Srsly tho, what happened to the price of pies?

Adam: [00:00:26] 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 we're joined, as always, by my little older brother and real life economist Thomas. Hi, Thomas. 

Thomas: [00:00:40] Yeah, g'day, Adam. How are you doing? 

Adam: [00:00:42] Good. Thank you. You always answer. Yeah, at the start of that to which, no question has been asked. 

Thomas: [00:00:48] It's sort of this affirmative positive listening skills I'm reinforcing. I'm engaged. I'm listening to what you're saying. 

Adam: [00:00:57] Thomas. Last week on the show, you said the OPEC oil crisis in the 70s came about as a result of Israel invading Palestine. Turns out not true. Sarah wrote in to let us know that it was in fact, due to Egypt and Syria invading Israel. So I just want to give Sarah a shout out. Sarah did go to great lengths to say, Look, you don't need to issue a correction on the show, but we love getting emails we love learning. And the fact that Sarah was so nice about correcting us is really appreciated. So hopefully that clears things up. And you know, let's be honest, we all like it when Thomas is wrong, so. So thank you, Sarah. Do really appreciate. Of course, you can send us an email, too. If you like CVE@Equitymates.com or find us on socials at CVE Podcast and Toms. In fact, we have had a lot of emails and messages lately from everyone out there telling us how much you're enjoying the show, and we're super grateful for all of the support. So if you can, if you can leave us a rating or a review, that would be amazing. Or better yet, just tell your friends it doesn't cost anything. Tell your friends when they inevitably ask you, Hey, now any good podcast that'll help us keep doing what we're doing? We'd very much appreciate it. But on with the show, Thomas and Jobs Data is out, and Geelong has the lowest unemployment rate in the country, which is not surprising if you watch their game against the Bombers on the weekend because it looked like they were playing with an extra twenty five players. Disappointing news for all US bombers fans out there. Thomas Think about the last bakery pie you had how tender and delicious it was. Now forget it. Inflation is going to hit pause and they're going to have to start eating black and gold frozen pies from the supermarket. If you want a pie that's coming up. And there's a brain drain happening with the current government, mainly because smart people are bored because the government won't let them do smart things. So they're all leaving. And a month on was the New York Times decision to buy a word or a goody decision or a bad decision. That goody and batty are both five-letter words you can use in your word or games if you like. They're also evidence of why I'm not very good at word. But Thomas, first author of Chicken. How are things looking for you in Mullumbimby? 

Thomas: [00:03:20] Yeah, less less slowly coming back to normal. Um, things are still pretty hectic out in the hills. A lot of roads cut off lot of mudslides, too, still to be sorted out. So still a lot of communities isolated, a lot of people still homeless. A lot of houses getting condemned and becoming uninhabitable. So yeah, it's still a pretty hard story, but we're slowly picking up the pieces and getting on with it. The big news, the big news last weekend, though, was that our Telstra tower caught fire so that yeah, so we've got we've had no phone coverage for since Friday, still out now and on Monday night, 

Adam: [00:03:57] you wouldn't need phone coverage in a flood recovery, would you? 

Thomas: [00:04:02] Yeah, no. She was working in the recovery centre doing comms. We actually found it quite inconvenient to not have access to phones.

Adam: [00:04:11] I noticed you said also that the tower caught fire. It was not set on fire. 

Thomas: [00:04:20] There's a lot of debate in Mullumbimby about why the Telstra tower caught fire. 

Adam: [00:04:23] So imagine the talk of the town if you if any people could talk. Yeah, yeah. So we have we have, 

Thomas: [00:04:31] uh, we were the epicentre of anti 5G protest and there's been a bit of a blockade around stopping Telstra from upgrading the five the tower to 5G, right? And there was a bit of a rumour which parent which I learnt is not true that in the first week of after the floods that Telstra came in and sneakily upgraded the tower to 5G. But that wasn't true, apparently, 

Adam: [00:04:57] but that was that was Telstra could not organise that. Have you ever called Telstra for assistance, but they don't have gorilla engineers ready to be deployed? Come on, people get real. Yeah, no. There were black helicopters flying in. Yeah. 

