Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Wisdom Chat.

My very special guest today is Tony Redondo.

Welcome back, Tony.

Thank you very much, Phil.

Thank you for having me on.

It's an absolute pleasure.

Tony's a multi award winning foreign currency exchange expert.

That's when I can get my teeth in.

But, yeah, we've just been having a bit

of a chat about how we perceive 2024 working out.

Tony, just give us some top level thoughts,

because there's a lot going on, isn't there?

And in one of your last posts on LinkedIn,

you talked about an uncertain world, in a sense.

Just sort of fill that out a little bit in terms of your thinking at the moment.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, whichever aspect of life

or the financial markets, any other factors, whether it be economic

or political, that you look at this year is absolutely tailor made for uncertainty.

You got 90% of democracies going.

Having general elections this year. Wow.

I never really is the year of.

Elections all the way from India, the biggest democracy in the world,

of course, the UK, we've got to have a general election before January next year.

You've got the american elections, you've got some very.

In November, you've got some very big European Union elections in June,

which, given the rise of the sort of right wing parties,

as they're described in the media, with the new prime minister in Holland,

for example, a right wing finnish prime minister,

you could have a call for other countries to start following Britain out of the EU.

The odds on that could shorten dramatically.

So I think it's a dramatic year in terms of elections.

Then you look even further afield. And, of course,

there's lots going on in the Middle east after the Hamas attacks on Israel

on October the 7th, what's opening up in Gaza, you've got hooties.

And it hasn't really hit the sort of day to day newspapers yet, Phil.

But shipping costs have gone up by 30% in the last three months because

all the goods that we all click buttons on online shopping or go down the local

shops and buy these days, most of them, of course, come from China and the Far east.

And now, instead of know, getting to the Indian Ocean and cutting

across the Red Sea and into Europe

because of the actions, the hooties

in Yemen, now they're having to go all the way around Africa.

I know.

And that puts a lot of time on their journey, doesn't it?

Does cost and ultimately cost.

So shipping costs have gone up over 30%.

That hasn't filtered through yet.

The inflation rates there's always a time lag.

And I think that's why a lot of the major

central banks, we started a year thinking that the likes of the Federal Reserve

in the United States are going to cut interest rates four times quite

aggressively this year, and the bank of England are going

to follow suit and everybody just put the brakes on.

And I think that's because they can see

these things happening, but it hasn't filtered through to the economic data yet.

And what they don't want to do is create even more instability.

Can you imagine if you are a business, if you're running your own business or

you're about to change house and interest rates have gone up from 0.

1% to 5.

25, then they get cut again. Imagine.

And you think, great, okay, I'm going to move house,

I'm going to expand my business, I'm going to buy a new business premises,

or do this or do that, and two months later, interest rates go back up again.

So I think, to be fair to the bank

of England, who have come in for a tremendous amount

of criticism, in my view, most of it pretty well

deserved, but to be fair to them, I think they're just sitting on their

hands just to see whether it's just a blip and the Americans and the western forces

can gain control of the arabian straits and allow passage

via the Red Sea, or it's going to carry on,

because if it's a blip, then there might be

once monthly figures of inflation, they'll go up a bit, but it can be explained away.

If there's still ships being hijacked and everything

in three, six months time, we've got a real problem on our hands.

Yeah.

And I suppose, as well,

we're talking about conflict and the impact on global economy,

obviously, the conflict in Ukraine, and that's still very much an issue.

Yeah.

We're not quite sure which way it's going to go.

You've got the House of Representatives holding back on a green

budget to invest in Ukraine, and so all this, no doubt, will have an impact.

Yeah, absolutely.

On our everyday pocket.

Yeah.

And again, another new level

of uncertainty in northern Europe now is, of course, that for the first time,

both Finland and Sweden are members of and NATO.

The NATO accords are very

know, if one country gets attacked, they all get attacked and they all jump in.

So if Putin gets desperate and attacks Finland or attacks Sweden or attacks

Poland, another NATO member, it could very quickly escalate very quickly.

Think.

Do you think, though, just in that area alone?

I don't mean geographically.

But in that mindset,

even with Putin, whatever anybody thinks of him, surely, and I might be wrong here,

but surely he's a man who can see the potential

and recognise it's not going to be just the west that will be affected,

it's going to be Russia and his standing that would be affected as well.

