew does, which we may do later. But for now, we want to have a bit of financial freedom and have more cash available for family holidays and experiences with the kids.

35:19We also have three other investments in Melbourne, which are negatively geared, so keep pretty set up, which we are paying a fortune in the land tax for and may diversify into other states in the next few years to reduce that land tax, but that's another story. That's it for background. Take a deep breath, Ram. I'd like to move from the corporate world into trading from home as a career. I use that term loosely to free up my time for the twins in and out of school activities and do something I've always been really interested in. I don't need this to replace my full-time income. It'll be more something to keep me busy until school pickup or keeping me challenged.

35:53I've dabbled in the market over the years, but how do I get serious about doing this? Are there any books you'd recommend or a course that could be helpful? And, of course, I'll continue to tune into your podcast. Thanks, Sarah. Thanks for listening, and I look forward to hearing any tips you have from another very busy mum wanting a change, Sarah. Depends what you mean by trading. Yeah. I don't think there is any other option when it comes to trying to generate income, which is the problem. But keep going. I'll define it how I think about it. Please. So there is, investing is buying, I would say, you're looking to buy something because the very act of just owning it is its own reward.

36:33Probably throws off a bunch of cash or it itself just gets bigger and bigger over time, despite various fluctuations in market prices. Trading is more trying to speculate. I don't try to load that with judgment, that term, but, you know, he's trying to speculate on what share prices are going to do. And some people do it. Not many. And those that do don't do it for long because they get chewed up and spat out. And it's just very, very, very hard. And even those that are good at it, and I don't know if you've ever met one. I'll let you know, Scott, if I ever come across a successful long-term trader.

37:09Never. And by the way, despite the regular grief we give traders, I've not had anyone send me an email and say, actually, I've been right and here's what I did. And even if they did, it's kind of like it doesn't change the point, right? It's just like me saying, you know what, smoking is bad for you, and then a 98-year-old saying, yeah, I've smoked a packet a day my whole life, so therefore you're wrong. It's like, no, I'm not. One swallow does not a summer make here. And I always generate some angry emails here, so frankly I don't think there's any traders listening to us. And I'm really not trying to be critical here, but just as best I can for someone who's been in this industry for decades tell you that if they do exist, like the reliably profitable trader, I haven't come across them.

37:54That's all I'll say. So if they do exist, they're very rare. Here's the other thing. It's a full-time job. Yeah. So I've heard it before. People go, oh, I would love to do it because it will free, like to your point, Sarah, and a very noble ambition, by the way, I want to free up time. It's like don't kid yourself. You'll be up all night watching US markets, getting your trades ready. Reporting season is going to be a nightmare with all the data that you've got to get across. And it's as full-time a job as any full-time job, except your income is highly variable. So, you know, you might have months where you just knock it out of the park and then you'll have a six-month run where you just like can barely generate or maybe just lose a bunch of money.

38:39Even if that averages out to something decent, it's really, really, really brutal. So it's long hours, super stressful, highly variable, and probably doomed to fail. And that's not me saying because you're not good enough. It's like I'm certainly not good enough. Scott's not good enough and I've never met anyone that is good enough. And, again, there'll be some, it'll be a dude, 100 % be a dude. There's some dude out there going, whoa, actually, I've done it. Good for you. Good for you. I'm not having a go at you. I guess I am in a way, but it's just like, if you can do it, then you're obviously doing something right and all the best to you and good luck.

39:15But it's not something I would lightly walk into without being hyper aware of the challenges and the risks. Is it possible? Yeah. Is it likely that you'll do well and it will be an easy lifestyle with a lot of free time? Almost certainly not. So I would be careful. Now, you might say, just to preempt this, because Sarah may well say, it's like, actually, no, you've got me wrong. I actually didn't mean, when I said trading, I just actually meant investing pretty much in line with a lot of the stuff that you guys advocate for. Sensible businesses bought for a long time. That's what I, you know, and those terms, investing and trading get used interchangeably.

39:54And even if you meant that, Sarah, then yeah, that is absolutely a different story. but then it will depend on the capital base you're working with. If you're going to quit your job and invest in that fashion on$100 ,000 and you think, I don't know what your situation is, but let's say for the sake of argument you need$50 ,000 a year to pay for the groceries, the insurance, the car, the holidays, whatever it is that you want, you are setting yourself up to get a, I need to get a 50 % return, which is well more than what Buffett's gotten, right? And again, it's not impossible. It's definitely possible, but it's extremely unlikely.

40:32If you've got$10 trillion, well, put it in an ING account and you can invest your way to a really great lifestyle, right? So if the capital base is big enough that on an average return, the one that you can reasonably say, yes, I am capable of getting that, and you just go the long-term return in Aussie dollars. If I think I can average, give or take 10%, I've got enough of a cash buffer that I can be okay in the lean times, and I've got enough discipline that I won't go crazy in the good times. Absolutely do it. Absolutely do it. It's pretty much my goal in life, frankly, is just to get to a point where the capital base is the income, not because I want to stare at five screens for nine hours a day, but because I can probably check in every few weeks and the money just keeps compounding away.

