Speaker 1: Welcome to all blots. I'm Tracy Alloway, Executive editor of
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Markets, and I'm Joe. Why isn't all Managing editor
Speaker 1: of Bloomberg Markets, Joe, there was quite a bit of
Speaker 1: politics that happened in New York last week, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty cool because in the primaries, usually by the
Speaker 1: time the vote comes around to New York, it's usually
Speaker 1: it's pretty settled who's going to be the winner. But
Speaker 1: in both the Democratic and Republican races, we have these
Speaker 1: very unusual races this year, and so suddenly New York
Speaker 1: City was the center of the world. You had politicians
Speaker 1: coming to pander, Ted Cruz going to a matza factory,
Speaker 1: John Kasik eating Italian food up in the Bronx, very
Speaker 1: unusual sites that you don't normally see in an election year.
Speaker 1: So did you vote in the primaries? Um, no comment.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I don't, I don't know. I don't support
Speaker 1: anyone yet. Okay, Well, the reason I ask is not
Speaker 1: to gauge how dedicated you are to the democratic process,
Speaker 1: but actually to try to make a point about markets
Speaker 1: and politics. And again, I know this is one of
Speaker 1: your favorite favorite topics. I absolutely love this topic. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think one of the biggest stories in the world
Speaker 1: right now is this process that we're seeing where parties
Speaker 1: that are deemed to be centrist of one way or
Speaker 1: another across Europe and the US are seeing their support
Speaker 1: collapse and we're seeing these more radical parties gain power.
Speaker 1: And so far there hasn't been anything too dramatic, there's
Speaker 1: been no major default or nobody has left the Eurozone.
Speaker 1: But as the center of gravity moves to the outside,
Speaker 1: I think that's going to have a profound implications on
Speaker 1: things right And there's a line of thinking, a strong
Speaker 1: line of thinking that what's happened in markets over the
Speaker 1: past few years has a direct relation to the rise
Speaker 1: of fringe candidates or more extremist candidate, whatever you want
Speaker 1: to call them. And I'm very excited to talk about
Speaker 1: that today because we're going to have someone on who
Speaker 1: basically talks about the public mood and it's connection with
Speaker 1: markets constantly. Yeah, me too. This is gonna be a
Speaker 1: great conversation. We're gonna be talking with Peter Atwater of
Speaker 1: Financial Insights, who does all kinds of fascinating work looking
Speaker 1: at public polling, looking at when there's public euphoria when
Speaker 1: the public is very depressed, what part of the public
Speaker 1: is depressed and so forth, and what that means for
Speaker 1: financial markets investors. And there's a lot of interesting connections
Speaker 1: and interesting patterns throughout history to be gleaned. All right,
Speaker 1: I'm excited, let's do it. Peter Atwater of Financial Insights,
Speaker 1: thank you very much for joining us. Thank you, Jo
Speaker 1: glad to be here. So your work involves gauging the
Speaker 1: national mood, trying to figure out when people are in euphoria,
Speaker 1: when they're depressed, who's depressed, who's happy? How do you
Speaker 1: do that? How do you gauge the national moods? So
Speaker 1: I look at some objective datas like gallops daily Economic
Speaker 1: Confidence Index that gives me a broad sense. But then
Speaker 1: I look specifically at extremes of wealth to see how
Speaker 1: are they doing. So I'll look at the you know,
Speaker 1: the uber financial elite, and you know, when you see
Speaker 1: somebody like Bill Ackman flipping ninety million dollar condos, that
Speaker 1: says something incredible about the euphoria of the financial elite.
Speaker 1: At the same time, things like you know, the riots
Speaker 1: in Ferguson or in Baltimore are telling me a great
Speaker 1: deal about how the other end of the financial spectrum
Speaker 1: is doing. So it feels like when you're gauging confidence,
Speaker 1: it kind of by necessity still has to have some
Speaker 1: degree of subjectivity in it, right, Yeah, I think the
Speaker 1: qualitative measures are often much more powerful than the quantitative measures. Uh.
