What happens if we freeze rents?

Adam: [00:00:25] 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. Yeah. 

Thomas: [00:00:38] G'day, Adam. Hey, doing well? 

Adam: [00:00:41] I mean, holidaymaker just got back from Cairns, so I'm relaxed. So you'll probably notice that coming through in the in my tone throughout the show. But no time to relax. Thomas big show coming up.

Speaker 1: [00:00:54] Let's get into it. 

Adam: [00:00:55] Could Nassau soon be paying off your mortgage? Is their shiny new telescope so good it can spot spare change behind your couch? Or have they found something else? We'll find out. And Thomas, we're playing Battle of the Sexes. We've got some icy cold cans of coke to give away. The lines are open. Call now one 800 CV. If you think you know your stinks from your dunks, it's men versus women. In the Battle of the Sexes, investor Star Jones sent us a great email saying how much he loved the show and how funny he thought I was. I stopped reading there, but he also had an economics question, which I'm hoping that you read, so we'll find out. Did Thomas read the rest of the email? But first, they were once all about cooling the planet. Now they want to freeze the rents. Thomas Good plan or do the Greens just need to chill? 

Thomas: [00:01:48] Oh, so many puns. 

Speaker 1: [00:01:51] You working on that poolside? Yeah.

Thomas: [00:01:56] Yeah. So the greens that the greens are calling for a rent freeze for two years, they want rents to be frozen for two years and then after that they want to see rental increases capped at 2% rise every two years. 

Adam: [00:02:10] Can they do it? I mean, can anyone do it? Can the government freeze rents? Isn't isn't like if I owned a house and I want to rent my house, don't I get to decide the rent that I charge. 

Thomas: [00:02:20] Yes, at the moment that's true. Yeah. But like, yeah, it's difficult but it's, I mean this is the Federal Greens that are talking about this, rents are overseen by the states I'm pretty sure. So you'd need like federal and state legislation to make it happen. But you know, anything's possible in theory. Like you, you just go to where there's a will, there's. 

Speaker 1: [00:02:43] A legislative way. Yeah, but it's got to be. 

Adam: [00:02:46] In practise too. You can't just otherwise, like, I could come out with a policy that says, I think we should give everybody $5 million and everyone I go, Well, I like that, and let's vote for Adam because he's he's on the money. He knows what he does. What's up? Here's what the people need. 

Speaker 1: [00:03:03] Yeah, right. 

Thomas: [00:03:04] Well, they okay, so there's two separate questions like is it practical and is it good idea? Right, practical. I think probably like. But yeah, I can imagine. Is it a good idea? I don't know. This is this is sort of a value question there. I mean, I think it's I think it's a reasonable time to be asking that question. Rents are going up 10% year on year at the moment, at the same time that real wages are falling. So renters are really getting it in the neck at the moment. And yeah, and I think you can make a good argument that a lot of that has come from the overclocking of the stimulus support post-COVID, which is put a lot of money into a competitive rental market at the same time as the rental market got extra competitive. And so all of that support money just got sucked up into into rents and got and bid up rents. And so I think you I think you could it's reasonable to say, like, well, the government made this problem to some extent, therefore the government could have a role in fixing it. I think that's reasonable. 

Adam: [00:04:06] So is the because you know, the RBA obviously controls all the levers in terms of interest rates and things like that.

Thomas: [00:04:12] We at one lever want. [00:04:13][1.1]

Speaker 1: [00:04:13] To be the big lever. Yeah. [00:04:16][3.3]

Adam: [00:04:18] So is it is it is it an RBA kind of problem to solve or is it more of a government policy problem to solve or is it kind of no one's problem to solve? In a sense. [00:04:27][9.0]

Thomas: [00:04:27] It's a government's got nothing to do with the RBA but it's not really I mean this is the thing like rents go up, no one sees that as a problem. A lot of people, property investors see it as a great thing because their returns go up. And so you sort of have this situation where no one's no one's really taking it on as a problem. It's the same story with housing affordability. You know, if house prices are expensive, that sucks if you're trying to buy a house. But for everyone else, it's kind of like either like neither here nor there or a good thing, right? And yeah, so it's sort of so where it. [00:04:57][30.0]

