Speaker 1: I'll tell you one thing. What yesterday's price is not
Speaker 1: today's price. A okay, the price went up. I feel
Speaker 1: like that's every day, literally every day, and for everything everything,
Speaker 1: gallon of milk, bread, cheese.
Speaker 2: Chicken, chicken wings. Nothing is safe, No one is safe.
Speaker 2: All of our pockets are getting got. They did say
Speaker 2: the chicken wing price went back to pre pandemic prices.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know how. There was a wing shortage,
Speaker 1: but not a rest of the chicken shortage. Anyway, it
Speaker 1: didn't affect me because you know I'm roasting whole chickens
Speaker 1: at my house. Oh yeah, yeah, that's.
Speaker 3: True, my friend.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, you remember when you put that turkey
Speaker 2: breast on the grill.
Speaker 4: It was so good?
Speaker 3: Those were good times. Man.
Speaker 2: The kid cooks so good it make you want to
Speaker 2: fight her because you know you're not gonna eat that
Speaker 2: good again.
Speaker 3: Well, I won't do it again. Not if you ain't
Speaker 3: like that, be so mad.
Speaker 2: I'm like, man, because I know it's gonna be a
Speaker 2: lung time before I eat this good again.
Speaker 1: So if you think about that turkey that I had,
Speaker 1: then if you look at inflation and the changing prices,
Speaker 1: the price of meat has gone up from anywhere between
Speaker 1: nine and a half and ten and a half percent
Speaker 1: and twenty twenty two. Oh so if that turkey was
Speaker 1: twenty dollars last year, then this twenty two dollars this year.
Speaker 3: That's a large percentage.
Speaker 2: Yes, And that is the difference between having Thanksgiving and
Speaker 2: not having Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1: That's the difference between Thanksgiving and thank you. Come again,
Speaker 1: because we will be at the drive through coming.
Speaker 3: Okay, Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Our friend she's a comedian, Honey, comedic timing chef kid.
Speaker 3: I'm TT and I'm Zakiah and from Spotify. This is
Speaker 3: Dope Labs.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore science,
Speaker 1: pop culture, and a healthy Delta friendship. We want to
Speaker 1: help you, our listeners and ourselves, yes, understand the economy.
Speaker 1: We've heard things about it slowing down, speeding up, people
Speaker 1: needing to tighten the reins.
Speaker 3: It sounds like we're talking about a whorse.
Speaker 2: And we've also heard some buzzwords like inflation and recession
Speaker 2: and a lot of people talking about those things.
Speaker 1: And we've been hearing about different types of interventions like
Speaker 1: the student loan forgiveness program, and people have been acting
Speaker 1: crazy on Twitter about that, right, if you're a friend
Speaker 1: of the show, you know at Dope we can find
Speaker 1: science anywhere. So today we're talking all about the economy.
Speaker 3: Let's get into the recitation. What do we know?
Speaker 4: We know that prices are up.
Speaker 2: But another thing that I do know is that I
Speaker 2: did not do well in freshman economics.
Speaker 3: Okay, that was one of.
Speaker 2: The worst performance in college I had was in my
Speaker 2: freshman year economic scores. So I don't know much about
Speaker 2: the economy. Did I even have economics?
Speaker 1: I feel like everybody's first foray into economics was those
Speaker 1: people set up in the student center in college giving
Speaker 1: you credit cards with too high of an interest rate.
Speaker 1: That was my first adventure in economics. Okay, shoot yeah,
Speaker 1: mine was a victorious secret credit card.
Speaker 2: I have a job, like I can barely pay for
Speaker 2: this now, how am I gonna pay interests to?
Speaker 1: And what I know is I'm still figuring those same
Speaker 1: things out today.
Speaker 3: All right, So what do we want to know? Well,
Speaker 3: I want a.
Speaker 1: Bird's eye view of the US economy, like what is
Speaker 1: it and what's going on?
Speaker 2: And what is the current state of the US economy
Speaker 2: because it feels like, you know, depending on what station
Speaker 2: you're listening to. Some people are saying, Oh, everything's gonna
Speaker 2: be okay, the Fed has got it covered, and other
Speaker 2: people are like, hold on to your wallets, it's about to.
Speaker 3: Be a dude. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I don't know what to believe and I don't
Speaker 2: know what any of this means and is.
