Why is the RBA printing more money than you think?

Adam: [00:01:31] Hello and welcome to comedian versus economist. We demystify the world of money and help you get a handle on the bigger picture. My name's Adam and I'm joined, as always by my little older brother and real life economist, Thomas. Hi Thomas. [00:01:43][11.7]

Thomas: [00:01:44] G'day, very excited to be here. [00:01:45][0.9]

Adam: [00:01:45] Oh, exciting. I tell you, Thomas, we just ticked over 100000 total downloads last week. Amazing. So thank you so much for tuning in. We really appreciate and literally could have done it without you. So special. Thanks to you guys. Special thanks. Also to the iRobot that I spun up in IWD that so I didn't really. It's all you guys really appreciate it. Thomas, you blew up social media channels last week with one of your charts. And look, I'm not saying that the charts you normally post are bad. I'm just saying you finally released a good one. So good on you. Amazing, amazing chart. If you haven't seen it, head over to Covid podcast on Facebook or Instagram. But the title of the chart, Thomas, if I could recap for a moment, what animal could you be in a fight? And it listed men and women's ability to take on different types of animals. It did. It did point out that you had to be unarmed, though, which was an important condition. [00:02:46][60.5]

Thomas: [00:02:46] It's not it's not ability is an opinion. So how do you rate yourself against a house cat or how do you rate yourself against a lion? [00:02:53][6.6]

Adam: [00:02:54] Right. There's a list of animals. So right at the top you've got grizzly bear, which six percent of women and seven percent of men said they could beat a grizzly bear unarmed. And right at the other end of the scale, there was a rat. Not very convincing is only 68 percent of women and 76 percent of men said that they could defeat a rat in an armed hand-to-hand combat. So there's a lot of people living with rats. If you go by those stats, maybe they think it's splinter. My favourite animal was the elephant. Oh, yes. So there was an elephant, which is three from the top and and only eight percent of women and nine percent of men said that they could defeat an elephant in unarmed combat, which I reckon even if you're Conor McGregor, you're not beating an elephant in a fight unarmed. Best case, you won't lose to the elephant because it will ignore you while you're kicking its shins. But, you know, no one's taking down an elephant. It's hard to know what they're thinking there. Who even wants to tackle elephant? I know. I know. It's scary. Animals like bears and lions and king cobras. [00:04:09][75.2]

Thomas: [00:04:10] Crocodile like a crocodile is probably attacking you. That's a reasonable thing to be thinking about. How do I [00:04:14][4.2]

Adam: [00:04:15] do? I take out a crocodile. This is docile elephant wandering through the jungle on its back. [00:04:22][7.4]

Adam: [00:04:23] I could take it down. So anyway, if you want to go and see the complete list and all the data, it really is worth a look at some of your best work time and see if I do say so myself. [00:04:31][8.5]

Thomas: [00:04:32] Yeah. Shout out to the twenty six percent of men who don't think they could beat a Housecat. [00:04:35][2.8]

Adam: [00:04:38] CVE podcast on Facebook and Instagram. Go and give us a follow and you'll see that it's a ripper. But Thomas, big week on the show. Lots to digest and get through. This week the government announced the end of QE two. And I ain't talking about the cruise ship. We're going to check in and see what the government's money printing machine is up to now. End of QE two, starting QE three. It couldn't be more excited. Also, Iceland have tried moving to a four day work week. And believe it or not, they reckon it's amazing, something we should all be doing. There's been some bad news this week if you're investing in China. Some big news happening over there. We'll take a look at what's going on in China. But first time, as we called it last week, there's an M&A boom afoot, a mergers and acquisitions boom we talked about on the show last week with the takeover of Sydney Airport. And just today, recording sound on the 12th of July, Wesfarmers have made an offer to buy API, which is best known for their Priceline pharmacies. Wesfarmers, of course, who owned Bunnings, Kmart geek's to you, which is going to be the name of this show, actually, but in French, lots of big brands. Wesfarmers huge company. So what's going on there? They're taking over APRA or trying? [00:05:54][75.8]