And I see a man there who's clinging to power.

He's using whatever means to do so completely.

Yeah, it's very much the russian economy,

the russian economy.

He's trying to portray the russian economy as being unaffected.

It's very badly affected by the sanctions, and the sanctions announced by Washington

after the death of Navalni last week are only going to intensify the pressure.

And

I think there are two countries in the world that could have major impact

militarily, economically, politically, and both are under quite tight timeframes

to either force the world to accept their way or there's going to be major change.

One of them is Russia, because I think the economy is in trouble.

So he either makes big gains and

there is a change in direction by the west or forcing the Ukrainians to the peace

table and coming to an accommodation or days are numbered.

And then, of course,

the other area of the world, which occasionally comes into the news

but in the middle pages, never the headlines, is China

and Taiwan, where for two reasons, I think in my personal point of view, Phil,

China's best days are behind it, not in front of it militarily.

You've got the military pact between the US, the UK and Australia,

where Australia are going to have nuclear submarines from 2025.

So all of a sudden they're no longer

dependent on US nuclear umbrella for protection.

And that could extend out to Japan and the Philippines and even Taiwan.

So the Chinese know that they've got quite

a short time frame if they're going to invade.

Yeah.

And the chinese stock market has had a terrible time in the last twelve months,

and there's been not billions, but trillions of dollars taken out

of the chinese stock markets by western investors.

And none other than Dolman Sachs, one of the two biggest banks in the world

with JPMorgan, are saying that the next two decades belong to India, not China.

Wow.

So we're going to see potentially a huge shift.

And just in terms of posturing, then, you can kind of understand why

China has been obviously putting Taiwan under pressure

and building that sort of almost perceived threat of invasion.

So that's on a global scale

and that in itself doesn't necessarily fill you with optimism.

But having said that,

remember last time we talked, we talked about the doom mongerers.

Yeah.

And in a way that can feel like that when

you hear of all these things going on now, they are going on, we know that.

But if we bring it back more to home,

we've got influences directly on us at home.

How do we see things going?

We're in an election year potentially.

There'S.

Going to be an interesting sort of development there.

And I think you said to me, you said you don't feel it's a foregone

conclusion given what the pundits are saying and what the polls are saying.

And yet there are certain mindsets that may or may not agree with one another.

America and UK, what sort of things are you seeing

at the moment and what are the murmurings going on that you might

feel will come into play as they go forward into the year?

Well, I think the recession has been very shallow.

In my viewpoint, it's already over.

So it was a very shallow recession, and usually so for the UK,

which is a good thing for us, we have got an election this year.

It's got to be held before January next year.

But even the timing of that can be quite interesting, because again,

if you're the governing party and you're consistently 2025 points behind

the opposition, it doesn't take too much of a political

genius to work out that you let the clock run down as long as possible,

particularly with the budget coming up next week, where,

according to some pundits, the government could have as much as 10

billion pounds headroom to give away in tax cuts.

They cut national insurance contribution rates in the autumn statement last year.

That kicked in in January.

So people should have seen been 2% better off in terms of not having

to pay so much national insurance contributions.

So for those two reasons, I suspect we're going to have a late

election, I would imagine, sort of no earlier than November.

And that could be another interesting point, because, of course,

you've got the american elections at the beginning of November

and Trump is so far ahead, so far ahead, and Biden's approval rates are so bad

that it's pretty hard to see any other result other than the Trump re election.

And then from a british point of view,

I wonder how many british voters are going to think about what the dynamic would be

between, on the one hand, Trump and Sunak or Trump and Starmer,

where the latter probably wouldn't be able to agree on anything.

Yeah, that's an interesting know.

Obviously, I've got my own sort

of personal views in terms of how I think things are.

I think one of the things that I've come

up against quite a bit of late, and going back to this whole thing to do

with uncertainty, and that is people saying to me, who do I vote?

And. But when you think about that combination

like Sunak and Trump, just on the funny side, I mean,

Trump's a tall chap, isn't know, and Rishi's not as tall.

And as I said before, he wears his trousers at half mass.

I don't wish to be derogatory, but.

Yeah, sorry.

I never realised, field, that you're a member of the fashion police.

Yeah. You're full of surprises.