Speaker 3: There a recession or not? Are we in it?
Speaker 1: And it's just not deep or coming, like is it
Speaker 1: like a tidal wave? Because people have been talking about
Speaker 1: a recession since mid twenty twenty, and I'd really like
Speaker 1: to understand. You know, I've lived through one recession, but
Speaker 1: I didn't have any money anyway, so it didn't really
Speaker 1: mad didn't matter and I didn't understand the economy. Then
Speaker 1: go ahead and recess, right, it's just a break.
Speaker 3: I love.
Speaker 1: Recess is what I really want to understand, Like what
Speaker 1: does it mean and what are the effects and at
Speaker 1: this big age, how should I be preparing. Let's jump
Speaker 1: into the dissection. Our guest for today's lab is doctor
Speaker 1: Vanessa Perry.
Speaker 4: My name is Vanessa Perry.
Speaker 5: I am a Professor of Strategic Management Public Policy at
Speaker 5: the George Washington University School of Business. I am also
Speaker 5: a non resident Fellow at the Urban Institute's Housing Finance
Speaker 5: Policy Center.
Speaker 2: Okay, so with doctor Perry, we had to start very basic,
Speaker 2: and so our first question was, what is the US economy.
Speaker 5: Our system of production and consumption that creates wealth and
Speaker 5: sort of encompasses the sum.
Speaker 4: Total of our recent sources.
Speaker 5: That's what we mean by our economy and the US
Speaker 5: economy are roughly speaking, those aspects those institutions that are
Speaker 5: US based.
Speaker 1: Now, it's really hard to talk about the US economy
Speaker 1: without the context of the entire global economy. And this
Speaker 1: is because we live in a global society in the
Speaker 1: United States and the world economy are inextricably tied. But
Speaker 1: for the main purposes of this lab we're going to
Speaker 1: mainly talk about the state of the United States economy
Speaker 1: without looking at what's happening around.
Speaker 2: This Over the last six to ten months, there's been
Speaker 2: a lot happening with the economy, and it seems like
Speaker 2: it's been dominating the news cycles with talks of inflation
Speaker 2: and a possible recession. And we'll get to those things
Speaker 2: a little bit later, But first we wanted to ask
Speaker 2: doctor Perry about the current state of the economy.
Speaker 5: The US economy is doing extremely well and has since
Speaker 5: the beginning of the pandemic. That is highly unexpected because
Speaker 5: what I think most people anticipated was that the pandemic
Speaker 5: and nobody knew how long it was going to last.
Speaker 5: But once we went past sort of the three month mark,
Speaker 5: nobody expected the economy to boom the way that it has.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting because there is a lot on my
Speaker 1: television saying that the economy is going down, down, down.
Speaker 2: So what does it really mean when you say the
Speaker 2: economy is doing well? According to doctor Perry, it means
Speaker 2: that the economy is growing, there's an abundance of jobs,
Speaker 2: incomes are fairly high, and unemployment is low.
Speaker 3: Okay, so how did we get here?
Speaker 5: Even though the pandemic sort of shifted purchasing behavior and
Speaker 5: lifestyles in many ways, it also sparked a lot of
Speaker 5: just different kinds of consumption, So what we used to
Speaker 5: do just kind of got swapped out for other things.
Speaker 2: In Lap thirty nine, ad Tocarte with Christoph for he
Speaker 2: told us that once the pandemic hit, people were purchasing
Speaker 2: everything online, and so the economy did a lot better
Speaker 2: than expected because we turned into like hyper consumers. We
Speaker 2: were getting our groceries delivered. We were buying toilet paper
Speaker 2: on Amazon everything, but.
Speaker 3: That was twenty twenty. I don't have no money now. Well,
Speaker 3: I don't know how it's still booming, but doctor Parry
Speaker 3: says it is. I'm not contributing to the boom.
Speaker 2: I feel like I am a little bit contributing to
Speaker 2: the boom.
Speaker 3: I need to stop contributing. Send your contributions this way.
Speaker 5: In fact, it was moving so quickly that the government
Speaker 5: started to get concerned that it was actually growing too fast.
Speaker 5: It was getting too hot, and that often leads to inflation.
