Latest / The Morning Edition / Donald Trump’s ‘military intervention’ in the US economy

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Donald Trump’s ‘military intervention’ in the US economy · The Morning Edition

0:06
S1: When news broke last week that America's national debt has
0:10
S1: surged to a record high of U.S. $40 trillion, it
0:14
S1: was notable enough. If America's economy shakes, the rest of
0:17
S1: the globe feels it. But then came the kicker. Donald Trump,
0:21
S1: suggesting that he could use the American military to stage
0:25
S1: an intervention on bond markets. I'm Samantha Salinger Morris, and
0:29
S1: you're listening to Morning Edition from The Age and The
0:32
S1: Sydney Morning Herald. Today, international and political editor Peter Hartcher
0:37
S1: on the declining global confidence in the American dollar and
0:41
S1: American treasury, and what Donald Trump will have to do
0:44
S1: to avoid leading us all into another global financial crisis.
0:49
S1: It's August the 27th. Welcome, Peter, back to the podcast.
0:56
S2: Always a pleasure, Samantha.
0:57
S1: Okay, let's talk about what Trump said about a really
1:01
S1: important part of the American economy just the other day.
1:03
S1: So he made a comment about the bond markets and
1:08
S1: whether he would direct his Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, to
1:12
S1: to intervene. So tell us a bit about what he
1:15
S1: was saying, because he was asked if he directed Scott
1:18
S1: Bessent to intervene, because he has intervened in a particular
1:21
S1: way that I'm hoping you'll walk us through. Tell us, Peter.
1:24
S2: Well, if Donald Trump, Samantha didn't have such a strong
1:28
S2: record of saying the most outrageous, preposterous and ridiculous things,
1:33
S2: this would be at the top of any anybody's chart.
1:36
S3: Have you talked to him about another type of intervention?
1:38
S3: Is that something he will be doing?
1:40
S4: Many types of intervention. That's one. The ultimate intervention is
1:44
S4: our military. And if we have to use that, we will. Yeah.
1:48
S2: This is we're talking about the bond market here. And
1:52
S2: he's veered from a market intervention where the US Treasury
1:58
S2: was intervening to try to suppress interest rates because Donald
2:02
S2: Trump's pushing interest rates up with his policies. And that's
2:06
S2: not very helpful because if interest rates go up, borrowing
2:10
S2: costs go up, mortgage costs go up and the economy
2:14
S2: slows down. So Trump's trying to avoid that by allowing
2:18
S2: his Treasury secretary to intervene in the bond market. But
2:20
S2: then to veer from that to military intervention against the
2:25
S2: bond market. I mean, it's a completely novel concept. Uh.
2:31
S1: Novels, one word for it.
2:33
S2: It's mixing two completely different media. It's like saying I'm
2:36
S2: going to breathe the ocean.
2:38
S1: Yeah. That's right.
2:39
S2: You know, it's water and air. You can't. And there
2:42
S2: isn't even a bond market to to bomb or to
2:44
S2: blow up if he wanted to. The bond market doesn't
2:47
S2: exist in a physical place. There's no physical trading room. Uh,
2:51
S2: it's it's all done with over the ether, with computers
2:54
S2: and telephones. It's just a nuts concept. It's absolutely bizarre. Now,
3:02
S2: if he were saying this with a smile on his
3:04
S2: face as a bit of self-parody or something, that would
3:06
S2: be one thing, but he seemed to be entirely serious.
3:10
S2: And yeah, it's. Is this an indication that he's just confused?
3:14
S2: Is this an indication that with economic policy, as with
3:18
S2: diplomacy and warfare, that he just reaches for the overreach? Yeah.
3:25
S2: Every time we could talk about the Iran war if
3:28
S2: you wanted to, but is this or is this just
3:30
S2: bombast because he thinks it's a fun thing to say? Well,
3:34
S2: I don't know. But it is astonishingly, yes, preposterous.
3:39
S1: Okay, well, I wanted to ask you about that because,
3:42
S1: you know, I mean, I have seen American journalists comment online.
3:46
S1: I'll just quote one. Steve Bannon. He's the author of
3:49
S1: a book on Republican governing. And he wrote, it's not
3:52
S1: even theoretically possible unless the Republican intends to have armed
3:55
S1: service members literally attacking bond traders, which, you know, goes
3:58
S1: to your point, and I think you know more sanely,
4:02
S1: this would suggest that Donald Trump is economically illiterate. Possibly.
