Could the Port of Darwin be Seized? And more…

Adam: [00:01:24] Hello and welcome to comedian versus economist, we demystify the world of money and help you get a handle on the bigger picture. My name's Adam and I'm joined, as always by my little older brother and real life economist, Thomas. Hi, Thomas. How are you doing? [00:01:37][13.0]

Thomas: [00:01:39] Yeah, I'm good. I'm good. [00:01:40][0.9]

Adam: [00:01:41] Yeah, that's it. A quick shout out to those doing it tough in lockdown. I know there's a lot of people around the country that are in various stages of lockdown. In fact, I heard today that 20 million people in Australia are currently under some kind of lockdown or restrictions. So, yeah, I appear to be doing well wherever you are hanging there. Hopefully we'll get better soon. Particular shout out, though, to the good people of Darwin, Thomas, where you and I grew up going through there and during their first lockdown ever, I think this year. So since Covid. So yeah, schallert everybody up there, including our sister Jo, she sent me a message the other day. She said the temperatures dropped to 14 degrees overnight. We're freezing up here so cold and in lockdown. I was at a chilly 14 degrees. So not going to get much sympathy for the for the cold from the south of Australia, but still definitely for the lockdown. So, yeah, hang in there, guys. Hopefully we'll get through it soon. We would love it if you could go and leave us a review wherever you listen to a podcast. I did find this one time you might enjoy over the weekend. Someone named Adam actually left us a review on podcast self-assessment dotcom. The review was Adam is a relentlessly entertaining four point five stars. Thomas, like listening to grass grow one point five stars. So. Oh, yeah, a bit scathing or unfortunate for you, but yeah, please, if you do, if you are enjoying the show, maybe you want to jump in and defend Thomas and think that perhaps he might be worth a bit more than one point five stars then head over wherever you can leave review. I'd really appreciate it. Well, you can email us at Equity Mates dot com or the website Equity Mates dot com forward slash c.v or send us a message on Instagram and Facebook, the podcast. But all that coming up. Big show today, Thomas. We've got a skills shortage in Australia and in America, but we're taking very different approaches to solving it. This one I love. I wrote this headline, You're going to like this can blockchain, become the building blocks for building buildings?We're going to discuss that a bit later on And we're going to find out whether all these are, in fact, the richest people in the world right now. But first, before we get to all that, Thomas Darwin is dealing with Covid. They're dealing with freezing conditions. I also hear the Port of Darwin is under siege. What's going on? [00:04:07][146.0]

Thomas: [00:04:08] I think you've misread the show notes, talking about seizing, the Port of Darwin. [00:04:12][4.2]

Adam: [00:04:13] Ah, right. So, no, no, Steven Seagal,. [00:04:15][2.1]

Thomas: [00:04:15] He won't be making a showing there for what's happened [00:04:21][5.4]

Thomas: [00:04:21] So the national cabinet has directed the Department of Defence to review the contract for the management of the Port of Darwin or the ownership of the Port of Darwin, like I think to Landbridge is a Chinese company and it has a 99 year lease on the Port of Darwin. [00:04:37][15.7]

Speaker 4: [00:04:38] 99 years. Yeah, it's. Yeah, yeah. [00:04:44][5.9]

Thomas: [00:04:44] I don't know why this 99 thing is. Think back in the eighteen hundreds [00:04:47][3.3]

Adam: [00:04:48] that I said hundreds. Too many, no ones. [00:04:50][2.1]

Adam: [00:04:50] I made a rule, a decree as it would have been back then. Nobody, nobody is to give out 100 year leases. [00:04:57][6.4]

Adam: [00:04:58] I think they probably did. Ninety nine [00:04:59][1.1]

Thomas: [00:05:00] and three digits in the column for lease length [00:05:02][2.5]

Adam: [00:05:03] back then. It's kind of like [00:05:04][0.8]

Thomas: [00:05:04] the eighteen version of Y2K. [00:05:06][1.4]

Adam: [00:05:07] Yeah. Like an Excel version 2.0 one. [00:05:12][4.1]

