December 8, 2024 • 22 mins
Shamubeel Eaqub is the Chief Economist at Simplicity, with over two decades of experience in economics. He has held roles at leading institutions like ANZ Bank, Goldman Sachs, and NZIER. Shamubeel is known for making complex economic topics accessible and is a respected voice in media and business discussions.
He holds a BCom with honours in Economics from Lincoln University and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). Shamubeel is the author of Growing Apart: Regional Prosperity in New Zealand and co-author of Generation Rent and The New Zealand Economy: An Introduction.
Based in Auckland with his wife and two sons, Shamubeel is a sought-after speaker and thought leader, dedicated to improving economic understanding and shaping a better future.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk S ed B.
Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio,
Real Conversation, Real Connection. It's Real Life with John Cowen
on News Talk S ed B.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hey, welcome to Real Life. I'm John Cowen. My guest
tonight is economist is Shimmerbil Yakub, And I guess all
economists know stuff, but what sets Chammobil apart is that
he also knows how to say stuff, to take economics
and to translate it for us mere immortals, which has
made him a very widely respected author, media commentator, and
(00:45):
the thought leading public speaker. Welcome Chammerbil.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
It's great to have you on Real Life. And I'm impressed,
and I'm not big cynical here. You're doing this interview
over zoom rather than coming into the studio because you've
got a far more important commitment tonight.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Well, I put the kiss to bed at every night,
so edit Clark, there's bed times stories, so it's important
to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I'm very, very impressed that as an economist you see
some things as being more valuable than stuff that you
can just put on a balance sheet.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Well, it's all those intangibles that really matter.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yeah, yeah, and I get that this comes true. And
you're in an analysis too, you're always drilling it back
down to how it works at the flesh and blood level,
how people are actually living. They might just be a
few percentage points on a screen for some economists, but
you bring it down to how people live.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Oh, totally. In my mind, the economy is really about us.
It's about it's the describing how we interact with each other.
It's only one discipline and looks at one thing. But
economics should be interesting and fun and insightful because fundamentally
it's about society.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah, and family life.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
And absolutely just because we don't measure the stuff doesn't
mean it's not important.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
So family life for you, you've got how many kids have
you got?
Speaker 3 (02:06):
I've got two boys seven and nine and my wife,
so you know, the four of us. We live in Auckland,
and I guess you know, for us, family life is
important because it's such a short and fleeting period of
your life. Right, it's such a blessing to be able
to have children and raise them, but you know they're
going to grow up and go.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
That's right. These are the good old days. So I'm
glad you're making the most of it, and so you'll
be reading them a story.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
I'll be reading them stories, yeah, both of them. So
the older one I think is more moving towards reading
his own stories these days, but the younger one still
enjoys it.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
I read a while back an article that was asking
you about what you like to read, and that you
were saying that the first book that you really read
for yourself, like your nine year olds now reading for himself,
was a detective series. But it was written in bangla
So you grew up, you grew up not speaking English.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
I didn't. Yeah, So I was born in Bangladesh and
so I lived there until I was ten, and it
was very well, you know, it's defining right where you
come from. Your roots are really important, and I guess
my kind of reading started there and I really kind
of learned my English and all of that kind of
stuff when I lived in Sarmour for three years.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Well, how does one go from Bangladesh to Samara? I
know how you got there. Why would you have gone
from Bangladesh to Samhara.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Because my father was working at the university then, so
the university of the South Pacific has its agricultural university
campus in Samoa, right, and my dad is an agricultural chemist,
so he was working there as a lecturer and head
of head of department. So we moved there and it
was absolutely fabulous.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
It must have been, you know, I imagine they're both
tropical places, but to go from what were you living
right in Dhaka or somewhere like that in Bangladesh and sorry,
what's what's the capital in Bangladesh?
Speaker 3 (04:04):
That's right, Yeah, so I'm living.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
In a huge metropolitan area and then coming Tomo, which
is just wonderfully and relaxed and tropical.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
It was wonderful. Actually, even in Bangladesh we lived in
a very small time called moment Saying, which was again
the agriculture university's campus, so we were kind of more
rural and it was fairly idyllic, to be honest. And
the move to Samo was under that big, big culture
shock more in the sense that it was a new culture.
It was less about I guess the size of the
(04:33):
place it was more, but the language and people's beliefs
and all those other things that were quite different.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
And you fit it in Okay, oh.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Absolutely, I still have friends in Samoa, and they've gone
on to become big cheeses in big organizations in some
wore So it's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
When I got sure it was your influence rubbing off
on them. And then you came to Canterbury, and again
that must have been a huge cultural shift. Was that hard?
