We’re back with live events in 2024 - get your tickets to Equity Mates Live – Ask An Advisor here.

The Awkward Secret Hiding in the Jobs Data

HOSTS Adam & Thomas|23 June, 2021

The jobs data looks amaaaazing, but is it really all that? The minimum wage got topped up last week, but the boys’ Dad says the impact will be bigger than we think. Ronaldo trolled Coke and won, and Thomas discovers that giving non-alcoholic beer to kids is apparently a no-no. This, and many more revelations like it, on this week’s Comedian v. Economist.

If you’ve got a question for Thomas… or Adam… then go ahead and send them to cve@equitymates.com. If you want charts, lots of charts, follow them on Instagram here.

Any views expressed by the podcast host or any guest are their own and do not represent the views of Equity Mates Media or any other employer or associated organisation.

Always remember, all information contained in this podcast is for education and entertainment purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for professional financial, legal or tax advice. The hosts of Equity Mates are not financial professionals and are not aware of your personal financial circumstances. Before making any financial decisions you should read the Produce Disclosure Statement (PDS) and, if necessary, consult a licensed financial professional.

For more information head to our Disclaimer Page, where you can find resources to search for a registered financial professional near you.

***

Have you just started your investing journey? Head over to Get Started Investing – Equity Mates 12-part series with all the fundamentals you need to feel confident to start your investing journey.

Want more Equity Mates? Subscribe to Equity Mates Investing Podcast, social media channels, Thought Starters mailing list and more here.

Comedian V Economist is part of the Acast Creator Network

Adam Keily: [00:00:52] 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 is Adam and I'm joined, as always by my little older brother and real life economist, Thomas. Hey Thomas. [00:01:05][12.6]

Thomas Keily: [00:01:06] Good day, everyone. How? [00:01:06][0.6]

Adam Keily: [00:01:07] Well, I can't speak for everyone, but I'm good. Thanks. A big show coming up today, Thomas. We're talking the minimum wage rise, minimum wage increase in Australia, the UK free trade agreement. And what happened to CocaCola share price this week? It took a bit of a hit as well as some listener questions that are going to be coming up a bit later on. But first, Thomas, you know me. I loves me. A bit of the data and the jobs data came in this week, the employment and unemployment data. What did we learn? [00:01:35][28.4]

Thomas Keily: [00:01:36] It was booming. It was a great result. We saw the unemployment rate drop from 5.5 per cent to 5.1 percent. And that's quite a big movement in a month. That's, you know, normally see anything that that strong. So that was that was a thumping result. Sometimes you get a big move in the unemployment rate. If people drop out of the labor market, unless they get discouraged, they stopped looking for work. And if you stopped looking for work, you're no longer classified as unemployed. You have to actually be actively looking for work. Right. But that wasn't the case this month. So the participation rate held and we had good jobs growth. Not only did we have good jobs growth, but it wasn't in part-time employment. It was in full time employment. Yes. So unemployment rate down, participation rate steady, full time employment up or big three ticks, big three green lights. So a super strong result from the labor market. [00:02:22][46.1]

Adam Keily: [00:02:23] So if you're unemployed but you're not looking, what are you classed as a bum yet? [00:02:29][6.0]

Thomas Keily: [00:02:29] That's a that's the statistical definition. [00:02:31][1.6]

Adam Keily: [00:02:32] Or he lives on. [00:02:32][0.7]

Thomas Keily: [00:02:33] Yeah. The ABS just quietly shaming. You know, you're you're you're just not part of the labor force. So you're outside the labor force. [00:02:40][7.3]

Adam Keily: [00:02:41] What if you're claiming Centrelink still or any benefits? [00:02:44][3.2]

Thomas Keily: [00:02:45] Yeah, it's it's disconnected from the Centrelink data. That's a different kettle of fish. It's pretty closely tied together. But the jobs data comes from a survey is one of the surveys. And if you ever been asked, are you working, [00:02:55][10.0]

Adam Keily: [00:02:55] you may yet to be surveyed looking forward to whatever happens. [00:02:59][3.6]

Thomas Keily: [00:03:00] Sure. We've got some listeners of the ABC and that said that in the survey. [00:03:02][2.4]

Adam Keily: [00:03:03] Could you. I'd really like to. Yeah. I mean, I envisage it would happen as I'm walking somewhere, someone would approach me like almost like semi's sort of celebrity style. Excuse me, out of like. Yes. Do you recognize me from the university? Because I know they were just doing a survey about what you've bought in the last six months. [00:03:25][22.0]