Thomas: [00:05:20] So the conclusion that everyone jumped to was that the 5G activists had set. Fire to the tower in retaliation. Right? Which for a lot of people was not a very popular move. But then the 5G groups came out and denied responsibility for it. So that said, it wasn't them and that it may in fact be a false flag operation on Telstra's behalf to cast aspersions on the 525 crew. 

Adam: [00:05:48] Why a terrorist organisation is denying and claiming responsibility. 

Thomas: [00:05:58] Well, who knows. So it's crazy times here in Mullumbimby, but we don't have phone coverage, so that's that's making it tricky. 

Adam: [00:06:06] I'm conscious, though, Thomas, that we always what we can be swayed by the media and just assume there's only one side to any story. And so a lot of people, obviously, you know, throwing mud at the five groups A. five j. Groups, anti-vaxxers, whoever else you want to throw into that pile. So there is a criminal investigation still underway, I believe. So I thought it would be worth just exploring some plausible explanations. I've put together a few plausible explanations that I wouldn't mind just getting you to, to just have a think about and say which one you think might be the most likely. So number one is that the internet was already down, and by the time that arranged for someone to to sort it out, that already deployed that person to climb the tallest point in the town and light a fire to alert nearby villages to the need for help. So those things take a little while to mobilise. So it's possible that during the floods, someone said, We need to. We need to bring. We need to get help. John, you run to the top of the tallest tower you can find and a lot of fire, and hopefully some of them will say it. That's number one. Number two is it was a big disaster. There's no there's no denying that. And when these things happen, people like to to light candles and have candlelight vigils for the people who are suffering in the disasters. So I'm thinking of this art disaster. This size calls for a big arse candle, Covid sympathy candle. What I'm saying. So number three? The floods that have subsided, thankfully, but you'd be well aware there's a bit of a stench around, there's a lot of bad smells from all the mud, from the the mould and mildew that's growing. This one seems most likely to me is that someone had an Mullumbimby has tried to create the biggest incense candle to cover the whole town in like rosemary. Yeah, it is quite lavender as they go. That's it. All right. Thomas jobs data was out this week, and unemployment has dropped to a near 14 year low of four percent. What have we learnt? 

Thomas: [00:08:37] 4.0 percent on the nose. Very tidy. No. Yeah. Another strong result added 77000 new jobs. So that's a that's a very strong number. Took that in. Yeah, it's it's a strong story across the board. It can. The labour market continues to be very strong, full time jobs, so often in a labour market recovery, you get a pick up in part time jobs and it takes a while for that to to morph into full time employment. But not this time around. We've we've got full time jobs are up four percent on their pre-pandemic levels versus a half a percent for part time jobs. So, yeah, full time employment and labour force participation is at a record high. So that's that's another interesting story. Like you look at what's happening in the UK. In the US, participation rate fell in the early days of the pandemic and then bounced back, but it's still a full percentage point lower than where it was pre-COVID. So a lot of people we talked about in the US about the great resignation. Mm-Hmm. So we haven't seen that in Australia and we haven't seen a fall in participation or participation. In fact, actually going higher and is at record high. So that's really interesting. 

Adam: [00:09:43] Don't they go hand in hand? Unemployment and participation get more and more people participating. Then you've got less unemployment. 

Thomas: [00:09:51] No, yes. Yes, except the mass is wrong. 

Adam: [00:09:56] That's why it's basic. Very basic. That's that's what like put you into basic maths maths in society. The social maths. 

Thomas: [00:10:11] Yeah, no, no, no, no. It's not quite right. Because like if you if you're not participating in the Labour labour force. So if you're unemployed but you're not actually looking for work, you're not counted. And so people can get you have this discouragement effect where people go, Oh, there's no jobs out there. I'm not even going to bother looking. Yes. So it's not necessarily the case that it works like that. So but in this case, yes, it is strong. There maybe is a bit of encourage worker effect where the low unemployment rate is pulling people back into the labour market. Maybe that's going on when you break it down is also interesting is that pick up in participation is largely about women. So male participation is about where it was pre-COVID, but female participation is significantly higher. Yeah. So it's it's been a good jobs market for women in particular since since Covid.

