Speaker 1: Pushkin. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making
Speaker 1: better decisions. I'm Maria Kannakova and I'm Nate Silver.
Speaker 2: Today on the show, we're talking about the super Bowl,
Speaker 2: which was a tremendously disappointing result if you don't like
Speaker 2: seeing men crying or the Kansas City Chiefs America's team losing.
Speaker 3: But we'll talk about how that went and our belt.
Speaker 1: Yes, and then we're going to talk about Trump, what's
Speaker 1: been going on in the last few weeks, and kind
Speaker 1: of what the important things are to focus on. Right
Speaker 1: where should we be diverting our attention, what should we
Speaker 1: be not looking at at all, because obviously there's a
Speaker 1: barrage of things that are being plung at a and
Speaker 1: it's very important, as we've said over and over, to focus.
Speaker 3: And then how to find the Holy Grail a nice
Speaker 3: apartment in New York City.
Speaker 1: Yes, good luck with that search tonight. And after that
Speaker 1: we will actually have a special segment for our Pushkin
Speaker 1: Plus subscribers, answering a timeless question from a listener, how
Speaker 1: do you pick a good doctor? All right, Nate, let's
Speaker 1: talk about the super Bowl.
Speaker 2: As one of the few people rooting for the Kansas
Speaker 2: City Chiefs and betting, not necessarily for a plus CV bit,
Speaker 2: but following my heart my partners from Kansas City. I
Speaker 2: thought that game was a fucking nightmare. I have to say,
Speaker 2: I don't know. And to see I'm not anti Tom Brady,
Speaker 2: but to see Tom Brady gloating that he's going to
Speaker 2: keep his goat status for now.
Speaker 3: Patrick, you know I've been in a situation nineteen times
Speaker 3: and Packrick, it was just fucking bunking. It was.
Speaker 2: I rarely am bothered by sports, right, you assume you
Speaker 2: lose half the time, and this like this bug me me, Maria.
Speaker 3: I mean, I like Philly, Philly is against City. Let's
Speaker 3: let's say that. Like I'm usually pro Philly. That region, that.
Speaker 2: Whole Philly, Baltimore, sure, Maryland regions kind of a weird region.
Speaker 2: You know, they have interesting accents, interesting food, right, I
Speaker 2: feel like it's it's I take that region over New England.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting. Well, as a New Englander, I actually happen
Speaker 1: to agree. I'm you know, I'm a Bostonian who's who's
Speaker 1: not a huge Boston fan. So so there you have it.
Speaker 1: But I actually have the same beef with with Philly.
Speaker 1: That I have with Boston, which is that their sports
Speaker 1: fans can be really nasty. I don't like nasty sports fans.
Speaker 1: I like people who like our sports fans, you know,
Speaker 1: and have good spirit, but don't get don't get like
Speaker 1: really mean when they win. And I don't know, Philly's
Speaker 1: not as bad as but Boston. I think we've talked
Speaker 1: about this on the show before. Is awful. Right when
Speaker 1: the Red Sox finally won the World Series and reverse
Speaker 1: the curse, they were setting cars on fire in Harvard Square,
Speaker 1: Like what the actual fund?
Speaker 2: I mean, you're kind of deprived of like sunlight up there,
Speaker 2: stuff much fucking sunlight in Boston in the winter.
Speaker 1: That's very true. That's very true. But there's not much
Speaker 1: sunlight in New York right now either, So so yes,
Speaker 1: I don't like it when sports fans get really nasty.
Speaker 1: But I do like Philly, and I think that this
Speaker 1: is all good. I also don't like gloating, so I'm
Speaker 1: with you that the Tom Brady thing is a little
Speaker 1: bit off putting. Luckily, I did not listen to you.
Speaker 1: I did not put any money on the Chiefs, So
Speaker 1: I'm good, even though you advised me too.
Speaker 3: You know, at least.
Speaker 2: It wasn't a bat where you ever had hope, you know,
Speaker 2: the hope was immediate, I guess of that one interception
Speaker 2: in the first layer.
Speaker 1: Yes, and by the way, dear listeners, I did watch
Speaker 1: the whole thing because first of all, I needed to
Speaker 1: watch from the beginning, because I needed to know that
Speaker 1: I want and our prop bet about crying.
Speaker 2: Which I'm not even sure have we review the video
Speaker 2: on this, I'm not even.
Speaker 3: Sure about this is this is so funny.
Speaker 1: So all of the sports books have called it in
Speaker 1: my favor. And Nate and I had a text exchange
Speaker 1: at the time.
Speaker 3: We had different terms. We had different terms.
Speaker 2: He said a tear.
Speaker 3: I saw tears, not crying, but I.
Speaker 1: Saw tears and eyes and there was even someone wiping
Speaker 1: away a tear, to which Nate wrote, So this is
Speaker 1: our text exchange. I actually sorry, Nate, this is this
Speaker 1: is about to become a public record. So someone one
Speaker 1: of our you know, loyal listeners on Twitter the moment
Speaker 1: this happened, tweeted at us, at both of us, saying
Speaker 1: they just showed a player wiping away a tear during
Speaker 1: the national anthem exclamation point, and I was like, hell, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know they did, because I'm watching.
Speaker 2: If a tear falls in the forest and no one
Speaker 2: is there to see it, it is the man crying
Speaker 2: and so and so.
Speaker 1: I sent this to Night and Nate said, saw tears
Speaker 1: being wiped but maybe not actual tears. And I said, dude, no,
Speaker 1: And I still stand by mind, dude, no, resolute.
Speaker 3: We're gonna have to go to a video. I mean,
Speaker 3: this is a small bit.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna you know, I mean, I'm the chiefs
Speaker 2: thing already as we devastated, right, but like you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know about that.