You are full of surprises.

Do you remember when.

Not Liz Truss. Oh, dear me.

I'm just trying to remember now, previous PM who went and visited Trump,

and it was the way he shook her hand and I thought, he's a power player.

And I think we mentioned, didn't we,

about the fact that we don't get that impression, that Sunak is a leader as

such, although he's leading a party, he's more a follower.

And how will he cope with somebody like a Trump?

And also, my impression is, we seem to love to follow the Americans.

Some of the stuff that we do and decisions

we make, it's almost as if we're only doing that because the Americans do that.

We seem to think, oh, they've got it made, or they know what they're.

Yeah, no, absolutely right.

And in know, in a perverse way,

if you like, a Trump election would not be bad news for the UK for two reasons.

One is we'll go back to the top of the queue for a post Brexit trade deal.

Right? And it's not for nothing that the american

economy is by far the biggest in the about.

It's just under a quarter of the whole global economy is the.

Wow, wow.

Californian economy by itself is bigger than France's and the UK's.

That's just.

Secondly, you know that recent controversy

where Trump had a go at the Europeans for their lack of defence spending,

where typically of politicians, they all agreed to increase

defence spending up to a certain percentage of GDP?

Hardly any country has done it.

A few smaller eastern european and central european countries, because obviously it's

their self interest to do so with the Russians on their doorstep.

Britain has, Germany hasn't,

France hasn't, Spain hasn't, Italy hasn't, Portugal hasn't.

So, again, you know, a Trump presidency

could actually be good news for this country for those two reasons, because

you're helping the military spending and lightning the load for this country.

But also a post Brexit trade deal.

The trade deal that we've signed

with Australia is, I think we'll get one with India.

I think Kemi Badanok has done a really good job as trade and industry secretary.

I think there is a trade deal coming up

with India, which would be excellent, but nothing.

But nothing will be bigger than a deal with the United States.

They'll just completely open the doors.

I can quite understand,

if people are looking from economic certainty,

how that could be beneficial in terms of a trade deal with the states.

And also there's that natural human

element of safety, the need for safety that kicks in.

So somebody like Trump and his approach to

defensive spending would actually give people perhaps an element of safety.

But I think the flip side of the coin is he doesn't seem to be one.

Know

his comment about NATO nations who are not paying their way, well,

if they get attacked, well, pay your way and then we'll come and help you.

And type of that, we've not heard that before.

And then all of a sudden, Trump is the one who says it.

And then you're thinking about

the situation with Ukraine and the House of Representatives actually

stalling agreement over spending or giving Ukraine a budget

to replenish their armaments, and you're thinking, ok, well,

if that doesn't know, what's that going to mean

for gaining seen, apart from when you went to North Korea,

I've not seen Trump necessarily, or I don't feel he's a great ambassador.

In one sense,

he's very good at getting people's backs up because of his views on stuff.

But equally,

maybe Russia and China might like him because he's willing to talk with them.

And at the end of the day, there needs to be some dialogue going

on or else these things will never be resolved.

Exactly.

Yeah, that's going to be an interesting one.

And then bringing it right to

our doorstep, in a sense, I think if you look at the market as it

presently stands, 4% inflation rate, we've got 5.

2%, 25% interest rates from the bank of England.

They've been holding them, held them for the last, what, four months.

You're looking at the average savings account over 5%.

So now money is actually increasing in value in the mindsets of people.

And I would add, to add for the listeners, that's not for all savings accounts.

So make sure you shop around

and cheque out what the rates and the criteria for those rates are.

That's really important.

But when you put all that in place

and like your comment about you feel that we've actually come out of

that recession because it was so shallow and you're thinking, well,

why are we not yet feeling any form of optimism and certainty?

What else is really going on that potentially impacting us?

It's certainly, given the area that I've

spent my working life working in, as we were talking before this, that

only 60% of the client base of Cosmos currency exchange is UK based.

So nearly half of our clients are based

overseas and they're spread out all over the world.

But what it means is that in dialogue

with those clients, you do get a much more rounded view of what's happening locally

with them and their perception of the UK compared to just relying on the.

And, you know, there is an old saying

that bad news sells newspapers and goodness, isn't that the.

Case?

But actually, I think the outlook for this country is excellent.

Really do.