Adam: [00:11:02] Do we have any idea why that is? Yeah, I don't know. 

Thomas: [00:11:04] I did a little looking at this and really didn't really come up with much of the three hundred seventy seven thousand jobs we've added since Covid started. Sixty five per cent of those have been to women. So women are catching it, you know, so it's like 50 per cent you benchmark there. So it's not massively more but significant. Mm-Hmm. Um, but then if you break it down by industries, it's not necessarily the case that it's, you know, you're female focussed industries, but they're also like we used to look at that 

Adam: [00:11:34] it's a lot cheaper to hire women. You're going to the gender pay gap, right? Yeah, that's right. Maybe that's maybe the way firms 

Thomas: [00:11:44] are worried about the wages bill. 

Adam: [00:11:46] Exactly.

Thomas: [00:11:47] So I just need an engineer, but I think I might just go out and get a female engineer. Yeah, cheaper. 

Adam: [00:11:53] I think, yeah, 

Thomas: [00:11:55] structural structural inequalities still definitely a feature of the labour market. Yeah, I don't know. I haven't I haven't seen a good, good explanation for that. 

Adam: [00:12:04] Hmm. So the pandemic sent a lot of people home. And so we don't have all the foreign workers that we perhaps did have pre-pandemic. Hmm. Does that play into these numbers a bit as well? Like, I mean, there are a lot of jobs that would have been filled by overseas people now available to local people. 

Thomas: [00:12:22] I think you definitely have to read that out of the numbers, like if you look at total employment, it's it's higher than it was pre-pandemic, but it's below trend. So if you look at where the trend was going, we would have expected to have more jobs by now. Right. You would have expected to have created more jobs over the past two and a bit years than we have. So we haven't done that. So in that sense, the labour market has underperformed trend in terms of its job creation. But unemployment has fallen, the unemployment rate has fallen. And that's because there's less people in. A labour labour market than there would have been because we've had negative immigration for since since the pandemic, really. So I think that's definitely a feature. Yeah, because I 

Adam: [00:13:05] thought we had that. We had the South Australia Australian elections last weekend and the outgoing premier Steven Marshall, he was talking about what a great job they'd done. You know, they'd got unemployment down to five per cent, which sounds amazing, but it's like one of the highest in the country. In fact, it is the highest in the country, but it felt a bit like Blind Freddy Krueger. Yeah, it seems like everyone leave, and that just meant there was jobs for everyone. And and like, you know, it's a bit like buying into a bull market like you kind of feel like a genius because you're like, Oh, I bought this stock and it went up. It's like, Yeah, they all went up. And, you know, trying to drive unemployment down when the whole country's unemployment is all heading down doesn't make you a, you know, a genius, permanent economic manager. 

Thomas: [00:13:50] And what, like state governments have very little impact on the unemployment rate? Largely, it's largely, I mean, this sort of stuff you can do. But the whole idea that government are economic managers is is a bit of a myth that governments like to tell about themselves. Like there's not that much management going on. They administer the public service, and that's a large and complex task. But there's only so many levers that they have to to pull on, and largely they're sort of set to run automatically. There's not not that, not that much room for management as they'd like to pretend there is

Adam: [00:14:27] oh, well, listen, the Mr. Economist is slinging it to the government. Yeah, I did see arts and recreation has one of the highest levels of unemployment, and it just got me thinking, like has not always been the case. I remember I remember talking to an actor friend of mine told him about a casting call for an ad, and he was like, I don't do ads on the thespian. I'm like, You're unemployed, right? That's what you are like how we measure unemployment in the arts anyway. Like, you're just too many corporate gigs going unfilled, missing out on good quality stand 

Thomas: [00:15:01] up. There's measures of underemployment, which which includes and that captures people who are working but want to be working more hours. So I reckon underemployment in the arts and entertainment industry is rife because people might have gigs, but they want to be doing more. 