Speaker 1: You have to you have to embrace it.
Speaker 3: I went. We negotiated the term was carefully.
Speaker 1: We did, but there was a tier and it was
Speaker 1: being wiped away.
Speaker 2: Okay, The terms were, is there a player or coach
Speaker 2: who has a tear in their eye during the national anthem?
Speaker 2: I think I think you'd have to actually see the tier,
Speaker 2: not just the implication of the tier.
Speaker 3: But that's that's those were the terms that we carefully negotiated.
Speaker 1: There was you could see the tier, and whenever you
Speaker 1: saw the player's eyes you could actually see them welling up,
Speaker 1: which is one of the things I said, you know,
Speaker 1: the welling up with tiers.
Speaker 3: Okay, let me say this.
Speaker 2: Let's say we bet that a McDonald's hamburger would be
Speaker 2: shown on the broadcast, and what you see is the
Speaker 2: residue of a big knac.
Speaker 3: You see the rapper and some of the I don't know.
Speaker 1: But no, we saw the big We saw the final
Speaker 1: bite of the big mac being consumed, and that would
Speaker 1: count because we saw the final bite and then someone
Speaker 1: wiping away their mouth. So I think that I won
Speaker 1: this bet. Nate clearly has some issues with it, but
Speaker 1: I will side with all of the sports books, with
Speaker 1: our loyal fans who all say they also saw tears. Nate,
Speaker 1: I think I got this one, and I think what
Speaker 1: did you? I think you lost ten bucks? Right, We're okay.
Speaker 3: I'll buy you a beer for your tears, all.
Speaker 1: Right, perfect. I don't drink beer, but you can buy
Speaker 1: me half a glass of wine because I don't think
Speaker 1: ten dollars is gonna do the fun. We'll do a
Speaker 1: half poor. You owe me a half poor half wine.
Speaker 3: Ironically, the less you pay for wine, the bigger the
Speaker 3: better of the poor. It's a little secret.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh. I also wanted to correct the record from
Speaker 1: last week when we were talking about the coin flip.
Speaker 1: So I actually tracked down the study that looked at this,
Speaker 1: and it's by Percy Diaconus, who does really fun work
Speaker 1: and statistics, and it turns out that the coin is
Speaker 1: slightly more likely to land on the side from which
Speaker 1: it started. So that's when it's a human person tossing it.
Speaker 1: So if it starts with heads up, it's more likely
Speaker 1: to land heads like fifty points, it's not it's less
Speaker 1: than a half a percent. Like it's tiny, tiny, tiny,
Speaker 1: and you need thousands and thousands of tosses. But when
Speaker 1: it's a human being and not like a computer, not
Speaker 1: a simulation, it turns out that the coin is more
Speaker 1: likely to land on the side which was facing up
Speaker 1: at the start of the toss. So I just want
Speaker 1: to throw that out there for people who are doing
Speaker 1: these bets.
Speaker 3: I think I did say tails right. Yeah, I got
Speaker 3: that right, and the chiefs got that right, and that
Speaker 3: was the only yeah.
Speaker 1: So that was also the only.
Speaker 3: Thing that went right over the course the entire yeah.
Speaker 1: So the weight also matters, so we're we're both. I
Speaker 1: just wanted to make sure to put that study out
Speaker 1: there because I think it's a lot of fun and
Speaker 1: I think it's kind of cool that there's human error, right,
Speaker 1: that's introduced in the way that we the way that
Speaker 1: we toss coins.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, they could do rock papers so right,
Speaker 2: which adds like nielman is strategy and game theory.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that would be fun. But they should They should
Speaker 1: get the uh A Japanese team to do this because
Speaker 1: I think they're the best at rochambo. I think they
Speaker 1: always win the championships. So they need they need like
Speaker 1: a backup team their quarterback to do the rock paper sesssor.
Speaker 2: WSO RPS World twiir is of rochambo or rock paper anyway.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go. All right, So that's the Super Bowl, Nate.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry that your team lost. I'm happy that I
Speaker 1: won our prop bet. And you know, I think we
Speaker 1: both agree that people gloating is never a good luck no.
Speaker 2: So you know, for example, for example, you wouldn't have
Speaker 2: mentioned the prep bet five times there.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 1: Just once in our summation of the segment, which we
Speaker 1: always do. We always sum up what we've talked about.
Speaker 2: You're awesome bragging about a bet with you minus four hundred.
Speaker 2: I've been the sumach up tomorrow minus a million. All right,
Speaker 2: all right, all right, let's we have other things to discuss.
Speaker 1: That is true, we have important things to discuss. So
Speaker 1: let's talk about what has been going on in the
Speaker 1: last few weeks of the Trump presidency. So he's been,
Speaker 1: you know, splashing around quite a bit, trying different things,
Speaker 1: all of these executive orders, seeing what's going to stick.
Speaker 1: And as we've said before on the show, a lot
Speaker 1: of this is distraction, right, that is his tactic. How
Speaker 1: do you distract people from figuring out what's actually important
Speaker 1: and keep them just constantly putting out small fires so
Speaker 1: that when the big one comes along, you kind of
Speaker 1: just let it go. So let's talk about what is
Speaker 1: actually important to focus on and what we can ignore
Speaker 1: for now. So maybe as a start, Nate, let's just
Speaker 1: talk about some general heuristics, some good rules for choosing
Speaker 1: what to pay attention to. So when you try to
Speaker 1: figure out, okay, what should I be focusing on? What
Speaker 1: comes to mind? How do you figure out orties, whether
Speaker 1: it's Trump or anything else, just in general, what am
Speaker 1: I going to pay attention to?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 2: My process is weird because I'm thinking about, like what
Speaker 2: things can I write about? So and also I have
Speaker 2: this kind of like distaining for like the daily politics crap.
