In this episode we discuss:

(00:00) 397

(00:28) Intro

(05:55) Plane Crash

(07:25) Labor Against war

(09:41) Republican Candidates

(13:14) Adelaide Council

(15:43) Religious Financial Reporting

(18:06) Guy Rundle on Labor

(21:34) Why Australian Property is Overpriced

(39:18) Property in China

(45:25) New Zealand Foreign Policy

(50:37) Vivek Ramaswamy

Chapters, images & show notes powered by vizzy.fm.

To financially support the Podcast you can make a per-episode donation via Patreon or donate through Paypal

We Livestream every Tuesday night at 7:30pm Brisbane time. Follow us on Facebook or YouTube, watch us live and join the discussion in the chat room.

You can sign up for our newsletter which is basically links to articles that Trevor has highlighted as potentially interesting and which may be discussed on the podcast. You will get 3 emails per week.

We need to talk about ideas, good ones and bad ones.

We need to learn stuff about the world.

We need an honest, intelligent, thought provoking and entertaining

review of what the hell happened on this planet in the last seven days.

We need to sit back and listen to the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.

Yeah, we're back for another episode, episode 397.

Closing in on that 400 number.

I'm Trevor, a k a, the Iron Fist with me as always coming in loud

and clear from regional Queensland.

Scott, the Velvet.

Glove.

Good day,

Trevor.

Good day, Joe.

Good day listeners.

I hope everyone's

doing well.

And contrary to the background, he's showing Joe's not in Norfolk Island.

He's actually in Peter Dutton's electorate.

Unfortunately, well, he's at home, which is fortunate, but it's Peter Dutton's

electorate, which is the unfortunate part.

Joe, the tech guy.

Evening all.

Mm-hmm.

In the chat room.

If you're there, say hello and already James and Tanya have said hello.

Good on you guys.

James, I, yes.

I saw your message that you're touch football refereeing is finished

and you're now free to join us on Tuesday nights by the sounds of it.

That's good.

Are you still supporting that fantastic mustache, James?

I'm, I'm jealous.

I wish I could grow a mustache like that.

Hmm.

Joe, have you ever grown a mustache or a beard?

You don't wanna see photos?

Scott Looks good with it.

Scott looks good.

Scott looks good with a bit of facial hair, I think.

Yeah.

Between the ginger and the white, it just really

doesn't.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I can't pull it off either, so.

Right.

I trim my beard once a week.

Mm-hmm.

Now what are we gonna be talking about?

We are going to be talking about a little bit on Republican candidates on

religious topics a little bit on labor and its role with well, its abandonment

of the, of the true working class.

And we're gonna talk about property and the historical reasons why property in

Australia is as high as it is, which is a combination of interest rates and

government policies and other things.

So, A bit of history there, which I'm looking forward to that part.

Did you get to read that article that I sent on that one?

Yeah, I did.

Yeah.

Did you agree mostly with it?

Were you gonna be arguing over much there, or?

I don't think we'll be arguing over that much.

But anyway, it's I was at a function this was the Matildas game, the one

where they won like quarterfinal and it was in a beautiful penthouse at at

rainbow Beach, magnificent, owned by a property developer friend of ours.

And, and he and I got into a discussion on the, on why

property is the price that it is.

And and let

me guess, there's not enough developable

land.

There was a bit of that.

Yes.

A bit of supply and demand was the mm-hmm.

Developer's argument.

And I said, I'm really I can't believe I'm doing this, but I actually,

I can believe I'm doing this.

I'm in an argument with a developer over claiming to know

more about the price of property.

So, so, so

you asked him what percentage of land still remains to be developed in various

large master builders developments across

Southeast Queensland.

He did actually agree with that, that there was a lot of land banking.

Right.

So he, he was, he was actually yeah, he, he did agree.

There was a number of different factors at play, and maybe our prioritizing

of those was different, but at least it was more than just supply demand.

But anyway, I mean, it reminded me of the time on this podcast when I gave advice

to women on how to breastfeed children.

I mean mm-hmm.

There's just no, there's

just no topic.

It's easy.

You just bare

your chest and stick the baby out.

No, it's not that easy.

No, it's not.

You've gotta get a.

I won't go into it on this show.

I forgot you're giving that advice.

Yeah, that's right.

I felt funny about it at the time, but I did it anyway.

Same as me arguing with the developer over right over land.

Gotta have an opinion on everything.

And the chat room.

Don's joined.

So has Greg and John Dire Straits.

Very good.

Say hello in there in the chat room.

Just a few other little bits and pieces before we get into the main topics.

I had my pathetic call out seeking new patrons last week.

Guess what?

Success.

So, Damian became a patron and also Paige and also an old patron Yam.

Yam Blue realized that his credit card had to be updated 'cause

his name wasn't called out.

So, so that was good.

There you go.

I'll leave you alone for another.

Four months, six months, four months.

Thank you for those who did sign up.

And if you can't do it 'cause of financial reasons.

Totally understandable.

Alright.

And also I had in an earlier version of the EPIs of the episode, the

audio from the Adelaide Mayor that didn't come through correctly.

And subsequent versions, I got it amended, but if you downloaded an early

copy of the podcast, you might've got that audio on that, but it was fixed up.

And the only other thing to say is in the show notes, there's

a link to the newsletter.

So as I go through articles during the week, I, I give 'em a little tick and

those articles appear in a newsletter that you get three times a week if

you are looking for something to read.

If you want somebody to scour the internet, finding interesting stuff from

the left and the right and the middle then cost you nothing, wanting to get that.

Have a look in the show notes.

Right.

Headline of the week, I reckon Scott was from the Shovel, which was to do

with the death of Guinea Ian, and the headline was, Wagner boss dies after his

plane accidentally falls out of a window.

Mm.

You, you know, I thought that the

you know, Biden said it beautifully.

