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No BS: Authenticity the key to courage

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No B.S Friday: This doctor has given me a whole new outlook on authenticity

I used to think ‘authenticity’ was a bit of a magical thing.

It’s a drive we all have. I’m sure of that. We want to live in a way that’s authentic – that’s true to ourselves.

We want to feel that our outward life reflects our inner life. That we move in a way that’s true to our values and beliefs.

I didn’t really question where that came from. Sometimes I wondered if that authenticity was what the mystics talked about when they talked about a ‘soul’ – a potent energy deep inside us that longed to be expressed.

But I knew that authenticity was one of the keys to happiness. I knew that it didn’t matter what you achieved in the material world – it didn’t matter how big your penthouse was or how shiny your car was – if you weren’t being authentic to yourself then you’d never be happy.

So I was very interested this week when I watched a doco on Gabor Mate. He’s a doctor that’s worked a lot with trauma, and the way trauma lives on in the decisions we make and the way we live our lives.

(Amazing dude. Check it out if you haven’t had the chance.)

Anyway, he said that there only two basic needs we have as humans. Attachment (connection and intimacy), and authenticity.

But for him, authenticity wasn’t some airy-fairy idea. It was a biological imperative.

For him, it’s connected to our gut – our intuition.

The world we evolved in was too complex and too fast to meet with the conscious mind. If you suddenly heard the foot-fall of a sabre tooth tiger behind you, you had to react instinctively. You couldn’t wait for you head to process what was happening. You had to let your body drive. You had to move at the speed of instinct.

Authenticity then is a feeling that comes when your body’s instincts play out in a healthy way within you. It’s when there is space for them. It’s when it’s ok for the body’s instincts to be expressed.

This is authenticity. It’s a survival mechanism.

And that’s why we value authenticity so much. It’s why we feel so lost and despondent when we are living in an inauthentic way or living inauthentic lives.

If there’s no space for genuine emotion and genuine authentic expression, then we are cut off from the most important survival tool we have – the instincts of our own body.

And so when we deny anger and suppress it, we disconnect from our instincts. And when we deny grief and suppress it, we disconnect from our instincts. And when we deny our sensual and sexual sides, we disconnect from our instincts.

But we rely on our instincts. We’ve relied on our instincts for millennia.

So is it any wonder that if we’re being inauthentic – if we’re disconnected from our bodies – we feel alienated, alone and scared?

And isn’t authenticity then the key to courage?

So I don’t know. I’m still not sure where this lands.

But I’m seeing authenticity in a whole new light.

Living true to yourself and living on your own terms – it’s even more awesome (and important!) than I’d imagined.

JG.

No BS: Why the powerful pay the price

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Dollar sign blowing away

No B.S Friday: My friend was having relationship troubles, but I wouldn’t let him get away with that one.

Imagine I could get you to do just one thing that would set you up for life. (Me, Jon. Your fairy godmother.)

What would it be?

Get up earlier? Exercise more? Read more, study more? Kale smoothies and quinoa colonics?

No, it would be this.

I would make it so that every time you hit a roadblock, every time you got knocked back, you would say to yourself, “I am not willing to pay the price for this.”

That’s it. You just keep doing you. But the next time life throws some tyre-spikes in your path, rather than blaming the world or feeling sorry for yourself or accepting ‘no’ as the final word, you would simply say to yourself, “I’m not willing to pay the price for this.”

Everything has a price, and you’re willing to pay it or you’re not.

I was actually thinking about this after a conversation with my friend the other day. Without revealing any personal details, he was a bit grumpy because he and his wife hadn’t been having all that much sex lately.

And there’s reasons for that. They’re both working full time, there’s young kids in the picture, her health hasn’t been fantastic.

But he was in a bit of a grump. He was angry at a world that kept them so flat-out they didn’t have time for intimate time. And he was bitter at her for not craving physical intimacy the way he did.

So there seem to be some reasons to justify his sulky mood.

But I said to him, “You’re just not willing to pay the price for this.”

After he’d settled down and put down the bar stool, I explained that he knew what had to be done. His missus is burnt out, like most of us are. If he wants her to get physical, he knows he needs to lay the ground work. He needs to give her some kiddy-free time to relax and come back into her body. Maybe a bath and massage.

That’s the price. No arguing with it.

The point of recognising that there is a price is so we don’t give away our power. If we accept a no from the universe, it says that it’s all out of our hands. There’s nothing we can do. We have no power in the situation.

I don’t think that’s ever true unless we let it be true.