Speaker 3: Like I never watch cable.
Speaker 2: News, right, I read the newspapers, I guess, or read
Speaker 2: the digital version of the newspapers.
Speaker 3: But like, so you know, to.
Speaker 2: Me to just say, like the thing that gets partisans
Speaker 2: wiled up on like X, blue sky whatever else, like
Speaker 2: don't pay attention to that generally speaking, right, because they
Speaker 2: are trying to, like you know, it's like following your
Speaker 2: the Yankees or your favorite baseball team, where it's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: there's going to be a headline every day, and like
Speaker 2: it probably isn't that important in the grand scheme of things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think that that's actually an important thing.
Speaker 1: I to try to kind of stay away from daily
Speaker 1: news because it's really really easy to get completely kind
Speaker 1: of caught up in this attention hijacking, right, and like
Speaker 1: the culture of momentary outrage. Oh he said this, this happened.
Speaker 1: And if you're too online, I think that nothing hijacks
Speaker 1: your attention more than that, right, Like the overly like
Speaker 1: being too involved in all of this discourse and every
Speaker 1: single thing that comes up. I think that that distracts
Speaker 1: you from bigger picture things. So something I always ask myself,
Speaker 1: is okay, you know, how important is this in the
Speaker 1: long term? What are the implications? Is this something that
Speaker 1: we're going to care about in a week? Right? Is
Speaker 1: this something that we're going to care about in a month.
Speaker 1: If the answer is yes, okay, maybe pay attention to it.
Speaker 1: If the answer is no, then I can safely avoid
Speaker 1: this particular conversation and not be a part of it.
Speaker 2: Like if you go to like MSNBC dot com right now,
Speaker 2: right read the headlines. One's about Kanye West, one's about
Speaker 2: like Steve Bannon, and then Eric Adams. Right, one's about
Speaker 2: Rob Lagoyevitch, the former government Illinois who has got partnered
Speaker 2: or is going to get pardoned. You know, Trump's frustration
Speaker 2: with deportation numbers will likely lead to more chaos, right
Speaker 2: is the headline of one article. So it's all stuff
Speaker 2: that like is designed to get an emotional reaction out
Speaker 2: of partisans.
Speaker 1: Yes, I can, I can. I make a confession, and
Speaker 1: I hope that they well they will take it personally,
Speaker 1: but I hope this does not affect my future career.
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever gone to MSNBC dot com
Speaker 1: to the front page like that is just not a
Speaker 1: website that I have ever visited unless someone has given
Speaker 1: me a link to a specific article that I should
Speaker 1: be reading for some specific reason. Right, there are places
Speaker 1: that are meant to hijack your attention, and that to me,
Speaker 1: just like Fox News like on the other side, to me,
Speaker 1: those are places that are meant to kind of filment,
Speaker 1: outrage and hijack your attention, and I just try to
Speaker 1: stay out of that, right, Like, that is not how
Speaker 1: I want to consume my news. And we'll be back
Speaker 1: right after this. So, Nate, what are some of the
Speaker 1: things that Trump has done that are actually important, meaningful,
Speaker 1: consequential that we should actually be paying attention to.
Speaker 2: The fact that the Trump administration seems a little bit
Speaker 2: indifferent toward separation of powers. You know, I had this
Speaker 2: article called one hundred and thirteen predictions about Trump and
Speaker 2: like le of various things go right or run, And
Speaker 2: you know, I had what's a chance that he'll disobey
Speaker 2: a Supreme Court order?
Speaker 3: Which I had ten percent.
Speaker 2: Which sounds low because usually it's conservaed Supreme Court, right,
Speaker 2: so it's like you would if he could. But like,
Speaker 2: but you know, we are getting more and more issues
Speaker 2: where they're like Okay, go ahead, and we're gonna do
Speaker 2: a bunch of shit that we know is illegal, and
Speaker 2: go ahead and stop us. We have first mover advantage,
Speaker 2: and then we will interpret very liberally every ambiguity and
Speaker 2: things like that. And you know, and so that whole
Speaker 2: thrust of things. I mean, you know, people start all
Speaker 2: of a sudden saying no, this is a coup and
Speaker 2: that auto golpe is a self coup where you get
Speaker 2: in power and then destroy And like, I think the
Speaker 2: problem is that like the audience for this message are
Speaker 2: people who are like already convinced and because this is
Speaker 2: this like abstract thing, and you know, the thing is
Speaker 2: like he's targeting us aid, you know, foreign assistance, even
Speaker 2: though if you kind of look from an ev standpoint,
Speaker 2: probably has a lot of utilitarian benefit.
Speaker 3: Four and eight is not a very popular program, right.
Speaker 2: A lot of the other executive worriers are doing are
Speaker 2: things and are popular enough, or they have a mandate
Speaker 2: to do based on the election, on the immigration stuff,
Speaker 2: for example, And so I don't know, I uh, what
Speaker 2: do you think, Maria?
Speaker 1: No, I mean, I totally agree with you that like
Speaker 1: number one issue, which underlies a lot of what's going
Speaker 1: on is a lack of regard for separation of power.
