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So 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:53.280 my guest today is a man who's quite literally been 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:56.640 in the room where it happens on and off for 0:01:56.720 --> 0:02:01.440 over three decades of American economic He is the only 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:03.640 person to serve as a director of the National Economic 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:06.960 Council under two different presidents, Bill Clint and Barack Obama, 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:09.919 and most recently served as the White House coordinator for 0:02:09.960 --> 0:02:14.200 the American Rescue Plan for President Biden. I'll ask him 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:18.200 what he did as a child staffer for Jimmy Carter's presidency. 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:24.880 So she's worked for every Democratic presidency in my adult lifetime. 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:28.040 It is Gene Sperling, and what I have him on 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:31.200 today is actually he's got a new gig these days. 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:35.800 He's the founder and executive director of what is dubbed 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:42.280 the Economic Dignity Lab at Georgetown's McCourt School of Public Policy. Look, 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:46.320 Gene is a think tanker who's actually been a practical 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:50.799 government's servant as well. Sometimes you get your think tankers 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:53.320 who throw out white papers and ideas, and you get 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:56.119 your government servants who take those white paper and ideas well. 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:58.880 Jean's kind of been on both sides of it and 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:01.880 is one of the few people I know that while 0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:05.960 he's wonky, he also understands campaign politics and that is 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:12.200 a unique breed of individual because it's not an easy 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:16.680 thing to find. And you know, he's got the quirky 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:18.760 sense of humor like I like I do, and like 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:20.400 I like. So, mister Sperlin, good to see. 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:22.399 You, Thank you, Chack, thanks for having me. 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:25.480 In fact, I have to say I didn't know this story. 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:27.679 I was asking this. You know, why he's coming to 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:30.440 us from California and I'm here going I just think 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:36.040 of Gene as a d c's DC guy, and I'm 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:38.400 going to make you quickly tell this just the shortened 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:43.840 version of the story. You're an Angelino because of a 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:48.720 fun little Hollywood meets politics meets real life meets your 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:50.680 personal life. Tell us about it. 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:54.000 Yeah, well, you you know, you could have said I've 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:56.880 worked for four presidents, because I had four years where 0:03:56.880 --> 0:04:00.640 I was a consultant or part time writer for Jed Bartlett, 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:04.200 the president on the NBC TV show The West Wing. 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:08.920 But yes, the fact I'm coming from you in Santa 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:13.320 Monica or that seems to be my main residence right now, 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:17.400 does not feel comfortable to me. I grew up in 0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:24.400 ann Arbor, Michigan. We only came to La twice in 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:27.640 my youth, and both times was to watch Michigan lose 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:31.839 to Southern cal in the road. And so when people 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:34.479 ask me where I'm from, it's ann Arbor. When they 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:37.560 ask me where I've worked, it's Washington, d C. So 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:40.719 it's very hard for me to kind of acknowledge that 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:44.200 I just happened to be here. But the story was 0:04:44.720 --> 0:04:47.320 is that when I got done with Clinton, I'd gotten 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:49.200 to know some of the people on the TV show 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:52.280 West Wing. I really dug in. I worked on a 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:55.160 really good story and I sent it in and they 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:58.160 asked me to do an interview. I went out to 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:02.039 LA and it just happened to be Hey, where Aaron 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:04.640 Sorkin couldn't meet with me because he had a little 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:10.919 legal trouble in an airport. But they set up a 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:13.560 meeting for me with all the writers in the commissary. 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:16.280 It's very exciting. You walk in. There's guys from Er 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:17.240 walking around. 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:22.280 Now it is the old The studio commissaries truly are 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:25.640 Star Wars bar scenes. You never know who you're gonna 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:26.080 run into. 