Mailbag: incl. Should my ETF exclude banks and miners? June 8, 2025

25:24And if they do that after a year, that's great, 25 % of it, wonderful. Then what do you do with the money? I want something that's going to keep growing itself internally because I'm lazy, right? I don't have to find a new idea every year. I want to find 25 great ideas and hold it for 20 years. In a perfect world, that's all you need to do. So, anyway, that's a long answer. It's also the trouble with trading, right? Like, even if you get a successful trade, which you will statistically from time to time, but you've just got to find another rabbit to pull out of the hat. And then you've got to do it again.

25:50You've got to do it again. You've got to time the buy. You've got to do the right buy, but you've also got to do the right sell. The degree of difficulty goes up exponentially, as opposed to this dumb approach of just buying a good company at a decent price and sitting on it. Like it's just, you know. The other thing you reminded me of there is the saying, don't ask the barber if you need a haircut. Yeah, that's a good one. Don't ask an active fund manager if you... If passive investing is a good idea. They're not going to go, yeah, it's absolutely the way to go. Well, most weren't. I mean, I will...

26:21I'll give myself a humble break here. Passive investing is wonderful. And if you do that, you don't buy a monthly full subscription, then eventually someone says to me, Scott, get another job. Sure. Right? So we are – I'm going to give both a wrap. We are unusual people. We've talked about housing. That's why we'll never get a job if we ever lose our current minds in the industry. We'll be blacklisted. Don't let the boss hear this one. Exactly. So I can pay you half and you have to stay? No, but please don't fire me. Yeah, you were at housing earlier. There are very few people who will argue against their own self-interest and that sucks for society.

26:59So, you know, I think you can beat the market buying stocks. That's why I do it. I've been able to do it at ShareAdvisor for 13 years so far. Not because I'm a genius, just because if you do the right things often enough, well enough, you'll probably do okay because you can avoid the rubbish and buy stuff a little bit above average and do okay. You've done even better than I've done, mate, with your own investing. You can do it. And if you can, you should. But also passive is wonderful for those who can't or won't. And they can both be true. Yeah, just spend less than what you earn and put the money somewhere sensible is pretty much it, right?

27:31That's 95 % of financial advice too, by the way. Not to rile up our financial advice, financial planning listeners, but that's not miles away from that either. Motley Fool Money. For more, subscribe to the free newsletter at fool.com.au forward slash listener.

27:48Hey, one from Ashley. Hi team. I'm a long-term listener and I've been hooked as I love the nickname Rampage and your many episodes have really been able to make me reflect on my investment journey. I'm going to achieve even that order. I think it's probably Rampage first and investing second, I'm not sure. A comment from an earlier podcast really hit home, which was around growth stocks and businesses and that essentially every update will be a record quarter or a record year. If it wasn't a record, then it wouldn't be growing. This made me stop and think. I have a bit of a light bulb moment as I've had a few stocks in this boat which quarterly or annually results come out and share price will do nothing or even go down.

28:21not really understanding this fully this concept made it frustrating so thank you for your advice it saved me a lot of head banging against a wall that's always good you're welcome my question to you comes down to insider influence and potentially too much influence i got lucky early with polynovo thanks to a friend as an australian asexa company which gifted me among other things a house extension nice ridiculous tax bill that keeps giving sorry i'm interested in trying to find other early Polynovos. And while I've had some success, I've had some failures as well. Some common denominators of the failures have been high CEO benefits and no skin in the game, especially when asking the market for cash.

29:00I made a decision after these failures to pay a bit more attention to insider skin in the game. As such, having owned Polynovo, I heard the chairman David Williams talk about another company he had a stake in a few years ago. I looked into the business and liked it, and I liked that the chairman owned shares. Over the last few years, I bought more and the business is potentially turning a profit. Tariffs aside, yeah, it's a story. So I'm kind of feeling happy. My only potential issue is that the chairman also has continued to buy, which sounds great. But he now owns a huge stake of the company and considering potential issues that have occurred between him and the CEO, my question is, is insider trading always a good thing?