He said, well, he is not surprised that he's dead.

Mm-hmm.

You know, it's it's one of those things I, I don't think the leopard's

ever gonna change its spots.

So, you know, he has, he has poked the leper and got his hand bitten, so

he's

dead.

You wouldn't have wanted to be his life insurer.

You would've been demanding high premiums.

Mm-hmm.

Exactly.

He was always skating on thin ice.

Yeah.

I mean, it's not just progression.

Mm-hmm.

There, there was quite a lot of senior management of Wagner in that plane.

Mm-hmm.

And so

effectively the.

The company

is leadership leaderless at the moment.

Mm-hmm.

And hence Putin is putting a lot of pressure on the soldiers, for want of a

better word, to sign oaths of loyalty to

him.

Mm-hmm.

I'm sure he'll get those oaths.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

And in the chat room, Greg says, I was listening to that podcast

today and it still wasn't working.

That's because you probably downloaded an episode in the first 24 hours, Greg.

So if you like delete it and then download it again, you'll pick up the

fresh copy, I think is probably your app, downloaded it in the first 24 hours.

Right.

Just also on Orcas, a little bit of a, a review of that, just briefly,

there's a guy called Marcus Strom was heavily involved with the Labor

Party, super pissed with Orcas.

He started a group called Labor Against War and seeking people who

are Labor Party members to join that and be active in the branches.

John Simmons in the chat room.

Have you joined Labor Against War?

And why not?

If not, and apparently according to the financial review, behind the scenes,

a senior Albanese government cabinet minister speaking on the condition of

anonymity, likewise voiced strong concerns about the high risk of the submarines.

The same minister also confirmed how completely rattled the cabinet

was by Keating's Orca critique.

So that's according to the financial review quoting an anonymous source.

And what did Albanese say at that conference in Brisbane?

He said Orcas would reverberate throughout Australia, through

our economy, across our advanced manufacturing and technology sectors,

and create 20,000 well paid union jobs.

It sounds like a darley.

Really?

Mm-hmm.

Well, these are the choices of a mature nation, a nation that

understands that a bright future calls for more than just sunny optimism.

He said, and the person who wrote this said in brackets the sort of decisions you

take after considering for 24 hours what the political implications will be if you

don't endorse the other side's choice.

That's true.

That's part of the horrible story of orca.

These dickheads signed up to it with 24 hours consideration

amongst a handful of them.

Hmm.

Still infuriating me in case you didn't know.

Yeah.

Ah, Greg says no's.

It's a good offer to turn down.

Mm.

Okay.

Greg in the chat room says, no, I stringing it today in Google Podcasts.

Maybe Google's caching it somehow.

Greg, I really dunno what's going on there.

Hmm.

I did my best to fix it anyway.

Republican candidates, I've gotta start looking at those.

Soon-ish.

They're starting to have debates in America.

And if you thought Donald Trump was a bad option, some of these

candidates Yeah, there, there

was someone there that was mentioned this morning on one thing

I was listening to and they said he was a younger bloke and they

said that he's very much a Donald Trump lookalike, but he's younger,

which was what was concerning them.

Is this the Vikk Ramish army guy?

The Indian billionaire.

I couldn't tell you.

Mm-hmm.

So, they just in a terrible state, the Republicans just, I'll play a little

bit of a clip here that I found.

Ah, I've gotten how to do this, add something here, hang on.

Video and this is.

From the recent candidates sort of debate that they had.

Trump wasn't there 'cause he just figured he didn't have to go.

But no.

He did an

interview with Tucker Carlson.

Yeah, he streamed it at exactly

the same time.

He gets all the publicity he needs.

He doesn't have to go to these debates, but I'll play a little bit of, of

whether they asked the candidates whether they were gonna pledge for Trump.

But we are going to take a brief moment and talk about

the elephant not in the room.

Former President Trump has been indicted in four different states.

On 91 counts, he will be processed tomorrow in Georgia at the Fulton

County Jail for charges relating to the 2020 election loss.

You all signed a pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee.

If former President Trump is convicted in a court of law, would you still

support him as your party's choice?

Please raise your hand if

you would.

Just hold on.

So just be clear.

Okay.

Six and a half out of eight, raise their hands.

You noticed that the, the one who definitely wasn't raising his hand?

No.

Who

was that?

Was Mike Pence.

Was it?

It was.

Oh, right here we go.

After,

after Trump sent the Lynch mob after him there.

There's no love lost there, I think.

Yeah.

It's still surprising.

He just, it would not have surprised me if Mike Pence put his hand up

and anything's possible, isn't it?

Yeah.

In the chat room.

Alison's there, which must mean that her mother Bev is also watching.

Hello.

Yeah.

So that's where the Republicans are at.

They are way too scared to announce that they are anti-Trump in any way.

It's a sure way of not getting pre-selected sad world we're in.

Yeah.

I mean, the sc scary thing is the number of Americans who actually believe

that this is just a political ploy.

And that Biden has arranged for all this to happen.

Hmm.

Rather than.

Investigators gather, gathering enough evidence to take to a grand jury of

average citizens that were pulled outta their voting pool and believed that

there was enough evidence to indict him.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

The guy who won the debate is a Vik Ramis Swami, and I'm gonna

talk about him a bit later.

If time permits, we've got enough material here for three and a half hours, I reckon.

Just settle in.

We mentioned previously about the Adelaide Council and the public gallery

was full again on Tuesday night in anticipation of another protest by a

guy wanting to read his prayers aloud.

But in there was a debate and basically they came to him and a resolution

that That they would, they would start the meetings with what they

called a non-denominational pledge.

And so it previously, the prayer was Almighty God, we ask your blessing upon

the works of the city of Adelaide direct and prosper, its deliberations to the

advancement of your glory and the true welfare of the people of this city.

Amen.

