full

Episode 397 - Why Australian Property is Overpriced

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

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Transcript
Trevor:

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

Trevor:

We need to learn stuff about the world.

Trevor:

We need an honest, intelligent, thought provoking and entertaining

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Closing in on that 400 number.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

and clear from regional Queensland.

Trevor:

Scott, the Velvet.

Trevor:

Glove.

Trevor:

Good day,

Scott:

Trevor.

Scott:

Good day, Joe.

Scott:

Good day listeners.

Scott:

I hope everyone's

Trevor:

doing well.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

He's actually in Peter Dutton's electorate.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

electorate, which is the unfortunate part.

Trevor:

Joe, the tech guy.

Trevor:

Evening all.

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

In the chat room.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Good on you guys.

Trevor:

James, I, yes.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

That's good.

Trevor:

Are you still supporting that fantastic mustache, James?

Trevor:

I'm, I'm jealous.

Trevor:

I wish I could grow a mustache like that.

Trevor:

Hmm.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

You don't wanna see photos?

Trevor:

Scott Looks good with it.

Trevor:

Scott looks good.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Yeah.

Joe:

Between the ginger and the white, it just really

Trevor:

doesn't.

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

I can't pull it off either, so.

Trevor:

Right.

Trevor:

I trim my beard once a week.

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

Now what are we gonna be talking about?

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

of the, of the true working class.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

government policies and other things.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Yeah, I did.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

Did you agree mostly with it?

Trevor:

Were you gonna be arguing over much there, or?

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

property is the price that it is.

Trevor:

And and let

Joe:

me guess, there's not enough developable

Trevor:

land.

Trevor:

There was a bit of that.

Trevor:

Yes.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Developer's argument.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

I can believe I'm doing this.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

more about the price of property.

Trevor:

So, so, so

Joe:

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

Joe:

large master builders developments across

Trevor:

Southeast Queensland.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Right.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

to women on how to breastfeed children.

Trevor:

I mean mm-hmm.

Trevor:

There's just no, there's

Joe:

just no topic.

Joe:

It's easy.

Joe:

You just bare

Trevor:

your chest and stick the baby out.

Trevor:

No, it's not that easy.

Trevor:

No, it's not.

Trevor:

You've gotta get a.

Trevor:

I won't go into it on this show.

Trevor:

I forgot you're giving that advice.

Trevor:

Yeah, that's right.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Gotta have an opinion on everything.

Trevor:

And the chat room.

Trevor:

Don's joined.

Trevor:

So has Greg and John Dire Straits.

Trevor:

Very good.

Trevor:

Say hello in there in the chat room.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Guess what?

Trevor:

Success.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

his name wasn't called out.

Trevor:

So, so that was good.

Trevor:

There you go.

Trevor:

I'll leave you alone for another.

Trevor:

Four months, six months, four months.

Trevor:

Thank you for those who did sign up.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Totally understandable.

Trevor:

Alright.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

a link to the newsletter.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

you are looking for something to read.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Have a look in the show notes.

Trevor:

Right.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

plane accidentally falls out of a window.

Trevor:

Mm.

Trevor:

You, you know, I thought that the

Scott:

you know, Biden said it beautifully.

Scott:

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

Scott:

Mm-hmm.

Scott:

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

Scott:

ever gonna change its spots.

Scott:

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

Scott:

he's

Trevor:

dead.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

You would've been demanding high premiums.

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

Exactly.

Trevor:

He was always skating on thin ice.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

I mean, it's not just progression.

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Joe:

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

Joe:

Mm-hmm.

Joe:

And so

Trevor:

effectively the.

Trevor:

The company

Joe:

is leadership leaderless at the moment.

Joe:

Mm-hmm.

Joe:

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

Joe:

better word, to sign oaths of loyalty to

Trevor:

him.

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

I'm sure he'll get those oaths.

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

Yep.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

today and it still wasn't working.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Right.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Party, super pissed with Orcas.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

John Simmons in the chat room.

