Finance & Fury Podcast

Welcome to Finance and Fury. This episode is about a bit of personal story “Why I finally bought another property and if is this a good financial decision?” So – if the episode title didn’t give this away - I have recently bought a property – well - technically not true – we purchased land – and are building on this for a home to live in – so I wanted to share my story and thinking on this decision – hope it can help others who are in a similar position or thinking to myself To start – if you have been listening for a while – you may know I have been fairly bearish on property for the past few years – I have been talking about property over the past few years – based around the metrics – the financial aspects of property didn’t make much sense to me personally – Property in Australia is some of the most expensive in the world – when compared to household incomes Not the most expensive in the world - But when comparing Australia to other nations that also have very high property prices on average – one ma

Welcome to Finance and Fury, the Furious Friday edition. In this episode – we will be going through the potential changes to the current Responsible lending laws that may occur next year – as these laws will either be watered down or completely removed -   As it stands - The government has plans to reform responsible lending laws to reduce “the cost and time it takes consumers and businesses to access credit” These proposals are part of the Federal Government’s economic recovery plan - to allow people to borrow more money without having to meet the current eligibility requirements – like serviceability of loan repayments So there are likely going to be some pros and cons to this – both for the individual and the economy at large – so lets break this down further To start with - what are the current responsible lending laws in Australia These are set out in the The National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 – these laws went into place after the GFC – to try and avoid a situation like what the US had with

Welcome to Finance and Fury, the Say What Wednesday edition. This episode is all about answering the question – “What is going on with the US election?” You might think that there is a simple answer – that Biden is the president elect – hard to think he isn’t when we have the media calling him that so it must be true, right? Well he isn’t - to be clear – Biden has won nothing at this stage - whilst he has been called president elect by the MSM – and the associated press has called the election for Biden – this is rather deceitful – it isn’t up to them to call At this stage - unless a candidate concedes - the election remains in play until December 14th when states cast their electoral college votes and each secretary of state certifies that the vote is valid – all of this could end up at the Supreme court to decide – if this happens Trump has a decent chance of winning but until they weigh in – there should have been no official declaration of the election results – Again – whilst the media has called it

Welcome to Finance and Fury. In this episode I want to discuss and clarify the concept of needs versus wants – especially in relation to spending habits Needs and wants - Each of these terms can be very subjective – as what is a need for one person may be a distant dream, or simply a want for another – where they have no means of actually achieving the essentials of another person So in this episode – we will go through how to discover and clarify the differences between what your wants and needs are The aim of this is to help quantify spending habits – helping to explain the differences between essential and discretionary spending habits Again – what is someone’s essential spending habit may be a distant want, or what would be considered incredible discretionary expense for another person in a different situation – or with different goals or life focuses   First – lets look at some different ways on how to then define these terms – of wants and needs When talking about wants versus needs – this could o

Welcome to Finance and Fury, the Furious Friday edition. In this episode, I want to look at a core concept of economics – the need for monetisation/value of objects for them to exist – that is – that profits are a factor that help to maximise most outcomes in society This comes back to the very concept of a free market versus socialism – Profits or placing value on things is often pointed to as an evil of the free market – there are some merits to this – especially when looking specifically how the modern financial system is structured The financial systems quest for never ending profits has created a lot of risk – leading to economic ruin when bubbles pop This can often be conflated to include the profit drive of a sole trader, or someone who owns a small business – hence all drives for profit can be painted as selfish or evil However - in this episode I want to argue the opposite point – that profits or monetization is the very key to a functioning society – and often leads to the best and most ethical

Welcome to Finance and Fury, the Say What Wednesday edition. This week’s question is from Ruby. “I was speaking to my husband and we want to help financially prepare our children and I am just wondering if you have any strategies to help with this?” Thanks for the great question - Depends what you mean by preparing for your kids financially – Two ways to view this – the monetary side - i.e. them having access to funds or having expenses covered for how they value money – which comes back to the financial education side of the equation In my view – giving kids all the money in the world without the educational side can set up children for a worse outcome in life – without understanding value of money it can create – Talked about how to do this in a previous episode - Why is talking to your kids and family members about money so important? – where it was mainly about misconceptions – and using monopoly as a good tool as opposed to the zero-sum game it instils How to educate children financially – As a p

Welcome to Finance and Fury. This episode will be explaining the dollar cost averaging strategy. It seems to be a pretty simple strategy – but one hard to get right – so want to run through it and when to use it in further detail What is a dollar cost averaging strategy – DCA for short It is breaking up investment timing - Dollar-cost averaging (DCA) is an investment strategy in which an investor divides up the total amount that they wish to invest across periodic purchases The aims of this is to reduce the impact of volatility on the overall purchase of investments in the short term It is the concept of taking out the short-term probability of market volatility from investment decisions It is a hard question – when to purchase an investment – today, tomorrow, or wait a few weeks and hope the price goes down The concept of DCA is to take this short-term guessing game out of the equation – if the market does down next month then great – through doing DCA you are picking up more investments at a lower price