And the new non-denominational pledge reads.

May we, in this meeting, speak honestly, listen attentively, think

clearly, and decide wisely for the good governance of the city of Adelaide

and the wellbeing of those we serve.

Hail Satan.

The second one is fantastic.

Alison in her Facebook page said, I wish they wouldn't call the new pledge

a non-denominational pledge because they infers it is a religious pledge of

no particular Christian denomination.

It is a non-religious pledge.

Well, spotted Allison and she said it again in the comments.

Yeah, I, I just, I understand what you're saying about that

second one being a hell of a lot better than the first, but it, it

does, there's nothing religious in it at all, like a prayer.

I know.

It

does look and sound

like a prayer though.

May we, in this meeting speak honestly, listen attentively, think clearly,

and decide wisely for the good governance of the city of Adelaide

and the wellbeing of those we serve.

Well,

they're sort of saying, may we, they're asking for a higher power

to do that, aren't they?

No, they're asking people present.

Okay.

But, but also it's,

it's an aspiration, isn't it?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

It's certainly a hell of a lot better than the

actual prayer.

Mm-hmm.

I think you're just influenced by its position at the beginning of

something like where a prayer would be.

Oh, probably just makes you think it's a bit prayer ish.

So, so anyway, that's Adelaide City Council moving in a lovely

secular direction from CRI and articles still on religion.

The greens and secular organizations have revived calls to remove the financial

reporting exemptions given to thousands of religious charities suggesting that

scrapping them would enhance public trust.

You mean that labor wasn't going to do that?

Sounds like another reason to vote.

Green does, doesn't it?

Yes.

So it's the green's calling for it and also the rationalist.

So there's these things called BRCs and did I delete the bit that says what?

It's basic religious charities and they're the only category of charity exempt

from reporting financial information.

Under the Australian charities and not-for-profits

commissioning it, it would be so

much a bonus to put on.

So, so much of a, a burden

to put on them.

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

So, because 'cause their,

Financial affairs are so much harder than, say, a

footy club.

Mm-hmm.

It's not like they've been doing anything dodgy in recent times.

No.

That would make us feel suspicious.

No, never about them.

No.

Yeah.

So Green's justice spokesman, Senator David Shoebridge said, why should a

small charity helping the homeless or children be required to provide

financial accountability for money received and spent, but big institutions

like Hillsong and the Catholic Church can use the B R C to avoid this.

Hmm.

Well said.

And the government doesn't even know how much money is being

laundered through these institutions under the B R C exemption.

So, There we go.

Meredith Dogg was quoted in there as well.

So they're just picking on the poor religious charities.

They are, they do so much for our, our nation.

Mm-hmm.

I know if they don't, but, but you know,

if, if you was to introduce this tax reporting, then they'd have to,

for they, they'd be forced to shut down all of the good works that,

you know, Ong does in the community.

Yes.

Not it'd be nothing.

It'd just be transparency and open.

Exactly.

Accountability.

Clearly.

Clearly they're not doing the good things that they say they're doing.

'cause they would want people to see, it's like Donald Trump

not showing his tax return.

They got something to hide.

If he was worth

the amount of money he reckons he was, then he

should've had no problem showing

it.

Mm-hmm.

Guy Rundel is back at Crikey.

He had a bit of a break.

I think he was in trouble 'cause he wrote something that didn't go down too well.

He wrapped over the knuckles, but he's back writing about labor, writing about

orcas and the sub steel, and basically saying that there is no faction of any

size that has adopted opposition to orca.

The anti orcus forces within labor do not even have control of a sub faction.

While 50 of 80, 50 of eight, there's 800 party branches and 50 of them

have passed anti orcus resolutions.

And if you're looking for a revival of the genuine labor left it's slim pickings.

He says that there's been a transformation in labor and it's basically now just

on the side of capital accumulation.

We'll get into that in a moment.

Oh.

Game of Mates said that basically when they were given the charity not

the charities, the superannuation.

Mm-hmm.

Now

that the unions are far too busy sitting on the nest egg,

that is their superannuation to, to want to shake up the economy.

Yes.

Managing that portfolio has taken precedence over getting better

outcomes for workers in their wages.

Hmm.

We'll get onto that in the next article in particular in detail.

And what he's saying, this is Guy Rundel, is that now he referred

me to this article, which, which I'll read next, which is gonna talk

about how the old ideas of class were based around the income and

the profession that you were in and.

That really we now have to take into account asset ownership.

And it doesn't really matter if you are a junior doctor, for

example, or you are a plumber.

Do you own a house?

Do you own property?

Do you own investment properties?

That's where the class distinction now is, is in asset ownership.

And he's saying that labor has come down on the side of the asset holding class

rather than the low income holding class because the asset holding class are in

those suburban marginal electorates.

And basically labor's abandoned the left in the true sense.

And that was his little hot take on that.

John's in the chat room.

Dire straits, John.

John still confident in the Labor Party.

I mean, I know I said years ago, probably two years ago,

no point joining a small party.

You either have to be in the liberals or the, or the labor and work from within.

But when you see what's happened with the Prime Minister is a member of

the left and is kowtowing to right wing Richard Miles, just to maintain

power, you have to really wonder whether anything can be done just now.

I'm saying join the Greens.

If you wanna do something, I think it's my current position, what would I know?

No,

don't join the Greens, but you can vote for them

for the next couple of terms.

But then after that return back to the Labor

Party.

Mm-hmm.

When they've changed.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Let's get onto this one, which is about I.

This was a academic article titled Class in the 21st Century Asset Inflation

and the New Logic of Inequality.

And it was by some researchers out of the University of Sydney.

So, and the thesis, well, the abstract says, well, what it's saying essentially

is that the increases in residential property prices in major cities

around the world are more significant than peop than people's income.

The actual massive increases in real estate valuations

far outweigh people's income.