So there’s a price.

The question then is, are you willing to pay the price or not?

That’s your choice. It’s your responsibility.

You’re either willing to do what’s required, or you’re not.

And if you’re not you’re not. That’s totally ok. It’s totally reasonable to say that with everything else going on in my life, and in the hierarchy of my priorities, I’m just not willing to pay this price.

That’s ok. That’s still a statement of power.

But it’s with you then. It’s on you. You don’t get to blame the world or blame others because you can’t get what you want.

If you start blaming others or blaming the world, it’s admitting that you have no power in the world, and what do you think happens to your life if you admit you have no power?

Nothing good.

No, you have to stay in your power.

And if you’re feeling frustrated because you’re not getting what you want, you just have to recognise that everything has its price, and it’s always up to you whether you pay the price or not.

And this little mental shift is the one thing I would recommend to everyone.

It’s a doctrine of radical responsibility. But that’s what we want right? We want the power to make our lives exactly what we want them to be.

In all things, that involves paying a price.

You get nothing for nothing in this world. I know that for sure.

JG.

No BS: 2021 is already a jumping castle

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No B.S Friday: Sometimes like just bumps you around…

Running is one thing.

Running on soft sand is another.

Running on a jumping castle is another again.

And running on a jumping castle while some massive bastard jumps up and down around you is a completely different kettle of fish.

Generally, with the people I’ve mentored over the years, I find myself talking a lot about running on soft sand.

That is, how do you sustain traction and momentum when things become a bit of a slog – when you ‘ve got to put in twice the effort just to hold your usual pace?

And for most of us, it’s the soft sand that kills us.

Take New Year’s resolutions for example. They’re easy in the first couple of weeks. The calendar’s clear, you’re feeling fresh from the break, you’re super inspired. It’s like running on a spring-loaded sprint track.

But then things get hard. The ground beneath your feet begins to get soft and unforgiving. The weekends start filling up with obligations – kids birthday’s and trips to Ikea. You remember that your day job is frustrating and saps your energy. You’re not even sure how much you want what you thought you wanted anyway.

Once you hit the soft sand, you’ve got to dig a bit deeper. You’ve got to tap your motivation and keep it on tap. You’ve got to become efficient in your strategy and translate intention into habits. You’ve got to leverage the knowledge and experience of others.

This is all stuff I’ve written about before – the disciplines of soft sand running.

But sometimes life gives you something else entirely. Sometimes it feels like you’re on a jumping castle with a bunch of massive fat blokes and you’re fighting just to keep your feet.

I’ll be honest with you. That’s what it feels like for me right now.

As you know, a key element of my business is events. What’s the outlook for the events sector right now?

A bunch of fat blokes on a jumping castle.

Covid is still loose, and the situation is still fluid. It’s impossible to build concrete plans.

Thankfully, we began the pivot towards online several years ago, so we’ve done better than many people in the space. But still. I’m asking myself how much longer we’re going to stick with our ‘temporary’ response measures.

At some point I’m going to have to say, nup, this isn’t an exception anymore, this is my core business. At some point I’m going to have to make that call.

When?

Four fat blokes on a jumping castle.

So what can you do?

I think it’s like my Grandmother used to say: When life gives you jumping castles, jump around.

The truth is that life is unpredictable. That’s actually what makes it fun. It’d be kinda boring if everything you ever wanted to do just flowed without a hitch, all the time.

So I think you have to hold tight to your intentions, and keep committed to progress.

But sometimes you also just have to acknowledge that you’re on a jumping castle, and these blokes are going to bump you around for a bit.

Whee.

So far, 2021 is giving us more jumping castle than sprint-track.

That’s ok. It’s all part of the mix.

And at the end of the day, whether you find it frustrating or fun, it’s all up to you.

Have a great year everyone.

JG.

No BS: Why I won’t stop

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No B.S Friday: It’s been a strange trip. This is what I’ve learnt.

Today is my 1,000th blog.

When I started out about seven years ago, I didn’t really imagine I’d end up here.

I was just going to bang a couple out and see how it went.

But I started numbering them, just to keep them organised and well, today, that number kicked over to 1,000.

*sound of champagne popping

And what have I learnt?

Well, there’s three lessons I’ve taken from this endeavour.

1. The way of the drip-drip warrior

More and more I’m appreciating the power of small, but steady and consistent action. It really has the power to change your world.

If I had set myself the task of writing a 1,000 blogs – which is something like 750,000 words, or 10 novels (take that Tom Clancy!) – I don’t know that I ever would have got there. It would have been overwhelming. It would have been too much.