Thomas Keily: [00:03:26] We're off-topic already. Yeah, but no. So good, good result. So that led some economists to talk about the RBA may be bringing forward some rate their rate hikes, so maybe ending quantitative easing a bit earlier than we were thinking, maybe increasing interest rates a bit earlier than we're thinking. [00:03:41][14.8]

Adam Keily: [00:03:42] Right. Like how early? Because we were looking at twenty twenty four, four rate increases. [00:03:46][4.0]

Thomas Keily: [00:03:46] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The other thing about the labor force data is monthly data. So does shop around a bit so you don't hang your hat just on one month's worth of data. It is interesting, it's sort of directional, but it's a monthly survey. It does. It's pretty choppy. So, you know, and you do get some odd results every now and again. [00:04:06][19.4]

Adam Keily: [00:04:06] There'd be a lot of employees of the month around Thomas that would beg to differ with hanging on until the data. [00:04:12][5.2]

Thomas Keily: [00:04:12] Yeah, it was such a strong and positive result that, yeah, people had a bit of a pause for thought. But we also saw this week some interesting data out of CBA that were they crunched the numbers on some ABS data, but we had data on nonresident workers. So these are sort of people, foreigners living in Australia and working and they're down three hundred and forty thousand, something like that. I've got a pretty dramatic chart all share on the Instagram page. Are we still trending? Is that still. [00:04:44][31.8]

Adam Keily: [00:04:44] Oh, man, we are. It's global now where our reach is just reaching parts of the world you wouldn't even know existed [00:04:54][9.8]

Thomas Keily: [00:04:56] yet a nonresident number of nonresident workers in the country has gone from just under 600000 to just over two hundred thousand now. So big a big drop. Right. [00:05:04][8.5]

Adam Keily: [00:05:05] That's over there, right? [00:05:05][0.6]

Thomas Keily: [00:05:06] Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. Yeah. So they closed borders, people went home. Nobody came back in. Yes. A net immigration's down with. Yeah. So now seventy-four thousand lower than we were pretty covid right. Yeah. So we've seen overtake seventy four thousand people out of the Australian population. What we're saying is that those people had jobs and they've now left the country and it's likely that they've been fueled by locals. Those jobs have been filled by locals. So it's potentially not a story of a really, you know, super's going to in great economy, creating lots of new jobs, creating new jobs for people who are unemployed. It's that people have left and they've opened up all these job openings and people who were unemployed previously and now have now gone in. To fill those jobs, and that's a different story like it's still good in the sense that it's 5.1 percent, that's a still strong number. It's still good in the sense it probably translates into wages pressure, but it doesn't reflect so well on the economy is not the same. The economy's heating up so much and it's a bit of a different story. Chris Joy at the AFA from Coolabah Capital. He crunched the numbers on that and said if like if you kept those three hundred and thirty-four thousand people in the country, the unemployment rate wouldn't be 5.1 percent. It would be seven point five percent potentially rise as an upper bound. [00:06:25][79.5]

Adam Keily: [00:06:26] So so we're not creating new jobs. We're not growing jobs. We're just some people left. Like if you work for a business and, you know, someone quit and then you hired someone, you haven't really changed anything in the market. If your previous employer left and went overseas on a holiday, then you haven't improved the situation of the economy. [00:06:45][19.7]

Thomas Keily: [00:06:46] That's right. The economy is not growing. Yeah, you just moving jobs around between people. Yeah. And at seven point five percent, like, if that was true, if your assumptions there, it's sort of an upper baumert at seven point five per cent. That's not, that's not a that's not such a strong economy. Like at 5.1 percent. That's like economy's going great. It's awesome. That's as good as it's been in years. We're very quickly moving towards that for four point something. So Phil Lowe was talking about needing to see an unemployment in the fours before he's going to even think about raising interest rates. So it's getting very close to that. But the reality is that is probably the labor market is softer than that or the jobs jobs creation is softer than that. [00:07:28][42.2]

Adam Keily: [00:07:28] I was disappointed to say, after seeing Adelaide's praises last week as the third most livable city in the world came in with the highest rate of unemployment for the month. Right. Topped the charts. So only livable if you've got a job, [00:07:42][13.5]

Thomas Keily: [00:07:43] What level of evidence [00:07:43][0.0]

Adam Keily: [00:07:44] is chilling? Just you're on the tram. [00:07:48][3.5]

