
The Finance Bible
The Finance Bible podcast is your ultimate resource for financial freedom, personal growth, and business success. Hosted by Zeke Guenthroth and Oscar Don, this podcast is designed to help you achieve your goals through actionable insights, expert advice, and practical strategies.
Each week, we bring you fresh episodes packed with valuable tips on a wide range of topics, including investing, property investment, saving, budgeting, shares, cryptocurrency, inflation, interest rates, wealth building, and debt management. But that’s not all—we also dive deep into personal growth strategies and business success tips, helping you develop the mindset and skills needed to thrive in every area of your life.
Whether you’re just starting your financial journey, working to grow your business, or striving to improve personally, The Finance Bible equips you with the tools to create lasting success. It’s more than a podcast—it’s your guide to building a better future.
DISCLAIMER:
The information provided in this podcast is general in nature and does not constitute personal financial advice. It does not take into account your individual objectives, financial situation, or needs. Always consider whether the information is appropriate to your circumstances and seek advice from a qualified professional if needed.
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The Finance Bible
ZG#3 – Australia’s Reality Check: Exposing the Collapse (Part 1/12)
The cultural foundation of Australia is crumbling beneath our feet.
While other Finance Bible episodes focus on dollars and cents, today we’re tackling something far more valuable — our national identity and social cohesion.
Australia has transformed from the land of “have a go” to the land of “don’t offend.”
Our schools prioritise gender ideology over basic literacy, with one-third of Year 9 students failing to meet minimum reading benchmarks. Meanwhile, suicide has become the leading killer of men under 45, accounting for a staggering 75% of all Australian suicides.
These aren’t just statistics — they represent real lives being lost as our society loses its way.
The uncomfortable truths continue:
- 85% of youth inmates come from fatherless homes.
- Housing prices have surged over 30% while real wages have fallen by nearly 7%.
- Australia now leads OECD nations in antidepressant usage.
- Our birth rate has collapsed to just 1.5 babies per woman — far below the 2.1 needed for population replacement.
- Traditional celebrations are under attack, speech is censored, and success is demonised through our persistent tall poppy syndrome.
This episode isn’t offering immediate solutions — it’s holding up a mirror.
Because you can’t fix what you won’t admit is broken.
In subsequent episodes, we'll tackle each issue individually, exploring potential solutions and sparking necessary conversations about rebuilding Australia's cultural foundations.
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📢 Found this valuable?
Share it with someone who’s ready for honest conversation. The longer we wait to address these fundamental issues, the harder they become to solve.
Australia’s identity crisis demands our attention now — before the qualities that made our nation great disappear entirely.
DISCLAIMER:
The information in this podcast is general in nature and does not constitute personal advice. It does not take into account your individual objectives, situation, or needs. Always consider whether the information is appropriate for you and seek professional advice where necessary.
#CultureWar #AustraliaPodcast #Leadership #CommonSense #EducationReform #FatherhoodCrisis #MentalHealthCrisis #TraditionMatters #FreedomOfSpeech
Welcome back to the Finance Bible Podcast. But today we're not going to be talking about money. We're talking about culture, australian culture, because none of the economic systems, business strategies or political plans mean anything if our foundation of our country is rotten. Today's episode is a reality check. I'm not offering solutions, I'm offering a mirror. We're going to unpack the real issues that no one wants to talk about, because until we tell the truth, we'll never get our country back on track. Welcome back to another episode of the Finance Bible.
Zeke Guenthroth:Podcast. You're joined with myself, zeke, and your co-host, oscar. But before we get into it, please note that nothing in this podcast should ever be considered as personal financial advice. But if that is what you are seeking, get in touch, let us know and we will hook you up with the correct professionals. Sit back, relax and enjoy the show. Let's get into it.