Speaker 1: Certainly at extremes in mood, the behaviors are just so
Speaker 1: over the top, either good or bad. But the qualitative
Speaker 1: just plays of how we reflect confidence are you know,
Speaker 1: very often far easier to understand than just a whole
Speaker 1: pile of data. So we're in this election season right now,
Speaker 1: and one of the big storylines is the fact that
Speaker 1: both on the Democratic and Republican sides, there are these
Speaker 1: more radical candidates than what we're used to doing. Quite well,
Speaker 1: we don't know if they'll win yet, but it's this
Speaker 1: phenomenon that everyone's talked about. And what does this tell
Speaker 1: you about the national move Well, what it tells me
Speaker 1: is that, um, on the Republican side, it is very depressed. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, folks like Gallup measure it as being equivalent
Speaker 1: to how everybody felt back in you know, the financial crisis. Um,
Speaker 1: so they're the Republicans are feeling extreme anxiety and stress
Speaker 1: and their needs reflect that, and somebody like Trump and
Speaker 1: we can come back to that. On the Democratic side,
Speaker 1: their mood is better, but it's not nearly as po
Speaker 1: positive I think is the Democratic establishment certainly believed and
Speaker 1: should believe today. Wait, Peter, you're saying on the Republican side,
Speaker 1: there's basically been no improvement in mood or confidence since
Speaker 1: the financial crisis. Why has that happened? I think, you know,
Speaker 1: some of it is a function of, you know, the
Speaker 1: when you are not the incumbent where the you know,
Speaker 1: in office party, your mood naturally is lower than you
Speaker 1: know the other side. And that's you can go back
Speaker 1: and see that. But this distortion suggests that for the
Speaker 1: average Republican jobs, lower gas prices, um, the things that
Speaker 1: you would normally associate with a economic and positive recovery
Speaker 1: are not translating at all into that segment. It sounds
Speaker 1: like it fits. And one of the recent Nobel Prize
Speaker 1: winner and economics Angus Dton, recently came out with research
Speaker 1: pointing out that for or lower class why it's there's
Speaker 1: been this huge surge in the mortality, there's been a surge.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's a huge surge, but there's
Speaker 1: been a rise in the mortality rates despite the fact
Speaker 1: that generally mortality rates are trending down. Suicide alcoholism is rising.
Speaker 1: And though the Republican Party it's ah there, you know,
Speaker 1: there's people think of the wealthy and the powerful, but
Speaker 1: there is also this rural white base and it sounds like, um,
Speaker 1: that fits in very well with what you're saying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I and I think that those are expressions of
Speaker 1: mood that you clearly can see correlated to confidence. But
Speaker 1: I think for the Republicans, I mean, it's not just
Speaker 1: a man session that the the less educated uh certainly manufacturing. Uh.
Speaker 1: Their behavior is very reflective of extreme weak confidence. And
Speaker 1: I think you're really seeing it manifest in this very
Speaker 1: blatant xenophobia. You know you touched on it just then.