41:20That's absolutely my goal. I just wouldn't frame it as I'm going to retire to trade. I would just say I'm just living off my, I worked very hard for my money over the decades and now it's time for my money to work for me and I am absolutely going, trying to go in that direction. So I covered a lot of ground there and we've had to sort of second guess the exact intent of what you've outlined, but hopefully that helps. Yeah, I think you've nailed it. Sarah says, I don't need this to replace my full-time income or something to keep you busy until school pick up. Depends if you want to replace. if you may not mostly partly replace, as opposed to you don't need any income at all.

41:57As Ram said, that's a different thing. I can't give you personal advice here. I'm not allowed to, but if I was allowed to, I would say for the love of God, please don't try and be a share trader for exactly the reasons Ram said. It is appealing as an idea. The people who sell these things, sell the picture of the person at the cafe casually tapping away at a screen while having a coffee over the beach and making their fortunes. We've got a computer program that'll help you do this. Correct. We decided not to use it ourselves because it was so nice that we want to give it all. Actually, we don't want to give it all.

42:26I guess we'll have to charge a little bit for it. It's just like they're all scams. It is super, super seductive. Allegedly. Allegedly. Super, you didn't mention any in particular, so I think we're okay there. Yeah. We are, it's so seductive, Sarah. I just said all of them, though. Well, there's that. Except the ones that you were thinking about, in which case we're not talking about that one. Not that one. The other ones. I get it, Sarah. I might not get it. You're stressed and you've got kids and you just want to find a way to make a bit of money, keep yourself occupied and challenged, look after the kids, be around.

42:54Like, I 100 % get it. I really, really do. Who doesn't want that? I don't think share trading is likely to be the answer, to Ram's point. If you're living off the dividends, then great. Knock yourself out. And if you're doing that and you want to spend your, you know, between pick up and drop off time analysing companies, go for it. If that's interesting and challenging for you, that makes it a wonderful idea. Imagine you can create an income from trading is fanciful, in my opinion. Again, I know there's a criticism of you. I say there's a criticism of others. There's other people who sell that to you as an idea, which is why you're asking about it because you've seen the ads and you like the idea and you think, well, maybe possibly.

43:29I mean, they say it's possible. If it could work, that'd be great. Please don't let the dream seduce you any further. Yeah, I'm neither a personal financial advisor nor am I a career counsellor, but I would suspect with those skills you've got, you can probably find something you can do part-time between nine and three, five days a week. and if you want to keep yourself challenged and earn some income, I think there's probably a dozen different better ways to do it. Can I just very quickly interject with a snide comment? Go on. If you want to generate an income, get rid of the negatively geared investment properties.

44:04All right. Moving on. By definition, it's not generating and it's sucking in an income. Yes. It's negative cash flow by design. It's probably worked brilliantly for you, but I just. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So, yeah, mate, look, you do you, Sarah, but please don't try. Here's the other problem, right, is not only does Ramsey it may not work for you, you actually may erode your capital. If you don't work, you can't go backwards other than the money you spend. If you put$10 ,000 on the line and try and day trade it, you lose the$10 ,000. You're actually worse than where you're stuck. Not only did you not replace your income, you lost your capital and you're even worse off.

44:39So it's, I can't think of anything, I can think of lots of things worse. I can't think of much worse as an attempt to replace income than day trading. It's just an awful, awful thing to try and do. Not because I'm morally against it. It's just stupidly hard and almost impossible, to Ram's point, exceedingly improbable. Whatever almost impossible but not quite is, that's what I mean. Why are you paying brokerage? You are risking your capital. You're competing with other people with faster computers and more time in the industry and the chance of you being the one. Warren Buffett says if you don't know who the patsy at the table is, you're the patsy.

45:15Too bad poker. if you're going to win at day, the great thing about investing is it's what they call a positive expected outcome. In other words, the market goes up over time. So even if you're not the best, even if you're not even average, you'll probably still make money over time. Most people will make money investing because you sit around for long enough, the average company goes up in value. If you're reasonably diversified, you'll do okay. Not great, but okay. Day trading is a zero sum. If I win, you lose. If you win, I lose. Why? Because there's no, you don't get the value of compounding.

45:43You're literally taking a bet against somebody else. I think it's going to go up Well, I think it's going to go down. One of us is going to be right. Let's put our money on the table. It is, you said speculating. You said I don't mean to be mean about it. No, it is, I mean to be mean about it. It's absolutely pure speculation. Because unless and until you can see some way that has proven to consistently work for enough people over enough time, not one person who says, I used a system and I made money, not 10 people who did it, not people who did it, 100 people did it for a year, not 1 ,000 people did it for 10 years, but over time, is it likely to?

46:13The very nature of trading because it's a zero-sum outcome, is half the people win, half the people lose. And the half that win pay a fortune in brokerage and tax. The brokers win. The brokers win. Every time. Which is why they want you to do it, right? It's exactly why they want you to do it. The people who sell the software, win. The people who sell the trading systems and the books, win. You don't win. So, yeah, up to you, Sarah. Why I feel bad is, man, I get where you're coming from and I get why this seems like an attractive idea. I would just say to you, I reckon you are far, far, far, far, far better off using that expertise you've developed, particularly more of us being able to work from home part or most of the time.

46:51I reckon if you've got a great career, you've done it for 20 years, you're working in project management, you're working in corporate roles, I reckon you're probably super employable, right? And maybe not the hourly rate you're used to, and maybe only working from home and maybe whatever, but I would bet a very large sum of money that using those skills, you will find a role that allows you to do much, much, much better than you do trying to day trade, even though it's seductive, even though the freedom looks sounds attractive, all that kind of good stuff. Yeah, just please be really, really careful.