Thomas: [00:05:54] Yeah, yeah. They're put in a bid. And I have said so. Sydney Airport's last week saying, look, now we don't reckon shareholders should sell. And these guys are saying, like, yeah, all right, if you want to buy, go for it. We're not we're not going to get in the way of that. But they are saying it. But if we get a better offer, we're we're going to take it. So, yeah. Open to open to selling, it seems. Right. [00:06:16][21.3]

Adam: [00:06:17] There's also the Equity Mates guys are talking mergers and acquisitions this week as well. I think so. Head over to their podcast, Equity Mates Investing podcast. A couple of big, big stories over there are in the mergers and acquisitions space as well. [00:06:29][12.5]

Thomas: [00:06:30] I think I think this is going to be the theme for the next six months, I think, like we're just we're already booming in terms of levels like it was. It's like 50 percent up on normal levels this year so far. And I reckon we just it's the thin end of the wedge right now. And I think mergers and acquisitions are going to be what it's all about over the next six months. Right. It's my my tip. [00:06:50][19.7]

Adam: [00:06:51] That's your tip. It's hard to argue given where we're at. And, you know, we've seen such big acquisitions going on in the last just the last week or so. Huge. What's this space? I didn't mention Wesfarmers owned Bunnings and Kmart. Hmm. Both of those companies were listed in a Roy Morgan poll this week. Thomas, the most trusted brands in Australia. If I could just indulge you for a minute. The top ten, number one was Woolworths. Number two was Coles number three was Bunnings for was Aldi five was Qantas. Number six was Kmart. Number seven was Apple number eight was Toyota number nine was the NRMA and number 10 was the ABC. So the most trusted brands in Australia. What do you make of that? [00:07:37][45.8]

Thomas: [00:07:38] It seems highly correlated with usage. So it seems like, you know, Woolworths and Coles as one and two. They're the guys you're going to every day of the week and all of those sort of household names, like I think if you look at the the other end of the spectrum of the least trusted. [00:07:53][15.1]

Adam: [00:07:54] Well, yeah, we've got we've got a list of a few of the least trusted brands. So Amazon, Rio Tinto, Huawei, who we don't know what Huawei does. They're a Chinese malware manufacturer to the West. Now, they make accusations only unfounded or false Crown Resorts, which, you know, [00:08:11][17.2]

Adam: [00:08:11] I guess if you don't like shady money dealings, then they're [00:08:15][3.7]

Adam: [00:08:15] either over Twitter and Tik-tok made up the some of the the least trusted brands. [00:08:21][5.9]

Adam: [00:08:22] Uh, interesting. [00:08:22][0.8]

Adam: [00:08:23] So there's definitely a flavour to I mean, you know, if you look at the the most trusted brands, a lot of them are Australian companies. And then if you look at the least trusted brands and this is in an Australian market. Right. This was the poll, wasn't it? So the other ones very much sort of have an international flavour to it, with the exception of Rio Tinto, whose I guess arguably digging up Australia. [00:08:42][18.7]

Adam: [00:08:42] So maybe people prefer buying [00:08:46][3.7]

Adam: [00:08:46] bread over giant holes in the ground. I don't know. So I don't know. It's interesting. I don't know what trust means in this context anyway. How do you trust? I don't I trust that when you buy some milk from Woollies, you're going to get a home and it's not going to be tomato soup erm inside. What are we talking or do we know what we're talking about when we say trust in this context. [00:09:07][20.7]

Thomas: [00:09:08] I don't think so. I think it's just a do you. The question is do you, what brands do you trust. Do you trust this brand. How, how much do you trust them. I think this is a sort of yes. And subjective to the individual. I mean, [00:09:20][12.2]

Adam: [00:09:20] Toyoda's, from what I understand, is one of the most reliable car brands. I guess if you're [00:09:24][4.1]

Thomas: [00:09:25] that's the reputation, isn't it? [00:09:26][1.1]

Adam: [00:09:26] It's a reputation. So is it a reputation for being solid? I mean, you know, I wouldn't trust a Toyota Prius to look after my children. [00:09:33][7.1]

Thomas: [00:09:36] But they are high maintenance. [00:09:37][0.8]

Adam: [00:09:38] Yes, I made a Tesla, yes, I mean, it's not like I'm going to let a car babysit my kids. [00:09:46][7.7]