Adam: [00:15:14] They want to be doing more right. Maybe that's where it's possible. I'm pretty good at reading, though, so it's unlikely that I would have met Thomas. I actually did read a IFR article last week and it was talking about supermarket inflation, the price of everything going up. But I think it was a thinly veiled attempt at talking about the price of pies, to be honest. It was mostly about pies, which is what, which is what piqued my interest. One of the claims in the article was that supermarkets are somehow going to benefit from inflation. So I'm curious because my understanding is that the inflation is pushing up their costs and then having to pass on the costs to the customer. So doesn't they don't their margins pretty much just remain the same, like they're not going to make more money because they sell things at a higher price if they're paying, if they're buying them at a higher price. Am I crazy? None.

Thomas: [00:16:07] I think you I think you're right there. I think you're right there. Look, I had to sort of unpack the logic here. And I think what they're saying is this comes from Jardins head of research, Ben Gilbert. They were quoting him, and he was saying that the supermarket chains will benefit from inflation that will lead into their margins. But I think what he was saying is that they're going to raise prices with the cost pressures that are in the system now in response to that. But then coming into the next financial year, all the costs that they had around Covid and you're losing staff and managing managing shot shutdowns and all that sort of stuff. Those costs are going to recede. And so you're going to have. Yes. So they'll lift prices in response to current price pressures. And then as those costs recede, that'll that'll buffer their margins. Right. And they won't they won't drop their prices that quickly. They'll hold onto it, which is what I think he's saying, that they'll hold on to their margins. 

Adam: [00:17:06] So that probably won't make the money yet. It'll come. It'll come later when everyone's used to paying, you know, $8 a litre for milk, then they won't return it back to whatever it is now a dollar a litre for milk. They'll just drop it to $5 and tell everyone they've slashed the price of milk. Yeah, we've gone crazy milk now only five dollars a litre right now since. 

Thomas: [00:17:37] Yeah, I think I think that's what they're saying. Look, there's no there's no direct line. Look at what you're saying is right, like as their costs. Yeah, their profits are determined by their margins of the margin. Is that the price they sell over what they paid for it, what they're paying for, it is going up because costs are increasing across the board. Yeah, but if they just. Raise prices proportionally. That doesn't affect their margins. If we get 

Adam: [00:17:59] into the meat of the issue, though, that is the fact that pies are going to go up between six and 20 percent. Thomas In fact, I had a quick look at the Adelaide Oval and pies of $5 this season, which is even higher than the outrageous.

Thomas: [00:18:14] That seems quite cheap for a pie. Is it really what they are? Not good pies. No, I can't. 

Adam: [00:18:21] I'm paying $5 for a coffee like. But you'll also pay $5 for a coffee at the Adelaide Oval. Wow. Right. What's interesting, though, is that if the price of pies is going up and there's a company called patties that make all the pies, I don't think they'd be much better for it if I made hamburgers. Patties make pies, so they have. I forget a number of different pie companies for

Thomas: [00:18:46] four and twenty four times now. Yeah, yeah.

Adam: [00:18:49] All the heavy hitters in the pie industry. So they said that even though pies were going up, they were still they would still be viewed as good value by consumers even after the price rises, which just says to me what an amazing level of commitment we have in this country to pause. Like even after the price of pies goes up 20 per cent, we still think that smashed up meat insights and pastry is good value. Did the CEO of Petit Patties 

Thomas: [00:19:21] Foods did say we haven't seen any drop off in demand at this stage. They've collected 20 percent, hasn't changed demand. We said what we say, that's completely price inelastic. Consumers are completely indifferent to the 

Adam: [00:19:34] price of pie as they 

Thomas: [00:19:35] would just keep buying pies. 

Adam: [00:19:37] Yeah, kids need childcare. Keep them home. A pause. They said they in an inflationary environment, consumers may also trade down to less premium and cheaper products. I don't think you want to take that gamble on a pie. If you're getting if you're getting you kind of run of the mill middle-of-the-road pie, just pay the premium pay. The extra 20 per cent don't go. You never know what's in it anyway. Don't go down to your less premium pies. 