Adam: [00:04:57] Falls and where do you see? So where do economists sit on the idea of rent freezes? I'll wait and see what happens. [00:05:03][5.9]

Speaker 1: [00:05:04] Yeah, just. [00:05:05][0.3]

Thomas: [00:05:06] Really explain it. In hindsight, I think it would just hold our fire too. [00:05:09][3.0]

Speaker 1: [00:05:09] After the fact. [00:05:10][0.5]

Thomas: [00:05:12] And I mean, to be typically like this, the textbook economics response would be that rent freezes are not a great idea because you create a distortion in the market and that creates other. Consequences. [00:05:24][11.5]

Adam: [00:05:25] Like what? [00:05:25][0.2]

Thomas: [00:05:26] Like a black market for rentals, for example. Like places where you have seen rent. Rents. Rental caps come in. That creates a bit of, like, black market with, like, this sort of under the money under the table, money going back and forth to, like, secure the rental housing. So sort of. So that sort of puts that out of the market. But like, I find that a bit of a wishy washy argument because like there's, there's a lot of places where we don't let the market have free run of things where it's just not a good idea. Like, for example, like you ban assault rifles. Like, that's a good policy. It's interfering with the market for assault rifles. [00:06:03][37.6]

Speaker 1: [00:06:07] It's artificial. I did it ever. I've had to go to the dark web now to get myself rifles. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:06:16][9.2]

Thomas: [00:06:17] So, like, it interferes with the market, but. And that has consequences are you now have to police that and you have to sort of monitor the dark web and whatever. But like there are consequences that are worth bearing. It's the same story here. I think, like freezing rent has consequences, but maybe those consequences, dealing with those consequences is better than dealing with, you know, renters getting it in the nick. And I think that that's a sort of a value question. [00:06:42][25.3]

Adam: [00:06:42] What are some of the consequences you're talking about with. Freezing rain. [00:06:46][4.0]

Thomas: [00:06:47] To be honest, it's not all that all that evident to see what the consequences are. One is one is the potential to create this sort of black market effect. And but you can sort of like create legislation to sort of like outlaw that and then you've got to police it or whatever. And that's alright. I mean the interesting thing about the rental market is that it's, it's, it's supply constrained already. So one of the arguments is if you cap, cap rents then that creates a, that distorts the market signal going to property investors to supply more rental housing and and therefore you end up with a shortage. That's that's the sort of the standard answer. [00:07:26][39.0]

Adam: [00:07:26] Right. So people so people who own properties are going, well, I'm not going to put it on the market because rents are now capped and I can't make as much from the rental without you saying so. [00:07:35][8.8]

Thomas: [00:07:35] Yeah, well, this is where the argument gets really stupid. So it's it's true. It's true to the extent that it stops someone constructing a new rental property, like building a new one and bringing it to the market, that might be seen as a problem because you get less supply than you otherwise would. And that's not a great thing. You end up with a worse shortage. This there's this idea that people are running that that landlords will go on strike and that they won't make their properties available or they'll exit the market and then they won't. There'll be less rental properties available. It's such a stupid argument and you hear it so often. 95% of investors buy existing houses, they don't buy new houses, said most. 95% investors are not creating new stock. So they're not bringing supply to the market to if an investor sells and goes on strike, who they selling to? They're selling to a first home buyer or an owner owner occupier. And the balance doesn't change. You've lost the rental property, but you've also lost the renter because they're now a homeowner. Right. You know, so this sell the idea that a rental strike. Landlords going on strike is a bad thing is sort of saying that the, the first home owners buying their first home is a bad thing. Mm. To disorder. I mean like it's such a stupid argument, but I've seen it so often in the media the past couple of weeks speaking up about landlords going on strike, and that'll make the rental crisis worse. It's just not true. It's just so stupid. [00:09:04][88.4]

Adam: [00:09:04] Unless they're so well off that they can just go on strike and hold onto their house and just have no one in it. Like, that would be like real commitment from the from the landlords. That would be a true strike. [00:09:16][11.9]

Thomas: [00:09:17] That is. [00:09:17][0.2]

Adam: [00:09:17] True. I think it's the wording like, yeah, a strike would imply that, that they're like taking no action. We're like, we're sitting on it. We're just not, we're just going to sit down and not do anything, which is the classic strike. [00:09:29][11.4]