Adam: [00:09:47] Well, I mean, it's a it's a whole, you know, different things to different people, but. Yeah, interesting where the Covid had something to do with that as well. [00:09:54][6.8]

Thomas: [00:09:54] I mean, Woolworths and Coles would be very happy with that. It means that people are happy with the with what they're getting. I think like trust and and customers sort of go hand in hand. You buy from brands you trust on any level, even if it's not really important. So, yeah, I think I think they'd be happy with those results for sure. [00:10:11][17.0]

Adam: [00:10:12] All right. Moving on so way the RBA came out this week, they've said it's the end of QE two. When we talk about QE, we're talking about quantitative easing. Thomas, is that right? [00:10:22][10.0]

Thomas: [00:10:23] There's a word you've got new lexicon now. [00:10:24][1.6]

Adam: [00:10:25] We didn't know that word six months ago when we started this podcast. So we're moving from Q2 to Q3. There's been a there's been a bit a bit of stuff in the news this week coming out of the RBA about what that means. Maybe if we could just for those of us that maybe those out there who are joining us for the first time, maybe you could just start with a recap on what is QE? What does it mean where we have we got here and where we're going? [00:10:50][25.6]

Thomas: [00:10:51] Yeah. So go go back to the sort of Ren Covid hit markets crashed everything. Everyone started freaking out. The first thing the RBA did was drop interest rates to the floor when as low as they can go, currently sitting around zero point one per cent and that's where they've stayed since then. From that point on, there's nothing more monetary policy can do in the sense of cutting interest rates to stimulate the economy. And so we moved into the next phase after that, once rates are at their bottom, is then printing money and pumping money into the economy. And that's what we're talking about with quantitative easing. So we're easing the quantity of money in the economy effectively. Yeah, and that's what they did. So they started printing money and buying up government bonds and the money made its way into the economy via the public sector. So that was that was that's what quantitative easing was. And they've been doing that at a pace of five billion every week, printing five billion dollars worth of fresh money and pumping it into the economy, just [00:11:49][58.5]

Adam: [00:11:50] doing it in the economy. I'm still yet to see any of it just there in case anyone from the RBA is listening. [00:11:55][5.3]

Adam: [00:11:58] As I said, direct to households. [00:11:59][1.1]

Adam: [00:12:02] Just saying, if you're pumping five billion a week, who's getting is just you're handy, you're [00:12:07][5.4]

Adam: [00:12:07] in the podcast aren't cheap. You run them selves. Say you have a plan if you're listening now. [00:12:16][8.5]

Thomas: [00:12:16] Well, it was Glenn. It's Phil now. [00:12:17][1.4]

Adam: [00:12:20] Oh yeah. Yeah. Now he's off. Yeah, yeah. [00:12:24][4.7]

Thomas: [00:12:25] So doing this and they want to get the economy pumping along. And they came out last week and said the last board meeting I said, look, you know, things are in pretty well. We're going to taper back. So taper is the term. So you're going to hear this more and more and we're tapering back how much money we're pumping into the economy. And they said five billion. Seems like it's a bit much. We're going to wind it back to four. [00:12:48][22.9]

Adam: [00:12:48] Oh, it's a lot of money to any normal person, [00:12:50][1.3]

Thomas: [00:12:50] but and it's still a lot of money. Like you go back go back eighteen months and say that the RBA was going to be printing four billion dollars a week and pumping into the economy like no one would have believed you. Right. But this is this is where we're at right now. [00:13:02][12.1]

Adam: [00:13:03] It's going to tell you it's obviously working like they're still doing it. I haven't sort of turned off the tap. [00:13:07][4.7]

Thomas: [00:13:08] No, no, no, no, no. Yeah. I mean, I think I think yeah. People are saying we're on track in the statement saying, look, we're on track. We're happy with how things are going, but we still want to see, you know, we still need to see inflation print in the target band. We still for that to happen, we need to get wages up, wages growth going between three and four per cent. The currently like one per cent, one point one. There's still a way off that. And we need for that to for wages growth to happen. We need to get unemployment down and keep it down at least somewhere, somewhere in the mid fours probably is the demand for that. But so that's that's that's the other thing is we've moved to a state dependent programme. So previously it was just running until November. They're saying we're going to print five billion a month in November and then it's going to stop. So now they're saying we're winding it back to four, but we're not putting an end date on it now. [00:13:56][48.4]

