March 20, 2026 • 37 mins
Spring break is here, and so is the chaos. With TSA agents going unpaid amid the partial government shutdown, staffing is short at airports across the country. This week, Stacey and Max trace the invisible threads connecting 2-hour security lines to systems crumbling beneath our feet.
Bloomberg reporter Deena Shanker joins to dig into the Epstein files, and explain who faces consequences when things comes crashing down. Then Martha Gimbel of Yale's Budget Lab asks a question on the minds of many Americans: Is retirement actually realistic anymore?
Plus, Stacey makes the case for a love letter to the free market, and Max mourns the legless Metaverse.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
This is Everybody's Business from Bloomberg BusinessWeek. I'm Stacey Fanick Smith.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
And I'm Max Chafkin.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Max.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
The war in Iran is front and center again this
week and especially in these last few days. The economic
and structural impacts continue to evolve. Oil has jumped as
high as one hundred and twenty dollars a barrel. It's
down a little bit now. But also global inflation is
on the rise. There are supply chain choke points, including
(00:37):
for products like fertilizer and plastics, and all of it
just seems to continue to spread.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
Yeah, and air travel has been completely disrupted worldwide, and
not just worldwide, but here in the US. The partial
government shutdown is kind of adding to the uncertainty and
this sense of chaos. In fact, our producer, Jasmine JT.
Green took a short trip to our local airport, John F.
Kennedy International, to see what was happening there.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
It is Howard JFK Airport. They will go to the
air train JFA Airport.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
We're here at JFK. What brings you here today?
Speaker 5 (01:15):
We're doing Southeast Asia, so Thailand, Cambodia.
Speaker 6 (01:18):
Bringing my mom waiting in the line of TSA. She's
going to Louisiana, but then she's going to Miami.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Have you been hearing about the current like wait times here.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Yeah, I'm a little worried about the whole we might
start shutting down airports thing, which I saw a headline
about yesterday.
Speaker 6 (01:32):
I knew before I even had an app that told
me like how much time you need to wait in
each terminal. So we have been here like ten minutes,
and I think we're doing good.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Even following at all like the news regarding like the
Department Homeland Security and relationship to these long lines.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
We're hoping the PreCheck is going to do us good today,
but I don't know. Time will tell.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
I got nervous when they almost canceled PreCheck recently, but
fortunately we've still got it for now.
Speaker 6 (01:55):
We saw that in Louisiana you have to be five
hours before, so that's why today we came three hours
before her flight, so we will.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Be on time.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
I feel like they just add an hour every time
there's a crisis, Like I remember when you only had
to be the airport like an hour early, and now
it's five hours.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
No, I mean it is it is wild and you know,
a lot of this, like you said, Max, has to
do with the partial government shutdown, So TSA agents like
by and large are not getting paid right now.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
This has a lot of people calling.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
In six so there are very few agents and in
certain places the lines are just Yeah, it's kind of
a mess.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
And you know, beyond just air travel and beyond the
chaos in the Middle East, Stacey, I think we're really
living through a time where some of the systems that
we thought we could trust are just proving a little
bit more brittle, a little less trustworthy than we had
first assumed.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
We're seeing a lot of weaknesses start to get exposed.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
And that gets us to retirement.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
You wrote a story about workers who are dealing with
retirement by just not retiring.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
A lot of people keep working for sometimes financial reasons,
sometimes not.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
That is either kind of heartwarming, you're like wow, like this,
you know, that's so cool, or maybe a sign of
you know, a lack of economic security.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yeah, there's just a lot of stress I think being
put on all these different parts of the economy, and
we're feeling the impact in kind of surprising ways.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
Which is the perfect transition to our other topic, the
Epstein class, which is another area.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yes, I mean that's true, and well we'll.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Talk all about this with Dina Shanker later in the show.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
But it's another area where you know, again, some of
the parts of our of our society that felt most solid,
the most respectable, most trustworthy people, somehow seem a little
bit less trustworthy.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yes, exactly, I mean these power structures, be they economic
or societal, like the financial exactly. And Max, you've got
a story out now about the Epstein files and a
little bit about how they are exposing these systems as well,
in the same way that maybe right now the conflict
in Iran is exposing some of our economic weaknesses.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
All that's ahead, but we got to get through security. Stacy.