Zeke Guenthroth:First of all, australia is in a cultural decline and an identity crisis. We used to be the land of have a go and now it's the land of don't offend. We used to celebrate resilience, strength, grit, and now we apologise for our past, censor our speech and we question our identity. We celebrate Australia Day on the 26th of Jan, the day the First Fleet raised the British flag in 1788, and it's questioned. It's controversial. Previously, the Dutch and the British explorers. They mapped out parts of the continent earlier, with the Dutch landing in 1600 or 1606, and Cook charting the east in 1770. On the 26th of Jan 1788, australia planted the flag and the British colonised Australia. We shifted from scattered territories and coastlines to becoming part of a global system of governance, law, trade, migration, foundations. That evolved into the nation we live in today. But now the date's sort of become a battleground, not a moment of unity anymore. Public figures are attacked for showing pride in their country for waving an Australian flag. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, in France, they defend free speech at all costs, even after the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack, and Japan also proudly teaches its heritage national values in schools. Australia, we hand out trigger warnings for Shakespeare. Only 39% of Australians say that they feel free to express their political views without any backlash, and that says it all. What we're going to do here is we're just going to lay out a bunch of different issues. We're going to talk through them and explain what all these issues are to an extent, or at least point them out, and then in the coming episodes we're going to walk through each individual issue with kind of a guide and a spin on it that just gets you thinking about it and different solutions and that kind of thing.
Zeke Guenthroth:For example, moving australia day I think it's pretty pointless. As I said, australia was discovered well before january 26, 1788. It was explored, mapped out, pretty much claimed, but it was 26 january 1788 that we actually had the british plant the flag, captain cook, and identify it as its own country. It was its own global system of governance at that point and without that day we wouldn't be where we are today. So but it's not really the day that australia was discovered. It's not really the day that we started coming here. It had been done many times before, for hundreds of years before that, or over 150 years anyway, and there's not really a need to move the date based on that angle. If you're having that argument, we'll get into it a bit further in the next episode, but we'll leave it there for now.
Zeke Guenthroth:Moving on to education and ideological programming, another big issue in today's society. So our school system, for example, is no longer about excellence, it's about ideology. It's pretty well pointless, in my opinion. School doesn't teach what it should teach. You know, kids are learning about gender fluidity before puberty, which is outrageous. Pronouns are in primary school about gender fluidity before puberty, which is outrageous. Pronouns are in primary school. There's programs like Safe Schools, where they basically tell boys that they can have periods and encourage secrecy from parents. Teachers are pushing ideas like white privilege and colonial guilt under year five kids. Year five in Australia is two years before high school. So what are you there like? 10 years old and the actual overall education standards are failing. They're falling very low and one in three so 33% of year nine students so 15, can't meet the minimum reading benchmark. One in three students can't reach the minimum reading benchmark.
Zeke Guenthroth:We've removed exams, so you're no longer, for example, my little sister for math, her one of her um, what you would normally do as a tester, an exam, but she was doing an assignment. I never in a thousand years could have imagined doing a assignment instead of an exam in mathematics like what is, what is the point? How does that even work? How are you going to take an equation of 16 plus 5 home and do that when you can simply sit in a room with a famous blackboard? Keep the blackboards and do the math right there. It should should be as simple as that.
Zeke Guenthroth:Exams are really good. Exams test your memory. They test your knowledge, they test your recall and your ability to convey it correctly. They've made learning now nonlinear, so assignments and more emotive, more English-dominant, like writing, and there's strict all accountability, whereas if you go to you know, finland, singapore they're crushing it. Their education system's doing really well because they delay the social ideology and focus on real education. If australia kept its focus on education as opposed to ideology pronouns um, you know, letting boys know that they're all aggressive and criminals and stuff then it would be a much better place. And if they brought back reading and really encouraged students to actually read, then more than one in three students in year nine or 15-year-olds could actually meet the minimum reading benchmark.
