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Speaker 1: Today on Fear and Greed, Australia's unemployment rate falls back

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Speaker 1: to three point nine percent, pretty much wiping out any

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Speaker 1: chance of an interest rate cut in coming months. The

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Speaker 1: federal government will force social media giants to pay publishers

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Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of dollars for content, and Elon Musk

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Speaker 1: becomes the first person to be valued at over four

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Speaker 1: hundred billion US dollars plus. Virgin Australia begins selling long

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Speaker 1: haul flights, putting a bit of competition into the market,

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Speaker 1: and private equity money hits the NFL in the US.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Fear and Greed. Daily business news for people

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Speaker 1: who make their own decisions. It is Friday, the thirteenth

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Speaker 1: of December twenty twenty four. I'm Michael Thompson and good morning,

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Speaker 1: Sean Aylmer.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Michael, Sean.

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Speaker 1: The main story this morning, the unemployment rate has fallen

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Speaker 1: to three point nine percent. It's a bit of a

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Speaker 1: shock result, really, and it adds heavily to the argument

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Speaker 1: that the Reserve Bank should wait until the middle of

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Speaker 1: next year before it starts cutting interest rates.

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Speaker 2: It is the lowest rates since March this year and

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Speaker 2: comes after employment grew by thirty five thousand, six hundred

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Speaker 2: last month according to the Australian Bureau Statistics. The information

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Speaker 2: behind the headline figure is even stronger. Full time employment

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Speaker 2: jumped by fifty two thousand, six hundred, while part time

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Speaker 2: employment fell by seventeen thousand. Even the ABS said it

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Speaker 2: was an unusual number, adding that there was an unusually

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Speaker 2: large amount of people waiting to take up full time

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Speaker 2: jobs in October, which then fed into the November labor

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Speaker 2: force figures. The local jobs market is resilient, to say

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Speaker 2: the least. The number of unemployed people fell by twenty

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Speaker 2: seven thousand, although the participation rate edged lower to sixty

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Speaker 2: seven percent from sixty seven point one percent. Still that's

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Speaker 2: around historical highs. The annual rate of growth is about

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Speaker 2: two point three percent. It means that the labor market

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Speaker 2: is expanding at about the same pace as population growth,

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Speaker 2: So all those people come into the country are finding

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Speaker 2: a job. Quite incredible.

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Speaker 1: Talk to me about interest rates, because I mean, it

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Speaker 1: seems like every couple of days there's a new piece

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Speaker 1: of information that entirely changes the prediction of what's going

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Speaker 1: to happen in terms of interest rate cuts. So what

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Speaker 1: do we expect now?

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Speaker 2: Well, that is a fair point. We had unambiguously soft

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Speaker 2: economic growth figures last week, and on Tuesday the Reserve

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Speaker 2: Bank kind of warded down its language around rate movements

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Speaker 2: in the future and the economy. Basically, they raised hopes

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Speaker 2: of rate cut maybe as early as February. But but

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Speaker 2: but but butts but quad butt go on quite But

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Speaker 2: yesterday's figures support the Central Bank's view that the labor

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Speaker 2: market is still tight and gives the Central Bank a

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Speaker 2: reason not to cut interest rates. I like the idea

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Speaker 2: that we're talking about triple butt being tight, Michael, Let's

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Speaker 2: not go there. Basically, when people have a job, they

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Speaker 2: spend money and that keeps pressure on prices. Certainly, financial

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Speaker 2: markets reacted very quickly to the strong data, with bond

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Speaker 2: markets reducing the chance of a rate cut in February

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Speaker 2: next year. The local share market was higher and opening,

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Speaker 2: and then fell quite sharply after the eleven thirty am

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Speaker 2: announcement to finish the day slightly lower. A bit of

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Speaker 2: corporate news around. We'll talk about most of it later on,

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Speaker 2: but perhaps I should worth mention. O Media, the country's

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Speaker 2: biggest outdoor media group, said it will cut costs by

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Speaker 2: fifteen million dollars in response to challenging market conditions.

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Speaker 1: So no rate cuts in Australia then we can say that,

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Speaker 1: but it looks like there is one on the way

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Speaker 1: in the United States.