Thomas Keily: [00:07:48] We had a few people on Instagram. Correct. Is that there are Sydney actually does have a tram, [00:07:52][3.8]

Adam Keily: [00:07:52] has one of the most expensive trains. If I'm not mistaken. There was a big cost blowout with putting the training. Yeah, that's right. I did some research. I read a headline after Googling Sydney Trains and the headlines that came back for I'm Feeling Lucky was cost blowouts in the order of millions. I hope it's a nice trip. Cool. So just on the unemployment. So that's pushing wages up and vacancies are up. If unemployment comes down, we're seeing a sort of rise in job vacancies as well. [00:08:24][31.4]

Thomas Keily: [00:08:24] Yeah, job vacancies are up, particularly in those. I mean, we know it sort of squares away because we know that there's a lot of job vacancies in the hospitality and tourism sector right now. Right. And there traditionally roles that are often filled by foreigners. Yeah, okay. Yeah. So that's create a lot of job vacancies. And that should an unemployment rate of 5.1 per cent, regardless of where it comes from, should you start starts to push towards some wages pressure. [00:08:49][24.6]

Adam Keily: [00:08:49] So that's what I'm getting out like it. Should I be asking for a pay rise now or not. Like is there is a good time. Yeah I'd go for yeah. For yeah. All right. So my boss doesn't listen to the show anyway. Yeah. [00:09:02][13.2]

Thomas Keily: [00:09:03] Let me know how it works out. [00:09:04][0.7]

Adam Keily: [00:09:04] Are we tabling that at the next catch up. Oh cool. So, so that unemployment. But also this week we're talking about a minimum wage rise. And so the Fair Work Commission increased the minimum wage by 2.5 per cent, which takes it to twenty point thirty three an hour or seven hundred seventy two point sixty a week for full time workers. The union's one of the three point five per cent classic unions, the Chamber of Commerce, for one point one per cent. So we've got 2.5 per percent. What do you make of that? Yeah, it's [00:09:38][34.0]

Thomas Keily: [00:09:38] a funny process. They said this is how the Fair Work Commission determines what the minimum wage is going to be. This is the from making submissions about where they think it should be and [00:09:46][8.0]

Adam Keily: [00:09:47] workers want it 5% rather [00:09:48][1.1]

Thomas Keily: [00:09:50] bury one or twelve. [00:09:51][1.0]

Adam Keily: [00:09:52] You understand that the job market, [00:09:55][2.9]

Thomas Keily: [00:09:56] for whatever reason, that's where the Fair Work Commission came out is there is a reasonably robust number like it's you know, it's not big, but it's definitely outpacing inflation. So it's a real, real wage gain. Talk to Dad about this, actually. [00:10:09][13.7]

Adam Keily: [00:10:11] Yeah, it is. That computer trouble for a while that I've heard from it. What did that have to say on the minimum wage situation? [00:10:17][6.6]

Thomas Keily: [00:10:18] So he said he's an expert to talk to him about the point he made, which I thought was interesting, is that often this is reported in the papers as it's increasing the wage for the lowest-paid workers in the economy. Yeah, and that's what's true when you increase the minimum wage. But is really there's the award structure that goes all the way through the tiers of of employment in the awards. So the minimum wage is like the lowest tier of of of award rate pay. So that gets a bump. But every tier. Because it's all sort of a relativity thing every time you get to bump as well. I know, yes. So everyone, everyone on awards, regardless, even if you're not on the minimum, but everyone on an award gets a pay rate. And then in the hospitality sector, that can get up to like 90 grand. 100 grand. [00:11:06][47.5]

Adam Keily: [00:11:06] Yeah, yeah. [00:11:07][0.2]

Thomas Keily: [00:11:08] So everyone gets a pay rise. And then even within an enterprise like within a company, if you've got some people on awards and some people who aren't, the people on Oahu aren't on awards. Look at the people on awards, see them getting a pay rise and they're a bit like, oh, like I feel like I deserve one. If they're getting one, I want one. So it's not just that we're increasing the wage for the lowest paid. We are doing that. But we're also, you know, increasing wages across the spectrum, [00:11:36][27.9]

Adam Keily: [00:11:36] pushing everything out. Well, that's I mean, I said I know. And I only say that because if everyone's wages go up, that just pushes the price of stuff up and we end up back where we started. I mean. [00:11:45][8.5]