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Well, again, you know, it's the people, right, And I
loved my time in Lincoln. So I went to Lincoln
High and then Lincoln University, and I met a lot
of good friends and in fact, my best man at
my wedding was one of my friends from high school.
So we've mented a lot of these relationships, and you know,
I had a really great bunch of friends. And no, look,
(05:18):
I don't think it was a huge kind of shock.
It was. I don't know, like I think when you're
at that age, when you've got your friends around you,
it's relatively easy, right.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
And so you made friends readily. And I take it
Lincoln was where your father was working as well, and.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
For a little bit, but then they went back to somewhere.
So my sister went to university in Lincoln, and then
I went to university there, and Lincoln was good to us,
so I really enjoyed living there was you know, again
a little village, really township they called it, and you know,
we still have a little four square. We didn't even
have a proper supermarket.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
And I guess at the university there would have been
a fairly large multicultural community there as well.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Absolutely and still as in fact, I was there a
couple of weeks ago speaking to the alumni done in Lincoln,
and of course after the earthquakes they've done a huge
amount of work and it looks completely different, but also
it looks spectacular.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Okay. Now, was economics something that was an early interest
to you or was.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
It fell into it? I fell into it because my
sister did it, and I was like, yeah, that sounds
pretty cool, so I'll do it. And one of the
reasons that I continued it was I had some amazing
lecturers at university and at Lincoln. Because it's so small,
you had really close relationship with the lecturers. So people
like Bert Ward, Amosa Niel and a few others there
(06:42):
were just they were inspiring. You know, they made economics
really interesting and engaging in about the real world rather
than something that's boring and dusty and dry.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Hmm. Okay, I can that comes your passion for it
comes across. I mean, you explain the graphs and things beautifully,
but you also then talk about, hey, these these wiggly lines,
this is what it means in the real world, and
so that the academic side and the real world side
(07:13):
never delaminated even in that academic study.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
No. I mean, I think the power of academy, or
power of experts, or power of people who are working
these kinds of things is when you're able to take
the learnings the lessons and being able to communicate it.
You know, the sharing is where the joy is. The
sharing is where you know you have impact. It's not
enough to think of something or to understand something. It's
(07:39):
important that you take people with you. And I think
that's a big part of our jobs as experts, as
people who do the kinds of things that we do
what we do. And if you don't take joy in that,
you're not in the right job.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Okay. And so I know that you've had these inspiring lecturers,
but more powerful than that in someone's life, when it
comes to thinking about money and wealth and economics, there's
probably a family environment. Did you grow up in a
family where people talked about money. I know when I
was growing up my parents, it's never talked to me
about banking or investment or lagages or anything like that.
(08:14):
So in your family that they did talk about this.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Sorry, John, the sounds disappear, so I can't hear right now.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Ah, okay, I'll just try and see if I get
my producer there onto your back. I was just saying that,
I'm just wondering whether you grew up in a family
where people talked about money and investment in economics and things.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Absolutely, my parents were always very open about money. And
you know, it's not because we had lots of it.
Sometimes we didn't have a lot of it, and being
open about it meant you could handle the conversations about money.
There was never a taboo about talking about money. And
my father in particular, has always been very very focused
(08:55):
on making sure we understand all the ins and out
so you can understand how they're making decisions, both the
things that they did right and the things that they
didn't do right. And that's how you learn.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
So and they let you have control over your money
from feeling young young age.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Yeah, absolutely absolutely, And I think you have to learn
by doing it. It's you know, the theory is so
different from the practice, right until you kind of, until
you've been through it and you've made some mistakes, you
don't really learn. And so my parents were always quite
willing to kind of let us kind of try and
do things, but also was always there to pick us
(09:30):
up if we needed it.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
That's handy, that's very handy. I'm just wondering, has there
ever been a time in your life where you have
been hard up, when you have felt poor?
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Oh? Absolutely, Look, I mean when I had my first job,
I think you know, this was back in two thousand
and one. I think I was earning like thirty thousand
dollars a year, right right, And you know, you had
to pay the rent, you had to pay for your
bus and all that kind of stuff. And I was
eating tomatoes and cheese for lunch most days. So it
(10:02):
was pretty skinny in the beginning. So it's not like,
you know, it's not a silver of spoon kind of
sit And then certainly, you know, even my family when
we came over to New Zealand, it wasn't like we
came with a lot of money. Because while we were
relatively well off, when we're in Bangladesh, that money doesn't
convert to so much when you come to news out.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I think people will find this very reassuring, knowing that
you can identify them in real circumstances. When you hear
people that are bankers and things talking about money and things,
you sort of have an idea of it, though on
a different plane. But you've obviously lived in the real
world and know how hard it is sometimes to put
a budget together and live within it. If you've just
(10:42):
joined us, My guest tonight is economist a Shammobil Yakub,
and I'll be talking to her more about obviously about
money and economics, but also about his life and some
of the things that motivates them. This is Real Life
on Newstalk z'd be.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
Missed a week of Real Life with John Cowan. Follow
the podcast on high Heart Radio or listen back at
Real Life dot inzad Intelligent interviews with interesting people. It's
real life on news Talks.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Be welcome. Make your real life a bit of pearl
jam there too. You get the pulse going, and it's
been chosen by my guest tonight, Shammer Bill, your cub
and uh Chamo Bill. This is a special song for you.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
It is, well, partly it's nostalgia. I think for a
lot of us, we remember those songs that we grew
up with, particularly in those kind of high school and
early university days, and this was one of those songs.