Adam: [00:13:57] I love it. I read the quote said, We updated our Q3 forecast to a flexible, open ended and state dependent programme. Thomas, is that just RBA speak for? We're pretty much just winging it from here on out. [00:14:11][14.5]

Thomas: [00:14:11] Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's really just saying we're just going to do this and see how it goes. That's econo speak for just going to see how it goes. [00:14:20][8.4]

Adam: [00:14:21] I mean, that's how I run my household budget. I have done for many years. I feel this is more important than [00:14:25][4.7]

Thomas: [00:14:25] that state dependent. [00:14:26][0.5]

Adam: [00:14:27] Well, sorry, babe. The holidays, state dependency, what does [00:14:31][4.1]

Adam: [00:14:31] that even mean? State dependent? [00:14:32][0.8]

Thomas: [00:14:32] Well, they're waiting for the for the right states. The right numbers in the economy, so it means that in order for inflation to be back in the target band [00:14:39][7.4]

Adam: [00:14:40] right now, it's not if it's not, if New South Wales does particularly well in South Australia. [00:14:43][3.4]

Adam: [00:14:45] This is. [00:14:45][0.3]

Thomas: [00:14:49] No, no, no. They're wanting to see they're wanting to see actual results. So the interesting thing, Chris Christie noted this in the same like people are talking about it being a tapering. People are talking about winding back the massive spending programme, something like two hundred and seventy billion so far, like a huge amount of money and people talking about the abs slowly winding it back. But because it's now open ended, we could actually end up with a much bigger total print over the life cycle of the QE programme that they're running it just at a slower pace week to week. But it could actually end up being much larger because it now just runs. It's a [00:15:25][36.6]

Adam: [00:15:25] blank check. [00:15:26][0.2]

Thomas: [00:15:26] It's a blank check. [00:15:26][0.4]

Adam: [00:15:27] Blank cheque. Yeah, we'll just keep printing forever. We went in and put a date on it. [00:15:32][5.4]

Thomas: [00:15:33] Yep, pretty much. Pretty much. [00:15:34][1.2]

Adam: [00:15:35] What does it mean for does it have any sort of bigger impacts on, I don't know, things like currency or. [00:15:41][6.4]

Thomas: [00:15:42] Well yeah. I mean kind of one of the main reasons that they're doing this is that everyone else is doing it as well. And if the RBA is not, while the Fed and all the other central banks are printing, then the Aussie dollar appreciates pretty rapidly. And so they've got a kind of little bit in an arms race. They've got to keep printing so long as the rest of the world is printing, because whoever stops first, we'll see their currency appreciate. And that sort of hurt your domestic economy. So they're a bit stuck with that until the rest of the world slows down the money printing as well. Yeah, but it means money's super cheap the longer the Australian government's got, you know, a blank cheque to do whatever it wants in terms of spending. So, you know, because they're buying government bonds. So that's that's the transmission mechanism. It comes through Canberra comes through fiscal spending. Mhm. Yeah. So more of that. Yeah. I think we, we thought a little bit about the implications of that before, but you know probably good for infrastructure [00:16:35][53.0]

Adam: [00:16:35] plays like barring an airport. [00:16:37][1.3]

Adam: [00:16:38] Yeah. For example. [00:16:38][0.8]

Adam: [00:16:41] All right. [00:16:41][0.1]

Thomas: [00:17:14] Welcome back here on comedian versus economists, don't forget, you can always send us an email CVT at Equity Mates dot com or head over to the website, Equity Mates dot com forward slash CV. We very much like hearing from you. So send us an e-mail or check out the Sociales, as we say, CVT podcast on Facebook and Instagram. But time is now. We're going to head over to China and some big news this week. And in fact, since February, there is an ETF called Invesco Golden Dragon China ETF, which sounds a lot like a poker machine, to be honest. I'm not surprised if I'm walking into a casino and I'm seeing a poker machine called the Golden Dragon, the Golden Dragon China ETF is dropped 10 percent this week. It's 30 percent down since February. And my understanding is that China is trying to crack down on Chinese companies, big tech firms in particular, listing in the United States. You know what's going on there? [00:18:12][57.9]