Speaker 1: Can someone expl into me how the Republican Party can
Speaker 1: simultaneously be the party of big business and to a
Speaker 1: certain extent a corporate elite, and also represent the interests
Speaker 1: of less educated, not as wealthy white people. I've never
Speaker 1: understood that. I've been out of US politics for the
Speaker 1: majority of my life, so I might just be missing something. Well,
Speaker 1: I would say, increasingly it can't, and you're seeing the
Speaker 1: very high end Republican establishment uh increasingly abdicate or vacate
Speaker 1: the party. I mean, the Koch brothers have announced that
Speaker 1: they're pulling back from their uh anticipated plans in Cleveland,
Speaker 1: and I think they're now quite fearful that the party
Speaker 1: has been usurped taken over by folks that are no
Speaker 1: longer familiar with them as Republicans. I think that for
Speaker 1: the longest time, you could have put what today is
Speaker 1: now a very bifurcated Republican already under one umbrella that
Speaker 1: you know, endorsed, you know, less government, uh, certainly more
Speaker 1: conservative social values. What you're seeing is, I think a
Speaker 1: split between a traditional Republican party and a much more
Speaker 1: authoritarian Republican party, and that in manifesting and Trump. So
Speaker 1: this is the current political situation. What's a good historical
Speaker 1: and analog to where we are right now? I mean
Speaker 1: when you look at you look at patterns over time
Speaker 1: of societal behavior. So what's something that we can point
Speaker 1: to in the past that say, okay, this this is familiar. Well,
Speaker 1: I think you can look clearly at the late nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1: I think the parallels to George Wallace, are you certainly
Speaker 1: appropriate and very consistent with what we're seeing today in
Speaker 1: the form of Donald Trump. And I would expect that
Speaker 1: the the convention is going to look like something out
Speaker 1: of the nineteen sixties. Uh, you can go back even
Speaker 1: further into the the era of the Great Depression to
Speaker 1: see similarly positioned authoritarian candidates coming to the four You know,
Speaker 1: I'm conscious that we haven't mentioned the Democrats that much
Speaker 1: just yet. You say, the mood on the Democratic side
Speaker 1: is certainly better than the Republicans, but it's not that
Speaker 1: great either, which might be one reason we've seen Bernie
Speaker 1: Sanders do better than a lot of people initially expected.
Speaker 1: It's not just that he's done better, it's that he's
Speaker 1: still considered to be viable. I mean, if you were
Speaker 1: to look strictly at the objective data of super delicates
Speaker 1: and popular vote, there would be no question that Hillary
Speaker 1: should be the candidate. Everyone from the media to their
Speaker 1: polsters to the population should be telling Bernie Sanders it's
Speaker 1: time to stop. And you're not seeing that at all.
Speaker 1: And that's I think a reflection of the vulnerability that
Speaker 1: that Hillary Clinton has to falling mood. And you know,
Speaker 1: I was sharing this morning, just how much mood has
Speaker 1: fallen uh in the last couple of weeks, and that's
Speaker 1: really to Sanders benefit. So let's talk about how this
Speaker 1: all effect all effects financial markets because we sit here
Speaker 1: vice versa. Right, Yeah, how it goes back and forth
Speaker 1: because we sit here with the mood seemingly glum everywhere
Speaker 1: gallops numbers of confidence not going in the right direction.
Speaker 1: Yet at the same time, the SNP five is very
Speaker 1: close to its all time highs A how can that be?
Speaker 1: And be does something have to give here? Can we
Speaker 1: predict that the national mood will go up if the
Speaker 1: economy keeps improving? Or does your work tell you to
Speaker 1: be wary of the market here? So how does the
Speaker 1: market go up and mood not? Uh? If you measure
Speaker 1: markets on nominal terms, as you know the wealthy do
Speaker 1: they certainly feel it in nominal terms? There's been no
Speaker 1: question that this is a state of euphoria. And you know,
Speaker 1: you look at billionaires row on Street. That's certainly reflecting
Speaker 1: what the markets are saying. So this is the idea
Speaker 1: that the wealthy have been the ones who have benefited
Speaker 1: the most from the market rally over the past few years. Yes,
Speaker 1: I think that that unknowingly, certainly not deliberately, the focus
Speaker 1: that the FED put on asset values has manifested in
Speaker 1: an extraordinary generation of wealth for the wealthy. They were
Speaker 1: in in two thousand and nine, they've stayed in, you know,
Speaker 1: gone all in, and if you look at the average
Speaker 1: American they were not in, and they are even less
Speaker 1: in today than they were. Some of the statistics on
Speaker 1: American investment in aggregate suggests that, you know, the consumer
Speaker 1: having been burned in housing, exited everything. Can this just
Speaker 1: be solved by full employment and rising wages or is
Speaker 1: there something deeper that the traditional economic statistics can't or
Speaker 1: traditional economic measures can't pick up? Well? I think that
Speaker 1: if if it could have been fixed by employment, it
Speaker 1: would have been at this point. You know that the
Speaker 1: figures on initial jobless claims unemployment levels would suggest that
Speaker 1: consumer confidence should be far higher than it is today,
Speaker 1: so that hasn't translated. I think wage inflation would have
Speaker 1: helped the consumer in this case, uh, particularly just in
Speaker 1: terms of making ends meet their Their obligations, especially in healthcare,
Speaker 1: have gone up significantly during this recovery, their wages have
Speaker 1: not kept track with that. Similarly, in things like higher education.
