December 3, 2025 • 16 mins
Thursday 4 December 2025
The pace of economic growth picks up, dampening hopes of further rate cuts.
- The boss of the Future Fund is under fire over a $20,000 bill for two international trips for his executive assistant.
- Shoppers get in early to beat the Christmas rush.
- 2025 proves the year of contradictions in the property market.
- The search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 to resume at the end of the month.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Fear and Greed business news you can use Today.
The pace of economic growth picks up, dampening hopes of
further rate cuts. The Boss of the Future Fund is
under fire over a twenty thousand dollars bill for two
international trips for his executive assistant, and shoppers get in
early to beat the Christmas rush. Plus twenty twenty five
proves the year of contradictions in the property market and
(00:27):
the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH three seventy
to resume at the end of the month. It is Thursday,
the fourth of December twenty twenty five. I'm Michael Thompson
and good morning Sean ale Mode Morning Michael, Sean. The
main story this morning. The economy is expanding at a
two point one percent clip, with consumers, business and the
(00:47):
government driving growth. The bad news is that inflation pressures
are rising. Taking an interest rate cut off the agenda.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
It was probably a good result all in all for
the government, for the Central Bank, for business, for consumers,
although anyone running or rate cut probably will be a
bit disappointed. Didn't do much to help the cause, But
overall that shade an economy performing okay. Growth for the
quarter was zero point four percent, fueled by higher spending
by businesses, particularly data centers. Consumer spending was weaker in
(01:18):
the September quarter than the June quarter, though it still okay.
Government spending continues to contribute to growth. The trade sector
was solid. It actually detracted from growth, But what we're
seeing is the appreciation of the Aussie dollar making it
cheaper for us to buy imports. That's not sort of
a sign of weakness in the economy in many ways,
even if it does detract a little bit. Certainly, the
(01:38):
Trump tariffs haven't hit the local economy yet. It at
least they've hit the economy, but they haven't had a
negative impact yet. On a per capita basis, growth was flat,
suggesting basically rising population is what's driving growth. Productivity picked
up by just zero point eight percent, still pretty weak.
The big downside of the data. We knew this from
(01:58):
the CPI figures last week is that inflation is rising.
The left field point in it, which some people are
starting to realize. The reduction in inventory is detracted zero
point five percentage points from the quarterly growth figure. That
is a big number. In the due quarter it was zero,
so if you had zero point five to the zero
(02:20):
point four, you'd have a zero point nine percent growth rate. Oh,
you're looking at melee quizzing. You would think that if
inventories fell, they would be solid, right, and you'd be
adding to growth. You would think that. But no, when
a company sells from its stock, it's actually drawing down
on its assets. So it's a negative to GDP growth.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Really, Ah, there you go.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
It's always one of those ones, which is kind of
intuitively doesn't make sense. So what you're seeing. I think
of it this. If you know a company has one
hundred units or something in something, demand spike so it
goes down to seventy units, then it reduces that from
one hundred to seventy obviously, and the suppliers haven't had
(03:07):
time to keep up with the boost in demand. Like
that's another way of thinking about it.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Okay, but does it matter? This is high risk stuff
me asking you this. But in terms of does it matter,
then kind of who is say spending it, for instance,
who is buying it that If this is then households
for instance, that is buying those products, and that's putting it.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Could be anyone buying it, so it doesn't matter. It
is a quirk of the accounts basically. Okay, that the
way you think about it is that inventries when they fall,
detract from growth, whereas intuitively you think, well, under selling more. Okay,
all right, but that's not the case because it's drawing
down on the company's assets.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
All right. It was only high risks because I was
worried that when I ask you things sometimes I can
get a twenty second explanation or a twenty minute explanation.
I'm like, please don't let this be one of the
twenty minute ones. We do not have time for that today.
But that was a good That was a good shot.
Up to the point, there has been a lot of
debate about the public sector spending and the fact that
(04:10):
it had driven about seventy percent of GDP growth until
twenty twenty four. Now Treasurer Jim Chalmers has been arguing
that the private sector is replacing the public sector in
terms of growing the economy. Is that true?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
There were signs of that yesterday. I wouldn't say it's overwhelming,
really important, because the private sector probably would do a
much better job on productivity than the public sector. For example,
you look more likely to boost a supply capacity in
your economy. When it's a private sector driving it, maybe
more encouraging comments from Reserve Bank Governor Michelle Bullock yesterday
ahead of the Bureau Statistics data release. She said the
(04:46):
private sector was beginning to take over from the public sector,
So I reckon she'd know if anyone would.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Yeah, you would think. So, right, what's the bottom line here?