Zeke Guenthroth:That brings me on to fatherlessness and family breakdown. That brings me on to fatherlessness and family breakdown. So Australia is pretty much erased the role of fathers, as have other countries, to be fair, and our kids are paying the price. So only 18% of early child educators are male. So young teachers, teachers of young children, sorry. And with that, family courts award over 70% of primary custody to mothers.
Zeke Guenthroth:The stats, well, they show the problem. 85% of youth inmates in Australia come from fatherless homes. Youth crime is exploding. You know Queensland, for example. You probably see it on the news every day if you're in Australia. It's up 30%, which is a large amount. And it's not just a legal issue, it's cultural. Again, there's boys growing up without men around them. They grow up without models. Then, obviously, on the counter side of that, if girls grow up without fathers, they end up growing up with lower standards or less standards or even completely without them. The impact of a father on a male child specifically decreases the chance of them ending up in prison or ending up committing any form of crime, because there's a disciplinary role model there that comes in and sort of guides them through life as a man and helps them make the decisions that they need to make. As I said, 85 of youth inmates in australia come from fatherless homes. Outrageous, it's a huge stat 85% of them. So having a father reduces your chance by 85%.
Zeke Guenthroth:The next one to talk about, then, is pretty well correlated to that to an extent. There's masculinity, and there's also a bit of mental health as well. So there's a huge war on it at the moment. You've got your toxic masculinity and all of this stuff. You see Andrew Tate's name getting brought up all the time, and a bunch of other names as well and ultimately what we've done as a nation, or even as a world to an extent, aside from the eastern side of the world is we've completely demonized masculinity. And then what we've done is we've acted completely shocked when men start falling apart. So toxic masculinity gets all the airtime, but where's the encouragement for healthy masculinity like? Where's the recognition of men who lead, protect, sacrifice and just do their duties and chores as a man and commit what they need to commit? Schools, ban contact sport, ads show dads as clueless Society tells boys at a young age that they're aggressive just for existing.
Zeke Guenthroth:No wonder suicide's the number one killer of men Under 45, that is, 75% of suicides in Australia are male 75%. So for every four suicides, three of them are men and it's a leading killer of under 45s. Not accidents Under 45, think about that age. You should really be healthy at that age. There shouldn't be any major things going on, so it should all be accidents. Really. Some people aren't blessed with able bodies and stuff and they may deteriorate and pass away before 45. But for suicide to be the number one killer of men under 45 is actually a terrible statistic. It's completely outrageous. And when we're in a point where we've got less, we've ultimately got men and women being born and it's pretty similar the way that ratio works. But when men are starting to kill themselves in bulk pre-45, then we end up with a counterbalance and we think the solution is just you know, men need to talk about their feelings and introducing, you know, therapy and some prescriptions and all of these kinds of things and talking about it. It's not really the solution. Men just need purpose, respect, strength, duty and that's something that we really need to focus on fixing up. I think that the mental health war and masculinity and that is shocking and there'll be more on mental health a bit later. I'll go into a bit more statistics on that.
Zeke Guenthroth:But moving on to quotas, identity politics, reverse. Discrimination is a huge one in the world today, especially within Australia. So we do a lot of hiring based on skin colour and gender, not merit. So what are some examples? Abc, sbs, local councils they all run Indigenous-only jobs and tech companies out there offering women-only programs. If you're male and white, then you'll get grants denied, for example, going to universities and stuff you don't qualify for certain things. Imagine if we flipped that. Imagine if we were just giving advertising for jobs white, male only, or non-Indigenous, or men only, no women. It would be absolute outrage. I understand what they're trying to do, but there is better solutions to it and that's just going to trigger more discrimination and more racism and more sexism as we go on.
Zeke Guenthroth:It doesn't matter what colour, what race, what sex you are or anything like that. I think everything should be based on basically your ability. It shouldn't be based on anything else. Aside from that, 30% of the public sector jobs reference race or gender. 30%, that's pretty well. One in three jobs is for a specific race or gender. 42% of ASX 200 companies the top 200 companies in Australia they're public have hiring kpis based on sex. It doesn't bring unity, it creates resentment.