Thomas: [00:20:05] And what is it even down the price chain from pies like dog 

Adam: [00:20:08] food or something? Yeah, I guess so. I'm actually I'm lucky in my house, my my kids. I guess sausage rolls are in the same boat. My kids, I've realised, will only eat the sausage roll, the frozen ones from Aldi. I've tried them on the premium sausage rolls from the bakery, beautiful sausage rolls, you know, like puff pastry and nice, nice sausage. Now they won't have to like, I don't know, it's too flavoursome. They want that. They want that genuine groove flavour that you can only get from from an Aldi frozen sausage roll. So hopefully they stay on the budget brands as long as they're living with us. That's all. That's all I can have. All right, on that note, I'm going to go get a pie. Why don't you do as well and come back and join us for more comedian versus economist right after this? Welcome back here on comedian versus economist, you can, of course, send us an email CV at Equity Mates dot com or get us on Instagram and Facebook at Covid podcast. Thomas There's a brain drain happening within the government. Plenty of experts currently working for the government or recently working for the government are all leaving to go to the private industry. What's happening there? 

Thomas: [00:21:18] Yeah, a bit of a bit of a shift. So suddenly they have an IFR noted as a trend. So the big news of the past couple of weeks is guide to Bell, who is the deputy governor of the Reserve Bank. He left the bank to go and work for Fortescue. Future Industries take on that private sector role. So it was interesting in the sense that Debelle was probably due to be the next governor pretty easily. You know, there's a good chance he would have got the last job, but Phil Lowe got it instead. And he could pretty much guarantee that guy debelle, Is going to get it, Nick. 

Adam: [00:21:46] Is there any chance that guy debelle was just watching everybody, not believing anything that Phil Lowe says and just went, You know, I'm not, I'm not signing up for that. I want to be I want to be listened to. I want to be taken seriously.

Thomas: [00:22:00] The guy's a brain. Nice to work. He was there when I was at the bank and that is has a seriously intimidating intellect. Like he's a phenomenon like just like, yeah, some 

Adam: [00:22:12] of us do. 

Thomas: [00:22:13] Yeah, yeah. Now you would love to see you two in the same room together.

Adam: [00:22:17] Oh, wouldn't that be a meeting of the minds? Oh my God, I heard. Anyway, he's

Thomas: [00:22:30] he's packed it all in and it's interesting. Like he could have been the next governor. You only had to probably wait a few years for that. They get six year terms. But he said, not. I'm not going to be the next governor. I'm going to go work on climate. I'm going to work on climate change issues, right? Which is a really interesting move. The really interesting that he's like, you know, where we are, where we're at right now, current times, it just feels more important to get involved in this than it does managing the monetary system of an entire nation. I'm going to I've got a lot of respect for that. 

Adam: [00:22:58] Is it possible, though, that he's also frustrated that the government's lack of action on climate change?

Thomas: [00:23:04] I would suspect so.

Adam: [00:23:05] Yeah, if you were a climate sort of an activist by heart or you were looking to make a tangible difference.

Thomas: [00:23:11] We just like living on the planet and hippies. 

Adam: [00:23:18] He likes the climate, he likes the environment, and he's looking at Scotty and he's like, Scotty, you're giving me nothing. I mean, is that that's what's happening to you, 

Thomas: [00:23:29] too? I mean, the the central bank is not a vehicle for climate action, and it's probably not the right place for climate action like you don't want that. It's good that the RBA is focussed on monetary policy. I think you don't want them getting into trying to influence the crazy. 

Adam: [00:23:47] Yeah, I 

Thomas: [00:23:48] mean, I know some people that are doing some great work in there, but like they look at it in terms of its financial stability risk, there's not they don't have policy levers there to influence climate or the climate debate. And so I think debelle saying, you know, I've got a massive brain, I'm brain in my head. I'm going to apply my talents to the coalface of of climate change. 

Adam: [00:24:10] So he's cocky as well. 

Thomas: [00:24:12] Yeah. Oh yeah, you wait till you meet him. 

Adam: [00:24:14] It's so nice. So now we've got May. Phil Lowe as guide to Bill Covid, graph editor Yeah. Hope like paws. Yeah. 

Thomas: [00:24:28] The first thing the climate is the new black in terms of economics. So, you know, when I was at university the most you could, you know, the most exciting career available to you was probably to work it with the Reserve Bank. That was that was exciting. Everyone's interested in monetary policy. It's an exciting place to be a public sector economist. Now they're saying the mood shifted. 