How is the economy performing? Is does that mean for
interest rates?
Speaker 2 (05:01):
So the consensus among economists is that national accounts are
a pretty solid set of numbers showing a broadening of
economic growth along with inflation pressures. That raises a question
of whether the economy is at capacity and therefore where
the Reserve Bank needs to lift interest rates. Because if
you're not at capacity and you're growing, you can just
you can boost those inventories without adding to priced pressures.
(05:22):
But it's not go down that road the Reserve Banks.
Michelle Bullock again in sentence in Senate estimates yesterday, said
it wasn't clear with the economy was running above capacity.
He also said that the whole purpose of the Reserve
Bank Board was to bring inflation to the midpoint of
its target range of two to three percent. And it
hasn't done that. It's failed at that. So put all
(05:42):
that together in the blender. Used to go in the
mixed master. Nowadays it's a blender reckon the GDP figures slash.
Michelle Bullocks comments yesterday suggest no more rate cuts for
the foreseeable future. Great hikes, Well maybe maybe no. One
of our readers, quite readers, listeners, God, it's like the
old day.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
You just threw yourself right back into newspaper.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
I did. One of our listeners pointed out stop saying
that falling interest rates are good. Yeah, they're not always good.
And it is true when your third of the population
has a mortgage with those thirds want lower interest rates,
but a third own their own home and probably investing,
so they might like higher interest rates. So we have
to cut the value judgments on interest rates. It was
a very fair point.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Yep, there are winners and losers and everything really aren't there.
And now to this next story, Sean, this is quite remarkable.
The executive assistant to the boss of the Future Fund
racked up twenty thousand dollars in bills on two business
class trips, one of which was to inspect hotel rooms
for the Sovereign Wealth Fund Senior management team.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Has Saidator David Pocock said, like what they the person
set on the beads to see if they were too
hard or not.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
My god, it's quite extraordinary.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
In Senate estimates yesterday, Pocock accused the Future Fund Chief
Executive Raphael Aren't of spending taxpayer money in a cavilt way. Now,
the EA executive system had taken the other trip to
assist the Future Funds Board, whatever that means. Aunt said
the trip resulted in savings higher than the cost. He
(07:12):
said there was about thirty thousand dollars in savings and
that Paycock then asked whether it could have been done
online or over the phone. Maybe good at those savings
that way. Aunt himself was in hot water as well.
He attended the exclusive members only Club thirty three at Disneyland.
See the members only Club thirty three. You're thinking where
is this going? And then you end up with at Disneyland.
(07:35):
It takes it a slightly different term. He said it
was for business. He was unable to say if taxpayers
or Disney picked up the bill for that trip. He
said he went there to learn about Disney's training programs. Which,
now that I think of it, we are going to
have the Future Fund investors running around like Mickey Mouse.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Oh god, out of staying character at all times.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Yep, the Future Fund. Of course we all own that
it overseas the port while over about two hundred and
sixty one billion dollars. Anyway, chief executive in the EA
in hot water for travel expenses like keeping up Mickey
Mouse investing.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
It's just not a good look, right, you know what
puntest yesterday was a day for exorbitant flights and travel
details because we then have Communications Minister Annika Wells also
under fire now after billing taxpayers seventy thousand dollars to
host an event in New York that was spooking Australia's
(08:32):
teen social media ban, and for spending almost one hundred
thousand dollars on flights to attend the United Nations General Assembly.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Worlds and the staff member flew to the September UN
General Assembly meeting after delaying her departure following the Optus
triple zero outage that was linked to three deaths when
calls to emergency services couldn't be connected. A senior public
servant also flew to New York earlier than planned. But
I mean I kind have sympathy for Wills on this one,
she said, rock in a hard place. She was criticized
(08:59):
for going, but she did stay. But that where I
really kind of run out of sympathy is the cost
of the return commercial flight to New York for world's
cost thirty four thousand dollars. Her deputy chief of staff's
cost was thirty eight thousand dollars. The online assistant secretary
he flew two days earlier twenty two thousand dollars thirty
eight thousand dollars for a turn business class airfare. I
(09:22):
mean I looked at yesterday fourteen fifteen, sixteen thousand dollars. Yeah,
I mean, come on.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
No, no, And I don't think anyone's questioning whether they
say a minister should be traveling business class or anything.