Zeke Guenthroth:Real equality means equal opportunity, not guaranteed outcomes and we've seen that in many other countries, if you look at, for example, scandinavian countries. We'll go into that further in upcoming episodes. But equal opportunity is the way to go. Guaranteed outcomes does not work. So, moving on to a few other issues, again, we've got the housing crisis. So the median house prices have gone up over 30% since 2020. So within the last four and a half years, or five years, up 30% Migration added over half a million people in 2023. So again, you need half a million people in that one year.
Zeke Guenthroth:Finding housing Are we building that many homes? Vacancy rates in the capital cities are under 1%, so there's a real crunch. There's not enough housing. There's mass migration without integration. So there's no english requirements for migration. There's no cultural adoption. There's just pressure on housing, schools, health care, language barriers and a bunch of other issues. There's no, there's no adoption of our culture or understanding of of what needs to be achieved in austral. It's just to let everyone in and hope for the best, which then again attributes to healthcare failure. So public wait times are above 40 days for surgeries now. Emergency departments are at record overload. It's pretty drastic and dire. If you go to an emergency department and it's not life-threatening. You're going to be waiting like six, seven hours overnight and meanwhile hospitals have been worrying about gender-inclusive language, you know, referring to pregnant women as pregnant people and stuff like this, as opposed to actually worrying about issues that are impacting their services.
Zeke Guenthroth:In the world at a whole, youth crime is chaotic. Over 50% of juvenile offenders re-offend within 12 months. Social media is filled with violent footage. There's no consequences for it, really. You see, if you go into local court, you just watch a Go, sit there for a whole day, watch it unfold, and if you go week by week or month by month, you'll notice the same people coming in and out, in and out, in and out, and they're getting a little slap on the wrist and told not to repeat offend. They do it again, they do it again, they do it again, and there's not any real punishment and or consequences. I should say not necessarily punishment, but that's something that we need to highlight as well.
Zeke Guenthroth:Which moves on to the prison system 46 percent of released prisoners in australia return to jail within two years, so it's half of them. They get out of jail, they're back within two years. So it's half of them. They get out of jail, they're back within two years. Indigenous Australians make up 32% of the prison population, but they're only 3% of our population and we keep recycling people through the same broken system. So we just keep putting people in there. They are supposed to get rehabilitated. Half of them end up back there within two years and we have a huge gap where the indigenous are making up a very large portion of the jail population. Obviously, mayors make up a majority of it as well, so there's a couple of different things in there to focus on, but ultimately, another thing to highlight we'll go into solutions of that in further episodes too climate overreach. Simply put, australia is absolutely crippling local industries for a net zero goal. I think it's 2050 that we're aiming for. Meanwhile, china's building two coal plants a week.
Zeke Guenthroth:Our sacrifice that Australia makes as a country is not doing anything on a global scale. That Australia makes as a country is not doing anything on a global scale, like if we're shutting down things or aiming for net zero and we're doing this, we're doing that. Our overall economic impact or climate impact globally is very minimalistic compared to those of China and stuff that are doing things. So we need to find a balance there. What else have we got Gender clinics of balance there. Uh, what else have we got? Gender clinics? So in 2014, 211 minors and I mean minors is m-i-n-o-i-s, not um, car minors or whatever were referred to gender clinics. So only 211 in 2014 fast forward, 10 years later we're averaging over 2 000 per year, so 10 times multiplier of minors under 18s getting referred to gender clinics. Queensland alone has 547 active cases right now and over 490 waitlisted.
Zeke Guenthroth:Which then takes me on to mental health again. We've had an absolute collapse in mental health. One in five Aussies now are on antidepressants. We actually have the highest in the OECD. Now you're probably wondering what the heck is the OECD? The OECD, simply put, is about 36 countries in the world. You've got Australia, austria, belgium, canada, chile, denmark, germany, usa, greece, japan, mexico, new Zealand, a bunch of other ones, but you've got about 36 countries in it and we have the highest antidepressant rate out of all of those countries.