Speaker 1: Inflation is rate of increase in prices over a given
Speaker 1: period of time, and we're seeing a lot of that
Speaker 1: right now. We buy certain things kind of all the time,
Speaker 1: from groceries to gas to clothes, and you might have
Speaker 1: noticed that things are not the same price that they
Speaker 1: used to be.
Speaker 2: The annual inflation rate for the United States was eight
Speaker 2: point five percent from July of twenty twenty one to
Speaker 2: July of twenty twenty two, and according to the US
Speaker 2: Labor Department, it's the highest it's been since nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 3: But how is inflation even measured.
Speaker 5: It's usually measured by the Consumer Price Index that's the
Speaker 5: number one measure of infliction and it's created by the
Speaker 5: Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is part of the.
Speaker 4: US Department of Labor.
Speaker 5: How do I know this because my mother's one of
Speaker 5: her first jobs was actually computing the Consumer Price Index.
Speaker 4: That was before the government even had a computer.
Speaker 5: And the CPI, this index, simply put, is just a
Speaker 5: basket of products and services and they go out is
Speaker 5: then they measure the price at one point in time,
Speaker 5: and then they go back and measure the price at
Speaker 5: another point in time, and then they combine these into
Speaker 5: an index.
Speaker 4: To show how much the prices for those same goods went.
Speaker 5: Up over that period of time. And that's roughly what
Speaker 5: the CPI is telling us.
Speaker 2: Okay, so that's the CPI. But what caused the inflation
Speaker 2: that we're seeing right now?
Speaker 5: What caused those The pandemic and the effects that the
Speaker 5: pandemic had on supply chains ability to be able to
Speaker 5: get goods and services to where they needed to be,
Speaker 5: and things like wars and multiple parts of the world
Speaker 5: that have affected the supplies of food and energy, and
Speaker 5: those have combined to create these inflationary pressures where companies
Speaker 5: can't provide goods and services at the same price, so they.
Speaker 4: Raise the prices.
Speaker 1: We heard earlier that the economy is doing so well,
Speaker 1: incomes higher and unemployment is lower.
Speaker 3: So what does that mean for inflation.
Speaker 1: Does it have as much of an impact Do we
Speaker 1: just not feel the sting of inflation if people are
Speaker 1: making more money.
Speaker 5: It's particularly a problem when prices go up faster than
Speaker 5: our incomes go up, because if our incomes were to go.
Speaker 4: Up at the same rate, it wouldn't matter. We would
Speaker 4: notice the inflation.
Speaker 5: We notice it because our incomes increases lag inflation, and
Speaker 5: they almost always will because companies, governments, employers will argue
Speaker 5: that they cannot afford to keep up with these high
Speaker 5: inflationary rates.
Speaker 2: Aside from making things less affordable, inflation can really be
Speaker 2: a problem because it's an indicator of a potential recession.
Speaker 2: A recession is basically when the economy comes to a
Speaker 2: screeching halt. People stop buying things, people are laid off
Speaker 2: from their jobs, and really just generally face a lot
Speaker 2: of financial hardship.
Speaker 5: So inflation is one thing that might lead to recession,
Speaker 5: but that is not necessarily the case or always the case.
Speaker 5: I know it sounds like I'm being circular because it
Speaker 5: is extremely complicated.
Speaker 4: A and B. None of these things are precise.
Speaker 1: The National Bureau of Economic Research has a Business Cycle
Speaker 1: Dating Committee, and it's the department of the government that
Speaker 1: can officially declare a recession. They define a recession as
Speaker 1: a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across
Speaker 1: the economy and that lasts more than a few months.
Speaker 1: The last major recession we had was over ten years ago,
Speaker 1: and that was the Great Recession of two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: and that was fueled by the collapse of the housing market.
Speaker 3: And then there was also.
Speaker 1: A mini recession and it was the shortest on record,
Speaker 1: and that was between February and April of twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: and that was due to unprecedented levels of unemployment during
Speaker 1: the COVID nineteen pandemic.
Speaker 2: The opposite of a recession is an expansion. Expansion is
Speaker 2: the economy's natural state, and recessions are more short lived.
Speaker 2: Recessions are a natural part of the cycle of our economy,
Speaker 2: but they're not very pleasant.
Speaker 3: So the question on everybody's.
Speaker 2: Mind is is there a recession coming.
