A week of ‘popular nonsense’. April 3, 2026

**Scott Phillips** (0:04)
Chairs, the S&P, the ISX, stocks.

**LiSTNR** (0:07)
This is Motley Fool Money.

**Scott Phillips** (0:10)
Welcome to Motley Fool Money, the podcast that is going to try and be really positive today, but it's going to find it really, really difficult. You have been warned, and not just because I'm joined by Andrew Page, who is the founder and managing director of Australia's premier online investment club, and I'm led to believe soon to be the one app you need for everything in your life. WhatsApp, WeChat, no, Strawman. The everything app. thorstrawman.com, the everything app. Coming to you soon from the brain, the fingers, the energy, the enthusiasm, the passion, the intellect of Andrew Ram Page. Mr. Page, how are you?

**Andrew Page** (0:47)
I'm very good, sir, very good. Let me dispel those rumors. I don't know where you got that from, but I'm gonna dispel that very quickly. I have no intention of doing it.

**Scott Phillips** (0:57)
Not gonna be the everything app?

**Andrew Page** (0:59)
No, no, no, no. I mean, I think it's an interesting idea. That's what X was going to be, is going to be, right?

**Scott Phillips** (1:08)
There's a business in Asia called Grab, which I had not heard of until one of our guys, Darius is a great guy who works for us as an analyst. He was in Southeast Asia recently, and that's kind of a bit of an everything app as well, which is fascinating.

**Andrew Page** (1:22)
So there's a couple around.

**Scott Phillips** (1:24)
Yeah.

**Andrew Page** (1:24)
I mean, let's not go too far down this rabbit hole, but there is great convenience being on a single ecosystem, great platform. It is a little bit of a, I mean, it depends, right? It depends as always, but as sort of like, we're putting a lot of digital infrastructure in the hands of one private corporation.

**Scott Phillips** (1:46)
So you're saying, how you learn his, my life, that's probably a bad decision. Is that what you're saying?

**Andrew Page** (1:51)
I look, I mean, here's the thing, right? Cause that's always going to divide people. Cause now he's great. He's an advocate for free speech and the rest, but it's all, it's my point is always, well, it doesn't matter who the person is, they're a person and people are flawed. And if it's not, even if this particular person happens to be great, what's the next person going to be like, right? Like, I don't know.

**Scott Phillips** (2:13)
Yeah, fair, fair. Hey, mate, so let's, well, firstly, I'm Scott Phillips from the Motley Fool. If you're new to this podcast, strap in. The, we've been told before that-

**Andrew Page** (2:24)
Sunshine, rainbows and lollipops for the next hour and a bit.

**Scott Phillips** (2:28)
Well, that's the thing, right? So we've been told before, you guys are too tough on the government and get down and all that kind of stuff. And I even had to this week, only, so we recorded this on Thursday morning, the 2nd of April as we do record on Thursday mornings. And I think it was this morning or yesterday. I even felt compelled to actually add to one of my tweets. I know people think I'm being political. I know they think I'm giving the government a hard time all the time. That's just what I do. I just really like some decent policies so I didn't have to.
I'm not trying to be, I'm not trying to be mean to just like, give me something to work with, guys. So we are going to spend a bit of time talking about things and heads up, not much has been good this week in terms of the macro, with one exception actually, we'll talk about the RBA and credit card surcharges at the end. But if we get to it, I shouldn't say that because frankly, don't promise what you can't deliver. The internet doesn't have enough space yet for this podcast, maybe.

**Andrew Page** (3:18)
How many petabytes do we need?

**Scott Phillips** (3:21)
More is the answer, more. Yeah, so heads up, we will talk about it constructively, absolutely. I just got to say, this has not been a great week for the government in terms of the policies and statements. So we're going to talk about it because that's what we should do.

**Andrew Page** (3:34)
Maybe it is a good week for the government, right? Maybe it will be a receivable talk. Well, I'm just saying.

**Scott Phillips** (3:41)
The politics, you mean?

**Andrew Page** (3:42)
Yeah, like in terms of, I mean, you're framing, oh bless your cotton socks, you're framing it as in what actually matters for real people in the real world. I'm talking about what may be in people's heads, it seems like, because they're not doing it because, you know, they're doing it because it sounds good. And it does kind of sound good, a lot of the things that have been said, but we'll unpack that a little bit. And maybe to be constructive, we'll throw in some alternate paths that could have been pursued.