WEBVTT - Justin Wolfers & David Daley 0:00:00.640 --> 0:00:04.160 Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.120 where we discussed the top political headlines with some of 0:00:07.160 --> 0:00:11.200 today's best minds and one hundred and twenty eight Democrats 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:15.080 across the aisle to help Republicans block Al Green's bid 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:18.000 to impeach Trump. We have such a great show for 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:22.759 you today, the Think Like an Economists podcast. Justin Wolfers 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:27.440 joins us to talk about trade. Then we'll talk to 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:32.400 Fair Votes David Daily about why rank choice voting is 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:35.440 actually amazing and should be everywhere. 0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:39.360 But first the news, Molly, I have to say, in 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:42.080 our years of dealing with politics, I don't think I've 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:45.199 ever seen New York City's elites with their bed like 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:48.559 they have today over zor on Mom Donnie getting the 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:52.800 Democratic nomination era. It seems the business world and the 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:58.080 Democratic establishment are well, really really overdoing the drama about 0:00:58.080 --> 0:00:58.800 what this means. 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:05.520 It is unbelievably crazy how angry things people are. 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:08.560 Here's what's happening. A lot of people. 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:12.800 Are worried that he's going to raise taxes, and that 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:16.080 is really what's happening. I think there are some people 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:19.280 who are worried he's not sufficiently pro Israel enough, but 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:22.399 I'm not sure what the mayor of New York has 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:26.280 to do with Israel particularly, but a well known investor 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:31.000 deleted an ex post suggesting mon Donnie's win was a 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:35.360 nightmare for billionaire investors, name checking Bloomberg, Ackman, and Low. 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:39.559 It wasn't me who did that, but it could have been. Look, 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:42.039 a lot of very rich people are already saying they're 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:43.800 going to move to Florida. 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:47.600 If I had a dollar for every. 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:49.920 Time wealthy people got mad and said they were going 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:52.760 to move, I would have a lot of dollars. 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:54.680 You'd have a lot because there was actually a study 0:01:54.720 --> 0:01:56.240 on this one. The last time they said it when 0:01:56.280 --> 0:01:58.760 Bill de Bungler got elected and guess what, we got 0:01:58.840 --> 0:01:59.880 even more of them here. 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:03.160 Yes, Now, I want to caution because you and I 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:05.960 both are Mom and Donnie curious. 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:07.640 I'm a little more than curious. 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:11.040 You're maybe a little less curious, but I'm very curious 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:13.919 about him, and I have a lot of optimism about this. 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:14.760 That's all I say. 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:18.360 But we do want to note that being mayor is 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:19.720 really fucking hard. 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:22.720 And you know, it's a lot of shit that you. 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:26.400 Have to do, and sometimes we get excited and then 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:28.800 people can't do it now. I don't think that's going 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:30.679 to be the case here. But no one has ever 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:33.600 been mayor who has ever gone on to anything. 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:35.640 It's just a fact. 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:39.080 As you and I have discussed many times, it's not 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:42.520 a job you leave being popular as New York City mayor. 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:44.880 It's just doesn't go so well for your approval. 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:48.040 And in my mind, that's the scariest part about this win. 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:52.400 But he obviously wants it, and he's quite a gifted politician. 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:55.959 So we're just gonna all keep our fingers and toes crossed. 0:02:56.000 --> 0:02:59.240 But Fox News, I just want everyone to be aware, 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:02.480 is now going to go full core press on New 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:06.240 York City being a houscape and anything they did to 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:10.079 Eric Adams is going to be one hundred times worse 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:12.240 to Zoran. 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:14.720 That's funny because Eric Adams was just on news Max 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:18.119 because he knows which folks he's running for. So yes, 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:21.160 it's going to be a very wild ride from here 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:21.880 to November. 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:25.440 It's going to be a terrible general election. Yeah. 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:28.400 I would really encourage a lot of people to, instead 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:31.520 of reading propaganda from campaigns, actually read some quotes that 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:34.639 some people say, because boy, have I never seen misinformation 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:36.960 fly like the last two days on Twitter. 