And when we're talking about class economic social class, Pickety in his

book about capital in the 21st century sort of highlighted wealth inequality.

But these authors of this article are saying, you really not enough

attention is paid to how property outweighs income in terms of the

effect it's having on people's lives.

And when we are thinking of class now, rather than saying what is your

income and occupation, while that's relevant, the first question should

be, you own your own home and do you own a few investment properties?

Because that's probably more indicative of, of class at the moment

because that's real wealth, far in excess of wage sort of income.

Anyway just going on it.

In this article, they give a really good history of why property prices

are what they are in Australia.

And I wish I had this article with me when I was having my debate

with my property developer friend in Rainbow Bay rainbow Beach.

So, so they give an overview here before going into the reasons why it is the case.

They just state the fact that looking at Sydney, and this is

from data from 2018, Sydney ranked as the second most unaffordable

city in the world after Hong Kong.

So that's obviously looking at the price of property, median price compared

to median income of the inhabitants.

So, You might find more expensive property in other cities, but when

you compare it to the income of the inhabitants, Sydney 2018, second

most unaffordable city in the world.

So, between 1999 and 2019, so that 20 year period, wages grew by an

average of 3.1% while property grew by an average of 7.55%.

And if you look at any graphs house prices in real terms the graph spiraling upwards

weekly wages in real terms, a flat line.

And looking at the history of how did we get here and this, everybody needs

to understand this to some extent.

So, Like other Anglo-American economies, Australia moved towards

a new accumulation regime as a trade off between wages and asset inflation.

So this in Australia occurred 10 years later than it did in the US and the uk.

And our difference was that it was negotiated by the Labor party

in alliance with the trade union.

So in the UK they had Thatcher mm-hmm.

And Ronald Reagan, and not in the uk.

And in America they had Ronald Reagan, so, you know, right-wing politicians, parties

bringing about neoliberal policies.

And Australia was a bit behind the Times.

And it was a labor party that did it through Hawke and Keating.

Yeah.

Maggie sold off

the public

housing.

Mm-hmm.

And hook and Keating kicked off a fair bit.

And so, what we had, it was, it was kind of the third way social Democrats.

They were kind of, who was the, who was the British PM Labor PM that Margaret

Thatcher said was a sign of her success?

Blair.

Blair.

So if Margaret Thatcher said Tony Blair was, you know, a real sign of her success

in that there was a labor leader who followed her policies, if you like.

So in Australia we had Hawk and Keating, which, which kind of

a Tony Blair Before Tony Blair.

Yeah.

Tony Blair was the new labor.

Yes.

And really he was after Hawke and Keating, who were doing a similar thing, but before

him, Had you ever thought of it that way?

Scott, do you ever think of Hawke and Keating as Tony Blair, but just earlier?

No,

I never thought of him like that.

Mm-hmm.

It's one of those things Blair was a product of his times that he had seen

that Britain had changed under Thatcher.

Mm-hmm.

And as a result, he moved the Labor Party more to the right to make it

more appealing to the more right wing

electorate over there.

Yes.

Now, you know, one of the things I definitely disagreed with Noam Chomsky

on with, with that decoding the gurus thing I was listening to on Friday was

the argument where they said that what was that labor man that came up there

and was the leader for two term, for two

terms before he lost him?

Corbin.

Corbin.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Corbin was so far to the left that I just didn't

think it was ever gonna appeal.

Like he was talking about re nationalizing steel production

and all that type of thing.

Mm-hmm.

You know, that was a ridiculous thing, but that's what he wanted to do.

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Yeah.

Maybe I think though that Hawk and Keating, if they were the new

Tony Blair, if, if Blair was a response to, to Thatcher mm-hmm.

Hawk and Keating were a response to Whitlam in that they didn't

wanna appear to be whit.

Yeah.

I didn't,

didn't, they didn't wanna appear to be whitlam.

I don't think there's

any doubt about that.

He was seen as an economic nutter.

Yes.

Yeah.

So they were very concerned with appearing to be responsible people

that big business could work with.

And so, so they came up with the idea of superannuation, compulsory superannuation.

Did a deal with the trade union movement that basically you won't

get wage increases in your pocket now, but instead, we'll we'll have

this compulsory superannuation so you will benefit from being an asset

owner and the growth in assets that will come as a result of lower wages.

So that was really the deal that was done between the labor government and the

union movement was stop all these strikes stop demanding all these wage increases.

Instead we'll give you compulsory superannuation and you'll get entry

into the asset owning class and enjoy the benefits of wealth from that

class that you haven't had before.

That was kind of the deal, or that's what they're saying in this article.

Anyway by these academics.

So, it was an offer as a buy into the asset price appreciation that

was expected as a result of wage moderation and financial liberalization.

So that was the deal that was offered.

And asset prices boomed because there was financial market

deregulation in the eighties.

So banks were competing for market share offering lots of credit.

So when you've got lots of credit and money flying around, prices go up

and the median share prices increased more spectacularly than house prices.

So, house prices during this period a seven year period between 1982 and 1989.

House prices moved up by 133% share.

Prices moved up by 219%.

So that's what happens when you've got wages held down and interest

rates low, lots of cheap money around.

People buy stuff, price of stuff, assets goes up.

So in 1991, the Reserve Bank decided to needed to soften the share price,

boom by raising interest rates.

So when you have a boom in the asset class, increase the interest

rates and you'll affect the demand.

So, and that was of course, what Keating referred to as the

recession that we had to have.

So, at that point Instead of centralized wage bargaining that had been in place

there became enterprise wage bargaining.

And this undermined the powers of trade unions.

And also the reserve bank, like other central banks, took on a

new policy that they would do everything to sort of stop inflation.

And that was by raising interest rates.

And so they became more concerned with the consumer price, index inflation

rate rather than the asset boom that they had previously been concerned with.