Thomas: [00:05:13] So this was awarded like in twenty fifteen or something. And at the time Obama was in power in America at the time and it raised eyebrows of our allies are a bit like one. And if you want to be given out strategic assets to strategic competitors like China. But back then, back then it was a very we had a very different relationship with China. We were best buddies and China was our economic future. And so it was seen as a sort of a reasonable well, I don't know. And I wasn't enough was seen as reasonable, but it got through anyway. And back at the time, it was a little bit like it was the trade minister, Andrew Robb. He negotiated the free trade agreement with China, was the trade minister, and then retired and three months later took up a consultancy with Landbridge and helped [00:05:58][45.0]

Adam: [00:05:58] them get get a hold of the port. So that was not a nine year contract that he had [00:06:08][9.7]

Adam: [00:06:08] no idea it was coming. Yeah, but they just through a nine nine year contract in front of him said, what do you reckon? [00:06:13][4.7]

Adam: [00:06:13] Would you mind joining us? OK, you've talked me into it. [00:06:16][2.6]

Adam: [00:06:17] Yeah, that sounds dodgy as hell, to be honest. [00:06:19][2.3]

Thomas: [00:06:20] Yeah. Yeah, it was. I mean, even the even the Liberal Party. Kind of turned on him a bit after that one. I mean, that's a revolving door of politics, which is pretty dodgy anyway. That was a particularly egregious example. [00:06:35][15.1]

Adam: [00:06:36] So there's a company, a Chinese company. They now own the Port of Darwin. What does that mean to own the port of doubt? They control they get like a people Afterpay them like bundles of cash to move things through it. I'm just picturing, like, these mafia controlled [00:06:51][15.2]

Adam: [00:06:52] ports that exist in like Detroit or whether in Steven Seagal Seagal movie. What was that show? The Wire was all about the ports and the mafia or whatever, [00:07:04][12.2]

Adam: [00:07:04] controlling the ports, the gangs. That was the unions bad. Yeah, that's a whole nother story. [00:07:09][5.0]

Thomas: [00:07:10] Yeah, I don't know. I mean, there's no there's no allegations of wrongdoing on Lamborghini's part yet at this stage. But there's sort of the general view is that when it comes to Chinese companies, while they're independent and privately owned, to some extent, they're also state owned enterprises to a degree that Chinese power has the ability to the Chinese Communist Party has an ability to influence and control and draw information from these companies. And so a Chinese company managing the port is sort of not that different from the Chinese government managing the port, [00:07:42][31.8]

Adam: [00:07:42] our port they like. [00:07:43][0.8]

Adam: [00:07:43] This is this is the big thing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's not they're not just managing a port. It's Australia's port. The gateway to Asia, as it's been in the US was like, [00:07:55][12.3]

Thomas: [00:07:56] you guys know we've got a Marine base there [00:07:58][1.9]

Adam: [00:08:00] that's so hot on this idea, right? Yeah. So so the [00:08:04][3.8]

Thomas: [00:08:04] Department of Defence has launched this enquiry. The Land Bridge Australia CEO is out saying, oh, this is this is appalling for me. I haven't done anything wrong. Department of Defence has never raised any concerns with us. [00:08:15][10.7]

Adam: [00:08:16] Is that because the relationship soured so much now? Yeah, totally. That is that why the concerns are coming? [00:08:22][6.0]

Thomas: [00:08:22] Yeah. I mean, it was seen as like borderline problematic in 2015 when we were best buddies. Now we're quickly moving to strategic competitors. It's seen as really problematic. And so I would expect the way it would play out is that that we would seise that lease back. That's what we're talking about. That would seise the lease back and go, yeah, can we do that? I think so. The federal government controls the laws of the land. So we just step in and say, yep, that's not happening. [00:08:48][25.6]

Adam: [00:08:48] We'd have to pay them some money or something, wouldn't we? Like, you can't just break a lease. [00:08:51][3.1]

Thomas: [00:08:52] I think you can in your own country. You can do whatever you want. [00:08:55][3.3]

Adam: [00:08:56] I guess the thing [00:08:57][1.2]

Thomas: [00:08:57] the CEO is talking about is this idea of sovereign risk, that if it breaks the lease with Landbridge, that it'll create sovereign risk and sovereign risk. Is the idea that when you're trading in a particular nation, if the laws of the land aren't strong and stuff like this can happen where the government steps in and breaks a lease, then you've got sovereign risk. And you companies don't want to invest because there's a risk that the sovereign stepped in and make stuff up for you. Oh, right. That's that's the idea of sovereign risk and anything that will create sovereign risk. But I don't think anyone would see that as a problem. Like, it's pretty clear why Australia would be doing that. It's not a it's not a whim. You know, [00:09:35][37.8]