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:37.400 Yeah. 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:40.120 And I would also suggest not reading the New York 0:03:40.160 --> 0:03:43.800 Post as much as we love page six. You know, 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:47.160 we have one local paper, it's a New York Post. 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:50.800 We have two, we have two. Come only news does exist? 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:54.200 Okay, we have one local paper, it's the New York Post. 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:55.800 You know. 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:59.760 Look, I like the Daily News much more ideologically aligned 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:02.680 with that. But you know, don't read it. Okay, just 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:04.960 read page six and throw the rest of the thing out. 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:07.760 Okay, I'm going to get us onto another subject. 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:09.040 You're not going to cut that out. 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:09.240 Man. 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:10.560 If one thing put. 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:14.280 On, the listeners will be we be hearing that. Bali 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:16.200 jug Fast endorses page. 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:18.800 Six, indorses page six, but tells you to throw the 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:20.919 rest of the newspaper, and then you're opposed to out. 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:21.520 Thank you. 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:25.720 Yeah, okay. So Trump is going to limit sharing classified 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:29.000 info with Congress after the week on I Red's bombing 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:32.640 damage because he's very upset that everybody found out that 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:33.760 he bungled this. 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:37.480 If you can't read the headline without laughing, then it's 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:40.520 a Donald Trump headline. So I just want to point 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:42.920 out I know that there have been other things going on, 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:48.360 but let's just go through this again. Trump on Saturday decides, unprovoked, 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:51.359 that he is going to bomb a Rand's nuclear site. 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:54.679 Maybe he does it because he was watching Fox News. 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:58.240 Maybe he does it because Net and Yahoo makes him 0:04:58.279 --> 0:04:58.840 want to do it. 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:02.360 Who even what lurks in the mind of Donald Trump. 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:05.440 But whatever he does, he decides to bomb the nuclear 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:06.320 sites in Iran. 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:08.000 He tweets about it a lot. 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:12.320 He decide they have numerous planes going over there, they 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:16.400 have decoys. Now we don't know. Trump said he destroyed 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:19.880 all of the nukes and that he's the greatest president ever. 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:23.000 He also said that he's six four and has a 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:26.040 full head of natural hair, and that gets that color 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:30.320 from the sun. Okay, so I'm gonna say a lot 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:33.920 of the reporting I've read shows that maybe they're back 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:34.800 a few months. 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:35.520 Maybe they're not. 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:40.240 Maybe some of the nukes are in other places. Maybe 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:42.960 Aran doesn't know where they are. I mean, this has 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:46.480 not solved anyone's problems. It's made life a little more dangerous. 0:05:46.520 --> 0:05:51.400 Then a Monday, Trump declared a ceasefire. Again, not entirely 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:54.800 clear if there is a ceasefire, because when you have 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:58.320 a white house like this, you can't believe anything they say. 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:02.919 But the point of all of this is Iran probably 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:05.680 not very you know, probably would have been better just 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:08.920 to have kept them in the nuclear deal like Obama did. 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:14.120 This doesn't make any sense. And also Trump now embarrassed 0:06:14.160 --> 0:06:18.960 and trying to cover for himself, and so he's trying 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:23.440 to leak the information that's given to Congress in the 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:26.159 hopes that he will look better in the press. Again, 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:29.920 I just want to point out, this is so fucked Okay, 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:32.320 this is not how any of this is supposed to work. 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:38.240 This is just a completely bad, bad, very dysfunctional way 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:39.279 to run a country. 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:45.080 Strongly, so we now have seen Nancy Pelosi backing a 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:49.640 Democratic effort to limit Trump on Oran and going to war. 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:54.080 I think it's interesting to hear this bipartisan support for this, 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:56.279 but don't know where it's going. What are you seeing? 