29:39As you can assume the insiders know what's going on and not spend their money on a bad investment. or can they all be drinking the Kool-Aid? Or can one insider owning too much of a company be a bad thing? I might have to personal advice. Thanks, Ashley. But interested in your thoughts on insider owning such a big position in a company and an insider who isn't Uncle Warren. Cheers, Ashley. What do you reckon, mate? Insider ownership. Good, bad, good, sometimes, bad, sometimes. It does. It's generally. Yeah, it depends. It depends. I mean, you'll take it wherever. We're given the choice. You'll take it, right?

30:08It just aligns things. I've had the fortune of speaking to David a couple times Nice A few times in fact with Strawman He's a very passionate advocate for the companies that he's involved in And you can look at it in two ways It's like cynical self-interest He's out there pumping his bags Or he's a passionate believer in it And you know I tend to skew away from the cynical You'd be surprised to hear The cynical interpretation on that But it's funny because you hear a lot of it. It's hard to please everyone, right? In fact, it's impossible to please everyone. I hear criticisms of their, you know, they don't support it all.

30:48They support it too much, you know, and one is just pumping the bags and the other one is like, you know, neglectful ignoring of the thing, you know. So it's hard. And you're always, it's hard because you're always trying to infer intent, you know, which is hard to do even with the people that you're closest to in your life, let alone some person that you'd never met. And you've only got a few YouTube videos or chairman reports to sort of go on. It's super tough. I mean, what's happening behind the scenes? Maybe he's like trying to fuel a massive ice addiction or he gives all his money to starving kids in Africa.

31:29You know, like who knows? Who knows? So maybe he's just got an incredible business opportunity. He doesn't want to reinvest any of his spare capital in the current business that he's running because he's got multiple irons in the fire. There's always a good explanation for something and there's always a very bad explanation for something. And at the end of the day, you've just got to guess. So it's really, really, really, really hard. But I do come back to the original point, which is I'll take an aligned insider over one that isn't. Now, I've got stocks that I own where I don't think the insiders own nearly enough.

32:08And it's definitely on the con side of the pros and cons column. And I've got companies that haven't worked out well where the insiders held heaps of them, heaps of them, right? And so these heuristics are heuristics. They're not algorithms, right? Like they are sort of like these rules of thumb that we observe to generally be true, but not always. And by that measure, I mean, you're going to get lots of false positives. So this is a really wishy-washy answer other than to say, if you see it, it's a good thing. But you never, ever, ever make a determination on that alone or any one thing alone, right?

32:52It really is get the A4 sheet of paper, draw a line down the middle, pros on one side, cons on the other. I don't care what company or asset you want to talk about. There is always something. Everything has a few hairs on it. Everything does. And if it doesn't, that's probably a red flag in itself. If it's too good to be true, it's too good to be true. So your goal isn't to find something where there's just no negatives because you'll never make an investment. You just want one where there's just an overwhelming, you know, that page has got a lot more ink on one side of it than the other. And that's what you want.

33:26And hopefully the inside alignment is on the pro side, but it's not a deal breaker if it's not. You've stolen almost all my thunder, mate. I think that's exactly right. You know, inside ownership is kind of, it's a nice number. It's a nice metric. I almost

33:47I mean look if someone cares enough to have a lot of their wealth in something that tells you exactly what you want to know right what I probably prefer and then normally the Venn diagrams almost overlap as you again a phrase you used recently is the founder or family of the founder and that's kind of almost more important for me than the insider ownership per se right so it's kind of like you know someone bought into the business I mean it's the colour of their money right but they can be as an outsider trying to do a thing with the business they care they're passionate they're obviously putting a lot of skin in the game and money on the line the best insider owners are the founders because you've got both right you've got the passion you've got the drive you've got the know-how the people who made the business and did the thing that's kind of the starting point on top of that you then add their insider ownership so for me it's like both of those but to your point mate yes I 100 % agree better than not guarantee no certainty no but are they you're going to throw money at it for no reason, no.

34:43Here's the other thing, by the way, businesses fail all the time. Small businesses fail all the time. They're 100 % founder-owned or 100 % insider ownership. They should go broke because people try their best and it doesn't work. But again, you know, someone who is putting their money in, putting their life, effectively not life on the line, but their financial lives on the line, generally a good thing. I think Inovic is the company that's being referred to here. It's another fascinating one. But yeah, at a different stage of Polynovo. And you'll see this amongst all, and I'm not trying to talk anyone in or out of anything other than this, but you'll find people who have been incredibly successful in investing in business that have all kinds of disasters behind them.