But there are ways to actually do this in a
more cost effective, cost efficient way, right exactly. Ah, big
fiery start to the show, with an economics lesson as well,
which was less fiery but very educational. We'll be back
(09:51):
in a moment with the rest of the day's business news.
Sean twenty twenty five has proven to be a year
of contradictions in the housing market, according to Domain, with
the first interest rate cuts in four years being swamped
by rising property prices in every capital city.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
In its end of year wrap, which I don't like
to even says, it means it's the end of the year,
Domain said, prices rose everywhere. On average, houses rose nine percent,
unit seven percent. Investors flooded back to the market competing
with first home buyers. Therefore that bottom end of the
market actually did pretty well. So called affordable cities of Brisbane,
Adelaide and Perth, well they've lost their status as affordable.
(10:37):
The Domain report also says that the rate cuts in February,
May and August reignited by confidence, pushing clearance rates to
multi year highs, but that boosted price growth overwhelming the
benefits of the rate reductions.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Consumers are buying earlier ahead of Christmas this year, but
the total number of shoppers will fall as cost of
living pressures persist.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Sixty eight percent of Australian adults plan to buy gifts
this year, which is actually down from a year ago,
down nine percent. Tatal gifts spendings forecast arise slightly to
twelve billion dollars shoppers spend on average seven to fifty seven.
The biggest spenders are the thirty five to forty nine
year olds to expect to show out an average of
eight hundred and fifty three dollars. According to the Australian
Retailers Association, the six run six week run into Christmas,
(11:22):
which includes the just completed Black Friday Cyber Monday sales,
most important period every year for retailers. The Retailers Association
says tatle spend, we're talking everything you know, grocries, alcohol,
the whole shebang forecast to come in for the six
weeks at seventy two point four billion dollars this year.
An interesting trend. They pointed out the ongoing shift towards
(11:44):
bricks and mortar shopping as a proportion of total shopping.
So it's not like people aren't online shopping, but as
the pie grows, the proportion in the growth in bricks
and water is growing faster.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Okay, speaking of online shopping, Today's Q and A Sean
Carl Durrant, who is the Managing Director Australia New Zealand
for Stripe, which is the global payments platform. It comes
into the studio and talking about Black Friday, Cyber Monday,
the future of retail into some of these stats just
about how much people were spending over the four day
(12:18):
period and before that.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
That's me.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yeah, I'm not surprised.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
I went out of control.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Oh god, well, you're going to love what he says
about the future of spending where AI actually goes and
does the shopping for you and you no longer need
to actually do any price comparisons, which is music to
my ears. It's only like eighteen months away, so it's
just it's a ripper of ittat. It's coming up after
the show. Local markets, how did we go yesterday?
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Very quickly slightly higher eighty five nine to five points.
Market fell in the run into the GDP figure GDP figure,
then it serveed and it came back gained big minus
BHP fourtuscue rear led the large caps.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
The Australian Superinnuation System yesterday got a ringing in from
US President Donald Trump, who said it was a good
scheme for working people and one that he is seriously
considering before.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
A trillion dollar plus system has been garnering support in
Washington for most of the year. Really obviously, Trump has
now heard about it. The President said the Australian superannuation
system is liked by people in the US. It is
considered a plan for working people, he said. He said,
it's a good plan. It worked out very well.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Perhaps he also likes it because there's a huge amount
of money looking for a home and suddenly there's investment
potentially going into well we did.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
There was a summit which Kevin Rudd hosted I'm going
to get this wrong in about March, and basically what
came of it out of it was a super fund
saying we're going to invest the trillion dollars in the US.
It was over like a decade long period or something
like that. That sort of thing is music to Donald
Trump's It.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Is absolutely turning to international news. Now, how about this.
Michael and Susan Dell, the founders of the Dell Technologies Empire,
have pledged six point twenty five billion US dollars to
help fund so called Trump accounts, which are being rolled
out to American children.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
It's very cool you pointed this story out to me.