Speaker 1: And I don't think that this is just Trump. I
Speaker 1: think that this is also kind of Congress lacking a
Speaker 1: backbone and not being like, hey, you're taking away powers
Speaker 1: that should be ours, right, instead of doing that and
Speaker 1: being like, hey, guys, like this is ours. We're the
Speaker 1: ones who who control the purse strings, right, We're the
Speaker 1: ones who do these allocations the budget committee matters. Instead
Speaker 1: they're like being Okay, you know you gave us, you
Speaker 1: gave another executive order. Okay, that's cool, Like it's what
Speaker 1: we want, so it's fine. But I think that it's
Speaker 1: very short term thinking, and I think that's incredibly dangerous. Right,
Speaker 1: So that to me is very worrisome because we want
Speaker 1: a government that does check each other, that you know,
Speaker 1: that is responsive, and we do want a judicial system
Speaker 1: that is listened to. Like it's actually going to be
Speaker 1: very scary if Trump just flat out defies a judicial order, right, Like,
Speaker 1: what's going to happen? Then is the rest of government
Speaker 1: going to grow a spine or not? So I agree
Speaker 1: with you that that is very important, and I also
Speaker 1: but there are other issues that I think are part
Speaker 1: of this that I think are also worth paying attention.
Speaker 1: I actually think that cutting the funding to USAID is
Speaker 1: is a major issue and not good because you can
Speaker 1: obviously frame it and oh, like we only care about America, right,
Speaker 1: America first. But if you think about what AID is
Speaker 1: actually being cut, right, people are not getting life saving medications,
Speaker 1: like you actually have a body count, right, you will
Speaker 1: have people who will die without access to these medications,
Speaker 1: without access to some of these programs, And so I
Speaker 1: think that's a huge deal. And people are just looking
Speaker 1: the other way and saying, well, I don't care, it's
Speaker 1: not me, it could be you, right like that that's
Speaker 1: actually incredibly important.
Speaker 2: Look, it could be an opportunity for private charitable organizations,
Speaker 2: which are sometimes more efficient than the government, to step up.
Speaker 2: But yeah, like you almost can kind of like the
Speaker 2: equilibrium research that you know, it probably is pretty good
Speaker 2: from utilitarian standpoint, because it's unpopular, right for America to
Speaker 2: do something that doesn't help us directly, and of course,
Speaker 2: you know, having more stability in the world can help
Speaker 2: us directly, can help us, but like it kind of
Speaker 2: has to be good in order for us to tolerate it.
Speaker 3: You know, exactly.
Speaker 1: The third thing that I would say, though, since I
Speaker 1: do come from academia and I am very well aware
Speaker 1: of the importance of research, I'm actually very worried about
Speaker 1: the NIH funding as well, which is part of you
Speaker 1: know what Trump has been trying to do over and
Speaker 1: over and over, Like, he has tried to do this repeatedly,
Speaker 1: and I think that it's really going to if it
Speaker 1: holds right, because people are actually trying to protest this,
Speaker 1: then capping the indirect cost at fifteen percent is going
Speaker 1: to be a huge blow to research in the United States,
Speaker 1: to innovation in the United States, to the number of
Speaker 1: people who can and will stay here. And I think
Speaker 1: it's actually something that will make us a whole lot
Speaker 1: less competitive on the global arena than we currently are. Like,
Speaker 1: it's a big fuck you to research. By the way,
Speaker 1: this is from someone who has written about and talked
Speaker 1: about the fact that there's tons of administrative bloat in academia, right,
Speaker 1: this ain't the way to get rid of it, and
Speaker 1: this is aiming at something very different despite what the
Speaker 1: rhetoric might say.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, this is also one of the you know,
Speaker 2: I've had enough fights with enough like woke academics over
Speaker 2: the years and criticisms over the politicization and research and
Speaker 2: just not politicized but just kind of crappy research that's
Speaker 2: you know, p hacking and things like that. You know, look,
Speaker 2: the good news is all over, and I might make
Speaker 2: all this more popular again, but like we're only three
Speaker 2: weeks in, and I understand that people feel overwhelmed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and as you say, like it is showing a
Speaker 1: disdain for a very real public good, right for things
Speaker 1: that help both the United States and people individually, for
Speaker 1: really crucial research. And you know, I was I was
Speaker 1: talking to my sister who is an mdphd who runs
Speaker 1: a lab who's fund to get is getting cut who
Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't know if the NAH grant that
Speaker 1: she was supposed to get is actually going to come through.
Speaker 1: And she's doing like life saving work with infants and
Speaker 1: infant health and all of these different things, and we
Speaker 1: were just talking about it, and I was trying to
Speaker 1: calm her down because obviously, like she's very upset. And
Speaker 1: I was like, look like, you know, if this makes
Speaker 1: him unpopular enough, if he tries to do too much,
Speaker 1: then in two years, you know, Democrats should be able
Speaker 1: to win the midterm elections and blah blah blah. She's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but two years could actually be enough to kill a
Speaker 1: lot of crucial research programs and to get people to
Speaker 1: leave the United States right to get some research, to
Speaker 1: go to Europe, to go to Asia, to go to
Speaker 1: places that will actually be able to carry out the
Speaker 1: types of work that they need to be carrying out.
Speaker 1: And so I think that in general we've seen both
Speaker 1: for Milan and from Trump, this like anti anti public
Speaker 1: good but also anti science stance that is really playing
Speaker 1: out here and it affects not just science.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons that I that the NIH was
Speaker 1: so important was because the federal funding actually helped a
Speaker 1: lot of other research go forward that wouldn't have otherwise
Speaker 1: been able to go forward because private corporations tend to
Speaker 1: give a lot less money and tend to have a
Speaker 1: lot lower limits on that overhead. And that's in the
Speaker 1: universities were able to kind of make up the shortfall
Speaker 1: because they had NAH funding. And this helped funding in
Speaker 1: the arts right, funding in areas in the humanities that
Speaker 1: won't otherwise get funding because there ain't much money for them.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, maybe forcing people to be more efficient
Speaker 2: isn't such a bad thing.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's like, this is an efficiency. It's already incredibly efficient,
Speaker 1: is what I was telling you. Even though even though,
Speaker 1: like I said, no academia has bloated, like we started
Speaker 1: this conversation, I am very anti academic bloat. But this
Speaker 1: isn't the way. This is like taking a hammer and
Speaker 1: being like, let me just crush academia. And I think
Speaker 1: you agree with that, as opposed to saying like, okay,
Speaker 1: let's figure out where inefficiencies are. It's the opposite of
Speaker 1: what we talked about last week with the FAA and
Speaker 1: like how you were saying, well, just throwing more money
Speaker 1: at it, and I was like, no, don't throw more money
Speaker 1: at it. Try to figure out how the money's allocated.