35:31And that's just normal, right? Yes. Years ago, I worked for a high net worth investment club. And one of the real light bulb moments for me was from the outside going in, I just assumed that, wow, they must all be super smart because they're all super rich and successful. And then you realize, and I'm not trying to criticize anyone. No, you're not like they're all lazy idiots. But it wasn't the intellect that got them there. And it wasn't the perseverance and hard work that got them there. They were like necessary starting conditions. So as I say, if you're dumb and lazy, it's going to be really hard to be successful.

36:10But if you're super smart and super motivated, that is no guarantee of success. I can say almost without exception that every single one of them, the secret to their success, if I could put it that way, was that they were just willing to try again and again and again. And it's like, wow, that guy had started a business from scratch. It's now worth$400 million and he sold it to, you know, some big American company. That's so amazing. So, yeah, he had 12 businesses before that. They all went bankrupt. And, again, I'm not trying to put any value judgment on it other than they have this capacity to where they just have very, very high risk tolerance and also an ability to recognize when something's not working.

36:55I think this is a good idea. I'm going to try it. I'm going to give it my all. Bugger. It didn't work. I got on to the next thing. And most of us, when we try something and it doesn't work out, we touch the stove, we burn our fingers like, I'm not doing that again. Like, I'm not an idiot. I'm not a sucker for punishment. Why would I do? Why would I go through all that hard work and failure and loss and try that again? Again, that's why these people are successful because they know that nothing's guaranteed. But if you try, throw enough stuff at the wall, sooner or later things stick. And if you do it in a way where you don't completely, utterly blow yourself up, when you do fail, you've got that opportunity to stand back up at the plate.

37:32So all I'm really saying here is, and I'm not trying to be critical of anything of David, but he's a very successful man. But it doesn't mean everything he's touched is going to turn to gold. I know that the listener's not making that point, but I'll just make that. And I'll give you another one that's just come to mind because it was just being discussed recently on Straw Man. There's a company called Playside Studios, which I held a little bit of shares in for a while. Hasn't gone great. Hasn't gone great. Jerry Sackis, the founder and CEO, stepped down recently. Founder, massive inside owner, super passionate and committed with what he did.

38:09And I'm not even saying it was his fault. It's just like gaming industries are tough. But the business didn't go well. And you'll see the shares is like, it's fallen off a cliff. And it's sort of like, and yet, if you had, if you had said, well, it's a founder with massive skin in the game, who's really passionate, who's really articulate, you know, who's a visionary in terms of what they're trying to achieve. And we spoke to him a couple of times. You know, it was hard to come away from those calls and not be excited. As I said, I bought some shares, right? Totally didn't work out. And that's, again, not being critical of Jerry in any way, shape or form, just making the observation.

38:43that there are the false positives that are out there and they're more common than you think. Yeah, I think a really good point. And again, with averages, with averages, with investing, you're playing averages, you're playing probabilities. And so it's not a case of every, would I buy a business without insider owners? Yes. Do I expect every business I own with insider owners to do really well? No. On average, if I get enough of those factors in my favour and play the game enough times, but like your point about sending out businesses, the investing is the same thing, right? You try and find the factors you like, you probably put them together, and more often than not, hopefully you hope they work, They won't always work and that's just investing life.

39:15Yep. Let's go to a question from Steve. Hi, Scott and Rampage. People are loving the Rampage. Long-time listener, first-time questioner for the pod machine. I love the show. From someone who was never given any financial education growing up, you guys have really provided that for me. So thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. That's very nice of you to say, Steve. I will give ourselves a quick plug under the pod just to say, if you're enjoying this podcast and you think we might be useful, share us with other people. or other resources. If there's better resources out there than us, share those with other people too.

39:45But there's so many people like Steve who did not get financial education growing up and you either stumble on the podcast or you don't. You stumble on something else or you don't. So yeah, help us do other people a favor. It's free, right? You're not doing it right, dude. Go on. You don't watch enough YouTube is all I'll say. You've got to hit like and subscribe. Okay. Like, subscribe and share. Like, subscribe and share. You did the share part. I'll give you some partial points, but I'm going to need some like and subscribe sorry mate okay okay like and subscribe and share this podcast there you go yes alright there are still many topics you discuss that I don't fully understand says Steve but I take on board the snippets that relate to me and have learned investing traits and behaviours through your ongoing repetition on certain topics haha yes enough said enough said I have many questions but I'll start with this my wife and I are getting ever closer to the 40 milestone bastards and both in the last decade have created sole trader service businesses.