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:29.000 Yeah, just going through at the beginning, through the gate, 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:33.440 you think of blazing saddles and them crashing through. So 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:37.280 I go there. I introduced myself. First person on the 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:42.520 left is name Alison Abner. She's just starting her second 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:45.280 year writing for the West Wing, and I say hello, 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:49.560 and what the heck? We got married. We've been together 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:54.880 twenty five years, so I've been you know, I've been 0:05:54.920 --> 0:06:00.599 a bicoastal you know, spouse, and that means we've probably 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:03.080 lived about a third of the time in DC, a 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:06.000 third of the time in Santa Monica and a third 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:09.440 of the time, including the entire Biden White House, I 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:14.720 commuted back and forth every single week, even more than 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:16.520 a California member of Congress. 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:21.760 Would you are it allows you mess? Uh? You know, 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:23.480 you know, I don't know if that's a good thing 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:26.640 or a bad thing about showing off in a life. 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:30.599 If you've hit all these great statuses on airplanes, it 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:31.640 means you're never at home. 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:36.440 No, you know. For me, what it's about is I 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:41.320 work like crazy on planes so that every moment I'm home, 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:46.440 I can be with my family. So I'd say the 0:06:46.480 --> 0:06:51.240 only time this whole thing was unbelievably painful was my 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:55.560 third year with President Obama. My wife had gone back 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:58.919 to start restarter her TV writing career. My son graduated 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:02.360 from high school, and I had about ten months where 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:05.080 I was commuting back and forth, and my daughter was 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:07.320 like seven or eight, and I used to get in 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:11.400 the car and just cry sometimes. But this last time, 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:15.400 thanks to zoom and other things I didn't have, you know, 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:18.400 you could kind of be half there, half here. And 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:22.440 my daughter was sixteen seventeen and eighteen, and everybody knows 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:25.480 at sixteen seventeen and eighteen. They're not dying for you 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:28.600 to be there in their face every single night. So 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:30.200 if that part was okay. 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:34.840 Let me I want to dispense with one thing about 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:38.320 West Wind. I have been people always assume I love 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:39.680 the show, and I always say, you know what, I've 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:42.840 never I've never watched a full season, and let me 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:45.720 tell you why, gee, and you can tell me and 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:48.320 tell me why I'm wrong, because I know you're going 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:50.200 to be a defender, and I mean this, It's not 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:55.119 as if I've seen quite a few episodes and they're 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:57.400 really good and they're really interesting. Don't get me wrong, 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:04.200 but I always found him more unrealistic than realistic. And 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:06.600 what I always hated was when people say, why can't 0:08:06.600 --> 0:08:08.520 it be done like it was on West Wing? And 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:12.240 I'm like, because west Wing was never you know, and 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:15.080 I've had this argument. I've actually I got arguments a 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:18.200 wrong word, a strong word, A debate with mister Sorkin 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:23.720 where because he did it with Newsroom too, where he's 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:27.960 creating a utopia of what could be if you had 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:30.600 a year to prepare for every news cycle, for instance 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:34.760 in Newsroom, or you had five years of historical context 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:37.160 to then figure out how to have done it. So 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:42.120 and perhaps I'm like too jaded because I'm old hotline guy. 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:45.400 Right, you're too jaded because you're old hotline. 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:48.200 I understand that. Tell me make the best case for 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:52.840 somebody today of why West Wing actually is emblematic of 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:56.120 how governing works well. 