Trevor:

Have you joined Labor Against War?

Trevor:

And why not?

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

a senior Albanese government cabinet minister speaking on the condition of

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

The same minister also confirmed how completely rattled the cabinet

Trevor:

was by Keating's Orca critique.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

And what did Albanese say at that conference in Brisbane?

Trevor:

He said Orcas would reverberate throughout Australia, through

Trevor:

our economy, across our advanced manufacturing and technology sectors,

Trevor:

and create 20,000 well paid union jobs.

Trevor:

It sounds like a darley.

Trevor:

Really?

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

don't endorse the other side's choice.

Trevor:

That's true.

Trevor:

That's part of the horrible story of orca.

Trevor:

These dickheads signed up to it with 24 hours consideration

Trevor:

amongst a handful of them.

Trevor:

Hmm.

Trevor:

Still infuriating me in case you didn't know.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

Ah, Greg says no's.

Trevor:

It's a good offer to turn down.

Trevor:

Mm.

Trevor:

Okay.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Maybe Google's caching it somehow.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Hmm.

Trevor:

I did my best to fix it anyway.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Soon-ish.

Trevor:

They're starting to have debates in America.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

candidates Yeah, there, there

Scott:

was someone there that was mentioned this morning on one thing

Scott:

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

Scott:

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

Scott:

which was what was concerning them.

Trevor:

Is this the Vikk Ramish army guy?

Trevor:

The Indian billionaire.

Trevor:

I couldn't tell you.

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

bit of a clip here that I found.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Video and this is.

Trevor:

From the recent candidates sort of debate that they had.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

But no.

Trevor:

He did an

Scott:

interview with Tucker Carlson.

Scott:

Yeah, he streamed it at exactly

Trevor:

the same time.

Trevor:

He gets all the publicity he needs.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

the elephant not in the room.

Trevor:

Former President Trump has been indicted in four different states.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

County Jail for charges relating to the 2020 election loss.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

support him as your party's choice?

Trevor:

Please raise your hand if

Scott:

you would.

Trevor:

Just hold on.

Trevor:

So just be clear.

Trevor:

Okay.

Trevor:

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

Joe:

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

Joe:

No.

Joe:

Who

Trevor:

was that?

Trevor:

Was Mike Pence.

Trevor:

Was it?

Trevor:

It was.

Trevor:

Oh, right here we go.

Trevor:

After,

Joe:

after Trump sent the Lynch mob after him there.

Joe:

There's no love lost there, I think.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

It's still surprising.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

and anything's possible, isn't it?

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

In the chat room.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Hello.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

So that's where the Republicans are at.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Joe:

Yeah.

Joe:

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

Joe:

that this is just a political ploy.

Joe:

And that Biden has arranged for all this to happen.

Joe:

Hmm.

Joe:

Rather than.

Joe:

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

Joe:

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

Joe:

there was enough evidence to indict him.

Joe:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

talk about him a bit later.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Just settle in.

Trevor:

We mentioned previously about the Adelaide Council and the public gallery

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

guy wanting to read his prayers aloud.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

called a non-denominational pledge.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Amen.

Trevor:

And the new non-denominational pledge reads.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

and the wellbeing of those we serve.

Trevor:

Hail Satan.

Trevor:

The second one is fantastic.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

no particular Christian denomination.

Trevor:

It is a non-religious pledge.

Trevor:

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

Scott:

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

Scott:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

I know.

Trevor:

It

Scott:

does look and sound

Trevor:

like a prayer though.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

and the wellbeing of those we serve.

Trevor:

Well,

Scott:

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

Trevor:

to do that, aren't they?

Trevor:

No, they're asking people present.

Trevor:

Okay.

Trevor:

But, but also it's,

Joe:

it's an aspiration, isn't it?

Joe:

Mm-hmm.

Scott:

Yeah.

Scott:

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

Trevor:

actual prayer.