Thomas Keily: [00:11:45] I mean. Yeah, I mean, you remember that Phil Lowe says that we need wages between three to four percent to get inflation between two to three percent. Yep. That's how he thinks that that works out. It's not one for one because there are other costs that go into producing stuff as the materials and capital and land costs and whatever. So it's not just wages. Wages are a component of it. So he reckons you need to see wages growing three to four percent to get inflation of two to three percent. Yeah, okay. So two point five percent in that context is not a wage rate increase. That's sort of [00:12:22][36.2]

Adam Keily: [00:12:22] it's not going to trigger inflation. [00:12:23][0.8]

Thomas Keily: [00:12:24] Not not not in and of itself. You wouldn't think if Phil goes right and he probably is, who am I to argue with him? [00:12:31][6.9]

Adam Keily: [00:12:31] Thomas the economist should stand up for yourself. Yeah, it's Phil. That's what I say. All right. Well, I did notice, though, that Woolies have already passed it on. So they're not waiting because it's not actually ratified yet or whatever. They to go through all the steps but always have come out. And I've said we're passing it on. I think they're challenging Coles to do the same thing. [00:12:51][20.1]

Thomas Keily: [00:12:51] I mean, yeah, look, the in that in that sort of part of this immigration effect as well, without those foreign workers who many of whom work at sort of the low low wage rates, it's a competitive jobs market at the moment for in the hospitality sector, like where I live in BARBET, there are restaurants closing, you know, normally trade seven days, have roaring trade, have now gone to three days because they don't have chefs. Yeah. And they just can't get a hold of a chef. [00:13:20][28.3]

Adam Keily: [00:13:20] Yeah. Oh, that's good news then I guess for people who are, you know, the low income earners. Worth noting too, I did a bit of research. The average CEO pay, by the way, for the ASX 100 companies, 5.2 million they [00:13:34][14.5]

Thomas Keily: [00:13:35] get they'll get an extra [00:13:35][0.6]

Adam Keily: [00:13:36] twenty-two dollars a week for the wages up speakers company new. So we've just signed a free trade agreement with the UK where we're about to say screamo Scotty from marketing was over there the other day is a bit rough. I reckon he was standing in front of a pub and people were like, this is poor taste, it's insensitive. He's tone-deaf. He was just having a fight, like in front of like I don't think it was it wasn't like it wasn't as bad. I didn't think as his Gomo in his board shorts in Hawaii when the bushfires were right. Buddy copped a bit of flak for having a photo standing in front of a pub with some people. But he was over there talking about the UK free trade agreement. What does that mean for us, Thomas? It's a [00:13:36][0.0]

Thomas Keily: [00:14:19] funny one. It's so so basically, historically, all nations have had sort of trade protection measures. So you have things like tariffs on imported goods in order to protect your domestic industries. Right. And they've been around for centuries. And the sort of the free trade movement, which sort of comes out of the Second World War, was really about sort of saying, look, we're all better off if we don't have these tariffs. We trade more, we specialize more. So let's try and create a freer trade environment. And that sort of done sort of collectively through the World Trade Organization. But it's also done sort of through these free trade agreements between pairs of nations or between blocks and things like that. So that's sort of the context for this. One of the things is it's a little bit hard to know they're not big on sharing the details. And so there seems like there are some concessions for some Australian agricultural products like lamb and wine. They're removing some protections on UK lamb and wine producers, for example. Right. But there's not a long list of details about what it's going to do. The thing I thought was funny is that Labor jumped on to the UK government afterwards, put out a fact sheet paper saying ten key benefits of the trade deal, one of which was highly skilled professionals, will now be able to work in Australia temporarily. And Aussie firms will no longer have to prioritize hiring Australian nationals first. [00:15:45][86.0]

Adam Keily: [00:15:47] Oh, good news. Good news. So the UK is without a. [00:15:51][3.3]

Thomas Keily: [00:15:51] And that I was going to say, I can [00:15:54][2.4]

Adam Keily: [00:15:54] walk right up a [00:15:56][2.2]

Thomas Keily: [00:15:56] second and then and then they're like, is this a thing? And the government's line, we're not really saying and there's no way to check it. So it's all kind of like. [00:16:04][7.9]

Adam Keily: [00:16:05] So even the UK doesn't want those people that left Australia and freed up all those jobs here that we got. You know, we need to make it easier for these people to get back to Australia to take those jobs back where they left over. Yeah, I [00:16:15][10.3]