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Speaker 2: That followed a positive inflation reading thirty six hours hour,

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Speaker 2: certainly looks like that rates will be cut in the

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Speaker 2: US again. The US inflation or consumer price index rows

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Speaker 2: by zero point three percent in November, two point seven

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Speaker 2: percent for the year. Markets from our price in the

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Speaker 2: ninety five percent chance of a twenty five basis point

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Speaker 2: cut when the FED meets next week. Now, the Bank

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Speaker 2: of Canada and European central banks, they've all cut rates

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Speaker 2: over the past forty eight hours, or say so. Australia's

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Speaker 2: just looking a little lonely at the moment. I mean,

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Speaker 2: we've still got the Bank of Japan. I suppose they're

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Speaker 2: our friends. They're actually lifting rates or almost lifting rates,

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Speaker 2: and otherwise everyone else seems to be cutting them. The

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Speaker 2: inflation figures in the US helped War Street, with the

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Speaker 2: tech heavy NASDAK pushing beyond twenty thousand points for the

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Speaker 2: first time ever. The Nasdaq has almost doubled in the

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Speaker 2: past two years, as the Magnificent seven tech stocks, Apple

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Speaker 2: and Video, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Tesla, and Meta have pushed

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Speaker 2: Wall Street higher and higher. The single biggest question for

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Speaker 2: investors on Wall Street in twenty twenty five is whether

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Speaker 2: the Magnificent seven can keep running well.

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Speaker 1: Tesla certainly seems to keep running. Doesn't know or perhaps

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Speaker 1: it should be driving? No, you know what, stick with

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Speaker 1: running because driving is just like, it's just lazy. That

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Speaker 1: was a terribly lazy pun.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely running. Tesla was a big movie yesterday morning,

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Speaker 2: jumping six percent. It's now valued at one point three

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Speaker 2: trillion US dollars. It's doubled in value since August, if

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Speaker 2: you can believe that, yesterday passed its previous all time

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Speaker 2: high of August twenty twenty one. It's mostly about Elon

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Speaker 2: Musk's relationship with Donald Trump and hopes that Tesla will

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Speaker 2: benefit from the new administration. The jump in Tesla's share

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Speaker 2: price means Elon Musk is now worth about four hundred

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Speaker 2: billion US dollars, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Now

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Speaker 2: a lot of that is Tesla, but also this week

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Speaker 2: we've got an increase in the valuation of SpaceX that

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Speaker 2: boosts his wealth by about fifty billion dollars. Then we

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Speaker 2: have Tesla on top of that. It's just it is phenomenal.

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Speaker 2: Back to Tesla one point three trillion US dollars. For

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Speaker 2: comparison's sake, Toyata two hundred and eighty billion, so one

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Speaker 2: point three trillion, Toyated two hundred and eighty billion, General

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Speaker 2: MOTUS fifty seven billion, Ford forty one billion.

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Speaker 1: So hang on, Elon Musk's wealth is greater than Toyota

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Speaker 1: GM and Ford mined, Yes, that is, yes, great stat

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Speaker 1: that's extraordinary and just a quick mention. Sean. Bitcoin also

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Speaker 1: pushed back above one hundred thousand US dollars a unit.

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Speaker 2: Yes, the inflation news certainly helped, and the crypto is

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Speaker 2: again trading newer record level. All things being equal, lower

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Speaker 2: rates in the US should help the Aussie dollar, but

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Speaker 2: there wasn't much support for it. Yesterday morning. It hit

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Speaker 2: a twelve month low of sixty three point three to

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Speaker 2: four US cents after those US inflation figures. Then came

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Speaker 2: the local jobs figures and it rose back above sixty

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Speaker 2: four US since. Meanwhile, gold is training above twenty seven

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Speaker 2: hundred US dollars announced, Brent crude is rising about seventy

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Speaker 2: four US dollars a barrel iron. All prices are down

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Speaker 2: back towards one hundred US dollars a ton.

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Speaker 1: After the show today, Sean, You've got an interview coming

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Speaker 1: up with Alison George, the head of Impact and Ethics

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Speaker 1: at Australian Ethical. This is a very timely conversation that

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Speaker 1: you're having with Allison.

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Speaker 2: It is because they're putting Australian Ethic all the big

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Speaker 2: super fund is putting pressure on the banks to do

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Speaker 2: a better job when it comes to explaining what they're

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Speaker 2: doing in that ESG space. Now Westpac has its AGM today,

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Speaker 2: National Australian Bank has its a gym next week. Australian

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Speaker 2: Ethical is putting pressure on those banks, but particularly Westpac,

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Speaker 2: to do better in explaining what they're doing around ESG.

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Speaker 2: So we go into that with Alison. It's a fascinating chat.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it sure is. It's a great one to stick

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Speaker 1: around for that. It's coming up after the show. In

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Speaker 1: the meantime, Sean, I've got plenty more to cover. We're

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Speaker 1: talking that huge news for social media companies in Australia

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Speaker 1: or Virgin Australia selling long haul flights and private equity

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Speaker 1: getting into the NFL, so much still to come. We'll

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Speaker 1: be back in a moment with the rest of the

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Speaker 1: day's business news Sean. The alban Easy government is planning

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Speaker 1: to force social media companies to pay for journalism on

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Speaker 1: the sites via a new scheme that I'll impose financial

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Speaker 1: penalties on the companies if they don't contribute to local news.