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

something like where a prayer would be.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

secular direction from CRI and articles still on religion.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

reporting exemptions given to thousands of religious charities suggesting that

Trevor:

scrapping them would enhance public trust.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Sounds like another reason to vote.

Trevor:

Green does, doesn't it?

Trevor:

Yes.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

from reporting financial information.

Trevor:

Under the Australian charities and not-for-profits

Trevor:

commissioning it, it would be so

Joe:

much a bonus to put on.

Joe:

So, so much of a, a burden

Trevor:

to put on them.

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

Yes.

Trevor:

So, because 'cause their,

Joe:

Financial affairs are so much harder than, say, a

Trevor:

footy club.

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

No.

Trevor:

That would make us feel suspicious.

Trevor:

No, never about them.

Trevor:

No.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

small charity helping the homeless or children be required to provide

Trevor:

financial accountability for money received and spent, but big institutions

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Hmm.

Trevor:

Well said.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

laundered through these institutions under the B R C exemption.

Trevor:

So, There we go.

Trevor:

Meredith Dogg was quoted in there as well.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

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

Joe:

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

Joe:

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

Joe:

you know, Ong does in the community.

Trevor:

Yes.

Trevor:

Not it'd be nothing.

Trevor:

It'd just be transparency and open.

Trevor:

Exactly.

Trevor:

Accountability.

Trevor:

Clearly.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

not showing his tax return.

Trevor:

They got something to hide.

Trevor:

If he was worth

Scott:

the amount of money he reckons he was, then he

Scott:

should've had no problem showing

Trevor:

it.

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

Guy Rundel is back at Crikey.

Trevor:

He had a bit of a break.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

size that has adopted opposition to orca.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

have passed anti orcus resolutions.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

on the side of capital accumulation.

Trevor:

We'll get into that in a moment.

Trevor:

Oh.

Joe:

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

Joe:

the charities, the superannuation.

Joe:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

Now

Joe:

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

Joe:

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

Trevor:

Yes.

Trevor:

Managing that portfolio has taken precedence over getting better

Trevor:

outcomes for workers in their wages.

Trevor:

Hmm.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

the profession that you were in and.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

example, or you are a plumber.

Trevor:

Do you own a house?

Trevor:

Do you own property?

Trevor:

Do you own investment properties?

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

those suburban marginal electorates.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

And that was his little hot take on that.

Trevor:

John's in the chat room.

Trevor:

Dire straits, John.

Trevor:

John still confident in the Labor Party.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

no point joining a small party.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

I'm saying join the Greens.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

No,

Scott:

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

Scott:

for the next couple of terms.

Scott:

But then after that return back to the Labor

Trevor:

Party.

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

When they've changed.

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

Okay.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

and the New Logic of Inequality.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

is that the increases in residential property prices in major cities

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

The actual massive increases in real estate valuations

Trevor:

far outweigh people's income.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

effect it's having on people's lives.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Anyway just going on it.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

are what they are in Australia.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

with my property developer friend in Rainbow Bay rainbow Beach.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

city in the world after Hong Kong.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

to median income of the inhabitants.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

most unaffordable city in the world.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

weekly wages in real terms, a flat line.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

to understand this to some extent.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

in alliance with the trade union.

Trevor:

So in the UK they had Thatcher mm-hmm.

Trevor:

And Ronald Reagan, and not in the uk.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

bringing about neoliberal policies.

Trevor:

And Australia was a bit behind the Times.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

Maggie sold off

Joe:

the public

Trevor:

housing.

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

And hook and Keating kicked off a fair bit.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Thatcher said was a sign of her success?

Trevor:

Blair.

Trevor:

Blair.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

a Tony Blair Before Tony Blair.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

Tony Blair was the new labor.

Trevor:

Yes.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

him, Had you ever thought of it that way?

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

No,

Scott:

I never thought of him like that.

Scott:

Mm-hmm.

Scott:

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

Scott:

that Britain had changed under Thatcher.