But if you spread that 1,000 over seven or eight years, making a weekly practice of just chipping away at it, you’ll get there before you know it.

I remember at my parent’s place there was a leaky tap, that over the years bore a hole in the concrete. One drop doesn’t do much, but enough drops over a long enough timeframe, can have tremendous power.

And I think this is something we need to remember in our wealth journeys. It’s not about the flashy, swinging for the fences deals you can pull off. It’s about whether you can just keep moving forward, one day at a time.

This is the way of the drip-drip warrior, and there is great power in it.

2. Daily practice, daily grounding

There’s something very grounding about having a daily (or almost daily) practice.

It’s like it provides an anchoring planet that the rest of your life can orbit around. I don’t know. It kind of helps me know where my feet are.

And it’s also awesome to have something that gives me such an immediate feeling of accomplishment. It doesn’t matter how good the piece is. I got it done. I found something worth writing about, and I got a result.

It’s very satisfying, and it helps reinforce my self-belief that I am an achiever – I get things done.

There’s power in that.

3. The well is bottomless

Finally, if you had asked me what I was going to write 1,000 blogs about, I would have had no idea.

I don’t think I would have even thought it was possible – to come up with that much original content.

And in the early days, I was very worried about running out of ideas.

Now though, I never worry about running out of ideas.

I genuinely believe I could write for a 1000 years, and still find fresh and interesting things to talk about.

But that’s not about me. That’s about the universe we live in. It is one with infinite detail, and where each detail can be viewed from infinite perspectives.

The well we draw from is bottomless.

It’s the same for everyone.

And if it’s one thing I’m grateful for, it’s for a practice that keeps me coming back to the well to see what’s on offer today.

It’s kinda marvellous.

Anyway, this is all to say thanks for following along. I definitely wouldn’t be doing this if people weren’t picking up what I was putting down, and all the great comments and feedback I get really keeps me going.

So thanks for everyone for reading. I sincerely hope that I’ve given you some food for thought and some encouragement in whatever journey you’re on.

Here’s to another 1000.

JG.

No BS: A conspiracy theory I believe in

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No B.S Friday: what if we’re looking at this problem backwards?

I try not to get too cynical.

It’s very intoxicating. It’s a drug.

But I’m trying to give it up.

It’s hard not to get cynical in times like these.

Remember, cynicism is the belief that people are motivated purely by self-interest; when you are distrustful of human sincerity or integrity. (That’s the dictionary definition, so let’s go with that.)

It’s not hard to see how even the most gentle-hearted could end up cynical in a world like this. People seem to be entirely selfish turds. Integrity is thin on the ground.

Humans are war-mongering monkeys, obsessed with sex and status.

But still I think there is a difference between understanding people and the world in a clear-eyed way, and falling into a cynical world view.

Because the way I see it, most cynicism is a bit lazy.

Cynicism allows you to avoid having to examine the facts on their merits. It allows you to just cut straight to your default setting – a bitter distrust of the human species.

And this has been in full display during Covid.

All nuance, all detail, all reality has just been swept aside by a rush to believe that people are just garbage.

“Of course the government is lying to us about Covid. They are inherently evil and want to eat our souls.”

“Of course the protestors are idiots. They don’t care about our rights. They are just being selfish.”

Cynicism excuses you from any further thought or analysis. It just allows you to throw it all in the basket labelled “Evidence that people suck.”

Job done. Move on.

And I think a lot of the tension we’re seeing right now comes from this cynicism. It comes from people who have fully bought into the idea that people are horrible, and now see everything through a lens of confirmation bias.

So the point I’d make is that cynicism gives you a false sense of rationality.

We think that if we have reached the conclusion that people suck, then we have reached bedrock.

If we’re given the impression that people are nice and do nice things, we are suspicious of that. We look for ulterior motives.

Once we find them, and the data seems to suggest that people suck, then we feel like we’ve reached the end of our line of inquiry. No need to look any further. This must be the true reality.

But why do we think that?

Why are we so ready to believe that people would want to deceive us into believing that people are actually good, while we’re not open to the idea at all that someone might be deceiving us into thinking that people are crap?

Surely it’s in someone’s interest to have us all cynical and isolated?

Why do we never say, “It looks like this is a case of people being selfish weasels, but then that IS what they want us to believe.”

If we think it is possible that there is some vast conspiracy out there, hiding us from the full extent of the world’s evil, why are we not open to the idea that there is a vast conspiracy out there trying to hide all the goodness in the world from us.