Adam: [00:09:36] it's not [00:09:36][0.1]

Thomas: [00:09:37] the reason for that. [00:09:38][0.7]

Adam: [00:09:38] Pretty obvious. We just want a port that we can export. Why the next the the thing I love is the Andrew Robb who negotiated [00:09:47][9.0]

Thomas: [00:09:48] this whole story and started this mess. He got up at Beef Week in Rockhampton. [00:09:52][4.4]

Adam: [00:09:53] I don't know why he was there. We got up and well, he was everywhere. Is anyone with a beef week. So he's got a he's got up and said, yeah, it's [00:10:06][13.0]

Thomas: [00:10:07] probably fair enough to take it back. The times have changed. [00:10:09][2.1]

Adam: [00:10:09] Yeah. I never envisaged the 99 year lease running that long, to be honest. [00:10:13][3.4]

Adam: [00:10:13] Where we were, we set it up. I thought. Very good. [00:10:18][4.8]

Adam: [00:10:18] Just quickly on that, we had a we had a message come through on Instagram CV podcast from Nick. He said, keep up the great work, guys. He had a question around, is it what are both your thoughts about Australia trying to move away from its reliance on China and what are the chances of our success? Nick, I love that the question was nice and short, but I feel like the answer could be enormous. [00:10:37][18.8]

Adam: [00:10:39] But I do really appreciate that you asked for [00:10:41][2.0]

Adam: [00:10:41] both about [00:10:42][0.3]

Adam: [00:10:42] that. And that's that's really nice. [00:10:44][2.0]

Thomas: [00:10:45] I think this is the big theme for for us this year. And going forward, like these two big themes, money printing, heaps of money and the transition in the Australia China trade relationship being that the big stories for Australia. So we'll keep coming back to them. Right. [00:10:59][13.9]

Adam: [00:10:59] So you didn't want me to answer? I was going to say 70 per percent. Right. Moving right along. We got lots to get through. So that was another big story. And during the week, there's a new block chain solution for tracking what goes into a building, is that right? [00:11:15][15.8]

Thomas: [00:11:15] Yeah. Yeah. So I think KPMG have launched this. It's it tracks all the inputs, the fulsom. Chain that sounds like that goes into building a building particularly like a high rise tower, so that that can be so you can give buildings a rating and people can assess their their safety and their trustworthiness. So this is a big story. This has been going on since the Grenfell disaster in London. With that fire, we've had a number of high rise cracks and building fault damage here in Australia [00:11:45][29.3]

Adam: [00:11:46] had to be timely, too, with the with the tragedy unfolding in Florida. Yeah, yeah. In Miami, you know, the building building collapse over there and massive that there's still still pulling people from the rubble, sadly enough. So only, yeah, I guess anything that we can do to to strengthen buildings and make sure that, you know, we understand the better is going to be a good thing. So how does a block chain fit into all this? [00:12:08][22.3]

Thomas: [00:12:08] Oh, look, I don't think I'd I [00:12:09][1.3]

Adam: [00:12:09] love me some block. What? Well, it doesn't tell the whole story, [00:12:13][3.4]

Adam: [00:12:14] but the headline I came out with was a block the building blocks for building a building. So when I [00:12:20][6.3]

Thomas: [00:12:20] mean, KPMG have put this whole process on the block chain. So but I think this is a case. So like you said, it's on the block chain. So you know that the information on the block chain hasn't been touched and tampered with. And so that helps improve the trustworthiness of the system. But often with block chain, it seems like it's a solution in search of a problem. And one and one of the challenges it has is that at some point you need to sign off on the integrity of the information going into the block chain. Hmm. [00:12:52][32.3]

Adam: [00:12:54] The old shitting shit out problem. [00:12:55][1.1]

Adam: [00:12:55] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:12:58][3.2]

Thomas: [00:12:59] So the block chain tells you that the information hasn't been changed since the time it was entered, but then you still need something to tell you that the information that went in was what it what went in. And this is what we're seeing in Australia with some of the building problems that we've had is that the materials that were used weren't up to the grade that they were. Some say that was we were importing building material from China, which was a big story a few years ago where the materials were rated at a certain grade. But then when they get there, the builders realise that actually they're not at the grade that they were rated at. [00:13:28][29.0]