But also, to me, this song kind of it builds,
it builds to a crescendo. It's got this extraordinary energy.
It starts off kind of trapped, and then you've got
(11:43):
this feeling of freedom. I just love that song.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
So it's still something you listen to.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Absolutely. Unfortunately, my music tastes haven't grown very much since
my university.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Look, we just fossilized that at that point, sort of
a yeah, that's very very normal. Hey, I'm just we
were talking before about your career, about how you studied
at Lincoln and graduated with some good degrees and then
you worked in Stances, New Zealand, I think, and then
I and s and then on to gold and Sacks,
(12:13):
and that must have been a very very interesting place
to be sitting during the global financial crisis.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
It was. Look, I mean, it was such a fascinating
place to work because I was here in New Zealand,
so we were part of the Goldman sax family, but
it was very much the New Zealand part of it,
so you know, it was it didn't have quite the
same I guess tension and pressure as as you might think.
But it was really fascinating to be in the middle
of an organization that was part of I guess, the
(12:42):
wider meltdown, but also being able to see things in
real life as people were grappling with these big issues,
you know, the closures of these big banks. It was
fascinating And what was really frightening though, was you could
see just how many people were losing jobs, how many
people were losing their life savings, and you could see
that these shocks, these catastrophes can be very human in
(13:05):
their cost.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Are people working in these big banks and financial institutions,
are they actually really aware and really empathetic to the
pain that's happening out in the wider world when these
things start to wobble?
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Okay, I think anything like anything, some people are more
aware than others, and I think for a lot of
people it's hard to kind of see the individuals that
sit behind the data or the papers or the accounts,
and when you lose touch with that, it does become harder.
But my experience here in Auckland was that the people
(13:42):
I was working with, particularly the people who are looking
after people's money, they were very close to their clients
and so they were they understood their clients and the
people that they were being affected. But when you kind
of look at it from a more policy side, not always,
I'd say, there are a lot of people who see
it as the I guess the collateral damage, right, this
(14:03):
has to happen.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Are you scared me? Rece? You put up a graph
which showed the number of businesses in New Zealand that
are folding, that are collapsing at the moment, and the
graph was peaking higher than it was during the GFC.
Is this am I right? In reading? This is meaning? Man,
this is actually a scary time.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Look, it is a scary time. The way I think
about it is in a recession or in a downturn,
some people will do it really tough, but most people
will be okay. This time around, there's probably more people
doing it tough than we saw at the last recession.
And I do worry about that because businesses are not
just things. It's real people's businesses, right, It's their lives.
That they've put into this thing, and so we've seen
(14:50):
quite a lot of business closures. We're seeing quite a
lot of job losses. And that's what, unfortunately happens when
the economy is shrinking, because when we're all kind of
spending this money, we're investing less, that's what happens. It
is still tough, and I think there's still a few
more months ago, and I worry that it's going to
happen into this period of Christmas, which is so important
(15:11):
for so many people, and it's going to add an
extra burden, extra stress.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
The investment banking and that type of world that you're in,
it must have been competitive and hard edged, and the
stressful that was it also an enjoyable It.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Was a lot of fun. It was a lot of
fun because you were working with people who are interesting
and interested. They were interested in your views. You were
there because you had something something to contribute, and together
you created trading strategies or advice for clients or whatever.
But it was very much a group of people who
(15:50):
are there together, who are all quite competitive but at
the same time quite cooperative. So you know, when I
would go over and see clients in say us or wherever,
you'd have the team around you so that you were
doing it together. So there was a lot of I
guess camaraderie, which was really quite powerful. I don't know.
I don't think my experience was one where it was
(16:10):
highly stressful. I was at that age when I wanted
to work hard, I wanted to do those long hours,
and I wanted to be better than everybody else, and
it was fun.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
And is that why you left because suddenly you realized
I don't want to work that long.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Well, the reason for leaving was I got married and
so my wife Siline and I we decided that we
should do something fun to start our new phase in life.