The money will help support children benefiting from what's called
Invest America, which is the official name of a new
baby bond style program. So from next year, US Treasury
will put one thousand US dollars in an investment account
for every child born in twenty twenty five or later.
The Dell's Charitable Foundation will deposit an extra two hundred
(14:30):
and fifty dollars into twenty five million additional accounts. Those
donations will target lower income areas. Now it's believed to
be among the largest ever cash donation to charity. Good
on them. Donald Trump described the accounts as the first
real trust funds for every American child. It's a great concept, though,
the idea that you put in a thousand dollars, I mean,
(14:51):
I know lots of people who do it privately, whose
grandparents have put in money for kids and stuff like that. Yep.
It's just don't think it's a bad idea at all.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Yeah. And I like the fact that the Dells did
it on Tuesday, Giving Tuesday, which it's come up as
part of the Black Friday Cyber Monday, and now there
is Giving Tuesday, which has got them the focus on
philanthropy as well, which is kind of cool.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah, very cool.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Finally, Sean, the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH
three seventy will resume on December thirty, more than a
decade after the Beijing bound flight disappeared, and really what
is one of the world's greatest aviation mysteries.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
The Boeing seven seven seven was carrying two hundred and
twenty seven passengers and twelve crew when it vanished en
route from Kuala Lumpa to Beijing in twenty fourteen. Multiple
search operations for the plane have been conducted since then,
all proved fruitless. The most recent search in the Southern
Indian Ocean was suspended in April after just a few
weeks due to poor weather conditions. Now, exploration firm Ocean Affinity,
(15:50):
Oh sorry, Ocean Infinity has confirmed it will recommence seabed
operations for fifty five days conducted intermittently. Won't we all
want hope, wish, particularly for survivors and family, that they
actually find out what happened to Yeah?
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Indeed?
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Up next Fear and Greed Q and A. As I
mentioned before with Stripe's Carl Durance, it is coming up
in the Fear and Greed playlist on your podcast platform
or at Fearandgreed dot com dot au, which is also
where you sign up for that free daily newsletter that
I keep banging on about. Thank you Sean, Thank you Michael.
It's Thursday, the fourth of December twenty twenty five. Make
sure you're following the podcast and please join us online
(16:28):
on LinkedIn, Instagram, ex TikTok and Facebook.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
I'm Michael Thompson.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
And that was fear and greed. Have a great day.
Welcome to Fear and Greed business news you can use Today.
The pace of economic growth picks up, dampening hopes of
further rate cuts. The Boss of the Future Fund is
under fire over a twenty thousand dollars bill for two
international trips for his executive assistant, and shoppers get in
early to beat the Christmas rush. Plus twenty twenty five
proves the year of contradictions in the property market and
(00:27):
the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH three seventy
to resume at the end of the month. It is Thursday,
the fourth of December twenty twenty five. I'm Michael Thompson
and good morning Sean ale Mode Morning Michael, Sean. The
main story this morning. The economy is expanding at a
two point one percent clip, with consumers, business and the
(00:47):
government driving growth. The bad news is that inflation pressures
are rising. Taking an interest rate cut off the agenda.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
It was probably a good result all in all for
the government, for the Central Bank, for business, for consumers,
although anyone running or rate cut probably will be a
bit disappointed. Didn't do much to help the cause, But
overall that shade an economy performing okay. Growth for the
quarter was zero point four percent, fueled by higher spending
by businesses, particularly data centers. Consumer spending was weaker in
(01:18):
the September quarter than the June quarter, though it still okay.
Government spending continues to contribute to growth. The trade sector
was solid. It actually detracted from growth, But what we're
seeing is the appreciation of the Aussie dollar making it
cheaper for us to buy imports. That's not sort of
a sign of weakness in the economy in many ways,
even if it does detract a little bit. Certainly, the
(01:38):
Trump tariffs haven't hit the local economy yet. It at
least they've hit the economy, but they haven't had a
negative impact yet. On a per capita basis, growth was flat,
suggesting basically rising population is what's driving growth. Productivity picked
up by just zero point eight percent, still pretty weak.
The big downside of the data. We knew this from
(01:58):
the CPI figures last week is that inflation is rising.