Adam: [00:13:28] And what are you saying? That what they do is use them anyway and said that they were that grade or they it's hard. [00:13:33][4.9]

Thomas: [00:13:33] Didn't like a lot of these building problems like this. It's hard to know where to pin pin the blame and says a lot of finger pointing going on. And so the builders, the construction companies are saying like, well, we used what we thought were good materials, but it might be the case that, you know, the rating systems in China weren't up to the grade that we thought they were or that was one of the stories that emerged or might be the construction companies themselves are saying that they're doing something or other, but then they're actually not the you know, the cladding was rated at a particular fire grade. Turns out it's not that not that great. So at some point you need to sign off on this up and block changes. It doesn't it doesn't help that like it's. Yeah, it's garbage in, garbage out kind of story. And you still need you know, it seems you still need a central authority monitoring and enforcing this stuff and checking that, you know, when a company rates this deal at a certain grade, that that it is what they say it is. [00:14:27][54.1]

Adam: [00:14:28] Yeah, well, they said it's the this the solution is to keep a central repository of all documentation, credit during the life cycle of a building which seems kind of anti block chain like and like block change, all about decentralisation and spreading it out, like this whole notion of a central repository to sounds a lot like [00:14:44][16.2]

Adam: [00:14:44] a database, [00:14:45][0.5]

Adam: [00:14:49] but I guess it's immutable. Right. And they can they're saying, you know, no one can alter the database later on. So that's that's something the ASX is involved in that, too, apparently. [00:14:57][8.6]

Thomas: [00:14:58] Yeah. They're running, they're building it or something like that. [00:15:00][1.8]

Adam: [00:15:00] They're all about the DFI now. Yeah, right. Decentralised finance. [00:15:04][3.5]

Adam: [00:15:04] They've got a lot of irons in the fire that could we [00:15:08][3.3]

Adam: [00:15:08] could we could. I think it's good at least to explore these solutions. You know, if it only solves one problem, which is, is the accountability side, then at least that's one problem solved by someone can't go in later and change it and go, oh, well, we didn't do that. [00:15:22][13.4]

Thomas: [00:15:22] Yeah, it's it's potentially useful. But it's interesting, like like the immediate in meeting the market need in the market need coming from insurers. They're saying, look, we need a system to be able to rate these buildings because all these problems are coming up and we don't know the risk that we're facing. We can't it's hard to underwrite against because we don't know the risk. We don't know the quality of the buildings and the materials involved. So that's that's the need that they're trying to meet. [00:15:45][23.1]

Adam: [00:15:46] And we say, good luck, you could do it for your house, like when they build houses. So you could maybe you could save on, like building inspections if you know what's in your house for them. And there are the parts in your car could apply to food. We could find out what's in a cake. We might finally uncover the greatest mystery in the world. What in a Chiko [00:16:02][16.3]

Adam: [00:16:02] roll we could use block shown solve age old mysteries like like that. Oh, yeah. [00:16:08][6.1]

Thomas: [00:16:09] But the point is, the block chain doesn't do that. A central repository of all that information, a database does that block chain is a type of database. It's maybe that's nice. Well it [00:16:19][9.9]

Adam: [00:16:19] is nice. It's more than [00:16:20][0.8]

Adam: [00:16:20] nice. I feel like now that we've had your. On building on the construction materials, which [00:16:28][8.2]

Adam: [00:16:28] I'm not saying you're not an [00:16:30][1.3]

Adam: [00:16:30] expert, but I've got a fairly good idea that your it's not your forte. Before I let you wide to deal with the underlying block technology and the value of centralised databases, all the stuff you usually like, what the [00:16:48][18.6]

Thomas: [00:16:49] whole point of block chain is, it is it creates the capacity for decentralised databases. Right. But this is a centralised database built on block chain. Like why? What's the point? [00:16:58][9.1]

Adam: [00:16:58] Well, I don't know that it is. I haven't read anywhere near enough detail to know, but I don't think it is. [00:17:03][5.0]

Thomas: [00:17:04] I didn't get to the end of the article. [00:17:05][0.9]