40:43We've sacrificed the potential maximization of our earning power to have that work-life flexibility to be able to enjoy and support our kids through their early educational years. That is a solid choice. But with that, we have both not invested much into our super as we are financially prioritizing starting up and building our businesses and making a good dent into our mortgage. We recently saw a financial advisor to try and plan ahead. We were told we should look to take a loan to purchase an investment property, most likely somewhere interstate, such as Queensland or Western Australia. Of course you did.

41:15I mean, of course you got that advice, is what I mean. That plan supposedly results in us getting house after house as we pay off a percentage of the previous home. Oh, it's just like a magic money machine. Why wouldn't you do it? To my wife and I, it seemed a little like a pyramid scheme type of thing. Kind of, but not necessarily. I like Steve already. You're a legend. We'll go back to that. Although the other major thing we were told was to increase our super contributions, which made me feel like we are well behind where we should be on our super journey. Our super is roughly 175 ,000 currently between the two of us, and we now contribute about 10 grand a year into them.

41:47I currently invest roughly three to 400 bucks a month into a portfolio, which is mostly a combination of a few ETFs, Australian 200, Global, and NASDAQ. We've built that up to be roughly around 45 ,000 bucks. My question is, should I look to put the money I invest with into super, or is it okay to continue as we are? And I didn't know if there was a resource that can help us give an understanding as to how much individuals should have in super, depending on their age and expected return. My reason for investing was to give us another savings pot for once we retire that I believe will perform better than super and also give us freedom to access if we need it at any time.

42:21I apologize for the long email. I hope it makes sense without giving you too many details, as I understand the advice you give is only general in nature. Yes, it is. Love the show and thanks a lot, Steve. Do you want to get started, mate? You got some things to say.

42:37just try harder. Goodness. And again, I am not disparaging the financial planning industry. I'd need to say it because generalizations are wrong. They're absolute miracle workers in that space. I respect you. I respect you. Exactly. I respect you immensely, but you know, as well as I do, that there's a lot of like, I was going to say crooks. Crooks. Yeah. Dross. Thank you. As there is in, and again, people in glass houses, right? Like a hundred percent. I cannot talk. I work for one of the scummiest industries on the face of the planet. We are dross adjacent. We really are dross adjacent. But I just can't think of a worse bit of advice, frankly.

43:15And it's hard to, it's got to be careful, right? Because it's worked really well. It has. It's worked really well. It's been great advice the last 40 years. But it's just like, you know, the duration of it has been the surprising thing. But, you know, it's like looking at NFTs a few years back and going, well, they've gone up 100 % this year. You want to get onto it now? Buy this JPEG for$40 ,000. Look at this. Look at the wave. Just extrapolate this forward. It's not a mile off though. Anyway, shut up. I just think it's just such reckless advice because one of the things that you need to understand and you would imagine that a financial planner would understand this is that while the return potential is certainly there because who knows how crazy things could ultimately get.

43:59There is so much leverage in that kind of strategy that you've got, you would God help you if there is a dip of any kind, because you are going to be a false seller. You're going to, on a massive leveraged bet, you know, that is absolutely correlated and you're just going to get wiped out. And that is just the most stupid, reckless advice. And I can't, can't say that enough. Okay. I feel better. I'll throw it to you at this point while I collect my thoughts. It just angers me because you're really playing with people's futures here, right? I'm not saying that a property and investment portfolio is something that you avoid full stop, period, under all circumstances.

44:39But just that kind of approach for people's life savings with no view to the potential downside, it borders on criminal. Sorry, I said I was going to stop and then I kept going. Sorry, I'm going to mute myself. No one thought you meant that. We all knew you meant it. We all knew you won't be able to go stop there. You did lean back from the chair. It's like, he's not done. Here we go. Take a rest, take a rest. Go for it. No, you take it over. I agree with you.

