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Speaker 1: Welcome to Out of Money. I'm Joel, I'm Matt.

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Speaker 2: Today we're talking tariffs, doge and your Money with No Opinion.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Joel, So one of the benefits of hosting your

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Speaker 3: own podcast is that you've got the opportunity to speak

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Speaker 3: with some amazing folks who are much smarter than you.

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Speaker 1: That is definitely the case.

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Speaker 3: Today we're joined by economist Noah Smith, author of the

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Speaker 3: sub stack No Opinion, where he takes these big, complex

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Speaker 3: economic ideas and makes them easier.

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Speaker 1: To understand for folks like us. Joel.

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Speaker 3: I mean, we tend to focus more on micro econ factors. Right,

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Speaker 3: we're a personal finance show, after all, it's still good

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Speaker 3: to take a step back and to look at the

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Speaker 3: big picture, to honestly to understand, like what's going on

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Speaker 3: with the water that we're all swimming in. And given

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Speaker 3: all that's been going on lately with tariffs, you know,

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Speaker 3: this is a more timely episode. But we're also excited

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Speaker 3: to get into some topics like declining birth rates, government spending,

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Speaker 3: the economy overall plenty more today. No he actually he

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Speaker 3: even believes that rabbits are underrated pets. And I don't

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Speaker 3: know if we'll actually see ia eye on that one.

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Speaker 3: Who knows. Maybe Noah, you can convince us. But thank

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Speaker 3: you for joining us today on the podcast.

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Speaker 4: Hey, great to be here. Thanks for having me on.

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Speaker 1: We're glad to have you.

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Speaker 4: Know.

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Speaker 2: A first question we ask everyone who comes on the

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Speaker 2: show is what do you like to splur John? Because

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Speaker 2: I'm sure you're being smart, you're saving, you're being thoughtful

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Speaker 2: about money for your future.

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Speaker 1: What do you like to spour?

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Speaker 4: John? In the here and now? Though? Besides maybe rabbit

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Speaker 4: food splurgeh, I don't really splurge anything. Psychotherapy, I guess.

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Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, all right, never heard of that one before,

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Speaker 2: but I like that.

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Speaker 4: Just you know, I spend almost nothing. I have like

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Speaker 4: a you know, over an eighty percent savings rate.

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Speaker 1: Holy cow.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Are you part of the fire movement?

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Speaker 4: Noah, No, no, no, I'm already retired. Like this is

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Speaker 4: this is retire this is my hobby. I'm just you know, yes,

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Speaker 4: I'm making much more than I made when I was

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Speaker 4: a working person. But you know it's it's if I

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Speaker 4: if I called myself retired tomorrow, I would be doing

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Speaker 4: the exact same thing I am now, and so I

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Speaker 4: am essentially retired. I was fascinating fired I don't have

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Speaker 4: enough to do that, Like I was fascinating that you

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Speaker 4: talk about my personal finance.

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Speaker 3: That you continue to do like what you've done before

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Speaker 3: because you used to be over at Bloomberg. And just

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Speaker 3: let's talk about media for a quick second, because you're

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Speaker 3: over on substack writing. We've seen a lot of folks

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Speaker 3: do this over time, where they're leaving some of these

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Speaker 3: more legacy mainstream media outlets.

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Speaker 1: How does that work?

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Speaker 3: Can you talk to us about I guess quasi making

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Speaker 3: a living writing content over on substack?

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Speaker 4: Sure? Absolutely well. So the key to substack is email distribution.

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Speaker 4: People get your newsletter in their email inbox every day,

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Speaker 4: and so you don't have to worry about promoting each

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Speaker 4: post on social media or you know, like having people

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Speaker 4: have you in their RSS feeds or however else people

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Speaker 4: get distribution. Email turns out to be just the the

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Speaker 4: distribution method for blogs. Some people click on the link

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Speaker 4: and read it as a web browser, you know, in

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Speaker 4: their web browser. Some people you know, just read it

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Speaker 4: in line in their emails, et cetera. And some people

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Speaker 4: read it in the substack app. And there's all these

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Speaker 4: ways to read it, but it turns out that email

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Speaker 4: is just the killer app, and and so that's how

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Speaker 4: blogs work now, and so substack is really bringing back

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Speaker 4: the blogosphere. I pay weall one out of three posts,

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Speaker 4: which means that two out of three are free to read.

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Speaker 4: And so I only five percent of my audience is paid,

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Speaker 4: which means that yeah, most of the people who are

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Speaker 4: only reading the two out of three free posts. I

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Speaker 4: could pay Weall a lot more, and I could probably

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Speaker 4: extract a lot more income in the short term from

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Speaker 4: people who read my blog. However, I've chosen not to

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Speaker 4: do this because A I care about reach, and B

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Speaker 4: I care about long term growth for the unpaid audience.

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Speaker 1: And it's interesting.

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Speaker 2: I feel like some players from Legacy Media you used

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Speaker 2: to write for Legacy Media are kind of moving over

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Speaker 2: to substack. I don't know if if Paul Krugman is

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Speaker 2: like retiring or if he's like I don't I think

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Speaker 2: I can make more money on substack.

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Speaker 4: He's not he's not charging, and he doesn't plan to show.

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Speaker 2: Oh really, okay, yeah, I think that's fascinating. Waiting for

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Speaker 2: fun me think about some of the personalities that have

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Speaker 2: was it. Jennifer Rubinstein from The Washington post who left

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Speaker 2: and immediately had hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Is that

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Speaker 2: going to happen more and more? Were people who built

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Speaker 2: up sort of a readership in in like the legacy media,

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Speaker 2: they're gonna switch over and do their own thing.

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Speaker 4: Well, yes, absolutely, Basically legacy print media combined two things

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Speaker 4: that didn't need to be combined. And this is a

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Speaker 4: post I'm going to write soon because every year I

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Speaker 4: write one sort of naval gazing post about the media

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Speaker 4: industry or how to write a substack or something like that.

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Speaker 4: That's I limit myself to one year basically, you know,

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Speaker 4: how I write or something like that, sage gets made,

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Speaker 4: How this sausage gets made. Yeah, I don't want to

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Speaker 4: write too much about that, too much naval gazing, but

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Speaker 4: I do that once a year, and so one here

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Speaker 4: is going to be how the basically mainstream or legacy

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Speaker 4: print media combined news reporting and analysis, which we decided

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Speaker 4: to call op ed writing. And so actually those are

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Speaker 4: two different enough things where the process for producing them

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Speaker 4: is very different. Process for producing them well is very different.

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Speaker 4: And unfortunately you talk to almost any person who edits

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Speaker 4: op ed pieces, and they came from newsroom editing and

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Speaker 4: they apply very similar techniques to editing op ed writers

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Speaker 4: as they do to editing journalists and reporters, and the

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Speaker 4: idea that many people even think of op ed writers

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Speaker 4: as journalists, and in fact, many some op ed writers

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Speaker 4: even were reporters before they switched to OpEd writing. So

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Speaker 4: but in actuality, there are two extremely different skills. Reporting

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Speaker 4: requires you to go cultivate sources to you know, sift

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Speaker 4: through primary information and to tell truth from falsehood in

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Speaker 4: a very narrow category of the world, where analysis or

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Speaker 4: op ed writing requires you to draw a whole bunch

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Speaker 4: of threads and read very broadly and synthesize, using it

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Speaker 4: as sort of an analytical base, such as you know,

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Speaker 4: economics or you know, sociology or history or something to

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Speaker 4: kind of analyze these events. And so it's just two

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Speaker 4: extremely different techniques. Also, OpEd writing employe's voice, which reporting

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Speaker 4: should not. That's a stylistic thing. But when you know,

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Speaker 4: for example, take Matt Levine. You know, he has this

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Speaker 4: famous voice, this sort of this sort of like sort

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Speaker 4: of droll sigh with which he talks about the finance world.

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Speaker 4: And it's wonderful. It's a wonderful voice, but it's not

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Speaker 4: the same as reporting, and now OpEd writers who are

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Speaker 4: actually just analysts they you know, similar to like a

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Speaker 4: stock analyst or a CIA analyst. Op ed writers are

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Speaker 4: realizing that they can be free of editorial constraints, use

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Speaker 4: their own voice, also use their own form factors for analysis,

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Speaker 4: because for analysis slash op ed writing, the appropriate form

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Speaker 4: factor is wildly divergent between topics and between people. And

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Speaker 4: so you can have one person who writes seven thousand

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Speaker 4: word posts with like a million, you know, references to

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Speaker 4: scientific papers. You can have another person who writes like short, punchy,

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Speaker 4: like very dramatically written essays, and you can have all

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Speaker 4: these different kinds of things. And yet at these legacy

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Speaker 4: media places, all the editors are editing the op ed

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Speaker 4: writers as if they're all just basically reporters who are

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Speaker 4: allowed to express opinions, which is an incredibly stultifying, narrow,

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Speaker 4: confining vision for what op ed writing can be. Substack.

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Speaker 4: The reason substack is succeeding is not just individualized email distribution,

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Speaker 4: although I mean that's a little that's part of it,

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Speaker 4: but mostly it is that it has freed op ed

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Speaker 4: writers analysts to find their own voice and to use

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Speaker 4: the to explore the full potential of the medium.

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Speaker 1: It makes so much sense.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, as opposed to an editor trying to edit down

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Speaker 3: all these different writers to the cohesive voice as to

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Speaker 3: what that location is trying to achieve.

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Speaker 4: Right, and that voice inevitably sounds like the voice of

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Speaker 4: a reporter too.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, fascinating.

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Speaker 3: Well, I wasn't expecting for us to talk about media.

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Speaker 1: That'll be it, though, we'll keep it siloed. Man like.

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Speaker 3: I appreciate that you attempt to stay apolitical as much

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Speaker 3: as possible while you are talking about the economic impacts

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Speaker 3: of political choices. You like to stick to the facts.

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Speaker 3: But how would you describe your overall perspective or your

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Speaker 3: overall philosophy on economics, Like who have have you been

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Speaker 3: influenced the most? When it comes to how you approach

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Speaker 3: the different economic ideas that you write about.

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Speaker 4: So it's interesting because I'm pretty eclectic, I think, you know, politically,

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Speaker 4: I'm a center left type. Politically, I'm like an Obama

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Speaker 4: Clinton liberal, and I didn't shift strongly to the left

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Speaker 4: and the twenty tens, and I'm not shifting very strongly

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Speaker 4: to the right now. I'm just sort of where I

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Speaker 4: was in two thousand and five, my basic politics have

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Speaker 4: not shifted very much. But in terms of what economic

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Speaker 4: approaches I endure, well, that's always evolving because I learned

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Speaker 4: so much more all the time. But I've never been

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Speaker 4: sort of as as I guess, neoliberal, as the other

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Speaker 4: people on the center left tend to be. So if

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Speaker 4: you read Jason Furman's article in Foreign Affairs Today, the

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Speaker 4: Post Neoliberal Delusion, he says, some things that I think

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Speaker 4: are very wrong, but then some things that are very right.

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Speaker 4: And so I think that overall, I describe myself as

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Speaker 4: an industrialist. I think that we need to intentionally build

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Speaker 4: back up, you know, manufacturing in some other like high

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Speaker 4: tech industries in America for strategic reasons, for you know,

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Speaker 4: just good economic health in various ways. And I think

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Speaker 4: this is a lot more possible to do than people believe.

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Speaker 4: And so but at the same time I am I'm

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Speaker 4: more in favor of trade with poor countries and you know,

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Speaker 4: with with you know, other countries than most of the industrialists.

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Speaker 4: And I'm much less I'm much more skeptical of like

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Speaker 4: NEPA permitting laws and unions too. You know, I've nuanced

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Speaker 4: in skeptical views unions, which sometimes I like, but sometimes

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Speaker 4: I don't like, and so I think that there's no

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Speaker 4: easy way to pigeonhole my economic viewpoint, and until I

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Speaker 4: just write a big book explaining it, I think that

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Speaker 4: I'm going to always be keeping people guessing as to

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Speaker 4: what I really support because there's no easy word or

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Speaker 4: name to put to my ideology. So so basically it's

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Speaker 4: it's Noahism, which is a cobble together thing, and so

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Speaker 4: I really just but before I do that, I'm going

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Speaker 4: to write a book like Your Easy Guide to Macroeconomics,

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Speaker 4: and that's my next book I'm going to write that

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Speaker 4: I'll hopefully get done this year, and then maybe the

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Speaker 4: next year I'll write a book like you know, Noah

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Speaker 4: Smith's Total Philosophy of the Economy, and that book will

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Speaker 4: completely destroy and eat my life because I'll be going

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Speaker 4: out on a limb in so many ways that I'll

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Speaker 4: be a perfectionist about it and just do exhaustive research

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Speaker 4: and just argue with the you know, all these different

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Speaker 4: people who disagree with me in a million different ways,

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Speaker 4: and I'll become, you know, super depressed and end up

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Speaker 4: as like a hermit living in the call.

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Speaker 2: Well I mean it though, because yeah, read that, but

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Speaker 2: I hope you survive mentally during that project.