4:06
S1: So can you just, I guess, briefly remind us about
4:08
S1: what is happening to the bond market, I guess, how
4:10
S1: bad inflation is in the United States right now, and
4:14
S1: what impact, if any, Trump's comment might be having on investors,
4:18
S1: on traders, on consumers. Give us a bit of a
4:22
S1: look into that, Peter.
4:23
S2: Well, on on that commentator's, uh, position. Yeah. You would
4:29
S2: have to have troops going to ferret out bond traders
4:32
S2: in their offices at their desks and shoot them. That's true. But, um,
4:39
S2: how would that help the situation? Samantha? Uh, first of all,
4:43
S2: if the bond trading company wanted to continue trading, it
4:45
S2: would continue trading. It wouldn't make any difference for a
4:48
S2: normal president to even say this. There would have been
4:50
S2: a big sell off in the bond market. The fact
4:52
S2: that Trump is so loose and so outrageous that they
4:58
S2: barely noticed. Uh, protected. Um. Trump really from the consequences
5:04
S2: of this absurdity. But this is a market. It's the
5:09
S2: total value of outstanding US Treasury bonds is a little
5:12
S2: over 30 trillion USD. It's regarded it's the centrepiece of
5:16
S2: the global financial system, because the US Treasury bond is
5:20
S2: considered to be a risk free asset. Uh, and it's
5:24
S2: it's the centrepiece of portfolios. It's the centrepiece and benchmark
5:29
S2: for risk measurement. And most of it is highly liquid.
5:34
S2: And it allows investors, companies, institutions around the world to
5:40
S2: readily move in and out of liquid assets. And it's
5:47
S2: also essential to the US for the reason that when
5:52
S2: the US wants to fund its government and fund its
5:54
S2: own spending, it issues new Treasury bonds. So it needs
5:57
S2: the market to be willing to buy those things at
6:01
S2: a reasonable price. And that's where Trump is in trouble.
6:05
S2: And that's why this subject came up.
6:07
S1: That's right. And so we know that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent,
6:11
S1: that he had announced plans to at least double its
6:14
S1: purchase of long term government bonds starting next month. But
6:17
S1: people are already starting to question. Well, I mean, the
6:20
S1: government the Treasury isn't going to be able to continue
6:22
S1: to do that indefinitely. And we just heard news a
6:26
S1: couple days ago, which sort of blew up American outlets, metaphorically,
6:30
S1: that American debt has soared to the unimaginable figure, a
6:34
S1: record high of $40 trillion. Now that is spooking the
6:38
S1: world's investors. So I guess, what are the possible flow
6:41
S1: on effects to us?
6:44
S2: Okay. So the reason that this is relevant and the
6:48
S2: reason it came up, and the reason that Scott Bessent
6:50
S2: and his Treasury are buying bonds is first, because the
6:54
S2: US government spends way beyond its means Just under 6%
7:00
S2: of GDP is its annual government deficit, its cumulative government debt,
7:07
S2: as a consequence of years of overspending or under taxing,
7:10
S2: depending on how you want it to define it. It's
7:13
S2: about 125% of GDP. Once you get over 100% of GDP,
7:18
S2: it starts to raise eyebrows. Lights start to flash. For
7:22
S2: most countries. So the US is now at 100 and
7:26
S2: about 125% of GDP. Now the US has got away
7:31
S2: with this and could continue to get away with this
7:34
S2: for quite a bit longer, because it does possess the
7:38
S2: world's reserve currency. The US Treasury bond is the centrepiece
7:42
S2: of the global financial system, and the US is seen as,
7:47
S2: until recently as a stable, sane and reliable economic performer
7:53
S2: and asset and a good credit risk. What Donald Trump
7:56
S2: has done has increasingly raised doubts about all of those
8:00
S2: elements of the credibility and full faith and credit of
8:06
S2: the US dollar and US debt. A few things have
8:11
S2: coalesced to produce this effect. One is his Iran war
8:15
S2: has pushed up oil prices, which are still around $20
8:18
S2: more than the price of the oil barrel at the
8:21
S2: time he started the war. That's a big change. So
8:23
S2: inflation in the US jumped as a result from about
8:26
S2: just over 2% before the war peaked over 4%, and
8:30
S2: it's now just under 4%.
8:32
S1: It's persistent right?