Thomas: [00:18:13] Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, exactly that. So that that Golden Dragon ETF is for Chinese companies that are listed on the in the American market. Yeah. And that's yeah. Keep the wall up this week because China announced that it was going to start investigating a bunch of Chinese firms that were listing in America that were listed in America and signalled that they were taking a bit of a dim view on on that or they they were concerned about that that listing and what that means. And I think it's I think it's kind of reasonable. My my take on I don't think China like I think it's I think it's right. Once you sort of list in a foreign country and you raise capital in that country, then you become subject to the laws and regulations of that country to an extent. And I don't think China is worried about what that might mean in terms of the ability for the US government to leverage some power over the Chinese companies and open up some strategic weaknesses over the Chinese government. [00:19:07][54.4]

Adam: [00:19:08] Yeah, right. So it's kind of is it the Chinese government sort of worried about losing control to a large extent? Is it about the influence that they can have over the companies? If they start listing in foreign countries, then they lose that kind of oversight, that ability to manage the companies [00:19:25][17.4]

Thomas: [00:19:26] or my my sense is that it's more about data and about opening up windows into the Chinese companies and then into the Chinese state, through the Chinese companies, more so than about controls of the companies themselves. I think as long as their Chinese companies then in China will have enough control over the companies to be happy. But I think it's about opening a window for the US government to come at China through these Chinese companies. I think, like you remember back to when Donald Trump banned Tik-tok or said that Tik-tok had to sell to you want to tik-tok to sell to an American company if it wanted to keep operating in the country. And the argument there was that Tik-tok was collecting all this data was like really good data hungry platform. And there was then the Chinese government, through their control of the Tik-tok company, had access to to all that data, all that American data and on that demographic data. And I think the American government was worried about that. See saw that as a strategic weakness. Yeah. [00:20:25][59.3]

Adam: [00:20:25] I mean, it's a bit it's a bit hypocritical, isn't it? I mean, the Facebook's of the world, you know, they've got everyone's data. So it's OK if they've got all your data, but it's not OK if if a Chinese company has a data. [00:20:38][12.8]

Thomas: [00:20:39] That's exactly because, you know, we're moving to this era of strategic rivalry. So we were friends before. America and China were friends before. But the relationship was warming. They were seen as economic partners in a lot of things. That's now moving to the doctrine of strategic rivalry. And then it does matter who's got access to your data and all the population data and what you what you might use with that. What? Yeah, what you can use that data for. Hmm. So I think it's it is is really a question of who which government ultimately has control. And I think the US is saying yet we're happy because we're happy with Facebook collecting the data, like there might be issues with that. But at least we've got some leverage over Facebook because it's an American company. And I think the China's coming the same way, saying, like, we're not happy with Facebook coming and collecting all our Chinese citizen data because we don't have control over Facebook. [00:21:30][51.1]

Adam: [00:21:31] Interesting. So it's the governments are fighting with each other. It's not so much a question of the companies themselves. It's more about the governments trying to maintain control of their citizens data that's being released to private companies. I think something else that I read because Jack Ma, who's the head of Alibaba and is the guy that went missing for a while, he disappeared off the face of the planet, was this billionaire and was like, no one knows where Jack's gone. But I think did I read somewhere that they were sort of saying, we're worried about the amount of power that some of these guys have got. Now, if they list, you know, they run their companies overseas, they can have all this power. And then they started he started making noises backwards against the Chinese government. And they didn't they didn't like that either. [00:22:15][44.0]

Thomas: [00:22:15] Yes. It's an interesting dance China's got with the capitalist class in a way. And like, you know, I think one of the criticisms that often levelled at the US is that that the corporations have too much power and ability to influence politics through donations and influence in the political system. I don't think so. China, I think, would be looking in that and going like, well, that's not a situation we want to we want to see develop in China. So we don't need to keep a lid on that. But I don't know. That's that's my personal spin on it. I haven't seen a lot of. People talking about that particular angle, but I would be surprised if they weren't worried about it. [00:22:54][38.7]