Scott:

Mm-hmm.

Scott:

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

Scott:

more appealing to the more right wing

Trevor:

electorate over there.

Trevor:

Yes.

Scott:

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

Scott:

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

Scott:

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

Scott:

and was the leader for two term, for two

Trevor:

terms before he lost him?

Trevor:

Corbin.

Trevor:

Corbin.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Scott:

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

Scott:

think it was ever gonna appeal.

Scott:

Like he was talking about re nationalizing steel production

Scott:

and all that type of thing.

Scott:

Mm-hmm.

Scott:

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

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

Yes.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

wanna appear to be whit.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

I didn't,

Scott:

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

Scott:

I don't think there's

Trevor:

any doubt about that.

Trevor:

He was seen as an economic nutter.

Trevor:

Yes.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

So they were very concerned with appearing to be responsible people

Trevor:

that big business could work with.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

this compulsory superannuation so you will benefit from being an asset

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

class that you haven't had before.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Anyway by these academics.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

So that was the deal that was offered.

Trevor:

And asset prices boomed because there was financial market

Trevor:

deregulation in the eighties.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

House prices moved up by 133% share.

Trevor:

Prices moved up by 219%.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

rates low, lots of cheap money around.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

boom by raising interest rates.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

rates and you'll affect the demand.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

recession that we had to have.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

there became enterprise wage bargaining.

Trevor:

And this undermined the powers of trade unions.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

And that was by raising interest rates.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

rates to deal with the asset price.

Trevor:

Boom.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

dismantled Whitlam's Public Housing Legacy and Keating introduced or

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Housing investment for people to buy houses as an investment.

Trevor:

Keating's responsible for that.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

housing as a financial asset.

Trevor:

And what was it say?

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

get to the right part here.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

discount on capital gains.

Trevor:

And I.

Trevor:

Ah, that,

Scott:

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

Scott:

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

Scott:

Growth of the asset was.

Scott:

Mm-hmm.

Scott:

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

Scott:

Mm-hmm.

Scott:

Now, apparently that was far too complicated.

Scott:

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

Scott:

a 50% discount on the profit.

Scott:

Yes.

Scott:

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

Scott:

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

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Scott:

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

Trevor:

tax return.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

We're gonna vote for that.

Trevor:

They're doing very well.

Trevor:

They're

Scott:

doing very well.

Scott:

That, yeah.

Scott:

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

Scott:

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

Scott:

I used to

Trevor:

do them all the time.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

It wasn't complicated.

Trevor:

Easy formula to do so.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

from their investment properties and apply that against the income

Trevor:

from their labor, from their wage.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Cheap money is, is really ultimately the reason we are

Trevor:

in the predicament we are in.

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

We've got tax laws.

Trevor:

Other countries just don't have that incentivize people.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

market, it's almost impossible to get in.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

form of social class categorization based on property ownership or your

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

your grandparents or something like that.

Trevor:

That's as a, as a key mechanism.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

This is the problem with

Joe:

democracy.

Joe:

Mm-hmm.

Joe:

People vote in short term interests.

Joe:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

No, it's one of those things I

Scott:

could understand if you,

Scott:

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

Scott:

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

Scott:

That wouldn't worry me at all.

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Scott:

Would it really worry me if I lost.

Scott:

Something on my negative gearing.

Scott:

Well, it wouldn't really worry me.

Scott:

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

Scott:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

They've extended themselves.

Scott:

Absolutely.

Scott:

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

Scott:

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

Scott:

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

Scott:

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

Scott:

It's all going, also going to.

Scott:

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

Scott:

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

Scott:

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

Scott:

drive the price down, which wouldn't

Trevor:

be good.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

it was the capital gains grandfathered.

Trevor:

Yeah,

Scott:

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

Joe:

thought it was negative gearing was on new investments,

Trevor:

not existing investments.

Trevor:

Yes.

Trevor:

Correct.