Thomas Keily: [00:16:15] mean, so I think I think it's a bit of a case like that. Like, the context is interesting. So we're both the UK and Australia in the middle of transitioning our major trading relationship. So the UK is in the middle of Brexit, be dragging on for years. So they're sort of breaking up with the EU. We're in the middle of breaking up with China. That trading relationship shifting dramatically. So both nations had a strong interest in both the political class, had a strong interest in selling a win, saying like, yeah, we're breaking up with Europe, but we now got this free trade agreement. Australia, Australia wants to sell the benefits. And so they kind of come up with this thing. It's sort of like it's not I don't know. [00:16:54][39.4]

Adam Keily: [00:16:55] It does not only work if you've both got stuff that the other one wants, though, doesn't it? I mean, you know, we deal with China primarily because they really like our steel and iron ore and we've got tons of it. Like, we can't just turn around and go, hey, hey, Boris Johnson. I know. Well, not really. Do you want some do you want some Bentleys? No. Or good Bentleys. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. [00:16:55][0.0]

Thomas Keily: [00:17:23] That's right. So, yeah. So it feels like there's a lot of spin in the mix with this one. A lot of like, you know, deal of the century. We like generational opportunity, creating, opening up markets, but it looks like I haven't seen a whole lot of substance come out of it. So yeah. Feels like in in the context it feels like it's a bit of a political fix now. [00:17:46][22.8]

Adam Keily: [00:17:46] We'll see. So finally, before we get to a break, I didn't want to touch on this quickly. So we saw the share price of Coca Cola tank one point two per cent, which was about five billion dollars off the share price. Coke Holdman going down anyway, it's fair to say. But the big story was that Portuguese soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo at a press conference following the Euros, he sat down at a press conference. There was a couple of bottles of Coca-Cola on the desk. You know, as a major sponsor, he's seen the Cokes. He's taken them down and he's put them under the desk. And then he's held up is his water bottle and shouted Aqua, which is, you know, water proclaiming water to be better than Coke. And at which point Coca-Cola share price tanked one point two percent to five billion dollars. What did you make of that? Have you seen the footage? [00:18:36][50.0]

Thomas Keily: [00:18:37] I mean, for me, it feels like it's one of these, like the sentiment. It looks for these sorts of catalytic events. So it's not a linear sort of thing. And so I feel like they're in the zeitgeist right now. There's this move away from sugar. We're realizing that it's a bit of a con that we've been sold, that fat was the enemy of health, that it's actually sugar. It's sort of a movement down to sort of these sugar-rise food. Fizzy soft drinks are on the nose sort of globally. We realize that they're not good for health. And so I think you look down the road twenty odd years, you do wonder what future Coca Cola has as like as a company that owns a lot of fizzy drinks, [00:19:16][38.6]

Adam Keily: [00:19:16] brands that they own a lot of other things, too, including bottles of water. Yeah, I'd love I don't know if anyone's done the the deal on the bottle of water, but I'd love it if that turned out to be owned by Coca-Cola or Coca-Cola with. [00:19:29][13.2]

Thomas Keily: [00:19:29] No, they're marketing too. I mean, you can't drive products, differentiate water. That's the problem with water like Coke. As a Coca-Cola, the product is like it's not it's unique, you know, [00:19:40][11.1]

Adam Keily: [00:19:41] with the makers of bottled water would have you believe otherwise. We have seen the range of water. You can get it Coles or wherever you do your shopping is the service station. You buy about eighteen different kinds of water. I mean, when I first started, people were like, this is more expensive like you to fill up your car with petrol and you'd walk into petrol would be like, you know, eighty cents a liter. You'd walk in 500 with a bottle of water for two dollars fifty. This is more expensive than petrol. [00:20:12][31.3]

Thomas Keily: [00:20:13] Yeah. I think fizzy drinks, you know, are a bit earmarked for the scrap heap. I think in a way like it's not not a near term thing, but I think the trend is definitely moving that way. And but it's not. So that's but that sentiment is not linear. And so I think you get and I think I think it's an interesting case study because you see stuff like this happen where Renato makes this thing, which is a seem like kind of a small gesture in the scheme of things, but it just has this sort of catalytic effect, whereas like it catalyzes that sort of sentiment. And everyone who is sort of arming, inquiring about the direction of fizzy drinks as a product class is a bit like. Yeah, I see. Rubbish at this time. Time to get out. [00:20:52][38.9]