0:06:56.480 --> 0:06:59.880 I mean, look, it's very scary to think that someone 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:06.520 as autocratic, curious Trump is very aggressive and very angry 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:09.840 and hard to reason with. And this seems like a 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:14.280 very worrying turn of events. And bombing the nukes is 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:18.560 you know, this was an unprovoked assault on another country 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:21.400 that was not run through Congress the way it's supposed 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:25.600 to be. So Congress has so given up everything to 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:30.920 have this presidency. They have really just refused to hold 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:35.200 Trump accountable. They did not do due diligence with his 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:38.080 cabinet members. They did not, you know, at every point, 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:42.120 they just gave away their power. So anything that Congress 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:44.040 does to take back a little bit of power I 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:48.000 think is very good. Congress should grow a spine. And 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:51.080 by the way, the fact that there's only one person 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:53.840 who's really standing up to Trump on the Republican side, 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:57.440 Thomas Massey and Rand Paul. You know, you may not 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:00.400 like them, you may not agree with them, but those 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:03.640 guys have done way more than Susan Collins. 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:07.200 Yes, sounds right. So Molly, you're going to be shocked 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:11.040 to hear that there's some corrupt dealing inside the House 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:14.600 of the White House. This time it's Stephen Miller, who 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:18.480 turns out owns a quarter of a million dollars of 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:22.560 Pollunteer stock. That's the high end estiment, I should say. 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:26.400 And Pollunteer, of course, is being contracted to do work 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:26.880 with Ice. 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:33.560 No, no, it cannot be. Pollenteer is getting a lot 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:36.800 of government contracts. We've had so many guests on this podcast, 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:40.880 who have told us about the many, many, many government 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:44.600 contracts that volunteer has gotten. Look the idea that you 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:48.199 could profit while serving your country. This is what Trump 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:51.240 wanted in from one point zero and has perfected in 0:08:51.240 --> 0:08:53.640 Trump two point zero, which is this kind of low 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:57.200 level cryptocracy. Now that said Miller doesn't have a ton 0:08:57.240 --> 0:08:59.760 of palateer stock. He has somewhere between one hundred and 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:02.160 two one hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of pounder stock. 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:04.800 And you know, this is like the Elon musk Lesson. 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:10.640 We know pollunteer data intelligence mining software. They're not the 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:15.120 good guys, okay, And just like with Elon, we're setting 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:17.320 ourselves up so that the government is going to be 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:24.199 dependent on a company that is at best nefarious. Justin 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:28.040 Wolfers is the host of the Think Like an Economist 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:30.560 podcast and a professor at the University of Michigan. 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:33.760 Welcome to Fast Politics, Justin Wolfers. 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:37.040 He Molly, I thought we're going to rename it fast Economics. 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:38.280 That's right. 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:41.040 We're in this such a fucked up moment in American life. 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:43.360 You came on a lot to talk about the trade wars. 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:45.920 We've now won the trade wars, So that's over. 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:49.040 That was the war the wolf, the trade fl is 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:51.240 who I'm going for those of us. 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:54.439 Who have not been living and breathing Donald Trump ruining 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:57.120 our economy. Talk to us about where we are right now? 0:09:57.240 --> 0:10:01.240 Great question, because actually it's very, very hard to read. 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:03.439 So what I want to do is draw a distinction 0:10:03.559 --> 0:10:06.520 between what economists call hard data. These are the numbers 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:08.720 that come out of the government, and it's things like 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:10.960 how much we produce, how many people are employed, what 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:13.640 are they paid, what's rolling off the production line, versus 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:16.080 soft data when you go and ask people how they feel, 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:17.559 and it could be as simple as like are you 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:20.199 optimistic about the future of the economy, But it could 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:22.560 also be asking a business like do you plan to 0:10:22.600 --> 0:10:25.160 invest a lot? So soft data and hard data, it's 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:30.600 not a strong distinction, but it's it's important. It turns 0:10:30.600 --> 0:10:34.600 out right now the soft data are incredibly weak, unbelievably weak. 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:38.480 In a recession week, you ask people about their own finances, 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:43.319 their families, finances, their expectations for their business, they're miserable. 