And there is no ulterior motive on my part.

That's not me trying to talk the market

up, because it's in my favour, because nearly half my clients are buying

sterling and half my clients are selling sterling.

So there is nothing in it for me to talk the market in one direction or another,

because whichever direction it goes in, I will have clients that I can alert

to that fact and they can take advantage of it.

But I genuinely feel Germany's best days are behind it.

Germany is in an awful mess.

It was the lowest growth g ten economy in 2023.

It will be again in 2024.

It's in a hell of a mess.

The french economy is not much better and you got french elections as well.

So what will happen there?

Spain and Italy.

Spain and Italy.

So I think the outlook for this country is surprisingly positive.

Even if we don't get the trade deal

with the United States, I think in the long term,

the trade deal that Kemi Badenok signed last autumn

with the likes of Singapore and Canada and India is going to make very big dividends.

It's already responsible for 13% of global trade and it's only going to grow.

It's only going to grow.

And the dynamics are changing.

As I mentioned to you off know, Goldman Sachs at a turn of the year

sent out a research paper advising their clients,

if they're still investing in China, that really China's best days are behind it.

The chinese stock market

has seen trillions of dollars taken out of it in the last three

really very big withdrawals, and Goldman Sachs are recommending their

clients that the next big economic superpower is India.

Now, again, that has massive implications for the UK because, of course,

it's a former colony, speaks English, it's a democracy.

It could be very good news for the UK.

So I actually feel very optimistic.

The other thing I think that helps, Phil, is an age thing.

With due respect to sort of 30,

40 year olds, if you are sort of late 20s, early thirty s.

The last two years has been a hell

of a shock for you, and I can totally understand that,

because up until two years ago, all you'd known since you left school,

went to college, went to university, started work,

maybe bought your first property, were next to zero interest rates.

Yeah. And that's all you'd ever known.

And then all of a sudden, they go from 0.

1% at the end of 2021 to 5.

25 by summer of 20.

314 consecutive monthly rises.

And you think, is that roller coaster? Isn't it?

It's going up and up and up and up and you think, where is this going to go?

Whereas the perception is,

for me, I remember paying a mortgage rate of 17% in 1991.

I was just thinking that because it wasn't 17%, for me, it got to 15%.

I remember paying for a mortgage and then not so long after that,

learning that endowment mortgages weren't all that they were cut out to be.

Yeah, exactly. Promised.

So, I mean, it was kind of a double whammy, in a sense.

Absolutely, yeah, I remember that.

I remember paying 15%.

I remember paying 17%.

So am I happy paying 5%?

Of course I'm not happy paying 5%.

I'd rather pay 0.

1%.

But I've been there before, we survived it.

And I guess the mindset is just different, isn't it?

I remember back in 91 92, there was a massive property crash,

big recession, black Wednesday, interest rates go up to 15 17%.

And it was so brutal, so quickly that there was not a lot to think.

It wasn't actually, in a perverse way, when I look back on it,

it wasn't particularly stressful because there was nothing to think about.

It's not a question of, shall we have one holiday or two this year?

There will be no holiday, because there won't be,

because our mortgage rates have tripled our mortgage payment.

I'll tell you what we've seen

in the market as well, Tony, is I was just looking at employment and

there's been a sort of slight drop in unemployment, a positive there.

But I do know companies struggle

to recruit and there are lots of reasons for that.

Not just in terms of you can't get the skills and so on.

So there's that side.

And also, as you were kind of alluded to in our sort of off air conversation

about the fact that mortgage rates could potentially go back up again.

When you think of all these things, I'm just thinking,

the everyday person in the street, how must they be feeling right now?

And I think that word uncertainty

epitomises perhaps how they may be feeling.

So you've got your media, the doomongerers,

saying one thing, but in actual fact, the reality says something different.

Not necessarily that it gives everybody

a real solid hope, because who knows which way things will

swing this year in terms of all these global elections going on.

But at the end of the day,

the average person will just say, yeah, but what about me right now?

And one of the biggest things that I've seen increase is in work poverty.

There's a lot more people being affected by these higher costs.

Yeah, just ask you to explain it a little bit.

But obviously,

shipping costs one area, but another one in terms of the utility costs.

Now, people may or may not be aware,

but utility costs, particularly your gas and electricity, should.