Speaker 1: How do we do this more efficiently. Here, it's the
Speaker 1: exact opposite. It's just saying, well, let's just take money away.
Speaker 1: There are entire universities that actually cannot have a research
Speaker 1: program without this. You know, sure, like a Harvard, a
Speaker 1: Yale will will probably be fine, even though the research
Speaker 1: is going to get worse, because they can figure out
Speaker 1: how to deal with the shortfall. But schools that aren't
Speaker 1: like that are not going to be able to.
Speaker 3: When the church and students was it eighty thousand? You know,
Speaker 3: I mean use that money.
Speaker 1: Hey, they do, That's the thing they use. They do.
Speaker 3: They have way more money than indowments than they needs.
Speaker 3: Start actually using those endowmonds. You don't need. You don't
Speaker 3: need to be a little hedgephone.
Speaker 1: So I'm saying Harvard and Yale will be fine, but
Speaker 1: what about everywhere else? Those aren't the only two schools
Speaker 1: where research happens.
Speaker 2: All I'm saying is like, is like you have to
Speaker 2: because there's so much you're trying to cut costs. There's
Speaker 2: so much like special leading, right, you can always make
Speaker 2: an exception for this program or that program. And so
Speaker 2: I think strategically like the notion of like ripping the
Speaker 2: band aid off, and you know, if you're trying to.
Speaker 1: Like this isn't This isn't ripping the band aid off.
Speaker 1: This is cutting off the arm. And I think we
Speaker 1: will see that if this actually holds, I am willing
Speaker 1: to bet that research in the US, advancements in the US,
Speaker 1: the US as an innovator in any field of science
Speaker 1: is going to just go away.
Speaker 3: Well, we're innovators because of the private sector. Mostly No,
Speaker 3: we're in.
Speaker 1: But you forget how much of the private sector is
Speaker 1: done by academics who went into academia who have that knowledge.
Speaker 1: People are going to stop. But if you know you
Speaker 1: can't get funding and you can't do your research, why
Speaker 1: in the world would you go into a PhD program?
Speaker 1: Why would you run a lab? Right? People go from
Speaker 1: academia to industry. Where does industry get its superstars from academia?
Speaker 1: Where is that pipeline going to go? If we don't
Speaker 1: have fund they are going to go abroad. They are
Speaker 1: going to places where they can do their work and
Speaker 1: they can do their research. So I think that you
Speaker 1: need to think more strategically, more long term about this.
Speaker 1: And I think you actually agree with me because you
Speaker 1: agreed with me at the beginning and right now you're
Speaker 1: just disagreeing with for the hell of it, which is
Speaker 1: never a good reason to disagree with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I think there's like I mean, a big
Speaker 2: guy who people believe we're in mean reversion, right, And
Speaker 2: like I don't think you can like take these three weeks,
Speaker 2: which have been dramatic and have been in some ways
Speaker 2: very effective for Trump, far more well planned from an
Speaker 2: effectiveness standpoint than his first turn.
Speaker 3: I know you feel like extractl like that forward, right.
Speaker 1: Well I hope not. I hope not. But so, like
Speaker 1: I said, like, it would be great if this were temporary,
Speaker 1: you know, if we can't extrapolate it forward. But I'm
Speaker 1: just saying, our question is what should people focus on
Speaker 1: what's actually important and not distraction. I think that this
Speaker 1: is important and not distraction. Right. People actually need to
Speaker 1: focus on this so that it will reverse, right, so
Speaker 1: that it will revert so that people realize that this
Speaker 1: is an important issue, unlike a lot of other things.
Speaker 1: So what we're talking about right now is how to
Speaker 1: set priorities, how to focus on the things that actually matter.
Speaker 1: And I think we both agree that this is something
Speaker 1: that actually matters. Once again, the easier thing to do,
Speaker 1: the lazier thing to do, is just look at the
Speaker 1: talking points and be like, yeah, I agree with that, yeah,
Speaker 1: cut bloat, yeah, like yeah, this is all good.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: That's that's just a very lazy, intellectually way to look
Speaker 1: at it, To look at the talking points that are
Speaker 1: being thrust at us and just be like okay, yeah
Speaker 1: that makes sense, of course, right, that's the that's the
Speaker 1: point of talking points. So I think that as we prioritize,
Speaker 1: as we think about what should we pay attention to
Speaker 1: of the last three weeks, separation of powers, USAID, NIH
Speaker 1: and other science funding. I think these are three things
Speaker 1: that actually matter, and there are a bunch of things
Speaker 1: that don't matter or that won't matter, or that will
Speaker 1: be reversed. Like I don't actually think that the birthright
Speaker 1: citizenship is that important because that's going to get blocked, right,
Speaker 1: like that is. And if it doesn't get blocked, like
Speaker 1: holy shit, then we have much bigger problems, right because
Speaker 1: that's unconstitutional.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Look, I mean there's a you know, so I would
Speaker 2: say that, you know, Trump has some degree of mandate
Speaker 2: on immigration stuff and DEI stuff, and so that stuff's
Speaker 2: not that's a president. It doesn't even be generating that
Speaker 2: much outrage. Even some of the you know, tran stuff
Speaker 2: seems to have a relatively muted reaction. I mean, I
Speaker 2: don't know who's wrecking to anything really, right. It's heart
Speaker 2: because there are these issues that are like cultural touchstones
Speaker 2: that like you can read some mandate and have the
Speaker 2: electorate voted, then you have these things that are like
Speaker 2: these abstract, very bad things that people like you and
Speaker 2: I might say, are the highest ev concerns marrier, right,
Speaker 2: And then there's like a third bucket of like distractions
Speaker 2: like the Elon Musk like.