Speaker 1: [00:09:30] Yeah. [00:09:30][0.0]

Adam: [00:09:31] Like if the train drivers go on strike, they don't just go start driving buses. All right. Thomas Nasser found something interesting in space. Is an aliens? [00:09:44][12.7]

Thomas: [00:09:45] No, no, it's not. It's a rock. [00:09:46][1.6]

Adam: [00:09:47] It's a rock. [00:09:47][0.2]

Speaker 1: [00:09:48] Yeah, we had those already. We already discovered rocks. Yeah. This is a big rock. Rock, only big rock. Okay. [00:09:54][6.5]

Thomas: [00:09:55] Now there's an asteroid the size of Massachusetts. [00:09:58][2.5]

Adam: [00:09:59] Massachusetts in the States. [00:10:00][1.2]

Thomas: [00:10:00] Yeah, yeah. It's a bit of American speed reference. [00:10:03][2.3]

Speaker 1: [00:10:03] Yeah, yeah, that's cool. American listeners out there, apologies if you're joining in from Australia. The bulk of our news. Imagine that the international news conference. [00:10:17][13.4]

Thomas: [00:10:18] Found an asteroid the size of Massachusetts. [00:10:19][1.9]

Speaker 1: [00:10:22] Sorry for our Australians, that's about the size of Oodnadatta. [00:10:25][3.1]

Thomas: [00:10:30] And I think Massachusetts is quite big, 140 miles in diameter, so. [00:10:34][4.0]

Adam: [00:10:34] Yeah. [00:10:34][0.0]

Thomas: [00:10:35] Yeah, pretty, pretty sizeable. [00:10:36][0.9]

Speaker 1: [00:10:37] Oodnadatta ish is it. Yeah. [00:10:39][2.1]

Adam: [00:10:39] I don't know. No idea. [00:10:40][0.7]

Thomas: [00:10:40] It's an interesting it's an interesting it's a rare one. Apparently this this asteroid they're calling in 16 psyche. I don't know where they get that name from. [00:10:47][6.9]

Adam: [00:10:47] But I don't you don't know where scientific names come from. I don't think that's. Anyway. Yeah, I mean psyche six psyche. [00:10:55][7.5]

Thomas: [00:10:55] So this one, it's rare because it's entirely made of iron and nickel. Oh yeah. So it's a most just rock like generic rock and ice. But this one seems to be entirely made of iron and nickel. Right. Well, they say that if you could access all of that iron and nickel be worth $10,000 quadrillion. [00:11:16][21.2]

Speaker 1: [00:11:21] Was that was the NASA's spokesperson, a four year old, by any chance, if you would like a bazillion dollars? This is sort of Massachusetts. Massachusetts, but none of. [00:11:39][18.0]

Thomas: [00:11:40] Us know this $10,000 quadrillion, the ten followed. [00:11:43][3.1]

Speaker 1: [00:11:43] By. [00:11:43][0.0]

Thomas: [00:11:45] 18. Zero. [00:11:46][0.5]

Adam: [00:11:46] So we have. Well, okay, a few questions. How far away is this rock? Is it a long way? I. Can we get to it? [00:11:53][6.5]

Thomas: [00:11:54] No. Well, it's not a long way. It's between Mars and Jupiter. Right in the asteroid belt there. [00:11:59][4.9]

Speaker 1: [00:11:59] It's like a bazillion light years away, said NASA's spokesperson. It's like way, way, way, way, way up there. [00:12:13][13.4]

Adam: [00:12:14] Because the obvious question is like, what are we doing? Still sitting around talking about why we're mining it already? [00:12:18][4.6]

Speaker 1: [00:12:19] Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:12:20][0.8]

Thomas: [00:12:21] Yeah. No, no, it's. It's too far away to mine. But this is actually one of the things. So Finn Fest is coming up. As you know, we're doing a panel on investing in the future. [00:12:31][9.6]

Speaker 1: [00:12:33] Yeah, I was just making some notes. No, you're just. [00:12:40][7.3]

Thomas: [00:12:40] You're just the eye candy, I tell you. I take care of the notes. [00:12:44][3.8]