The left field point in it, which some people are
starting to realize. The reduction in inventory is detracted zero
point five percentage points from the quarterly growth figure. That
is a big number. In the due quarter it was zero,
so if you had zero point five to the zero
(02:20):
point four, you'd have a zero point nine percent growth rate. Oh,
you're looking at melee quizzing. You would think that if
inventories fell, they would be solid, right, and you'd be
adding to growth. You would think that. But no, when
a company sells from its stock, it's actually drawing down
on its assets. So it's a negative to GDP growth.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Really, Ah, there you go.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
It's always one of those ones, which is kind of
intuitively doesn't make sense. So what you're seeing. I think
of it this. If you know a company has one
hundred units or something in something, demand spike so it
goes down to seventy units, then it reduces that from
one hundred to seventy obviously, and the suppliers haven't had
(03:07):
time to keep up with the boost in demand. Like
that's another way of thinking about it.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Okay, but does it matter? This is high risk stuff
me asking you this. But in terms of does it matter,
then kind of who is say spending it, for instance,
who is buying it that If this is then households
for instance, that is buying those products, and that's putting it.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Could be anyone buying it, so it doesn't matter. It
is a quirk of the accounts basically. Okay, that the
way you think about it is that inventries when they fall,
detract from growth, whereas intuitively you think, well, under selling more. Okay,
all right, but that's not the case because it's drawing
down on the company's assets.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
All right. It was only high risks because I was
worried that when I ask you things sometimes I can
get a twenty second explanation or a twenty minute explanation.
I'm like, please don't let this be one of the
twenty minute ones. We do not have time for that today.
But that was a good That was a good shot.
Up to the point, there has been a lot of
debate about the public sector spending and the fact that
(04:10):
it had driven about seventy percent of GDP growth until
twenty twenty four. Now Treasurer Jim Chalmers has been arguing
that the private sector is replacing the public sector in
terms of growing the economy. Is that true?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
There were signs of that yesterday. I wouldn't say it's overwhelming,
really important, because the private sector probably would do a
much better job on productivity than the public sector. For example,
you look more likely to boost a supply capacity in
your economy. When it's a private sector driving it, maybe
more encouraging comments from Reserve Bank Governor Michelle Bullock yesterday
ahead of the Bureau Statistics data release. She said the
(04:46):
private sector was beginning to take over from the public sector,
So I reckon she'd know if anyone would.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Yeah, you would think. So, right, what's the bottom line here?
How is the economy performing? Is does that mean for
interest rates?
Speaker 2 (05:01):
So the consensus among economists is that national accounts are
a pretty solid set of numbers showing a broadening of
economic growth along with inflation pressures. That raises a question
of whether the economy is at capacity and therefore where
the Reserve Bank needs to lift interest rates. Because if
you're not at capacity and you're growing, you can just
you can boost those inventories without adding to priced pressures.
(05:22):
But it's not go down that road the Reserve Banks.
Michelle Bullock again in sentence in Senate estimates yesterday, said
it wasn't clear with the economy was running above capacity.
He also said that the whole purpose of the Reserve
Bank Board was to bring inflation to the midpoint of
its target range of two to three percent. And it
hasn't done that. It's failed at that. So put all
(05:42):
that together in the blender. Used to go in the
mixed master. Nowadays it's a blender reckon the GDP figures slash.
Michelle Bullocks comments yesterday suggest no more rate cuts for
the foreseeable future. Great hikes, Well maybe maybe no. One
of our readers, quite readers, listeners, God, it's like the
old day.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
You just threw yourself right back into newspaper.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
I did. One of our listeners pointed out stop saying
that falling interest rates are good. Yeah, they're not always good.
And it is true when your third of the population
has a mortgage with those thirds want lower interest rates,
but a third own their own home and probably investing,
so they might like higher interest rates. So we have
to cut the value judgments on interest rates. It was
a very fair point.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Yep, there are winners and losers and everything really aren't there.
And now to this next story, Sean, this is quite remarkable.
The executive assistant to the boss of the Future Fund
racked up twenty thousand dollars in bills on two business
class trips, one of which was to inspect hotel rooms
for the Sovereign Wealth Fund Senior management team.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Has Saidator David Pocock said, like what they the person
set on the beads to see if they were too
hard or not.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
My god, it's quite extraordinary.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
In Senate estimates yesterday, Pocock accused the Future Fund Chief
Executive Raphael Aren't of spending taxpayer money in a cavilt way. Now,
the EA executive system had taken the other trip to
assist the Future Funds Board, whatever that means. Aunt said
the trip resulted in savings higher than the cost. He
(07:12):
said there was about thirty thousand dollars in savings and
that Paycock then asked whether it could have been done
online or over the phone. Maybe good at those savings
that way. Aunt himself was in hot water as well.