47:19I'd hate to see you go backwards. And actually, Sarah, it sounds like you're actually in a really sweet spot. I mean, to be able to, you know, I'm going to guess at a reasonably young age because the kids are only five, to be able to move from Brisbane to the Gold Coast and be debt-free, I mean, you're ahead of a lot of people there. And you're... You know if I'm still the way there, quite frankly. You're so close. Like your income doesn't need to be huge when there's no mortgage to service or rent to pay. I mean, I'm not saying you don't want it to be huge. Obviously, we want it to be as big as possible, but you don't, it doesn't need to be.

47:57Now, and you said, I don't know the particulars of your deed, but you said multiple investment properties. Three, I think it was, yeah. Three investment properties. Let's say, and I don't know what debts against it or whatever, but let's say that you sell up the house just using the equity to buy your other house in the Gold Coast, boom, free and clear. We own it outright. Brilliant. Okay. Let's say that there's enough equity in those three investment properties where you can get a million dollars net out of that. 10 % per year is a hundred grand. That's two grand a week. Gross. Without any mortgage costs.

48:31Like that's more than enough for a very comfortable lifestyle. And again, I'm not trying to say you should be happy with that and that's all you need. I'm not trying to put any joke. I'm just saying that if it all depends on your goals and just trying to read between the lines here, you're saying you want to spend more quality time with the kids and be at home and be able to take the family on adventures and, you know, build memories as people say. And it's just like, it sounds to me like you're there, right? Like ditch the dealing with the tenants and the real estate agents and all of that kind of stuff, you know, and then just sell it up, take the equity, pop it all into an ETF.

49:08And I don't know what, maybe there's net equity values 100 grand and it's a very different proposition. But if it's anything around a million dollars net and you owned your own home right now, right, you've won capitalism. You're like, boom, here's the gold medal. Maybe not the gold medal, but you're at the top of the podium, right? Like it's so, I'm so envious of your situation. In fact, I just think you've already done it. And to risk that potentially for day trading is just, ooh, don't do it. Yep, I agree. And again, if you can work... One more thing. Maybe there's$2 million in equity from the investment properties.

49:44Now it's an ING account is generating you$100 ,000 a year. Yeah. Like, you won. Yeah. You're a legend. Particularly with no mortgage. Yeah, I got$2 ,000 a week without a mortgage expense. Like, what are you... You dine out every night, go to Bali every other weekend. Like, you're living the dream. So to Ram's point, Sarah, if you actually did mean investing rather than trading, then great. If you've got that capital base and you want to invest that capital base and spend your time analysing businesses and building long-term compounding, then do that for sure. And so, you know, in that case, are there books?

50:19Are there? Yes, absolutely. Millions. The essays of Warren Buffett are fantastic. Good to Great by Jim Collins. One Up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch. Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits by Phil Fisher. I know I'm rattling them off, but you can go back and listen to them. um yeah so great great books um if you really want to get into what the intelligent investor by ben graham warren buffett talks about as great books to read um there's a really really great investment a little book behavioral investing by james montier we've done book recommendations before um yeah go and do those don't don't do any courses um investing courses tend to teach you the the fundamental theory of corporate finance is taught by um academics and it's kind of useless these days you need to do that course to get a job in finance because we just have rising in credentialism and qualification inflation, which is just dumb and costs people time and money and it's a waste of time.

51:10But there's some great books out there. Yeah, I hope you are wanting to invest. If you want to invest and spend your time analysing the company, that's awesome. That'll be well and truly worth your time and effort and challenge and interest and do that for sure. Just please don't trade. Motley Fool Money. For more, subscribe to the free newsletter at fool.com.au forward slash listener.

51:33Daniel, he says, hi Scott and Ram. Thanks for your insights every week. Your pod is a great tool for those of us starting out on our path to financial independence. Speaking of that, I've only been plugged into the pod machine for a year or so, so apologies if you've already answered this question. We've probably answered most questions, Daniel. We've talked about most things over and over again, mate. Welcome to Groundhog Podcast. My question is, Daniel, do we in Australia tax the big mining and resources giants fairly? And if not, why the hell not? It's a topic that's hot on social media both before and after the election, but it's not something that gets explored enough in mainstream media.

52:12Full on. Cheers, Daniel. Go on, mate. Oh, gosh, big topic. I find it very surprising, Daniel, that we haven't touched on this even in the last year multiple, multiple times, so I won't labour the point. And it's a heated topic and the devil is in the detail and it's only at the very specifics, you know, the pointy end of things that there'll probably be any disagreement with me and Scott. But in terms of the big picture, no, absolutely not. We do not tax it in any way that is appropriate given our very, very fortunate endowment. Not even close. Not even close. And there is absolutely a very good argument and that I strongly support that we need to make it so that we are an attractive destination for offshore capital to come develop these resources because it's all under the ground, mixed with mud and clay and all other kinds of things.