What is it asymmetric?

Why do we value cynicism over faith?

So look, I don’t know what the truth is. But nobody does.

All I’m saying is that it is easy to be cynical. It’s lazy to be cynical.

So why not hold the faith and choose to believe in something more beautiful.

And what do you think might happen if we all did that?

JG

No BS: lessons from a naughty dog

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No B.S Friday: I’m still not quite sure what to make of this experience…

That little dog got me in so much trouble.

So I remember I was out for a walk one time, and this little dog comes running up to say hello.

I like dogs, so I bent down to give it a bit of a pat and a ruffle.

See what a nice guy I am. This proves it.

Side note – I was actually talking to a film-maker friend of mine, and this is a common movie technique. If they want you to like a character immediately, but they don’t have time to put into it, they just give you a shot of them being kind to an animal.

Apparently, if we see somebody being nice to an animal, we just automatically assume they’re a good person. Maybe because the opposite is true, if you’re nasty to an animal you are probably a nasty person.

Anyway, watch out for it. Think Russel Crow’s character is Gladiator. In the opening scene he’s shown thoughtfully patting his dog (who for some reason has come to the battlefield with him), and then the dog is never seen of again. Or Brad Pitt in Fury, in the opening scene with the horse of the Nazi he’s just killed. Or <insert some reference that makes it look like I don’t only like historical action films. Something something Susan Sarandon.>

Anyway, there I was, nice guy that I am, giving this dog a friendly pat.

At that point the dog decides that we’re now buddies and he starts following me down the street.

I’m looking around for his owner, who I presumed was somewhere around, but then realise that this dog is out all on his own. I’m looking at the houses nearby and they’re not looking like doggy houses.

Um… Now I’m wondering if I’ve accidentally invited a stray dog to come and live with me.

Because that’s how its behaving.

It runs off for a bit, then runs back and looks at me like, “Where are we going next?” Then it goes and comes back and goes and comes back.

I keep on with my walk. I figure it will just get bored of me eventually.

And that’s ok for a couple of blocks, but then the dog starts doing naughty things.

It runs up someone’s driveway and runs around in their yard. It’s in the middle of the road as car is trying to get past. It chases a cat.

And I realise that I’m now looking like an irresponsible dog owner. Like I’m some dude who has taken his dog out for a walk, and then just doesn’t care what the dog gets up to.

And people are looking at me like, “Are you going to get your dog under control?”

And I’m shrugging at people, trying to say, “It’s not my dog.” But it just looks like I’m just saying, “Sorry my dog just shat on your lawn. Nothing I can do about it.”

And this dog is still super friendly with me, and so now I look like a guy who takes his dog out for a walk, and then when it does something naughty, just pretends like it isn’t his dog.

Any cred I established in the opening scenes is not lost, as people glare at me down the street.

It’s just a bizarre experience.

But it’s one that also feels kinda common.

Like, people are going to judge you about things they don’t understand. They won’t know the full story. They won’t understand why you’re doing the things you’re doing, or how much control you have in the story anyway.

But they’re going to judge you anyway.

And there will be times when you are making a mess in someone’s lawn – where you yourself will be the naughty dog – and you’ll just have to shrug your shoulders and say, “Sorry. I don’t know why I did that. I just don’t have full control over this thing.”

What can you do?

Haters are going to hate. You’re going to be naughty and make a mess. It’s just life.

All you can do is keep walking.

JG.

No BS: Expect more Trumps

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No B.S Friday: What I think of the end of the Trump era.

So it looks like Trump is cooked.

I know it looks like he’s going to fight it, but I think he’s got nothing.

If he had something, we would have heard about it by now. There’s been an usually long period of silence from the former president.

And the longer it goes on, the worse it gets for him.

He’s an optics president. And the more people call him ‘former’ president. The more people who call Joe Biden “President elect”, the more world leaders who call to congratulate Joe on his win – the more Trump looks like yesterday’s news.

So I think we can expect a bit of messing around in the transition, but unless Trump is planning on a military coup, he’s on his way to his unique and unusual place in history.

What a ride.

I remember when I first caught whiff on Trump. I like to say I was on to it before it was cool. I saw his full potential in the early rounds of the Republican primaries. I put money on him when Sportsbet were paying 7 to 1.

I knew we were witnessing the birth of an entirely new political animal.

And I think it’s pretty fair to say that Trump has changed politics forever.