Let's let's get.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Five hours betimes like my personal nightmare.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
It's going to be a long podcast, settle In. Stacy.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
It's been some weeks since the big DOJ Epstein files release.
But because these documents are so big and so long,
and there's so much in them and have come out
gradually and so many powerful people upsetting.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
It is really upsetting.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
I have to say that there are every time I
think that I cannot be horrified anymore that I've jaded
on this front. As it turns out, there is another
level of horror that emerges.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
I just published piece in BusinessWeek about this brand, and
we we have a second piece also in Business Week
same month that the two pieces are kind of in
conversation with one another. This one is written by Dina Shanker,
who is a friend of the podcast Bloomberg Reporter.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
She is here now, hey, Dina, Hey.
Speaker 7 (05:13):
And also I just want to say with Courtney Rubin,
another writer, that we worked on this together, so it's
definitely a team effort.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
But your piece is about Peter Attilla, who is a
sort of podcaster celebrity doctor wellness guru.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
I had thought of him sort.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
Of as like one of these like annoying voices that
you sometimes hear telling you to like, you know, making
unrealistic promises about your health and that your most ambitious
friends are into.
Speaker 8 (05:44):
That's the Holy Grail. Metric of longevity. Cardio respiratory fitness
outperforms every other variable we can measure. This includes blood pressure,
this includes cholesterol, this includes BMI smoking, It even includes age,
which just blows my mind.
Speaker 7 (06:02):
That's probably the way a lot of people perceive him.
He has been preaching his longevity philosophy for his podcast,
launched in twenty eighteen. He had a book out in
twenty twenty three, so like for.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
A while now, and a.
Speaker 7 (06:17):
Lot of what he talks about is basic preventative medicine,
you know, like eat healthy, exercise a lot, maintain emotional
connections with other people. And then he also likes to
really push off label use of certain pharmaceuticals and supplements.
So that's where he really gets into what he calls
evidence informed rather than evidence prove.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
That in my article evidence informed. But what kinds of things? Like,
what kinds of medications? What is this thing?
Speaker 7 (06:46):
So, for example, one medication is called wrapamycin. It is
FDA approved for cancer patients for people who have recently
received organ transplants. He says it's also an anti aging drug,
and so he used it for anti aging purposes until
it gave him some mouth sores.
Speaker 6 (07:03):
Suck.
Speaker 7 (07:04):
Yeah, never exactly. So he does a lot of stuff
like that.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
That is an informed yes experience, right.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
I think most people became aware of this guy when
if you weren't already listening to the podcast, which he
had a lot of listeners when Barry Weiss, the new
head of CBS News, named Himmens one of the new.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Contributors for CBS News.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
So he was right on the verge of being zoomed
into the living rooms of every boomer in America.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
It was like the new doctor Oz.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
Yeah, basically, yeah, exactly, the new Doctor Oz. And then
the Epstein Files came out.
Speaker 9 (07:40):
That's right.
Speaker 7 (07:40):
Yeah, it was like, I think within days of his
CBS announcement that the Epstein Files dropped, and pretty quickly people.
Speaker 9 (07:46):
Found his name in there.
Speaker 7 (07:48):
They found that For example, he had a part in
his book where he talked about a low point in
his life when he was in New York and his
wife calls him from California that there baby, their son,
had stopped breathing. And Atiya tells this story as an
example of him being a bad man. Instead of flying
(08:09):
back to California, he said, just call me and I'll
talk to the doctors in the ICU, And it took
him ten days.
Speaker 9 (08:14):
To go back pretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
People, that does make him sound like a bad man.
Speaker 7 (08:18):
Yeah, that would be some bad parenting, bad partnership, I
would say. But then adding the fact that it turned
out that it was during the people used the Epstein
files to figure out that during that time he was in.
Speaker 9 (08:28):
New York and having plans with Epstein.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
What came out in the files? What did he do?
Speaker 4 (08:32):
So?