53:05You've got to get it out. That takes a lot of money. And those that do that, that take the risk, that front up the capital, deserve a return. Mudd deserves is not the right word. But if they can't reasonably expect a return, they're not going to do it and they're going to stay under the ground, right, and someone's got to do it. So I'm not one of these people. I think some quarters they get too ideological. It's just like mining is bad and we shouldn't do it and anyone who does it needs to be taxed so punitively that it's not even worth doing. No, absolutely. But you could allow for a very, very attractive risk-adjusted return on investment and we could absolutely squirrel away a much, much bigger portion because we, and I say we, all Australians, are the owners of that.

53:54It's pretty simple. It's pretty simple stuff. Look at the United Arab Emirates, look at Norway, look at a lot of the other places that are commodity rich and most of them do it very badly. A few of them do it brilliantly and their citizens are much, much wealthier as a consequence. And guess what? The big multinationals rock up because there's still a buck to be made. They'll never admit this, right? I mean, here's the thing. Norway's got a very, very big petroleum natural gas industry, right? Yes. They're there. They're doing their thing, right? It's like, oh, we could never possibly. Well, you're going to lose jobs and they're going to throw all these traces.

54:35Like, are you? Are you though, really? Because I will call that bluff any day of the week. Because the reality is at the end of the day, if it wasn't profitable, it wasn't economic and even economic to the sufficient degree, you just would stop. And I wouldn't even blame you for it. It was like, oh, Norway's being really ridiculous here. We can't make money. We are unviable at that point. We're going home, we're picking up our toys and we're going home. But they don't, which is all you need to know. Yeah. So, Daniel, short version, Rev's on a good short version too. We own, so here's, tax is the wrong word.

55:15Taxes are a million percent the wrong, you're asking the right question, but when I answer it, I'm not going to answer it in the context of tax. We tax mining profits appropriately. What are mining profits? Mining profits are the money left over after they've paid for their production and sold the proceeds of that production. That's what's left over. And all these buyers are a can of baked beans for$1, sells off$1.25, makes 25 % profit, and it gets taxed on that profit, less the costs of running the shop. Entirely appropriate. We tax miners enough. What we don't do is charge enough for the raw materials they use to make their products.

55:52And if that sounds like I'm saying the same thing, it's really not. And why I want to separate is because the mining apologists, and again, I'm going to annoy some people here, will say, but if you add up their royalties plus their income taxes plus their GST, they pay 40 % tax, whatever the numbers end up being, right? It's like, okay, that's more than Woolies pays a 30 % tax, therefore the miners are paying enough tax. Absolute baloney. Because we call, we shouldn't, we call the resources payments, the royalties and resource rents, we call them taxes. Now, technically they probably even are.

56:21But when we end with the semantics of what we call it, we're missing the point. You and I and every other one of the 26.9998 Australians own collectively the common wealth, literally the common wealth of the country, is the resources that sit below the ground, sit under the crust, right? We own those. What are they worth? If you had them personally, If someone said to you, guess what? You get this block of land. Under it is a gold mine. How much do you want to charge for access to that gold mine? The answer is going to be, as it should be in any good business, any good resource owner, as much as the market will bear.

57:00Not more, but not less than the market will bear. How much can I charge? If I held a public tender, said everybody with a backhoe, come over here. I've got a backyard and then there's a gold mine under it. How much will you pay me to mine the gold? They will say, well, it depends how much is there. And you say, okay, I'll do the work. I'll go and do the research. I will create an assessment. I'll do an assessment of how much gold is there. Turns out there is, I don't know gold mining. There is 10 ,000 ounces of gold. How much are you going to pay me? You don't say, I'll let anybody come in if they pay me$2 for this or$10 or$1 ,000 or$1 million.

57:35You say, there's five of you with a backhoe over there. Let's have an auction, guys. What do you reckon it's worth? Someone says, well, I'll pay$10 ,000. and you might be tempted to go, 10 grand, I'll take it. The other guy at Piper says, I'll pay you 20. Oh, hang on, now I'm going to stop. I'll pay you 30, 40, 50, 100,$200 ,000. Okay, you can have the deal. It's how we sell houses, right? Even if it's not an auction, ongoing private sales are effectively silent, slow-moving auctions because they're based on the price of other stuff. So we don't do that. We say, anyone can mine gold for this much an ounce.

58:11so now we call it a resource rent if it's a it's criminal it's so criminal it makes me angry just hearing you talk right now we call it a resource rent if it's a physical hard mineral metal we call it a royalty if it's oil and gas same thing either way it's our collective gas our collective gold our collective lithium our collective iron our collective uranium choose whatever you want it is incumbent should be incumbent on the government of the day representing the people representing the ownership of the common wealth to put a set of market price at which the marginal buyer is going to choose to mine.

58:48That's all we should be doing. And we're not. And it's an absolute disgrace. Now, some people say, well, the miner's taking the risk. Of course they are. And can they get a return from that? Yes. Will the price be set in an open market where the price is reasonably set? Yes. What is that price? I don't know. You don't know because we don't bother asking. We set a number and say this much. Well, it doesn't go up. There's more demand. is going to have less demand, it is absolute disgrace. So yes, we are charging way, way, way too little, not in tax, in the payment for the cost of goods sold. Again, think about a flour miller.