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Speaker 4: I'll do what I can. Well.

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Speaker 2: I think that's actually part of what I love about

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Speaker 2: what you write. I don't know what you're going to

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Speaker 2: say before you say it. And there are a lot

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Speaker 2: of people opinion writers in particularly the ed pages, and

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Speaker 2: you're like, oh, it's that author. Well, I know what

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Speaker 2: their opinion is going to be. And so yeah, the

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Speaker 2: nuance I think is a part of your success on

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Speaker 2: this podcast. No, we typically talk about personal finance, but

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Speaker 2: macroeconomics policy, they impact all of us as individuals. Like

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Speaker 2: there's there are direct connections between some of the things

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Speaker 2: that happen, let's say in Washington, d C. In our

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Speaker 2: day to day lives and maybe less than some people assume.

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Speaker 2: But how do you see the relationship between like big

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Speaker 2: picture shifts that are happening macroeconomic stuff and then the

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Speaker 2: individual reality that we all faces as Americans and as consumers.

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Speaker 4: That's a really good question because when you look at surveys,

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Speaker 4: you see that people say that the macroeconomic environment is

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Speaker 4: doing terrible, and then they say their personal finances are

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Speaker 4: doing great and their city and state are doing pretty good,

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Speaker 4: and the farther you get from you and your own circumstances.

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Speaker 4: The worst people say things are doing. I interpret this

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Speaker 4: to mean that people's ideas about culture and the negativity

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Speaker 4: they see in the media about American culture and politics

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Speaker 4: and stuff like that is bleeding into their assessments of

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Speaker 4: the economy and especially one data point in my favor,

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Speaker 4: is that you see huge partisan shifts here. So then

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Speaker 4: as soon as you know, a Republican gets elected president,

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Speaker 4: the democrats assessment of the economy just drops off a

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Speaker 4: cliff in the Republican assessments of the economy sores into

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Speaker 4: the stratosphere, and the overall numbers don't stay, that don't

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Speaker 4: change much. And that's like literally overnight, literally overnight, literally overnight.

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Speaker 3: What indicators, Noah, are you paying attention to that you

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Speaker 3: think actually will have an impact on individuals, savers or investors,

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Speaker 3: just the typical person that's out there. I'm curious, like,

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Speaker 3: which sort of numbers or metrics are you keeping an

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Speaker 3: eye on.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, keep an eye on, first and foremost, the five

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Speaker 4: year break even inflation expectations rate. That number has proven

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Speaker 4: to it moves around less than actual inflation, which is

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Speaker 4: good for a forecast. You don't want a forecast to

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Speaker 4: move as much as the real thing. Like if you

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Speaker 4: saw weather forecasters predict like, you know, frigid cold and

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Speaker 4: searing heat one day after another, you'd be like, this

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Speaker 4: weather forecaster needs to do fewer drugs. So then you

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Speaker 4: want a forecast that's a little mild in its predictions.

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Speaker 4: You want, like, you know, when there's a heat wave

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Speaker 4: or a cold snap, you always want the weather forecaster

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Speaker 4: to be a little bit surprised. So inflation expectations have

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Speaker 4: done a good job of forecasting inflation, So you want

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Speaker 4: to pay attention to that five year break even because

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Speaker 4: that gives a sense of people's expectations of inflation once

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Speaker 4: you include Fed policy. So when the five year break

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Speaker 4: even rises, what that means is people expect inflationary pressures

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Speaker 4: to rise and for the Fed to accommodate that instead

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Speaker 4: of raising interest rates to force inflation back down. So

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Speaker 4: then if people expect that, they're going to behave as

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Speaker 4: if it's true, which turns into a self fulfilling prophecy

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Speaker 4: because they want to raise prices ahead of everybody else,

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Speaker 4: and so that you get a scramble to raise prices.

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Speaker 4: So when you saw inflation go to like eight percent

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Speaker 4: for you know, half a year or a year or

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Speaker 4: however long it did. The post pandemic inflation, which was

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Speaker 4: pretty severe. When you saw that happen, you did, you

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Speaker 4: saw the five year break even rise to four percent

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Speaker 4: three point five to four percent, and so it was

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Speaker 4: a much lower swing, but it basically meant that people

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Speaker 4: thought that the FED was losing control of inflation or

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Speaker 4: were voluntarily giving up control, and that was what That

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Speaker 4: rise in expectations is what actually aligned the FED into acting.

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Speaker 4: And so that's the thing I would really if you

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Speaker 4: want to see when inflation is going to return, keep

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Speaker 4: an eye on the five year break even. And then

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Speaker 4: you know, the other thing I always keep an eye

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Speaker 4: on is the prime age employment to population ratio. Basically,

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Speaker 4: adult American adults age twenty five through fifty four, how

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Speaker 4: many of them are working. So most employment numbers sort

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Speaker 4: of depend on some statistical slide of hand in terms

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Speaker 4: of who calls themselves in the labor force, who claims

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Speaker 4: that they're looking for work. So the unemployment rate and

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Speaker 4: the labor force participation rate are both contaminated by this

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Speaker 4: statistical weirdness of you know, do people say they're looking

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Speaker 4: for work or not, whereas the employment rate, also called

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Speaker 4: the employment to population ratio, those are the same thing.

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Speaker 4: The employment rate is not contaminated by this. So whether

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Speaker 4: you have a job doesn't depend on whether you say

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Speaker 4: you're looking for a job, right, It's just whether you

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Speaker 4: have a job, and so do you have a job

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Speaker 4: or do you not have a job. And so you

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Speaker 4: look at that, and then you know the of course

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Speaker 4: there's like early retirements, which is affected by population aging,

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Speaker 4: and then there's varying numbers that there's like rising and

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Speaker 4: falling school enrollment and things like that, and so those

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Speaker 4: things affect people under twenty five and over fifty four.

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Speaker 4: But then if you look at twenty five through fifty four,

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Speaker 4: you get a very clear picture of you know, sort

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Speaker 4: of the macroeconomic employment situation. Look at the employment rate

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Speaker 4: of people of people age twenty five through fifty four.

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Speaker 4: That's called the prime age employment rate or the prime

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Speaker 4: age employment to population ratio. So between that and the

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Speaker 4: five year break even inflation rate, I think those are

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Speaker 4: the two if I'm just going to check how the

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Speaker 4: macroeconomy is doing today, those are the first two I

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Speaker 4: look at.

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Speaker 2: You just mentioned inflation for a second, I'm curious. Let's

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Speaker 2: talk about terists for a second. How do you think, Well,

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Speaker 2: it's like the teriffs that would have been that weren't

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Speaker 2: that kind of were And it just feels like this

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Speaker 2: seesaw kind of when it comes to will they or

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Speaker 2: won't they? What's going to happen with tariffs, they get

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Speaker 2: punted by a month and so I'm curious to hear

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Speaker 2: what you think is going to happen there. But also,

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Speaker 2: how is that going to impact inflation? I feel like

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Speaker 2: it's commonly been understood from an economic perspective that tariffs

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Speaker 2: will lead to higher prices for the end user, for

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Speaker 2: the end consumer, for all Americans.

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Speaker 1: But I don't know.

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Speaker 2: It feels like maybe some of that line of thinking

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Speaker 2: has shifted recently to that's fair.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, So I think the actual tariffs we get will

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Speaker 4: be much less than the tariffs that Trump initially announces

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Speaker 4: almost every time. But that doesn't mean we're not going

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Speaker 4: to get any tariffs. First of all, we are going

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Speaker 4: to get some tariffs, and I don't know where they'll

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Speaker 4: end up being. It. Basically, Trump, I think, is guided

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Speaker 4: by this stock market, and whichever tariff's tank the stock

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Speaker 4: market least or the tariffs Trump will keep. But I

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Speaker 4: think that. But also because Trump doesn't really have an

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Speaker 4: idea of a counterfactual, it means that the more the

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Speaker 4: stock market rises for unrelated reasons like optimism about AI,

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Speaker 4: I don't know whatever, the more it rises for unrelated reasons,

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Speaker 4: the more tariffs will get because that will make Trump

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Speaker 4: think stuff's doing okay, stock market's doing okay. Therefore it's

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Speaker 4: okay to just put some more terrafts.

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Speaker 1: Up because he thinks he influences.

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Speaker 4: Everything, right, or at least, you know, maybe he thinks that,

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Speaker 4: or maybe he just thinks that a rising stock market

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Speaker 4: will provide cover for the for the terraft. So so

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Speaker 4: it's really you know, but I think that basically, you

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Speaker 4: see that when the stock market falls, Trump backs off

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Speaker 4: pretty consistently, even if it only falls one percent. You know,

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Speaker 4: it's like, I know, stocks go up, stocks go down.

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Speaker 4: But then if you've got a good run of stocks

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Speaker 4: and Trump is like feeling good and you know, yeah,

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Speaker 4: So I think that that's my basic assessment. But I

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Speaker 4: think that in it so, you're gonna get some teriffs.

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Speaker 4: I don't know how much you got some during Trump's

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Speaker 4: first term, and ultimately the effect was not very big

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Speaker 4: because the United States dollar appreciated that Chinese yuan depreciated,

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Speaker 4: China re routed some of its exports through Vietnam, and

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Speaker 4: really the tariffs didn't do a lot, whereas so targeted

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Speaker 4: tariffs do a lot. You can block specific Chinese products,

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Speaker 4: but changing trade deficits through tariffs is extremely hard to do,

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Speaker 4: and you basically have to raise tariffs so high that

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Speaker 4: it starts breaking something in the economy, which will also

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Speaker 4: entail stock market crash. So I don't think Trump is

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Speaker 4: going to actually change the trade balance through tariffs at all,

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Speaker 4: because he's going to back off of anything severe enough

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Speaker 4: to actually do that. You see what I mean.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, So do you think it's more just kind

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Speaker 3: of I guess posturing and sort of the narrative of

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Speaker 3: him being president of the United States that is also

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Speaker 3: dictating how much he's sticking to his guns when it

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Speaker 3: comes to some of these different tariffs.

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Speaker 4: Yes, and so. But I also think that the main

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Speaker 4: effect of these tariff threats is going to be policy uncertainty,

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Speaker 4: and policy uncertainty hurts investment, and I think it's going

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Speaker 4: to slow down the economy a bit because factory owners

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Speaker 4: are not going to know where to build their factories,

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Speaker 4: so they're gonna hold off.

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Speaker 2: Uncertainty for businesses is typically the worst word, right, Like

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Speaker 2: Trump is creating chaos, He's creating uncertainty.

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Speaker 4: It's bad for business. Uh, there's tailwinds for business, but

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Speaker 4: then there's uh, you know, there's head Trump is creating

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Speaker 4: headwinds for business, and the more he instantly backs off,

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Speaker 4: the less the headwinds will be because the more businesses

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Speaker 4: will conclude. Okay, this is all just blowing smoke. Right

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Speaker 4: at the beginning of a president's term, you think that

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Speaker 4: everything might change, but by two years in you kind

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Speaker 4: of know that, like whether or not he's going to

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Speaker 4: break stuff, especially because Democrats will probably gain in the midterms. Yeah.

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Speaker 4: So basically I think that if Trump keeps announcing tariffs

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Speaker 4: and then canceling them the next day, that will create

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Speaker 4: some reassurance that will mitigate the effect of policy uncertainty.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And also, at some point starts to feel like a

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Speaker 3: bluff if you're another country, like, sure, oh the thing

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Speaker 3: you said you were gonna do, you never and at

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Speaker 3: some point you have to follow through to make other

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Speaker 3: countries or you know, other peers feel like you're actually

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Speaker 3: gonna do something along lines with primarily powaposturing on it. Yeah, yeah, Well,

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Speaker 3: I mean do you think, I mean, is the geopolitical

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Speaker 3: positioning and posturing is it worth like in the long term, right,

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Speaker 3: because it seems like what we're talking about right now,

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Speaker 3: is I guess the pain that the US consumer might

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Speaker 3: experience in the short term. Do you think that near

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Speaker 3: term pain is worth the long term overall health of

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Speaker 3: the country. It's or protectionist instinct, right, yeah, that is

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Speaker 3: that a healthy direction for us to go?

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Speaker 4: So, I mean, so I basically just what I think

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Speaker 4: is that tariffs are helpful, can be helpful for that,

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Speaker 4: but they won't get there on their own. What you

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Speaker 4: need is industrial policy. Biden actually got it right. So

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Speaker 4: targeted tariffs with targeted industrial policies is the way we

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Speaker 4: reindustrialize and that does work. Simply throwing up tariffs on

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Speaker 4: all imported goods does not work. It's just it is

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Speaker 4: not a thing that works economically. So you can say,

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Speaker 4: is you know, if I like stick my face on

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Speaker 4: this hot pan, is it worth the long term gains

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Speaker 4: of you know, becoming a pegasus and you know, like

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Speaker 4: unfortunately sticking your face on hot pan will not turn

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Speaker 4: you into a Pegasus if it did, though, if it did,

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Speaker 4: if it did, But so you're saying there's a chance.