Adam: [00:22:54] Yeah, interesting. Moving on to finish with Iceland and ever since I paid out the Nordic countries, overpaid is doing amazing things. Week after week. And this is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. Iceland have trialled a four day workweek, believe it or not. Thomas employees love that, love it, love the idea. Thought was fantastic. Yeah, I would have figured [00:23:13][19.4]

Thomas: [00:23:14] they didn't want to work more. [00:23:15][0.7]

Adam: [00:23:15] Yeah, but not in front of the government. I tried a range of professions and I moved from the 40. This is a bit that confuses me, all the headlines. So they went to a four day workweek. But then you go into the detail and it says, I've moved from a 40 hour work week to a 35 or 36 hour work week. So I don't know whether they're more working more in each day anyway. They're apparently they did a four day workweek. And it's amazing. I did wonder, though, what that would mean if we were to try that in Australia like. Does that mean people free on Fridays that, you know, are we good doing overtime on Fridays, going out for long lunches at time and a half that we [00:23:58][42.7]

Adam: [00:24:00] claim overtime for Fridays? [00:24:01][1.0]

Adam: [00:24:02] Or do you reckon that could ever work? [00:24:04][2.5]

Thomas: [00:24:05] I think I think it could work anywhere. I mean, it's worth remembering that we've been trying to we're constantly trying to dial back the workweek. Hmm. I like the idea of a five day workweek was once seen as a bit radical. Having both Saturday and Sunday off was a radical idea, having a 40 hour work week where it was just like everyone just work 40 hours was a radical idea at some point. Yeah, we've been trying to sort of keep a lid on that. And there's there's a few sort of reasons for that. One is sort of a lifestyle thing. [00:24:34][29.2]

Adam: [00:24:34] It's sort of it's a pretty radical idea for most people. Finishing uni, a record of high school, going out of school. All you need is go, what, 40 hours every week [00:24:45][10.2]

Adam: [00:24:47] the rest of my life. So I love live series I started when I am I. It's ridiculous. I mean, it's [00:25:01][13.6]

Thomas: [00:25:02] yeah, it is. There's a sort of a competitive arms race element in it. So partly it's about sort of the stories. It's like, oh, it's the evil employers who want everyone to work really long hours. Rah rah rah rah. And we've got to push back against that. And that's part of the story. But it's just as much a part of the story as we kind of need to deescalate the arms race as people working. Because, you know, if you're in a group and someone's your work, everyone's working 40 hours and then one guy starts working 50 or 60 hours, that guy suddenly gets a lot of economic advantages. He's got more money. You can do more stuff. And you're like, I need to I need to start working 50 hours to and then suddenly sort of create this sort of arms race where everyone, just as it it feels like to get ahead, they need to work longer hours. But then that becomes the norm. And you everyone's working longer hours. And yes, you're exactly where you were. So sort of an idea. If you can sort of somehow convince everyone at the same time to work less, you can de-escalate that arms race and you can work less and not suffer economically. Like at the moment. If I if I was to go from my twenty two hour work week down to a [00:26:09][67.3]

Adam: [00:26:11] 16 hour work week, I get less money if you [00:26:14][3.0]

Thomas: [00:26:17] like. Working less means less money for me, which means that I've got I've got less economic power in the economy. We've got. And so like I've got to accept the consequences of that. But if everyone steps down their work week, then we then there's no no loss of economic power. And I've freed up a whole bunch of free time. And so this is sort of an idea, you know, cos the Nordic countries are into this. They're all about lifestyle and happiness. And, yeah, they're trying to they're trying to create an experiment where the government leads the way and and hopes that de-escalation happen. And once people down in this kind of a product like this kind of a need to it, too, because we were a bit labour abundant, like we're, you know, automation's kicking in. You know, people are worried about their being enough jobs for people in the in the eye in the robot age. So if we can sort of figure find ways for everyone to work less, that's a good thing. Take like take granddad, for example, like Grandpa Kylie. So between him and us, you know, like the technological leaps and like the advances that have happened in that hundred years has been mammoth. And yet we are working as many hours as he was, if not more. [00:27:32][74.9]