59:19The flour miller buys the wheat, makes the flour, sells the flour to Woolies. In this instance, iron shares in Fortescue, by the way, I would be hurt by a higher iron ore rent. I don't care. It should go up anyway. Why? Because Fortescue should be paying a market price. It buys our iron, it buys our iron ore, sorry, it buys the right to mine it, turns it into iron ore, puts it on a ship, sells it to China, they make steel out of it. The company should be able to make a profit if it can buy at a reasonable price. The market price should be determined by the forces of supply and demand. I have an iron ore mine.

59:51How much would you people like to bid to mine this iron here? Let the market decide. It is clearly and unquestionably, and if you don't think it's too low, look at the profit margins of BHP, Fortescue and Rio. That will tell you your answer. So we are charging way, way, way too little. By the way, if we were to charge more, Daniel, it should be put in a sovereign wealth fund. Ram mentioned Norway before. Why should we put in a sovereign wealth fund? For the same reason that I just mentioned, is the common wealth of Australia, literally the common space wealth. We call ourselves the common wealth as a country, but it's the same word, which is why I'm using it.

1:00:24We inherited it from our parents, inherited it from their parents, inherited it from their parents. It is an internally provided asset. It has taken tens and tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars a year, tens of millions of years for that oil to be not placed, but to eventuate, to be in that reservoir, right? For the carbon to compress into coal, to compress into diamonds. And we're going to dig it up once, flog it off today and spend that money on bread and circuses for people today. And then next year, what have we got to show for that? Nothing, but we all get a bit of a kickback from the government.

1:01:00We paid less tax than we could have. we did whatever. In my humble or not so humble opinion, it must go in a sovereign wealth fund. That is a fund set up to preserve, to turn the inherited common wealth in mineral form into preserved common wealth in financial form so that we are preserving the value of that inheritance for the future. Now, I would take out some of that and fund the federal budget every single year from a portion of the earnings of the fund, but the capital must remain because We inherited it from our forebears. They asked nothing for it. They left it for us. We should do the same for our kids and their kids and their kids and allow that inheritance to be provided in perpetuity, a future fund style, but a proper silver and wealth fund that is funded by those resource rents and royalties.

1:01:45That's a rant and a half. It's been a while, Ran. I feel good. It's like there's some things in politics you can go, oh, it's complicated. There's this and on the other hand, there's that. And, you know, and there's different reasonable people can reasonably disagree. This is one of those areas of policy you just kind of think, I just can't fathom being able to look at it any other way except from that perspective of the vested interest, who is reasonably and rationally going to argue for their own case, as we all do. You just made me look at the net margin. When you were talking there, it's like, yeah, what is the net margin of BHP?

1:02:17Net margin. So let's define that before you go. What's net margin? So not the operating margin, not the gross margin. Like what, for every dollar they make in sales, how much do they keep at the end of the day? Once they've paid all, every single bill, they've sold their product for X, they've paid every other cost they've got and what's left over is their net. Net means just effectively net of every other cost. So what's left at the end, what is the net mark? So what percentage of their sales do they keep? I don't. I'm fascinated. Have a guess because I was going to guess something high, but.

1:02:4626%. Yeah, bang on. 100%, bang on. You nailed it. I promise it wasn't set up, I promise. Yeah, yeah. And this is last year, right? But in the year before, it was about 25.5%. I was even higher than the year before. So they're doing well. The return on equity might be a better measure of that. That's 31%. Even on return on capital, if you just want to not account for the benefits of debt, it's a 24 % return on capital. This is an extraordinarily profitable business. By the way, all these net margins are 5%. Right. I want to say Google's net margins are about 20%. I don't know. 30 %? Wouldn't be surprised.

1:03:30I mean, and it's a tech business. They're dealing in bits of data. There you go. 30.9. Okay. So one of the best businesses not only in the world, in the history of humankind does 30 % net margins. Yes. And a company that digs rocks out of the ground is pretty much coming up against that. Now, good on them. Now, they're an incredible, I'm not having a go at BHP, right? They're incredibly well-run business and they're playing within the rules that are presented to them. So they're not going to get up there and advocate for this. And if I was a shareholder, I'd be saying, shut the hell up, right?

1:04:08In that regard. But if I'm approaching this from the perspective of the greater good, it's just, it's unconscionable. CSL, net profit margin, 18.3%. And that's another incredible business. Exactly. And so... And you can make more digging rocks out of ground with zero pricing power. The industry that should have the lowest margins effectively in the world are the ones that don't have any price. It has to sell it for the going market rate. Yep. No pricing power at all. Let me preempt another pushback. People go, yeah, but that's now. They're making that money now. What you're excluding, Andrew, is the fact that they spent 10 years and umpteen billion dollars just to get to the starting plate so that they could earn these returns.

1:04:51So really what you need to do is look at the full picture here and you're absolutely right on that. But don't forget in Australia and in most parts of the world, you can carry forward losses. So if you make a loss for 10 years while you're setting it up, every dollar in loss can be offset against every future dollar of profit. So you don't start paying tax until you're ahead in net terms in all of that kind of stuff. And I think that's a great idea. I think that's a reasonable thing that we should do. Absolutely, you should be able to carry your losses forward. I can carry my many losses forward from past share market dalliances and offset that hopefully against some future returns.

