\n<\/p>\n
My 11-year-old son was in his jim jams reading Harry Potter.<\/p>\n
\u201cGet out of bed \u2013 I want you to watch the Budget with me\u201d, I urged.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s the Budget?\u201d he said with a yawn.<\/p>\n
\u201cHurry up, it\u2019s starting now on Channel 2.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s Channel 2?\u201d he asked innocently.<\/p>\n
Kids these days.<\/p>\n
Now, even though he\u2019s still in primary school, I figured he\u2019d be a good proxy for what the average Aussie thinks. (Then again, this week his school had \u2018Maths Day\u2019 and to celebrate he took it upon himself to cut his chicken sanga in the shape of pi, so maybe not.)
Anyway, with a few clicks he managed to find ABC streaming.<\/p>\n
\u201cParliament House is like Hogwarts \u2026 just without the magic\u201d, I joked.<\/p>\n
To his credit he dutifully watched the young wizard (Jim Chalmers) try and cast his spell over voters. When it was finally over and all the politicians were celebrating and slapping each other on the back, I switched off the TV and asked him what he thought.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, he didn\u2019t talk much about climate change and sustainability. And there also wasn\u2019t much about artificial intelligence or robotics. I mean, clearly that\u2019s the future\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
Yes it is.<\/p>\n
AI and humanoid robots are going to reshape the world more than the iPhone did. Climate change is going to punch a hole through the economy and<\/em> the planet. And my son is going to live through the upheaval. This will be his reality.<\/p>\n Yet you wouldn\u2019t know it listening to Jim on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n He did the same old Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V trick that every Treasurer has been doing for decades:<\/p>\n Tax more.<\/p>\n Spend even more.<\/p>\n Cross your fingers and hope China keeps buying rocks.<\/p>\n Jim told us he\u2019s thinking about the future \u2013 but what he really means is the next four weeks (leading to the election), not<\/em> the next forty years.<\/p>\n Still, I was curious to find out if my little maths man had picked up on the numbers that Jimbo spat out.<\/p>\n \u201cDid you catch how much the government debt is, mate?\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cWas it a billion<\/em>?\u201d he guessed.<\/p>\n \u201cAh, no. It\u2019s set to hit $1 trillion<\/em> dollars next year\u201d, I said.<\/p>\n Silence.<\/p>\n \u201cHow many zeros are there in a trillion Dad?\u201d<\/p>\n I actually wasn\u2019t sure, so I got out my iPhone and asked ChatGPT.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are 12. Another way of thinking about it is that it\u2019s one million million<\/em> dollars\u201d, I said.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd do they have a plan on how they\u2019re going to pay that money back?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n \u201cActually, no. In fact, they\u2019re planning on adding<\/em> to the debt over the next 10 years\u201d, I said.<\/p>\n \u201cWow\u201d, he said, in a way only an 11-year-old could. <\/p>\n And with that my little Harry Potter went off to bed. <\/p>\n Now it was a school night and I didn\u2019t want to give him nightmares, so I avoided telling him the truth:<\/p>\n It\u2019s highly likely he\u2019ll spend the rest of his life paying off this debt.<\/p>\n Tread Your Own Path!<\/em><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My 11-year-old son was in his jim jams reading Harry Potter. \u201cGet out of bed \u2013 I want you to watch the Budget with me\u201d, I urged. \u201cWhat\u2019s the Budget?\u201d he said with a yawn. \u201cHurry up, it\u2019s starting now on Channel 2.\u201d \u201cWhat\u2019s Channel 2?\u201d he asked innocently. Kids these days. Now, even though […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":104158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96],"tags":[956,11231],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-179163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-investing","tag-son","tag-wont"],"yoast_head":"\n