Zeke Guenthroth:Ssri in youth has doubled. You're probably wondering what is that? As well, that's selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. They're ultimately probably one of the most pointless medications I've ever read about, seen, studied. And while that's happened, while we've doubled that, suicide is still on the rise. As I said, 75% of suicides in Australia are male, and suicide is the number one death cause for men under 45. So if all these medications are getting more and they're doing the right thing, then how is suicide on the rise? There's a clear issue there that needs to be tackled and there's no point trying to offer a little, you know, a Band-Aid fix to a problem once it's already there. We're better off preventing the problem.
Zeke Guenthroth:Which brings me on to another major issue, and this links directly and correlates directly with mental health, because it actually has a direct correlation to mental health, and that's nutrient deficiency. Now you're probably out there wondering yeah, there's nutrient deficiencies and stuff like that. How does it correlate to mental health? There's a bunch of different ways. For example, different nutrients help create serotonin and dopamine and you've got to go through all these processes and methylation and so on. And you've got to go through all these processes and methylation and so on, but we'll tackle that in a later episode as well. Ultimately, soil minerals are down about 50% since 1950. So in 1950, if you were eating spinach, for example, then you would be getting double the nutrients you're getting now Vitamin D, magnesium, zinc on average, they're all below recommended levels.
Zeke Guenthroth:We're overfed, we're undernourished and that needs to change. People need to get back on whole food diets. We need to get back into not eating as much processed things, stripping out sugar, getting rid of enriched foods good old enrichment or fortified foods. Decline of marriage is another one. So marriage rates have dropped over 30% since 2000. 30% and now what we're doing is we're glorifying hookup culture and independence, but we hide the actual cost of it, like broken families and emotional burnout. Again, broken families without a dad 85% of youth offenders were raised in a fatherless home. So if we're having a decline of marriage and men are stepping out of relationships or women are pushing men out of relationships whichever of the two it is, I'm not saying which one we're bringing up an issue and we'll discuss the issue later, but that's contributing to the problem.
Zeke Guenthroth:Now, when we're talking about glorifying hookup culture and we're talking about a bunch of different things around that, like, for example, instagram and TikTok and that, and sexualization, onlyfans, the creation of all of these industries and ultimately, porn and that kind of thing, what changes have we had on that in the last few years? So, porn, tiktok, dopamine, addiction they're higher than ever and we'll go into statistics and a breakdown later on in another episode. But there's no discipline being taught. Boys are lost, girls are anxious. Everything you see on the internet now is sexualized, even like Netflix shows and stuff that are coming out.
Zeke Guenthroth:They're bringing things in at a very young age where they're giving some kind of sexual annotation on things. Like you know that adolescence show for those of you who watched it on Netflix, it was a major debate sparker and it's centered around a 13-year-old who kills a classmate female and the reason he does it is because he's getting bullied and called an incel because he's not sexually active. He's 13. Why are we focusing it's? It's not a documentary, contrary to popular belief. Some people uh think it was a documentary. It's not, um, why, why are we making shows about 13 year olds killing girls because they're not having sexual intercourse and they're getting bullied about it? It's just absurd. They're normalising that and sort of they're doing it too young. I don't know why there's a sexual annotation around a 13-year-old and it's really mind-boggling to me. But we'll move on from that and talk about that at a later stage as well.
Zeke Guenthroth:Parental rights state intervention Schools can encourage gender changes now without parental involvement. Hormonal treatment for minors is approved faster than some surgeries for cancer patients and that's legitimate. There's studies done into that, the specific case examples which we can provide. And yet we're actually testing people how to drive. You've got to apply for a license to drive a car, but you don't have to do anything to raise kids. I could rewind the clock 15 years and go impregnate someone and have a kid if I wanted to, and there's nothing to prevent that.