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Speaker 2: Under the proposed laws, the Australian Tax Office would impose

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Speaker 2: an annual charge on social media and search companies worth

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Speaker 2: more than the value of deals struck under the existing

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Speaker 2: news media bargaining code. That's about two hundred million dollars

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Speaker 2: a year. Platforms that do deals the pay news publishers

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Speaker 2: would then be able to offset the value of those

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Speaker 2: deals against this new ATO levy. Labor will call it

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Speaker 2: a charge. There will also be an uplift factor every year.

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Speaker 2: This is an ongoing issue with the likes of Facebook

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Speaker 2: and Instagram ex Google TikTok whether or not they should

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Speaker 2: pay for content. There has been a news media barking

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Speaker 2: code in place. When it came up for renewal for Meta,

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Speaker 2: which of course looks after Facebook, Insta, Threads, and WhatsApp,

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Speaker 2: it just simply refused to renegotiate payments to media outlets.

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Speaker 2: The social media groups have been paying the publishers about

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Speaker 2: two hundred million dollars annually, and since Meta pulled out,

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Speaker 2: there's actually been redundancies in league legacy media organizations. Under

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Speaker 2: this new policy, called the News Bargaining Incentive, any platform

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Speaker 2: that refuses to negotiate with publishers or removes its news

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Speaker 2: from its platforms, and metaged that in Canada for example,

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Speaker 2: well it would still be hit with his Ato levy,

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Speaker 2: so they could be paying hundreds of millions of dollars

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Speaker 2: for nothing. It is a very very aggressive move by

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Speaker 2: the Albanezi government.

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Speaker 1: Certainly as they are not holding back on this one.

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Speaker 1: Speaking of politics, childcare Sean is set to be front

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Speaker 1: and center in the upcoming federal election campaign after the

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Speaker 1: coalition said it won't support government plans to change the

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Speaker 1: rules around accessing financial support.

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Speaker 2: So earlier in the week, Prime Minister Anthony Albernezi talked

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Speaker 2: about what's known as the activity test for child care payments.

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Speaker 2: He said they would remove that the test. It requires

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Speaker 2: parents to have a job, be looking for work studying

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Speaker 2: before they can receive subacidies for childcare payments. Always been

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Speaker 2: a thorny issue. The Prime Minister also announced a one

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Speaker 2: billion dollar fund, an early education fund to help build

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Speaker 2: or expand one hundred and sixty child care facilities in

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Speaker 2: what they call childcare deserts, places where there's high demand

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Speaker 2: and few facilities. The Opposition yesterday said it wouldn't support

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Speaker 2: the changes, notwithstanding many in the business community, including the

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Speaker 2: Business Council of Australia, actually do support these changes. The

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Speaker 2: government's also considering a scheme where families would pay a

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Speaker 2: flat fee of ten dollars or twenty dollars a day

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Speaker 2: for childcare with no activity test. Clearly this is going

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Speaker 2: to be a very big election issue, which has to

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Speaker 2: be held by the middle of May next year.

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Speaker 1: I mentioned Virgin Australia a couple of times now actually Shine,

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Speaker 1: it's begun selling long haul flights as part of its

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Speaker 1: deal with Qatar Airlines, injecting a healthy amount of competition,

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Speaker 1: one would say into international airfares.

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Speaker 2: Yes, we're not here, Tom, Virgin Australian, of course, but

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Speaker 2: single but ah, you know something, Their long haul flights

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Speaker 2: are on sale. There is more competition. That's a good thing.

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Speaker 2: The economy class sale fairs from Sydney, Brisbane and Perth

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Speaker 2: via delha to a bunch of European destinations are now available.

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Speaker 2: Melbourne is coming soon. Prices to places like Paris, London

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Speaker 2: Rome return under two thousand dollars. Very exciting. Business class

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Speaker 2: seats are also on sale. This's a bit of a

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Speaker 2: hiccup yesterday. They didn't go on sale initially because of

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Speaker 2: some technical issue, but apparently they're on sale. Virgin CEO

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Speaker 2: Jane Hurdleck has said that the partnership also brings benefits

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Speaker 2: to exporters because it helps them get their goods into

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Speaker 2: the Middle East via Virgin. Australia agricultural businesses in particular

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Speaker 2: should benefit. As I said, we're not promoting Virgin, but

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Speaker 2: more competition in long haul flights is a good thing

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Speaker 2: I reckon.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, overall for the entire sector. It does always worry me, though,

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Speaker 1: Sean whenever you start talking about international travel and you

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Speaker 1: start covering stories about airfares and all of these things,

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Speaker 1: and typically you trace it back and this has happened

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Speaker 1: a couple of times now. These stories start popping up

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Speaker 1: and about a week later you say, oh, by the way,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to insert kind of European country here, and

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you've been inspired to disappear for

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Speaker 1: a week or two.