And so while not that long, previously, they'd raised interest

rates to deal with the asset price.

Boom.

Now they're raising interest rates to deal with the consumer price index

and they're also pushing for wages to be lower to deal with inflation.

So central banks moved into this phase of their primary role being

let's crush inflation, and we will do that by increasing unemployment and,

and, and forcing down wages rather than dealing with overpriced assets.

That's when all that sort of period came about.

Then, so moving on from there unfortunately Hawke and Keating also

dismantled Whitlam's Public Housing Legacy and Keating introduced or

reintroduced negative gearing, so that provided a formidable tax incentive for.

Housing investment for people to buy houses as an investment.

Keating's responsible for that.

And Howard then when he got into power, he was very attuned to

housing as a financial asset.

And what was it say?

And as a generator of capital gains and let me just try and

get to the right part here.

So we had cheap consumer credit rising so people could borrow more.

And we had negative gearing that had been started by Keating.

And then the big one was that Howard introduced a 50%

discount on capital gains.

And I.

Ah, that,

that was in response to the capital gains tax used to be

calculated by working out what the after C P I growth of the tax was.

Growth of the asset was.

Mm-hmm.

So you used to, you used to index your cost base up by the C P I.

Mm-hmm.

Now, apparently that was far too complicated.

So what they did was they said, well, we're just gonna give you

a 50% discount on the profit.

Yes.

So you just take away, you just take away the, you just take, you just

take the actual cost away from what you sold it and divide it by two.

Mm-hmm.

To work out what you actually have to put in your income

tax return.

And the boomers who all own property went, that's a great idea.

We're gonna vote for that.

They're doing very well.

They're

doing very well.

That, yeah.

You know, it's one of those things, I couldn't understand why the

hell they're doing that because it's, it wasn't that complicated.

I used to

do them all the time.

Yeah.

It wasn't complicated.

Easy formula to do so.

So you've got negative gearing introduced by Keating, and that's unusual in

the world in that you could offset against income from other sources.

So in most countries, you're only allowed to, to do, to offset the loss

from, say, your investment property against income from another investment.

You can't offset it from labor income, from your wage.

So it's really unusual in Australia's sort of tax arrangements with negative gearing.

It's extremely generous to allow people to, to take the losses

from their investment properties and apply that against the income

from their labor, from their wage.

So that negative gearing plus the 50% discount on capital gains plus.

Cheap money is, is really ultimately the reason we are

in the predicament we are in.

Mm-hmm.

We've got tax laws.

Other countries just don't have that incentivize people.

And now the prices have just reached a point where unless you're in the

market, it's almost impossible to get in.

And this, according to these writers of this article means a different

form of social class categorization based on property ownership or your

likelihood of inheriting property from the generation, you know, your parents or

your grandparents or something like that.

That's as a, as a key mechanism.

So, so yeah, that was in a nutshell, the trade off of wages for super, the.

Negative gearing introduced by Keating, the 50% discount introduced by Howard.

The fact that that negative gearing crosses all forms of income and add

that to a lot of cheap money, low interest, and a boomer population that

voted for all these things 'cause it was worth, you know, good for them.

That's how we ended up where we are today, ladies and gentlemen.

And it's really hard to fix without making a lot of people angry.

This is the problem with

democracy.

Mm-hmm.

People vote in short term interests.

Mm-hmm.

No, it's one of those things I

could understand if you,

if you wanted to roll back the capital gains and that sort of thing, I could

appreciate that and just take it back to the way it used to be calculated.

That wouldn't worry me at all.

Mm-hmm.

Would it really worry me if I lost.

Something on my negative gearing.

Well, it wouldn't really worry me.

It's just one of those things I'd have to put up with.

It's just, but I'm quite a reasonable person though,

so it's just, just, it's just really tough now that people

have borrowed a lot of money to buy and overflowed asset.

They've extended themselves.

Absolutely.

And, and that, that is the, that is the whole point that I was trying to

make with Liam on the, the night that we were talking, you do not want to

engineer a price reduction in the, in the properties because if property prices

go down, people are gonna be paying for thin air, which is going to upset them.

It's all going, also going to.

Well, you know, the banks could actually call in their mortgages and

all that sort of stuff, which would result in a hell of a lot of problems.

So, you know, with a shit ton of property going on the market, which would

drive the price down, which wouldn't

be good.

But from memory, the greens, with the change of one of those policies, I think

it was the capital gains grandfathered.

Yeah,

I know the, the, the, the capital gains was something like, you know, I

thought it was negative gearing was on new investments,

not existing investments.

Yes.

Correct.

And I think the capital gains exemption was gonna be phased

out over, over five or 10 years.

Over five or 10 years.

Yeah.

I mean, that's probably the best you can do.

You can't, you can't do any more than that because No.

If you, if

you did it straight away, you'd end up bucking the whole economy up.

Mm-hmm.

But if you did it, if you phased it in and that sort of thing,

then that's not going to be

as big a deal.

Mm-hmm.

I just remember in Jersey where Your negative gearing was interest,

but only on your first property.

Yes.

Only in your residential property.

Right.

There was zero incentive to invest.

'cause house prices were stupid anyway.

Mm-hmm.

Small rock,

large amounts of money floating around.

Mm-hmm.

Well let's talk about another favorite topic and bring this in China.

So never heard of them.

You might be hearing, dear listener, you might be seeing stuff in the

media about how the Chinese property market is in trouble and it's all

gonna collapse and it's a house of cards and it's gonna be a disaster.

And you know, valuations have dropped 10, 15, 20% or something like that.

But here's some interesting stuff that I came across.

So this is from Forbes Magazine in China, 90% of families in

the country own their home.

90%.

Is this own outright or have mortgages, I'll get to that.

Right.