45:11Even without a bear issue on property, if you do the numbers on the repayments versus the returns, you have to assume some pretty significant growth. So I've said to you on this podcast before, my wife and I looked at, because that leverage is really tempting, right? If I could put down 5 % or 10 % and get a return on the 100 % of the asset, a 1 % return on the asset is a 10 % return on my money. That goes up pretty fast. And that's what leverage is, right? And so you kind of think, well, that could make sense. So I kind of went, well, I'm a shares guy, but I like money more than shares. So it's like, I'll invest wherever I can make money.

45:52So we looked at it. We looked at it really closely. And once you line up all of the costs, and this is not to be bearish on property at all, or negative anyway, once you line up all the costs, the interest costs, the agent's fees, some sort of allowance for upgrades, repairs, maintenance, whatever. Aussie landlords don't account for maintenance because they don't do it. Fair. They say he's a former renter. And then you look at the returns you'd need to get and then compare that to the average return on Australian shares, particularly if you're getting dividends, and particularly if you include the franking on those.

46:24And you kind of just line them up. I looked at, I did an average, I mean, you know, so it comes down to assumptions. The assumptions you have to make to make the property work were higher than I was comfortable making. And that's not, again, that's not the housing price crashing. It's not Ram's point about, you know, equity being wiped out, which is all, all those things are possible. I didn't, it wasn't even that for me. It was just, you know, what level of confidence do I need to have in the upside from property? How much does that need to be to make it worth more than investing compounding shares over time.

46:52I couldn't get there. I just could not get there. I mean, again, you can change the numbers to make it work, but that's kind of, there's no point in the model if you're just going to say, what outcome do I want? What numbers do I have to put in to get there? You can do it. But for the reasons you've talked about, any house price increase faster than wages growth for any extended period of time is very, very hard to justify. Now, it's been true for the last 30, 40 years, right? So again, like you, we're sort of saying, this couldn't possibly happen. It's like, well, it kind of just did. But to assume it's going to, and to put my hard-earned money on that possibility or that likelihood, I just couldn't do it.

47:22Because I have high confidence that the returns from shares are more likely to be sustainable because they're a function of, they're a subset of business and they have for 100 plus years had a pretty consistent return based not on higher multiples of income or just companies making profits. It just works. So I'm with you on that one. On super, you can, Steve, there's every now and again, there'll be articles published about the average super balance per age group. So you can use that. And in terms of then how much you should have it, it's a bit of a piece of string. The financial industry and superannuation retirement experts occasionally publish, here's how much super you need to retire with.

48:02And you can use those and kind of work out how much you're contributing, how long it'll take you to get there. And that's fair. What I would say though, is that assumes you don't have money outside super. So you don't really need super to retire. You just need money to retire. And that money can be in stacks of$100 notes, or it can be a share portfolio, or it can be property, or it can be super. But all you really need is enough money by the time you get to retirement to fund your retirement expenses. So how much you need in super isn't really as important as how much you need overall. And you can pretty much substitute super for non-super investments and vice versa.

48:35Now, you know by now there are more tax, there are tax advantages of being inside super that you're not available outside super. So a dollar in super is worth more than a dollar outside super. I'm really honest, it just is. But to the conversation we've had before a couple of times, there are more things than just how do I maximize my actual potential dollar return. It's can I get access to it? And you've talked about wanting to be flexible, Steve, and you're right there. What if they change the rules, all that kind of stuff. So there are reasons to have money outside super as well. I would use a retirement calculator.

49:02There's a million of them. You can look up. Just be careful who's giving you the amount you need to retire with because often it's vested interests. and not even that ideological interests people who think you you know how much do I need to retire well I don't know but the more I've got more comfortable my retirement's going to be so what's that number then I don't know think about something like replacing 75 % of your income as a starting point in retirement why 75 % because you're gonna have fewer expenses over your retired life you're not gonna have business suits to buy hopefully and you know maybe you'll go out as much you can have more than that by the way if you want but as a starting point that's a pretty good one So you work out what 75 % of your current income is, work out how much capital you would need to generate that sort of income, and that gives you a target for how much money you'd want to have by the time you're retired that you can use to generate retirement income.