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:47.040 You'll sometimes see some headlines which is business confidence rose, 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:50.680 but that's because it rose from like horrific to terrible. 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:54.080 So remember, don't think about rise and fall, think about 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:56.559 where we are. So the soft data there is miserable. 0:10:56.760 --> 0:11:00.960 The hard data is not. Now it's it's not ecstatic, 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:04.000 but it's basically saying we're in a pretty good economy 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:07.080 where we were in a great position when Trump came 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:09.920 to power, and things have kept going. The unemployment rate 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:11.800 was low, it's still low. The number of people who 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:14.800 have jobs is still growing. The economy had a bit 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:18.679 of a blip, maybe not so much. Now here's the problem. 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:21.960 It's a really deep problem. Tariffs screw everything up. And 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:24.600 I'm not saying they're bad for the economy. I'm saying 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:26.080 they make the economy hard to read. 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:26.760 Here's why. 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:29.840 In the first quarter of this year, everyone knew tariffs 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:33.200 were coming, so businesses all of a sudden started importing 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:35.800 all the inventory they could get from China, and as 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:38.240 a result, the trade balance blew out. But there was 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:40.040 a lot of spending. But what they're doing is they're 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:42.600 trying to get ahead of the tariffs. So that made 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:45.280 business spending and in fact, a lot of consumers that 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:47.080 you might have friends who bought a dishwasher or a 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:50.360 washing machine or a laptop in advance, So a lot 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:52.760 of spending occurred. Now that spending is not because the 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:55.120 economy is strong, it's because they're trying to get ahead. Now, 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:56.560 a lot of what they were buying is stuff they 0:11:56.600 --> 0:11:58.640 would have bought in the second quarter, and so there's 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:01.439 an echo effect. Don't believe the first quarter numbers. They're 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:03.040 too strong. The second quarter is sort of going to 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:05.839 be too weak. Right, So that means we don't actually 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:08.120 know where the economy is going in the hard data. 0:12:08.200 --> 0:12:10.079 But it's actually even worse than that, because in the 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:12.480 middle of all of this, Trump kept messing around with 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:15.160 tariff some more. You might remember that lovely weekend where 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:18.400 on a Friday tariffs on the European Union were fifty 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:21.840 percent and by Monday they were back down to ten percent. 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:24.360 I've also got to lie nine coming up, which is 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:26.640 the end of ninety and ninety days. 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:29.400 Right, And by the way, do we have ninety deals 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:30.280 and ninety days? 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:34.160 I am not going to follow your add brain now. 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:36.840 I am going to finish my store, but you do. 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:39.920 But we don't have ninety days and ninety deals and 0:12:40.000 --> 0:12:41.600 ninety days. I just want to point. 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:44.280 Still going to finish my story, all right, right? An 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:45.400 you tell me I'm getting boring. 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:49.440 No, I'm telling you I am completely completely tuned in 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:51.760 on what you're saying. Go on, really going, I can 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:54.600 test you now, just keep going, God damn. 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:54.920 Okay. 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:57.800 The thing is the present keeps currying around with tariffs. 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:00.920 So what could happen is people front run again, right, 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:03.520 and that'll screw up our economic data through this year. 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:07.080 So we're here from Molly. I don't know. 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:11.040 We're not getting a clear picture of what the data 0:13:11.240 --> 0:13:12.319 of what is happening. 0:13:13.920 --> 0:13:16.120 So when someone says to you, oh, the hard data 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:19.559 is all good, you're like, it's distorted by tariff nonsense. 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:21.920 So normally what we do in a moment like that 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:24.560 is we turn to the soft data. Right with the 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:28.160 soft data is it's so bad. It turns out some 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:31.400 people don't like Trump. It turns out that he's been 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:34.120 a polarizing figure. And so for the previous fifty years 0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:35.959 in American life, when you ask someone what do you 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:37.840 think about the state of the economy, they would answer 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:40.040 that question by thinking about the state of the economy. 