Welcome to Finance and Fury, the Furious Friday edition. Two weeks ago on Furious Friday, we went through an intro to the great reset. This episode we will look further into this topic, at some of the proposals and break these down further. I managed to talk to someone involved with the WEF in the interim which provided some good insights If you haven’t heard - The great reset is all about resetting the economy and society – resetting in the way that a handful of individuals at the top of entities like the WEF, UN deem to be in the world’s populations interest To start with – we need to get to the bottom of the best way to actually think about the economy - it is useful to think of an economy in real terms versus the purely financial terms I have said it many times in this podcast that the real economy is what is important – and that is you and I – our economic interactions, where we work, what we buy or how we consume or save, every one of our interactions at the aggregate level is the total sum of economi

Welcome to Finance and Fury, the Say What Wednesday. This week the Question is from Emma. “Hi Louis – Would like to get your opinion on if it is a good time to buy a property to live in or if it is better to continue renting? We have saved up for enough of a deposit to buy a property for around $600,000 and have been planning to buy for a while. But do you think that property prices are set to decline? Love to hear your thoughts.” Great question – one I have been battling with personally for the past 18 months or so – in this episode – we will be looking at renting versus buying – Pros and cons to each – to what degree Depends on a number of factors – Costs of owning the property – versus renting Ongoing costs – BC, rates, etc. Mortgage repayments – Size of the loan and Interest rates Price of property – obviously the higher the price the more it will cost in loan repayment – as well as more deposit that needs to be put down In looking at these factors – also need to consider the Opportunity cost – what i

Welcome to Finance and Fury.   Things seem to be calming down – markets have recovered somewhat – the US election volatility has been minimal – may see some short-term movements this week This episode – How to overcome investment uncertainty and start investing! The truth is that if now is a good time to invest comes back to time scale – Nobody can tell you if it is a good time to invest today compared to tomorrow – probability is almost like flipping a coin As you expand the timeframe out – probabilities of being up increase – One month – probability goes up slightly – 60/40 One year – 75/25 10 years - 100/0 That is why investing is for the long term – when looking at if now is a good time to invest – the question should be is now a good time to invest compared to 10 years in the future Given that if done well – investing today can likely put you in a better position in 10 years time - What stops people from investing? The common reasons I see - Fears and misconceptions – investing is dangerous, get r

Welcome to Finance and Fury, the Furious Friday edition. In this episode we will not be looking at the great reset further, that will be next week, but instead we will be having a look at how financial markets compare to the betting markets – in relation to the upcoming US election Decided to cover this topic pretty last minute – bit we will be finishing up the great reset next week – it is just that this topic is very topical at the moment -with the US election in just a few days – I find this to be an interesting topic – covers so many elements – from behavioural science to supply and demand – especially in the context of how the US population will vote versus how individuals - both inside and outside of the country are betting To clear one thing up - I don’t gamble – some of my friends love it – personally I don’t – don’t like the odds normally gambled twice in my life – one year when I was at the Melbourne Cup and another time in Macau – beyond that I don’t gamble However – have been intrigued by the US

Welcome to Finance and Fury. The Say What Wednesday edition. This week we’re continuing the Question from Phuong - Part of the question from last week that wasn’t covered. “I heard about the Government’s plan to build some gas station? do you think this is green energy and does it help with economic growth?” Last Say What Edition episode – went through the future energy plans that Governments have – a lot of this has to do with CO2 emission reductions   In this episode – be focusing on the Australian Government’s plans – looking at one section of the budget for economic growth and that is the focuses on the Gas industry the Government wants to reset the east coast gas market and create a more competitive and transparent Australian Gas Hub – aim to do this by “unlocking gas supply, delivering an efficient pipeline and transportation market, and empowering gas customers” Goals are to make energy affordable for families and businesses and supporting jobs as part of Australia’s recovery from the COVID-19 recess

Welcome to Finance and Fury. In this episode we will be looking at where to invest in the current economic environments for yields, or passive incomes in the current environment. Best place to invest for yields changes, a lot of this has to do with market environments: Major market changes have to do with a few factors – interest rates, property prices, and dividend policies When looking at the financial markets in general – there are many different places that you can normally get an income – but the fundamentals of these changes with economic conditions – so we will do a deep dive into these and look at what the better places are likely to be to invest over the next few years for a yield return on your money General disclaimer – not intended to be personal advice Before we get into it – have to define what a yield is – it a representation of the income that you receive from your investment – measured as a percentage All you do is take the income that you get each year and divide this by the value of the i

Welcome to Finance and Fury, the Furious Friday edition. I hope you are all going well. This episode is all about “the great reset”. It sounds like some weird, out there agenda, but it is carried out by some of the most influential organisations on earth. I want to look at this further and explain what the plan for the great reset is. Now - The Great Rest is the theme of the upcoming World Economic Forums 50th Annual event in January 2021 From reading the initial proposals – it seems like a pretty radical plan to completely re-work the mechanics of the entire global economy It is such an extensive agenda – it would have taken years to actually put together – a lot of this ties into the SGD with the UNS agenda 2030 – covered these in length in the past - but the great resets proposals surprisingly tie into the economic shutdowns of 2020 due to Covid Not the overall plan – the plan really has little to do with COVID19 – but it is being used as the justification as why it is urgently needed Klaus Schwab the f

