Joe Righetti

Co-owner of Wattletree Consulting. Views expressed should not be considered advice or an indication on where we see markets heading. Retweets ≠ endorsement.

[Joe Righetti @RighettiJoe]

@LyleShelton Bizarre that anyone woud oppose this Bill.

[Joe Righetti @RighettiJoe]

@ProfJoannaHowe Congratulations!

[Joe Righetti @RighettiJoe]

@TMFScottP you might be right, but is that just your guess, or do you have evidence leaning in that direction?

[Joe Righetti @RighettiJoe]

This.

On reading this, my overwhelming sense was that it had been drafted by Iran.

[Javier Blas @JavierBlas]

My colleagues at Bloomberg News obtained a copy of the text of the 14-point draft memorandum between the US and Iran (which is scheduled to be formally signed Friday, June 19, in Geneva). Neither the White House nor Tehran have published yet the text.

https://t.co/F13En30IF5

[Joe Righetti @RighettiJoe]

@Scutty but yields across the developed world are trending higher. Plus, there are no signs of a change to the fiscal settings in Oz, or to productivity, or pvt aggregate expenditure growth due to very high immigration. Plus, Trumps deal leaves a lot of unsettled issues.

[Joe Righetti @RighettiJoe]

Very interesting.

[Camus @newstart_2024]

Jordan Peterson made a profound point on Chris Williamson’s podcast.

When God dies, a lot of unexpected things die with Him, including science.

Science isn’t some purely neutral, secular tool. It rests on deeply religious assumptions: that truth exists, that it’s knowable, that pursuing it is good, and that the universe makes sense.

These aren’t scientific claims, they’re metaphysical, rooted in a religious worldview. The universities themselves grew out of monasteries.

Without that deeper foundation, science eventually stops being about truth and becomes just another tool for power, ideology, or convenience. You lose the reason to be honest when the data gets inconvenient.

Do you think science can survive long-term without any belief in objective truth or a higher moral order?

[Paul Bassat @PaulBassat]

We are in uncharted waters in Australia. There are deep cracks in both the political and economic foundations that have shaped this country for decades.

For 80 years we had a stable two-party system, where the main centre-right and centre-left parties together attracted more than three quarters of the primary vote. In recent years there has been a political earthquake. Support for the major parties has fallen below 50% of the primary vote. A party that sat at the margins of Australian political debate for 30 years is suddenly the most popular party in the country.

This political earthquake isn’t occurring in a vacuum.

“It’s the economy, stupid.” A lot has changed in recent decades. One thing hasn’t. Australians reasonably expect that economic prosperity will be the non-negotiable foundation of the Australian promise, and that each generation will be better off than the one before it.

That is no longer our reality. Productivity growth is the foundation of national prosperity, and it has been anaemic in Australia for over a decade. Real income per household is still below pre-Covid levels and the cost of living is soaring.

So why are we in a post-productivity era, and why are Australians doing it so tough?

There are many reasons: low levels of business investment, excessive red tape, fewer new businesses being created, and plummeting business dynamism, with fewer people moving from established, low-productivity companies to newer, more dynamic ones.

There is plenty of blame to share. Our current federal and state Governments inherited many of these challenges. They have been decades in the making, as the benefits of the great economic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s wore off and were replaced by poor policy settings.

This is the reality we are operating in. We desperately need an economic reboot, and pro-productivity, pro-growth policies.

The Government’s response is a budget that does the opposite. It destroys the incentive for companies to invest. It destroys the incentive for companies to hire. It destroys the incentive for people to start something new. It is exactly the wrong set of policies at exactly the wrong time.

There is a silver lining. For the first time in a long time, we are having a real debate about the kind of country we want to be. Australians are making their voices heard, advocating for an Australia where ambition and aspiration are admired and encouraged, not denigrated.

We are a remarkable country with a great standard of living and quality of life and high levels of social cohesion. It is time to stop taking these things for granted and fighting for a better Australia.

That is the conversation we need to have.

[Joe Righetti @RighettiJoe]

Assuming around 30% of people have no kids at all, it takes just about everyone else that does have kids to have at least 3 just to get to replacement levels.

[More Births @MoreBirths]

There is a strong 2-child-norm in most countries. That means low birthrates are mathematically guaranteed because some percentage will always be childless.

If only 70% of young women have children at all, then it would take a 3-child-norm just to get 2.1.

See my article below!

[Joe Righetti @RighettiJoe]

@DurhamWASP This enunciates perfectly why beauty is essential for progress in civilization. And it's also why the Marxists and others wanted brutish art that reflected reality as they put it, as it removes the beauty that can inspire us to dream big and reach beyond base instincts and

[Joe Righetti @RighettiJoe]

@DurhamWASP sometimes despair. Beauty was also considered more accessible to the so-called bourgeoisie. Beauty provides a road map to a higher way of living and a better civilization.

[Joe Righetti @RighettiJoe]

@DurhamWASP This enunciates perfectly why beauty is essential for progress in civilization. And it's also why the Marxists and others wanted brutish art that reflected reality as they put it, as it removes the beauty that can inspire us to dream big and reach beyond base instincts and

[Joe Righetti @RighettiJoe]

@ASX__Trader said they were going to hand out money in one form or another to help people manage inflation, there would be a much higher degree of scrutiny. Instead, they're seen as compassionate.

[Joe Righetti @RighettiJoe]

@ASX__Trader The term 'cost of living pressure' has become ubiquitous, and it is very dangerous, as it obscures what is actually just inflation. It allows govt to get away with ongoing spending which exacebates the inflation, because they're 'helping' with cost of living pressure. If the govt

[Joe Righetti @RighettiJoe]

@cmkusher @cjoye Our current leaders seem to be pretty close to being economically illiterate.

[Joe Righetti @RighettiJoe]

@AlboMP = INFLATION!

[Joe Righetti @RighettiJoe]

@GrayConnolly This rule can be applied to many things and in the presence of future ambiguity, something close to an 80% solution now also avoids the risk of total failure seeking perfection. Plus, he who has will be given more. That good solution now will often lead to further successes.

[Joe Righetti @RighettiJoe]

Seems about right.

[Joe Righetti @RighettiJoe]

@matt_barrie @cjoye Matt. Of course they can't rule it out. No one knows how or when the war with Iran will end.

[Joe Righetti @RighettiJoe]

@cjoye So, for profits above 180k, you are working 51.8% of your time for the govt and 48.2% of your time for yourself.

[Joe Righetti @RighettiJoe]

@leighjasper It's not just the tech sector. There are lots of small biz entrepreneurs with start-ups, taking risk and doing it very tough for some years to get their businesses up and running. This kicks them as well.