8:33
S2: I mean it's persisting. Yeah. So to deal with that,
8:36
S2: the Federal Reserve markets expecting the Federal Reserve is going
8:40
S2: to have to raise interest rates further, which is likely
8:46
S2: to slow economic growth. Now, put on top of that
8:50
S2: the perpetual overspending or under taxing of the US government.
8:54
S2: And on top of that, Donald Trump's eroticism Plus, you've
9:00
S2: got something of a slow motion run on the US dollar,
9:03
S2: which is undercutting the confidence in the entire structure of
9:08
S2: the US economy, bond market and the whole thing. And
9:12
S2: the reason is this, Samantha, the US dollar reserve currency. Um,
9:17
S2: it's there's been a process called de-dollarization happening at the margin,
9:21
S2: but very slowly where countries trade as investors have been
9:25
S2: moving away from the US dollar, but it's been at a,
9:29
S2: at a sclerotic pace glacial pace. And the US dollar
9:34
S2: is still the currency in which most global trade is conducted.
9:38
S2: And most financial transactions are conducted. But when Vladimir Putin
9:44
S2: invaded Ukraine and the US froze together with its European
9:49
S2: and Japanese partners froze about 300 billion USD worth of
9:54
S2: Russian state assets. Governments all around the world looked at that,
9:58
S2: and central banks around the world looked at that and said, well,
10:00
S2: hold on. If the US is going to freeze countries
10:03
S2: assets with no warning, then we've got to think about
10:07
S2: switching out of our reserve assets. Now we're talking about
10:10
S2: central banks around the world from US dollars, and it's
10:14
S2: hard to go somewhere else. They already held and hold
10:17
S2: Japanese yen, euros and a basket of other currencies. But
10:21
S2: to replace the US dollar is hard because it's so
10:23
S2: big and so dominant. And so what happened was this
10:26
S2: was notably out of China, but also out of multiple governments,
10:30
S2: multiple central banks. They started buying gold.
10:32
S1: Yes.
10:33
S2: Yeah.
10:34
S1: The gold market loves Donald Trump. Yes.
10:36
S2: Yes.
10:37
S1: Very happy with Donald Trump.
10:38
S2: Yes. The gold market loves it because the dollar market
10:41
S2: and the bond market hates Donald Trump. So in June,
10:45
S2: for the first time in 30 years, global central banks
10:48
S2: were holding more reserve assets in gold gold bullion than
10:52
S2: in US dollars. This is a statement of no confidence.
10:55
S1: I mean, that's a real threshold sort of a moment,
10:57
S1: isn't it?
10:58
S2: Yeah it is. It has happened before. Um, so, you know,
11:02
S2: we can't yet proclaim this to be the worst crisis
11:05
S2: in global financial history. But but it's the first time
11:09
S2: in 30 years. Yeah. And it's a big warning sign
11:13
S2: that the US needs to do something to recover its credibility.
11:16
S2: And the fact that there's a sell off in the
11:17
S2: bond market that traders investors are selling us bonds and
11:21
S2: rates are going up. Put that all together dot slow
11:24
S2: motion run on the dollar movement out of the dollar
11:27
S2: by reserve currency holders. Reserve central bank reserves around the
11:32
S2: world together with a run up in bond yields and um,
11:37
S2: a bit of a crisis of confidence in the US
11:40
S2: as an entity. And this is a this is a
11:43
S2: difficult moment, which is why Trump's Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent,
11:46
S2: told the Treasury, go into the market. People aren't buying
11:50
S2: our Treasury bonds. We'd better buy them ourselves. And they did.
11:53
S2: Now they thought that would fix the problem and calm
11:56
S2: the market. All it did was say to the market,
11:59
S2: we're just fiddling here. We're trying to we're not trying
12:02
S2: to fix the underlying problem, which is cut spending or
12:05
S2: raise taxes. We're just going to try and do a
12:07
S2: little maneuver here, a little soft shoe shuffle so you
12:10
S2: won't notice. And of course that hasn't helped. So to
12:14
S2: confront this problem. Yeah. And remember this is contrary to
12:17
S2: everything Trump promised.
12:19
S1: Of course he was going to bring costs down. He
12:22
S1: was going to really, really help Americans live more affordably.
12:25
S2: Yeah. He was going to halve inflation. That's right. The
12:28
S2: price of oil was going to drop like a stone
12:30
S2: after this war. Yeah. After the 2 to 4 week
12:32
S2: war that he promised six months ago.