Speaker 1: So the cost of what they need has gone up
Speaker 1: substantially and their wages haven't gone up. You're you're seeing
Speaker 1: I think tension, real tension manifesting between owners of capital
Speaker 1: and employees of capital, and that it's almost as if
Speaker 1: the American employee is a union member in in trying
Speaker 1: to negotiate higher wages and as just today, very unsuccessful
Speaker 1: in that. Okay, wait, I have the flip side of
Speaker 1: Joe's question. What if you focused on something bad happening
Speaker 1: as a way to boost general confidence. So what if,
Speaker 1: for instance, we had a big bear market in financial
Speaker 1: assets and that took some of the air out of
Speaker 1: the financial elites tires? Would people feel better relatively speaking?
Speaker 1: Or would that be bad overall? No? I think they
Speaker 1: shouldn't experience. For the consumer, average consumer, I think they
Speaker 1: would be UM. I don't know that their confidence would
Speaker 1: be boosted, but their anger might subside. Lesson might lesson? Uh,
Speaker 1: you know that? And I think one of the consequences, Tracy,
Speaker 1: is that you won't see Congress stepping in to bail
Speaker 1: out the financial elite should things start to go down
Speaker 1: versus two thousand and nine, that the public outcry isn't
Speaker 1: isn't going to be there? Um, you know, going back
Speaker 1: to history lessons, what was the period have we ever
Speaker 1: seen the reverse where the mood was really starting to
Speaker 1: rise in the public and there were tangible signs of it,
Speaker 1: but financial markets hadn't caught up and say, oh, this
Speaker 1: is very bullish. It's a great question. Um, I have
Speaker 1: to I can't think of a time when that would
Speaker 1: have that correlation, that association. What about just a general
Speaker 1: time of euphoria? What's that leg and what caused that?
Speaker 1: So general time of euphoria looks like where the entire
Speaker 1: spectrum of wealth from the low end to the high
Speaker 1: end is feeling enthusiastic. You could say have said the
Speaker 1: same thing about nineteen sixty six, so you know, the
Speaker 1: the end of the Camelot era, where you know, again
Speaker 1: all of America feels united. There's a there's a common
Speaker 1: sense of what is normal, and I think that's one
Speaker 1: of the telltale signs of extreme high confidences. There's a
Speaker 1: there is a clear black and white as to who
Speaker 1: we are, what we look like, what we stand for.
Speaker 1: So unity as a nation is kind of is not
Speaker 1: the norm, and it's almost scary when we're too comfortable
Speaker 1: and who we all are? Yeah, we go from you know,
Speaker 1: from being all of one thing to being very scattered
Speaker 1: and then reform. All right, Peter Atwater. We can talk
Speaker 1: about this for hours, I think, but we're going to
Speaker 1: have to cut it short. Thank you, Peter, Thank you
Speaker 1: very much. Thanks Jeff, Thanks crazy stuff. You know, Joe,
Speaker 1: there's one his historic method for gauging the public mood
Speaker 1: when it comes to economics and markets. Do you know
Speaker 1: what it is? Yes? I do. That was I'm supposed
Speaker 1: to say, should only because I sent you the schedule
Speaker 1: for this. That was supposed to be a set up
Speaker 1: to what you're going. What is it, Tracy? What's the
Speaker 1: tried and true measure? Thank you for playing along. That
Speaker 1: would be the misery index. That's right. This is people
Speaker 1: have used this index for years, across decades, across countries,
Speaker 1: and it's super simple. All you do is you add
Speaker 1: the unemployment rate to the rate of inflation, and the
Speaker 1: higher it is, presumably the more miserable the country, and
Speaker 1: the lower it is, the happier. Um. So, if you
Speaker 1: have ten percent unemployment and ten percent inflation, then your
Speaker 1: misery index is twenty and everyone's miserable. That's exactly right.