Adam Keily: [00:20:53] Well, there was another guy, Paul Pogba, who plays for France. He did something similar after his match. He took a couple of Heineken beers off the table and people were kind of speculating that he did that because it was for religious reasons. He's said in the past that he's against alcohol, he's a practicing Muslim. So people are just kind of speculating that he removed these bottles of Heineken because of that reason. But turns out they were Heineken zero. So they were nonalcoholic beers. So he'd be kind of the target demographic for the beer. I imagine it's the beer for people who don't like alcohol, but there they go. It seems like Ren out. I started a bit of a trend and then FIFA came out and said, look, you guys, you can't be taking off our major sponsors stuff. Yeah, it's funny because the nonalcoholic beer market's going massive at the moment. It's like, oh, I read something that's growing are growing faster than than the craft beer segment, [00:21:48][55.6]

Thomas Keily: [00:21:50] you know, so I mean, off a very low base, but yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's it's the growth marketing in beer for sure. Yeah. I mean you're a big zero drinker. Yeah. [00:21:59][9.5]

Adam Keily: [00:22:00] Yeah. I do drink quite a bit of nonalcoholic beer these days before you get on to the wine. Twenty-five-year-old me would be just a shame but yeah definitely I it's weird though because everyone talks about this booming nonalcoholic beer market, but it's still kind of hard to find. I mean, I like it in cans because I like the storage efficiency of cans. Once I finished with them, I can crush them up, but there's huge potential there. I don't know how you get into the weather. There's like an investment opportunity in nonalcoholic beer or if just the big, big companies like Asahi that owns Carlton United Breweries and that they're just going to storm the market anyway. Like if there's a market there to be taken, then, you know what I mean? Like, there's not going to be some little nonalcoholic brew that's like, you know, you can get first mover advantage or something because they'll just get smashed by Heineken. [00:22:50][50.8]

Thomas Keily: [00:22:51] And it probably the play would probably be in the manufacturing. Like if there was like an I don't I didn't even know how they remove the alcohol from beer, but like if there was some kind of machinery and there was like machinery producer that had the IP exclusive IP for that processor, that would be the play. But I don't imagine that there's that there's something like that. Right. Right. And if you know how they get the alcohol out of beer, well, [00:23:20][29.5]

Adam Keily: [00:23:20] apparently, it's really hard. And that's why this is a just because it's still like forty, fifty bucks a carton. The justification, because everyone's saying there's no tax like the alcohol tax doesn't apply to nonalcoholic beer, which is why beer is always so been saying it's kind of expensive. Yeah. But I signed the process with which the beer has to go through to have the alcohol removed is expensive and therefore the price is still high. Right. [00:23:44][23.5]

Thomas Keily: [00:23:45] So, you know, we haven't seen it like Swiss filtered, you know, like with coffee, with decaffeinated coffee. There's different there are different processes. There's like a chemical filtering process, which is like the cheap and nasty version. And then there's like Swiss water filtered. [00:24:00][15.6]

Adam Keily: [00:24:01] I'm laughing because of this conversation I had this morning where I learned that apparently there are some monkeys in Bali somewhere, but they feed coffee beans to my cats. [00:24:10][9.5]

Thomas Keily: [00:24:11] Is it cats something? Well, I think it [00:24:13][2.0]

Adam Keily: [00:24:13] is monkeys as well. Monkeys and cats. And then they excrete the coffee bean unskewed. And apparently, that enhances the flavor. Yeah, it's just incredible. Horrific. I say I don't know. We see nonalcoholic beer filtered through an Indonesian monkey. I'm not sure. It's very early days. It's a nonalcoholic beer journey. I did find out, though, that that's because it's not nonalcoholic. You're not allowed to give it to children. [00:24:40][26.5]

Thomas Keily: [00:24:40] Oh, no, really. I give it to my kids all the time. What it's nonalcoholic [00:24:46][5.9]

Adam Keily: [00:24:48] is it's an adult brewed beverage? It's not. It's still restricted. [00:24:52][4.0]

Thomas Keily: [00:24:53] Yeah, no, they sell it in Woolies and Coles [00:24:56][2.2]

Adam Keily: [00:24:56] and you can buy them, but it's not intended for children. There is. No, no. This is because the posti who delivers my parcels, I've got to know him quite well. He apologized to me that I say, oh sorry man, I couldn't legalizes get everything left on my doorstep. I couldn't leave it. We're not allowed to presumably because they can't leave alcohol. They can't leave like beer products on doorsteps in case kids like steal them and run off with you, get your zero alcohol beers delivered. You get everything delivered. Really. Wow. Yeah. Why wouldn't you. Twenty first century time. Yeah. Yeah. [00:25:29][32.8]