Adam: [00:24:47] It's very low. It's a very low bar. I've got a really exciting place to dream of a the best thing you could go out with your brain. Your smile has always been an exotic thing you could think of doing while you're at uni. Ploughing through your economics degree was going to work for the RBA, right? Good carry on. Yeah, this is exciting. 

Thomas: [00:25:17] It's interesting. Like, you know, at guys level, we got to this level would be very exciting work, but it's more exciting to go and save the planet, which you know, and it's probably right like it is. It is. It is a really interesting time. The private sector is having to get on board in the absence of of good leadership out of the public, you know, out of policy makers. So it's an exciting time and the stakes are really high. And I think I think God is going to do some incredible work. So yeah, that's what we did. [00:25:48][31.0]

Adam: [00:25:48] Just know that we had a listener email this week, too from Dylan. Dylan was asking about, Is there a better measure? There's quite a long email. Thank you, Dylan. But. I'll try and summarise, but essentially, is there a better measure of GDP that brings in other factors like the environment, like do we have any sort of ways of measuring GDP that take in maybe some more factors than than we do now? 

Thomas: [00:26:09] Yeah, there is. There is streams of economics that try to try to capture this, what you call them, externalities and negative externalities. And so in a transaction, there's parties involved in the transaction. But then there can be parties that are affected by the transaction that are not part like not not a part of it. And so they're affected by externalities. They're external to the transaction. So pollutions, in example, I buy some steel or whatever from a steel mill. Steel produces pollution. That pollution is not captured in the transaction, but it affects people outside of it. Right. There is a sort of a discipline in economics that tries to capture that and try to put monetary values on on things, to try to bring it into the system. All right. It's not neat work because you you know how much how do you value a tree or how do you value a koala? Or how do you value x tons of CO2 emissions? Like, it's not any work. The price isn't set by the market. 

Adam: [00:27:08] Jeremy, no, I saw a koala recently cost just fifty bucks. You know, you go, Yeah, that's that's what a koala costs. He did also ask. He's just trying to get a handle on economic size. That's why he's listening to the show. Thank you. He got an old economics textbook from the nineties that he picked up in an op shop. He was wondering what other resources there might be available. Dylan, I'd suggest you go and listen to the first season of comedian versus economist, where we unpacked all of the the basics of the economy and economics. That'd be a good place to start. Season one even cheaper than an option up to. So I can't go wrong. All right, Thomas, do you play word or no? 

Thomas: [00:27:52] No, I don't. I've seen you play though on holidays 

Adam: [00:27:57] because you're not as smart as I am. Thomas, that's too hot for you. No, I'm a regular. I'm a regular word or that's about the only intellectual thing that I do each day. Basically, if you don't, if you're not familiar with world worlds, you have to get a five letter word by essentially ruling out wrong and misplaced letters. And it's hugely popular. Like Anna, put me on to it. My wife and I kind of know like, that's my kind of barometer for the popularity things because will just kind of they'll reach her before they reach me, because my news feeds like mostly Formula One. So, yeah, hugely popular. There's about, I think they're saying, about 300000 individual players every day. It was started by a guy called Josh Wardle and Josh Wardle. That's where the play on the words on the title word or comes from was from his last name. Josh Wardle invented it to give his wife something to do, which sounds really lovely. But Josh, just maybe take her out for dinner or something. Maybe do something nice. Converse for a little while. But now he decided he wouldn't write an app instead of talking to his wife. So he made word or the game, and it quickly grew to like huge popularity. They don't release player numbers. They have to go off like Twitter mentions and stuff. But once I started being able to share it, you could share your your word or results in your streaks and whatever. So it went gangbusters. And then in about a month ago, the New York Times bought word or four unknown but a cash amount somewhere in the low seven figures. So into the millions of dollars. So Thomas, what I want to know is why is the New York Times paying millions of dollars for a word puzzle game? 