Speaker 1: I'm impressed. Um. So it's about as simple as again.
Speaker 1: But there is a problem with the misery index now
Speaker 1: because even though we have all these presidential candidates who
Speaker 1: are saying that Americans are more upset than ever, are
Speaker 1: more angry than ever, the misery index doesn't actually show that.
Speaker 1: So we're going to talk about that. We're going to
Speaker 1: bring in Carl RICKA Donna, who's Bloomberg's chief US economist,
Speaker 1: and he is going to give us a rundown of
Speaker 1: why the misery index doesn't say Americans are more miserable
Speaker 1: right now, Uh, Carl Donna, chief US economist of Bloomberg Intelligence,
Speaker 1: Thank you very much for joining us, my pleasure. So
Speaker 1: the misery index, is it something that you look at,
Speaker 1: is it's something that you feel is a useful gauge
Speaker 1: for the public for how the economy is doing well.
Speaker 1: It it's kind of an informal economic indicator, so as
Speaker 1: we think about let's say monetary policy or you know,
Speaker 1: growth forecasts or interest rate developments, it's a little crude
Speaker 1: for those purposes. However, the misery index is a phenomenal
Speaker 1: predictor of election outcomes in presidential election years, and we
Speaker 1: can go all the way back to nineteen sixty four,
Speaker 1: and this index has an accuracy rate of presidential elections.
Speaker 1: And one of the exceptions is the Carter victory over
Speaker 1: Ford and seventy six, which was arguably a referendum on Watergate.
Speaker 1: So if we strip out that exception, then the success
Speaker 1: rate is actually well. Carl tell us how the index
Speaker 1: used to be used in presidential elections because people used
Speaker 1: to use it as like a campaign tool. Basically, it
Speaker 1: was definitely a campaign tool, especially in the nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: Reagan Carter election when in his closing remarks of the
Speaker 1: presidential debate, Ronald Reagan asked the audience, UH, and and
Speaker 1: voters to ask themselves, are you better off now than
Speaker 1: four years ago? And he's specifically referred to employment, can
Speaker 1: scans and inflation. So this was a hot topic, uh
Speaker 1: in let's say the nineteen sixties and especially the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: an era that was plagued by stag inflation i e.
Speaker 1: Rising unemployment or elevated unemployment and a fairly high inflation
Speaker 1: rate as well. So when those economic issues are pressing concerns,
Speaker 1: voters tend to act based on what's happening in their pocketbook. Okay,
Speaker 1: but now if I look up the misery index, which
Speaker 1: is on the terminal, right, the Bloomberg terminal. Uh, it
Speaker 1: actually doesn't look that high, certainly relative to where it
Speaker 1: was in the seventies and eighties. And I guess that's
Speaker 1: probably a function of inflation. But does that mean that
Speaker 1: it's totally irrelevant in the current campaign. It's not irrelevant
Speaker 1: because it continues to be a good predictor of election outcomes.