Speaker 1: [00:12:45] All right, ladies. Uh. [00:12:47][1.6]

Thomas: [00:12:48] You know, so. Yeah, so, yes. I'm like, I'm so. We've got some epic panellists coming up talking about the future, but so, I mean, I've been researching some future trends, but asteroid mining is, is one of the big trends that people are anticipating over the next 20 or 30 years, just because there's asteroids out there that are just worth a lot of money like this. I just have a lot of epic resources. [00:13:08][20.1]

Adam: [00:13:10] So no one owns obviously no one owns the asteroid. Yeah, I know. And we know of some. [00:13:17][7.3]

Speaker 1: [00:13:18] Right? Yeah. Claim it. And then like ZOG from another planet. Okay, you're trespassing on my asteroid. Get out of my garden now. [00:13:32][14.1]

Thomas: [00:13:32] I mean, it's the Wild West out there, so it'll be I mean, a lot of. Yeah. Who knows how that works? Mm hmm. Yeah. And then who knows how you how you mind something like that, like whether you break it up or people are talking about like bringing bringing asteroids like this back into near earth orbit and mining them there seems a little risky, but. Yeah, but then again, in other ways you have sort of like mining rigs, just trucking stuff back from from the asteroid belt. [00:13:58][26.6]

Adam: [00:13:59] No, no, no, you. We've covered it on the show already. Andrew Forrest has an infinity train. [00:14:04][5.0]

Speaker 1: [00:14:06] This is so far ahead of time so far. It's going to have aliens wearing our in Williams boots. Loading is the infinity train from space. [00:14:17][11.1]

Adam: [00:14:18] Asteroid psyche. Six day frame back to earth. That's how we get it here. [00:14:23][4.8]

Thomas: [00:14:23] Yeah, but so that's the future of mining, apparently. Like, we'll get. We'll be, like, tapping all the resources in space. [00:14:28][5.0]

Adam: [00:14:28] Yeah, you're right. I do. I mean, it does feel a lot like we're just like Earth was. You know, people talk about there's no plan B. I feel like Earth was almost is almost becoming our trial run society of like humanity. But it's getting away from us now. [00:14:46][17.2]

Speaker 1: [00:14:46] Space weather has had a good trek and there's a lot. [00:14:51][4.9]

Adam: [00:14:51] Of seems like there's a lot of energy being invested in mining outer space now that we've dug up the whole planet Earth. Because I saw the other day, too, that they've now worked out how to generate oxygen on Mars. [00:15:04][12.9]

Thomas: [00:15:05] Oh, right. [00:15:05][0.2]

Adam: [00:15:06] So they can, like, produce oxygen from Mars atmosphere. [00:15:09][2.9]

Thomas: [00:15:10] Oh, does it involve trees? [00:15:11][1.2]

Speaker 1: [00:15:16] Yeah, that's. Yeah, I don't know how they do it. [00:15:18][2.6]

Adam: [00:15:19] I don't know why they wanted to. Well, that's talking about, you know, human habitation on Mars. Mm hmm. Being able to, you know, I don't know how it involves space trees. [00:15:27][7.6]

Thomas: [00:15:27] Jeff Bezos a couple of months ago came out with the idea he wants to he wants to offshore or heavy industry from earth. So you put all of your like you carbon intensive industry in space so it can just release carbon into space and then you zone earth residential. [00:15:47][19.8]

Speaker 1: [00:15:49] Will. [00:15:49][0.0]

Thomas: [00:15:49] Like commercial. [00:15:50][0.3]

Speaker 1: [00:15:54] This is what I mean we're not solving like let's stop making carbon. Yeah, let's, let's just we just need to stick it somewhere else and make it make it zoox problem. [00:16:04][10.1]

Adam: [00:16:05] Yeah. So, Tom, is that $10,000 quadrillion that we talked about? I read a stat that said that would give everyone on earth would be enough, at least to give everyone on Earth about 1.3 billion. These are. [00:16:17][12.1]

Thomas: [00:16:17] Yeah, that's well, that's how the mass breaks down on ten. If you divide 10,000 quadrillion by 7.5 billion, people get $1.3 billion each. [00:16:26][9.2]

Adam: [00:16:27] Be a big calculator. [00:16:27][0.4]