Trevor:

And I think the capital gains exemption was gonna be phased

Trevor:

out over, over five or 10 years.

Trevor:

Over five or 10 years.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

If you, if

Scott:

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

Scott:

Mm-hmm.

Scott:

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

Scott:

then that's not going to be

Trevor:

as big a deal.

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Joe:

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

Joe:

but only on your first property.

Joe:

Yes.

Joe:

Only in your residential property.

Joe:

Right.

Joe:

There was zero incentive to invest.

Joe:

'cause house prices were stupid anyway.

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

Small rock,

Joe:

large amounts of money floating around.

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

So never heard of them.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

the country own their home.

Trevor:

90%.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Right.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

without any mortgage or other lis.

Trevor:

So 90% own their own home.

Trevor:

And of those 80% are outright with no mortgage.

Trevor:

So they don't care whether the

Joe:

house prices go up or down.

Trevor:

Exactly, exactly.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

on selling, it doesn't matter.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

some of the largest cities like Shanghai.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

You know, this sort of thing.

Trevor:

It's happening.

Trevor:

So, exactly.

Trevor:

It's, it's

Joe:

only if you've ever extended on your mortgage.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

u s A per household saving is now.

Trevor:

What might happen is people who are rich traders in

Trevor:

property, they might lose money.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

the bank for purchasing real estate.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

payment for their second, it's 60%.

Trevor:

And for any property beyond this financing is not available.

Trevor:

Holy shit.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

table with a large amount of cash in hand.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Yeah, that would be one of the reasons why.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Blah, blah, blah.

Trevor:

But yeah, I thought that was interesting.

Trevor:

30% down payment for your first home.

Trevor:

60% be a second.

Trevor:

No financing available after that.

Trevor:

I.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Well, to

Joe:

be able to, yeah.

Joe:

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

Joe:

Yeah.

Trevor:

Interesting.

Trevor:

So how, how am I gonna

Joe:

get rich quick if I

Trevor:

don't leverage my assets?

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

considered financial investments.

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

It should be like food and clothing.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

the policies that we've just run through.

Trevor:

So yeah.

Trevor:

China incredible rate of home ownership.

Trevor:

Still not the top of the world.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

So either either Asian

Joe:

or Communist, former communist countries.

Joe:

Mm-hmm.

Joe:

Yeah, it's

Scott:

good.

Scott:

That was just what I was looking at there.

Scott:

I thought to myself, these are all former Soviet

Trevor:

countries.

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Do they though?

Trevor:

Because I think Australians are Australians,

Joe:

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

Joe:

Large numbers of people rent for life.

Joe:

Germany is the

Trevor:

same.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

Because they've got a rent.

Trevor:

Well, okay.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

they're secure as a renter as well.

Trevor:

Correct?

Trevor:

Yes.

Trevor:

Correct.

Trevor:

So, so there isn't the,

Joe:

Love of of being a property

Trevor:

owner.

Trevor:

Yes.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

huge mortgage and things are going bad.

Trevor:

So.

Trevor:

Hmm.

Trevor:

So there we go.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

fertility rate in the world.

Trevor:

South Korea, the lowest they're in trouble.

Trevor:

Could be.

Trevor:

It could be a real problem.

Trevor:

And Don feels precarious.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Uch.

Joe:

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

Joe:

townhouse and I think he owns it.

Joe:

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

Trevor:

week to 400.

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

foreign policy u s A and China.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Policy and Strategy Statement 2023.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

And guess what?

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

New Zealand's worried about China.

Trevor:

Yeah, I know that.

Trevor:

And

Scott:

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

Scott:

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

Scott:

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

Scott:

The

Trevor:

pot black, the defense minister.

Trevor:

Sorry, only

Joe:

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

Joe:

So

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

the South China Sea go to China.

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Joe:

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

Trevor:

with China.

Trevor:

That's it.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

who, you know, as if China is.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

I'll head in that direction.

Trevor:

Hmm.