Thomas: [00:29:38] Yeah, I think I think it comes down to the to the model that they're working with. The short answer is there just is an advertising play, and they're just buying, they're buying a captive market. And the thing that the product that they're selling is subscriptions is one of the one of the stories I think people don't realise about the media landscape is the, you know, the the profits and their revenues were smashed by the onset of the internet. We all know that story. But the New York Times went to a subscription model in 2011. They were one of the first papers to do that. And the subscription model is working. They're doing pretty well. The major mastheads get most of their revenue from subscriptions. In 2020, the subscription revenues were back at 2006 levels for the first time. So they're on the rise 

Adam: [00:30:24] because I wouldn't like apparently 80 percent was subscription sorry advertising revenue in 2006, and they fell to like 45 percent of revenue. So, yeah, so you can't newspapers can't rely on ads anymore, which say it used to be their main breadwinner. So then they have to have subscriptions, right? 

Thomas: [00:30:43] Yeah. And they seem they seem to be making that play work. And when you're selling subscriptions, then then it's just a marketing question and you need to get and word or users seem to be pretty engaged. And so maybe there's a. Way, I don't know, you play it like, are they trying to funnel you into a New York Times subscription? New York Times also has a game centre as well, so there may be a soft sell to that. 

Adam: [00:31:05] Yeah, I think I've defeated the model through my clever use of bookmarks of because I just like, got the word all page bookmarked and I just go there. 

Thomas: [00:31:16] It's not a it's not an app.

Adam: [00:31:17] No, it's not an app. It's just a it's on a it's on their website. It's in amongst some other games if you wanted to go sort of back up the tree, but I've just got the page bookmarked. So there's no ads, there's no cross-selling, there's no upselling. There's no Hey, why don't you think about a New York Times subscription? 

Thomas: [00:31:33] Did you even know they were owned by New York Times before 

Adam: [00:31:36] I did because I lost my progress when they changed over when when the New York Times bought it and I was like in the middle of playing at the time, and then my screens is refreshed and yeah, through my phone at the wall because I'm addicted to work now. I didn't really, I don't know. I was just fascinated by what they were getting out of it, so they put all this money into it. The other interesting thing, too, is that is that word was dropping off like they bought right at the peak. From the looks of things, they bought right at the top of the hype cycle. 

Thomas: [00:32:07] So yeah, I wonder if that's true. I mean, I did read someone saying that like the only the only metric that we've got on on word or users is the number of Twitter mentions that it's getting. Yeah. And someone saying that the Twitter mentions are falling because word was getting harder and people are having less glory to share to their Twitter feeds 300000 users. That includes you like all the way out here in Australia. Like like, it's pretty, pretty well known, right? Look, I've heard I haven't played it, but I've heard of it and I'd be like, I've going to be deaf. Yeah, well, it's going to be more than 300000, surely. Yeah, maybe. 

Adam: [00:32:46] I don't know, but I don't think I agree that it's getting harder. I think the word today was there to, er, it's not. 

Thomas: [00:32:53] Maybe it's a lot of people get that wrong. I don't know, but I'm surprised. There's not like some push to, I don't know. And you need to register and you know, they have access to any of you to not just just rock up and let's just 

Adam: [00:33:06] rock out play. Look, it'll maybe it'll come that they're just on board at it. You know, these guys making $2 billion in annual revenue for the New York Times. So like a couple of mil, whatever it was, it doesn't matter even if they sell, like if you just a few more subscriptions. So maybe it's just a benevolence thing. They're just his reputation. 

Thomas: [00:33:28] I did see someone saying that if they paid three million four and it doesn't sound like they paid that much, but even at three million, if they can convert 10 percent of players to a New York Times subscriptions, 10 percent of that three 300000, then that pays for itself in a year. 

Adam: [00:33:42] Maybe they'll just drop him dropping like subversive words into word or like NY time was. The odds are today. But that doesn't even fit. Good. Good. All right. Look, why don't we leave it there? We've got past eight word or play lots for you to get on with. Thank you for joining us once again on comedian versus economist. Of course, there are lots of other great shows across Equity Mates Media Get Started Investing feed Equity Mates Investing Podcast You're in good company. Talk Money to me, crypto curious and don't forget Fin Fest happening October 22nd this year. Head to Equity Mates dot com slash fiend fest for all the details. Thank you once again, Thomas, for your input. Thank you.