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Speaker 4: So that's that's the situation. We are here to blanket

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Speaker 4: tariffs on a large number of goods from a large

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Speaker 4: number of countries. Will not reindustrialize America. Yeah, all right,

435
00:21:18,520 --> 00:21:20,480
Speaker 4: it will in fact hurt American industry.

436
00:21:20,720 --> 00:21:23,720
Speaker 2: What's your take right now on I mean, let's maybe

437
00:21:23,720 --> 00:21:26,720
Speaker 2: pivot talking about you know, government debt and doge the

438
00:21:26,840 --> 00:21:29,840
Speaker 2: national debt. The national deficit has been growing like gangbusters

439
00:21:29,840 --> 00:21:33,280
Speaker 2: and it hasn't mattered really who's in charge. Even the

440
00:21:33,880 --> 00:21:37,000
Speaker 2: party for a while that talked about cutting government spending

441
00:21:37,200 --> 00:21:40,159
Speaker 2: never seemed to get around actually doing it. But how

442
00:21:40,560 --> 00:21:44,160
Speaker 2: much has government spending played a role in the inflation

443
00:21:44,160 --> 00:21:45,199
Speaker 2: that we've seen? I know it was a lot of

444
00:21:45,200 --> 00:21:48,159
Speaker 2: supply chain induced issues from COVID, but yeah, do you

445
00:21:48,160 --> 00:21:49,960
Speaker 2: think government spending also plays a role in that? And

446
00:21:50,200 --> 00:21:53,560
Speaker 2: how much of an actual issue is our country's massive

447
00:21:53,560 --> 00:21:53,960
Speaker 2: debt load.

448
00:21:54,800 --> 00:21:56,399
Speaker 4: It's a it's a big issue. In fact, it's a

449
00:21:56,440 --> 00:22:02,920
Speaker 4: big problem. We need to cut spending and raise taxes. Unfortunately,

450
00:22:03,440 --> 00:22:06,439
Speaker 4: the amount of spending that Trump will end up cutting

451
00:22:06,600 --> 00:22:11,000
Speaker 4: is probably relatively modest, and the amount of tax cuts

452
00:22:11,040 --> 00:22:13,520
Speaker 4: that Trump is planning is relatively large. So Trump is

453
00:22:13,680 --> 00:22:17,040
Speaker 4: on track to raise the deficit, increase the deficit instead

454
00:22:17,080 --> 00:22:19,919
Speaker 4: of decreasing it. That's an important thing to understand, and

455
00:22:19,920 --> 00:22:22,320
Speaker 4: that is inflationary. Elon Musk is right when he says

456
00:22:22,359 --> 00:22:26,439
Speaker 4: that deficits are inflationary because deficits carry the implication that

457
00:22:26,520 --> 00:22:28,000
Speaker 4: down the road, the Fed is going to have to

458
00:22:28,040 --> 00:22:30,879
Speaker 4: keep interest rates lower in order to support that costs

459
00:22:30,880 --> 00:22:34,639
Speaker 4: on the debt, and that lower interest rates are inflationary.

460
00:22:34,640 --> 00:22:41,040
Speaker 4: So deficits are absolutely inflationary. And so Trump's planned tax cuts,

461
00:22:41,440 --> 00:22:45,760
Speaker 4: which I'm sure congressional Republicans will support, are inflationary, and

462
00:22:45,800 --> 00:22:49,000
Speaker 4: they will expand the debt and they will outweigh whatever

463
00:22:49,040 --> 00:22:51,000
Speaker 4: spending cuts DOGE can accomplish. If you look at the

464
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:54,159
Speaker 4: actual numbers of amount of spending that DOGE might be

465
00:22:54,240 --> 00:22:57,159
Speaker 4: able to accomplish, even if it stretches the bounds of

466
00:22:57,200 --> 00:23:00,840
Speaker 4: the law quite a bit, is actually relatively modest compared

467
00:23:00,840 --> 00:23:02,560
Speaker 4: to the size of the tax cuts Trump as planned.

468
00:23:02,920 --> 00:23:05,359
Speaker 3: So what you're saying is that DOGE isn't really going

469
00:23:05,440 --> 00:23:08,360
Speaker 3: to be able to do it like truly, what needs

470
00:23:08,359 --> 00:23:10,160
Speaker 3: to be cut back on. Are the like the untouchable

471
00:23:10,200 --> 00:23:14,320
Speaker 3: spending items that no politicians is really willing right to

472
00:23:14,600 --> 00:23:17,680
Speaker 3: even this administration to tackle at all, Right, the entitlement spending,

473
00:23:18,160 --> 00:23:20,880
Speaker 3: so like you don't foresee there being much progress being made.

474
00:23:20,920 --> 00:23:23,159
Speaker 4: I mean, are those are an issue? That's right, But

475
00:23:24,080 --> 00:23:27,679
Speaker 4: we have two budget problems in America. The first budget

476
00:23:27,720 --> 00:23:30,800
Speaker 4: problem is that our population growth has slowed so much

477
00:23:30,840 --> 00:23:33,119
Speaker 4: that we're unable to support the Social Security and Medicare

478
00:23:33,119 --> 00:23:35,359
Speaker 4: systems at the same level we've become accustomed to and

479
00:23:35,400 --> 00:23:37,600
Speaker 4: are going to have to either cut benefits or massively

480
00:23:37,640 --> 00:23:41,840
Speaker 4: increase immigration. So that's that's the first problem. This problem

481
00:23:41,880 --> 00:23:45,879
Speaker 4: actually hasn't started to bite much yet because aging hasn't

482
00:23:45,920 --> 00:23:47,720
Speaker 4: hit us as hard as it's going to hit us.

483
00:23:48,240 --> 00:23:50,280
Speaker 4: So that's a problem actually for the future. The current

484
00:23:50,320 --> 00:23:53,639
Speaker 4: debt problem is that we have not raised taxes to

485
00:23:53,760 --> 00:23:55,919
Speaker 4: support the size of the welfare state that we have,

486
00:23:56,680 --> 00:23:59,040
Speaker 4: and so we can either cut welfare spending, which is

487
00:23:59,080 --> 00:24:02,320
Speaker 4: called medicaid, or we can and other health programs. Our

488
00:24:02,400 --> 00:24:05,120
Speaker 4: welfare is mostly our welfare state. A lot of it

489
00:24:04,880 --> 00:24:08,200
Speaker 4: is through health you know, healthcare, paying for often overpriced

490
00:24:08,200 --> 00:24:11,359
Speaker 4: healthcare for Americans. So we can either cut welfare, we

491
00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:14,200
Speaker 4: can raise taxes, but we can't just get away without

492
00:24:14,200 --> 00:24:16,320
Speaker 4: doing either one of those. Military spending has been like

493
00:24:16,600 --> 00:24:19,520
Speaker 4: really cut to the bone a lot. There's not much

494
00:24:19,560 --> 00:24:23,440
Speaker 4: more gains there, especially with the international military environment getting

495
00:24:23,440 --> 00:24:28,959
Speaker 4: more dangerous every day, so we can So basically, we

496
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:33,280
Speaker 4: can either slash medicaid, or we can raise taxes, or

497
00:24:33,320 --> 00:24:36,720
Speaker 4: we can do some and Medicaid plus you know other

498
00:24:37,200 --> 00:24:41,320
Speaker 4: health programs that we do that are fundamentally redistributionary. So

499
00:24:41,640 --> 00:24:45,159
Speaker 4: so for the Medicare and Medicaid have similar names, but

500
00:24:45,240 --> 00:24:49,199
Speaker 4: they're not similar programs. They both provide health insurance, you know,

501
00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:51,400
Speaker 4: through the government, but they're very different kind of programs.

502
00:24:51,720 --> 00:24:54,320
Speaker 4: Medicare is for old people. Medicaid is for poor people.

503
00:24:54,600 --> 00:24:58,120
Speaker 4: So with medicare, you basically it's it's what's called social insurance.

504
00:24:58,160 --> 00:24:59,880
Speaker 4: You pay into the system, and then if you happen

505
00:24:59,920 --> 00:25:02,000
Speaker 4: to a person who gets more sick when you're old,

506
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:04,520
Speaker 4: you withdraw more than you paid in, whereas if you

507
00:25:04,520 --> 00:25:06,760
Speaker 4: happen to be someone who didn't get sick, you put

508
00:25:06,800 --> 00:25:10,080
Speaker 4: in more than you withdraw. So that's called insurance. And

509
00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:12,680
Speaker 4: when you force everyone in society to do it, it's

510
00:25:12,680 --> 00:25:17,280
Speaker 4: called social insurance. Medicaid is a welfare program for poor

511
00:25:17,320 --> 00:25:20,760
Speaker 4: people to give them healthcare, where we tax everybody, the

512
00:25:20,760 --> 00:25:23,280
Speaker 4: middle class, the rich, et cetera, and we use that

513
00:25:23,359 --> 00:25:25,760
Speaker 4: tax money to give healthcare specifically to poor people, and

514
00:25:25,840 --> 00:25:28,080
Speaker 4: almost no one in the country, you know, most of

515
00:25:28,119 --> 00:25:30,800
Speaker 4: the people in the country will never see any benefits

516
00:25:30,840 --> 00:25:35,119
Speaker 4: from medicaid. It's pure redistribution, essentially, and so it's redistribution

517
00:25:35,280 --> 00:25:41,240
Speaker 4: in kind. I would favor abolishing Medicaid and replacing it

518
00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:43,879
Speaker 4: with cash benefits, just mail checks to poor people. It

519
00:25:43,960 --> 00:25:46,800
Speaker 4: would be much more efficient. We're probably not going to

520
00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:50,840
Speaker 4: do it. The genius of medicaid was that they gave

521
00:25:50,840 --> 00:25:54,160
Speaker 4: it a name similar to Medicare. People like social insurance.

522
00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:57,400
Speaker 4: They don't necessarily like welfare and redistribution. But we named

523
00:25:57,400 --> 00:26:00,879
Speaker 4: our biggest welfare program something that sounded very similar, you know,

524
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:06,000
Speaker 4: sound wise to our biggest social insurance program. And so

525
00:26:06,200 --> 00:26:09,320
Speaker 4: because people like medicare, it's very hard to cut Medicaid

526
00:26:09,320 --> 00:26:11,520
Speaker 4: because people hear that and they think you're cutting medicare.

527
00:26:12,440 --> 00:26:14,880
Speaker 2: Tricky tricky naming conventions, very good trick there.

528
00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:16,959
Speaker 3: No all right, you mentioned some of the future problems

529
00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:18,720
Speaker 3: that we might be or that we will be facing

530
00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:21,240
Speaker 3: in the future, specifically about when it comes to funding

531
00:26:21,280 --> 00:26:24,280
Speaker 3: social security, so we'll get to maybe ways around that

532
00:26:24,560 --> 00:26:25,000
Speaker 3: and more.

533
00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:34,520
Speaker 1: Right after this our we're back to the break.

534
00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:38,200
Speaker 2: We're still talking with Noah Smith talking about macroeconomics and

535
00:26:38,280 --> 00:26:41,040
Speaker 2: kind of what's happening around us, especially as there's a

536
00:26:41,080 --> 00:26:44,040
Speaker 2: lot changing. No you literally just hit on this right

537
00:26:44,040 --> 00:26:46,760
Speaker 2: before the break too. Then another economic problem that's coming

538
00:26:46,760 --> 00:26:49,520
Speaker 2: down the pike is the declining birth rate, and I

539
00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:51,600
Speaker 2: feel like this is getting more attention and we're seeing

540
00:26:51,640 --> 00:26:55,120
Speaker 2: it more starkly in other countries too, countries like Japan.

541
00:26:55,560 --> 00:26:57,560
Speaker 2: What impact is that having there? What impact is that

542
00:26:57,600 --> 00:27:01,560
Speaker 2: going to have here? And how do we combat something

543
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:04,879
Speaker 2: as kind of existential as not producing of humans.

544
00:27:05,680 --> 00:27:06,760
Speaker 4: Do you want bad news first?

545
00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:08,359
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, start all right.

546
00:27:08,440 --> 00:27:10,160
Speaker 4: The bad news is we have absolutely no idea how

547
00:27:10,160 --> 00:27:12,840
Speaker 4: to come about this, and it is a big economic

548
00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:16,040
Speaker 4: problem for reasons I'll explain. But many countries have tried

549
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:18,720
Speaker 4: doing pronatal policies, they've tried doing policies to get people

550
00:27:18,720 --> 00:27:22,240
Speaker 4: to have more kids. Absolutely none of those have moved

551
00:27:22,280 --> 00:27:27,000
Speaker 4: the needle. You've seen a very small effect of very

552
00:27:27,119 --> 00:27:29,520
Speaker 4: large cash paouts, like if you basically give everyone like

553
00:27:29,560 --> 00:27:31,720
Speaker 4: free day care and a bunch of money to have kids.

554
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:33,640
Speaker 4: You'll have like a little bit a few more kids

555
00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:36,240
Speaker 4: in the margin, but it's not nearly of the size.