Speaker 5: Well, we're in this weird space where a lot of
Speaker 5: people are predicting that a recession is coming, but then
Speaker 5: there are other indicators that suggests that maybe it's not,
Speaker 5: or maybe it will be later rather than sooner. It's
Speaker 5: really hard to tell. And anybody that tells you that
Speaker 5: they know precisely is lying because they're all sorts of predictions.
Speaker 5: And all we have to look at is what's happened
Speaker 5: in the past.
Speaker 1: And you know, we've never really been in these particular circumstances,
Speaker 1: so looking to the past can only get us so far.
Speaker 1: We haven't had a pandemic since nineteen seventeen, and certainly
Speaker 1: we didn't have the internet then, okay, and so we
Speaker 1: didn't have access to all this technology, so it's kind
Speaker 1: of hard to predict what's gonna happen. Tt you said
Speaker 1: that you heard all the ready that a recession is inevitable. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what they were saying. And I was very scared.
Speaker 1: And I don't even know what to do to prepare
Speaker 1: for a recession, right, is it?
Speaker 3: Beans? What do you do?
Speaker 2: I need to get all the bread and all the
Speaker 2: milk and pack a go bag.
Speaker 3: You know, I love a go bag.
Speaker 2: My friend loves a go bag. But is a recession
Speaker 2: something that has to happen or is it a course
Speaker 2: correction or can we keep the recession at bay?
Speaker 5: We can keep it at bay temporarily, but recession is
Speaker 5: part of an economic cycle that always has booms and busts.
Speaker 5: The economy always has gone up, then slows down, then
Speaker 5: it picks up, then it slows down, and those cycles,
Speaker 5: those bumps, those dips get triggered by different things. But
Speaker 5: I don't think anybody would predict that will never have
Speaker 5: a recession again. The question is is it going to
Speaker 5: be in twenty twenty three or are we going to
Speaker 5: be able to ride sort of the current wave of
Speaker 5: stability for longer period of time.
Speaker 1: And things are already sowing down. The GDP or the
Speaker 1: gross domestic product, and this value is the value of
Speaker 1: goods produced and services provided in a country during one year.
Speaker 1: So the GDP is falling, which is also sometimes considered
Speaker 1: an indicator of the beginning of a recession. Recessions are
Speaker 1: an inevitable part of the economy, but that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: they don't suck.
Speaker 2: A recession can cause a lot of suffering for people.
Speaker 2: And if there is a recession, what can the government
Speaker 2: do to help?
Speaker 1: Well, there are a number of things that the government
Speaker 1: can do to help people, and we can look at
Speaker 1: that little mini recession in twenty twenty as an example.
Speaker 1: So there were a lot of people that were out
Speaker 1: of work at the beginning of COVID, and the government
Speaker 1: stepped in and put a moratorium on evictions and foreclosures.
Speaker 1: Private sector adjusted the credit score system so people weren't
Speaker 1: penalized for payments. There was the Cares Act, payments that
Speaker 1: went right into folks' bank accounts, and this kind of
Speaker 1: leveled things off until the economy could pick up again.
Speaker 5: There are interventions that can occur in both the private
Speaker 5: and public sector that can alleviate some of the negative
Speaker 5: effects of the recession on individuals and households. But when
Speaker 5: it's all said and done, there will be higher unemployment,
Speaker 5: there will be lower incomes, and if this is coupled
Speaker 5: with inflation, that means buying power will be reduced.
Speaker 1: So we want to avoid that two punch combo exactly
Speaker 1: of low wages and high prices. We don't want to
Speaker 1: lose that buying power. I want somebody to regulate that.
Speaker 1: I want that to stay far away.
Speaker 2: Another way that the government can manipulate the to me
Speaker 2: not necessarily in a recession is to increase the interest rate.
Speaker 2: It seems like all summer there have been headlines about
Speaker 2: the Federal Reserve or the FED raising the interest rate
Speaker 2: yet again.
Speaker 5: So the Federal Reserve Bank is the central bank of
Speaker 5: the United States. All countries have for central bank, and
Speaker 5: actually sometimes a region will have a central bank, and
Speaker 5: their job is essentially to be the bank for the
Speaker 5: banks and to regulate their operations and to make sure
Speaker 5: that the banks, even though many of them are private corporations,
Speaker 5: but the goal is to make sure that they continue
Speaker 5: to serve the overall economy because that's where the country's money.