In that I know giving China one of the highest home ownership rates in

the world, what's more is that 80% of these homes are owned outright

without any mortgage or other lis.

So 90% own their own home.

And of those 80% are outright with no mortgage.

So they don't care whether the

house prices go up or down.

Exactly, exactly.

If the market goes down 20%, well, if you're not just planning

on selling, it doesn't matter.

And if you are selling and buying in the same market, it doesn't matter either.

Mm-hmm.

So, so there could be a 20% crash in China, and given that sort

of statistic, it's not gonna be a major problem in any event.

So, and a lot of those people have been sitting on.

Quite large capital gains as well in China where property prices have gone up in

some of the largest cities like Shanghai.

So, hey, if you bought something for 300,010 years ago and now it's 1.5

million, you don't care if it drops 200.

You know, this sort of thing.

It's happening.

So, exactly.

It's, it's

only if you've ever extended on your mortgage.

Yeah.

But so that's a really interesting statistic that you just don't hear at all.

And of course, Chinese households have enormous savings 10 times what the

u s A per household saving is now.

What might happen is people who are rich traders in

property, they might lose money.

And now this is from a 2016 article from Forbes, which is should

decrease the amount of volatility in China's often hot property market.

There are very strict rules as to how much money people can borrow from

the bank for purchasing real estate.

Although this slightly varies by city and waivers in response to current

economic conditions for their first home, a buyer must lay down a 30%

payment for their second, it's 60%.

And for any property beyond this financing is not available.

Holy shit.

So for people to buy homes in this country, they need to step up to the

table with a large amount of cash in hand.

In fact, 15% of all residential property in China is paid for in full upfront.

So that's why there's no Trump Tower in China.

Yeah, that would be one of the reasons why.

So now another way that Chinese home buyers are able to afford

their down payments is via the country's housing Providence Fund.

Blah, blah, blah.

But yeah, I thought that was interesting.

30% down payment for your first home.

60% be a second.

No financing available after that.

I.

Imagine if we had a similar law here, what housing prices would be without all those?

Well, to

be able to, yeah.

You need to, to leverage your assets to, to, to accumulate huge amounts of profit.

Yeah.

Interesting.

So how, how am I gonna

get rich quick if I

don't leverage my assets?

Yeah.

This is the problem is property homes, dwellings should not be

considered financial investments.

Mm-hmm.

It should be like food and clothing.

This is the problem we are in really difficult to escape after 50 years of, of

the policies that we've just run through.

So yeah.

China incredible rate of home ownership.

Still not the top of the world.

The top is Laos, then Romania, Kazakhstan, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Cuba, north

Macedonia, Vietnam, and then China, followed by Serbia, Lithuania, Russia,

Singapore, Poland, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Bulgaria, Indonesia, Taiwan on a three.

So either either Asian

or Communist, former communist countries.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's

good.

That was just what I was looking at there.

I thought to myself, these are all former Soviet

countries.

Mm-hmm.

But you know, imagine like people feel precarious when they don't

own a home when they're renting or when they've got a large mortgage.

Do they though?

Because I think Australians are Australians,

yes, but I'm thinking about France where I think I.

Large numbers of people rent for life.

Germany is the

same.

Yeah.

Because they've got a rent.

Well, okay.

Because they've got a systems in place that know that they know

they're secure as a renter as well.

Correct?

Yes.

Correct.

So, so there isn't the,

Love of of being a property

owner.

Yes.

Australia, the United States, countries like that are where people would feel

precarious and uneasy, where, you know, it comes to housing if they've got a

huge mortgage and things are going bad.

So.

Hmm.

So there we go.

That's a rundown of property and a comparison of what's happened in China.

John says today, I learned today that China has the second lowest

fertility rate in the world.

South Korea, the lowest they're in trouble.

Could be.

It could be a real problem.

And Don feels precarious.

His rent just went from 2 75 to three 20 per week.

Uch.

Yeah, I was talking to a customer in and he said he lives in the

townhouse and I think he owns it.

His next door neighbor was saying that theirs has just gone 200 odd a

week to 400.

Mm-hmm.

. New Zealand is heading down our track when it comes to

foreign policy u s A and China.

So New Zealand's latest defense assessment is called the Defense

Policy and Strategy Statement 2023.

And the defense minister Andrew Little, was talking about it.

And guess what?

They're worried about China isn't New Zealand.

New Zealand's worried about China.

Yeah, I know that.

And

that was a real surprise to me because it wasn't all that long ago

that they're lecturing us about what we said to them and that type of thing.

And I just thought to myself, well, that's the kettle calling.

The

pot black, the defense minister.

Sorry, only

five of them, and a sheep if they get invaded.

So

yeah, this defense minister said, If, for example, conflict does

break out in the South China Sea, where 20 billion worth of our exports goes

through every year, we have a stake and a, and the nature of our relationships

with our partners means we may be called on to play a role should conflict

break out, which is a bizarre statement because 70% of of their exports through

the South China Sea go to China.

Mm-hmm.

So they're going to go to war with China to make their trade

with China.

That's it.

If Rob Sitch and the crew from Utopia didn't do that skit all

those years ago, they'd have to do one now, but they did it.

It's like none of these guys have watched it,

who, you know, as if China is.

It's all just the us putting pressure because the US feels under pressure.

It's now putting pressure on its allies like Australia and New Zealand to,

to pony up as our, as their little deputies in this part of the world.

And it looks like New Zealand's a stupid as we are or, or

I'll head in that direction.

Hmm.

May maybe we could just give the US Thursday

island, they can build a base there and then leave us

alone.

Mm-hmm.

Also the spooks in New Zealand what else did they say here?

There's a security threat environment 2023 report by their security

intelligence service in New Zealand, which says, There are a small

number of states who conduct foreign interference in New Zealand, but their

ability to cause harm is significant.