556
00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:41,200
Speaker 4: So we're talking countries basically are at like one point

557
00:27:41,520 --> 00:27:44,120
Speaker 4: five to one point six. They measure it in children

558
00:27:44,200 --> 00:27:47,840
Speaker 4: per women. Sorry, maybe that's sexist, but that's how they

559
00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:51,679
Speaker 4: measure it. That's total fertility. You need about two to

560
00:27:51,760 --> 00:27:54,919
Speaker 4: two point one to sustain population, you know, at a

561
00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:57,520
Speaker 4: constant level, because if you think about it, every couple

562
00:27:57,520 --> 00:28:00,000
Speaker 4: has to have two kids to replace themselves, right yeah,

563
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:02,439
Speaker 4: and then and so you need to have two to

564
00:28:02,480 --> 00:28:05,639
Speaker 4: two point one to replace yourself over that's called the

565
00:28:05,680 --> 00:28:10,399
Speaker 4: replacement rate. Most rich countries are converging on one point

566
00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:14,280
Speaker 4: six one point five or even lower. Some countries have lower.

567
00:28:14,280 --> 00:28:18,840
Speaker 4: So we need policies that increase fertility by zero point

568
00:28:18,840 --> 00:28:22,440
Speaker 4: five to zero point seven children per women per women.

569
00:28:23,119 --> 00:28:26,120
Speaker 4: And when you do surveys that ask people how many

570
00:28:26,200 --> 00:28:29,680
Speaker 4: children would you like to have, you see almost everyone

571
00:28:30,080 --> 00:28:32,080
Speaker 4: says that they'd like to have it will so not

572
00:28:32,119 --> 00:28:34,440
Speaker 4: almost everyone there, The average is a little is over

573
00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:36,880
Speaker 4: to it's like you know, two point three two point four.

574
00:28:38,440 --> 00:28:41,560
Speaker 4: In other words, people at least notionally at least they

575
00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:44,000
Speaker 4: say to surveys that they want to have about the

576
00:28:44,080 --> 00:28:46,120
Speaker 4: number of kids that would lead the population stability or

577
00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:49,840
Speaker 4: even a little higher. So really, so that has a

578
00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:52,200
Speaker 4: lot of people think that if you just make it

579
00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:54,120
Speaker 4: people able to have that many kids, and they will.

580
00:28:54,120 --> 00:28:55,960
Speaker 4: But it's possible people are just lying on the survey

581
00:28:56,000 --> 00:28:58,080
Speaker 4: or just don't understand themselves very well and don't understand

582
00:28:58,080 --> 00:29:00,160
Speaker 4: what they really want, et cetera, and don't really want

583
00:29:00,200 --> 00:29:03,400
Speaker 4: that many kids, and so that's a possibility they just

584
00:29:03,440 --> 00:29:04,960
Speaker 4: sort of say that because that's what their mom would

585
00:29:04,960 --> 00:29:07,640
Speaker 4: like to hear them say. Anyway. But then, but then,

586
00:29:07,680 --> 00:29:09,840
Speaker 4: so we need policies that will raise the fertility rate

587
00:29:09,840 --> 00:29:12,200
Speaker 4: by point five to point seven children per woman, and

588
00:29:12,280 --> 00:29:14,320
Speaker 4: we don't have those. We have policies that will raise

589
00:29:14,320 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 4: the fertility rate by point one children child per woman.

590
00:29:17,240 --> 00:29:20,240
Speaker 4: And while that's not nothing, it's also quite expensive, involves

591
00:29:20,240 --> 00:29:22,720
Speaker 4: a lot of welfare payments to poor people, and you know,

592
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:25,480
Speaker 4: higher taxes and stuff like that. It's pretty expensive, and

593
00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:27,959
Speaker 4: it's you know, and the effect is very small. So

594
00:29:28,480 --> 00:29:32,000
Speaker 4: no one has discovered a way to fight this problem.

595
00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:35,600
Speaker 4: We do not know how to do it yet. So

596
00:29:35,800 --> 00:29:39,000
Speaker 4: it's currently a giant unsolved problem. Now, the question is

597
00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:41,600
Speaker 4: why is it a problem. The first and most obvious

598
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:43,320
Speaker 4: reason is because when you have population aging, you have

599
00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:44,680
Speaker 4: a whole bunch of retired people that you have to

600
00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:46,880
Speaker 4: take care of. The old age dependency ratio just goes

601
00:29:46,960 --> 00:29:49,320
Speaker 4: up and up and up. There's two ways to take

602
00:29:49,360 --> 00:29:51,440
Speaker 4: care of old people. Either you can do it yourself

603
00:29:51,480 --> 00:29:54,040
Speaker 4: at home, or you can pay a nursing home to

604
00:29:54,080 --> 00:29:57,720
Speaker 4: take care of them, or assisted living center whatever you know, thing,

605
00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:00,880
Speaker 4: you know, home care workers, whatever you can, you can

606
00:30:00,920 --> 00:30:02,600
Speaker 4: pay for it, or you can do it yourself. You

607
00:30:02,640 --> 00:30:05,520
Speaker 4: can take care of grandma, you know, at home. Right,

608
00:30:05,920 --> 00:30:08,960
Speaker 4: but somehow the old people have to be taken care of.

609
00:30:08,960 --> 00:30:11,720
Speaker 4: Old people can't really work, and so you can push

610
00:30:11,760 --> 00:30:13,840
Speaker 4: up the retirement age to like, you know, you can

611
00:30:13,880 --> 00:30:15,920
Speaker 4: push it up from like sixty five to like seventy two.

612
00:30:15,960 --> 00:30:19,400
Speaker 4: But after that people become really unproductive really fast. And

613
00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:24,600
Speaker 4: so so really you have all these retirees and then

614
00:30:24,640 --> 00:30:26,800
Speaker 4: we have a much larger ratio of retirees to workers.

615
00:30:27,480 --> 00:30:30,680
Speaker 4: So you know, Japan has a like only two workers

616
00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:34,440
Speaker 4: per retiree. Now that's really really severe, and that means

617
00:30:34,440 --> 00:30:36,800
Speaker 4: that it's a world of toil for workers because they're

618
00:30:36,880 --> 00:30:39,680
Speaker 4: you know, imagine having to support you plus point five

619
00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:43,360
Speaker 4: other people right when you work. That's that's just a

620
00:30:43,440 --> 00:30:46,040
Speaker 4: huge burden. And the burden comes either through taxes or

621
00:30:46,080 --> 00:30:47,840
Speaker 4: through the hours you have to spend doing elder care,

622
00:30:47,880 --> 00:30:51,520
Speaker 4: which they do a lot of in Japan. And so

623
00:30:51,640 --> 00:30:55,200
Speaker 4: that's the people focus on the idea of population shrinking,

624
00:30:55,840 --> 00:30:58,200
Speaker 4: when in fact this is from population aging. This is

625
00:30:58,200 --> 00:30:59,960
Speaker 4: from the change in the age structure of the popular

626
00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:01,880
Speaker 4: old people become a higher percentage.

627
00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:04,320
Speaker 3: Okay, so you just shared with us the bad news. Noah,

628
00:31:04,360 --> 00:31:06,320
Speaker 3: what's the Is there any good news when it comes

629
00:31:06,360 --> 00:31:08,160
Speaker 3: to the population shift that we're Oh.

630
00:31:08,120 --> 00:31:13,040
Speaker 4: No, there's no good news. There's more bad news. There's

631
00:31:13,080 --> 00:31:15,880
Speaker 4: more bad news. So in addition, so the way you

632
00:31:16,080 --> 00:31:20,240
Speaker 4: sustain living standards in the face of collapsing population is

633
00:31:20,240 --> 00:31:23,760
Speaker 4: to raise productivity. However, we have, unfortunately, we have pretty

634
00:31:23,760 --> 00:31:28,960
Speaker 4: good evidence that an aging population reduces productivity growth having

635
00:31:29,040 --> 00:31:32,280
Speaker 4: older people. So one reason could be that old that

636
00:31:32,600 --> 00:31:34,800
Speaker 4: old people start managing the companies, and the companies aren't

637
00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:37,760
Speaker 4: as able to like, hop on new technologies, new business models.

638
00:31:37,760 --> 00:31:40,000
Speaker 4: They're not as inventive, not as creative. Old people just

639
00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:41,760
Speaker 4: are sort of you know, can't teaching old dog new

640
00:31:41,800 --> 00:31:44,960
Speaker 4: tricks kind of thing. That may be why. There's other

641
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:48,640
Speaker 4: possible reasons why, but having more young people is associated

642
00:31:48,640 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 4: with higher productivity growth. So fewer young people, less productivity

643
00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:53,600
Speaker 4: growth at the time when productivity growth is exactly what

644
00:31:53,640 --> 00:31:58,960
Speaker 4: you need to balance out the effect of aging. More

645
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:01,600
Speaker 4: old people means few we're young scientists to discover your

646
00:32:01,640 --> 00:32:06,560
Speaker 4: next big technological you know, productivity increasing innovations. And so

647
00:32:06,560 --> 00:32:09,200
Speaker 4: that's something that Chad Jones. The economists talk a lot about, well.

648
00:32:09,160 --> 00:32:11,880
Speaker 3: What about immigration, and you barely you quickly touched on

649
00:32:11,880 --> 00:32:15,200
Speaker 3: this earlier. But I mean, obviously that debate's pretty fraught

650
00:32:15,280 --> 00:32:16,960
Speaker 3: right now. But do you think the US just needs

651
00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:20,760
Speaker 3: some more common sense immigration policy reform for that's right?

652
00:32:20,840 --> 00:32:22,880
Speaker 4: Yeah? Well yeah, so see, the United States has this

653
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:26,040
Speaker 4: special ability to do skilled immigration, right. We can we

654
00:32:26,080 --> 00:32:28,840
Speaker 4: can get not just the world's top few, best and brightest,

655
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:32,480
Speaker 4: but also just like very large masses of like people

656
00:32:32,520 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 4: with college degrees who are like pretty good at doing

657
00:32:34,680 --> 00:32:37,360
Speaker 4: you know, standard middle class jobs. We can do that.

658
00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:42,600
Speaker 4: We can do that, right. Unfortunately, we're in the middle

659
00:32:42,640 --> 00:32:46,120
Speaker 4: of this you know, Trump spasm of just anti immigration feelings.

660
00:32:46,120 --> 00:32:49,360
Speaker 4: So you've seen on the right this rise in anti Indianism, right,

661
00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:53,000
Speaker 4: anti Indian immigration specifically, Like all these rightists are just

662
00:32:53,040 --> 00:32:55,640
Speaker 4: like screaming about Indian immigrants and how bad they are.

663
00:32:55,920 --> 00:32:58,280
Speaker 4: But India is a country of one point four billion people,

664
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:00,520
Speaker 4: and that can solve that can help solve our population

665
00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:03,560
Speaker 4: crisis in the short term. It's not going to fully

666
00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:05,240
Speaker 4: solve it, and it's not going to be it's not

667
00:33:05,240 --> 00:33:07,400
Speaker 4: going to solve it long term because India is getting richer,

668
00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:09,240
Speaker 4: people aren't going to want to come like thirty years

669
00:33:09,280 --> 00:33:12,000
Speaker 4: from now. And also because like India has a lot

670
00:33:12,040 --> 00:33:13,520
Speaker 4: fewer kids now, so India is not going to have

671
00:33:13,560 --> 00:33:16,440
Speaker 4: nearly as many people to send us of high qualifications

672
00:33:16,480 --> 00:33:17,959
Speaker 4: like right now. So we're in this sort of golden

673
00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:20,600
Speaker 4: age of this potential binans of Indian immigration, and we're

674
00:33:20,640 --> 00:33:25,600
Speaker 4: not taking it. We're we're resisting it, partly because the

675
00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:28,640
Speaker 4: Mega movement has decided that they don't like Indians and

676
00:33:28,680 --> 00:33:29,760
Speaker 4: it sucks for America.

677
00:33:29,920 --> 00:33:33,680
Speaker 2: But you think smart immigration policy could help correct a

678
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:35,880
Speaker 2: lot of the issues that we have when it comes

679
00:33:35,920 --> 00:33:37,840
Speaker 2: to kind of demographics.

680
00:33:37,280 --> 00:33:41,000
Speaker 4: Yes, absolutely, it's it will ameliorate them in the next

681
00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:43,480
Speaker 4: thirty years. But then after thirty years we're in trouble

682
00:33:43,520 --> 00:33:45,920
Speaker 4: because fertility rates falling everywhere, even like Africa is sort

683
00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:49,800
Speaker 4: of the last bastion of high fertility rates used like Africa,

684
00:33:50,600 --> 00:33:53,760
Speaker 4: like sub Siheran Africa has like four point two kids

685
00:33:53,800 --> 00:33:56,040
Speaker 4: per woman. I want to say, four point two sounds

686
00:33:56,040 --> 00:33:57,320
Speaker 4: like a lot, right, I mean, like for us that

687
00:33:57,320 --> 00:34:02,080
Speaker 4: would be a ton. But that's down from six in

688
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:02,920
Speaker 4: just a few years.