And there was of course after you know, right after
the GFC had started, and we couldn't do the OI
thing that everybody else does because there were no jobs
in London or New York at the time. So we
(16:46):
chose the I don't know if it's the second best
or the third best or the fourth best, but we
chose Wellington and I went to Wellington to start doing
something different. I went to Zadaiya, which is a fabulous
organization to do something quite different, still doing economics, but
also consulting so just to kind of add a bit
of difference, add something new, but do it in a
(17:07):
new place together.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
And was this about the time that you started your
media work or that already started to.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
I used to talk for a bit of it when
I was at Golment Sachs as well.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
And how did you get into it?
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Well, the funny thing about economists is we get asked,
so it's relatively speaking, quite easy. It's quite passive in
the sense that people come to you, so it's not
that difficult. I used to do some media when I
was in Australia as well, but not so much, and
then I did some more when I came to New
Zealand and one of the people I did a lot
(17:41):
of media worth was Anne Gibson, so Anne at the Herald,
who did a lot of the property stuff. She was great,
but so are other people. I don't remember. I don't
know if you recall TV one. I think TV one
used to have this business breakfast show. It's called ASP
Business and that's where I did a lot of my
(18:01):
media training, because being on media is actually quite scary,
it can be quite daunting, and having nice people to
talk who really does help. So I've had a lot
of people along the way who just passed, invited me
over and gave me a lot of support, So very
very privileged.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
You're not shy about mismixing politics and economics. Economics is political.
So if you're thinking about the economic the economic outcomes
that the politicians should be aiming for, should they be
aiming for more wealth than the pot or making sure
that that part of wealth is more evenly and equitably distributed? Surely?
Speaker 3 (18:40):
And the answer is both. Okay, it's not enough for
us to be richer. So over the last thirty years,
New Zealand has become a lot richer, but more of
us have not become richen. So income inequality in New
Zealand hasn't shrank. Our wealth inequality hasn't shrank. And I
don't think it's good enough to say that some people
are going to be a hell of a lot better
(19:00):
off while a lot of other people are going to
be doing it a lot worse. So I think when
it comes to public policy, we're always assists it on
two metrics. One is there an efficiency? Is it a
good way of doing it? And the other one is equity?
Are we lifting more people up? And that equity part
can't be something that's optional. It's integral to why we
(19:21):
have politics, because the purpose of politics is to give
expression to democracy, to communal wants. We want our expectations
societal values expressed in how we pull our resources together
and work together. So my sense is that we can't
have conversations about government as if it's aloof and separate.
It's not. Government is an expression of society. It's our representatives.
(19:45):
We're trying to do right by us.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
So if our welfare systems are getting run down and
inadequate as a safety net for people that are in hardship,
is that because we're becoming harder as a society, that
we're becoming less caring or is it just politicians that
we need to convince.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
I'm really weary of pointing the thing. They're at poltics again,
as if they're making some decisions on their own. I
think the politicians are expressing what New Zealanders want. So
we may say that we want a caring, equal society,
but when push comes to shove, we want to have
(20:25):
tax cuts for ourselves. We want to have our wealth protected.
That's how we have voted for a very long time.
So I think there is a bit of a mirror
that we need to hold up to ourselves. This is
not some fault of some independent third party. It is
the collective choice we've made in our democracy so far.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
I wonder how we change society to be more caring
and compassionate.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Well, I don't think New Zealand is uncaring. In fact,
New Zealanders when I meet people, are almost without fail,
extraordinary caring, extraordinary warm, and I think there would like
to lift more people up. But there's this kind of
disconnect between what we want in a conceptual basis what
comes to when I want the tax cut or whatever
(21:09):
this might be. So there is a real tension there.
And I think the reason why politics and economists can
never be disconnected entirely is because the policies we choose,
the things that we choose to do, whether it's welfare
or investment or whatever, fundamentally it is about our collective
will being represented in the laws and rules and regulations.
(21:30):
I really do worry that we say we are very
caring as a nation, but the way we act, the
way we treat our I guess underprivileged, does not show that.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Right. Well, I just glad your voices out there, and
your voice is heard so widely. Just scanning through doing
a bit of research, you're popping up all over New
Zealand speaking at events and corporations and functions and on
radio stations. So all power to you. I hope you're
enjoying doing what you're doing, and the things that are
(22:03):
coming out of your mouth make a lot of sense
to me, and so can I just just finally, is
New Zealand broken or do you reckon New Zealand's doing?