12:34
S1: And I mean, years ago, he was, you know, giving
12:36
S1: bombastic quotes to the media about how atrocious it was
12:39
S1: that America's debt was $19 trillion and then $21 trillion,
12:43
S1: and now it's 40. And he's he's not publicly worried
12:46
S1: about that, is he?
12:48
S2: No, he's not publicly worried. But if the run continues,
12:51
S2: this desertion of Treasury bonds and the dollar, then they
12:55
S2: will have to do something more dramatic.
13:00
S1: After the break.
13:01
S2: Geopolitics is sure it's about diplomacy and war and geography,
13:05
S2: but it's also about finance. You can't have a war
13:10
S2: if you can't finance it.
13:18
S1: What can they do? Because I've been you know, I'm
13:20
S1: no economist as you know, Peter, but I've been reading
13:24
S1: and listening intently to how, you know, market specialists are
13:28
S1: responding to this. And, and they're saying, you know, history
13:32
S1: shows that you can't control the market. You know, you
13:35
S1: can't just intervene and change everything. And there kind of
13:39
S1: seem baffled that the government is trying this, right. I mean,
13:42
S1: I saw I heard an Australian market strategist, Michael McCarthy,
13:46
S1: speaking about this just yesterday morning. He said, you know,
13:48
S1: when the US Treasury inevitably can no longer keep just
13:52
S1: buying up bonds, he said a dam will burst and
13:55
S1: it will be, quote, financial crisis all time, all over again.
13:59
S1: So which leads us to this pointy question, which is,
14:01
S1: are Trump's economic and I guess what we call military mismanagement?
14:05
S1: I mean, are, are they leading us down a path
14:08
S1: towards a GFC, another GFC?
14:11
S2: Well, at the moment they're leading us towards a potential
14:15
S2: crisis of confidence in, in the US, both the dollar
14:20
S2: and the Treasury market, which could precipitate certainly a crisis
14:24
S2: in the US financial markets, which then could precipitate a
14:28
S2: crisis globally. I mean, the warning signs are there. So yeah,
14:32
S2: it's time. It's time for them to act if they
14:34
S2: want this to go away. So what could they do exactly.
14:37
S2: Well the the most Peter, what the market would most
14:41
S2: welcome and they could most readily offer would be to
14:45
S2: cut government spending, would be to Trump to sit down
14:47
S2: with the Congress and say, we're going to cut instead
14:50
S2: of an annual deficit of 6% of GDP. For perspective,
14:54
S2: Australia's annual deficit is 1%, federal government deficit is 1%
14:58
S2: of GDP, theirs is six and has been, or just
15:01
S2: at the moment just under six. Last year was just
15:03
S2: over six, but it's been around six for several years now.
15:06
S2: That is massive for Trump to say, okay, we're okay fellas.
15:10
S2: We're going to either cut our spending or raise taxes,
15:13
S2: but we can't continue as we are. That's what the
15:16
S2: market wants to hear. That would require Trump to focus,
15:20
S2: to change, and to do some difficult things and to
15:23
S2: change his actual underlying policy, which he's had a great
15:27
S2: deal of trouble doing in a range of ways because
15:30
S2: of the vanity that he attaches to his own pronouncements
15:33
S2: and policies, he's a reluctant to walk away. The other
15:36
S2: thing he could do would be to, and this has
15:38
S2: proved beyond his power, would be to wind up this
15:42
S2: war in Iran because it is keeping oil prices elevated,
15:46
S2: inflation pressures sustained. So one or both of those measures
15:51
S2: are announced that the government is going to stop this,
15:54
S2: this outrageous. I mean, the US used to be the
15:57
S2: absolute definition of a credit worthy asset, right? It's not anymore. Yeah.
16:02
S2: The Australian Treasury bond is I think there are about
16:05
S2: ten countries in the world at the moment where all
16:08
S2: three of the major US credit rating agencies assign a
16:11
S2: triple A rating sovereign rating. Australia is one of those countries.
16:14
S2: The US is not. Yeah. So he he he can
16:18
S2: act or he can hope to bluff his way through which.
16:22
S1: He can't do. I mean, how would bluffing his way
16:24
S1: through improve anything? Uh, in a concrete way.
16:28
S2: It would not improve anything.
16:30
S1: Right. Okay. Just just confirming, just confirming that that his
16:33
S1: his would simply.
16:34
S2: It would simply be that somehow something, some influence would
16:37
S2: come to bear to reassure people. Right. And look, the
16:41
S2: other thing that's happened is, uh, is because it all
16:45
S2: fits together. Of course, you know, uh, geopolitics is sure.