Adam: [00:17:06] This you grabbed my attention span of a newt. All right, look, we've got a couple of other things to get through. [00:17:17][11.1]

Thomas: [00:18:26] Welcome back here on comedian versus economist, you can find us on Facebook and Instagram KVI podcast. For now, though, Thomas, we're talking about a skills shortage in not just Australia, but the US as well. And we're taking a very different approach to addressing that skills shortage. What are they doing in the US? [00:18:46][20.7]

Thomas: [00:18:47] Yeah, so, I mean, this is this is something as as our economy start to ramp up and hit up a bit, we're seeing this in the countries that are doing that, which is most of the developed world now. And we're seeing a skills shortage emerging. The complaint people are complaining about that in Australia, complaining about that in the US as well, but yet different approaches. Here's what Joe Biden had to say about it, asking [00:19:05][18.4]

Adam: [00:19:06] me, well, you know, guess what? Employers can't find workers. I said, you pay them more. [00:19:12][6.3]

Speaker 7: [00:19:13] This is an employee's employee's bargaining chip. Now, what's happened is they're going to have to compete and start playing hard working people a decent wage [00:19:24][10.5]

Adam: [00:19:25] and pay them more. That's creepy. Is it gone? Very kind of small or something? Why did he do that? I don't know. I think it was like a little secret for you. It wasn't like a cheeky little secret, though. It was like, don't tell your parents. It was kind of sinister. Yeah. It's kind of hard to follow the transcript of that's all over the place. It's sort of hard to figure out exactly what he's saying. [00:19:56][31.2]

Thomas: [00:19:56] But yeah. But the central point he's making is that the company should just pay people more and that's a good thing. And he's sort of staking his that is one of the achievements of his administration, is that he's created the conditions where people can get paid more and he's encouraging the firms to pick that up and pay people more. And that should translate through into wages pressure, which would translate through into retail spending, probably higher house prices and that sort of thing. In Australia, though, we sort of go in the opposite direction. We turn a lean into wages. [00:20:25][28.9]

Adam: [00:20:26] What does that mean, lean into wages? [00:20:27][1.2]

Thomas: [00:20:28] Well, it's very lean into the skills shortage. I mean, there's a there's a skills shortage. The Morrison government added twenty two occupations to the skills shortage, the skilled immigration list. So there's a list of occupations that you need to qualify for skilled migration visa. There's 22 new occupations. Now, one of those is a chef. [00:20:48][20.4]

Adam: [00:20:50] Oh, yeah. [00:20:50][0.2]

Thomas: [00:20:50] We need chefs. Do need chefs. Yeah. Yeah. You know what the median chef salary is? [00:20:55][4.8]

Adam: [00:20:56] No. [00:20:56][0.0]

Thomas: [00:20:56] Forty three thousand dollars a year. [00:20:58][1.5]

Adam: [00:20:59] So right now, what are they so angry? [00:21:01][1.8]

Thomas: [00:21:02] I know who would be a chef. [00:21:02][0.8]

Adam: [00:21:04] That's what the chefs are actually very nice people, but certainly portrayed stereotypically as like angry chefs like Gordon Ramsay. It didn't help you at all? Yeah, it's high. [00:21:14][10.0]

Thomas: [00:21:14] It's high stress. [00:21:15][0.5]

Adam: [00:21:15] There was a lot of other jobs. So there was tax accountants, internal and external auditors, electrical and petroleum engineers, prosthetists, multi-media specialist software programmers, ICT security specialists and chefs. They're calling it a war for talent, which that would have to be the most dull and boring [00:21:32][16.8]

Adam: [00:21:33] war in the history of war if there was a war involving a candidate like external auditors, electrical or petroleum engineers for status motivated, specialised software programmers who it's a tough, tough that's a tough season to get through Netflix. [00:21:52][19.8]

Adam: [00:21:54] So essentially the US kind of saying, look, push, push wages up, pay people more and give give more people in the US jobs. We're taking the other the other tack. And we're saying, look, let's bring more [00:22:05][11.3]

Thomas: [00:22:06] people in [00:22:06][0.4]

Adam: [00:22:07] from overseas to fill those positions. Yeah. Understandably, it's been a really hotly debated issue. In fact, we've got some audio here from some of the very robust discussion that was taking place at the national cabinet during the way [00:22:20][12.9]