689
00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:03,400
Speaker 1: Wow.

690
00:34:03,440 --> 00:34:05,720
Speaker 4: So yeah, so sub Sera in Africa will be at

691
00:34:05,720 --> 00:34:09,640
Speaker 4: replacement fertility relatively soon. Things things are just continuing to

692
00:34:09,680 --> 00:34:12,040
Speaker 4: plumb it. There's a few countries. There's like I think

693
00:34:12,080 --> 00:34:15,600
Speaker 4: six countries where the fertility rates are still pretty high

694
00:34:15,600 --> 00:34:18,880
Speaker 4: and are coming down only slowly, and those those countries

695
00:34:18,880 --> 00:34:20,959
Speaker 4: are going to be sustaining the population of the rest

696
00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:26,799
Speaker 4: of Africa. So you know, you're talking about like Niger, Somalia,

697
00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:31,279
Speaker 4: Central African Republic and other places you know that you

698
00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:33,960
Speaker 4: normal people may even have never heard of. And you've

699
00:34:33,960 --> 00:34:38,319
Speaker 4: got like these Democratic Republic of the Congo is another one,

700
00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:41,080
Speaker 4: and like you've got like six of these these these guys,

701
00:34:41,280 --> 00:34:43,799
Speaker 4: and Democratic Republic of the Congo has more than half

702
00:34:43,840 --> 00:34:46,160
Speaker 4: the population I think of the combined six. So basically

703
00:34:46,200 --> 00:34:48,920
Speaker 4: you're gonna have, like you know, you're back to the

704
00:34:48,920 --> 00:34:51,839
Speaker 4: cradle of humanity, sustaining the rest of humanity for a while.

705
00:34:51,840 --> 00:34:55,240
Speaker 4: But even their popula, like fertility rates are falling, and

706
00:34:55,280 --> 00:34:58,719
Speaker 4: as those countries get more you know, stable fertility rates

707
00:34:58,760 --> 00:35:03,000
Speaker 4: will fall more, and so even those those countries will

708
00:35:03,040 --> 00:35:05,520
Speaker 4: not be able to sustain humanity. All of humanity is

709
00:35:05,560 --> 00:35:07,320
Speaker 4: trapped in this low fertility cycle and we don't know

710
00:35:07,320 --> 00:35:08,200
Speaker 4: how to solve it yet.

711
00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:12,000
Speaker 2: While we're talking about depressing stuff, let's talking about healthcare

712
00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:15,279
Speaker 2: for a second, maybe just a bastion of hope I

713
00:35:15,360 --> 00:35:17,879
Speaker 2: think on that front, and I feel like there's been

714
00:35:17,880 --> 00:35:20,600
Speaker 2: this like recent kind of spotlight on the health insurance

715
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:24,239
Speaker 2: system after the shooting of the United Healthcare CEO, and

716
00:35:25,320 --> 00:35:28,160
Speaker 2: actually took that topic head on. You wrote about why

717
00:35:28,239 --> 00:35:30,560
Speaker 2: the insurance companies aren't to blame, although there is I

718
00:35:30,560 --> 00:35:33,600
Speaker 2: think a lot of loathing about insurance companies from the

719
00:35:33,640 --> 00:35:38,479
Speaker 2: American public. Can you explain what's going on in US

720
00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:41,879
Speaker 2: healthcare and why we pay like so much more than

721
00:35:41,960 --> 00:35:43,160
Speaker 2: the rest of the world for what we.

722
00:35:43,120 --> 00:35:45,520
Speaker 4: Get, right, So, there's a number of reasons why we

723
00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:50,360
Speaker 4: pay more. One is because we are are richer, So

724
00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:54,759
Speaker 4: of course richer people will spend more in healthcare. But

725
00:35:54,800 --> 00:35:57,640
Speaker 4: even once you control for that, we pay a lot

726
00:35:57,680 --> 00:35:59,960
Speaker 4: more as a percentage of our GDP than other kind.

727
00:36:00,280 --> 00:36:02,480
Speaker 4: So there's part of it, that part of our excess

728
00:36:02,480 --> 00:36:06,239
Speaker 4: costs that you can't really explain with that unless you

729
00:36:06,280 --> 00:36:08,960
Speaker 4: assume that as people get richer, they spend an exponentially

730
00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:12,279
Speaker 4: increasing percentage of their income and healthcare, which would mean

731
00:36:12,320 --> 00:36:15,040
Speaker 4: that by the time people get to about one hundred

732
00:36:15,040 --> 00:36:17,080
Speaker 4: thousand dollars of income per year, they're spending all of

733
00:36:17,080 --> 00:36:20,040
Speaker 4: their money in healthcare, which is obviously counterfactual. We know

734
00:36:20,120 --> 00:36:22,040
Speaker 4: that rich people in America don't spend all their money

735
00:36:22,040 --> 00:36:24,799
Speaker 4: in healthcare. So I will say that I spend more

736
00:36:24,840 --> 00:36:28,160
Speaker 4: money in healthcare than I used to, but you know,

737
00:36:28,200 --> 00:36:30,640
Speaker 4: it's one of the only things I'll splurge on a

738
00:36:30,640 --> 00:36:36,719
Speaker 4: little bit, but honestly not even that much. So yeah,

739
00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:41,439
Speaker 4: So basically there's this unexplained portion of costs, and part

740
00:36:41,440 --> 00:36:44,680
Speaker 4: of it is because our insurance industry is so fragmented

741
00:36:44,680 --> 00:36:47,440
Speaker 4: that insurers can't push back on high prices by providers.

742
00:36:47,600 --> 00:36:49,240
Speaker 4: So when you go to the hospital, you know, pillows

743
00:36:49,239 --> 00:36:52,000
Speaker 4: costing twenty five hundred dollars, or like, you know, an

744
00:36:52,080 --> 00:36:55,080
Speaker 4: MRI that I got at UCSF cost the insurance company

745
00:36:55,120 --> 00:36:58,560
Speaker 4: ten thousand dollars when at Simon med Imaging it would

746
00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:00,880
Speaker 4: have cost one thousand dollars. So you've got a ten

747
00:37:01,040 --> 00:37:05,080
Speaker 4: x cost difference there for an MRI. Now the UCSF

748
00:37:05,120 --> 00:37:07,520
Speaker 4: will farm it out to a radiologist for an instant report,

749
00:37:07,560 --> 00:37:09,400
Speaker 4: and that radiologist is good, But that's not worth a

750
00:37:09,440 --> 00:37:12,279
Speaker 4: ten x cost difference, right, And so I don't think

751
00:37:12,320 --> 00:37:17,439
Speaker 4: it is. And so you know, basically, insurers can't push

752
00:37:17,480 --> 00:37:20,040
Speaker 4: back on high provider prices, and so insurers basically in

753
00:37:20,080 --> 00:37:23,680
Speaker 4: America act as pass throughs. There are these incredibly low profit,

754
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:27,839
Speaker 4: low margin businesses, and everybody hates them, hates them, hates

755
00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:29,960
Speaker 4: them because that's the part of the healthcare system that

756
00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:32,080
Speaker 4: you deal with on a daily basis, Right, that's the

757
00:37:32,080 --> 00:37:34,880
Speaker 4: part of the healthcare system that you're that they're they're

758
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:36,480
Speaker 4: the people who are paid to deliver you the bad

759
00:37:36,520 --> 00:37:38,680
Speaker 4: news of like, oops, your coverage was denied on this thing,

760
00:37:38,760 --> 00:37:41,440
Speaker 4: or like here's how much your deductible is? Right, your

761
00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:43,759
Speaker 4: health your health insurance is how is who tells you

762
00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:46,160
Speaker 4: how much to pay? And so you hate it because

763
00:37:46,200 --> 00:37:50,640
Speaker 4: that's the part of the healthcare system that you interact with. However, ultimately,

764
00:37:50,680 --> 00:37:53,359
Speaker 4: these are low profit margin businesses that are passing through

765
00:37:53,400 --> 00:37:55,560
Speaker 4: costs from the providers. And when I say providers, I

766
00:37:55,600 --> 00:37:59,840
Speaker 4: mean hospitals, I mean doctors, I mean the equipment providers,

767
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:03,000
Speaker 4: I mean the pharma companies. You know, those are all

768
00:38:03,000 --> 00:38:05,360
Speaker 4: the providers. Those are the people actually give you the care.

769
00:38:06,120 --> 00:38:11,120
Speaker 4: And you know, we have this weird interaction where you

770
00:38:11,239 --> 00:38:14,360
Speaker 4: go in, you know, and the pharmacist is like, here's

771
00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:17,080
Speaker 4: your drugs, and then the I guess they do make

772
00:38:17,120 --> 00:38:19,279
Speaker 4: you pay a copay at the window, but then the

773
00:38:19,360 --> 00:38:22,120
Speaker 4: doctors like, here's your care. I'm just caring for you.

774
00:38:22,160 --> 00:38:24,840
Speaker 4: And it feels like you're in Cuba in a socialis

775
00:38:24,880 --> 00:38:27,240
Speaker 4: system that just wants to wrap you in its loving

776
00:38:27,320 --> 00:38:29,399
Speaker 4: arms and take care of you. And of course that

777
00:38:29,440 --> 00:38:31,319
Speaker 4: same hospital is the one sending you your insure a

778
00:38:31,320 --> 00:38:34,400
Speaker 4: giant bill which you're insured then struggles to pay, and

779
00:38:34,440 --> 00:38:37,040
Speaker 4: you're insurer has to like figure out how to pass

780
00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:38,440
Speaker 4: as much of the cost on as possible to you,

781
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:39,880
Speaker 4: or else they just go bust because they're such a

782
00:38:39,880 --> 00:38:45,200
Speaker 4: low margin, low profit business, and so our interactions with

783
00:38:45,239 --> 00:38:48,439
Speaker 4: the healthcare system. We have negative interactions with the part

784
00:38:48,480 --> 00:38:51,000
Speaker 4: that's not making much profit and positive interactions with the

785
00:38:51,040 --> 00:38:52,880
Speaker 4: people who are making all the profits.

786
00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:57,040
Speaker 2: Do you think if our health insurance function a little

787
00:38:57,080 --> 00:38:59,640
Speaker 2: bit more like car or home insurance, where that we

788
00:38:59,640 --> 00:39:03,680
Speaker 2: would be more price sensitive to the care that we're receiving.

789
00:39:03,920 --> 00:39:06,719
Speaker 2: I think about filing a homeowner insurance claim that the

790
00:39:06,760 --> 00:39:09,319
Speaker 2: average person files a claim maybe two times in their

791
00:39:09,440 --> 00:39:11,520
Speaker 2: life if they own a home for a few decades.

792
00:39:11,920 --> 00:39:15,120
Speaker 2: And yet we're interacting with our health coverage all the

793
00:39:15,200 --> 00:39:17,800
Speaker 2: time in order to instead take that one hundred and

794
00:39:17,800 --> 00:39:20,640
Speaker 2: fifty two hundred dollars price of an appointment with the

795
00:39:20,640 --> 00:39:23,600
Speaker 2: doctor down to twenty five or thirty dollars copay that

796
00:39:23,640 --> 00:39:27,440
Speaker 2: insurance is constantly Is this friction involved with every single

797
00:39:27,920 --> 00:39:31,840
Speaker 2: element of healthcare? If it was just involved less, especially

798
00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:35,760
Speaker 2: in some of those less expensive healthcare endeavors, would that help,

799
00:39:36,200 --> 00:39:37,600
Speaker 2: I don't know, fix the system at least to a

800
00:39:37,600 --> 00:39:38,320
Speaker 2: certain degree.

801
00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:41,200
Speaker 4: So the short answers, No, much of what you pay

802
00:39:41,239 --> 00:39:44,560
Speaker 4: insurance for is not actually insurance, as you noted. So

803
00:39:44,680 --> 00:39:46,480
Speaker 4: for example, you have a yearly check up with the doctor,

804
00:39:46,560 --> 00:39:48,719
Speaker 4: that's not a risk, that's something you know you're going

805
00:39:48,800 --> 00:39:51,960
Speaker 4: to need, right, and so yet the insurer is this

806
00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:55,040
Speaker 4: sort of the designated person who pays for that, and

807
00:39:55,080 --> 00:39:58,160
Speaker 4: you pay your insurance premium, so that really there is

808
00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:01,120
Speaker 4: a little bit of administrative cost for that, right. So

809
00:40:01,320 --> 00:40:05,880
Speaker 4: some paper pusher or excel jockey has to say like, okay,

810
00:40:06,400 --> 00:40:08,799
Speaker 4: you went to your yearly checkup. Here's how much we

811
00:40:08,840 --> 00:40:10,960
Speaker 4: pay for your yearly check out. Blah blah blah. It's

812
00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:15,000
Speaker 4: extremely low cost actually to pass through those regular expenses.