Speaker 1: It's called every election, with the last exception being the
Speaker 1: victory of Clinton over Georgia Georgia H. W. Bush. So
Speaker 1: it's still mad if households are feeling better or worse
Speaker 1: about economic conditions, whether it was the high inflation and
Speaker 1: high unemployment of the seventies or even in current the
Speaker 1: current environment where things are at much more redesirable levels,
Speaker 1: it still matters. If voters sense that the economy is
Speaker 1: moving in the right direction, then they tend to reward
Speaker 1: the incumbent party. If they sense that the economy is
Speaker 1: falling apart, Uh, then they tend to quote unquote vote
Speaker 1: the bums out. And the great example of this was
Speaker 1: Obama's victory in two thousand and eight, the stock market
Speaker 1: was crumbling, unemployment was backing up, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the economy was in in a bad situation, and voters
Speaker 1: opted for change. All right, I have a few problems
Speaker 1: with this whole thing, just a few. So the Fed
Speaker 1: would like to see inflation higher. So then does Janet
Speaker 1: Yellen want to see the U s economy more miserable? Well,
Speaker 1: she wants inflation to be only slightly higher. So the
Speaker 1: risk here there has been a lot of hand ringing
Speaker 1: in recent years about too low inflation constantly. Absolutely, you
Speaker 1: can't keep winning and going in lower and lower and
Speaker 1: lower inflation, because then you end up in deflation. Uh.
Speaker 1: And there's a whole other set of problems that arise
Speaker 1: because of that. And we can look no further than Japan,
Speaker 1: uh to see some of those consequences. So Janet Yellen
Speaker 1: doesn't want us to be much more miserable, but she
Speaker 1: would like a little bit more inflation, because actually that
Speaker 1: won't make us miserable. That helps to pay off your
Speaker 1: mortgage or your car loan by inflating that dead away.
Speaker 1: If prices are falling, then there's very little and it's
Speaker 1: harder for you to pay off those outstanding debts. But
Speaker 1: also you're happy keeping your money in the mattress instead
Speaker 1: of putting it into risk your investments, which are the
Speaker 1: basically the lifeblood the economy. All right, and so here's
Speaker 1: my other issues. So you mentioned the Carter forward and
Speaker 1: the Reagan year election. That was a period character arise
Speaker 1: by stagflation where we had very weak growth, high unemployment,
Speaker 1: and inflation. But economists and I don't like to talk
Speaker 1: about this thing called the Phillips curve, which insinuates that
Speaker 1: there's this that inflation and unemployment are kind of these
Speaker 1: opposite forces and that tip and that right, there's a
Speaker 1: strong negative correlation, and yeah, there's this negative correlation. And
Speaker 1: so I'm wondering, did the misery index really just sort
Speaker 1: of makes sense as a thing during the stag inflation
Speaker 1: era where we got both at the same time, but
Speaker 1: that every time else, it's just not a very meaningful thing.
Speaker 1: If there's going to be this Phillips curve framework where
Speaker 1: they move in the opposite direction, maybe we need a
Speaker 1: misery index adjusted for the new normal, right. I don't
Speaker 1: think we do, because it worked in the stagflationary period
Speaker 1: because people were really miserable, But It also works in
Speaker 1: periods where there was not great UH stagflation, for instance,
Speaker 1: Reagan's re election in four UH, the eighty eight election, UH,
Speaker 1: the early two thousands. So it certainly was a hot
Speaker 1: button issue in the late sixties and the seventies, but
Speaker 1: it's also worked another period. So it's not just the
Speaker 1: outright level of misery. UH, it's really the change matters.
Speaker 1: So if you have really bad economic conditions and they
Speaker 1: get a little better, you're still arguably pretty miserable, but
Speaker 1: things are heading in the right direction by looters reward
Speaker 1: the incumbent party. I'm looking on the terminal right now,
Speaker 1: and the misery index has ticked up just a little bit.
Speaker 1: It's so very low by historical standards right now, so
Speaker 1: you know that might be something to worry about. It
Speaker 1: just ever so slight. And what's important here is we
Speaker 1: have to look at moving averages. So for my analysis,
Speaker 1: I look at a six month moving average, because what's
Speaker 1: happening in the latest economic developments sometimes takes a while
Speaker 1: to actually be processed by main street UH, and so
Speaker 1: if we look at the broader moving averages, then we
Speaker 1: tend to eliminate some of that noise and UH you know.