People like to call him a ‘populist’ president, but I think that misses the point. He was a partisan president. He knew how the political calculus worked. He knew he didn’t have to win any middle ground if he could rout enough energy into his base.

And so that was the game he played. And he played it like a maestro. He worked his base into a frenzy.

Remember in the middle of the Black Lives Matter protests how he went and stood in front of a church and waved a bible about?

There was never any doubt about what side Trump was on.

And remember, even though he lost the popular vote, he still delivered an incredible turn-out for Republicans.

But while Trump had game, he was also a man of the moment.

Over the past decade social media has created identity silos – isolated echo-chambers. He saw that his new brand of politics was perfectly tailored to this reality.

It didn’t matter what the facts were or what you did. Your fans were going to love you and your haters were going to hate you, no matter what you said or did.

And so Trump just said and did what he liked.

The shock the collective world felt at this was partly about Trump, but it was also in recognising how divided and isolated we had become – that we had entered a ‘post-truth’ universe where the facts just didn’t matter anymore.

And I don’t know that there’s any way back from this. This is just how the world works now.

And Biden might talk all he wants about ‘uniting America’, but you can bet that message isn’t making its way through to Republican thought-silos.

So, Trump will go down in history as an emblem for the social-media age.

And until that changes, expect more Trumps.

JG.

No BS: Don’t manifest until you do this first

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No B.S Friday: The first step in manifesting anything is to drop into your power.

It’s one of the paradoxes built into manifestation.

The way people tell the story – I’m talking about law-of-attraction type theories, which themselves have been around in various forms for centuries – everything has a gravity. Even emotional experiences have a gravity, and they pull towards each other.

Like attracts like.

So if like attracts like, that means that if you want to attract peace, joy, beauty, material possessions, whatever, then you need to put yourself in that emotional state, where you are actually already enjoying, peace, joy, beauty, material possessions, whatever.

It’s these feelings – these body-based experiences – that then become the fuel that powers your dreams.

And to tap these feelings – this fuel source – you need to think past the sale. You need to put yourself in that place where you already have everything you want.

But, Question: if you already have everything you want, where are you then?

Answer: You are in your power.

That’s what I reckon this state is. This manifestation state.

You are in your power. Every desire is realised. Every need is sorted. Every loved-one is taken care of, and you cut cleanly and quickly through the messy world towards your goals. Always.

You are in your fully-realised power.

You need to step into this place to manifest cleanly.

If this is true, that means that when you are consciously dreaming – when you are deciding on what it is you want to be calling into your life – you need to make sure that these dreams are the dreams of your full-power self.

You need to dream the dreams that your full-power self would dream.

They can’t be coming from a place of lack. “I need a flash car so people will like me.” Rubbish. Is that something the most powerful version of you would say? Of course not.

“I need a flash car because I like riding an iron dragon and writing my name in the open road.”

That’s something your full-power self would say.

So before you dream into what you want, dream into the fullness of your power. Open the door to everything you are capable of.

That might require a bit of imagination. But isn’t that the magic that’s hidden in imagination – to call into being something that has never existed before?

So dream into it. Dream into what it’s like as your full-power self. Imagine what your full-power self would desire.

This is where it begins.

I’d say don’t even waste your time trying to manifest anything if you haven’t grounded here first.

The first thought should be on your power.

There will be time for flash and bling later.

JG.

No BS: Is this goodbye Trump?

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The polls are eye-popping. Is Trump toast?

So looks like Trump is on the way out.

You know, this is 2020, so anything is possible, but Biden has opened up a huge lead in the polls.

And of course, the answer to that is that the polls were wrong last time and they could be wrong again.

And that’s true. They could be wrong. But they would have to be epicly wrong for Trump to win this time.

You can actually look at the data on this:

So Trump is currently 10 points behind in the polls. That says that for Trump to win, the polls would have to underestimating the actual results by at least that much.

But the only time that the polls got it that degree of wrong was all the way back in 1948, and even then, they weren’t that wrong. In the modern era it’s a few points at most. In 2016, versus Hilary Clinton, it was just 1.1 points.

So for Trump to win, the polls would have to be the wrongest they’ve ever been, in a huge way.

You’d have to think that’s a low-probability outcome.

But you know, Trump is Trump, and this is 2020, so I’ll believe it when I see it.

But whichever way it goes, I think Trump’s first term will mark a turning point in politics, not just in America, but across the world.

But let’s not give Trump the credit for that. I think Trump just saw where the wave was heading and got in front of it.

And the wave’s name is polarisation.

Take a look at this chart. This tracks how many Americans think that it really matters who is President.