Speaker 7 (08:33):
What we basically the story of him and his involvement
with Epstein that we uncovered is he met Epstein while
he was fundraising for a nonprofit that he was running,
and he meets Epstein in the hopes of fundraising, but
also because he's starting a concierge medical practice, and he
says to he does some blood work for Epstein and
(08:53):
then Epstein says, what do I owe you? And he says, actually, no,
you don't need to pay me. Instead of paying me,
I'm looking for either connections to people that can help
me with the fundraising or patient referrals because I'm starting
this boutique practice and I'm looking for wealthy people who
want to live longer, essentially, and that's the beginning of
their relationship.
Speaker 9 (09:12):
In June twenty fifteen.
Speaker 7 (09:14):
There's some favor trading or apparent favor trading. It's really
unclear if anything ever came of any of this, with
introductions and things like that, but eventually what you see
from reading all these files is that they became friends.
Like Epstein knew the name of the woman who he
was having an affair with and asked about it. So
what started as a transactional business type of relationship eventually
(09:36):
evolved into I don't know that Epstein was capable of
having friends, and I should say his people say that
this was not a friendship.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
We should say on top of that, on top of
that denial that also there's nothing in these files with Atia.
And this is true of a lot of the very
famous people who are in the Epstein files suggesting criminality
or that he was party to Epstein's abuse. And you
have this kind of interesting thing in the Epstein files
(10:06):
where there are these like very specific and very upsetting
things that actually do get to Epstein's abuse of teenage girls.
But then there's this additional layer of people, including Atia,
who sort of wanted something out of Epstein or wanted
to be in this world and were basically willing to
look the other way. This was years after Epstein's two
(10:29):
thousand and eight guilty plea for soliciting sex.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
From a minor.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
He was a known sex offender, and as you get
later in these files in twenty fifteen, in twenty sixteen,
twenty seventeen, there are lawsuits that were repeatedly bringing this up.
This wasn't like unknown to people.
Speaker 7 (10:46):
Yes, And so there's two things I will say in
terms of a teat. First of all, a tia one
of his trademarks. One of the things that he has
built his reputation on is his intensive research that he
does on everything. So when he's talking about evidence informed,
he really is informing himself. He really is reading every
study on this drug, and he can talk about it
at length. He talks about always having a guru for everything.
Speaker 9 (11:09):
He says he doesn't eat.
Speaker 7 (11:11):
Yeah, he's got a watch guru. He told Epstein about
his lipid gurus.
Speaker 9 (11:15):
He's very into finding.
Speaker 7 (11:18):
The smartest people on a topic and learning everything he can.
So how could he have not known anything about Epstein? Now,
the other piece of it is that even if you
take him at his word, he did not see anything
that indicated misconduct, et cetera. You go through those emails
and you can see that he knew at the very
(11:38):
least that Epstein was a creep, because he would say
things like I really want to help you live longer,
if for no other reason just to have more sex,
and then I really want to help you live longer,
just so you can at least keep up with the twenty.
Speaker 9 (11:49):
Three year olds.
Speaker 7 (11:50):
Like there were a number of things like that where
you're like, this guy is quite.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Like creep recognizes creep ye, I would actually, So one
takeaway that I've had from going through these files about
a tea specifically, but also then reading the news about
all the other people is and I'm curious, Max, what
you think of this theory.
Speaker 7 (12:10):
Is that I don't think that this was a vast conspiracy.
I actually think that it was a relatively small conspiracy
among well known, powerful creepy men who like it's the
same names over and over again that week. And it
doesn't mean there aren't going to be more that come out.
But I think you have this group of losers. I mean,
(12:30):
these guys only hung out at Epstein's house. They're in
New York City. Go to a restaurant, there's a million
places to go. You want to meet women, go to
a bar, go to a dance club.
Speaker 9 (12:40):
I don't know.