1:05:32And that's as it should be. So, again, it's not mining bashing. It's not anti-capitalism. It's not anything like that. It's just, as you say, at the end of the day, stop looking at it at the country level. You own a bunch of stuff. You've got to try and sell it. What are you going to do? You're going to get the best price for it, and we don't do that. We don't even go close. By the way, on net margins, last 10 years, BHP's net margins, 10 years ago, 4%, which sounds pretty awful, right? Then 18, 21, 21.7, 21.4, 28.1, 30.6, 25.3, 24.8, according to ComSec. Wow. There you go. So, yes. Is it cyclical?

1:06:11Yes. Are those margins extraordinary? Yes. Here's the other thing. I'm not anti-BHP either, but I want to go back to the point I made before. Businesses, no, deserves is the wrong word because you've made that point before. But a business that has no pricing power, zero, because a ton of iron is a ton of iron is a ton of iron. Yes, the quality is a little bit different, but they right-size the price accordingly. You should be getting one of the worst returns, not because you deserve, not for any moral reason, just because if anyone can dig a hole and dig out some iron ore, the price should fall to the appropriate price.

1:06:47and the costs should be representative of genuine, real, appropriate costs. The average margin for BHP should be 5 % a year. Ted, if you're lucky, you wouldn't do it for less than that. But if you made much more than that, in theory, competition would come in and cause you... Why isn't competition costing them? Because we've got a below market... It's effectively... Talk about rents. This is a rent-controlled industry. No matter how much they make, we're not charging them any more. So here's the last one for me. The only, Daniel, the simplest question to ask is, if you gave Macquarie Bank, Macquarie Group, the rights to every mineral in Australia, sold to it for a reasonable price, and said, you guys can set the price, and on that basis, you can get the proceeds from everything that comes in.

1:07:34Now, ask yourself outright, do you reckon, Macquarie says, you know what, federal government, you guys have nailed it. Every single commodity, every single carbon, I mean, every single mineral, you've got to, I can't find a single, in fact, I'm going to drop the royalties because you guys are - You've been overcharging. You've charged. Do you reckon that's likely? Now, here's the thing. Will, if you set them at the right price, would some miners go broke? Absolutely. Yes. Would there be a little bit less mining done? Possibly, yeah. Would we make a ton, an S ton more as a country? Selling at market rates, even with a little bit less volume, but we charge more for it?

1:08:09Yes. If you are in any other business anywhere in the world, Would you trade off? If my revenue fell 10%, but each dollar of revenue I got to bank was 50 % more profitable, would I do it? In an absolute freaking heartbeat. Of course I would. And yet the Australian government, and government's plural, this goes back a million years, are consistently and structurally undercharging these resource players for our resources. We're letting them have it. When they're gone, they're gone, right? When China stops growing at insane rates, that opportunity is gone. This is a once in a generational opportunity and we have squandered it.

1:08:50Once in a century, I would suggest, given the Chinese boom is unprecedented and will stop. Consider, here's the very simplest way to do it. Consider you've got a fixed stockpile of something. Let's say you've got Beanie Babies, right? You're all the Beanie Babies in the world. For the young kids, it was a collectible thing. Call them Yo-Yo's. I don't know. What are the cool kids called? Pokemon cards. Pokemon cards is great, right? So there's only a certain number of ultra rare, diamond, shiny, what are they called? You know these things. I don't know these things. I'm not across the Pokemon. VX.

1:09:20There's all, anyway, my younger kind of half collects them. And you've got all of the rarest cards and there's 10 of them, right? And once they're gone, they're gone. Once you've sold them, they're gone, okay? And you say, what's the market price for these things? Oh, 100 grand each. Oh, I'll sell them for 10 grand each. Why? Well, if I don't sell them for 10 grand each, people might not buy them. Yeah, but they're worth 100 grand more. Yeah, but I might only sell nine of them rather than all 10 if I charge 100 grand for them. So I'll sell them for 10 grand. Now, it's obvious. Daniel, thanks for setting me up on a rant because I'm going to feel so much better after this.

1:09:53It is obvious to anyone listening. My 12-year-old could tell you. You could tell me when you were six that selling under market price is the world's most stupid idea, except that's exactly what we do. Yes, the miners are taking a risk. Good on them. They are making a squillion dollars in profit as a result of that risk. Every business is taking a risk. Of course they are. Well, maybe they mightn't do the exploration. Of course they bloody will. And by the way, if that honestly is people's complaint, I will happily have government fund a proprietary database of exploration, be done by the Australian federal government on the taxpayer's dime, if that's what's stopping people, then have the auction.

1:10:27We've done the research. Turns out there was a gold mine under Andrew's house. We've done the work. It cost us a million dollars to do that work, but we found a gold mine under Andrew's house. Fantastic. Okay, great. So there's no exploration risk anymore. Is there production risk? Sure. Is there commodity price risk? Sure. If the miners don't want to do it, don't do it. That's okay. Don't do it. I'm going to go a step further, mate, just to confuse things and I'll shut up. Not only would I do that, I would set a floor under the price at which price we wouldn't mine the commodities. Yeah. And this came from Charlie Munger way back in the day.

1:10:59His view was we should charge a whole lot more for resource rents and royalties. He's like anti-mining, by the way. His point was simply, why would you sell it when it was too cheap? And here's the equivalent, right? Because it's going to be there when it's less cheap. That's the point. So you can sell it now for$5 or in 10 years for$50. What do you want to do? It's been there for 3.8 billion years, right? It's not going anywhere. So you set a floor. At some price will mining stop? Yes, and it bloody well should. Why? Because in those times the miners are going to make their money anyway because who's the muggins?

