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Michael Thompson: Welcome to Ask Fear and Greed, where we answer questions

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Michael Thompson: about business, investing, economics, politics and more. I'm Michael Thompson

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Michael Thompson: and hello, Sean Almer, Hello Michael Jean. I like today's

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Michael Thompson: question because it's got a bit of attitude in it.

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Michael Thompson: I'll share it with you. It's very short. Is productivity

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Michael Thompson: just a fancy word for work harder for the same money.

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Michael Thompson: It's a good point, it's a great question.

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Sean Aylmer: Fair point, it's a fair point. And if you work

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Sean Aylmer: harder for the same money and output increases, that's exactly

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Sean Aylmer: what productivity is.

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Michael Thompson: There we go and success.

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Sean Aylmer: It's just like that, a little more nuanced. So productivity

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Sean Aylmer: refers to how much output can be produced with a

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Sean Aylmer: given set of inputs. So if a person is working

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Sean Aylmer: on a job and they work harder and increase output,

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Sean Aylmer: then their productivity has increased, which is fair.

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Michael Thompson: Now, it's so your work, how do you do that?

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Sean Aylmer: It's much more than that labor productivity, which has been

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Sean Aylmer: argued about ever since work began and will continue ever.

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Sean Aylmer: It thus is to find us as output per worker

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Sean Aylmer: or output per hour work one or the other. If

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Sean Aylmer: you think about that, I'm using AI to create an email,

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Sean Aylmer: makes it faster. I'm becoming more productive. Right, so technology

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Sean Aylmer: is helping me to become more productive. So that's not

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Sean Aylmer: me working harder, that's actually me working smarter. A good salesperson,

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Sean Aylmer: for example, who's better at selling than someone else, is

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Sean Aylmer: more productive than that other person, someone who might be

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Sean Aylmer: good at technology. You are better at technology than me, right, Yes,

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Sean Aylmer: therefore you can be more more productive.

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Michael Thompson: Sorry, sorry to agree with you so quickly.

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Sean Aylmer: There.

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Michael Thompson: I have tried you set up the fear and read

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Michael Thompson: daily newsletter.

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Sean Aylmer: I thought I was doing pretty well. And then and

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Sean Aylmer: often businesses try introduce change management practice practices, like you know,

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Sean Aylmer: at Fear and Greed, we could suggest to atom Lung

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Sean Aylmer: we have fewer meetings that might be more productive. So

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Sean Aylmer: it's not just about someone working harder, it's actually working smarter.

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Sean Aylmer: And generally bosses don't want people to work harder, they

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Sean Aylmer: want them to work smarter. Okay, So that's kind of

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Sean Aylmer: the whole labor productivity thing. Then there's this thing called

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Sean Aylmer: multi factor productivity that's output per unity input. Labor is

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Sean Aylmer: part of that, okay, but it's like raw materials, energy,

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Sean Aylmer: all that stuff. It's a bit tricky productivity because the

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Sean Aylmer: abs the strain Bureau Statistics measures it and what it

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Sean Aylmer: does is output per unit of input for different industry

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Sean Aylmer: sectors economy. You can't get very granular on it.

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Michael Thompson: I was going to say, they would have to be

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Michael Thompson: a hard thing to measure and to compare.

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Sean Aylmer: Right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a bit rubber. Now, Australia

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Sean Aylmer: doesn't have a good productivity track record in recent years.

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Sean Aylmer: Lots of so where we really did well in productivities

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Sean Aylmer: often where you have big industrial relations reforms where let's

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Sean Aylmer: give the example where everyone got paid more on a

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Sean Aylmer: Saturday and even more on a Sunday than they did

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Sean Aylmer: Monday to Friday, and we had extended shopping hours. When

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Sean Aylmer: they introduced a modern award, that actually meant that everyone

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Sean Aylmer: got a little bit more, but you didn't get a

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Sean Aylmer: lot more on the weekends. And that was actually a

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Sean Aylmer: productivity improvement because they're actually getting more output per unit

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Sean Aylmer: of input because the cost went down in some cases. Okay,

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Sean Aylmer: And the question is why is productivity so important? Well,

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Sean Aylmer: if there's more output per unit of input, so the

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Sean Aylmer: company gets that, they might give their workers more wages,

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Sean Aylmer: they might take more of it, which means good for shareholders.

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Sean Aylmer: They might actually decide let's cut prices because we've got

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Sean Aylmer: more of this stuff and people can buy, you know,

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Sean Aylmer: sl apply and demand will reduce prices. So overall, productivity

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Sean Aylmer: helps economic growth higher living standards. But it's a very

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Sean Aylmer: tricky thing to measure, and in theory at least, it's

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Sean Aylmer: about working smarter rather than harder.

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Michael Thompson: Okay, So is productivity just a fancy word for work

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Michael Thompson: harder For the same money, it is a fancy word

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Michael Thompson: for work smarter wherever possible improve your efficiency at the

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Michael Thompson: way you're producing your output stuff.

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Sean Aylmer: Yeah, and that might be working harder. And so like productivity,

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Sean Aylmer: increasing your output because you're working harder, that might be.

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Sean Aylmer: And if you don't work particularly hard Michael, then for example,

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Sean Aylmer: you're working harder might actually be huge productivity improvement.

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Michael Thompson: For this feels like that was partly prompted by my

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Michael Thompson: remark about you trying to set up the daily newsletter.

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Sean Aylmer: Not at all, Michael, not at all.

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Michael Thompson: But remember, nothing will ever be as good as the

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Michael Thompson: time our fear and greed. Colleague Adam Lang set up

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Michael Thompson: our website site back in the early days and somehow

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Michael Thompson: managed to make it look like it was a website

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Michael Thompson: from like an Eastern European dictatorship, and the homepage was

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Michael Thompson: this giant portrait of him dictator and it was just

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Michael Thompson: it was glorious. Anyway, we digress, but it was good.

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Michael Thompson: If you know what, head along to fearangreed dot com

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Michael Thompson: dot AU. Now you won't see that big kind of

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Michael Thompson: dictator portrait anymore, but you will see a link to

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Michael Thompson: sign up for the daily newsletter, which is entirely free.

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Michael Thompson: Great productivity. You know what the newsletter is. It's a

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Michael Thompson: productivity booster.

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Sean Aylmer: Yes, because output input. I just reckon, I'm working harder.

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Michael Thompson: Yeah. I wasn't talking about your product. I mean the

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Michael Thompson: productivity of those people reading it, because it's an input

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Michael Thompson: and it will massively boost your OUTPUTO point. Yeah, there

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Michael Thompson: we go. How about that. I actually listened to what

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Michael Thompson: you said and I took it and I used it

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Michael Thompson: to make an educated point. Excellent, Well done, Thank you

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Michael Thompson: all right, Thanks Seawan.

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Sean Aylmer: Thanks Michael.

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Michael Thompson: Remember, if you've got something that you would like to know,

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Michael Thompson: then please send me your question on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook

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Michael Thompson: or fearangreed dot com dot at you. I'm Michael Thompson

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Michael Thompson: and this is ask Fear and Greed