Speaker 7 (12:40):
I mean, not that we want these people in public places,
but the fact is that we see the same group
of people over and over again that just seem to
be incapable of functioning in normal society.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
I think you have to be careful because again, there
were crimes committed, there are victims, and so so it's
not the only takeaway is not that they the people
that we're talking about, were losers. But I do think
this is like a major cultural phenomenon. There are millions
of people doing this, and when you look at like
the content that's being pumped out on TikTok and on
(13:15):
social platforms, this is like a fixation. And beyond the
crimes of Epstein, the second takeaway is just what you
just said to you know, losers. It's like the people
that you thought of as the smartest, most responsible, richest,
just the people you wanted to get health advice from
and money advice from. And in the case of Rummeler,
whose White House counsel protect the presidency, all just acting
(13:38):
like school children. They can't spell. The men seem incapable
of meeting women. They're just losers, And I think that
is really damaging, and I think it's going to be
something that we as a society are going to be
living with for a really long time. Like there was
already so much kind of anger at even before the
(14:01):
release of these files, and now I think we've just
dropped a bomb in kind of like our relationship with
power that is going to take decades to resolve.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
I have a question for you, Dina that also relates
to Max's article, which is there is something interesting at
the center of this that are a lot of these
were sort of the most respected people that people listen to,
who are seen as like the most successful people in
our society, the most rewarded, hugely profitable positions, heads of
very influential people, heads of companies, losers, though they may
(14:35):
be a lot of power. Do you think there's a
difference between Atia and some of the other people who
came up in the Epstein files because of the wellness business,
which you've covered a lot, or is this all kind
of the same thing, like you can't trust.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Like Max was saying, the.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
People at the top of the at least the economic
food chain.
Speaker 7 (14:53):
So one thing that I think happens a lot in
the health and wellness space is that the basic vice
we've all heard a million times and we all know,
and so people that really want to you know, like
I said, eat, sleep, exercise, et cetera. So people that
really want to say capitalize on something or try to
(15:15):
make themselves stand out, they have to try to go.
Speaker 9 (15:17):
Outside of that.
Speaker 7 (15:19):
And so what Attiya did was he was like, I
am going to be extremely credible.
Speaker 9 (15:24):
I am going to be so well researched.
Speaker 7 (15:26):
I am going to have people on my podcast that
maybe you've never heard of, but they are the absolute experts.
Speaker 9 (15:32):
And now you get to hear the expert. And I'm
going to by.
Speaker 7 (15:35):
Being the person who pulls them all together, I am
also the expert because I am so credible. I care
so much about the science, and I'm in this space,
but I stand above.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
You can trust me.
Speaker 9 (15:44):
You can trust me exactly.
Speaker 7 (15:45):
So I think people are going to have to decide
whether he is really the credible person that he has
spent years building himself to be, or if he's maybe
more like the rest of that wellness space that has
so much squishiness in it.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
Dina Shaker, thanks for being here.
Speaker 7 (16:04):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
So Max.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
The markets, prices oil, it's all been on a pretty
wild ride, which is causing all kinds of worries all
over the country. People are worried about their budgets and
affording things, and also retirement. I think retirement's a big
issue on people's minds right now at this moment of
great flux.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
Yeah, both because of the job market being uncertain, as
we've been talking about for a long time, but also yeah,
anytime the market is gyrating the way it is, or
if you have the threat of sort of a long
term period of market uncertainty and the rice is going up,
you are a certain age, right that's going to have
an impact on your ability to retire.
Speaker 6 (16:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
And Business Week we have a bunch of stories out
right now about retirement, but we wanted to talk to
somebody who's in the news, looks at this stuff all
the time, who could give us some perspective. We're really
lucky to have Martha Gimble, executive director of the IL
Budget Lab with us.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Hi, Martha, Hello, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
So, Martha talk to us a little bit about when
we see this moment like we're having right now, with
some prices going up, a lot of volatility, a lot
of uncertainty, what does this mean for people's budgets?
Speaker 2 (17:22):
What does this mean for regular Americans?
Speaker 5 (17:25):
I think, in particular, there's a lot of stress about
the labor market, which is interesting because the labor market,
relatively speaking, is fine. And if you look at how
people say they are feeling about the labor market today,
it's about where you'd expect given the unemployment rate, which
(17:47):
is low. But if you ask them about how likely
they are to have a job in say, six months,
they are much more pessimistic about that then you would
expect them to be, given how low the unemployment rate is.