Speaker 4: Resides, right It's in the banking system.
Speaker 1: So the FED is able to control the money supplied
Speaker 1: by controlling interest rates. You can think about interest rates
Speaker 1: as the price of money. If I borrow a hundred
Speaker 1: dollars from you, how long are yougo let me have
Speaker 1: that one hundred dollars before you charge me one hundred
Speaker 1: and five dollars for it?
Speaker 3: Is this hypothetical you really want to know? I don't
Speaker 3: think I want to know. Let's keep this friendship with that. No,
Speaker 3: I would never ask for the money back.
Speaker 1: So that's zero percent interest. But if the interest rate
Speaker 1: is higher. You know, you might say, Okay, you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to pay me a little bit to hold that
Speaker 1: one hundred dollars. And the more I have to pay you,
Speaker 1: it means the price of the money is higher. So
Speaker 1: rate increases mean higher payments on credit cards, on cars,
Speaker 1: on student loans, things that you're financing. And that also
Speaker 1: means that you're not able to save as much because
Speaker 1: you're spending it paying more on the money you've borrowed.
Speaker 2: So when interest rates go up, it means people are
Speaker 2: going to pull back on their spending and it becomes
Speaker 2: more expensive to borrow that one hundred dollars.
Speaker 5: Now, my favorite analogy for this is a fish tank.
Speaker 5: Fish tank, you fill it with water. If you put
Speaker 5: too much water in the fish tank, it overflows, makes
Speaker 5: a mess. If you have too little water in the
Speaker 5: fish tank, fish can swim effectively. And so that's the
Speaker 5: fed and the money supply. They've got to make sure
Speaker 5: that the right amount of cash is in that tank
Speaker 5: so that the economy, the fish.
Speaker 4: The consumers, the producers.
Speaker 5: Can exchange value in a way that makes sense that
Speaker 5: works without spilling water over the tank. And they certainly
Speaker 5: want to make sure that they don't put too much
Speaker 5: water in the tank, because that then will also throw
Speaker 5: off the balance of what's going on with the fish.
Speaker 1: So this all makes sense on a kind of macro level,
Speaker 1: but we wanted to know what does this mean specifically
Speaker 1: for folks who are affected by the decisions that the
Speaker 1: Fed makes and the state of the economy in general.
Speaker 1: So if the interest rate is going up, what does
Speaker 1: that mean for folks.
Speaker 5: It's hard to say a negative impact on one group
Speaker 5: because there's sort of positive and negatives for everyone. So people,
Speaker 5: people who are lower moderate incomes, younger consumers, people with
Speaker 5: student loan balances. These people can actually suffer negative consequences.
Speaker 2: For example, people saving for a house when interest rates
Speaker 2: go up, they can afford less because they have to
Speaker 2: pay more in interest. Or if you're trying to pay
Speaker 2: down your debts, it's harder because your interest rates have
Speaker 2: gone up and so your payments are higher. But this
Speaker 2: is different for folks who have plenty of money in savings.
Speaker 5: For example, the Federal Reserve raises interest rates to try
Speaker 5: to manage inflation, and that's one of the tools that
Speaker 5: the FED has. When that happens, it's a great time
Speaker 5: to save money if you can. If you have any
Speaker 5: extra money, put it in the bank.
Speaker 1: This is blowing my mind because I don't really think
Speaker 1: about interest rates in terms of saving. Like, whenever I
Speaker 1: think about interest rates, I'm thinking about borrowing in aprs
Speaker 1: and all of that. So I think I didn't consider
Speaker 1: that if you got a lot of money under your
Speaker 1: mattress when the interest rate is up, put it in
Speaker 1: the bank.
Speaker 5: The other part of the issue when interest rates go up.
Speaker 5: And think about this now from the perspective of a
Speaker 5: business owner. Businesses have to borrow money as well in
Speaker 5: order to keep their operations going, and they may borrow
Speaker 5: money to cover labor costs or other kinds of costs
Speaker 5: that they face. And so who pays for that? Consumers
Speaker 5: pay for that. That actually can feed into higher prices
Speaker 5: because the costs of doing business are increased when interest
Speaker 5: rates go up.
Speaker 1: What this really captures is that it's a double edged sword.