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:42.120 Now what they do is they think about who's present, 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:44.720 whether they like that guy, and they answered that way. 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:47.680 So the soft data have become unreliable, which means we're 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:52.000 sailing through very, very thick fog. Anyone who tells you 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:54.640 they're certain it's good or bad is wrong. 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:57.720 Can we trust the data we get from our government? 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:00.200 Yes, I love that question, Thank you, MOLLI. I want 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:03.080 to put in astix. Okay, here's the asterisks. The official 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:05.520 data coming from the government, anything that comes from the 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:08.240 Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:13.040 Census Bureau, stuff produced by nerds is totally reliable. I'm 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:16.319 not saying it's perfect. I'm saying it's the best statistical 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:19.360 guess of things that are very hard to guess. Anything 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:21.920 coming out of the White House, which has a history 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:27.640 of stretching the truth, lying at best, bullshit and so on, 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:30.960 and also in competence, so sometimes they put out falsehoods 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:34.920 because they don't know truths, is utterly unreliable. Now, often 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:37.720 the White House will be reporting on their understanding of 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:40.200 the official data. But I do think it's important. I 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:42.280 don't believe a word coming out of the Treasury Secretary, 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:45.560 the Commerce Secretary, the President, the White House Press secretary, 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:48.400 or in fact, anyone who's spent more than fourteen minutes 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:51.840 contaminated on the White House grounds, but official government data 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:55.120 is okay. Second ASTERIXX. There is a little bit of 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:58.120 defunding of the government statistical nerds going on right now. 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:01.560 Yes, that's why I am ask that question because that's 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:02.680 what I had been told. 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:06.000 Right. It's really a bad idea, because it's really good 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:07.160 to know where the economy is. 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:07.320 Right. 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:09.160 Remember I just told you we're galling through fog. Wouldn't 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:10.800 it be good if the world were a little clearer. 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:14.720 But the thing about that is that makes the statistics 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:18.680 less reliable, but it doesn't make them more trumpy. Right, 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:22.160 So if you're worried all this telling stories, this is nonsense, 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:24.400 This is bullshit. No, And here's the thing I want 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:26.640 your listeners to understand. I'm not just a talking head 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:29.760 who's just saying a thing. I have so many friends 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:33.680 in these statistical agencies. They're PhD economists, they're super nerds, 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:36.880 and I love them, and they're super committed to their 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:39.240 work and their craft. And I promise you if they 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:42.880 were being asked to distort for political reasons, there will 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:46.760 suddenly lots of anonymous Gmail messages appearing in my inbox, 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:49.240 and I will then call you, Molly and say, I 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:51.320 got to talk to your people. This has got to 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:51.920 get out there. 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:52.360 Yeah. 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:57.560 Well, because you are an academic, right I mean a nerd? 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:01.400 And well I don't I as someone who's married to 0:16:01.440 --> 0:16:03.640 an academic, I don't think of it as being a nerd. 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:06.440 So we can trust the data out of the government 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:10.360 for now and tell us about the ninety deals in 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:13.040 ninety days. Also, it's amazing to me, you know who 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:15.880 has completely disappeared from the conversation. 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:17.920 You're going to have to tell me because I must 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:22.840 have forgotten who they are. Ron Vera, Well that is 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:25.520 that is why don't you explain to the listeners? 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:29.600 Because really deep, I'll let you explain to the listeners. 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:32.080 So can I go back to the beginning of that story? 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:33.960 Is quite lovely, which is, of course, we know the 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:38.200 President Trump hates trade, so he asked Jared Kushner very 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:40.400 early on. He said, find me a trade advisor who's 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:44.119 also against trade. The problem is that nearly every economist 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:47.280 thinks that when you find ways to enrich the life 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:49.400 of others and they find ways to enrich your life, 0:16:49.400 --> 0:16:52.600 that's a good thing. So you have to go shopping 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:54.800 to find someone who's on the other side of that. 