Speaker 1: [00:16:28] Yeah. [00:16:28][0.0]

Thomas: [00:16:29] Yeah, but it but it doesn't work out that way because you can't like if you just flooded the iron and nickel markets with like Massachusetts worth of iron and knew it would crash the price of iron and nickel. And so you wouldn't, you wouldn't get $10,000 Billion worth that much at current market prices. But if you had that much, it would be worth a lot less. And that's a really interesting thing about asteroid mining is and with renewable energy, as those goals get better, the marginal cost of resources and the marginal cost of energy goes towards zero. And so then you're looking at a like a really interesting economy, like resources and energy have been, you know, the most expensive things in the economy for a long time. If they go to zero, then it's just it's just a brand new world. [00:17:16][46.9]

Adam: [00:17:17] And if everyone gets 1.3 billion, like, that's going to have a pretty significant impact on inflation. [00:17:22][5.1]

Speaker 1: [00:17:22] Yes. Yes. Yeah. Like a loaf of bread will be like $12 million. All right. Why don't we leave it there? [00:17:29][7.0]

Adam: [00:17:30] We'll take a break, grab a quick word from this week's sponsor and be back with more comedian versus economist right after this. Welcome back here on Canadian versus Economist. You can check us out on Instagram and Facebook at CBC Podcasts or why not send us an email CV at Equity Mates dot com or via the website Equity Mates dot com forward slash CV Thomas. There's a bit of a bit of a debate raging, is there around who's the better investor, men or women? What's going. [00:17:59][29.2]

Thomas: [00:17:59] On? No, I think it's fairly settled, actually. I think I think women are better. [00:18:03][3.6]

Adam: [00:18:03] Did we win? [00:18:04][0.3]

Thomas: [00:18:04] No, we didn't. We didn't. [00:18:06][1.7]

Speaker 1: [00:18:08] Know. Yeah. [00:18:09][0.5]

Thomas: [00:18:09] Like I think there's a few studies now that saying that definitely on average, women tend to outperform men in their results. There's quite a few of those. But yeah, it's still interesting in the sense that 58%, if you look at sharemarket investors in the ASX, 58% men still 42% are women. That's up a lot from, you know, prior to 2010 it was only 31%. So it's, it's, it's up a lot which is, which is great. [00:18:37][27.3]

Adam: [00:18:37] This is where I think maybe we'd be benefited by having some guests on the show. Perhaps we could have a female guest who might explain this rather than now. [00:18:44][6.8]

Speaker 1: [00:18:45] Rather than us poor performing men explaining why this is happening. A mansplaining. [00:18:54][9.7]

Adam: [00:18:55] Anyway, go ahead. [00:18:56][0.6]

Thomas: [00:18:56] The puzzle is that women perform better than men, yet they still account for a smaller proportion of the ASX and they hold less money in their portfolio. So the average portfolio for men's 155,000, for women it's 90,000. So there's still there's still a big gap yet in the number of investors and in the funds held. [00:19:17][20.5]

Adam: [00:19:17] Are we talking we're just talking retail investors here talking sort of. Yes. I think mum and dad investors are. [00:19:23][5.9]

Thomas: [00:19:23] Yes, yeah, yeah. Retailer. Yeah, yeah. Look, I read a couple of pieces on this. One of them that I read, one that if you like a money coach Natasha Janssens says that women have a perfect perfectionist tinge. They get caught in analysis, paralysis. They, they want to be perfect data. They lack a sort of certain confidence and then that holds them back, keeps them out of the market. And Karen Ely from Women Talking Finance said It's like when you go to the gym, there's this area where all the muscle men go to work out and some women just won't go there. Many women I speak to tend to feel they need to have all the boxes ticked before they can press go. Unlike men who tend to feel confident and willing to take a bit of a risk, even when they lack the skills to do so. [00:20:07][43.8]

Speaker 1: [00:20:07] Adam I was still thinking about the area of the gym and with all the muscle bound men and how I was so scared to go there. [00:20:17][9.9]

Thomas: [00:20:19] Women tend to hold much more of their portfolio in ETFs rather than individual stocks. Part of the story is that women under confident are less confident than they should be. Men are more confident than they should be. Yeah, much more confident than they should be. [00:20:33][13.7]