Speaker 1: So sure, if you have money to save, you can
Speaker 1: make some more money on it, But can you really
Speaker 1: save money when everything is so expensive because the interest
Speaker 1: rates are up. Let's take a break, and when we
Speaker 1: come back, we're going to talk about what the government
Speaker 1: is doing to rain this economy in. Okay, we're back,
Speaker 1: but before we get back into the lab, we just
Speaker 1: want to let you know that we'll be off next week.
Speaker 1: So we'll be sharing a special lab from the archives
Speaker 1: and we'll be back with a brand new lab on
Speaker 1: September twenty ninth.
Speaker 3: Let's get back to the lab.
Speaker 1: We've been talking to doctor Vanessa Perry all about the economy.
Speaker 2: Doctor Perry has already mentioned that the economy is cyclical.
Speaker 2: We're going to go through these booms and busts, and
Speaker 2: so my next question is about what policies have been
Speaker 2: in place to prevent economic failures and what have the
Speaker 2: policies of the past taught us about what we should
Speaker 2: do right now.
Speaker 5: I can think of two examples where the federal government
Speaker 5: did just an extraordinary job of preventing disaster. The first
Speaker 5: was after the two thousand and eight housing crisis, and
Speaker 5: the government has stepped in with a number of bailout
Speaker 5: type programs to one stabilize the banking system and to
Speaker 5: provide opportunities for people to stay in their homes by
Speaker 5: renegotiating the terms of their mortgages. And certainly the government
Speaker 5: is partly to blame for lacking the regulatory vision to
Speaker 5: see that that crisis was coming and get ahead of it.
Speaker 5: The other positive I would say is at the start
Speaker 5: of the pandemic, their government jumped in with one some
Speaker 5: cash payments directly to people, with programs like the PPP
Speaker 5: program pay Check Protection Program for small businesses that help
Speaker 5: them keep their doors open. The workouts that occurred so
Speaker 5: that people did not lose their homes but could stay
Speaker 5: current on their mortgages that were not going to be
Speaker 5: evicted or foreclosed on.
Speaker 4: Those were all evidence of the government acting quickly to
Speaker 4: try to keep Americans in a stable situation and to
Speaker 4: prevent further disaster and hardship.
Speaker 1: The Inflation Reduction Act has been all over the news,
Speaker 1: and Congress finally passed it in August. This act is
Speaker 1: basically a sweeping new law that is trying to curb
Speaker 1: inflation through a variety of different means.
Speaker 5: The Inflation Reduction Act is interesting. It's got a lot
Speaker 5: of cool stuff in it, including a label that some
Speaker 5: people suggest as misleading because it makes it sound like
Speaker 5: it might, you know, put a cap on prices across
Speaker 5: the board, and that's not exactly what it does. But
Speaker 5: it will have some positive effects on many markets and
Speaker 5: many aspects of the economy.
Speaker 2: Specifically, the new law will spend three hundred and sixty
Speaker 2: nine billion on energy and climate change, three hundred billion
Speaker 2: in deficit reduction, three ye of subsidies for the Affordable
Speaker 2: Care Act, prescription drug reform, and tax reform we Act.
Speaker 2: Doctor perry which parts of the Inflation Reduction Act stood
Speaker 2: out to her.
Speaker 4: So the one that stands out to me is Medicare.
Speaker 5: One of the biggest effects that I think that is
Speaker 5: included in this legislation is that now Medicare can negotiate
Speaker 5: down the prices of prescription medications, and there are also
Speaker 5: some other benefits in there for Affordable Care Act recipients,
Speaker 5: So that is going to put a damper on some
Speaker 5: of these prescription drug prices. A lot of people cannot
Speaker 5: afford the medication that they need to stay alive and
Speaker 5: to stay healthy.
Speaker 2: And the part of the bill that has to do
Speaker 2: with environmental sustainability includes incentives for businesses and consumers to
Speaker 2: adopt more energy efficient tools and technologies.
Speaker 4: There's been a lot of innovations in terms of energy efficiency,
Speaker 4: but a lot of people haven't been able to afford them.
Speaker 5: So this is going to affect the inflation. Probably less
Speaker 5: so in the immediate short term, but in the sort
Speaker 5: of medium term it's going to have a positive impact
Speaker 5: for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: A positive impact for a lot of people is one thing,
Speaker 1: but what about a positive impact for the folks who
Speaker 1: need it most. You know, these huge pieces of legislation
Speaker 1: we've been talking about are good when there's a major crisis,
Speaker 1: But what about more isolated hardships that specific groups of.