I think the price cap is going to come

down and it should start to affect many of us from April onwards.

Right.

But is that sort of too little, too late for some people?

I don't know.

You'll always be too little, too late for certain sectors.

It does all add up to uncertainty because there is so much going on.

And again, one of the big differences I

find is that if I cast my mind back to, again, the early 90s that we were talking

about, the last time, interest rates were 15% and 17% and what have you.

There's been a cultural change as well, because two things.

One, in those days, there was no Internet, there was no email,

so information was much more immediate and personal and local.

And the second point is that real bank managers still existed.

So the average man in the street will go

in and talk to somebody with 20, 30, 40 years experience.

Yeah.

Everybody had at least an annual review of the bank manager.

Yeah.

And you could go in and chat about things and the bank manager knew you and he was

tended to be the same bank manager for at least five years before they got moved on.

So there was a continuity.

Yeah, I do remember those days and I must

admit I do miss those days of that sort of.

Now, where do the youngsters get information from?

TikTok. Great.

Yeah.

And you can tell as well how

there's such a lot of misinformation and fake information out there.

So therefore you can understand why people

are looking kind of bemused and thinking, well, yes.

So where do I go?

Where do I get the answers?

Who do I vote for?

Who's going to look after my best interests and so on.

Exactly. Forward.

Exactly. And, of course,

in between general elections, let's face it, this government won an 80

seat majority in 2019, the biggest majority since the mid eighty s.

And even if you're a staunch conservative, I would suggest to you that they haven't

exactly got a lot to show for that ATC majority.

So that's been chipping away. Chipped away?

Chipped away. Because each by election can be seen as a,

very local to that ward to that actual seat, and B, a bit of a protest vote.

And against the background, where interest rates have gone from 0.

1 to 5.

25, where utility bills have gone through

the roof, petrol has gone through the roof, tax.

We got the highest tax stake since the end of the second world war.

Why on earth would you not punish the government in a protest vote?

But that is very different mindset

to whenever this general election is held, it's not a protest vote.

It's got to be a positive vote.

Yeah. Not be.

I'm going to punish the Tories because they've messed up this or they've messed

up that, or I don't agree with them, this or what have you.

That's enough for a by election.

It's a protester, whereas a general election is.

I don't like what these guys have done for the last four or five years,

but looking at the parties and their policies and what they're talking about

and what have you, who do I feel more comfortable with in the next five?

You know, Phil, as you know, I'm completely apolitical.

I believe in the gradual marks, saying

that I've never belonged to a club that would accept you.

I'll never join a political party under any circumstances.

But when you look at what the Tories haven't done, that's one aspect.

But when you look at how often Kia Starber changes his.

Yeah, yeah.

It's no wonder that Tory party strategists call him Mr.

Flip flop, because, quite frankly,

it seems to say whatever the next expedient thing happens to say now is

that somebody that you want to positively vote for.

So I think the election is going to be held very late.

Yeah.

I'll be surprised if it's held before November.

And I think it's going to be a lot closer

than these 2030 percentage points in the opinion polls will lead you to believe.

Yeah, I think

the message, if we're really honest about it, the message at the moment coming

from the general populace is, who do I vote for?

There's nothing there that inspires people in a real positive way.

There's going to be decisions made this year that are going to be political

decisions as opposed to what's best necessarily for the nation.

I think we're going to see elements of that.

So, for example, the budget, tax cuts, people,

you know, more money in my wage packet, however, where's that going to come from?

Who's going to pay for it?

And it's got to come from somewhere.

And we'll probably see things like the NHS, a further demise in the NHS,

because at the end of the day, there isn't sufficient money is going

in there to cope with the demand for their services and people are burning out.

And you say that and yet again coming

again, because nearly half my clients are

overseas, so I'm having daily conversations with people outside the UK.

There is quite a lot of information

that you can gather outside the UK about the UK that is harder to gather when

you're inside the UK, which is quite perverse.

You know, I didn't realise until quite recently, Phil, that the NHS is the best

well funded national health service in the world.

Yeah.

And has never had more funding as per part of GDP than he has in the last parliament.

It's over 10%.

Yeah, I'm sure that is the case, without a doubt.

But your everyday activity is around.

All information coming out is around waiting lists.