Adam: [00:27:32] Pretty hard work. And I'm not sure I'm working as much as I it. [00:27:35][2.7]

Thomas: [00:27:35] Yeah, no. Yeah, he did real work [00:27:37][1.9]

Adam: [00:27:38] with this business. Yeah. But yeah. [00:27:42][4.0]

Thomas: [00:27:42] But like so all of that technological advancement, you know, 100 years ago, people worried about once, once we saw where the Industrial Revolution was going. People are at what, what is it, what's everyone going to do. We're going to run out of things for people to do. We're going to have so much leisure time. It's we're not going to know what to do with ourselves, but we don't have so much leisure. We don't have any more leisure time than our grandparents did. And because it's sort of all gone into this sort of arms race concept. [00:28:06][23.8]

Adam: [00:28:07] Yeah, I remember like growing up and Mum would go to the post office, she'd go to the bank, she'd got all these places. I cannot fathom when she did [00:28:15][8.2]

Adam: [00:28:15] that, like [00:28:17][1.6]

Adam: [00:28:18] I just imagined my life. Now, if I also had to go to the bank and I had to go to the post office and I had to go somewhere to pay a bill, like it's all moved online. It's all Internet banking. It's all everything. Yeah. [00:28:32][14.5]

Thomas: [00:28:33] Stand in queue to pay your electricity. Can you imagine. Yeah. [00:28:35][2.5]

Adam: [00:28:36] Like what's replaced that are way more productive. Is that what it is like. Are we just sort of working more and that people are like, I mean no one's no one's ever accused me of being too productive. Well, I think Isilon said that one of the things that they did, they tried to get more efficient about their work. You know, they they stopped having like so many meetings and and tried to to just get things done via chat or or email, which I don't know that that's ever been more efficient for anyone either having a teams chat rather than rather than meeting. I'm not sure that's particularly efficient. Yeah, well, some people take matings like it's a like it's a massage booking or something. They're like, well, I've paid for the hour. [00:29:18][41.8]

Adam: [00:29:19] Going to have this allow for the meeting. We have it out there and biscuits are ordered. Yeah. It's like we're finished. It's 20 minutes. [00:29:28][9.6]

Adam: [00:29:29] We're going to just go back and get it. Now that we've got we've got the hour, we might as well find some other things to talk about. There's an element of that. But presumably it all has to be driven, as you say, by the government. So because that's probably case off if the government says, all right, every government worker now is going to do four days a week, then that puts pressure on every other private industry. [00:29:51][21.9]

Thomas: [00:29:51] Yeah, that's right. That's typically. Yeah, like for I think France was experimenting with this a while ago. Yeah. It's the only way to sort of get some sort of collective action, particularly the union memberships down to something like 10 percent. So it's not unions don't have enough leverage to be able to drive it anymore. I don't think [00:30:06][14.9]

Adam: [00:30:07] who has to come from just we've got a march when we get this up, how do we get what do we do, get taken to the streets? [00:30:14][7.7]

Thomas: [00:30:15] Well, it's a it's a classic prisoner's dilemma. You know, like is this is an idea in game in game theory, it's a prisoner's dilemma, but it's like there's an incentive to cheat. So if everyone's like a you know, we put out a call, everyone says, OK, we're going to work 30 hours a week. Everyone's like, great, we're all on board. And then you're like, hang on. If I work 40 hours a week, I'm going to have more money than everyone else doing. So that's so there's an incentive to cheat. And then in the absence of like some kind of controls, then you have cheaters and then you end up back at 40 hours a week. [00:30:47][32.0]

Adam: [00:30:48] Right. I don't know how the employer's going to take it either. If everyone suddenly woke up tomorrow that we're going to work thirty hours a week, I think a lot of people might be out of work for more than thirty hours a week. Interesting. All right. Well, fingers crossed for a four day working week. That'd be good. If you do want to get on board, send us an email c.v at Equity Mates, dot com or Equity Mates dot com forward slash CV. Let's start a movement. All right. That does it for this week on Covid. Inverted commas do. Thank you very much for listening, tuning in and we'll look forward to talking to you again next week. See you then. [00:30:48][0.0]

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