Zeke Guenthroth:I think there needs to be some kind of logic going on and we need to find an equilibrium Victimhood culture. We reward outrage and identity over logic and contribution. Everyone wants to be offended in today's world and no one wants to be responsible. Realistically is being offended a huge issue. Do we have the right to offend? Demonization of wealth is occurring. Building success now is labeled having privilege, in Australia especially.
Zeke Guenthroth:I've traveled around the world a fair bit. I've met people and done business with people all around the world and the main difference I noticed between Australia and every other country, regardless of what country it is, is people hate the rich in Australia, they hate people who have success and they hate people who are doing well. There's a real negative tall poppy syndrome in australia and it should be the opposite. Um, and that's all until they want handouts from those who are doing well. But ultimately you, if you go to america and you, you try to start doing something, the general sentiment around it is very positive and it's like okay, yay, like congratulations, well done, and you get support. It might be a bit like outlandish and a bit extreme support, but in Australia if you're doing something, it's more I wouldn't say bullying because personal opinion, but it's more like a negative annotation around them and you might make jokes with them and be like oh yeah, you know you're going and doing this or you're doing that. Ha ha, ha, ha. Um, but yeah, australia has really bad tall poppy syndrome and I think we need to be aware of that as we move forward as well, and we need to change that culture.
Zeke Guenthroth:There's war on traditions now, so christmas has been rebranded, australia day is contested and they're trying to change the date every single year, and Anzac Day is censored now as well. What we're doing is we're ultimately erasing the roots that held the country together for so long and we need to find a way to bring it all back and get everyone back in there, make it inclusive. None of these days are to exclude anyone. None of these days are out here to make people feel like they're not involved in anything. It's a day where we celebrate things and we bring everyone together and it's just everyone celebrating something Like Anzac Day, celebrating the fact that we have a right to life now due to those before us who made sacrifices that enable us to ultimately be here today and have the security and safety and comfort that we have. Why are we not celebrating that more? You know, why do they get one day and other things out? There are getting a whole lot more time for recognition. You know we give Mother's Day and Father's Day the same amount of time as we give ANZACs, not saying that mothers and fathers don't deserve it, but that's just one example. And then you've got International Women's Day, international Men's Day, again Anzac Day, I would argue, more important than all four of them. And then you've got Pride Month the whole month.
Zeke Guenthroth:Then you move on to freedom of speech, cancel culture. So you say the wrong word, you lose your job. You say the wrong thing, you lose your job. You make the wrong joke, you lose your job. Offence is now treated like violence. In fact, it's arguably treated worse than violence in a lot of cases. Australia is not as bad for it as other countries like the UK yet, but we're headed there and it's not good. Truth being censored is not politically safe and everyone should have the right to make their own opinions and comments and stuff like that. I don't think that offending someone is the worst thing in the world and, ultimately, if you're going to have debates, you're going to have discussions about things. People will be offended either way, but it should just be about talking through it and figuring out okay, well, this is your opinion and here's why this is mine and here's why's right and wrong. Where's in between?
Zeke Guenthroth:A health care system in terms of like abuse and obesity is at an extremely alarming level. So two in three adults now in australia are overweight two in three. And we're out here instead of saying all right, well, you're overweight, you know, let's let's do something about it and encouraging sports or encouraging diet or whatever. Instead we're going just love yourself, you know, your body is your body, and we're avoiding the hard truths about health. Like I'm not out here saying you need to go and bully everyone who's slightly overweight or anything, but we're in a position now where we're completely aware of the risk of cardiovascular disease and health issues from being overweight and obese. Why are we out here saying, oh, just love yourself and don't worry about it, when you know if it's my family, for example, or my friends, I'm going to be letting them know and I actively do it and I just say, look, you know something needs to change. You know, if you're going down this path, you know let's go kick a ball or something, let's go to the gym. You know we'll cook up a feed tonight or something and get some steak because it's their health. If I care about them, I'm going to have that input in their life and be that positive influence. We health. If I care about them, I'm going to have that input in their life and be that positive influence. We'll circle back to that as well in a future episode.