Thomas Keily: [00:25:29] Online and so that you know, [00:25:31][2.1]

Adam Keily: [00:25:32] imagine that if you're a fifteen year old kid you're cruising around the neighborhood. He is out carton of beer on the porch. Go knock it off. You go to the park, smash down cans of beer. We just feel bloated. All right, we're going to take a short break here. Go grab a word from our sponsor this week and we'll be right back with some listener questions right after this. [00:25:56][24.2]

Thomas Keily: [00:25:58] Banking with Virgin money has never been more rewarding earn rewards on your everyday spending and pay zero monthly fees with the Virgin Money Go transaction account and with points, perks and epic experiences tailored to you, you can manage your money easily on the go smash your savings goals, get money for it and be rewarded for it. Thanks to your own beat virgin money terms and conditions and monthly criteria apply. Now let's get into the show. [00:26:23][25.8]

Adam Keily: [00:26:25] Welcome back here on comedian versus economist, and we've got a few listener questions coming in this week, which we love, you can always send us an email if you like, cve@equitymates.com Or head over to the website equitymates.com/cve and Rajveer, send us an email and said, hello guys, love the show. I have two questions for Thomas. Are you Redzepi and I like to have a crack at least first. So they like Rajouri. I know these are for Thomas but I hope I've got the pronunciation of your name right. I apologize if I haven't. I like to have a crack first so no one. Jeff Bezos talks in one of his interviews about seeing a chart in a newspaper that Internet usage was up by something like fourteen hundred percent decided to open an online bookstore. And the rest is history. Where can I find these upward or downward trend-charts other than ABS statistics or column Pickering will be, you know, where you can find them? CV podcast on Instagram or Facebook. Thomas has been farming out some Suenos charts over the last week, so any other sources tell us that's where I get my charts. Where do you get your charts that give me my charts? [00:27:30][65.1]

Thomas Keily: [00:27:31] I think the thing is that charts in and of themselves aren't so useful unless you know the context. You need someone to be able to give you that, give you some context, which is what [00:27:39][8.2]

Adam Keily: [00:27:39] CV podcast that's tuned into the show. The context for the charts. [00:27:44][4.4]

Thomas Keily: [00:27:46] So I think I don't know, just read widely. The trends will come up. [00:27:50][4.0]

Adam Keily: [00:27:50] But I'm not sure that Jeff Bezos just saw a chart about Internet usage. I think that's kind of the thing that just went, oh, wow, I might do something based on that chart. We would have had some other analysis behind it, surely. [00:28:04][13.6]

Thomas Keily: [00:28:04] I don't. I mean, the thing is, there are so many trends out there and so many people trying to predict the future directions is a challenge to sort of, you know, like there would have been other charts at the time saying that Internet was going to be a flash in the pan and going nowhere. So it's hard to know what to listen to other than the TV screen. [00:28:25][20.4]

Adam Keily: [00:28:26] Rajouri Second question, Uber has different fares and different cities according to how expensive they are. Why have we have the same minimum wage in every state, whereas the cost of living is different in each state, especially housing? So we don't have the minimum wage is a national thing, Tom. [00:28:41][15.0]

Thomas Keily: [00:28:41] Yes, a national thing. That's sort of the award structure is a national thing. It doesn't differentiate by state inflation is part of the equation the Fair Work Commission looks at when determining minimum wage increases. But yeah, but they've got no capacity to want the awards at the industry level across the country. So there's no capacity to do a state-by-state thing. A good question, Adam. [00:29:05][23.8]

Adam Keily: [00:29:05] John has written in and coincidentally, my first two names as well, Adam, John. So thanks for that. I have a question on inflation. I understand it's measured as a 12 month rolling average and the June 2020 quarter was a massive negative, minus one point nine per cent. So went June. Twenty twenty one figures are out. The negative will drop off the rolling average. This is going to cause a huge jump in inflation figures even if this quarter is flat. Is this correct? Am I missing something? He said that interest rates will start rising and we can afford houses again. I wouldn't count on affording a house any time soon, Adam. That's yeah, that seems like that's going to keep going up for a while. But what he's saying makes sense. So we had a really negative quarter during covid and then three really good quarters. But then you take those three good quarters and you add another good quarter. All of a sudden you've got a pretty good looking four month rolling average. That's fair. [00:29:55][49.3]