1:11:29Us. We're the idiots who are saying, oh, I know it's too cheap. Or you can have a cheaper profit. You can still make your profit. We'll cop the loss. We're very kind to you, mining company. We're the Australian taxpayer. Why would we care if you, you know, we don't want you to make any less money. We'd rather make the loss than you make the loss because it's terrible like that. Is there jobs involved? Yes. Are they single-digit thousands at max? Yes. Absolutely. There's more people who work for Woolworths than work for the mining industry. Yeah. Are we going to prop Woolies up? No, we're not going to prop Woolies.

1:11:54Nor should we. Madness. I'm done. Qantas we might. There are airlines that get out of their jets. I'll just say this. It's a very easy solution. It's like we talked about it on Friday's pod. There are some really easy, obvious solutions that will never happen. And if there was one thing I would do is just get rid of corporate donations. I told you. Problem solved. See you later. It's gone. Done. Oh, wait, they're not going to pay us anymore? Well, I guess there's no quid pro quo. You couldn't do political advertising either because, you know, the one thing is you could actually do their own advertising and get the result they want.

1:12:25Well, they did that for the mineral resources rent tax, right? So you have to donate directly. You just say, I'm on your team. I will advertise to get the end you want. As long as you say you want this thing, I'll advertise to make it happen. It doesn't mean you get donations. It's so funny to me that there are people who take the other side of that argument. It's like, no, businesses should absolutely be able to directly pay into the pocket of our politicians. Freedom of speech. Fair dinkum. Like, what? Fair dinkum. Individuals can if they want, sure, but what? No. It's crazy. Yeah, I work in a political donation.

1:12:55I used to think that there are some, if you're interested in, like Simon Holmes of Court's got a dog in the fight, but if you read the book called The Big Teal, he goes into donations for about five pages and it's fascinating. Banning donations entirely would simply reinforce the existing position of the two majors for electoral funding reasons. Yep. So we need to be a little bit careful about how it's done. I was in the camp of just ban all donations, done. Let's get rid of them all. I think they'd be better than what we've got now, but what it would do is entrench the majors because they get to collect dollars from the AEC, the Electoral Commission, based on how many votes they get.

1:13:28Yep. And because you stand a candidate in every seat, even the ones you lose, you get money for the votes for. Whereas independent, because you're independent, you don't stand in every seat. So, you know, imagine you're the page party and you're trying to stand for your local seat. I'm the Phillips party and I stand a candidate in every single seat across the country. I win none of them, but I get enough votes in every one to end up with 10 times your funding. Yeah. So I can stand all in your seat because I'm not going to win the other ones. So, sorry, massive tangent. I only say that out loud because I think it's a useful reminder.

1:13:58But to your point, it would still be better than what we've got now. Yeah. And at least me and the parties weren't trying to, you know, effectively kowtow slash whatever to potential and actual donors. So I completely agree. Yeah. I've actually seen it in a few annual reports where they'll have made a donation and the company. The way that they twist themselves in not trying to say anything other than we expect a return on this investment, which of course they do. Like, oh, why else are you, you're not in the business of promoting democracy. You're in the business of business, right? You've got no, it is so obvious, like anyone, anyone can see from a mile away.

1:14:39It's like, I'm paying you money because I expect a favour in return. Obviously. Otherwise, why would I do it for? And it's just, you know, like, oh, no, no, it's this. And like, the only thing that's surprising about it is that it works. That's the surprising thing. It's like, really? Yeah. People are buying that BS? Okay. You've almost got to respect it. There's almost a part of it that's kind of like, well, that was a brazen, that was a ballsy move and it paid off and I never would have thought that that was possible. People bought your explanation? Wow. Yeah. Okay. Okay. What? Yeah, 3 % are like weirdos?

1:15:19Oh, no, no, 90 % of the country bought it. Like, what? That's right. Okay. Funny because it's true, right? That's the problem. Yeah. Scary stuff. Scary stuff. We haven't done that question for a while, Daniel. We've definitely done it now. And then we both started off by saying short answer. Oh, sorry. Yeah, I did too. That was my fault. Your answer was short. I laid on. I piled on too. Oh, yeah. But if I'd kept it short, maybe you'd finish 10 minutes ago. Anyway, if you stayed this long, hopefully you've enjoyed the rant.

1:15:50I'm going to buy some BHP shares after all. I've done it in my force. You can't beat them, join them, right? Well, it's 25 % margins and 30 % return on equity. Not bad. Not bad. You know what I wonder if, I'm sure it's not been done, I wouldn't bother doing it, but I wonder if the average returns for mining companies by jurisdiction are proportionally correlated to their mining royalties. I suspect they probably are. That's a pretty good theory, yeah. I say that only because we've talked so regularly. I've said it before. Hypothesis. I spent the first 20 years of my investing life saying mining companies with bad businesses for all the reasons we've talked about.

1:16:24And yet, and BHP is the poster child. Someone said to me, it was on this pod, I think, maybe even a couple of years ago. Someone said, well, you said it's a bad business, but look at BHP's returns. I'm like, no, you can't be right. And it turned out right. BHP has outperformed the market for 10 years. And maybe it's a cyclically high commodity price. Maybe everyone does. Maybe Vale does. Maybe whatever. Or maybe the success is actually that they're no longer, you know, you were talking about crony capitalism. Crony might be too strong a word. I don't want to apply it to BHP directly or specifically.

