The Jolly Swagman Podcast

The logic is inevitable: credit is as much a feature of housing bubbles as the moon is of nighttime. And to sustain price rises, underwriting standards must eventually be relaxed. Few know this better than John Hempton. John is the cofounder and CIO of Australian-based hedge fund Bronte Capital. In 2016, he and Jonathan Tepper of Variant Perception toured Western Sydney -- undercover -- to investigate bank underwriting standards. John and I discuss what they uncovered as well as the likely scenario for Australian house prices and Australia’s economy over the next three years.

Bubbles are everywhere today -- or so we’re told. But what are they really? I speak with behavioural macroeconomist from the Australian National University Dr Timo Henckel. We discuss how to define bubbles, the psychology of investor contagion, and why bubbles occur not so much in the absence, but with the help, of strong “economic fundamentals”.

Chris Joye manages $3 billion as the Co-Chief Investment Officer at Australian fixed-income manager Coolabah Capital Investments, and is a contributing editor with The Australian Financial Review. He also has a long familiarity with the Australian housing market. In 2003, then-Director of the Menzies Research Centre Malcolm Turnbull commissioned Chris, fresh out of Cambridge University, to be the principal author of the 380-page Prime Minister's Home Ownership Task Force Report. In this conversation, Joe asks Chris why he paradoxically believes Australia’s housing market is a bubble that likely won’t crash. They also discuss the importance of investor expectations, and how the extent of national price falls may be larger than 15%, peak-to-trough, if these animal spirits are allowed to become too pessimistic.

Timur Kuran is a Turkish American economist, Professor of Economics and Political Science, and Gorter Family Professor in Islamic Studies at Duke University. In 2017, Timur Kuran and legal scholar Cass Sunstein advanced an incredibly powerful construct called an availability cascade. Availability cascades combine informational cascades and reputational cascades, and are mediated by the availability heuristic (all will be explained in the podcast). Joe and Timur talk about the application of availability cascades to housing bubbles, and the ‘availability entrepreneurs’ who populate housing bubbles.

We all know that real estate is the best long-term investment for capital gains, and property investors should just hold through the ups and downs of the market. Right? But is that really true? To answer that question we need to take a long run view of real house prices. Piet Eichholtz is the Fortis Professor of Finance and Real Estate and the Finance Department Chair at Maastricht University. In 1997, he created the Herengracht Index, which, beginning in 1628, is the longest running house prices index in the world.

I speak with Dean Baker, US economist and co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research based in Washington, D.C. Dean is widely regarded as one of the first economists to have discovered the existence of the US housing bubble. I learn what indicators led him to make that call and what lessons his experience holds for future bubble-seers.

I announce ‘Housing Bubble Week’ and share a speech I gave in Sydney in September 2018.

Will MacAskill is an Associate Professor in Philosophy at the University of Oxford. He is also one of the founders of the Effective Altruism movement and the author of Doing Good Better. In this conversation, Joe and Will discuss the origins, the why, and the how of Effective Altruism -- an exciting movement and philosophy that can help you do good better.

Bret Weinstein came to public prominence as the professor at the centre of the 2017 Evergreen State College protests. He is a well-known member of the “Intellectual Dark Web”. This episode isn’t about any of that, for Bret’s main trade is evolutionary biology. Joe and Bret discuss his journey as a thinker in this field, and the ideas that define his evolutionary toolkit. They also address the two controversial issues of group selection and the evolution of religion.

Sadly, Angus is stepping down as co-host, to focus on bigger and better things. Joe, your regular host for 2018, will be continuing the podcast as a lone-wolf. The lads share the news, and reflect on the journey they've had as well as the future of the pod.

Signature moments from some of our crazy conversations in the year sandwiched between 2017 and 2019.

This is a conversation with renowned moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt about his new book The Coddling of The American Mind, co-authored with Greg Lukianoff. Jonathan is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University, and the author of two acclaimed books, The Happiness Hypothesis and The Righteous Mind. In an era of microaggressions, call-outs, and trigger warnings, Joe and Jonathan discuss what underpins the new culture of political correctness. They talk about how ‘Three Great Untruths’ have poisoned parenting norms and university campuses - as well as what caused them and what will fix them.

Andrew Charlton is a Rhodes Scholar, economist and author. From 2008-10, in his late twenties, he was senior economic adviser to then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, helping to steer Australia through the Global Financial Crisis. Joe and Andrew discuss the human costs of recessions, Australia’s unbroken record of economic growth, and for how long this can continue.

Which US and Australian industries are the most concentrated? How did Standard Oil inspire the Nazis? Why are Warren Buffett's famous “moats” harmful to society? Joe speaks with Rhodes scholar, economist, founder of macro research firm Variant Perception, and author of The Myth of Capitalism Jonathan Tepper about monopolies and the death of competition.

#58: When The Sky Fell In - Kevin Rudd