Speaker 1: So that makes the wiggle room and the important thing
Speaker 1: here as we look at the outlook, so where we
Speaker 1: are now versus where we'll likely be on November eight,
Speaker 1: election day. UH. The unemployment rate, Let's look at that first.
Speaker 1: Where at five percent? Now? The unemployment rate has been
Speaker 1: steadily grinding lower for the last five to six years,
Speaker 1: at a pace of about one percent per year, so
Speaker 1: it's been moving sideways a little bit lately. But the
Speaker 1: Fed and most private sector forecasters are looking for it
Speaker 1: to move lower by about thirty basis points. That puts
Speaker 1: it at four point seven percent by year end. UH,
Speaker 1: and private sector forecasters and the FED expect core inflation
Speaker 1: to be about thirty basis points higher. So if those
Speaker 1: forecast pan out, you basically have an unchanged misery index
Speaker 1: over the next six months or so. However, UH, the
Speaker 1: index has been in a broader down trend since the
Speaker 1: end of the financial crisis, so it does tell you
Speaker 1: households are are less miserable, so not so much misery,
Speaker 1: but not entirely happy either. Carl Rickadonna, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining us, and I just want to say
Speaker 1: I'm on the terminal. The misery index is not just
Speaker 1: in the US. And I'm looking at the Brazil misery
Speaker 1: index right now and it's far and away near its
Speaker 1: highest levels ever, and they're right near in the in
Speaker 1: the middle of the political drama. So it doesn't it
Speaker 1: doesn't just work in the US, works internationally, carl Rickaddonna,
Speaker 1: thank you very much, us well, Tracy. I really enjoyed
Speaker 1: our conversation about various ways of measuring societal mood and
Speaker 1: how happy and miserable people are. What did you what's
Speaker 1: your big takeaway from it? I mean, I thought it
Speaker 1: was a really good rundown of what people have been
Speaker 1: talking about already. One thing that I would like to
Speaker 1: explore a bit more. It's this idea of the world
Speaker 1: getting slightly topsy turvy in the sense that, for instance,
Speaker 1: Janet Yellen could want the misery index to be more
Speaker 1: miserable because she wants inflation, or the idea that the
Speaker 1: general population could actually want a decline in financial asset
Speaker 1: prices just on the basis of pure schadenfreude, and the
Speaker 1: idea that they would like to see the financial elites
Speaker 1: take a bit of a tumble. Something that I think
Speaker 1: about is, you know, we have all these measures to gauge,
Speaker 1: the economy, the unemployment. Right, there's a million, there's thousands
Speaker 1: of different measures, but ultimately what we want is for
Speaker 1: people to be happy. I mean ultimately growth, low unemployment,
Speaker 1: stable prices. They don't they're not ends into themselves. The
Speaker 1: goal is that you want a happy people want to
Speaker 1: be happy, and so it feels like our tools for
Speaker 1: really understanding how well we're succeeding of that lauded best.
Speaker 1: But I think what we're getting to is a fundamental
Speaker 1: question of economics and philosophy, international relations, everything, pretty much,
Speaker 1: are people happy on the basis of absolute gains or
Speaker 1: on relative gains? Like, if everyone's doing well absolutely, but
Speaker 1: one group of people is doing much better relatively, will
Speaker 1: the population be happy? I don't know. Do you think
Speaker 1: we could solve that in like the ten seconds we
Speaker 1: have right now? Or should we wrap it up? All right,
Speaker 1: let's wrap it up. Thank you for listening to Odd Lots.
Speaker 1: I'm Joseph Wisenthal. You can follow me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: the Stalwart, and I'm Tracy Alloway. I'm on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Tracy Alloway. Thanks for listening.