Adam: [00:20:33] There was a there was an excellent podcast on this, I think I think it was Michael Lewis against the Rules who talked quite a lot about in-depth is doing a series on experts. I think it's current season, season three maybe. Yeah. It sort of unpicked a lot of a lot of this around around confidence and experts. Yeah. Particularly in investing that men were much more confident even though they were much more likely to be wrong or. [00:20:56][22.6]

Speaker 1: [00:20:56] Be lied to, not. [00:20:58][2.2]

Adam: [00:20:59] Do very well. Whereas women did perform better even though they were less likely to be involved or less likely to to buy in. But they've done studies that Yeah. That said exactly that, that men would happily explain why they were buying, you know, Tesla or whatever and then watch Tesla go. [00:21:15][16.5]

Speaker 1: [00:21:16] But I'd still be confident about it either. Yeah. Yeah. [00:21:18][2.2]

Thomas: [00:21:19] One of my managers, a woman I used to work for at the RBA, talked about this saying like there's just a sort of a a confidence kind of dynamic that men are taught to be confident and women are taught to be less confident. And so like and that plays out in lots of different things. Like if, if a woman says confidently that I can cook, you know, that she's probably got restaurant experience at a five star restaurant. If she's that confident, if a man says confidently, I can cook, you know, he can cook an egg. Yeah, but he. [00:21:49][29.9]

Adam: [00:21:49] Does barbecues as weekend. [00:21:50][1.1]

Speaker 1: [00:21:51] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:21:52][1.2]

Thomas: [00:21:53] That's probably true of investing. Like, if a woman says confidently, I'm a good investor, she's probably got $100 million funds under management or something. [00:22:00][7.1]

Adam: [00:22:00] Yeah. [00:22:00][0.0]

Thomas: [00:22:01] Yeah. If a guy says that he's bought two meme stocks on self-will and can see this is. The other thing I picked up is the MIT had a study on panic selling and they looked at the accounts of people who panic sold during downturns and found that they were more likely to be male over the age of 45 and would consider themselves as having excellent investment experience. [00:22:23][22.8]

Speaker 1: [00:22:27] Those people who thought. [00:22:28][1.2]

Thomas: [00:22:29] Of himself as having excellent investment experience were more likely to freak out and dump a portfolio in a. [00:22:34][5.3]

Speaker 1: [00:22:34] Downturn. Okay. Well, that's. That's where you get most of your experiences in those tough times. A school of hard knocks or those. [00:22:44][9.7]

Adam: [00:22:44] Kind of macho bravado terms that we like to talk about as making us more expert is saying some. [00:22:51][7.0]

Speaker 1: [00:22:51] Things are better as they arise out of the bottom tier of lessons. You haven't seen what I'm saying. [00:22:59][8.1]

Adam: [00:23:00] All right. So so what do we do with this, this newfound knowledge? Well, they. [00:23:03][3.0]

Thomas: [00:23:03] Talk about the the key to being a good investor is working with your biases and recognising that you're going to be emotionally driven, that when the market's going down and there's a lot of panic, it's really hard to hold your head and stay the course. And there's an emotional element to investing, and you need to sort of be aware of this. And I think it's true of the bias. So I think it's probably the case that men need to read this and go like, okay, I need to dial it back a bit. I'm probably probably not as good as I think I am, and I need to adjust my investing approach for that reality. Women, on the other hand, could go the other way and go, Look, I'm probably better than I think I am. I can hit this with more. [00:23:45][42.0]

Adam: [00:23:46] Confidence, so maybe I shouldn't have rushed into crypto and nfts. [00:23:49][3.1]

Speaker 1: [00:23:51] And the like and told me. [00:23:53][1.7]

Adam: [00:23:57] I finally on the show Joe has sent us an email CV at Equity Mates dot com is a really nice email actually. I just want to say thanks for a cracking podcast love. Listen, the show is a he's worked as a diplomat and a policy maker. Find your show well-researched, engaging, breath of fresh air. Maybe it's just because of my weird sense of humour, but I also find myself laughing out loud. Joel I'd like to think that's because of my jokes. [00:24:21][23.8]