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Okay, Look, I'm extraordarly optimistic about New Zealand. The reason
is not because there are no problems, but because I
think we're a country of five and a big million
people and we can solve anything if we put on
mind to it. So we done it before and I
think we can do it again.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Show a bill you, Cob, it's been a pleasure talking
to you, or go out on your final choice of music,
which is Jeff Buckley. Hallelujah. It's been a great pleasure
and a privilege talking with you.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
This is real life on News Talks, EDB. I'm looking
forward to being back with you again next Sunday.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Night for more from News Talks, EDB. Listen live on
air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk S ed B.
Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio,
Real Conversation, Real Connection. It's Real Life with John Cowen
on News Talk S ed B.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hey, welcome to Real Life. I'm John Cowen. My guest
tonight is economist is Shimmerbil Yakub, And I guess all
economists know stuff, but what sets Chammobil apart is that
he also knows how to say stuff, to take economics
and to translate it for us mere immortals, which has
made him a very widely respected author, media commentator, and
(00:45):
the thought leading public speaker. Welcome Chammerbil.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
It's great to have you on Real Life. And I'm impressed,
and I'm not big cynical here. You're doing this interview
over zoom rather than coming into the studio because you've
got a far more important commitment tonight.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Well, I put the kiss to bed at every night,
so edit Clark, there's bed times stories, so it's important
to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I'm very, very impressed that as an economist you see
some things as being more valuable than stuff that you
can just put on a balance sheet.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Well, it's all those intangibles that really matter.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yeah, yeah, and I get that this comes true. And
you're in an analysis too, you're always drilling it back
down to how it works at the flesh and blood level,
how people are actually living. They might just be a
few percentage points on a screen for some economists, but
you bring it down to how people live.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Oh, totally. In my mind, the economy is really about us.
It's about it's the describing how we interact with each other.
It's only one discipline and looks at one thing. But
economics should be interesting and fun and insightful because fundamentally
it's about society.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah, and family life.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
And absolutely just because we don't measure the stuff doesn't
mean it's not important.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
So family life for you, you've got how many kids have
you got?
Speaker 3 (02:06):
I've got two boys seven and nine and my wife,
so you know, the four of us. We live in Auckland,
and I guess you know, for us, family life is
important because it's such a short and fleeting period of
your life. Right, it's such a blessing to be able
to have children and raise them, but you know they're
going to grow up and go.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
That's right. These are the good old days. So I'm
glad you're making the most of it, and so you'll
be reading them a story.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
I'll be reading them stories, yeah, both of them. So
the older one I think is more moving towards reading
his own stories these days, but the younger one still
enjoys it.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
I read a while back an article that was asking
you about what you like to read, and that you
were saying that the first book that you really read
for yourself, like your nine year olds now reading for himself,
was a detective series. But it was written in bangla
So you grew up, you grew up not speaking English.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
I didn't. Yeah, So I was born in Bangladesh and
so I lived there until I was ten, and it
was very well, you know, it's defining right where you
come from. Your roots are really important, and I guess
my kind of reading started there and I really kind
of learned my English and all of that kind of
stuff when I lived in Sarmour for three years.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Well, how does one go from Bangladesh to Samara? I
know how you got there. Why would you have gone
from Bangladesh to Samhara.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Because my father was working at the university then, so
the university of the South Pacific has its agricultural university
campus in Samoa, right, and my dad is an agricultural chemist,
so he was working there as a lecturer and head
of head of department. So we moved there and it
was absolutely fabulous.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
It must have been, you know, I imagine they're both
tropical places, but to go from what were you living
right in Dhaka or somewhere like that in Bangladesh and sorry,
what's what's the capital in Bangladesh?
Speaker 3 (04:04):
That's right, Yeah, so I'm living.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
In a huge metropolitan area and then coming Tomo, which
is just wonderfully and relaxed and tropical.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
It was wonderful. Actually, even in Bangladesh we lived in
a very small time called moment Saying, which was again
the agriculture university's campus, so we were kind of more
rural and it was fairly idyllic, to be honest. And
the move to Samo was under that big, big culture
shock more in the sense that it was a new culture.
It was less about I guess the size of the
(04:33):
place it was more, but the language and people's beliefs
and all those other things that were quite different.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
And you fit it in Okay, oh.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Absolutely, I still have friends in Samoa, and they've gone
on to become big cheeses in big organizations in some
wore So it's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
When I got sure it was your influence rubbing off
on them. And then you came to Canterbury, and again
that must have been a huge cultural shift. Was that hard?
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Well, again, you know, it's the people, right, And I
loved my time in Lincoln. So I went to Lincoln
High and then Lincoln University, and I met a lot
of good friends and in fact, my best man at
my wedding was one of my friends from high school.
So we've mented a lot of these relationships, and you know,
I had a really great bunch of friends. And no, look,
(05:18):
I don't think it was a huge kind of shock.