1:16:51But, you know, again, your point about Steve Keen, you know, if it's a case of the results are a function of the regulatory environment far more than the economics, then you've got to think about that in that context rather than just should they be good businesses? Hell no. Are they? Well, if they are, then you've got to put theory aside and say why are they and will that continue? And if that's the case, then where's the investment opportunity? I'm far from sure that, you know, if we're going to undercharge resource royalties, if that's the source of their profits, then maybe my entire thesis has been wrong the whole time because I've made the keen mistake of, again, I don't mean to bag Steve Keen, but made the mistake of saying, well, perfect, well, they shouldn't be.

1:17:29But if they are, then, you know, you can either pretend. You can't beat them, join them. Well, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I'm never going to enter politics, mate, but, gee, sometimes I really want to. And it's for stuff like the housing stuff and this stuff and you kind of shake your fist at the sky and like we do with housing, what do you do? Well, you look after yourself and that's true on one level. But on another level it's like, because I'm Pollyanna, I have to believe there's a world in which there's enough of this, I was going to say a bad word again, enough of this stuff that you combine together, say housing affordability, mining rents, rental rights, whatever that combination of things are, and just kind of go, there's got to be enough people and enough votes who are like, there is a better way.

1:18:08And I'm sure there's not, and I'm sure the parties will do it, and I'm sure et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We just finish talking about the independence and the structural challenges. But I don't know, at some point, you know what, if I won the lotto, I've always said I'd keep doing the job. I probably would. I would not Clive Palmer like, but a very different way to Clive Palmer. I'm not sure I wouldn't throw good money after bad and waste my entire fortune trying somehow to fix the thing because I don't know how else it gets done. Yeah. Well, sadly, it needs money, right? There was something about the stats, particularly in the US presidential elections, like you need to be worth several hundred million dollars just to be in the running.

1:18:42Yeah. And it's kind of like that. Fair dinkum. If that's not seen as a problem, I don't know what is. It's like, surely it's the merit of your ideas. No, no, it's not. No, it's not. Mate, I'm trying very hard not to be a cynic here and you're not helping, right? I'm trying the same. It's not working for other businesses.

1:19:03All right. We're done here. Yeah, we're done. Let's go to the pub. Oh, anyway. Yeah, no, I want to finish with something positive. Don't know. Could be worse. It could be worse. I mean, here's what we do. Here's a could-be-worse thing. Most, particularly in developing nations, it is 100 times worse than this. Yes. And you wonder, it's like how do some of these countries, how are you poor? I mean, gosh, you've got so much gold. You've got so much coal. You've got whatever it happens to be. How are you poor? It's because they do it even, it's even worse there. That's the short answer. So there's something to be positive about for Australians.

1:19:48No, no. We're not that bad. No, you're a million percent right to the point that I would rather have our problems than almost anybody else's. I don't like – for everything that sucks and is wrong and we could fix and all that kind of stuff, and as much as we can get absolutely stuck in the doom and gloom stuff, I don't know whose problems I'd rather have, really, really honestly. Yeah. And maybe that's biased and all that kind of stuff. I'm sure it is, but it's a genuine point. I just don't know whose I would rather have. That is the answer. Oh, man. I'm really thinking about Africa and South America here too.

1:20:19There's some real incredible natural bounties there and they're dirt poor in both jurisdictions. Yeah.

1:20:32So the best we come up with is we're not as bad as them. Not as bad as them. It's such a tragedy too. So that'll the pub, I'll take it. Yeah. Go. Well, I like to say it's sort of like, I don't know, I'll open up another can of worms, but I feel it's like we are culpable in the West to a large degree for a lot of that, that we allow that, we're happy to turn a blind eye to that exploitation, particularly when it's our companies that are doing the exploiting because you can do it at arm's length. It wasn't really us. That's just how things are in that part of the world. And it's like, yeah, I don't know how well that sits with me.

1:21:06I hear you. I hear you. Yes. We always had a happy night. I think you brought us back down. Sorry, I brought us down again. No, all good. Hey, if you've thrown this far through the podcast, we hope you've enjoyed the rants. Stay positive. Things will be better. And that's, again, I've said so many times, the future is going to be bright despite that, which is probably the miracle of the modern economy is despite all that stuff, things will get better. So stick with it. But also do something. Be some change. Get involved. I say it all the time because you can't not – well, you either sit in the morass of miserableness or you go and try and make a change and be some of that.

1:21:39We're trying to do that with this podcast. We hope it's helped. If it has, I don't know what to do. Go and vote. Join a political party. Jump on social media. Talk to your friends. Do whatever you can, but be part of the change. Be the person that when you sit down at the Christmas table, all your relatives roll their eyes and go, oh, Scott's going to go on about this again. Bloody mining royalties, for love of God, Phil. Shut up. All right. We're done here. We'll talk to you next Friday. Until then. Full on. Cheers. The Motley Fool and people appearing in this program may have positions in the companies mentioned.

1:22:09General advice only. Please speak to your financial professional to understand how it may pertain to your situation. Subscribe to the free newsletter at fool.com.au forward slash listener. The Motley Fool operates under Financial Services Licence 400691.