Adam: [00:22:20] to Gaja like John Curtin. So you had the board serious go. Hasn't Barnaby Joyce really lifted the tone of the discourse since he's got back? But it's actually it's actually a legitimate point. [00:22:41][20.8]

Thomas: [00:22:41] Like the strategy here is the idea is it's a it's a jobs market. It's a market economy for labour in America. There's pressure for for workers that's pushing the price of workers being wages. It's pushing the price up in Australia that that competitive pressure is pushing the price of wages up. The response is to bring people in and push the price back down. I think it's reasonable for people like if you're a chef, right, and you're a chef, I well, I can I can kind of pick my job right now. And wages are rising and. Oh, hang on, there's all these people coming in, these chefs that are being imported to keep my wages down. I think it's reasonable to be a little bit annoyed about that. Yeah, right. Same story with accountants and processors, but it's. But it just speaks to a different, different sort of agenda and a different approach to it and yeah, and so I think, like, you know, with the coalition government is sort of talking about wanting to see wages growth, but they're not that deeply committed to seeing wages grow. They would rather wages keep down and they're willing to lean on the immigration levers to do that, to keep wages down [00:23:47][65.6]

Adam: [00:23:47] because are there some other kind of problems that come about through wages growth? I mean, you know, when we talked about that last week, the way the inflation growth goes up, if wages get out of hand, it can. [00:23:58][10.6]

Thomas: [00:23:58] It can. But we're so far away from that level. Wages are growing at one point, one percent full year. We're feel low saying you need to see wages somewhere in the three to four per cent range before you get inflation of two point five percent, two to three per cent. So, you know, we need wages growth to triple before we get inflation. That's considered ordinary. And so, you know, there's no there's no need to sort of lean against wages right now. Hmm. Yeah. And so it's not such a drama. I mean, what it what it does does is it sort of shifts the balance of of the profit share more in Labour's favour away from capital and business owners, you know, so maybe there's a you know, where you sit on the political spectrum. Depends how you how you feel about that. [00:24:41][43.0]

Adam: [00:24:42] Yeah, fair enough. Well, I'm just looking at that list again. Multimedia specialist sticks out to me, that seems like a fairly broad when you talk about prosthetists like I mean, I understand what a Prosthetists does, you [00:24:56][14.1]

Thomas: [00:24:56] know, but you look at you look at the data on on the people working skilled migration visas. The average salary is something like sixty sixty to seventy thousand. So it's not. Yeah. So it's not like it's sort of like you get it if you know super skilled labour coming in at one hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand K per annum, jobs like it's just no one's got the skill for that. But you don't get a shift for a multimedia specialist. That's the thing about when wages grow up that encourage [00:25:23][27.3]

Adam: [00:25:24] Tik-tok and Covid in things we've got, which like the shift with the way the market should theoretically [00:25:36][11.7]

Thomas: [00:25:37] work is wages go up and then that encourages people to go like, oh, look, if you're a multimedia specialist, you're earning better money. I'm going to study to be a multimedia specialist and the market sort of adjusts and balances. But all of that gets sort of distorted when you're just importing importing labour to fill the gaps and stop wages growing. So you don't you don't develop the in-house skills and the infrastructure to build those skills because you're meeting eight wage pressure with with the immigration lever. [00:26:03][26.0]

Adam: [00:26:03] But it'll be won't it be hard anyway? Because because of Covid and restrictions, I mean, universities are going through really tough times. They can't get any students like adding more people to the list doesn't mean more people can come in and just be like, oh, yeah, I can't. No, you can't. We can't let you in the country, I'm afraid. [00:26:18][15.0]

Adam: [00:26:19] But yeah, it's just aspiration is that I'm an electrical engineer, so I know you're on the list. You've got your idea. We've got a job for you there. [00:26:28][9.3]

Adam: [00:26:28] It's all right. We're talking about wages growth and people, you know, earning an income. Apparently, Ozzies turns out, are the richest in the world, according to a recent survey. [00:26:39][10.7]

Thomas: [00:26:40] Yeah, recent recent study by Credit Suisse says that we're the world's wealthiest people, median median wealth of two hundred and thirty eight thousand dollars. So that's the fiftieth percentile. [00:26:51][11.1]

Adam: [00:26:52] Three hundred and fifteen thousand dollars. Australian is the average net wealth. [00:26:55][3.1]