It was. I don't know, like I think when you're
at that age, when you've got your friends around you,
it's relatively easy, right.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
And so you made friends readily. And I take it
Lincoln was where your father was working as well, and.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
For a little bit, but then they went back to somewhere.
So my sister went to university in Lincoln, and then
I went to university there, and Lincoln was good to us,
so I really enjoyed living there was you know, again
a little village, really township they called it, and you know,
we still have a little four square. We didn't even
have a proper supermarket.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
And I guess at the university there would have been
a fairly large multicultural community there as well.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Absolutely and still as in fact, I was there a
couple of weeks ago speaking to the alumni done in Lincoln,
and of course after the earthquakes they've done a huge
amount of work and it looks completely different, but also
it looks spectacular.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Okay. Now, was economics something that was an early interest
to you or was.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
It fell into it? I fell into it because my
sister did it, and I was like, yeah, that sounds
pretty cool, so I'll do it. And one of the
reasons that I continued it was I had some amazing
lecturers at university and at Lincoln. Because it's so small,
you had really close relationship with the lecturers. So people
like Bert Ward, Amosa Niel and a few others there
(06:42):
were just they were inspiring. You know, they made economics
really interesting and engaging in about the real world rather
than something that's boring and dusty and dry.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Hmm. Okay, I can that comes your passion for it
comes across. I mean, you explain the graphs and things beautifully,
but you also then talk about, hey, these these wiggly lines,
this is what it means in the real world, and
so that the academic side and the real world side
(07:13):
never delaminated even in that academic study.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
No. I mean, I think the power of academy, or
power of experts, or power of people who are working
these kinds of things is when you're able to take
the learnings the lessons and being able to communicate it.
You know, the sharing is where the joy is. The
sharing is where you know you have impact. It's not
enough to think of something or to understand something. It's
(07:39):
important that you take people with you. And I think
that's a big part of our jobs as experts, as
people who do the kinds of things that we do
what we do. And if you don't take joy in that,
you're not in the right job.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Okay. And so I know that you've had these inspiring lecturers,
but more powerful than that in someone's life, when it
comes to thinking about money and wealth and economics, there's
probably a family environment. Did you grow up in a
family where people talked about money. I know when I
was growing up my parents, it's never talked to me
about banking or investment or lagages or anything like that.
(08:14):
So in your family that they did talk about this.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Sorry, John, the sounds disappear, so I can't hear right now.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Ah, okay, I'll just try and see if I get
my producer there onto your back. I was just saying that,
I'm just wondering whether you grew up in a family
where people talked about money and investment in economics and things.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Absolutely, my parents were always very open about money. And
you know, it's not because we had lots of it.
Sometimes we didn't have a lot of it, and being
open about it meant you could handle the conversations about money.
There was never a taboo about talking about money. And
my father in particular, has always been very very focused
(08:55):
on making sure we understand all the ins and out
so you can understand how they're making decisions, both the
things that they did right and the things that they
didn't do right. And that's how you learn.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
So and they let you have control over your money
from feeling young young age.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Yeah, absolutely absolutely, And I think you have to learn
by doing it. It's you know, the theory is so
different from the practice, right until you kind of, until
you've been through it and you've made some mistakes, you
don't really learn. And so my parents were always quite
willing to kind of let us kind of try and
do things, but also was always there to pick us
(09:30):
up if we needed it.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
That's handy, that's very handy. I'm just wondering, has there
ever been a time in your life where you have
been hard up, when you have felt poor?
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Oh? Absolutely, Look, I mean when I had my first job,
I think you know, this was back in two thousand
and one. I think I was earning like thirty thousand
dollars a year, right right, And you know, you had
to pay the rent, you had to pay for your
bus and all that kind of stuff. And I was
eating tomatoes and cheese for lunch most days. So it
(10:02):
was pretty skinny in the beginning. So it's not like,
you know, it's not a silver of spoon kind of
sit And then certainly, you know, even my family when
we came over to New Zealand, it wasn't like we
came with a lot of money. Because while we were
relatively well off, when we're in Bangladesh, that money doesn't
convert to so much when you come to news out.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I think people will find this very reassuring, knowing that
you can identify them in real circumstances. When you hear
people that are bankers and things talking about money and things,
you sort of have an idea of it, though on
a different plane. But you've obviously lived in the real
world and know how hard it is sometimes to put
a budget together and live within it. If you've just
(10:42):
joined us, My guest tonight is economist a Shammobil Yakub,
and I'll be talking to her more about obviously about
money and economics, but also about his life and some
of the things that motivates them. This is Real Life
on Newstalk z'd be.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
Missed a week of Real Life with John Cowan. Follow
the podcast on high Heart Radio or listen back at
Real Life dot inzad Intelligent interviews with interesting people. It's
real life on news Talks.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Be welcome. Make your real life a bit of pearl
jam there too. You get the pulse going, and it's
been chosen by my guest tonight, Shammer Bill, your cub
and uh Chamo Bill. This is a special song for you.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
It is, well, partly it's nostalgia. I think for a
lot of us, we remember those songs that we grew
up with, particularly in those kind of high school and
early university days, and this was one of those songs.