Speaker 1: [00:24:22] Not because of your sense of humour, but I appreciate it anyway. [00:24:25][2.6]

Adam: [00:24:33] He said he's currently doing some work for Victorian Government around place based economic development. Thomas would love to hear your thoughts on what these big structural changes, hardworking working industry for, for climate change, etc. mean for the future of cities or take it away. [00:24:51][17.9]

Speaker 1: [00:24:52] Come out. You got my kudos and I'm leaving the building. Yeah. [00:25:00][8.0]

Thomas: [00:25:01] Big questions. Big questions. I don't have a heap of to say about this, but it is interesting. Like I have been following a debate about the decentralisation of the economy for 20 years and from the digital age onwards, from 2000 and the Internet, people talked about how this was going to decentralise the economy and we're going to the cities were going to become redundant. And then it became this sort of puzzle where for 20 years it didn't happen like we thought it was going to. Cities almost became more concentrated and more centralised and regions really suffered. And yeah, and this became this sort of political thing. Like every election there's a, there's a scheme to energise the regions and to drive economic development in the regions and push, push the economy into more regional centres. And it hasn't really happened. But then Cobar came along and then that created a sort of a radical shift and it kind of did start to see these green shoots of decentralisation. So it's going to be it's going to be really interesting next couple of years, I think, to see whether it whether it sticks around. I think you look at sort of what's in the road of decentralisation, like why workers need to come into the workplace like they. Oh, there's one aspect of it. Yeah. Like whether industries themselves decentralise and workplaces leave the cities, or whether kids themselves decentralise their workforce and create sort of more working from working remotely kind of opportunities. Hmm. I don't know. Like there's certain jobs that you can't decentralise, you can't do remotely like manufacturing, for example. So that needs to be there building cities. 

Speaker 1: [00:26:36] Yeah. Yeah. The, the. 

Thomas: [00:26:39] Other place you go to where you need to come into work is so you can be managed. And like, I think that talks a lot about this, about how tricky it's going to be to manage remote workforces and, you know, make sure people are doing what they're supposed to be doing or just doing anything. Yeah. And I don't know that we've got the tools for. 

Adam: [00:26:55] That, but less is the perception thing. Like I've just spent a week with that up in Cairns and I think it's a perception thing is that and then that's changing it because it's people are now seeing the sort of evidence from COVID that people are working harder, they're working longer, they're kind of the productivity, if anything, has gone up since people have started working from home, you know, where it's practical. And that was just a kind of a misconception pre pre-COVID was that I wish I had a real I think a real lack of faith in everybody's workforce was everyone just assumed that if people started working from home that they'd literally start working like 20% out of a day. Just skiving off the whole day. Where does that hasn't. That's not that's not what's materialised at all to the surprise of most people. I think I was surprised that. Yeah. 

Thomas: [00:27:45] I think everyone does not it not just the bosses that were surprised by that, I think. Yeah. Everyone's like, wow, really? We just did. 

Speaker 1: [00:27:53] Yeah. 

Thomas: [00:27:53] So de la marr saying like, if people want to work from home, they should pretend to work somewhere else. 

Speaker 1: [00:27:58] Yeah. 

Adam: [00:27:59] Yeah, that's right. And it's that mindset and I think I think finally through COVID, it's proven that people can be productive at home. 

Thomas: [00:28:06] Yeah, yeah. But that I mean, that's part of it. But yeah, I mean, you still got to manage. You got to manage for quality. Like make sure people are doing what they're supposed to be doing and doing it well. But I think yeah. The tools that the tools are emerging for that. Mhm. You know obviously it's going to be virtual reality. 

Adam: [00:28:22] Yeah. Yeah. We're going to be high fiving in the metaverse. 

Speaker 1: [00:28:25] Yeah. It's, it's something. See for after work drinks in the metaverse. All right, why don't we. 

Adam: [00:28:32] Leave it there? Thank you, Thomas, for your thoughts this week. Thank you very much out there for tuning in. We really do appreciate all your support. Yeah. Don't forget Finn Fest coming up soon. As Thomas mentioned, we'll be there presenting or hosting a panel actually happening October 15th head to Equity Mates dot com slash Finn fest for all the information. Thank you again for listening and we'll talk to you again next week. Bye.