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:58.439 Listen, It's hard for me to think about the current 0:08:58.480 --> 0:09:01.040 White House and how it functions well, but I would 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:04.640 say that if that for looked at the last couple 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:09.280 administrations and the years of Republican administrations before that, I 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:13.760 really do feel that there is a core truth in 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:21.400 the West Wing, which that the people there who are 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:24.960 there are privileged to be there, really are there to 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:28.000 do good for the world, but they're in a very 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:32.240 highly toxic and political environment. And so I think the 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:34.600 way that West Wing is more realistic than some of 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:37.920 the other you know, Scandal and other shows out there, 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:41.240 is that those shows tend to show people who are 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:47.680 only there to self deal to corrupt things. And I 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:50.720 think what the West Wing did show was a group 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:56.320 of people who were trying to do something idealistic, but 0:09:56.440 --> 0:09:59.400 they're in a very very political environment. And if you're 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:02.840 not political political and you don't deal with those issues 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:06.160 you don't do well. I think what makes me sad 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:09.920 a little bit is I spent a long time telling 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:13.320 people that that's the way white Houses really were. I'm 0:10:13.360 --> 0:10:16.439 not quite so sure that the West Wing is an 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:19.120 accurate perception of the current White House. 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:22.880 West Wing or Veep, who portrays staffers best. 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:29.839 Well, I liked Veep too because I think Veep. I mean, 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:33.360 of course, in Veep, nobody's really a good guy, but 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:35.080 it's meant as a satire. 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:36.960 It's meant I guess, I mean. 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:42.720 It's showing the real conflicts people are dealing with from 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:46.000 a kind of cynical point of view. But I still 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:50.200 really enjoyed that. I enjoyed the other shows too. I 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:54.160 just used to not like when people would kind of 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:57.840 think that that was more realistic than the West Wing. 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:00.960 Well, I hate when people say politics is like house 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:01.360 of cards. 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:03.319 I'm like, no, it's stop. 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:06.880 Right, Like, I'm like stop, that is not and that 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:10.439 would so that's where I always get I you know, 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:16.120 I would vacinate that. Then then again, like you know, 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:18.800 I can watch a few Good Men two thousand times, 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:21.720 and I probably watched it two thousand times, So it's 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:24.000 not that I don't love a good. Aaron Sorkin script, 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:26.400 that's for sure. I mean, the man is a genius 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:28.559 television writer. There's no doubt about it. 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:31.400 When it comes to dialogue, all right, whenever I see Aaron, 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:35.240 he's he asked me how how my wife Allison is doing? 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:38.560 And I say, we're still together. And he says the 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:42.520 two lasting things of the West Wing residual checks and 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:44.720 gene and Allison's marriage. 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:47.559 By the way, right when HBO Max was going to 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:49.560 get rid of it, there was like an uproar and 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:52.920 it reminded people, so it kept the checks coming, right. 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:56.160 It really is. One thing I really will say is 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:59.680 the number of people who I've seen actually go into 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:03.000 public service. I mean, famously Cody Keenan. 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:05.280 Who well, you're right, who watched it in it like 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:06.440 inspired them to do it. 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:09.880 Yeah, yeah, And I think, you know, I don't think 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:12.240 it was a TV show for me, but I think 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:16.199 you would see, you know, I'd see people huddled around 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:20.200 RFK when I was a kid in sixty eight, and 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:23.480 you know, I think sometimes you know that perception that 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:26.320 that's something positive, that you can do good things, that 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:29.439 you don't have to be the candidate to make a difference, 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:32.600 and help people's lives or fight for justice. I think 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:35.920 it's a positive thing and it's still pretty influential on 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:38.520 a lot of college campuses around the country. 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:43.120 Right, it has had a lot of staying power. Have 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:47.439 you how serious have reboots been thrown around? 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:54.600 I think it's more people toying with people. I mean, 0:12:55.559 --> 0:12:57.640 you know, I stay in touch with Brad Whitford in 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:00.360 Delay Hill, and I did run in and I get 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:05.280 to see Aaron Sorkin and Martin when we did a 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:10.280 twenty fifth anniversary celebration at the White House. But I 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:13.280 think there was once where I kind of was like, hey, guys, 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:16.360 if this happens and I'm out of government, remember me. 