Trevor:

May maybe we could just give the US Thursday

Joe:

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

Trevor:

alone.

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

ability to cause harm is significant.

Trevor:

This report highlights the activities of three states in

Trevor:

particular, no points for guessing.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Just pause for a moment.

Trevor:

Who are the other two?

Trevor:

The answer is the Islamic Republic of Iran and Russia.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

I think the Kiwis have

Scott:

got an overinflated opinion

Trevor:

of their own self worth.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

There we go.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Zealand took the Reuters press.

Trevor:

Sort of report.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

And there was a big hullabaloo about that.

Trevor:

He's since sort of resigned.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

And Russia annexed Crimea with Russian backed separatists forces

Trevor:

fighting Ukraine's armed forces.

Trevor:

And he changed it.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

elected government was toppled during Ukraine's violent madan color

Trevor:

revolution, Russia a next Crimea.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

government suppressed ethnic Russians in Eastern and southern Ukraine sending

Trevor:

in its armed forces to the donbas.

Trevor:

Like everything he said it was correct.

Trevor:

It just wasn't well, yeah.

Joe:

Was violence.

Joe:

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

Joe:

Were, were very violent.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

It was violent.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

in line with what's acceptable?

Trevor:

Hmm.

Trevor:

How are we going for time?

Trevor:

8 25?

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

just lighten things up a bit.

Trevor:

Vi Vivic, AMI.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Yes.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

And six and a half out of eight said yes.

Trevor:

What was it?

Trevor:

Seven and a half anyway.

Trevor:

Six and a half.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

He's worth $950 million.

Trevor:

And Donald Trump allegedly

Joe:

was rich enough,

Trevor:

but he didn't.

Trevor:

Yes, he, he let everyone else fund it.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

I think this guy is rich enough.

Trevor:

He like genuinely is.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

whether that was a good idea or not.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

chance to answer at the debate.

Trevor:

Most of the candidates on stage Wednesday night said Mike Pence

Trevor:

did the right thing on January 6th.

Trevor:

Do you agree?

Trevor:

I would've done it very differently.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

reunite this country in that window.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Here's what I would've said.

Trevor:

We need single day voting on election day.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

So what would would done through the Senate?

Trevor:

So what would you have done with Mike Pence?

Trevor:

You would've not certified the election.

Trevor:

So in.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

through that level of reform.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Joe:

So ignore the results of the election.

Joe:

Yeah, exactly.

Joe:

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

Joe:

win the first time round.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

And thank you.

Trevor:

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

Joe:

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

Joe:

Mm-hmm.

Joe:

Completely by, by demanding government issued voter id.

Trevor:

Man's a lunatic.

Trevor:

Completely nuts.

Trevor:

Completely nuts that you could just do all these things.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

to that and go, yeah, that makes sense.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

He seems to know what he's talking about.

Trevor:

The guy's an idiot.

Scott:

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

Scott:

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

Scott:

that was in George w Bush's time.

Scott:

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

Scott:

There was 14 of them.

Scott:

Mm-hmm.

Scott:

Mm-hmm.

Scott:

You know, out of a, a country of 300

Trevor:

odd million.

Trevor:

And most of those were probably Republicans as well.

Trevor:

Yeah, exactly.

Trevor:

So

Joe:

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

Joe:

set up a voter fraud line.

Joe:

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

Joe:

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

Joe:

they were all for Republican candidates.

Trevor:

Ooh, right?

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

It was people

Joe:

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

Trevor:

it was, but mm-hmm.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Dammit.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

more of him because do you have to?

Trevor:

Yeah, why not?

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

What if he wants parts of Poland next?

Trevor:

You really got the most important part of that deal.

Trevor:

Wants more of Ukraine next.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Far from it.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

getting Xi Jinping to drop Vladimir Putin.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

The Russia, China Military Alliance is the single greatest

Trevor:

military threat that we face today.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

we depend on for our modern way of life.