Speaker 3: Nazi or Italian where we're calling it.
Speaker 2: Solute and just like the stupid shit Trump says from
Speaker 2: day to day and the owning the lib stuff and
Speaker 2: like you know, and it's like the problem is like
Speaker 2: the most you know, the terroriffs are like.
Speaker 3: Important economically, but.
Speaker 2: Like the terrorists are like okay, if you want to
Speaker 2: be ma Familian about it, then like let Trump do.
Speaker 2: Let these terrorists and like fucking cause inflation, and fine,
Speaker 2: you're gonna lose popularity, right, So it's like not like,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know if you want people like
Speaker 2: marching in the streets against tariffs exactly.
Speaker 3: It's hard to know.
Speaker 2: I think they're playing I think they're playing a pretty
Speaker 2: effective tactical game of like not giving Democrats things that
Speaker 2: are like.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, they're crushing it big.
Speaker 2: I mean, there are things that they're on the wrong
Speaker 2: side of public opinion, but there are things that are
Speaker 2: abstract and hard to actualize, right, and then things that
Speaker 2: are right that are reached democrats. But it's just kind
Speaker 2: of I don't know, it's been, it's been. You know,
Speaker 2: what I would say for Demcrats is like it will
Speaker 2: get worse for Trunk, It may get worse for people
Speaker 2: who don't like the things Trump's doing. But like, you know,
Speaker 2: he starts out less popular than any president except for
Speaker 2: his first turn. Now it's a little bit of an
Speaker 2: exception because like he was president before. It's kind of
Speaker 2: being a continuation. So he is more popul I mean,
Speaker 2: he is net popular now, right, but like that probably
Speaker 2: won't be true in six months, nine months and having
Speaker 2: little patience, you know, I mean, you know, I don't
Speaker 2: think publishing like blame Trump for like planes literally falling
Speaker 2: out of the sky two weeks into his term, but
Speaker 2: they might two years into his turn. And like that's
Speaker 2: a reasonable heuristic. It's actually pretty smart that, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: the day you take over, it's probably not your.
Speaker 3: Fault, but you know, after that it might be.
Speaker 2: And so I don't know, he is spending his political
Speaker 2: I mean, went less of Democrats is like spending have
Speaker 2: a fucking game plan for the first one hundred days.
Speaker 2: But although even then, right, a lot of things Biden
Speaker 2: did in the first hundred days was like through both
Speaker 2: policy and rhetoric, kind of open up the border a
Speaker 2: lot more, and you know, pass a lot of executive
Speaker 2: orders that included environmental regulations and racial equity regulations and
Speaker 2: things like that later made the stimulus package is harder
Speaker 2: to implement and slower. So like a lot of things
Speaker 2: that were kind of hidden from the public eye wound
Speaker 2: up costing Biden and Harris down the road. And so
Speaker 2: maybe Democrats can take like a little bit of a
Speaker 2: lesson from that, right that Trump is pushing a lot
Speaker 2: of buttons, not knowing we're all about leads and the
Speaker 2: consequences might not be clear until a year or two year,
Speaker 2: four years from now.
Speaker 3: But like he's running a lot of liability.
Speaker 1: Okay, So it seems like we're both agreed that, you know,
Speaker 1: the single most important thing is that the separation of
Speaker 1: powers is eroding, is not being honored, and that this
Speaker 1: is the thing that could actually wind up if it
Speaker 1: goes too far, being very difficult, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: say impossible, but very difficult to kind of roll back unravel.
Speaker 1: This is the thing that if you are going to
Speaker 1: pay attention to one thing, it's this right that we
Speaker 1: need the separation of powers to be honored, USAI, d
Speaker 1: NAH funding. All these things also important, but separation of powers.
Speaker 1: If we're if we're gonna say one thing to focus on,
Speaker 1: it's going to be that.
Speaker 2: I agree, And then you know, in terms of like
Speaker 2: what not to focus on. I mean, Trump has always
Speaker 2: been very good at having distractions. I think some battles
Speaker 2: were lost in public opinion with restection, like immigration and
Speaker 2: things like that, and the goal there is probably to
Speaker 2: try to rebuild public opinion from the ground.
Speaker 3: Uh. But like, if there's any issue on which Trump
Speaker 3: like had amendate, it's immigration and inflation, which is actually
Speaker 3: kind of fucking up by implementing teriffs.
Speaker 1: That is absolutely true. Also, egg prices are not doing
Speaker 1: anyone any favors. Let's take a break and talk about housing.
Speaker 2: Nate.
Speaker 1: Last time we spoke, you were looking for an apartment
Speaker 1: in New York City. First of all, wow, like I
Speaker 1: never thought you would leave your apartment, So, so talk us
Speaker 1: through that decision, how it's going.
Speaker 2: Both of My landlord isn't listening to this. My partner
Speaker 2: and I have always had these kind of unusual, funky spaces,
Speaker 2: like about the Midwest. You're like kind of like having
Speaker 2: our space, right, But like it's often in buildings that
Speaker 2: like where the space is oddly laid out or where
Speaker 2: the amenities aren't aren't great.
Speaker 3: I know, we just had like I mean, the elevator
Speaker 3: in our building.
Speaker 2: Is broken half the time, and I don't want to
Speaker 2: say where I live, but I'm not sure it's totally
Speaker 2: up to code.