813
00:40:15,480 --> 00:40:17,799
Speaker 4: And then there's chronic expenses. So you're a person who

814
00:40:18,360 --> 00:40:21,560
Speaker 4: you know you have the chronic back problem and you

815
00:40:21,600 --> 00:40:24,080
Speaker 4: just keep going in again and again, and you don't

816
00:40:24,080 --> 00:40:25,560
Speaker 4: know exactly how much you're gonna need to go in,

817
00:40:25,640 --> 00:40:29,480
Speaker 4: so there is some risk there, but then essentially that

818
00:40:29,640 --> 00:40:33,160
Speaker 4: is actually taken care of, so that actually is a risk.

819
00:40:33,200 --> 00:40:35,760
Speaker 4: It's just like when you start having that chronic problem,

820
00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:37,520
Speaker 4: that's when the risk sort of realizes. That's when the

821
00:40:37,560 --> 00:40:40,000
Speaker 4: risk stort of manifests. And so in that sense, it

822
00:40:40,040 --> 00:40:42,480
Speaker 4: really does act like insurance, even though once you've got

823
00:40:42,520 --> 00:40:46,080
Speaker 4: those chronic injuries, then after that it looks very predictable.

824
00:40:46,320 --> 00:40:48,880
Speaker 4: But then before the chronic injuries, it's the risk of

825
00:40:48,880 --> 00:40:51,840
Speaker 4: whether you'll develop a chronic injury or not. So honestly,

826
00:40:52,360 --> 00:40:55,480
Speaker 4: switching to health insurance that looks like true insurance would

827
00:40:55,480 --> 00:40:57,239
Speaker 4: save us a little bit of money, but not a ton.

828
00:40:57,560 --> 00:41:00,000
Speaker 4: And if you look at the countries that do health insurance,

829
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:03,080
Speaker 4: it's cheaply. That's not what any of them looks like.

830
00:41:03,560 --> 00:41:05,680
Speaker 3: So we're talking about I guess a lot of negatives

831
00:41:06,080 --> 00:41:08,120
Speaker 3: kind of touched on the bad news here and no

832
00:41:08,360 --> 00:41:10,839
Speaker 3: you mentioned just how individuals like on a personal level,

833
00:41:10,880 --> 00:41:12,920
Speaker 3: they think things are going pretty well. You back that

834
00:41:12,960 --> 00:41:14,960
Speaker 3: out a little bit to the state it's fine. As

835
00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:17,360
Speaker 3: a country, it seems like that we're doing pretty poorly,

836
00:41:17,400 --> 00:41:19,640
Speaker 3: but compared to the rest of the world, we're actually

837
00:41:19,680 --> 00:41:22,320
Speaker 3: doing pretty great. Like, what do you think is causing

838
00:41:22,360 --> 00:41:26,239
Speaker 3: that disconnect between individuals' perception of how we're doing as

839
00:41:26,239 --> 00:41:27,719
Speaker 3: a country versus how it actually is.

840
00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:31,560
Speaker 4: Well. Okay, so first of all, I don't think we're doing,

841
00:41:31,680 --> 00:41:33,359
Speaker 4: you know, badly as a country. I think the debt

842
00:41:33,400 --> 00:41:36,600
Speaker 4: is a huge problem. Healthcare costs are big, but there

843
00:41:36,640 --> 00:41:38,879
Speaker 4: is good news about healthcare, which is that healthcare cost

844
00:41:39,000 --> 00:41:43,959
Speaker 4: growth has slowed a hell of a lot. Healthcare costs

845
00:41:43,960 --> 00:41:47,040
Speaker 4: are no longer increasing as a fraction of GP. That

846
00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:49,800
Speaker 4: is huge, and that will take a lot of pressure

847
00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:51,920
Speaker 4: off the budget deficit. That will take a lot of

848
00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:56,160
Speaker 4: pressure off of people's pocketbooks and wages. And so that's

849
00:41:56,200 --> 00:41:58,600
Speaker 4: a piece of good news that's not commonly appreciated, but

850
00:41:58,640 --> 00:42:00,000
Speaker 4: it's true. So there's some good news.

851
00:42:00,040 --> 00:42:03,040
Speaker 1: Appreciate that. Finally, a little bit of silver lining.

852
00:42:03,320 --> 00:42:06,799
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so so, so here's some great news about

853
00:42:06,800 --> 00:42:10,279
Speaker 4: the American economy. Productivity in America is increasing at a

854
00:42:10,280 --> 00:42:14,800
Speaker 4: fairly rapid clip. Productivity is the underlying generator of economic wealth.

855
00:42:15,719 --> 00:42:18,520
Speaker 4: You know, you grow productivity fast, you you grow your wealth.

856
00:42:19,040 --> 00:42:22,479
Speaker 4: That's it. That's how it works. And we've been having

857
00:42:22,960 --> 00:42:27,120
Speaker 4: pretty high productivity growth historically, like much higher than the

858
00:42:27,120 --> 00:42:33,200
Speaker 4: rest of the world. So like Japan, Korea, Europe, you know, UK,

859
00:42:33,760 --> 00:42:36,200
Speaker 4: you know, even Australia and Canada. I guess Australia productivity

860
00:42:36,239 --> 00:42:44,040
Speaker 4: has been growing a bit bit Canada, those places have

861
00:42:44,080 --> 00:42:46,399
Speaker 4: been seeing a productivity stagnation while America has been seeing

862
00:42:46,400 --> 00:42:49,719
Speaker 4: productivity growth. Why is that true, We don't know. But

863
00:42:49,840 --> 00:42:51,640
Speaker 4: as best we can tell, our economy is more dynamic.

864
00:42:51,719 --> 00:42:54,279
Speaker 4: We allow more a lot more labor reallocation. People are

865
00:42:54,320 --> 00:42:57,160
Speaker 4: able to quit their job and get a different, better,

866
00:42:57,239 --> 00:43:01,080
Speaker 4: job and and move around. You know, remote work is

867
00:43:01,120 --> 00:43:04,320
Speaker 4: part of this, right, and so those that labor reallocation

868
00:43:04,440 --> 00:43:09,120
Speaker 4: has been a big boon for America in ways that

869
00:43:09,160 --> 00:43:11,080
Speaker 4: it has not been for other countries or people where

870
00:43:11,120 --> 00:43:13,400
Speaker 4: labor markets are pretty rigid and people don't shift jobs

871
00:43:13,480 --> 00:43:18,880
Speaker 4: very much. So Americaique, almost uniquely among rich countries, not uniquely,

872
00:43:18,920 --> 00:43:22,040
Speaker 4: but almost uniquely, has had tons of labor reaccation and

873
00:43:22,120 --> 00:43:25,239
Speaker 4: also a lot of entrepreneurship. So what you see, what

874
00:43:25,239 --> 00:43:27,200
Speaker 4: you saw after the pandemic was tons and tons and

875
00:43:27,200 --> 00:43:31,280
Speaker 4: tons of people started small businesses in America, especially Latinos.

876
00:43:31,280 --> 00:43:34,400
Speaker 4: Disproportionately Latinos are finally like starting a lot of small businesses.

877
00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:37,319
Speaker 4: And so you're seeing this and this is not but

878
00:43:37,600 --> 00:43:39,840
Speaker 4: you also did see a boom in high tech entrepreneurship.

879
00:43:39,880 --> 00:43:42,279
Speaker 4: So a lot more people are doing tech companies and

880
00:43:42,360 --> 00:43:44,440
Speaker 4: which will provide a lot of growth, especially for the

881
00:43:44,440 --> 00:43:47,200
Speaker 4: stock market blah black when some of those succeed. But

882
00:43:47,600 --> 00:43:50,640
Speaker 4: at the grassroots, ground level of main street, you see

883
00:43:50,680 --> 00:43:53,480
Speaker 4: a ton of people starting small businesses and this is

884
00:43:53,480 --> 00:43:56,080
Speaker 4: absolutely great. This is great for dynamism small you know,

885
00:43:57,520 --> 00:44:00,440
Speaker 4: in terms of value added growth, it's high tech startups

886
00:44:00,440 --> 00:44:02,560
Speaker 4: that provide most of the value added growth over time.

887
00:44:02,560 --> 00:44:05,960
Speaker 4: But in terms of the actual employment, it's small businesses

888
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:09,560
Speaker 4: that employ most of the people. And so I think

889
00:44:09,560 --> 00:44:12,040
Speaker 4: that you're you're you're seeing a lot of these small

890
00:44:12,080 --> 00:44:15,640
Speaker 4: businesses start and reallocating labor, people moving job to job,

891
00:44:16,560 --> 00:44:18,600
Speaker 4: all this stuff. This is a lot of dynamism. So

892
00:44:18,640 --> 00:44:21,799
Speaker 4: America is doing really well at this. Obviously, we've got

893
00:44:21,840 --> 00:44:23,560
Speaker 4: technology on our side too. I think AI is going

894
00:44:23,640 --> 00:44:25,399
Speaker 4: to be a big deal that will help us a lot.

895
00:44:25,400 --> 00:44:26,839
Speaker 4: And I think batteries are a big deal that will

896
00:44:26,880 --> 00:44:31,360
Speaker 4: help us a lot. Batteries and solar and cheap solar energy. Batteries,

897
00:44:31,400 --> 00:44:34,600
Speaker 4: cheap solar and AI go together really well. Also medical

898
00:44:34,640 --> 00:44:38,440
Speaker 4: stuff like you know, m RNA and synthetic biology, crisper

899
00:44:38,440 --> 00:44:40,799
Speaker 4: and all that stuff that's important too. But I think

900
00:44:40,840 --> 00:44:45,160
Speaker 4: that the biggest gains will come from those that that

901
00:44:45,280 --> 00:44:49,560
Speaker 4: trio of technologies, AI, solar and batteries, the triple technological

902
00:44:49,600 --> 00:44:50,760
Speaker 4: revolution of our times.

903
00:44:51,200 --> 00:44:54,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, in your bio you call yourself a techno optimist.

904
00:44:54,480 --> 00:44:58,520
Speaker 2: So do you think that like technology is a major

905
00:44:58,560 --> 00:45:01,040
Speaker 2: solution to some of the problems that we face. Is

906
00:45:01,080 --> 00:45:03,320
Speaker 2: that why maybe you see bright spots ahead?

907
00:45:03,640 --> 00:45:07,840
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I think America's underlying fundamental economy is strong.

908
00:45:08,120 --> 00:45:10,960
Speaker 4: I don't think Trumpian policy uncertainty can break it. I

909
00:45:11,000 --> 00:45:13,000
Speaker 4: think that the debt is a big threat, especially in

910
00:45:13,080 --> 00:45:19,000
Speaker 4: terms of inflation. I think that it will be painful

911
00:45:19,320 --> 00:45:21,839
Speaker 4: if and when we cut you know, welfare spending, which

912
00:45:21,880 --> 00:45:23,880
Speaker 4: we're going to do, and it'll probably be Medicaid that

913
00:45:23,920 --> 00:45:26,360
Speaker 4: we cut. It will be painful if and when we

914
00:45:26,440 --> 00:45:28,200
Speaker 4: raise taxes, which we will, and it will probably be

915
00:45:28,239 --> 00:45:33,120
Speaker 4: middle class taxes that go up. And so I think

916
00:45:33,160 --> 00:45:35,440
Speaker 4: that those things will be painful. But I think our

917
00:45:35,520 --> 00:45:37,560
Speaker 4: underlying strength of our economy is strong. We're a very

918
00:45:37,640 --> 00:45:41,160
Speaker 4: rich country. We're doing better than other rich countries. Even

919
00:45:41,239 --> 00:45:44,440
Speaker 4: China now has economically stumbled. I think we've got not

920
00:45:44,520 --> 00:45:46,600
Speaker 4: the brightest people running the country right now. But I

921
00:45:46,640 --> 00:45:49,839
Speaker 4: think that you know, that's on us, all right.

922
00:45:49,880 --> 00:45:51,600
Speaker 3: Well, I feel like we've talked a lot about our

923
00:45:51,640 --> 00:45:53,400
Speaker 3: struggles here the stateside.

924
00:45:53,400 --> 00:45:55,080
Speaker 1: But we're gonna take a quick break.

925
00:45:54,840 --> 00:45:56,719
Speaker 3: And then after that, no, we're going to ask you

926
00:45:57,040 --> 00:45:59,960
Speaker 3: perhaps about another country that seems like that they've been struggling,

927
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:01,000
Speaker 3: maybe have turned things around.

928
00:46:01,000 --> 00:46:02,360
Speaker 1: We'll get to Vats right after this.

929
00:46:10,200 --> 00:46:13,479
Speaker 2: We're back still talking with Noah Smith and no, we're

930
00:46:13,520 --> 00:46:15,320
Speaker 2: just I was talking a lot about the United States,

931
00:46:15,440 --> 00:46:19,279
Speaker 2: the country that we live in, are impacted by. But

932
00:46:19,719 --> 00:46:23,200
Speaker 2: you recently wrote about Javier Malay, the fairly new president

933
00:46:23,200 --> 00:46:27,359
Speaker 2: of Argentina, and it's been really interesting to see kind

934
00:46:27,360 --> 00:46:31,200
Speaker 2: of his economic gravitational pull. It seems to be, i

935
00:46:31,239 --> 00:46:33,520
Speaker 2: don't know, impacting at least some of the Western world.