16:49
S2: It's about diplomacy and war and geography, but it's also
16:53
S2: about finance. You can't have a war if you can't
16:57
S2: finance it. They're on track to spend about a little
17:01
S2: over 100 billion USD just on the Iran war alone.
17:04
S2: And Trump is is yet demanding greater military budgets, much
17:08
S2: bigger at the same time that the markets are concerned
17:11
S2: that the government's already overspending. And in this picture, you
17:15
S2: have a president who who promised that his fantastic tariffs
17:19
S2: on goods from all countries would raise so much money
17:24
S2: that the deficit he promised the deficit would be halved
17:27
S2: under him. Instead, it just remained high or higher than
17:30
S2: it was. And of course, once the Supreme Court eventually said, well,
17:35
S2: these tariffs actually are unconstitutional and the Treasury has been
17:38
S2: refunding most of those tariffs. That's right. The tariff take
17:41
S2: is nowhere near what he was expecting. In the meantime,
17:44
S2: he's been handing out tax cuts for the rich for
17:46
S2: billionaires while while cutting some spending mainly for the poor.
17:52
S2: So Medicaid, food stamps.
17:55
S1: School lunches.
17:56
S2: School lunches. But it's not enough. No, it's just not enough.
18:00
S2: And especially when the tariff, you know, the the the
18:03
S2: golden bounty of the tariff has proved to be not
18:06
S2: exactly a golden empty chest. But but it's a but
18:10
S2: it's dramatically underperforming. Uh, the whole thing in a nutshell.
18:16
S2: It's a mess.
18:17
S1: Well, I don't want to be pessimistic, Peter. As you know,
18:20
S1: I'm an eternal optimist. But I will say, if the
18:22
S1: answer to this, if we're not all to be impacted
18:25
S1: by this in a very negative way and be headed
18:27
S1: towards another GFC, like you say, you'll have to you'll
18:29
S1: have to end the war in Iran or alternatively cut spending.
18:33
S1: And I'll just say that in the last couple of
18:35
S1: weeks alone, he started a trade war with Canada, which yes,
18:38
S1: I'm sure will impact Canadian economy worse than the American economy.
18:41
S1: But it's not going to have it's just going to
18:43
S1: rise prices in America. And then you've got the war
18:46
S1: with Iran. I think his latest move was to threaten
18:49
S1: economic D day on Iran, even though economic sanctions against
18:52
S1: Iran has proved historically to not sway the regime there.
18:57
S1: I mean, it doesn't impact the regime. It impacts the
19:00
S1: Iranian people, which the regime doesn't seem to care about. Um, yeah.
19:05
S1: So I don't know if he's headed in the right direction.
19:07
S2: One of the problems that Trump has is that he
19:09
S2: fails to learn. He's so attached to failed concepts. Uh,
19:14
S2: you know, the world learned from the Great Depression that
19:17
S2: tariffs are self-destructive, right? He should have learned, should have
19:20
S2: learned from this term, uh, that they don't work, that
19:25
S2: they push up inflation and that imposes higher costs on
19:30
S2: his people and makes the increase in interest rates from
19:35
S2: the Federal Reserve more likely. Uh, he fails to learn that.
19:38
S2: And so hence this, the madness of this latest bevy
19:42
S2: of new tariffs on Canada. But then you get to
19:45
S2: the Iran, uh, claim that they're going to put apart
19:49
S2: from the ahistorical. Almost everything he says is ahistorical. It's
19:53
S2: always the biggest in history. The world's never seen blah blah.
19:57
S2: If you look at the Iran bombast that we're going
20:00
S2: to isolate Iran, it's going to be more isolated than
20:02
S2: any country in the history of the world. It's nonsense.
20:05
S2: And not only that, within 48 hours, the Chinese authorities
20:10
S2: have rendered that attempt at the economic isolation of Iran
20:15
S2: even further than it currently is. It's already under a
20:17
S2: lot of sanctions. Completely void.
20:19
S1: That's right.
20:20
S2: Because the Chinese government has said, don't you dare put
20:23
S2: sanctions on us, because what Trump is saying is to
20:27
S2: isolate Iran. They would cut off Iran's oil exports and
20:33
S2: that using secondary boycotts, if other countries, for example, China,
20:37
S2: continue to buy the Iranian oil, then Trump's going to
20:40
S2: put sanctions, secondary sanctions on China for buying the Iranian oil. Right.