Speaker 3: People are facing every day.
Speaker 1: Doctor Perry says, when it comes to government intervention, we
Speaker 1: are not doing enough to help these groups.
Speaker 5: What we don't have enough of are ways to help
Speaker 5: people through these.
Speaker 4: Kinds of service cans.
Speaker 5: So, for example, people lose their jobs a lot of
Speaker 5: times because of changes in technology, changes in employment markets
Speaker 5: and requirements, or their company moves to another state and
Speaker 5: they are unable to move, or they face some kind
Speaker 5: of unforeseen health medical problem with themselves or a family member.
Speaker 4: Now, all these things.
Speaker 5: Happen, and interestingly, these unforeseen negative events are more likely
Speaker 5: to happen to people of color who are also suffering
Speaker 5: from cumulative disadvantage from prior generations dealing with racism and discrimination.
Speaker 4: So there are far too few, in my.
Speaker 5: Opinion, interventions available for people who find no fault of
Speaker 5: their own Because of where they were born or to
Speaker 5: whom they were born, they are more likely to suffer
Speaker 5: these unforeseen circumstances, and we don't have a lot of
Speaker 5: protections for them. So we have mortgage insurance, for example,
Speaker 5: or homeowners' insurance that protect banks. They protect the lenders,
Speaker 5: but we don't really have any requirements to protect the borrowers.
Speaker 5: If something happens and they can't make a payment, they
Speaker 5: gotta pay extra for that. But they make sure that
Speaker 5: those lenders and investors are protected, and that says to
Speaker 5: me something very sad about the priorities that get set
Speaker 5: and acted upon.
Speaker 1: That is such a great point, you know, Yes, especially
Speaker 1: as we see folks living longer, you know, we're gonna
Speaker 1: need some more of these types of protections.
Speaker 2: It's so true, And I mean, we have to be
Speaker 2: correcting for how our culture is changing, and the fact
Speaker 2: that we're just trying to keep things the same means
Speaker 2: that the people who were privileged of the past will
Speaker 2: continue to be privileged in the future, and there's no
Speaker 2: room for anybody else to live long and prosper.
Speaker 3: This was complicated, but I'm glad we covered it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that's a really important point to make that
Speaker 2: the economy is very complicated. It isn't black and white.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of nuance that has to be considered.
Speaker 3: And it also isn't static.
Speaker 1: So the verdict for today could be different from the
Speaker 1: verdict next week. And you know, there are some things
Speaker 1: that we didn't talk about here but that we both
Speaker 1: know are really important, right, which we mentioned at the top,
Speaker 1: around the global economy and how things changing and happening
Speaker 1: in other countries affect what's happening in our country.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we talked about that in past episodes, like,
Speaker 2: for example, how the war in Ukraine was affecting semiconductor production.
Speaker 1: But I think there's one thing that we've seen an
Speaker 1: important and movable pillar of the US economy, and we've
Speaker 1: seen this stay steady throughout all of this, and I'm
Speaker 1: curious about how it's working, but it is the price
Speaker 1: of the Arizona tee at ninety.
Speaker 3: Nine cents, that's still a dollar, how.
Speaker 2: And so we really appreciate doctor Perry helping us unpack
Speaker 2: such a complex issue.
Speaker 4: You got to be.
Speaker 5: Really skeptical about people who can talk about anything in
Speaker 5: economics with certainty, because if they really could predict what
Speaker 5: is going to happen, we could get ahead of it, right,
Speaker 5: we would have never had recessions or economic depressions or
Speaker 5: any of those things. So it's never really been done.
Speaker 5: There's a Nobel prize in economics. Is it been the
Speaker 5: most profound predictions made by those Nobel laureate economists has been?
Speaker 5: How wrong economics has been? Those are the biggest contributions
Speaker 5: in economics usually have to.
Speaker 4: Do with, hey, we really actually got this all wrong.
Speaker 1: All right, it's time for the one thing? T T
Speaker 1: what's your one thing this week?
Speaker 3: My one thing this week?
Speaker 2: You know, we're talking about the economy and how we're
Speaker 2: spending our dollars, and one way I like to spend
Speaker 2: my dollars is.