Speaker 3: Right, we have the water out for.
Speaker 2: Three days in the middle of February where the pipe
Speaker 2: is froze and things like that, and like it just
Speaker 2: someone of my big gto theories is like you are
Speaker 2: paying for everything involved in your apartment bundle, whether you
Speaker 2: like use it or not. Right, So like if you
Speaker 2: were paying a big premium to have like a large
Speaker 2: space and you don't need all that space, then then
Speaker 2: you probably wanted to downsize. Either you're saving money or
Speaker 2: you know, in our case, I don't think the goals
Speaker 2: save money, but just to have like to stop creating
Speaker 2: all these amenities for for a space because.
Speaker 3: Ourmenities are not very good.
Speaker 2: And also just like there's shit like the fact that
Speaker 2: like because the building is pre war and old, like
Speaker 2: our heating bill is really freaking expensive because it's like
Speaker 2: very inefficient to like heat and cool the building and
Speaker 2: things and things like that. Right, if you have days
Speaker 2: where the water isn't working for to stay in hotel,
Speaker 2: I mean, you can deduct that from your rent, right,
Speaker 2: But like that's that's a big so. And also like
Speaker 2: we feel like having a new neighborhood is exciting. There's
Speaker 2: like some degree of diminishing returns. We've been in like
Speaker 2: the same place for gosh twelve years now, and like
Speaker 2: New York's a big city, right, neither of us work
Speaker 2: at a permanent location, and so therefore, like you know,
Speaker 2: that should make you relatively indifferent toward where you live
Speaker 2: within reason. I mean literally, like I kind of like
Speaker 2: I just like made like a little math of like
Speaker 2: you know, fifteen points that we visit often, right, from
Speaker 2: like friends places in Brooklyn, to like our favorite restaurants
Speaker 2: like the Dentists, to like, you know, sports arenas. The
Speaker 2: airport's really important. I travel a lot, and so like, sure,
Speaker 2: are you more convenient to at least one or two
Speaker 2: of the three major metro area airports in New York.
Speaker 2: That kind of thing is important, and we kind of
Speaker 2: discover that like actually, like basically anywhere within the lower
Speaker 2: half of Manhattan is kind of equally convenient to the
Speaker 2: places we need to go, and so therefore go ahead
Speaker 2: and like tack the neighborhood that you might find interesting.
Speaker 2: We've been gravitating a little bit toward the east side.
Speaker 2: I don't want to jinx anything by saying properties that
Speaker 2: we may or may not be in the midst of
Speaker 2: applying to now.
Speaker 3: And this is just for a rental, by the way,
Speaker 3: we're not buying.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's trying to figure out what things do
Speaker 2: we actually value and then and then what things do
Speaker 2: other people value that we don't value as much? Right,
Speaker 2: Like we looked like one place in cell See it's
Speaker 2: like this ground floor apartment kind of this brown stone
Speaker 2: that has like very attractive dining living room area with
Speaker 2: like an outdoor courtyard, right, and then you go down
Speaker 2: to the base where the bedroom's are office hour and
Speaker 2: it's kind of dreary, right, But you can imagine like
Speaker 2: for a certain type of person that like likes to
Speaker 2: have a lot of like house parties, right, And like
Speaker 2: we've arrived in a certain kind of perfect Chelsea flat
Speaker 2: for this like exact purpose, but it's not as nice
Speaker 2: in terms of like the living areas and things like that.
Speaker 3: Which is kind of where we spend most of our time.
Speaker 2: So it's like, if that's someone else's dream, you know,
Speaker 2: you don't want to pay for someone else's dream because
Speaker 2: it's factored into like the market.
Speaker 3: Pridace.
Speaker 1: Now that makes sense, I think. I think it's a
Speaker 1: really important point to say, like what are my most
Speaker 1: important things? What do I want to pay for? What
Speaker 1: do I not care about paying for? Otherwise you might
Speaker 1: end up in uh, you know, nightmare situations or paying
Speaker 1: for an apartment that you don't really that you're not
Speaker 1: happy in.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Another example is, you know, we thought briefly about like
Speaker 2: looking at a place in Miami. This is kind of
Speaker 2: during the COVID era where Miami kind of came back
Speaker 2: online before and now I'm mostly positive with somewhat able
Speaker 2: feelings toward Miami, but we were into you know, Miami
Speaker 2: things like a lot of middle aged gains, I guess,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: And at first we.
Speaker 2: Had a friend who lives in Coconut Grow, which is
Speaker 2: a very nice community, right, but like it's very desirable
Speaker 2: because like it has by far the better school options
Speaker 2: in terms of think both public and private schools and
Speaker 2: other parts of Miami.
Speaker 3: So if you don't have kids in school, then like
Speaker 3: it's huge. You really really really would have.
Speaker 2: To love Coconut Grove in order to like to pay
Speaker 2: this premium for a service that you don't need, Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I think that that's really important and something
Speaker 1: that people, by the way, underestimate how much of a
Speaker 1: toll it takes emotionally psychologically. There's a lot of research
Speaker 1: on this. To commute long distances, right, it's actually very
Speaker 1: not good for So that is something that I would
Speaker 1: absolutely say, like, especially somewhere like New York, do you
Speaker 1: take that into account? Schools are huge. So the apartment,
Speaker 1: we looked at apartments I won't say the exact neighborhood
Speaker 1: where I live, but we looked at apartments that are
Speaker 1: literally a block apart, but they're in two different school zones.