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:59.680 So Jared Kushner went to Amazon and found a fellow 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:03.120 who written a book that said how much he hated China. 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:06.959 So that's great, you get racism for free with your 0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:10.399 anti trade theories. That book was written by a fellow 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:12.119 by the name of Pete Navarro, who is now a 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:16.640 convicted felon, but at the time was a professor of Economa. 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:18.640 Just had bad ideas. Right. 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:21.800 Look, life is hard to some people. And some people 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:23.639 grow up thinking that they're going to be the smartest 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:25.320 kid in the room, and they are all the way 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:27.440 through high school, and then at a certain point they 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:29.879 top out and they become bitter, and they come to 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:31.879 believe that they and they alone hold the keys to 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:35.560 all truth. So this book that Jared Kushner bought. The 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:38.600 author of the book was written by Peter Navarro, who 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:41.880 throughout this book keeps writing about how an expert ron 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:45.879 Vara authenticates everything that he says. Now you'll notice if 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:48.119 you play a lot of scrabble, that ron Vara is 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:51.119 just a rearrangement of the letters of Peter Navarro. So 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:53.000 it is true. There are two economists in the world 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:55.680 who support what the president is doing. They just both 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:58.399 happen to be the same person. How did you get 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:02.680 me to start? I'm not bitch or can I'm a person. 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:03.679 I like people. 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:08.200 Sure, don't do that to me again, Molly baby? And 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:09.040 ninety days ago? 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:11.440 How many times we're going to say something nice about someone? 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:12.600 Can we have a nice break? 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:17.320 Okay, say something nice about someone? Vasa Trump is very tall? 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:19.640 You know what? Okay, I'm going to say two nice things, 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:23.720 and I'm going to challenge your So the first one's easy, 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:26.560 which is I admire J. Powell, who's getting called all 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:27.240 sorts of names. 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:30.399 And then that guy that is a remarkable job. He 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:33.199 is having a tough, tough job. Yeah. 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:37.359 And when I want to upset my liberal students, and 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:39.719 I sometimes want to julp them a little bit, I 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:43.040 tell them that the most important economic policy prehaps of 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:46.119 my lifetime happened under and was caused by President Trump, 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:49.280 and that was the invention of the vaccine. Without the vaccine, 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:51.760 we would not be out doing business, enjoying our lives 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:53.199 and so on. And so I want to tip my 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:55.800 hat to President Trump and Operation warp Speed. 0:18:56.240 --> 0:19:00.960 My eighty D is getting bored. Okay, you still. 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:02.000 Didn't say anything nice. 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:05.040 I said of uncle Trump is very tall. 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:10.120 That is mostly true. Okay, deals very very tall. 0:19:10.640 --> 0:19:12.320 Yep, that's not nothing. 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:15.280 Go and she and I share a and you share 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:15.960 a hair color. 0:19:16.560 --> 0:19:20.480 That is sort of go on, continue ninety. 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:23.760 Deals in ninety days, We'll promise by Pinavara and the 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:26.520 President and the Treasury Secretary and the Commerce secretary, ninety 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:29.840 deals in ninety days. We're about seventy days in right now. 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:33.040 We sort of kind of have a deal with the UK. 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:36.000 Last time I spoke with your audience. The deal we 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:38.080 had was a pre deal. It was a deal to 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:41.399 make a deal outline of a deal that subsequently became 0:19:41.440 --> 0:19:44.080 a deal. Although in that deal the most important part 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:47.040 of it for the British was letting British steal in 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:50.760 and that is still being negotiated, so even the deal 0:19:50.840 --> 0:19:52.800 is still mid deal. So that means we've got eighty 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:55.359 nine other deals to go, and that ignores the other 0:19:55.359 --> 0:19:57.920 one hundred and two countries in the world. And then 0:19:58.000 --> 0:20:01.119 today we had President Trump over at NATO where he's 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:04.280