And perhaps one of the biggest things is the waiting list for cancer treatment.

That is quite hard hitting for many people.

Absolutely.

It's interesting, isn't it,

what's going on, what's probably going to influence people in terms of their

voting decisions, but also, at the same time, how do they feel about the economy?

It doesn't help when the media keep telling know we're in a recession.

And actually you're thinking, yeah, but on the one hand, there's these positives.

Yes, we know.

And not taking away from the fact that there are a lot more people who are

struggling to make ends meet in the UK today.

This whole thing to do with there's been money set aside to help and support

people, but they're not being told what money there is set aside to help them.

You have to know and then ask the right question.

And I think there's something wrong here with regards to our system.

It's almost like there's quite a few things that are broken that we really do

need to fix and get sorted, and we need to also take stock of what is valuable here.

We can focus on money, but at the end of the day, money is just a tool, isn't it?

And it's the people who make the decision how that tool is going to be used.

And if we're not looking after people, it's a vicious cycle.

It is. And I don't think there's enough of.

Personally, again, Phil doesn't take too much to work out

that it's great that the out of work benefits are as high as they are,

because there are all kinds of circumstances where in an advanced

society, we should look after those that are unable to look after themselves.

Absolutely. Goes without saying.

We're the fifth biggest economy in the world, the oldest democracy.

Of course you should.

But there's still got to be a gap between that and people go to work.

Otherwise you end up with a situation

that we're currently beginning to get in, where the working age

population that's economically inactive is in double percentage figures.

Percentage figures.

11% of 16 to 65 year olds in this country are economically inactive.

Now, within that 11%, there'll be loads and loads of people who totally justified.

But I don't think I'm being Trump like,

controversial in suggesting that there might be a few people on there.

There might be a few people there who think, why do I want to do shift work,

or have a 0 hour contract, or work at the night shift,

or get up at 05:00 in the morning to start a 06:00 in the morning shift

when I'm only going to get paid by the time they take off tax and national

insurance, and I have travel costs and this, that and the other.

The gap between that and benefits is so

little, I might as well stay in bed and watch daytime TV.

Yeah, I know I'm portraying a caricature and I apologise for that.

But when the figures are so high,

when it's now into double figures, the economic inaction, there is a problem,

there's a structural problem within society, and I.

Think there's a number of issues in there, because one of the things that's very

clear is there's 19 billion unclaimed benefits.

So that comes to the point of which people

are not being informed in terms of what they are actually entitled to.

So that's one thing.

And the fact that they're going to take

from the benefits to fund other things, that's what's been spoken of.

I'm thinking, hang on a minute.

So you've got individuals who.

So, for example,

growing in work population who probably are entitled to some benefits but wouldn't

think so themselves, and in some cases,

depending on the generation, probably wouldn't even want it because

they'd feel ashamed when they shouldn't do.

So there's all sorts of issues going on here which we're not really addressing.

And it all has an impact on things like inflation, because it's the money go round

that's not going round, because people are not necessarily spending.

Goods are significantly higher.

Even the average spend in the supermarket is significantly higher than it has been.

And so for some people,

they are really struggling even to be able to afford decent meals.

So there's a lot of that going on.

And then you will have,

and I agree with you, you'll have in a proportion of that 11 million.

You're talking about who actually.

Their whole attitude is probably wrong

with regards to working and contributing, paying their way in some respects.

I mean, if they couldn't get work, but they're out there volunteering

and helping in some other way, you can understand it and accepting.

But if they are just watching daytime TV or staying in bed or whatever, then, yeah,

there's some questions to be asked about that.

Unfortunately, it's the people who have

the right attitude and want to work, probably working several jobs just to make

ends meet, who are the ones who'll end up getting penalised.

A friend of ours, as you know,

we're lucky enough to live in Cornwall, which is a very nice part of the.

So I just throw that in because actually

there's a strange yellow object up in the sky today which we haven't seen for weeks.

And somebody was telling me the sea is even bluer there now.

But now a friend of ours works at a local

food bank, quite a senior position,

so responsible for quite a few branches throughout Cornwall and Devon and Dorset.

And their statistics show, at least locally, I don't know if these

are national statistics, but certainly in the southwest,

the biggest growth of people visiting them for everyday goods is not the unemployed,

it's not people on benefits is working people.