But also, to me, this song kind of it builds,
it builds to a crescendo. It's got this extraordinary energy.
It starts off kind of trapped, and then you've got
(11:43):
this feeling of freedom. I just love that song.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
So it's still something you listen to.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Absolutely. Unfortunately, my music tastes haven't grown very much since
my university.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Look, we just fossilized that at that point, sort of
a yeah, that's very very normal. Hey, I'm just we
were talking before about your career, about how you studied
at Lincoln and graduated with some good degrees and then
you worked in Stances, New Zealand, I think, and then
I and s and then on to gold and Sacks,
(12:13):
and that must have been a very very interesting place
to be sitting during the global financial crisis.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
It was. Look, I mean, it was such a fascinating
place to work because I was here in New Zealand,
so we were part of the Goldman sax family, but
it was very much the New Zealand part of it,
so you know, it was it didn't have quite the
same I guess tension and pressure as as you might think.
But it was really fascinating to be in the middle
of an organization that was part of I guess, the
(12:42):
wider meltdown, but also being able to see things in
real life as people were grappling with these big issues,
you know, the closures of these big banks. It was
fascinating And what was really frightening though, was you could
see just how many people were losing jobs, how many
people were losing their life savings, and you could see
that these shocks, these catastrophes can be very human in
(13:05):
their cost.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Are people working in these big banks and financial institutions,
are they actually really aware and really empathetic to the
pain that's happening out in the wider world when these
things start to wobble?
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Okay, I think anything like anything, some people are more
aware than others, and I think for a lot of
people it's hard to kind of see the individuals that
sit behind the data or the papers or the accounts,
and when you lose touch with that, it does become harder.
But my experience here in Auckland was that the people
(13:42):
I was working with, particularly the people who are looking
after people's money, they were very close to their clients
and so they were they understood their clients and the
people that they were being affected. But when you kind
of look at it from a more policy side, not always,
I'd say, there are a lot of people who see
it as the I guess the collateral damage, right, this
(14:03):
has to happen.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Are you scared me? Rece? You put up a graph
which showed the number of businesses in New Zealand that
are folding, that are collapsing at the moment, and the
graph was peaking higher than it was during the GFC.
Is this am I right? In reading? This is meaning? Man,
this is actually a scary time.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Look, it is a scary time. The way I think
about it is in a recession or in a downturn,
some people will do it really tough, but most people
will be okay. This time around, there's probably more people
doing it tough than we saw at the last recession.
And I do worry about that because businesses are not
just things. It's real people's businesses, right, It's their lives.
That they've put into this thing, and so we've seen
(14:50):
quite a lot of business closures. We're seeing quite a
lot of job losses. And that's what, unfortunately happens when
the economy is shrinking, because when we're all kind of
spending this money, we're investing less, that's what happens. It
is still tough, and I think there's still a few
more months ago, and I worry that it's going to
happen into this period of Christmas, which is so important
(15:11):
for so many people, and it's going to add an
extra burden, extra stress.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
The investment banking and that type of world that you're in,
it must have been competitive and hard edged, and the
stressful that was it also an enjoyable It.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Was a lot of fun. It was a lot of
fun because you were working with people who are interesting
and interested. They were interested in your views. You were
there because you had something something to contribute, and together
you created trading strategies or advice for clients or whatever.
But it was very much a group of people who
(15:50):
are there together, who are all quite competitive but at
the same time quite cooperative. So you know, when I
would go over and see clients in say us or wherever,
you'd have the team around you so that you were
doing it together. So there was a lot of I
guess camaraderie, which was really quite powerful. I don't know.
I don't think my experience was one where it was
(16:10):
highly stressful. I was at that age when I wanted
to work hard, I wanted to do those long hours,
and I wanted to be better than everybody else, and
it was fun.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
And is that why you left because suddenly you realized
I don't want to work that long.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Well, the reason for leaving was I got married and
so my wife Siline and I we decided that we
should do something fun to start our new phase in life.
And there was of course after you know, right after
the GFC had started, and we couldn't do the OI
thing that everybody else does because there were no jobs
in London or New York at the time. So we
(16:46):
chose the I don't know if it's the second best
or the third best or the fourth best, but we
chose Wellington and I went to Wellington to start doing
something different. I went to Zadaiya, which is a fabulous
organization to do something quite different, still doing economics, but
also consulting so just to kind of add a bit
of difference, add something new, but do it in a
(17:07):
new place together.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
And was this about the time that you started your
media work or that already started to.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
I used to talk for a bit of it when
I was at Golment Sachs as well.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
And how did you get into it?
