GDP, monetary policy and the status quo effect. June 5, 2026

**SPEAKER_2** (0:02)
A LISTNER PRODUCTION.

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

**SPEAKER_2** (0:07)
This is Motley Fool Money.

**Scott Phillips** (0:09)
Welcome to Motley Fool Money, the podcast that, like Elon Musk, is not yet worth $1 trillion. I'm Scott Phillips from the Motley Fool, I'm A100 Air. This man, of course, is almost a trillionaire because he started Australia's premier online investment club, which, of course, morphed into the buy and low of the Wall-E movie. It is almost pretty much the everything store like amazon.com. The world is his oyster and the ambition is clear. He is, of course, Andrew Ram Page, the man who gave birth, nurtured, and has actually helped flourish the website called strawman.com.
Mr. Page, how are you?

**Andrew Ram Page** (0:43)
G'day, mate, I'm good. I'm good. How's things?

**Scott Phillips** (0:45)
Better now. I was just going to go make a coffee while you started the introduction.

**Andrew Ram Page** (0:49)
I'll be back in 10 minutes.

**Scott Phillips** (0:51)
You wouldn't miss this. Come on. A bit of ego pumping. No one's going to say no to that. No, I'm not going to.

**Andrew Ram Page** (0:56)
I'd keep an ear out in the background.

**Scott Phillips** (0:59)
How are you, mate?

**SPEAKER_2** (1:00)
Yeah, good. Yeah, really good. No news, really.

**Andrew Ram Page** (1:04)
Just trucking along.

**Scott Phillips** (1:05)
Good, good. Keep the wheels turning.

**Andrew Ram Page** (1:07)
Yeah, keeping the wheels turning. Yeah, what about yourself?

**Scott Phillips** (1:10)
Well, so life is good. I'm not an optimist. You know I'm an optimist. But let's kick off with the what this week, because GDP numbers are out this week. So I'm well. The economy is okay.
If I'm drawing a chart, if I'm putting dots on a line, not to forecast anything, just to kind of show where we have been and where we are, the line's kind of trending down, right? It just feels a bit uncomfortably, not flat, not going up, but kind of going down. And no, never extrapolate. Otherwise, everything always goes to zero or a million. And we know that reality is bumpier than that. But the GDP numbers were pretty ordinary this week, I thought.

**Andrew Ram Page** (1:53)
Well, I mean, I, okay, I'm going to, good faith, good faith discussion.

**Scott Phillips** (1:59)
Okay.

**Andrew Ram Page** (2:00)
Isn't this exactly what they wanted? Wait, let me paint a picture.

**Scott Phillips** (2:06)
Yeah, yeah.

**Andrew Ram Page** (2:07)
And you have to, you have to sort of suspend disbelief in a certain view of what the economy is and how it works. So this is easier for some than others.
So inflation, cost of living, running rampant, it's out of control. Cost of living crisis. Oh, it's terrible. And it is. I found myself like I'm being sarcastic.

**Scott Phillips** (2:28)
No, no, I was like, really?

**Andrew Ram Page** (2:30)
Change my tone. It is a horrible, horrible, horrible thing. And so the Reserve Bank goes, well, too much demand. We better slow the economy.
So they raise interest rates and the economy slows. And now we're, wait, the economy is slowing. It's a disaster. And I'm being, I'm being a little facetious.
But I've been also very serious. Like, are we non-entertained? Are we not getting exactly what we quote unquote, we engineered?

**Scott Phillips** (3:13)
So I think yes.

**Andrew Ram Page** (3:13)
What am I missing?

**Scott Phillips** (3:14)
No, no, I think yes. I think, well, the the the Holy Grail, of course, is this is the so-called soft landing, right? So I think, and this is kind of, I don't just agree with anything you said. I've said a million times, I think a recession is preferable to continue high inflation, which works out like a heartless bastard. We've talked about this on the podcast before. So I'm going to assume most of the listeners have listened to that one and know without me having to re-prosecute the entire case, that not a deep recession or a long recession, but given the choice between sustained high inflation or a recession, a recession is the better choice. Long term, for the country, the recession is the better choice. It's still the best thing for the country, right? So I mean, look, I-

**Andrew Ram Page** (3:52)
That's a bit of people to swallow. I was like, hey Ted, you're unemployed. Oh, but it's good for the country, like, okay.

**Scott Phillips** (4:00)
And yet that's policy, right? I mean, that's not tax policy, it's warfare policy. It's just, it is, it has to be, it must be. Everything is- And it's the-

**Andrew Ram Page** (4:09)
How many people in Canberra lost their job?