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:18.880 And I kind of got the word back. Now we're 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:22.680 we're just toying with you, but we'll see. 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:26.080 Before I get to what you're working on. Because I think, look, 0:13:26.120 --> 0:13:28.560 I think and we've been I think we were in 0:13:28.559 --> 0:13:30.680 a room together not too long ago. I think AI 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:36.200 job displacement is going to drive political debates fear of 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:39.440 AI job displacement over the next decade. Whether it hits 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:42.040 is another story. Right, there's the fear of it and 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:45.000 then there's the actual fear is going to drive a 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:47.320 lot of political particularly in twenty twenty eight. So I 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:49.080 want to get to that. But before we get to that, 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:52.640 what's the state of the economy. What do you look 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:56.720 at on a week to week basis to give your 0:13:56.840 --> 0:14:00.720 bit to what touchstones do you look at to determine 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:04.360 whether this is a good economy, a bad economy, or 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:05.400 a shaky economy. 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:09.320 So I think there's moments where you pretty much know 0:14:09.400 --> 0:14:13.920 what you're looking for. Things are pretty clear, even if 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:16.880 you don't know what the exact narrative how it's going 0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:19.000 to turn out, you know what the narrative is. This 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:22.160 is a little bit of a tricky time. I think 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:26.920 that what you were looking for after the kind of 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:31.120 worst of the post pandemic supply chain shocks and global 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:35.200 inflation was you were looking for what everybody called the 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:38.600 soft landing, and what that meant was that we would 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:43.840 be able to return to more of a normal, stable economy. 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:49.000 So the Biden economy had amazing job growth, incredibly low unemployment, 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:55.240 but there was also high inflation. And you know, people 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:59.200 will fight forever, people like myself will say it was global, 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:02.680 it was every where. It didn't wasn't really a factor 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:06.280 of Biden policies. But whatever you thought the cause was, 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:11.680 people wanted to see that soft landing. So what's interesting 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:17.960 is that you've had pretty close to what people hope for. 0:15:18.240 --> 0:15:23.440 So when you had high inflation, you can remember that 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:27.640 Larry Summers famously said, Oh, the only way you're going 0:15:27.720 --> 0:15:30.720 to bring this down is to have ten percent unemployment 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:34.400 or two years of seven and a half percent unemployment 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:37.280 or five years of six percent. Well that didn't happen. 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:40.960 So the good news was that we've been able to 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:49.920 so far avoid a you know, avoid caming inflation inflation 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:52.840 only in a Paul Voker sense of well, I was. 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:54.520 Just gonna say, let me let let's put a pause 0:15:54.600 --> 0:16:00.760 before you jump to that part. Doesn't this reinforce not 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:04.480 a belief anymore? But is this now a confirmation that 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:11.880 this was essentially COVID related, COVID inspired, COVID driven, and 0:16:12.840 --> 0:16:16.480 because we had the artificial stoppage and then and then 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:18.400 suddenly it's sort of like kinking a hose and then 0:16:18.440 --> 0:16:20.960 I'm kicking it and a surge of product and a 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:23.760 surge of money, and a surge of this. You know, 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:25.840 as fast as it went up is as fast as 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:30.280 it went down. The fact that it didn't take ten 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:33.359 percent interest rates and it didn't take ten percent unemployment. 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:38.120 Is that now confirmation for you that this was global 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:40.560 and ninety five percent COVID? 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:43.800 I think for me it is. I think it is 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:46.480 for a lot of people. I think it's hard to have, 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:50.560 you know, this easy objective conversation because one, there's so 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:55.880 much politics involved, and you know, there's such a desire 0:16:56.040 --> 0:17:00.240 for the current administration to blame the last administration. There's 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:02.640 so many people on the Democratic side that are just 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:09.560 disappointed that Joe Biden lost and that people ignored people 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:14.240 were so unhappy about prices. So there's so much political debate. 