This report highlights the activities of three states in

particular, no points for guessing.

The first one is the People's Republic of China here, listener.

Just pause for a moment.

Who are the other two?

The answer is the Islamic Republic of Iran and Russia.

I mean, Iran are busy conducting foreign interference in New Zealand.

I think the Kiwis have

got an overinflated opinion

of their own self worth.

Yeah.

There we go.

Remember we did that story about the the guy who in New

Zealand took the Reuters press.

Sort of report.

Yeah.

And he massaged it to make it look more positive, pasted it

into a radio New Zealand sort of website and added a few words.

And there was a big hullabaloo about that.

He's since sort of resigned.

It wasn't like a journalist with 19 years experienced the guy.

So the original Reuters version was The conflict in Eastern Ukraine began in

2014 after a pro-Russian president was toppled in Ukraine's Madan revolution.

And Russia annexed Crimea with Russian backed separatists forces

fighting Ukraine's armed forces.

And he changed it.

To read the conflict in Ukraine began in 2014 after a pro-Russian

elected government was toppled during Ukraine's violent madan color

revolution, Russia a next Crimea.

He's added all this bit after a referendum, as the new pro western

government suppressed ethnic Russians in Eastern and southern Ukraine sending

in its armed forces to the donbas.

Like everything he said it was correct.

It just wasn't well, yeah.

Was violence.

The, the Russian snipers that were sent over to shoot the protestors Yeah.

Were, were very violent.

Yeah.

It was violent.

He didn't say who was the, who was committing the violence.

This is just, you know, a public broadcaster Is sanitizing the

version of events that the New Zealand public's hearing to be

in line with what's acceptable?

Hmm.

How are we going for time?

8 25?

I think I will skip that and that I want a little bit of let's

just lighten things up a bit.

Vi Vivic, AMI.

So you know where I played the, he's the Republican candidate.

Yes.

So when I played that clip at the beginning, which was of the debate for

the Republicans, and they're asked who whether they would support Donald Trump

if he's convicted and subsequently endorsed as the party's candidate.

And six and a half out of eight said yes.

What was it?

Seven and a half anyway.

Six and a half.

Yeah.

In that debate, 28% of respondents said that Ramis Swami performed the best.

And so, he's like a billionaire of some sort.

And so he is got enough money to fund his own candidacy and I.

He's worth $950 million.

And Donald Trump allegedly

was rich enough,

but he didn't.

Yes, he, he let everyone else fund it.

Yeah.

I think this guy is rich enough.

He like genuinely is.

So, just you, you're gonna hear more of this guy, so you're probably good to

say that you heard about him first here on the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.

Let's see what he says about about Pence and what Pence did as to

whether that was a good idea or not.

Lemme bring up a couple questions you didn't get a

chance to answer at the debate.

Most of the candidates on stage Wednesday night said Mike Pence

did the right thing on January 6th.

Do you agree?

I would've done it very differently.

I think that there was a historic opportunity that he missed to

reunite this country in that window.

What I would've said is this is a moment for a true national consensus where

there's two elements of what's required for a functioning democracy in America.

One is secure elections, and the second is a peaceful transfer of power.

When those things come into conflict, that's an opportunity for heroism.

Here's what I would've said.

We need single day voting on election day.

We need paper ballots and we need government issued ID matching the

voter file, and if we achieve that, then we have achieved victory and

we should not have Wolf any further complaint about election integrity.

So what would would done through the Senate?

So what would you have done with Mike Pence?

You would've not certified the election.

So in.

In my capacity as president of the Senate, I would've led

through that level of reform.

Then on that condition, certified the election results, served it up to

the president, president Trump then designed that into law, and on January

7th declared the reelection campaign pursuant to a free and fair election.

I think that was a missed opportunity, but that's the kind of spirit we're gonna

need to unite this country rather than sweeping those concerns under the rug.

So ignore the results of the election.

Yeah, exactly.

Pass through some laws and then have another go if you didn't

win the first time round.

Yeah.

And thank you.

With a Congress that's not in session and do it all in 24 hours and, and,

and, and cut off half of the voters that would've voted a Democrat.

Mm-hmm.

Completely by, by demanding government issued voter id.

Man's a lunatic.

Completely nuts.

Completely nuts that you could just do all these things.

But he's, it's one of these cases where if you speak with authority and

confidence and just keep talking, people go, your average American's gonna listen

to that and go, yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah.

That would've been a good way to do it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's hell an idiot might vote for that guy.

He seems to know what he's talking about.

The guy's an idiot.

I mean, I remember months and months ago I was listening to something

or other, and they said that in the election history was that they'd been,

that was in George w Bush's time.

They'd found a, they'd found a record number of false votes.

There was 14 of them.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

You know, out of a, a country of 300

odd million.

And most of those were probably Republicans as well.

Yeah, exactly.

So

that the verb, I can't remember who it was, some Republicans

set up a voter fraud line.

You know, send in your tips for any voter fraud.

And they have apparently found and prosecuted cases of voter fraud and

they were all for Republican candidates.

Ooh, right?

Mm-hmm.

It was people

who'd voted twice or voted in an area they weren't entitled to vote or whatever

it was, but mm-hmm.

John in the track room says, pep podcast beat you to the punch.

Dammit.

I didn't get to the rum Swami first, but I'll give you a bit

more of him because do you have to?

Yeah, why not?

Why not just give you a little bit more of this guy?

And you've also suggested that Vladimir Putin be allowed to keep

parts of Ukraine as part of a as far part of a way to solve that conflict.

What if he wants parts of Poland next?

You really got the most important part of that deal.

Wants more of Ukraine next.

Y you, aren't you letting some Well, got the most what actually advances.

Far from it.

I think that the Biden administration is so stubbornly attached to the idea of

getting Xi Jinping to drop Vladimir Putin.