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Speaker 2: Three ways, that is a lie, because a genuine lie.

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Speaker 2: Because it's not just European countries.

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Speaker 1: It's also the US, it's Asia basically, and you are

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Speaker 1: a truly global traveler, Sean, So stand by for the

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Speaker 1: announcement in coming weeks where you're going next, I'm sure now.

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Speaker 1: The share price of infrastructure services provider Ventire tumbled yesterday

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Speaker 1: on news that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commissioners started

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Speaker 1: proceedings against it and Spotless for alleged historical price fixing.

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Speaker 2: Spotless is nowadays owned by Downer Edi, so vent Here

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Speaker 2: and Downer Edi are caught up in this. Their share

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Speaker 2: prices fell yesterday. The case relates to a multi billion

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Speaker 2: dollar contract with the Federal Defense Department to provide maintenance

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Speaker 2: and operational services to two hundred bases around the country.

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Speaker 2: Spotless currently has a four billion dollar contract with Defense.

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Speaker 2: Ventia has a five point eight billion dollar contract. The

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Speaker 2: contracts are due to expire mid next year. According to

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Speaker 2: a report in the afar Now, the HBC alleges that

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Speaker 2: executives from the two companies made or tried to make

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Speaker 2: arrangements to fix the prices at which Spotless, Ventire and

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Speaker 2: a third group, Canadian crowd called BGIS, supplied services to

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Speaker 2: Defense between April twenty nineteen and August twenty twenty two.

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Speaker 2: A Triple C chairwoman, Gina Cascottlieb, said the alleged conduct

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Speaker 2: caused direct harm to taxpayers. Downer has denied the allegations.

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Speaker 2: Venti has said it's reviewing the details before commenting.

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Speaker 1: Alright this one, sean. Another Australian company has been caught

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Speaker 1: up in the civil unrest in Mozambique. Resources has declared

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Speaker 1: a force masure event at its graphite mine in the country.

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Speaker 2: Force masure, by definition is well, I don't know what

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Speaker 2: it is. Is it an act of God? Isn't it

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Speaker 2: that what force masure?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, because we always see it pop up in countries.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of the idea of

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Speaker 2: something happening that's totally unforeseeable, an active God. Now, in business,

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Speaker 2: force masure clauses and contracts means that a company isn't

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Speaker 2: liable for unforeseeable or you know, unavoidable catastrophes. Basically that's

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Speaker 2: what Syrah Resources has said. The unrest in Mozambique has

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Speaker 2: been going on since the election. Since its election in

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Speaker 2: late October, more than one hundred people have been killed.

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Speaker 2: On Wednesday, South thirty two said it was worried about

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Speaker 2: its supply chain. It's at its aluminium plant in that country.

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Speaker 2: Now Sira Resources has been caught up. The group said

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Speaker 2: the unrest is hindering its ability to conduct operations, hence

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Speaker 2: force masure okay.

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Speaker 1: Owing to International News Now, the UN General Assembly has

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Speaker 1: overwhelmingly approved resolutions demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and

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Speaker 1: backing the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees, which Israel wants banned.

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Speaker 2: There were one hundred and fifty eight votes in favor

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Speaker 2: of both motions, including Australia's votes. Israel and the US

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Speaker 2: were in the small minority speaking and voting against the resolutions.

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Speaker 2: General Assembly resolutions aren't legally binding, but basically they reflect

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Speaker 2: world opinion. There's no vetos, for example, in the General

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Speaker 2: Assembly now. The vote occurred after the US vtaid a

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Speaker 2: Security Council resolution last month demanding an immediate Gaza ceasefire.

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Speaker 2: The real significance, well, it is very significant because of

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Speaker 2: what's going on. The significance in Australia specifically, is the

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Speaker 2: fact that we have opted to vote against Israel in

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Speaker 2: this instance. Previously, well generally we're abstained or we've followed

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Speaker 2: the US lead. We're not doing that anymore.