936
00:46:33,800 --> 00:46:35,720
Speaker 2: How do you think about and how would you maybe

937
00:46:35,920 --> 00:46:38,920
Speaker 2: rate his efforts when it comes to turning around like

938
00:46:38,960 --> 00:46:42,399
Speaker 2: a struggling Argentina economy and like what can we learn

939
00:46:42,440 --> 00:46:42,680
Speaker 2: from that?

940
00:46:43,080 --> 00:46:46,000
Speaker 4: Well, I'm actually pleasantly surprised. I think even my sort

941
00:46:46,040 --> 00:46:51,839
Speaker 4: of neoliberal, austerity minded Argentinian friends like Martine Musteau who's

942
00:46:51,840 --> 00:46:54,359
Speaker 4: the senator there were skeptical of Malay. He was at

943
00:46:54,520 --> 00:46:56,320
Speaker 4: he was crazy. He was a wild man with crazy

944
00:46:56,360 --> 00:47:00,239
Speaker 4: hair who had chainsaws. He's just like a if he

945
00:47:00,280 --> 00:47:05,120
Speaker 4: do right, genetically genetically cloned dogs, just like grabbing his

946
00:47:05,120 --> 00:47:08,000
Speaker 4: girlfriend's butt on camera, you know, all this stuff. He's

947
00:47:08,040 --> 00:47:11,000
Speaker 4: just a silly guy, and he's just like, we're aesthetically

948
00:47:11,040 --> 00:47:13,920
Speaker 4: superior to the left, you know. And that was a

949
00:47:13,920 --> 00:47:17,799
Speaker 4: great interview. He's fun. But the idea was, oh, he's

950
00:47:17,800 --> 00:47:21,719
Speaker 4: an idiot. Well he wasn't. He wasn't an idiot. He

951
00:47:21,840 --> 00:47:24,760
Speaker 4: was just flamboyant. And it turns out that his policies

952
00:47:24,760 --> 00:47:27,040
Speaker 4: are working, are much more effective than anyone had a

953
00:47:27,120 --> 00:47:30,160
Speaker 4: right to think they. Basically, Argentina is a country that

954
00:47:30,239 --> 00:47:33,840
Speaker 4: tries to maintain a you know, a European style welfare

955
00:47:33,880 --> 00:47:38,279
Speaker 4: state without a European style income to support it. And

956
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:41,680
Speaker 4: Malay is cutting that. It's unsustainable. Malay's cutting that. But

957
00:47:41,760 --> 00:47:43,719
Speaker 4: in doing that, he's actually making conditions better for a

958
00:47:43,760 --> 00:47:46,359
Speaker 4: lot of people, because growth is Argentina had like a

959
00:47:46,360 --> 00:47:49,080
Speaker 4: short sharp procession from his anti inflationary policies and now,

960
00:47:49,120 --> 00:47:51,279
Speaker 4: you know, like we did in the early eighties, now

961
00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:57,120
Speaker 4: it's returning to growth and you know, inflation's down, growth

962
00:47:57,200 --> 00:48:01,239
Speaker 4: is up. People are you know, Argentina is doing all right,

963
00:48:01,680 --> 00:48:04,800
Speaker 4: and you know it's not suffering. So so the dangers

964
00:48:04,800 --> 00:48:07,480
Speaker 4: of Argentina pegs their currency to the dollar to beat inflation.

965
00:48:08,040 --> 00:48:10,400
Speaker 4: Currency pegs in the long run can have bad consequences

966
00:48:10,440 --> 00:48:13,080
Speaker 4: because then your currency gets overvalued. You tend to this

967
00:48:13,200 --> 00:48:16,080
Speaker 4: sudden big drop and like a currency crisis, which brings

968
00:48:16,080 --> 00:48:19,040
Speaker 4: inflation back and all this stuff. So so he's got

969
00:48:19,120 --> 00:48:22,319
Speaker 4: to make sure not to peg the Argentinian peso too

970
00:48:22,400 --> 00:48:31,160
Speaker 4: high and then but then I think so far he's

971
00:48:31,200 --> 00:48:33,000
Speaker 4: doing really surprisingly.

972
00:48:32,480 --> 00:48:35,680
Speaker 3: Well cutting the fact that he cut back. Do you

973
00:48:35,680 --> 00:48:38,160
Speaker 3: think that that's the big takeaway? Is that a lesson

974
00:48:38,200 --> 00:48:40,160
Speaker 3: for the US? So you know, we've already talked about

975
00:48:40,440 --> 00:48:43,399
Speaker 3: just future spending on you know, on our part over

976
00:48:43,440 --> 00:48:44,160
Speaker 3: here in the US.

977
00:48:44,239 --> 00:48:46,720
Speaker 1: Is that the takeaway for us? Is that the lesson learned?

978
00:48:47,320 --> 00:48:51,959
Speaker 4: Yes? So I think that basically austerity combined with hard

979
00:48:52,000 --> 00:48:55,120
Speaker 4: money carries some costs in the short term, but it

980
00:48:55,160 --> 00:48:57,839
Speaker 4: does stop inflation. So if you've got increasing inflation, as

981
00:48:57,840 --> 00:49:00,880
Speaker 4: we may soon have from Trump's policies, that's how you

982
00:49:00,920 --> 00:49:04,719
Speaker 4: beat it. And it is painful, but he managed to

983
00:49:05,160 --> 00:49:08,920
Speaker 4: get Argentinians to uh to to accept that short term pain.

984
00:49:09,400 --> 00:49:11,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, you seemed to thread the needle. Noah, thank you

985
00:49:11,560 --> 00:49:13,160
Speaker 2: so much for joining us today on The show Man.

986
00:49:13,160 --> 00:49:15,600
Speaker 2: Where can our listeners find out more about you, what

987
00:49:15,680 --> 00:49:17,440
Speaker 2: you're up to and find your substack?

988
00:49:17,880 --> 00:49:21,320
Speaker 4: Yeah, my substack is no opinion. That's N O A

989
00:49:21,719 --> 00:49:26,000
Speaker 4: H P I N I O N. Some people mistakenly

990
00:49:26,000 --> 00:49:27,520
Speaker 4: put an O in the middle of it and say

991
00:49:27,520 --> 00:49:30,279
Speaker 4: it's Noah opinion and I don't understand why anyone does that,

992
00:49:30,320 --> 00:49:33,360
Speaker 4: because it doesn't make a good pun. It's just just

993
00:49:33,480 --> 00:49:34,160
Speaker 4: so you lose it.

994
00:49:34,360 --> 00:49:36,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you actually write opinion in.

995
00:49:36,080 --> 00:49:39,960
Speaker 4: There, I get. Yeah, it's Noah opinion and that's what

996
00:49:40,080 --> 00:49:43,319
Speaker 4: it is anyway. So so go to that substack and

997
00:49:43,440 --> 00:49:45,719
Speaker 4: you can read all my little post to posts and

998
00:49:45,760 --> 00:49:50,560
Speaker 4: then i'll I'm I'm working on a book about explaining

999
00:49:50,600 --> 00:49:54,439
Speaker 4: macroeconomics in simple terms, in fun terms that regular people

1000
00:49:54,480 --> 00:49:55,120
Speaker 4: can understand.

1001
00:49:55,200 --> 00:49:55,520
Speaker 1: Very cool.

1002
00:49:55,560 --> 00:49:57,560
Speaker 3: We will keep it an eye out for that. Yeah,

1003
00:49:57,560 --> 00:49:59,200
Speaker 3: Noah Smith, thanks for talking to us.

1004
00:49:59,360 --> 00:50:00,839
Speaker 4: Absolutely until next time.

1005
00:50:01,640 --> 00:50:03,719
Speaker 2: All Right, Matt didn't end up talking about rabbits at

1006
00:50:03,719 --> 00:50:06,040
Speaker 2: all in that conversation. I was, well, I'm surprised we

1007
00:50:06,080 --> 00:50:08,439
Speaker 2: should have brought it. Well, we did, but he didn't

1008
00:50:08,440 --> 00:50:08,919
Speaker 2: take the bait.

1009
00:50:09,040 --> 00:50:11,440
Speaker 1: You are the one. You've got more pets than I do,

1010
00:50:11,560 --> 00:50:13,560
Speaker 1: and you actually had a rabbit when you were younger.

1011
00:50:13,640 --> 00:50:13,759
Speaker 4: Dad.

1012
00:50:13,800 --> 00:50:17,479
Speaker 2: We did name Skittles. It got really fat and didn't

1013
00:50:17,520 --> 00:50:19,400
Speaker 2: really move, so that I did want to debate him

1014
00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:22,040
Speaker 2: on that topic a little bit because my rabbit was

1015
00:50:22,080 --> 00:50:24,080
Speaker 2: not a great pet. But yeah, what was your big

1016
00:50:24,080 --> 00:50:27,320
Speaker 2: takeaway from this combo that was not pet related? I'm

1017
00:50:27,360 --> 00:50:28,959
Speaker 2: going to have to go with. So we talked about

1018
00:50:29,000 --> 00:50:30,160
Speaker 2: the national.

1019
00:50:29,880 --> 00:50:33,600
Speaker 3: Debt and the growing deficit right and ultimately in the end,

1020
00:50:33,680 --> 00:50:35,719
Speaker 3: what Noah mentioned was that what it takes is going

1021
00:50:35,760 --> 00:50:38,880
Speaker 3: to it's a combination of two things. Increased taxes so

1022
00:50:38,960 --> 00:50:41,880
Speaker 3: higher amounts of money coming in or reduced spending the

1023
00:50:42,200 --> 00:50:46,000
Speaker 3: different programs at the government is shelling out on. And

1024
00:50:46,080 --> 00:50:47,560
Speaker 3: you know what, man, the same thing is true when

1025
00:50:47,560 --> 00:50:50,160
Speaker 3: it comes to our personal finances. And oftentimes we try

1026
00:50:50,200 --> 00:50:52,200
Speaker 3: to I don't know if it's either a silver bullet

1027
00:50:52,280 --> 00:50:53,960
Speaker 3: or we're looking for a way to make it a

1028
00:50:54,000 --> 00:50:57,319
Speaker 3: little more fancy, but finding some sort of solution that's

1029
00:50:57,320 --> 00:50:59,719
Speaker 3: going to get us to whatever our goals are with

1030
00:51:00,080 --> 00:51:03,680
Speaker 3: out the austere measures that are often necessary in order

1031
00:51:03,800 --> 00:51:05,560
Speaker 3: for us to in order for folks to call themselves

1032
00:51:05,560 --> 00:51:08,160
Speaker 3: out of debt, like specifically if they've got ridiculous amounts

1033
00:51:08,160 --> 00:51:09,520
Speaker 3: of credit card debt. It's like, man, what it's going

1034
00:51:09,600 --> 00:51:11,719
Speaker 3: to take is you spending much less than what you

1035
00:51:11,760 --> 00:51:14,640
Speaker 3: were spending, or somehow for you to find a way

1036
00:51:14,640 --> 00:51:16,840
Speaker 3: to matt drastically increase your income.

1037
00:51:17,640 --> 00:51:18,439
Speaker 1: But a little bit of both.

1038
00:51:18,560 --> 00:51:21,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, And typically it is a combination of both. But

1039
00:51:21,640 --> 00:51:24,480
Speaker 3: it's just a lot of times those two things, those

1040
00:51:24,480 --> 00:51:26,920
Speaker 3: two levers that we can pull, they get lost when

1041
00:51:26,920 --> 00:51:28,480
Speaker 3: we're talking about the federal government.

1042
00:51:28,160 --> 00:51:31,600
Speaker 1: Because it's such this large tangle of worms.

1043
00:51:31,800 --> 00:51:33,440
Speaker 3: It is kind of what it feels like just with

1044
00:51:33,480 --> 00:51:36,919
Speaker 3: all the bureaucracy involved, tough ship to move. Yeah yeah, yeah,

1045
00:51:36,960 --> 00:51:39,480
Speaker 3: But that was encouraging though, because it's it's a reminder

1046
00:51:39,520 --> 00:51:41,359
Speaker 3: that even at a very high level when it comes

1047
00:51:41,400 --> 00:51:44,120
Speaker 3: to the US economy, oftentimes that's it could be as

1048
00:51:44,160 --> 00:51:46,719
Speaker 3: simple as that. It's not rocket science. Yeah, doesn't mean

1049
00:51:46,719 --> 00:51:48,920
Speaker 3: it's easy. Yeah, but yeah, yeah, fairly straightforward.