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Well, the funny thing about economists is we get asked,
so it's relatively speaking, quite easy. It's quite passive in
the sense that people come to you, so it's not
that difficult. I used to do some media when I
was in Australia as well, but not so much, and
then I did some more when I came to New
Zealand and one of the people I did a lot
(17:41):
of media worth was Anne Gibson, so Anne at the Herald,
who did a lot of the property stuff. She was great,
but so are other people. I don't remember. I don't
know if you recall TV one. I think TV one
used to have this business breakfast show. It's called ASP
Business and that's where I did a lot of my
(18:01):
media training, because being on media is actually quite scary,
it can be quite daunting, and having nice people to
talk who really does help. So I've had a lot
of people along the way who just passed, invited me
over and gave me a lot of support, So very
very privileged.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
You're not shy about mismixing politics and economics. Economics is political.
So if you're thinking about the economic the economic outcomes
that the politicians should be aiming for, should they be
aiming for more wealth than the pot or making sure
that that part of wealth is more evenly and equitably distributed? Surely?
Speaker 3 (18:40):
And the answer is both. Okay, it's not enough for
us to be richer. So over the last thirty years,
New Zealand has become a lot richer, but more of
us have not become richen. So income inequality in New
Zealand hasn't shrank. Our wealth inequality hasn't shrank. And I
don't think it's good enough to say that some people
are going to be a hell of a lot better
(19:00):
off while a lot of other people are going to
be doing it a lot worse. So I think when
it comes to public policy, we're always assists it on
two metrics. One is there an efficiency? Is it a
good way of doing it? And the other one is equity?
Are we lifting more people up? And that equity part
can't be something that's optional. It's integral to why we
(19:21):
have politics, because the purpose of politics is to give
expression to democracy, to communal wants. We want our expectations
societal values expressed in how we pull our resources together
and work together. So my sense is that we can't
have conversations about government as if it's aloof and separate.
It's not. Government is an expression of society. It's our representatives.
(19:45):
We're trying to do right by us.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
So if our welfare systems are getting run down and
inadequate as a safety net for people that are in hardship,
is that because we're becoming harder as a society, that
we're becoming less caring or is it just politicians that
we need to convince.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
I'm really weary of pointing the thing. They're at poltics again,
as if they're making some decisions on their own. I
think the politicians are expressing what New Zealanders want. So
we may say that we want a caring, equal society,
but when push comes to shove, we want to have
(20:25):
tax cuts for ourselves. We want to have our wealth protected.
That's how we have voted for a very long time.
So I think there is a bit of a mirror
that we need to hold up to ourselves. This is
not some fault of some independent third party. It is
the collective choice we've made in our democracy so far.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
I wonder how we change society to be more caring
and compassionate.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Well, I don't think New Zealand is uncaring. In fact,
New Zealanders when I meet people, are almost without fail,
extraordinary caring, extraordinary warm, and I think there would like
to lift more people up. But there's this kind of
disconnect between what we want in a conceptual basis what
comes to when I want the tax cut or whatever
(21:09):
this might be. So there is a real tension there.
And I think the reason why politics and economists can
never be disconnected entirely is because the policies we choose,
the things that we choose to do, whether it's welfare
or investment or whatever, fundamentally it is about our collective
will being represented in the laws and rules and regulations.
(21:30):
I really do worry that we say we are very
caring as a nation, but the way we act, the
way we treat our I guess underprivileged, does not show that.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Right. Well, I just glad your voices out there, and
your voice is heard so widely. Just scanning through doing
a bit of research, you're popping up all over New
Zealand speaking at events and corporations and functions and on
radio stations. So all power to you. I hope you're
enjoying doing what you're doing, and the things that are
(22:03):
coming out of your mouth make a lot of sense
to me, and so can I just just finally, is
New Zealand broken or do you reckon New Zealand's doing?
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Okay, Look, I'm extraordarly optimistic about New Zealand. The reason
is not because there are no problems, but because I
think we're a country of five and a big million
people and we can solve anything if we put on
mind to it. So we done it before and I
think we can do it again.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Show a bill you, Cob, it's been a pleasure talking
to you, or go out on your final choice of music,
which is Jeff Buckley. Hallelujah. It's been a great pleasure
and a privilege talking with you.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
This is real life on News Talks, EDB. I'm looking
forward to being back with you again next Sunday.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Night for more from News Talks, EDB. Listen live on
air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcast on iHeartRadio
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