Welcome to Finance and Fury, the Say what Wednesday edition. This week is another great Question from Phuong. “What do you think about the future energy plans for Australia and the world in general? I heard about the Government’s plan to build some gas station? do you think this is green energy and does it help with economic growth? I know we have some share in Uranium and lithium. do you think Australian Gov will ever consider nuclear energy?”   Thanks for the great question – pretty big topic – a lot of governmental energy policies are focused on climate change and CO2 emissions - Covered a lot of the background to this topic in previous episodes over the years – some of these were titled: What is the real danger behind Climate Change? – went through the history of the climate change narrative – from back with global cooling in the 60s and the organisations behind constructing the narrative and who benefits Climate Agreements – An effective CO2 reduction strategy, or a money-making scheme? – looking at the

Welcome to Finance and Fury. In this episode – want to look at the proposals for the superannuation industry overhaul – released in the latest budget – as there are some pretty big changes – In the budget – the super system is likely to be in for a shake up due to the reforms proposed But this time – unlike previous proposals – these changes are going to be affecting Industry funds/my super accounts – unlike WRAP or SMSF accounts which have been a major focus of a lot of legislation over the years Unlike the things such as Stronger Super reforms proposed by Labour – which were in favour of industry funds – these bit of legislation from what I can see are not in favour of the MySuper industry reforms previously implemented – called the Your Future, Your Super package The Australian super industry is massive - $3 trillion superannuation system and it is the fourth largest in the world –it manages the retirement savings of 16 million Australians The aims of superannuation is to help Australians fund their r

Welcome to Finance and Fury, the Furious Friday edition. In today’s episode I want to explore the effect of monetary inflation (in other words the increase in the money supply) on GDP growth Covered GO compared to GDP in Wednesdays episode this week - To go one step deeper – want to look at the fact that nominal GDP looks to be directly inflated by additional money introduced into an economy – essentially in the form of credit – therefore - GDP growth is simply a reflection of additional money introduced into the economy And if this is the case - GDP is really not a good macroeconomic tool to use to make policy decisions – as it gives no real indication as to the underlying health or real growth of an economy – as it can just be artificially inflated whilst having debt elsewhere that offset the real growth   This may come as a bit of a surprise – it did to me when looking at some of the figures – as it is rare to find any economists covering the relationship between monetary expansion and GDP Yet – there

Welcome to Finance and Fury, the Say What Wednesday edition. This week the question comes from Todd. “Hi Louis, I just saw Steve Forbes talking about how Gross Output (GO) is going to replace Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a measure of how well the economy is going? I was wondering if you agree with Steve on GO? I had heard in the past that GDP was not perfect, but had been used because it was the best option available. Are there problems with GO that will also cause problems when trying to use this measurement to judge the health of an economy? Love to hear your thoughts?" Thanks for the question Todd – is an important question – So in this episode – we will look at if the replacement of GDP with GO is a step in the right direction – to be upfront - its replacement isn’t a perfect solution as an economic measurements – but there is nothing that is perfect when talking about economics –as Economist Thomas Sowell says - “There are no solutions, there are only trade-offs; and you try to get the best trade-off 

Welcome to Finance and Fury You might have seen the budget that came out last week – in this episode we will be looking at the bringing forward of the tax cut – but also using this as an opportunity and what to do with it The budget and the tax cuts – The Government passed its Budget tax cuts last Friday, after bringing forward major cuts slated for July 2022 to July 2020 So this tax cut will be back dated –people will get a refund at tax time or the PAYG will be adjusted for lower taxes for the rest of the FY Around 11.6 million Australians are set to get some benefit There are about 12.6m employed people in Australia – so this affect the majority of the working aged population Obviously if you earn less than the $18,200 threshold – you don’t pay any taxes so when taxes are cut – cause you don’t pay any taxes you don’t get a reduction in what you pay – if you pay nothing then it is hard to reduce this beyond zero Who will be affected – based around the taxable income thresholds Earning up to $37k – tax

Welcome to Finance and Fury, the Furious Friday edition.   Last week – went through the rise in billionaires in favour of additional socialist policies – went through why I think this is the case - I think that most of the billionaire class are in favour of calling for socialism due to it giving governments more control over the economy – and hence increases their political influence over the economy to benefit themselves Not true socialism – but a socialism lite version to help create additional barries to entry and to help monopolies the markets further More political power – greater ability for lobbyist to influence policy at the state and federal levels – hence additional benefits for the companies that they control through gaining additional corporate welfare Plus – the policies that will be recommended in the form of what those on the left want – like additional taxes will unlikely affect them – at least proportionately when compared to others – Taxes – they can move their wealth (or move away themse