He attended the exclusive members only Club thirty three at Disneyland.
See the members only Club thirty three. You're thinking where
is this going? And then you end up with at Disneyland.
(07:35):
It takes it a slightly different term. He said it
was for business. He was unable to say if taxpayers
or Disney picked up the bill for that trip. He
said he went there to learn about Disney's training programs. Which,
now that I think of it, we are going to
have the Future Fund investors running around like Mickey Mouse.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Oh god, out of staying character at all times.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Yep, the Future Fund. Of course we all own that
it overseas the port while over about two hundred and
sixty one billion dollars. Anyway, chief executive in the EA
in hot water for travel expenses like keeping up Mickey
Mouse investing.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
It's just not a good look, right, you know what
puntest yesterday was a day for exorbitant flights and travel
details because we then have Communications Minister Annika Wells also
under fire now after billing taxpayers seventy thousand dollars to
host an event in New York that was spooking Australia's
(08:32):
teen social media ban, and for spending almost one hundred
thousand dollars on flights to attend the United Nations General Assembly.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Worlds and the staff member flew to the September UN
General Assembly meeting after delaying her departure following the Optus
triple zero outage that was linked to three deaths when
calls to emergency services couldn't be connected. A senior public
servant also flew to New York earlier than planned. But
I mean I kind have sympathy for Wills on this one,
she said, rock in a hard place. She was criticized
(08:59):
for going, but she did stay. But that where I
really kind of run out of sympathy is the cost
of the return commercial flight to New York for world's
cost thirty four thousand dollars. Her deputy chief of staff's
cost was thirty eight thousand dollars. The online assistant secretary
he flew two days earlier twenty two thousand dollars thirty
eight thousand dollars for a turn business class airfare. I
(09:22):
mean I looked at yesterday fourteen fifteen, sixteen thousand dollars. Yeah,
I mean, come on.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
No, no, And I don't think anyone's questioning whether they
say a minister should be traveling business class or anything.
But there are ways to actually do this in a
more cost effective, cost efficient way, right exactly. Ah, big
fiery start to the show, with an economics lesson as well,
which was less fiery but very educational. We'll be back
(09:51):
in a moment with the rest of the day's business news.
Sean twenty twenty five has proven to be a year
of contradictions in the housing market, according to Domain, with
the first interest rate cuts in four years being swamped
by rising property prices in every capital city.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
In its end of year wrap, which I don't like
to even says, it means it's the end of the year,
Domain said, prices rose everywhere. On average, houses rose nine percent,
unit seven percent. Investors flooded back to the market competing
with first home buyers. Therefore that bottom end of the
market actually did pretty well. So called affordable cities of Brisbane,
Adelaide and Perth, well they've lost their status as affordable.
(10:37):
The Domain report also says that the rate cuts in February,
May and August reignited by confidence, pushing clearance rates to
multi year highs, but that boosted price growth overwhelming the
benefits of the rate reductions.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Consumers are buying earlier ahead of Christmas this year, but
the total number of shoppers will fall as cost of
living pressures persist.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Sixty eight percent of Australian adults plan to buy gifts
this year, which is actually down from a year ago,
down nine percent. Tatal gifts spendings forecast arise slightly to
twelve billion dollars shoppers spend on average seven to fifty seven.
The biggest spenders are the thirty five to forty nine
year olds to expect to show out an average of
eight hundred and fifty three dollars. According to the Australian
Retailers Association, the six run six week run into Christmas,
(11:22):
which includes the just completed Black Friday Cyber Monday sales,
most important period every year for retailers. The Retailers Association
says tatle spend, we're talking everything you know, grocries, alcohol,
the whole shebang forecast to come in for the six
weeks at seventy two point four billion dollars this year.
An interesting trend. They pointed out the ongoing shift towards
(11:44):
bricks and mortar shopping as a proportion of total shopping.