Yeah.

And you think that's got to be wrong.

Yeah.

There was a comment made by an MP in the Houses of parliament.

I don't think he really actually stopped to think about what he was actually saying

and he perhaps didn't mean how it was actually taken.

And he said, isn't it great that more people are using food banks?

And it was like, what actually that is not good in the first place.

But I just wonder if he was actually meaning.

It's great that more people are able to access this help and support that's there.

Not necessarily.

It's good that there's more people in that position who needs it.

That's right. I might be being too kind to him.

He might have met what he's a positive. Yeah.

It's very easy to jump up and down and criticise straight away.

But to be fair to whoever it was,

there is at least a chance that he was meaning it that way.

Thank goodness.

Because

there are so many parts of the world where the things that we completely take

for granted in this country will be seen as an absolute luxury.

Yeah. And they would.

And I know I spoke with a friend of mine

on a much earlier podcast about his travels around the Far east.

And during COVID he got stuck in Vietnam.

But he said, do you know, the thing that really struck me was even

the poorest people seem to be really happy.

And he said it really baffled him why they were so happy, yet they had so little.

And we ended up having a chat about it.

But you're right, it was what they would expect.

They hadn't had certain things that we've been,

had opportunity to have or to engage with, and so therefore they didn't have

that expectation and they'd learned to be grateful for what they had.

Whereas sometimes I think in western

society, we can be guilty for we have, and yet we're not happy because we want more.

And I know I generalise, and it's not everybody,

but sometimes we have to learn to be sort of grateful for what we've got

and appreciate it, rather than always looking for what we don't have.

Yes. No, exactly.

Absolutely. I think that's a very fair point.

But it's also a cultural thing, isn't it, Phil?

And again, going back to the time when interest rates are much higher and you get

that perspective, that, okay, they've gone from virtually nothing to 5%,

but that's still only a third of what I've already paid previously once in my life.

So therefore, let's not panic here.

It's not good, not happy with it, but it's been a lot worse.

And we cope then, so we'll cope now, that kind of attitude.

But also, I think,

going back to your friend in Vietnam, I wonder if some of it, I think,

is that with modern technology, as clever as it is,

and it is amazingly clever when you think I was talking about this

with a neighbor's son who's into astronomy and something I'm into as well.

So we were chatting away, and when you think about that,

human civilization was around for about 10,000 years,

and then the first flight was, like, in 1910 or 1911 or wherever it was

with the Wright brothers, and 60 years later, we're on the moon.

Yeah.

If you were to plot that in the graph, A,

you'll be a very long graph, and B, you'll be very flat for a very long time.

And then all of a sudden, gosh,

60 year period we've gone from first flight.

And thinking about that in terms of technology, perhaps one of the things

that helps people in Vietnam in a perverse way is I wonder what social media take up

in countries like Vietnam is probably a lot lower than ours because this often

occurs to me, like, and I look back at my life and sitting around.

Music, for example, is one example off the top of my head.

Music has always been important for me. Okay.

And so 05:00 on Sunday afternoon, he was a top 40.

And you sort of listen around the radio to listen to what was up and what was down.

And because somebody else was choosing the music, you had to listen to all sorts.

Some of it you liked, some of it you didn't.

But at least you were exposed to quite a broad range of music styles.

Now everybody's got their own playlists on whatever music streaming.

So it becomes like a sound box, doesn't it?

It becomes an echo chamber.

And I think a lot of it, like politics,

has gone that way as well, where you only get the news

from the sites that you've ticked a box to say that you want to get the news from.

So you don't have that broad.

We were talking earlier about getting financial information.

In my day, when I started in the City of London, there was no Internet,

there were no computers, and bank managers were bank managers.

So everybody had a basic bank account,

and you had a review once a year where you sat in front of your bank manager

and chatted away about how you've done in the last twelve months,

what your plans were for the next twelve months and what have you.

Now, how many people actually go into a bank branch these days?

Would you actually meet the same person twice?

If you phone up online banking,

if you phone them up telephone banking, you have to start the conversation

from scratch every time because there's no continuity.

Yeah, I mean, you're right.

We are showing our age a little.

Bit, by the way, with our hairstyles, Phil, I don't think.

But when you're talking both in terms of branch managers and so on in the banks.