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:18.520 But you know, I do think that for a lot 0:17:18.560 --> 0:17:22.720 of people, I cited an article Mark Zandy from Moody's, 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:26.320 Peter orzag Our, former O and B director, and others 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:30.520 who definitely feel that the fact that this came down 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:39.640 without engineering a recession was evidence that this was overall 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:48.240 globally inspired, pandemic related supply shot chain that said people 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:53.320 will still debate the American rescue plan, and I don't 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:57.600 think there's I think politically you'll hear Republicans now say, 0:17:57.760 --> 0:18:01.320 oh my god, everything that happened you know bad was 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:06.000 due to Joe biden American Rescue Plant. That's clearly not true. Clearly, 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:09.280 the American Rescue Plan had some very good effects in 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:12.280 making US the leader and growth in the G seven, lower, 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:19.200 unemployment less scarring long term negative impacts. But people will 0:18:19.240 --> 0:18:23.080 debate the inflation impact, and I think that the reasonable 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:27.160 debate says, hey, maybe it led to inflation here being 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:30.359 a point or a point half higher than it would 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:33.480 have been, but it had these good parts. And I'd 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:35.639 say the people who are most critical would say, no, 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:39.080 it's more like three points higher. But I think you 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:42.800 and I both know that in twenty twenty two, after 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:47.960 Putin invaded Ukraine, you know, inflation almost everywhere in the 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:54.200 world was seven eight nine percent, regardless of whether people 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:57.200 had done a major fiscal stimulus. And you also saw 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:02.119 every head of state did poorly everywhere in the world. 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:05.160 Now, that could be an antim. 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:10.480 A reincumbent, you know, an incumbent in that setting, but 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:13.280 you know, for me, I think it is you know, 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:15.760 I think the fact that inflation went up everywhere and 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:18.800 the way it came down, you know, it does confirm 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:23.200 that this was not fundamentally about fiscal policy. But about 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:26.480 the pandemic. But again, to be fair to some of 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:29.600 the people who disagree with me, they would say, you know, 0:19:29.720 --> 0:19:33.240 it's a more nuanced analysis. 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:39.159 This episode of the Chuck Podcast is being brought to 0:19:39.200 --> 0:19:42.160 you by Quints. As you know, a well built wardrobe 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:44.840 is about the pieces that work together, hold up over time, 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:47.879 and frankly allow you to be flexible and sort of 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:52.480 business casual, to say social casual. Quins does this really well. 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:56.080 They have premium material, thoughtful design, and some everyday staples 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:58.720 that feel easy to wear, easy to rely on, even 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:01.880 as the weather ships. I've got some sweaters from Quints. 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:04.240 I love them. I can use them for here on 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:06.680 the podcast. 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That's get sold dot 0:22:19.480 --> 0:22:27.920 Com promo code toodcast for thirty percent off fifty years 0:22:27.920 --> 0:22:32.199 from now. In an economics class, that might look at 0:22:32.240 --> 0:22:36.440 a couple of case studies about what you do in 0:22:36.920 --> 0:22:41.800 a in an economic crisis. Either one that's directly about 0:22:41.800 --> 0:22:44.120 the economy, like what we had with the housing crisis 0:22:44.119 --> 0:22:47.040 and the Great Recession, or something like COVID which sort 0:22:47.040 --> 0:22:51.840 of impacted the global economy. One of the things that 0:22:52.320 --> 0:22:55.359 my simple hot take has always been, we had two 0:22:55.480 --> 0:23:01.360 choices with COVID. We either had inflation or recession, and 0:23:02.119 --> 0:23:05.520 if we didn't throw money, If we had handled COVID 0:23:05.520 --> 0:23:10.040 the way we'd handled the housing crisis, which is to 0:23:10.080 --> 0:23:13.440 be fiscally a bit small sea conservative about how much 0:23:13.480 --> 0:23:16.920 money we threw at the issue, we probably prevent inflation, 0:23:18.080 --> 0:23:22.600 but we might have had a massive recession. The less 0:23:22.720 --> 0:23:25.640 I've always felt is if that COVID, coming just within 0:23:25.680 --> 0:23:30.360 a decade of the Great Recession, sort of got everybody thinking, hey, 0:23:30.400 --> 0:23:32.640 we better if we're not sure, throw a little bit 0:23:32.640 --> 0:23:37.679 more money at it. Let's not underfund, let's overfund. Do 0:23:37.720 --> 0:23:39.720 you think fifty years from now, That's how we'll look 0:23:39.760 --> 0:23:41.479 at those two events. And it's sort of when it 0:23:41.480 --> 0:23:45.280 comes to government intervention, the economic crisis, the Great Recession 0:23:45.280 --> 0:23:48.080 will always be seen as an example of government not 0:23:48.160 --> 0:23:52.560 doing enough, and COVID will be seeing as an example 0:23:52.600 --> 0:23:56.119 of when government does a little too much. I know 0:23:56.160 --> 0:23:58.680 I'm being very I'm asking for a black and white 0:23:58.720 --> 0:24:03.879 hot take on something that be incredibly it's generally speaking, I've. 0:24:03.760 --> 0:24:07.320 Actually written on this exact topic. I wrote in the 0:24:07.640 --> 0:24:11.520