So it's not like people aren't online shopping, but as
the pie grows, the proportion in the growth in bricks
and water is growing faster.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Okay, speaking of online shopping, Today's Q and A Sean
Carl Durrant, who is the Managing Director Australia New Zealand
for Stripe, which is the global payments platform. It comes
into the studio and talking about Black Friday, Cyber Monday,
the future of retail into some of these stats just
about how much people were spending over the four day
(12:18):
period and before that.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
That's me.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yeah, I'm not surprised.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
I went out of control.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Oh god, well, you're going to love what he says
about the future of spending where AI actually goes and
does the shopping for you and you no longer need
to actually do any price comparisons, which is music to
my ears. It's only like eighteen months away, so it's
just it's a ripper of ittat. It's coming up after
the show. Local markets, how did we go yesterday?
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Very quickly slightly higher eighty five nine to five points.
Market fell in the run into the GDP figure GDP figure,
then it serveed and it came back gained big minus
BHP fourtuscue rear led the large caps.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
The Australian Superinnuation System yesterday got a ringing in from
US President Donald Trump, who said it was a good
scheme for working people and one that he is seriously
considering before.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
A trillion dollar plus system has been garnering support in
Washington for most of the year. Really obviously, Trump has
now heard about it. The President said the Australian superannuation
system is liked by people in the US. It is
considered a plan for working people, he said. He said,
it's a good plan. It worked out very well.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Perhaps he also likes it because there's a huge amount
of money looking for a home and suddenly there's investment
potentially going into well we did.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
There was a summit which Kevin Rudd hosted I'm going
to get this wrong in about March, and basically what
came of it out of it was a super fund
saying we're going to invest the trillion dollars in the US.
It was over like a decade long period or something
like that. That sort of thing is music to Donald
Trump's It.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Is absolutely turning to international news. Now, how about this.
Michael and Susan Dell, the founders of the Dell Technologies Empire,
have pledged six point twenty five billion US dollars to
help fund so called Trump accounts, which are being rolled
out to American children.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
It's very cool you pointed this story out to me.
The money will help support children benefiting from what's called
Invest America, which is the official name of a new
baby bond style program. So from next year, US Treasury
will put one thousand US dollars in an investment account
for every child born in twenty twenty five or later.
The Dell's Charitable Foundation will deposit an extra two hundred
(14:30):
and fifty dollars into twenty five million additional accounts. Those
donations will target lower income areas. Now it's believed to
be among the largest ever cash donation to charity. Good
on them. Donald Trump described the accounts as the first
real trust funds for every American child. It's a great concept, though,
the idea that you put in a thousand dollars, I mean,
(14:51):
I know lots of people who do it privately, whose
grandparents have put in money for kids and stuff like that. Yep.
It's just don't think it's a bad idea at all.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Yeah. And I like the fact that the Dells did
it on Tuesday, Giving Tuesday, which it's come up as
part of the Black Friday Cyber Monday, and now there
is Giving Tuesday, which has got them the focus on
philanthropy as well, which is kind of cool.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah, very cool.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Finally, Sean, the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH
three seventy will resume on December thirty, more than a
decade after the Beijing bound flight disappeared, and really what
is one of the world's greatest aviation mysteries.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
The Boeing seven seven seven was carrying two hundred and
twenty seven passengers and twelve crew when it vanished en
route from Kuala Lumpa to Beijing in twenty fourteen. Multiple
search operations for the plane have been conducted since then,
all proved fruitless. The most recent search in the Southern
Indian Ocean was suspended in April after just a few
weeks due to poor weather conditions. Now, exploration firm Ocean Affinity,
(15:50):
Oh sorry, Ocean Infinity has confirmed it will recommence seabed
operations for fifty five days conducted intermittently. Won't we all
want hope, wish, particularly for survivors and family, that they
actually find out what happened to Yeah?
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Indeed?
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Up next Fear and Greed Q and A. As I
mentioned before with Stripe's Carl Durance, it is coming up
in the Fear and Greed playlist on your podcast platform
or at Fearandgreed dot com dot au, which is also
where you sign up for that free daily newsletter that
I keep banging on about. Thank you Sean, Thank you Michael.
It's Thursday, the fourth of December twenty twenty five. Make
sure you're following the podcast and please join us online
(16:28):
on LinkedIn, Instagram, ex TikTok and Facebook.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
I'm Michael Thompson.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
And that was fear and greed. Have a great day.
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