So there is something in the water, whatever it is,
that is causing people to think, Man, I'm okay right now,
(18:10):
but I think something might be coming where I'm going
to be in.
Speaker 10 (18:13):
A lot of trouble.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
Just stepping back on the question of sort of retirement,
like what is happening with savings right Like are people
saving enough money? Are you know we're you've sort of
transitioned in this country away from defined benefits to these
to four oh one. K's what's your assessment of the
retirement picture in the United States.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
So you just.
Speaker 5 (18:34):
Asked a question that has should have a really simple answer,
and I'm going to do the very economist thing and
say there's not a really simple answer to your question.
And so it partly depends on how you're thinking about it.
If you're just looking about like dollars in retirement accounts,
there's more than there used to be, right, But that
is the thing that people stress out about. One point
(18:55):
that researchers have made though, is that one of the
ways that we save for retirement in this country is
by paying into Social Security.
Speaker 10 (19:05):
And so there's a huge amount.
Speaker 5 (19:06):
Of debate among economists about how much you should quote
unquote count that, and different economists will give you different
responses on that. If you account for Social Security, people
are doing okay.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
One of the issues, though, you were talking about the
job market. People worried feeling like maybe in six months
they don't know if they're going to have a job,
maybe because of the economy, maybe because of worries about
robots taking our jobs or whatever.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
But people aren't worried about that. In the US. A
lot of our four to one.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Case, even our social security, it's all tied to our jobs.
So this does seem maybe especially problematic in the US
compared to other countries at a moment, like right now,
it does seem like it adds an extra layer of worry.
Speaker 5 (19:52):
Yeah, and it's not just retirement right, it's your healthcare.
We in general tie a lot of things to work
in country that other countries don't, and we don't have
a lot of supports for people if and when they
do lose their jobs. Our unemployment insurance system is not
very generous if I'm remembering correctly, which I may not be.
Speaker 10 (20:15):
But it's about this.
Speaker 5 (20:16):
The maximum weekly an insurance payment in Mississippi is something
like two hundred dollars a week.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
If you lose your job that you get two hundred
dollars a week to live maximum wow.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
And the more you make in your job, the more
you get.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
So if you are earning the top amount of money,
you get two hundred dollars a week. So in a
moment like this of great uncertainty, are Americans worse off?
Or do they have better reason to be worried than
in other developed, economically developed nations?
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Or is it the same?
Speaker 5 (20:49):
There's pros and cons here. On the one hand, if
you lose your job in the United States, you have
many fewer supports than you get in other countries. On
the other hand, the US economy even now is generally stronger,
doing better than many other countries. It tends to have
a much more resilient labor market. One thing we were
(21:12):
gesturing at the beginning of this conversation was energy shocks
and the way that can affect people's budgets but also
the broader economy. But the United States is actually more
resilient to energy shocks because we are such a big
producer of energy.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Shocks being like high gas prices.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
High gas prices, electricity prices.
Speaker 5 (21:30):
Disrupting the supply of energy, specifically oil coming out of
the Middle East tends to flow through to prices for people,
which has economic effects, but the US is much more
shielded from that because of our role is such a
big producer of energy.
Speaker 10 (21:45):
Then, for instance Europe and big.
Speaker 5 (21:47):
Energy shock is much more disruptive for economies in Europe
than it is in the United States. On net, I
would still rather be a worker in the United States,
but there are pros.
Speaker 10 (21:59):
And cons here.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
So for my entire adult life, people have been talking
about Social Security sort of running out of money and
the fact that if you're a young worker you should
count on a benefit cut. On the other hand, I
think one thing we've learned politically is that those benefit
cuts are going would be extremely difficult to do maybe
even impossible, so impossible. How do you balance sort of
(22:23):
economic reality with the political reality.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
So I can give you a very nerdy response to that,
which is, the Congressional Budget Office generally scores policies on
current law, right, so what is in the law. There's
something that they basically score on current policy, and that
is Social Security. This Congressional Budget Office, when they're doing
their scores, assumes that Congress is not going to cut
(22:47):
Social Security. Now that's because that's how they've been told
by Congress to score it. But that kind of gives
you an idea, right of even Congress is going, yeah,
we're not going to do that.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
So, Martha, you said that you would rather be if
things go sideways in the global economy, you'd rather be
in the US than in another developed country. Would you
rather retire in the US or in another developed country?