What I think we need to be doing is getting Vladimir Putin to drop Xi Jinping.

Just like Nixon went to China in 1972, I think Putin is like the new Mao.

I will visit Moscow and I will pull Russia out of its military alliance with China.

The Russia, China Military Alliance is the single greatest

military threat that we face today.

Hypersonic missile capabilities, nuclear capabilities in Russia, far ahead of US

or China, a naval capacity in China ahead of ours, combined with an economy that

we depend on for our modern way of life.

Those two nations are in a military alliance with one another

and nobody in either political party is talking about it.

Worst of all, our engagement in Ukraine is further driving Russia into

China's arms, so my foreign policy centers on weakening that alliance.

That advances American, but you should let Putin have parts of Ukraine.

But that's how we actually secure peace.

But you would let Putin have parts of Ukraine?

I would freeze the current lines.

I would, I would freeze the current lines of control and that would leave

parts of the Donbass region with Russia.

I would also further make a commitment that NATO will not admit Ukraine to

nato, but there are even greater winds that I will get the that united like a

win Putin return the top of the list.

No.

What?

Well, he, our goal should not be for Putin to lose.

Our goal should be for America to win.

That's what we have forgotten in this country, is that driving Russia into

the ground is not a US strategic goal.

There we go.

That Putin win.

He's right on some things.

No.

I don't, he, I don't think he would, his, his reasoning so that we could then drag

Putin away from an alliance with China.

It's completely nuts as if Putin is gonna do that.

The hypersonic

Exactly.

Hypersonic missiles, from what I'm hearing, means absolutely nothing.

They're, they're worth nothing.

Hmm.

Yeah.

It's a shiny toy.

It's a tick in the box.

But strategically, there is no great benefit

of them that their

navy is the world class.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, the, the Ukrainians who with a cobbled together a bunch

of missiles managed to sink the flagship of the fucking Black Sea

fleet.

But, but the idea, let's, let's, you know, we'll let Peaton win and then

we'll do some nice things and then he'll break up his alliance with China.

Russia With China.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

That was, he's, he's on clown kooky land,

you know?

Yeah.

This is the caliber of Republican candidate that is around,

Well, of course Donald Trump.

If, if Donald Trump had been president, the war wouldn't have broken out.

'cause he would've seen eye to eye with Putin.

Yeah.

Despite Putin being his

puppet master.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

You want some more of the rama swami policies according to Wikipedia.

So, so he rallies behind Trump.

He promises to pardon Trump if he's elected president.

He's also promised to Pardon?

He can't, doesn't matter what he can and can't do, Joe, this

is an American billionaire.

He can do whatever he wants.

Oh, okay.

If he's president, he's promised to Pardon Julian Assange and Edward Snowden.

And he's, he said he might consider Robert F.

Kennedy as his running mate.

Democratic.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

Robert F.

Kennedy.

I.

He argues.

So in other words, they're both loony teens.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Yep.

He opposes abortion teaming at murder supports state level six week abortion

bans with exceptions for rape, incest, endangered the woman's life.

He's called the L G B T Q Movement, OC Cult.

And he puts up with same-sex marriage because it's a settled precedent.

And quick, we need to rescue Scott.

He's been

indoctrinated into

a cult.

That's it.

He's gonna fire 75% of all federal employees dismantle

the civil service protections.

He's gonna abolish the Department of Education, the Federal

Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service.

Of course, he's

because, because they're, they're taking far too much tax from him.

He calls the Food and Drug Administration corrupt and vowed to

expose and ultimately gut the f d A and.

He asserts that president has the unilateral power to abolish

agencies by executive order.

He will raise the standard voting age to 25, and because

young people vote left mm-hmm.

He said he would allow citizens between 18 and 24 to vote only if

they are enlisted in the military.

Workers first responders will pass a civics test required for naturalization.

He's

gonna only if he passes the the naturalization test first himself.

Yes.

He's pledged to use the military to annihilate Mexico's drug cartels.

And Oh, he did hear about that.

Yes.

And then mixed up with this, he's in favor of legalizing marijuana and

is in support of a inheritance tax.

And he suggested that federal agents were involved in the September 11

attacks and He's expressed support for Taiwanese independence and floated the

idea of putting a gun in every Taiwanese household to deter an invasion by China.

Oh, geez.

Yeah.

'cause that'll really work.

Ah, thi this missile's coming and I'll just pull out my M 16.

Yeah,

he, he's a fucking idiot.

He says he's not a climate denier.

He denies the scientific consensus on climate change.

And he said the climate change agenda is a hoax.

And he, because it interferes with his profits.

Yes.

And he said, people should be proud of the, to live a high carbon lifestyle.

What a collection of policies.

And that was the winner of the Republican

debate.

Do, do, do you think he could possibly fly his private jet over Russian airspace?

Could he stand close to an open window in Russia?

Maybe Perhaps.

Yeah.

So there we go.

That is the level of politics in America.

So while I might rail against Albanese and his lack of action here in Australia,

we have not yet got to that stage.

But, but hang on.

These, these are right wingers.

Yeah.

You're

comparing our left wing with the the crazy

right?

True.

You're right.

I mean if you look at them, Peter Dutton and, and the Nutters in that

liberal party and the National Party Barbie Joys we're not that far off.

You're right.

Please explain.

Yes, you're right.

Not that far off.

Well, dear listener up, if you're not already depressed,

maybe that will do the trick.

Yeah.

I think you're deliberately trying to depress everyone.

Yeah.

So, alright, we will be back next week with another episode.

Talk to you then.

Bye for now.

And it's a good night from me and it's a good night from him.

Good night Abs.

Absolutely.

I know he's, he's not trying to con people.

No, he, he, big Trev is as honest and straight as he is big.

I haven't

considered the grains well.

I've lost my faith.

Not my

fucking mind.

Well, living