49:50Any more on that, mate? No. I mean, I feel as though we've covered it a lot on the pod, so I just very quickly just add my view that there is something to be said for the optionality of accessing it beforehand. And the cynic in me, they're just too big a honeypot for it not to be tapped into at some point in time. It depends on how close you are to it. But I would say over the next few decades, there's a pretty high likelihood that there'll be some kind of tapping into the honeypot in some way, shape or form. Yeah, I think you're right. I still suspect the super doesn't have any worse than investing outside super.

50:32That's probably true too. but the degree to which it's better and the trade-off between that betterness, which is now a word, and flexibility and optionality is a question you've got to answer for yourself. Depends how bleak things get, right? When they force you to buy government paper, I was like, ooh, no thanks. See, there we go. Who was it that you were uplifting? There's a round of uplifting. There you go. Generally, uplifting, listen every time. Sorry, we've spoiled that. Let's go. Last question from Gus, mate. G'day, fellas, and thanks for the podcast. I enjoy listening every week. Oh dear, here we go.

51:04Gus is taking us to task. Actually, he's taking you to task, so it's even better. I did take exception to a comment from Ram last week, and I'll quote, quote, this wasn't last week, this is a couple of weeks ago now, quote, if you're 20 years old today and mum and dad don't have any serious equity or money, you're screwed, end quote. Andrew Rampage. Personally, says Gus, someone who has no formal qualifications, was not born into any money, and hasn't received any sort of inheritance or assistance from my parents. I think that was a ludicrous comment. Ludicrous. Sure, a 20-year-old who might want to buy a house and work in a leafy Sydney suburb may not be able to do that But with hard work and sacrifice, you can still make it in this great country I've travelled all around the country, working and living, raising a family and hoping to gain financial freedom I work with a number of 20-year-olds from all over the country who are making similar sacrifices and doing unbelievably well Sure, things aren't perfect With determination, sacrifice and hard work, the Great Australian Dream is alive and well and comments like that aren't reflective of what is possible out in the real Australia.

52:02Cheers, Gus. I will say to that, mate, quickly, I'll let you get in. I've had some people on Twitter tell me, I should actually do the work that I haven't. When I've talked about housing affordability, people have replied to me, there is Sydney, Melbourne housing affordability and there is the rest of the country housing affordability. And their argument is that we, the problem, and they make the point of interest rates being used in part because of that, are fixing the Sydney-Melbourne problem and punishing the rest of the country where housing affordability isn't quite so bad. I don't know if that's true.

52:31I've not even done the work, but I'll add that to Gus's comment and let you off the leash. To savage Gus in response, as I know you will. I'm not savage, Jim. I love the optimism. I do like the optimism and I do, we've said before, right? Like generalizations are bad and dangerous. I guess - Never generalize. I never, ever generalize. I do stand behind my comments in terms of the average. I think it is harder for the average 20-year-old to build the foundation that was possible for people a generation or even certainly two generations and beyond before them. It just is. It's objectively true. Yeah.

53:10It's objectively true. Now, does that mean that there's no hope? No. You did say that was screwed, to be fair. I did say that. It was a little hyperbolic, I admit it. But, you know, we're in the entertainment game here. You know, you don't, you've got to, sometimes you've got to lay it on thick. And sometimes if you're me, you just don't think before you speak. So there is that as well. But no, I'll walk it back, Gus. Yeah, I think you're right. There is, look, and if I was starting out in the world today, Australia would be up the top of the list, right? As much as I'm angry at a lot of the decisions and a lot of the direction that we're going in.

53:49And I'd certainly choose that over. I won't even mention enough. There's too many to choose from, right? Like it was almost 200 different nation states out there and very few good options. So yes, I will take Australia. Thank you very much. I love my country. I'm a patriot, if I can say it that way, which is why I care so much. And it's why I would like to see some of these things change. But yeah, I think in general, it is much, much, much, much harder than it was. And I think younger people rightly get annoyed when older generations say you're just not working hard enough or you're, you know, you're being too profligate or this or that.

54:27And it's just not true. I guarantee you could teleport a 20-year-old from 1862 or the year 2248. And biologically, they're identical, right? You go back 10 ,000 years, they're identical. And there will always be, you know, a spectrum across that cohort. of lazy, useless people and incredible, you know, motivated, hardworking, et cetera, and everything in between. That is always, always the case. And you will always find exceptions against any rule that you care to come up with. But I think in general, let's just put it this way. I'll walk back the extremity of the comment and just sort of say, it's harder than it used to be for the average 20-year-old.