So back in 2000 it was pretty evenly split. 50% of Americans thought it mattered who was President, the other half thought that it didn’t matter. That’s either because they just didn’t care and thought it was irrelevant, or they thought both parties were pretty much the same anyway.

That is, they were either disengaged or cynical.

Fast-forward to 2020, and the numbers are totally different. Now, 83% think that it really matters, while only 16% don’t.

That’s another way of saying that the number of disengaged and cynical voters has collapsed 70%!

On the face of it, you’d think that’s a good thing. The more engaged in politics the citizenry is, the better outcomes you get.

But it is likely that this is largely driven by social-media driven thought-bubble polarisation.

People think it matters who is President because their news feed tells them that the other side wants to eat babies and sell war-veterans to the Russians.

This dynamic was in play before Trump (you can see that in the chart), but I think Trump was the first person to use it consciously.

He knew that there was just no way to talk to the other side – there’s no penetrating the though bubble – so he gave up pretending to be a “President for all Americans”, and focused instead on energising his base.

And it worked… for a while.

But has he lost the political centre?

This will be a very interesting election to watch. Campaign managers from every continent will be watching how it plays out.

And the key question is this, in the age of social media thought bubbles, just how far can you pull from the political centre?

We’ll see.

JG.

No BS: My hot take on the budget

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The shape of the country of Australia in the colours of its national australian dollar currency recessed into an isolated white surface

The Budget was massive, but I think we have more in store.

What do I make of this week’s budget?

It’s massive. But there’s more coming.

That’s what I reckon.

First up, the headline numbers are huge. We’re looking at a budget deficit of almost half a trillion dollars. We are still well and truly in unchartered territory here. No one could have ever imagined that the Australian government would be handing down that kind of deficit a year ago, let alone a “debt and deficits disaster” Coalition government.

But this is where we’re at.

It’s a huge amount of money.

But I still think there’s more coming.

And I say that because the two key centre-pieces of the budget – the wage subsidy for young workers, and the instant asset write-offs for business investment – are activity generated.

That is, they rely on the private sector doing stuff for them to come into effect.

So if you’re going to give companies a subsidy if they employed a 19-35 year old from the ranks of the unemployed, that requires firms to actual go out and hire people.

While this measure is estimated to be worth billions of dollars, it is theoretically possible that if no firms employed no new workers, that the total cost to the budget would be a doughnut $0.

Same story with the asset write down. If firms invest, there might be a certain tax advantage for that. But if no firms invest in no new things, then the measure is worthless.

That means that this free-spending budget actually needs a catalyst before it become active.

And what’s the catalyst?

Economic activity itself. It needs firms to hire and invest. If they don’t, then there’s nothing.

So this epic budget positions itself as a rocket pack strapped to the top of an economy that’s already moving.

But what if the economy isn’t moving?

It’s possible.

The government’s projections for growth and jobs were characteristically over-optimistic, but not wildly so.

But still, there’s a lot of money exiting the economy right now, as the governments front-line support measures – particularly JobKeeper and the JobSeeker supplement – are already being wound back.

This chart from the AFR shows you what the ‘fiscal cliff’ we’ve been hearing about for so long is now looking like:

And that’s at a time where private demand has already fallen through the floor, and public spending is the only thing propping up the economy.

And so what you’ve got is about $30 billion worth of direct government spending being replaced by a wage subsidy worth $4bn, and an asset write-down worth $27bn.

So it kinda balances out, right?

Well, no, not exactly.

It’s a bit apples and oranges because you’re replacing a direct cash injection, with indirect support that’s conditional on firms taking the risks involved in hiring and investing.

What it means is that if the economy is already recovering and continues to recover, and firms are happy to hire and invest, then we should get a reasonably smooth transition.

But if they don’t – if firms and households are still spooked – especially as JobKeeper winds up – they we might end up with a very bumpy transition.

In the short term, that will lead to two things. The first is that the government will decide it needs to support the economy more directly, and it will go back to mainlining money straight into the economy.

The second is that it will call in the RBA artillery, and we’ll get further rate cuts and reduced mortgage rates.

My guess is we’ll get both.

My hunch, based on what I know about animal spirits, is that everyone will want to take a wait-and-see approach, and the government we’ll be forced to intervene more aggressively.

In the long run, that means even more money finding it’s way into the system, and we’ll have an even bigger rebound boom baked into the outlook.

So that’s my take on the budget.

It’s huge. It’s massive.

And it’s only round one.

JG.