Speaker 5 (23:12):
Ooh, do I get to retire in another developed country
with my savings from the United States, because that's what
I'd like to do.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
I think rules here, Martha, I am rules here.
Speaker 5 (23:24):
I should point out there's probably what I'm asking this
is there's been a huge increase in people who earn
a lot of money in the United States and then
retire elsewhere.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
I feel irresponsible for not asking Martha or you Stacy
about Trump accounts. These are the new savings accounts and
the one big beautiful bill, and basically this is I guess,
I'm not sure it's somewhat tax advantaged. And the idea
is we're going to get rich people, starting with Michael Dell,
to put money aside to help people save. And I
(23:56):
think members of the Trump administration have some time said,
maybe quietly so people don't get too mad, that maybe
long run, this could be a way to supplement or
even replace Social Security or somehow deal with the Social
Security crunch that like Michael Dell and his ILK, other
rich guys who want Trump to be happy will kick
(24:18):
in to our collective retirement funds. What do you make
of this policy? Do we have any sense of how
impactful it could be.
Speaker 5 (24:26):
I think the real benefit of people of the Trump
accounts is that if you have a child after a
certain date, you get one thousand.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
Dollars from Michael Dell. I think no, no in a laptop,
Oh in the law, okay, And then Michael Dell would
be on top of that.
Speaker 5 (24:42):
So part of what Michael Dell, and then some other
philanthropists have started talking about is in the law. It's
for children who are born after a certain date.
Speaker 10 (24:50):
So if you have a child like.
Speaker 5 (24:53):
I do, who was born in twenty twenty four, I
can set up a Trump account for her, but she
doesn't get that nice thousand dollars to watch grow over the.
Speaker 10 (25:01):
Next coming decades.
Speaker 5 (25:03):
And so I'm going to step in and fill this gap.
Speaker 10 (25:07):
We have a lot of forms of tax advantage saving
in this country.
Speaker 5 (25:10):
Which is like a longer conversation about how efficient or
good those different policies are.
Speaker 10 (25:16):
But the Trump.
Speaker 5 (25:16):
Accounts don't provide like a new form of tax advantage
saving that likely makes a huge difference for families. The
big thing that makes a difference is the thousand dollars
right that then can grow for children over time.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
I think part of the policy argument is that you
are going to see that thousand dollars, You're going to
have the Trump account, and then you're going to be
You're gonna say, oh, let me put a little more in.
It's going to be a sort of almost like a
cultural thing to encourage further saving and maybe further stock
in equities investments.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Like seeding the tip jar exactly.
Speaker 10 (25:52):
Yeah, I mean, we'll see what happens there. Again, the.
Speaker 5 (25:59):
We have a lot of forms of tax advantage saving
in this country.
Speaker 10 (26:03):
We have five twenty nine.
Speaker 5 (26:04):
There's all sorts of things that you can do for
your kids, and so I don't think the issue is
so much that people don't have these opportunities.
Speaker 10 (26:14):
It's that saving is hard.
Speaker 5 (26:16):
And if you're going to choose between buying your kid
shoes today or putting that money away for the future,
you might buy the kid the shoes because the kid
needs shoes. So, for those who haven't guessed, I have
a toddler who one does not qualify for the thousand
dollars in Trump accounts.
Speaker 10 (26:31):
And two often needs shoes.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
So should people who have their money in a four
to oh one k who are maybe near retirement, Like,
how worried should they be right now at this moment?
Speaker 5 (26:42):
Well, it's very important when I'm answering that question to
know that I am someone who predicted a recession basically
every year between twenty eleven and nineteen.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
So you're just a cautious, cautiously minded person.
Speaker 5 (26:59):
Yes, the one year where I was like, there's no
way we're going into inter session.