1050
00:51:49,040 --> 00:51:49,360
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1051
00:51:49,440 --> 00:51:53,040
Speaker 3: I think my big takeaway Matt was was you should

1052
00:51:53,040 --> 00:51:56,000
Speaker 3: have more babies because for is not enough. We have

1053
00:51:56,040 --> 00:51:57,680
Speaker 3: a declining birth rate in this country. I thought about

1054
00:51:57,680 --> 00:51:59,319
Speaker 3: speaking of He's like, it's all on your shoulders. He's

1055
00:51:59,320 --> 00:52:01,120
Speaker 3: a four point two. I mean that would be a

1056
00:52:01,160 --> 00:52:03,319
Speaker 3: crazy large number of kids for a family. And I'm

1057
00:52:03,360 --> 00:52:04,480
Speaker 3: just like, well, that's that's what we got.

1058
00:52:04,640 --> 00:52:06,960
Speaker 1: Yeah. For where's your point too coming soon?

1059
00:52:07,320 --> 00:52:09,759
Speaker 3: Where's your what is it that's needed? Point five too?

1060
00:52:09,760 --> 00:52:11,240
Speaker 3: Point seven? Yes, that's what's needed.

1061
00:52:11,239 --> 00:52:13,319
Speaker 1: That's right. So yeah, just.

1062
00:52:13,440 --> 00:52:15,359
Speaker 2: To all of our listeners out there who are at

1063
00:52:15,400 --> 00:52:19,120
Speaker 2: least considering it parents, it's wonderful think about it a

1064
00:52:19,120 --> 00:52:20,680
Speaker 2: little more deeply for the good of the country.

1065
00:52:20,719 --> 00:52:22,840
Speaker 1: Okay, is this your actual takeaway? Well, are you joking?

1066
00:52:22,880 --> 00:52:24,560
Speaker 2: No, I'm kind of joking, but I'm kind of serious,

1067
00:52:24,600 --> 00:52:27,120
Speaker 2: Like I do think well, I mean that I'm trying

1068
00:52:27,120 --> 00:52:28,279
Speaker 2: to tell people who don't want to have kids to

1069
00:52:28,320 --> 00:52:30,680
Speaker 2: have kids, But I am saying like it's I think

1070
00:52:30,719 --> 00:52:33,320
Speaker 2: some people overestimate and we've talked about this on the show,

1071
00:52:33,520 --> 00:52:35,040
Speaker 2: how much it costs.

1072
00:52:34,800 --> 00:52:35,839
Speaker 1: To have a kid.

1073
00:52:36,040 --> 00:52:38,719
Speaker 2: You see the headlines, and I don't think it's as

1074
00:52:38,800 --> 00:52:41,160
Speaker 2: bad as as it might seem from a from a

1075
00:52:41,160 --> 00:52:43,680
Speaker 2: financial standpoint, And I don't think you have to be

1076
00:52:44,360 --> 00:52:46,840
Speaker 2: I'm not saying again, don't be prepared, don't think ahead,

1077
00:52:47,120 --> 00:52:49,600
Speaker 2: but I don't think it takes as much preparation or

1078
00:52:49,640 --> 00:52:51,760
Speaker 2: as much money as you think.

1079
00:52:51,600 --> 00:52:52,480
Speaker 1: It does to have a kid.

1080
00:52:52,800 --> 00:52:55,120
Speaker 2: And you're gonna cut back and spending in other ways

1081
00:52:55,160 --> 00:52:56,879
Speaker 2: when you have a kid, Like guess what, I don't

1082
00:52:56,920 --> 00:52:59,359
Speaker 2: go to nearly as many like concerts or fine dinners.

1083
00:52:59,280 --> 00:53:01,600
Speaker 1: Going out to eat as much as you so.

1084
00:53:01,520 --> 00:53:03,640
Speaker 2: You'll cut back in other ways. The joy that it

1085
00:53:03,680 --> 00:53:07,600
Speaker 2: provides is meaningful. Again, not trying to course people into

1086
00:53:07,600 --> 00:53:08,960
Speaker 2: doing something they're not interested in doing.

1087
00:53:09,000 --> 00:53:11,839
Speaker 3: But if it's something you're thinking about, yeah, no, I okay,

1088
00:53:12,040 --> 00:53:14,520
Speaker 3: I'll back you because there are a lot of different

1089
00:53:14,560 --> 00:53:17,880
Speaker 3: voices in our heads and within society that is telling

1090
00:53:17,960 --> 00:53:18,439
Speaker 3: us to.

1091
00:53:18,440 --> 00:53:19,160
Speaker 1: Not do that.

1092
00:53:19,320 --> 00:53:21,200
Speaker 3: Whether it's your employer, it's just like, oh, you know

1093
00:53:21,239 --> 00:53:22,600
Speaker 3: what that's going to mean, You're not going to get

1094
00:53:22,600 --> 00:53:25,799
Speaker 3: that promotion. Oh you know at least even internally that

1095
00:53:25,840 --> 00:53:27,200
Speaker 3: oh that means you're not going to be placed on

1096
00:53:27,200 --> 00:53:30,360
Speaker 3: this project. And even selfishly, there are different sort of

1097
00:53:30,400 --> 00:53:34,200
Speaker 3: achievements that we're trying to achieve and often and so

1098
00:53:34,239 --> 00:53:36,799
Speaker 3: when you have all these other voices speaking into us

1099
00:53:36,840 --> 00:53:40,040
Speaker 3: as individuals, it can be easy to not, I guess,

1100
00:53:40,040 --> 00:53:43,920
Speaker 3: necessarily say no to kids proactively. But what happens is

1101
00:53:43,920 --> 00:53:47,160
Speaker 3: that it happens by default. It's something that happens passively,

1102
00:53:47,200 --> 00:53:48,919
Speaker 3: and before you know it, you're a little bit older

1103
00:53:48,960 --> 00:53:50,200
Speaker 3: and you're like, well, shoot, I kind of I guess

1104
00:53:50,200 --> 00:53:51,160
Speaker 3: maybe I missed my window.

1105
00:53:51,280 --> 00:53:52,719
Speaker 1: And that's happening more and more in our sus.

1106
00:53:53,000 --> 00:53:55,799
Speaker 3: Yes, the reason is that I never got around to it,

1107
00:53:55,800 --> 00:53:58,200
Speaker 3: as opposed to it being something that you're like, well, no,

1108
00:53:58,320 --> 00:53:58,959
Speaker 3: I'm never going.

1109
00:53:58,920 --> 00:53:59,439
Speaker 1: To have kids.

1110
00:53:59,520 --> 00:54:01,719
Speaker 3: It's it's fewer folks who are saying that as a

1111
00:54:01,760 --> 00:54:05,000
Speaker 3: post of folks were saying, oh man, maybe later, yeah exactly,

1112
00:54:05,040 --> 00:54:07,520
Speaker 3: maybe later, or I just it just never happened. Yeah,

1113
00:54:07,800 --> 00:54:10,840
Speaker 3: And I just I do think not everyone. Some people

1114
00:54:10,840 --> 00:54:13,040
Speaker 3: literally go into that proactively and they say I don't

1115
00:54:13,040 --> 00:54:15,160
Speaker 3: want kids, and more power to you. But I think, yeah,

1116
00:54:15,200 --> 00:54:18,960
Speaker 3: I've seen too many people regret that they waited too

1117
00:54:19,000 --> 00:54:21,719
Speaker 3: late and then it became really difficult, if not impossible,

1118
00:54:21,840 --> 00:54:24,200
Speaker 3: And I just think there is there are a lot

1119
00:54:24,200 --> 00:54:27,640
Speaker 3: of intangible benefits. It's not that the kids are typically

1120
00:54:27,680 --> 00:54:30,160
Speaker 3: going to bring more money into your life, but there

1121
00:54:30,200 --> 00:54:31,959
Speaker 3: are a lot of beautiful things they bring into your life,

1122
00:54:32,000 --> 00:54:34,719
Speaker 3: absolutely non financially related. Yeah, today's message brought to you

1123
00:54:34,719 --> 00:54:37,560
Speaker 3: by trad husband Joe lars Guard was gonna be able

1124
00:54:37,600 --> 00:54:38,879
Speaker 3: to hear homeschool and his kids.

1125
00:54:38,880 --> 00:54:39,440
Speaker 1: Before you know it.

1126
00:54:39,400 --> 00:54:42,520
Speaker 2: Followed me on Instagram. Oh my gosh, they would murder

1127
00:54:42,560 --> 00:54:44,520
Speaker 2: me and maybe vice versa.

1128
00:54:44,600 --> 00:54:46,600
Speaker 3: All right, real quick, the beer you and I enjoyed

1129
00:54:46,640 --> 00:54:50,680
Speaker 3: today was called Melvin, which was an amber farmhouse ale by.

1130
00:54:50,640 --> 00:54:52,719
Speaker 1: Freak Folk Beer. What did you think about those?

1131
00:54:52,760 --> 00:54:52,920
Speaker 4: One?

1132
00:54:52,920 --> 00:54:54,520
Speaker 2: So this beer looks like it was named after a

1133
00:54:54,560 --> 00:54:56,640
Speaker 2: cat because they have a picture of cat on the bottle.

1134
00:54:56,360 --> 00:54:59,680
Speaker 3: And then it also says, in loving memory, oh poor Melvine.

1135
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:02,520
Speaker 3: I'm guessing this was a brewery cat. Yeah, they dedicated

1136
00:55:02,600 --> 00:55:03,160
Speaker 3: this beer too.

1137
00:55:03,200 --> 00:55:03,319
Speaker 4: Well.

1138
00:55:03,360 --> 00:55:06,040
Speaker 3: I'm a cat dad myself, so I can get behind this.

1139
00:55:06,600 --> 00:55:09,120
Speaker 3: Although I like my cats, I don't love them.

1140
00:55:09,239 --> 00:55:10,279
Speaker 1: Is that okay? Can I say that?

1141
00:55:10,280 --> 00:55:10,600
Speaker 4: That's fine?

1142
00:55:10,680 --> 00:55:13,000
Speaker 1: I love my kids, I like my cats all.

1143
00:55:13,040 --> 00:55:15,160
Speaker 2: I think all amber beers should have to be sour

1144
00:55:15,640 --> 00:55:18,920
Speaker 2: per new dictation from Yeah Yeah, because I don't love

1145
00:55:18,960 --> 00:55:20,200
Speaker 2: amber beers, but an amber sour?

1146
00:55:20,280 --> 00:55:21,480
Speaker 1: Wow, maybe you really like this thing?

1147
00:55:21,520 --> 00:55:21,719
Speaker 4: It was.

1148
00:55:21,760 --> 00:55:24,799
Speaker 2: It was a nice combo of funky and sour and

1149
00:55:24,840 --> 00:55:26,560
Speaker 2: funky always like sounds like a weird word, I think

1150
00:55:26,560 --> 00:55:29,400
Speaker 2: to people, but there's something about a funky beer that

1151
00:55:29,520 --> 00:55:31,799
Speaker 2: really just does hit my mouth in a special way.

1152
00:55:31,920 --> 00:55:35,600
Speaker 3: It's like zestiness or the acidity. But with the kids

1153
00:55:35,680 --> 00:55:36,560
Speaker 3: use these a lot these days.

1154
00:55:36,600 --> 00:55:36,799
Speaker 4: I think.

1155
00:55:37,040 --> 00:55:38,120
Speaker 1: I think zesty is a hot word.

1156
00:55:38,800 --> 00:55:43,480
Speaker 3: Zibity. It's that tartness but with body. That's what I

1157
00:55:43,480 --> 00:55:45,680
Speaker 3: think of when you say funkiness, because it's not just

1158
00:55:45,800 --> 00:55:48,400
Speaker 3: like the sharpness that you get with like, let's say vinegar,

1159
00:55:48,640 --> 00:55:50,759
Speaker 3: but there's actual flavor behind it, right, it's oh maybe

1160
00:55:50,840 --> 00:55:53,920
Speaker 3: sort of like acidity is to vinegar as funky is

1161
00:55:53,960 --> 00:55:56,000
Speaker 3: to red wine vinegar. You know, like there's a little

1162
00:55:56,040 --> 00:55:59,280
Speaker 3: more flavors, more body, more. Yeah, just something more going on.

1163
00:55:59,239 --> 00:56:01,839
Speaker 2: Which I just used red wine vinegar in the making

1164
00:56:01,880 --> 00:56:05,120
Speaker 2: of a food product that well, you tried it earlier today,

1165
00:56:05,160 --> 00:56:07,000
Speaker 2: we'll talk about it. Oh, let's talk about it on

1166
00:56:07,080 --> 00:56:09,359
Speaker 2: maybe Fridays. Yeah, this this episode.

1167
00:56:09,080 --> 00:56:09,520
Speaker 4: Is going along.

1168
00:56:09,520 --> 00:56:11,319
Speaker 3: But yeah, Frank Folk Beer, first time we've had one

1169
00:56:11,320 --> 00:56:14,120
Speaker 3: by them, really good. Highly recommend nobody that's going to

1170
00:56:14,160 --> 00:56:16,040
Speaker 3: be it for this episode. So until next time, best

1171
00:56:16,040 --> 00:56:17,919
Speaker 3: Friends Out, best Friends Out.