20:44
S2: And but the Chinese have said, well, you do that,
20:46
S2: we're going to retaliate. Exactly. And Trump knows that he
20:49
S2: can't afford that because he tried it last year. He
20:51
S2: tried putting extra tariffs on on the Chinese economy. XI
20:56
S2: Jinping said, well, no more critical minerals or rare earths
20:58
S2: for you. And Trump capitulated within three days. And so now,
21:03
S2: having been confronted with this promise from the Chinese authorities,
21:07
S2: XI Jinping saying, don't put sanctions on us or we'll retaliate.
21:11
S2: That has brought to a screeching halt any real prospect
21:15
S2: that Trump can actually fully isolate Iran and cut off
21:19
S2: their oil exports. Because guess who buys 90% of Iran's
21:22
S2: oil exports? China.
21:25
S1: I mean, it's almost as if all of Trump's challenges,
21:28
S1: let's say, are like the rubber's hitting the road, right?
21:31
S1: You know, he's interested in ballrooms and in his legacy and,
21:35
S1: you know, his face on stuff. But, you know, it
21:37
S1: doesn't seem to particularly care about the livelihood, I guess,
21:40
S1: of his own people. Uh, and again, like you say,
21:44
S1: you know, he believes in outdated concepts or concepts that
21:46
S1: have been proven to be economically poor choices like tariffs.
21:50
S1: And it's all coming to a pass. So yeah, let's
21:52
S1: see if he gets a personality transplant. Peter let's see,
21:54
S1: because it sounds like that might be what it takes to.
21:58
S2: Well, the bond market. The bond market is the ultimate
22:02
S2: reality touchstone. Yes. And you might remember there was a
22:05
S2: famous quote when Bill Clinton had been only a few
22:09
S2: months in the white House as president.
22:11
S1: Yes. James Carville.
22:12
S2: Yeah. His advisors said to him, look, boss, you can't
22:16
S2: spend all this money you want to spend.
22:18
S1: Because.
22:18
S2: Because bond yields will go up and collapse the entire
22:23
S2: financial system. To which he said, are you telling me
22:27
S2: that the bond market can f my entire program? Ah,
22:31
S2: now that's from memory might be exactly perfect, but that's
22:35
S2: that's pretty close.
22:35
S1: Yes.
22:36
S2: Are you telling me the bond market can f my
22:38
S2: entire program?
22:39
S1: And the answer is.
22:41
S2: You bet.
22:41
S1: It. Correct.
22:42
S2: So we are approaching a culminating point of incompetence and
22:47
S2: bombast from the Trump administration, where, as you say, all
22:51
S2: of these failures, stupidities and incompetencies appear to be on
22:58
S2: the threshold of culminating, which will confront Trump with a
23:02
S2: dose of reality. He. The Iranians have given him one.
23:06
S2: The Chinese have given him one. The bond market may
23:09
S2: be on the. On the brink of giving him another one.
23:11
S1: Well, thanks, Peter, yet again for talking us through yet
23:13
S1: another crazy week of statements that shock us from the
23:17
S1: American President.
23:18
S2: Well, he does the crazy. All we can do is
23:19
S2: talk about it.
23:20
S1: That's right. Thanks, Peter.
23:22
S2: Pleasure, Samantha.
23:27
S1: In other news today, the Reserve Bank's next meeting may
23:30
S1: have to consider another interest rate rise after new figures
23:34
S1: showed inflation failing to slow as quickly as the bank
23:38
S1: had hoped. Scientists are developing cyborg paramedic cockroaches, designed to
23:44
S1: find people trapped in places that human rescuers can't reach,
23:48
S1: with the latest recruits capable of delivering medicine by firing
23:52
S1: syringes from a harpoon system on their backs. You can
23:56
S1: see video of the giant burrowing cockroaches on our websites.
24:00
S1: And it's expensive, physically taxing and emotionally draining. But demand
24:05
S1: for egg freezing among young Australians has never been higher,
24:08
S1: and private equity firms are counting on that. Head to
24:12
S1: the Sydney Morning Herald and the age websites to read
24:15
S1: the full investigation. You can read more at the age.com.au
24:19
S1: or smh.com.au. Today's episode was produced by Kai Wong. Our
24:27
S1: executive producer is Tammy Mills, and our podcasts are overseen
24:30
S1: by Lisa Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick. If you like our show,
24:34
S1: follow The Morning Edition and leave a review for us
24:37
S1: on Apple or Spotify. Thanks for listening.