Thomas Keily: [00:29:55] Yeah. Hang on, hang on. I got. Yeah, that's it. That's how it works. When we had some, you know, high inflation numbers out of the US recently. But it's it's hard to know whether it's something sustained or whether it's these base effects kicking through people. People are, you know, cranking out. You do things like annualize the past quarter or the past six months or something to get a sense of what the current trend is. Yeah. So there is a way to look through it. But what he's saying is right about how it's calculated. [00:30:22][27.2]

Adam Keily: [00:30:23] All right. They go and lock it in the lock. He had quite a long question, really, like the short ones because I can understand them. This one is he said he's keen to get Thomas in brackets, Mr. MTIs thoughts on it. So you got called Chark guru last week. I reckon this week you are Mr MMT. Yeah, I don't know what it's got to do with the inflation, but they are going to try and paraphrase this for you, Lockie. But he's basically saying that cost of living is rising on day to day groceries day to day. Good, sorry, groceries, but CPI isn't rising. He's called out the purchase of one off purchases like bigger items, I guess like cars, which is then balancing out the CPI. So can that be true, Thomas, that CPI isn't rising, but day to day goods are rising? [00:31:15][51.5]

Thomas Keily: [00:31:15] Yeah. Yeah, that can definitely be true. Yeah, we can look at the different ways of cutting up the basket of goods is measured in the CPI. Like often it's looked at in terms of like. Essentials versus discretionary spending. But the different ways you can sort of cut it up and yeah, and there can be moving in different ways at different times. It's actually quite rare that you get all the components of the CPI moving in the same direction. At the same time, you get this sort of chop and change in kind of going on. And yeah, inflation manifests differently in different sectors of the economy at different times. [00:31:47][31.3]

Adam Keily: [00:31:47] But then I call you Mr. MMT for nothing of it is. Finally, Nathan wrote in and neither was just kind of sharing some information. So he was listening to the episode we did a while back on Mufti's and hearing our concerns around what would happen to our licensing arrangements for our podcast if we were to sell one as an NFTE. I won't go into everything, but there is a whole kind of, I don't know, a mess of legal stuff at play when it comes to selling and left. I think it's possible. But the best thing I can do, I think, for you is Nathan, send in a really good article written by an Australian lawyer. So what I'll do is I'll share that with our Sociales, Instagram, and Facebook. So if you are interested in learning more about the legal ramifications of buying, selling, trading NFTE, then take a look at that article. You'll find it on TV podcasts on Instagram and Facebook. But that does us for this week. Thomas, thank you for your company, as always. Thank you. We'd really love it if you guys could go and leave us a review wherever you get your podcast. That really helps us out. Send us an email, cve@equitymates.com Or website equitymates.com/cve. Really appreciate you joining us again this week. And we will talk to you next week. See you then. [00:31:47][0.0]

[1719.9]

More About

Meet your hosts

  • Adam

    Adam

    Adam is the funniest and most successful comedian in his family. He broke onto the comedy scene as a RAW comedy national finalist before selling out solo shows at two Adelaide Fringe festivals. He’s performed stand-up to crowds all over Australia as well as enjoying stints on radio with SAFM and most recently as a host of the Ice Bath on Triple M. Father of two and owner of pets, he may finally be an adult… almost.
  • Thomas

    Thomas

    Thomas, the economist, is the brains of the outfit. He studied economics and game-theory at the University of Queensland and cut his teeth as an economist at the Reserve Bank of Australia. He now runs his own economics consultancy, with a particular focus on the property market. He lives with his wife and two kids in the hills outside Byron Bay.

Get the latest

Receive regular updates from our podcast teams, straight to your inbox.

The Equity Mates email keeps you informed and entertained with what's going on in business and markets
The perfect compliment to our Get Started Investing podcast series. Every week we’ll break down one key component of the world of finance to help you get started on your investing journey. This email is perfect for beginner investors or for those that want a refresher on some key investing terms and concepts.
The world of cryptocurrencies is a fascinating part of the investing universe these days. Questions abound about the future of the currencies themselves – Bitcoin, Ethereum etc. – and the use cases of the underlying blockchain technology. For those investing in crypto or interested in learning more about this corner of the market, we’re featuring some of the most interesting content we’ve come across in this weekly email.