Speaker 3: On black businesses.
Speaker 2: And I stumbled across this really amazing black woman owned
Speaker 2: business on TikTok, owned by a woman named Camille McCallum.
Speaker 2: The name of her brand is black Woman on a
Speaker 2: Mission and she makes a pail, so socks, t shirts, sweatshirts, hat,
Speaker 2: and so I've gotten a hat and some socks from her.
Speaker 2: They both say Black Women on a Mission on it.
Speaker 2: I love wearing it because one of the things that
Speaker 2: she said in her TikTok is that it always starts
Speaker 2: a conversation. People will ask her, you know, what mission
Speaker 2: are you on?
Speaker 3: What do you do?
Speaker 2: And it actually does happen. When I wore that, I
Speaker 2: had somebody ask me that. So I got a chance
Speaker 2: to talk about the podcast and put us out there
Speaker 2: even more to people who may not know about us.
Speaker 2: So that is black Woman on a Mission. The website
Speaker 2: is black Woman on a Mission dot com. The owner
Speaker 2: is Camille McCollum. You can follow her and her brand
Speaker 2: on Instagram and on TikTok. She is so much fun
Speaker 2: I love her TikTok. She's so funny, and so I
Speaker 2: really love being able to support her in this way.
Speaker 3: Yes, that sounds great. What's your one thing?
Speaker 1: My one thing, and I've talked about it before is
Speaker 1: an app and it's called Digit. So when we're thinking
Speaker 1: about the economy and how you might save and capitalize
Speaker 1: on those interest rates, digit is an app that basically
Speaker 1: is taking money out of your account. And I know
Speaker 1: that's scary. It was scary to me, but you can
Speaker 1: set the daily limits and it just pulls tiny little
Speaker 1: dollars away, and before you know it, you have a
Speaker 1: little nest egg of savings. And if you're living like
Speaker 1: me and feeling the inflation, you need that nest egg.
Speaker 1: And sometimes you need to go right on in there
Speaker 1: and pull an egg out. Okay, so and make an omelet,
Speaker 1: and make an omelet baby. And so I think people
Speaker 1: should check out digit. I'll share my referral code in
Speaker 1: the show notes. All right, that's it.
Speaker 3: For Lap seventy nine.
Speaker 1: I want to know do you want interest rates to
Speaker 1: go up? Are you excited about the student loan forgiveness
Speaker 1: program for against it?
Speaker 3: What do you think?
Speaker 1: Call us at two zero two five six seven seven
Speaker 1: zero two eight and tell us what you thought, or
Speaker 1: give us an idea for a lab you think we
Speaker 1: should do this semester. That's two zero two five six
Speaker 1: seven seven zero two eight.
Speaker 2: And don't forget there's so much more for you to
Speaker 2: dig into on our website. There'll be a cheat sheet
Speaker 2: for today's lab and additional links and resources in the
Speaker 2: show notes. Plus you can sign up for our newsletter
Speaker 2: check it out at Dope labspodcast dot com. Special thanks
Speaker 2: to today's guest expert, doctor Vanessa Perry, you.
Speaker 1: Can find doctor Perry on LinkedIn just search Vanessa Perry.
Speaker 2: And you can find us on Twitter and Instagram at
Speaker 2: Dope Labs podcast, tt is on Twitter and Instagram at
Speaker 2: dr Underscore t Sho.
Speaker 1: And you can find Zakia at z said So. Dope
Speaker 1: Labs is a Spotify original production from Mega OWM Media Group.
Speaker 1: Our producers are Jenny Radlett, Mask and Lydia Smith of
Speaker 1: WaveRunner Studios. Our associate producer is Caro Orlando. Editing and
Speaker 1: sound designed by Rob Smarziak, with additional mixing and sound
Speaker 1: design by Hannis Brown. Original music composed and produced by
Speaker 1: Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Sugiura from Spotify Creative producer Miguel Contreras.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Shirley Ramos, Jess Borrison, Till krat Key
Speaker 1: and Brian Marquis Executive producers from Mega Own Media Group,
Speaker 1: rs T T Show Dia and Zakiah Wattley.
Speaker 2: We're gonna talk about what the government is doing right
Speaker 2: now to try and rain
Speaker 3: This economy in WHOA Buddy, Oh my