55:08Yep. And much harder. Yep. Because, Gus, here's the other thing, right? So while you've taken exception to that comment, I don't blame you for doing it, I reckon if I put the call out and say, hey, if you're in your 20s and you feel as though life is just a cakewalk, let us know. Or otherwise, I reckon I could pretty much, you know, I could get a lot of people emailing in saying, well, actually, I'm stuck at home with mum and dad as much as I hate it because what else am I going to do, right? Yeah, I think that's true. I do think it is different by region, by area, by being in country and regional, that kind of stuff.

55:47the problem is it's spreading too. So think about the, think about, you know, Sydney now effectively stretches from Newcastle, for those who don't know the kind of, you know, geography of Sydney. Yeah, look at it from space, right? Right, well, I'm down in Boweral, which is the Southern Highlands, halfway between Sydney and Canberra. And the prices here are not that much better than the price in Sydney. Now, I could move another hour out and it'd be much cheaper. If I could do, I could actually, because do my job from home. So, you know, if I could finish my wife, I'd buy a 100. You're fortunate in that regard.

56:15Most people can't, so that's it. And so it's kind of, um, I think what, I think, I think what Gus is doing is great. I think going and finding a place and a, uh, you know, where you want to work and live and have a life and can afford to live. I think it's great. Um, you've moved further out of the city in Sydney. I've moved, I moved out of Sydney. Um, I, my, my quality of life is so much better. Uh, now again, I've got a job I can do from home. I've had to commute to the city for an hour and a half each way every day. I'd probably get pretty sick of that pretty fast. Um, So, you know, I'm very, very lucky.

56:50But I see the benefit of it. I think I wish more people would or could do that. There's so many great inland towns and great cities you can go to and have a great life and, you know, be on what you're looking for. If you want 15 nightclubs and movie cinemas and, you know, 85 baristas, you're probably not going to find it in, I don't know, Pickettown, not going to main one because it feels like I'm being critical or not. I think it's probably a good thing to have a few baristas that maybe you've got in Sydney as a matter of course. But, yeah, I think Gus is right. I think it's, you know, there are ways to do it.

57:18What I think is unfortunate is that people have to do it as the only option. If you want to move to the bush and have a great life, I would do it tomorrow, right, to do it. If you don't want to, you want to be close to family and where you grew up and your friends and, you know, in an outer suburban suburb of Melbourne or Sydney or Brisbane, you know, my parents on a firey's wage and a nurse's part-time wage or not part-time, you know, mum didn't work for a while, we were kids you couldn't you couldn't do it you couldn't buy the house they bought in the place they bought it um today and that's that's not cool so i think but but as you said mate i think gus is absolutely right for all of that and i don't want this sound um too simplistic i'd rather have our problems than almost anybody else's you know we live in a great country uh you know i people say oh everyone will leave and go somewhere where are you going like you know and not so i I don't believe in Australian exceptionalism, but I'm also like, do me a list.

58:16Draw me the list of places where you're like, a housing price sucks. Yes, they really do. Easy for me to say, because I'm not trying to buy my first house today. So I get that too. I'm the old bloke talking about what kids should think and do. But where would you rather live? Do you want to live in Trump's America? Maybe. Do you want to live in post-Brexit UK? You can if you want. And by the way, there's people who are listening in those places. So I'm very well aware that they would say, yes, I like those places because I like them. And maybe there's just home bias from me speaking. but genuinely when people say everyone's going to leave the country i sort of think we're new zealand maybe yeah um i don't know where else where else would i rather live i don't know the answer so for me um we should fix our problems because we have problems and not fix them stupid um i don't think young people are screwed but i think young people are doing it really tough and i think that's something we can and should address um maybe with less doom and gloom and maybe with a little bit more positivity but if the doom and gloom and the negativity helps actually bring some attention to this sort of stuff then I think that's probably worth doing yeah alright yep nothing to add on that happy note we will finish when you come back on Friday you know it alright 100 % try and stop me especially if I offer your rant or two I'm liking the people calling you a rant page it makes me very very happy until we speak next Friday enjoy the end of your weekend and your week and we'll see you soon full on cheers the Motley Fool and people appearing in this program may have positions in the companies mentioned.

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