Speaker 1: And the price difference was insane, right, Like it was
Speaker 1: an order of magnitude, and we don't have kids, Like
Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter. I was like screw this, right,
Speaker 1: like I do that, but it's one block apart, literally,
Speaker 1: same size, same everything. And so I think that things
Speaker 1: like that are actually quite important and can be game
Speaker 1: changers if you're looking at an apartment in a smart
Speaker 1: way I have had. I don't know if you've had
Speaker 1: any nightmare apartments, but I've had one nightmare apartment where
Speaker 1: should have known, right, if something is priced in a
Speaker 1: way that makes no sense, there's probably something that you
Speaker 1: don't realize. So I was able to rent two floor
Speaker 1: garden duplex parlor garden duplex in the West Village on
Speaker 1: West eleventh Street within my budget. Like I was like,
Speaker 1: holy shit, right, Like, you can never you can never
Speaker 1: afford something like this. It turns out that the building
Speaker 1: was basically condemned. That we there were mice in the
Speaker 1: walls and just like running everywhere. There was no insulation.
Speaker 1: So in the winter, like the wind just like literally
Speaker 1: went through the apartment. There was mold everywhere. So we
Speaker 1: did an air quality check and like realize that, holy shit,
Speaker 1: like the stuff we're breathing in is really not good.
Speaker 1: And then the building ended up being gutted after you know,
Speaker 1: we and our neighbors left. This was before I wrote
Speaker 1: the Confidence Game. But if something is too good to
Speaker 1: be true, it probably is, so.
Speaker 3: Do your due diligence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and in the reverse, but I mean, sometimes people
Speaker 2: print something on the market and just overreesumate the demand
Speaker 2: for it, so you can have things that are priced
Speaker 2: the rationally high, but like there's not really bargains relative
Speaker 2: to the overall demand function of the city.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and I think that it's also the case where
Speaker 1: you're probably not going to be able to time the
Speaker 1: market right. You will either get lucky or unlucky, because,
Speaker 1: especially in New York, places don't sit around. Sometimes they
Speaker 1: do right. It could be in a really horrible market,
Speaker 1: but oftentimes the best case is to just go for it.
Speaker 1: My two best rental apartments that were both tiny, but
Speaker 1: like they were just ridiculous deals that enabled me to
Speaker 1: live in parts of New York that I never would
Speaker 1: have been able to afford as a twenty one year
Speaker 1: old moving to the city. I saw them before they
Speaker 1: hit the market. Literally, I was the first person to
Speaker 1: see both of them. One the guy reached out to
Speaker 1: me because I had posted on Craigslist. This was back
Speaker 1: in the day when Craigslist was a big thing. I
Speaker 1: was a senior in college. Made a posting saying, hey, like,
Speaker 1: I'm does anyone know of a you know, studio apartment
Speaker 1: in the West Village. This is my budget, and this
Speaker 1: guy just reached out. He's like it's not on the
Speaker 1: market yet. But and I ended up getting a bus,
Speaker 1: like the Chinatown bus from Boston to New York to
Speaker 1: see this apartment and just gave him money right away
Speaker 1: and ended up signing a lease that was, you know,
Speaker 1: started two weeks before I needed it to start. But
Speaker 1: like I never the apartment was one thousand dollars a
Speaker 1: month in the West Village fifty in the West Village,
Speaker 1: in the West Village. Yes, it was on Perry Street.
Speaker 1: The guy who actually it was, yeah, Perry, and like
Speaker 1: it was premium. It was between Bleeker and Hudson, Like
Speaker 1: just absolutely premium location. It was the parlor floor, so
Speaker 1: huge windows. It was tiny, It was less than one
Speaker 1: hundred square feet. It was ninety square feet payoff. Yes,
Speaker 1: it was ninety square feet, so that was the trade off.
Speaker 1: I lived in a glorified walk in closet, but man,
Speaker 1: I was happy to wake up in that walk in
Speaker 1: closet every single day. Yeah, my bed was lofted right
Speaker 1: under the ceiling. And I had like this rickety ladder
Speaker 1: that I had to climb up to make it up, like.
Speaker 3: A capsule hotel as I called them.
Speaker 1: In Asia, exactly exactly. But I had a full bathroom.
Speaker 1: It had a little kitchen like it wasn't. It was
Speaker 1: all in the one room right like it's it was
Speaker 1: a mini fridge, you know, it wasn't. But it had
Speaker 1: a stove that had like, it had everything I needed.
Speaker 1: And I was you know, I was twenty one years
Speaker 1: old and I was in the West Village and I
Speaker 1: was so thrilled to be able to have that apartment.
Speaker 3: You're baking in the bread catches on fire.
Speaker 2: I mean, but look if if you don't need space
Speaker 2: and don't pay for space and.
Speaker 1: Like, And at that point, I was still working in
Speaker 1: an office. I wasn't working from home.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: This is when I was working in advertising as a copywriter,
Speaker 1: and I was very not happy at my job. But hey,
Speaker 1: I had a great launch pad. Good luck night. I
Speaker 1: hope that you are able to get one of the
Speaker 1: apartments that you want to and I look forward. I
Speaker 1: would look forward to a housewarming in a wonderful neighborhood
Speaker 1: that you are excited about and that you get to
Speaker 1: to explore. Absolutely, Maria, let us know what you think
Speaker 1: of the show. Reach out to us at Risky Business
Speaker 1: at pushkin dot fm. And by the way, if you're
Speaker 1: a Pushkin Plus subscriber, we have some bonus content for you.
Speaker 1: We'll be answering a listener question each week that's coming
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Speaker 1: Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kanakova.
Speaker 2: And by me Nate Silver. The show is a co
Speaker 2: production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia. This episode was produced
Speaker 2: by Isabel Carter. Our associate producer is Gabriel Hunter Chang.
Speaker 2: Sally Helm is our editor, and our executive producer is
Speaker 2: Jacob Goldstein. Mixing by Sarah Bruger.
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