I used to really appreciate that, although it was scary.

So it did make you think about your finances and so on.

But when you're talking about social

media, I think social media has had probably quite a negative impact

and has caused an awful lot of problems without going into all of them here.

But certainly it's had an impact

and perhaps where there are societies that don't necessarily have that access,

maybe it's a good thing in some respects, but there'll always be that sense of,

well, look what technology can do and how this could make my life a lot better.

We look at that, but we don't necessarily see the flip side of it.

There's pros and cons each way, isn't there?

Always, like everything, again, showing my age again.

I grew up in an east London council estate in the 70s,

so the idea of hand me down clothes

and dad coming home with his wages in cash

and mum with various biscuit tins or jars and putting coins for the rent and coins

for the electric metre and for the food and that.

And no credit cards.

No credit, no overdrafts, no credit card.

You didn't have it, you didn't spend it.

And because some people didn't have a TV, some people might have had a black

and white TV, that kind of thing, but everybody was in the same boat

and everybody that lived around you was in the same boat, or your classmates are

in the same boat, so you don't miss what you've never had.

Whereas now, of course, you've got this little gadget connecting

you to the world and invariably what you're doing is you're looking at some

rich kid in Dubai or some rich kid in Florida or what have.

And so then people are thinking, I want to be like that.

There's this comparison going.

It causes stress, it causes anxiety.

Yeah.

I'm just thinking about what you're saying about

the time span from the very first flight, Orville and Wilburite to Armstrong putting

the first step on the moon, being of a certain period, what,

60 years or whatever, to now, the conversations around putting a base

on the moon and then launching from there to Mars.

Yes.

And actually now looking and thinking, it's doable.

We're not that far off from accomplishing those.

India have now gone to the moon, obviously.

China have, India have, Japan have.

And over the weekend, you know, the first private company.

Yeah. Although it did topple over, apparently.

Yeah, I think had a gin or two too much.

Yeah.

Tony in closing, then I get the impression that your message

at this moment in time would be, even though there is a lot of uncertainty,

yet underlying, there is a lot of positive hope as well.

And uncertainty is often these days,

certainly in the media, in the mainstream media, portrayed as a negative.

And of course it can be, but it can also be a positive.

It also can be the source of opportunities.

Yeah.

And I think if the average person in the street,

where they get their media from, it's very easy to be swayed towards

a negative because at least 90% of their input is going to be negative.

Yeah.

Whereas I guess, again, I count my blessings in a sense, Phil,

the very nature of the financial markets that I work in, it's all relative.

And if an exchange rate, if the pound goes

up in value against currency X, it's bad.

If you're holding X and you're trying

to buy the pound, that's bad because you're then going

to buy less pounds because the value has gone against you.

But the flip side of that coin is that if you are a pound seller and you're looking

to buy that currency, it's good because you're going to buy more of that currency.

So all my working life has been involved

in a world where at most is always just 50% bad.

There's always a flip side to the coin,

there's always somebody coming back the other way.

And I guess after so many years of being

involved in the markets, you just end up with this mindset where,

yes, I can see uncertainty can have negatives.

Of course it can.

It can also have opportunities.

Yeah.

And I think that sort of bringing this

to a wrap, I think that's what we really need to say, isn't it?

That don't just look at the uncertainties,

the negatives, but also recognise some of the positives that are going on.

And what is positive,

even I would say to people, even if you're at the moment

in a difficult place, it's the ability to be grateful for what

you do have, rather than constantly looking at what you don't have.

I'm not saying that life isn't difficult for some people, because I know it is.

And there's a lot of help and support out for those people.

But there are some people who don't really

need to worry about their finances, but they do, because

a percentage point drop in interest rates might be the loss of however many

thousands of pounds on their portfolio, and yet they're still comfortable.

And I think what they need to do is actually say, yes,

it's a shame I've lost this amount, but at the end of the day, I'm okay.

And I need to be thankful for that as well.

Absolutely. Exactly, 100%.

Tony, it's been absolutely wonderful talking with you again, as always.

And I really do appreciate your time and sharing your wisdom with us.

But thank you for.

No, but I do appreciate your time.

We could talk for ages, I'm sure, but obviously time doesn't permit right now.

So thank you so much, Tony, and all the best.

Thank you very much.