Thomas: [00:26:56] Median. [00:26:56][0.0]

Adam: [00:26:56] Yeah, median. Yeah. So what's the difference between the average net wealth and median. [00:27:01][5.0]

Thomas: [00:27:02] Well average is what an average is median [00:27:04][2.5]

Adam: [00:27:08] Joe average by using the word average. I mean. I know. Well yeah. You can't dumb it down any more either, but yeah. [00:27:16][8.0]

Thomas: [00:27:17] Amedia median is the number where there's fifty percent of the population below and 50 percent above. Right. Gotcha. So an average is distorted by high income earners because they add to the total more and so that pushes it up. But median gives you a figure of what what's the actual middle number. [00:27:32][15.0]

Adam: [00:27:32] Right. So three hundred and fifteen thousand, that doesn't that doesn't sound huge in the scheme of things. Like if you if you own a house, you've probably got that. [00:27:40][7.4]

Thomas: [00:27:40] Yeah, that's what I would have thought, too. Yeah. This doesn't seem huge. I mean, I think it's probably says I think I think we we don't realise how skewed the wealth distribution in Australia as much not as in most of the developed world really is skewed low. Like there's a lot of people, you know, a lot of people, 50 percent of the population with wealth less than that, I guess. I guess you'd also have to divide households by two, you know, like thinking about our situation, like our. [00:28:09][28.7]

Adam: [00:28:10] We don't live together. [00:28:10][0.4]

Adam: [00:28:10] No, you owe me half. [00:28:14][3.5]

Thomas: [00:28:15] You know, like my like my wife and I. We would have because we own our own house with our wealth would be, you know, above that. But then when you break it down. Mm. [00:28:24][8.5]

Adam: [00:28:24] Split it then most people who own a house don't own yet. [00:28:27][2.7]

Thomas: [00:28:28] Like Afterpay, that's right, that's right. Not so I not part of your network, [00:28:31][3.2]

Adam: [00:28:32] but it's good news that we're richer than Switzerland. Yeah, because are like I don't know that I don't like the sweet, obviously, [00:28:39][7.6]

Adam: [00:28:40] but it's more people like MFM fan of added multimedia specialists. Yes, but the Swiss embassy was the one go. [00:28:52][11.4]

Adam: [00:28:54] You always hear everything's amazing in Switzerland. Like if there's ever a story about someone doing like a pioneering school programme or like they've got a there's a new approach to the work of down to like three point [00:29:06][12.0]

Adam: [00:29:07] two hour working weeks or so. They're just as productive as everybody else could work. And in a fortnight they're doing [00:29:13][6.8]

Adam: [00:29:14] it in three point two hours. And they got Roger Federer was just totally overachievers. [00:29:19][4.9]

Adam: [00:29:20] He had two sets of twins. Roger Federer. Yeah, well, because he can [00:29:23][3.3]

Adam: [00:29:23] because he's Roger Federer. So it's just. Yeah, it's nice to it's nice to get when [00:29:26][3.2]

Adam: [00:29:27] I was talking with you on that issue. Yeah. A couple of [00:29:32][5.6]

Thomas: [00:29:32] couple of interesting things that financial assets, such as shares comprised about 42 percent of Ozzie's gross assets, which is below the typical level, or a high income country of fifty five per percent. So we skew towards housing pretty heavily with our wealth. Right. And away from shares. And the other thing that Credit Suisse noted, that Aussies have a lot of their ship share portfolio in Australian equities, which he said was about franking credits. And so we don't have as much exposure to overseas markets as other nations. [00:30:02][29.6]

Adam: [00:30:03] You're right. I don't understand franking credits at all, but I don't I kind of don't want this [00:30:07][4.7]

Adam: [00:30:08] part of the show. And it's pretty late. So why don't we leave franking credits for another another time? [00:30:13][5.8]

Adam: [00:30:14] Although I'm pretty sure actually the guys over at Equity Mates investing forecast of Covid franking credits before or maybe even as part of the Get Started Investing feed series. So go and check that out if you're interested to know more about franking credits and general investment information. But that does us for this week. Thank you very much for tuning. And we really do appreciate you taking the time out of your day to listen to our little show. And I hope you enjoyed it. And we look forward to talking to you again next week. We'll see you then. [00:30:14][0.0]

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