Zeke Guenthroth:Um, welfare dependency. So there's multi-generational reliance and it's it's so pointless. Um, there's no incentive to build, improve or exit the system. Because if you're just sitting there getting given stuff your whole life, why are you going to bother improving? There's no need youth detention centers. They're soft kids. Just keep re-offending. Juvenile crimes going up. They get caught, they get released, repeat and there's no consequence.
Zeke Guenthroth:School disciplines collapsed. Teachers are quitting in droves, students are disrespectful, parents are entitled and classrooms are absolute chaos. The part of that is to do with the learning structure now, for example, being now non-linear, and movement and sports and stuff is being sort of phased out of school. So men or boys will naturally find it harder to sit still and write things, emot, emotive pieces about you know someone walking to the shop and the sun was up and the grass was green and it made them feel upset about this or that or the other. Boys are going to struggle with that 90% of the time and then that's going to lead to more chaos. For example, myself in school, anything like that I wouldn't bother. I was like no, boring, don't care, I'm going to have fun, and I'd disrupt the class.
Zeke Guenthroth:There's been a birth rate collapse, so australia's birth rate in 2023 hit a record low. There's just 1.5 babies per woman. So if you've got a woman and a man, that's two people, obviously, and they're reproducing 1.5. So for the two of them that pass away, there's only 1.5. So for the two of them that pass away, there's only 1.5 to replace them, which leads to the population going down. We need 2.1 as a birth rate to even sustain the population, and that's assuming that each woman is with one man. In today's world, with marriage declining, you end up having women having maybe two or three marriages, or three or four partners, and so on. Maybe two or three marriages or three or four partners, and so on Not all the time, but quite often. So if that woman is having two or three different partners long-term partners, I'm talking and still only having 1.5 babies, then that's per four men, for example, which then showsa massive decline in the population, long-term without immigration.
Zeke Guenthroth:Decline of marriage, cost of living, cultural pessimism it's all driving it. Again, we're not here to tackle the issues today. We're here to raise them, get things sparked, have a bit of a think about it and then we'll tackle each issue as we go. And the final issue that I want to bring up is wage growth versus cost of living. So wages rose 5.7% in 2024, but the real growth was about 0.3%. After inflation, since 2020, real wages have actually fallen close to 7%. We're working hard. Australians are working hard for less. In the last five years, your wages have dropped 7%. Meanwhile, property prices have gone up 30% or more. So no wonder we're in such a housing crisis. No wonder everyone's struggling. No wonder there's a cost of living issue, and financially the impact is huge.
Zeke Guenthroth:But as I said, guys, this episode is not about solutions. It's about naming problems, because you can't fix what you won't even admit is broken. So in the next episode, what we're going to do is we're going to start laying out real solutions, one at a time. We're just going to tackle one issue, go through it. Another issue, go through it and I'm going to raise what I think are solutions.
Zeke Guenthroth:But the whole point of it is to open up a discussion, think about things and just expose different ideas that we might not have thought of before. And I'm obviously going to be open to feedback. I cop feedback all the time on Instagram, so feel free to let me know. I think this is going to be a fun series. It's going to be good to go through each issue and we'll take it from there. For now, share this around, send it to someone who's tired of the lies, because silence isn't neutral. The longer we wait, the harder it gets to come back. Share it around, get everyone involved, spark up a bit of discussion, and we'll tackle these issues one by one over the coming weeks or months, and I look forward to you guys tuning in each time. Ciao, darling. As always, we hope you enjoyed the episode and if you did, you know exactly what needs to be done.
Zeke Guenthroth:hit that follow button, subscribe. Share it to friends, family or even your coworkers, as sharing this podcast helps not just us, but everyone in the world to learn about their finances. Thank you, dale.