Trevor:

Those two nations are in a military alliance with one another

Trevor:

and nobody in either political party is talking about it.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

But that's how we actually secure peace.

Trevor:

But you would let Putin have parts of Ukraine?

Trevor:

I would freeze the current lines.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

parts of the Donbass region with Russia.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

win Putin return the top of the list.

Trevor:

No.

Trevor:

What?

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Our goal should be for America to win.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

the ground is not a US strategic goal.

Trevor:

There we go.

Trevor:

That Putin win.

Trevor:

He's right on some things.

Trevor:

No.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Putin away from an alliance with China.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

The hypersonic

Joe:

Exactly.

Joe:

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

Joe:

They're, they're worth nothing.

Joe:

Hmm.

Joe:

Yeah.

Joe:

It's a shiny toy.

Joe:

It's a tick in the box.

Joe:

But strategically, there is no great benefit

Trevor:

of them that their

Joe:

navy is the world class.

Joe:

Mm-hmm.

Joe:

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

Joe:

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

Trevor:

fleet.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Russia With China.

Joe:

Yeah.

Scott:

Yeah, exactly.

Scott:

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

Trevor:

you know?

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

This is the caliber of Republican candidate that is around,

Joe:

Well, of course Donald Trump.

Joe:

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

Joe:

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

Joe:

Yeah.

Joe:

Despite Putin being his

Trevor:

puppet master.

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

So, so he rallies behind Trump.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

He's also promised to Pardon?

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

is an American billionaire.

Trevor:

He can do whatever he wants.

Trevor:

Oh, okay.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Kennedy as his running mate.

Trevor:

Democratic.

Trevor:

Oh, Jesus Christ.

Trevor:

Robert F.

Trevor:

Kennedy.

Trevor:

I.

Trevor:

He argues.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Mm-hmm.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

Absolutely.

Trevor:

Yep.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

And quick, we need to rescue Scott.

Trevor:

He's been

Joe:

indoctrinated into

Trevor:

a cult.

Trevor:

That's it.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

the civil service protections.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service.

Trevor:

Of course, he's

Joe:

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

Trevor:

He calls the Food and Drug Administration corrupt and vowed to

Trevor:

expose and ultimately gut the f d A and.

Trevor:

He asserts that president has the unilateral power to abolish

Trevor:

agencies by executive order.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

young people vote left mm-hmm.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

they are enlisted in the military.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

He's

Joe:

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

Trevor:

Yes.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

And Oh, he did hear about that.

Trevor:

Yes.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

is in support of a inheritance tax.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Oh, geez.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

'cause that'll really work.

Joe:

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

Joe:

Yeah,

Trevor:

he, he's a fucking idiot.

Trevor:

He says he's not a climate denier.

Trevor:

He denies the scientific consensus on climate change.

Trevor:

And he said the climate change agenda is a hoax.

Trevor:

And he, because it interferes with his profits.

Trevor:

Yes.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

What a collection of policies.

Trevor:

And that was the winner of the Republican

Joe:

debate.

Joe:

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

Trevor:

Could he stand close to an open window in Russia?

Trevor:

Maybe Perhaps.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

So there we go.

Trevor:

That is the level of politics in America.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

we have not yet got to that stage.

Trevor:

But, but hang on.

Trevor:

These, these are right wingers.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

You're

Joe:

comparing our left wing with the the crazy

Trevor:

right?

Trevor:

True.

Trevor:

You're right.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

You're right.

Trevor:

Please explain.

Trevor:

Yes, you're right.

Trevor:

Not that far off.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

maybe that will do the trick.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

I think you're deliberately trying to depress everyone.

Trevor:

Yeah.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Talk to you then.

Trevor:

Bye for now.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

Good night Abs.

Trevor:

Absolutely.

Trevor:

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

Trevor:

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

Scott:

I haven't

Trevor:

considered the grains well.

Trevor:

I've lost my faith.

Trevor:

Not my

Scott:

fucking mind.

Trevor:

Well, living

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The Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove
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