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Speaker 1: Finally, Sean, I know this is a story that you

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Speaker 1: will be fascinated by because you just you seem to

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Speaker 1: have a genuine kind of excitement for US sports, but

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Speaker 1: also where business and US sports collide, and this is

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Speaker 1: a perfect example of that. Private equity companies are buying

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Speaker 1: into US NFL teams for the first time after rule

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Speaker 1: changes allowed these financial giants to invest in ownership of franchises.

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Speaker 2: So ownership of NFL teams in the US has been

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Speaker 2: a closed shop, only uber rich individuals allowed in now

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Speaker 2: having said that, to actually buy so the Chicago Bears

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Speaker 2: has been owned by the same family since nineteen twenty.

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Speaker 2: Oh wow, Yeah, phenomenal. And the NFL is a very

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Speaker 2: close shop, very different from the ep of the English

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Speaker 2: Premier League. For example, in August this year, the owners

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Speaker 2: of the NFL teams agreed to let investors in private equity.

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Speaker 2: For example, now Areas Management are quite a ten percent

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Speaker 2: stake in the Miami Dolphins, franchise, buying it from a

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Speaker 2: real state mogul Stephen Ross. The Ft is reporting that

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Speaker 2: the steak is costing around eight hundred million US dollars,

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Speaker 2: which obviously values Miami Dolphins at about eight billion dollars.

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Speaker 2: Areas will also get stakes in the Dolphins Hard Rock

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Speaker 2: Stadium in Miami and the Formula one Miami GP. It

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Speaker 2: already has stakes in the European football teams and the

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Speaker 2: McLaren F one racing team, so big investor in sport.

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Speaker 2: The other deal, ARCDOS has a quite a minority stake

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Speaker 2: in the Buffalo Bills, another NFL team. It already has

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Speaker 2: stakes in baseball teams the LA Dodgers the San Francisco Giants.

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Speaker 2: It's involved in the basketball franchise the Utah Jazz. Also

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Speaker 2: has stakes in Paris Saint Germain the football team, and

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Speaker 2: the Aston Martin F one team. It's just really interesting

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Speaker 2: that the big pe guys are now pushing in to

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Speaker 2: American sport, and NFL is easily the most valuable franchises

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Speaker 2: in the world, well in front of EPL, the English

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Speaker 2: Premier League or the League, or in front of baseball

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Speaker 2: and basketball in the US, and it's being open up

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Speaker 2: to them, so I would imagine demand will be strong,

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Speaker 2: so they could get even more valuable.

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Speaker 1: So I told you you were fascinated by the American sport.

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Speaker 2: Is that the actual sport part is much better, Like

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Speaker 2: college sport is more fun than professional sport, but the

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Speaker 2: business of professional sport is amazing.

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Speaker 1: I reckon. I could have just said NFL to you,

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Speaker 1: just just those three letters and then just turn off

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Speaker 1: you ike and walk home, and you would have just

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Speaker 1: been talking for the next time.

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Speaker 2: I reckon, I reckon. I'm going to bag that for

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Speaker 2: the weekend edition.

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Speaker 1: That one, of course you will, Yeah, that'll be your

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Speaker 1: favorite story or the most remarkable story or one of

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Speaker 1: those ones tomorrow in the weekend edition. Don't miss that one.

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Speaker 1: Up next is the Fear and Greed Daily Interview. Alison George,

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Speaker 1: head of Impact and Ethics at Australian Ethical, is your

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Speaker 1: guest and at midday today Sean ask Fear and Greed

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Speaker 1: is coming up, which is where we answer listen to questions.

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Speaker 1: If you've got your own questions, send it on through

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Speaker 1: to us via our website or one of our social

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Speaker 1: media platforms. Today's question is a good one because it's

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Speaker 1: all about productivity.

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Speaker 2: And yeah, now you're laughing at me because I kind

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Speaker 2: of get a bit excitement. It's an economic concept and

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Speaker 2: my background is in economics, and so I start talking

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Speaker 2: about how it's measured, and you know, about three or

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Speaker 2: four minutes into it. Just stay with me if you're

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Speaker 2: listening to it, Michael goes Sean really dull Solfa, pick

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Speaker 2: it up. That's basically how it goes.

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Speaker 1: Yep, and you really you've finished with a lot of pep.

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Speaker 1: And I enjoyed good, good, good. So check out that

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Speaker 1: one at midday. Thank you very much, Sean.

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Speaker 2: Thanks Michael.

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Speaker 1: It's Friday, the thirteenth of December twenty twenty four. Make

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Speaker 1: sure you're following the podcast and please join us online

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Speaker 1: on LinkedIn, Instagram, x TikTok and Facebook. I'm Michael Pumpson.

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Speaker 1: And that was Fear and Greed. Have a great day.