Speaker 10 (27:02):
It's going to be great was twenty twenty.
Speaker 5 (27:05):
So I don't know that I'm the right person here.
Speaker 10 (27:11):
I do think that there are.
Speaker 5 (27:13):
A lot of risks in markets right now that aren't
getting fully priced in. It's been interesting to me talking
to friends of mine who watch energy markets more closely,
like why aren't energy markets responding more strongly to what's
happening in Iran?
Speaker 10 (27:30):
And They're like, we have no idea. It seems wild
to us.
Speaker 5 (27:33):
On the other day, if you have a four to
one K, it doesn't really matter what's happening in Iran,
right Like, You're in this for decades, hopefully, and so
I think the real thing if you have a four
to one K is to put money in there and try
really hard.
Speaker 10 (27:46):
Not to think about it.
Speaker 4 (27:47):
I was just going to ask you both what your
retirement philosophy is. I think we just we heard Martha's
just now, Stacy, what about you retire? I'm a poly
market right, Oh.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Yeah, I'm putting it all. I'm putting it all on
pollen market.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
I just I am very I'm maybe a little bit
like Martha. I'm like super cautious. I don't I'm like much.
I would much rather have my money in sort of
a safe, steady place than a place that's like a
high earning place. Like I was in the very low
risk four one K category when I started working.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
I chose the low risk one, which I know you're
not supposed to do. I don't like risk.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
I just don't. I know there's a big upside, but
I feel.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Like there's a big downside too. All right, Martha, thank
you so much for joining us.
Speaker 10 (28:34):
Thank you for having me, Stacy.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
It's time for our underrated stories. It is.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
I have a little preview because at the Bloomberg Mothership
we sit next to each other. And yeah, you were
not at your desk the other day. I wrote that
down on a little piece of paper where I keep
track of these things. Just kidding, you keep track of
my desk, attend. I know what you were doing. You
were going to I believe the opera.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yes, so the New York Philharmonic right now has a show.
It's technically not an opera. It's an oratorio, okay, but
it is all about Adam Smith's seminal economic work, The
Wealth of Nations.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
Wait oratorio is that like there's music playing and they talk.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
It's like, yeah, it's basically an orchestra, but they have singers.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
Okay, got it, it's an orchestra. Was saying.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
And the topic is the Adam Smith stage book, The
Guy who Invented Capitalism?
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Basically, yes, it was written and published in seventeen seventy six,
same year as the US declared independence.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
The birthday Adam Smith.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Yes, and so this is a whole work that basically
grapples with the free market economy, which I understand how
strange this sounds.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
I have like never felt so seen big fan of capitalism.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
Adam Smith seems like an important guy, But I cannot
say I'm super excited about this as a or a.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Even I was skeptical. I was like, is there demand
for this supply? You know, like do people want to
watch an opera about the glories of free trade?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
But it was actually extremely moving. Here is a clip.
Speaker 4 (30:23):
I'm like a little worried at this. This might not
be the time. I know it's a anniversary, but yeah, capitalism.
And we were talking about this earlier in the show,
like it's not a great time for capitalism that they
maybe should have, you know, waited a couple of years
before bringing out this oratorio.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Well, the composer David Lang actually takes a kind of
a critical look at the free market economy and it
brings in authors including Frederick Douglas and Edith Wharton kind
of in conversation with the US, and he has a
very very soulful take on the economy that it sort
of connects us all that the value the well the
ve nation comes not from the gold in its vaults,
(31:02):
but from our labor weirdiler alert.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Stay right now, see this. I don't want the ending
to be ruined.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Yeah, yeah, there's no twist. Double Door does not die
at the end of this. It was actually like really
beautiful and moving, mostly because the music is so beautiful
that even though the text, which he pretty much quotes verbatim,
is very stilted, the sort of moving music kind of
gets you through it.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
Okay, I'm into that my underrated story. Stacy, do you
remember cast your mind back to twenty twenty one? Speaking
of sort of okay, lasting art forms like opera, You
remember the metaverse.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
I went to the metaverse. I've visited the metaverse.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
It was very complicated to get in, but it was
also a very weird place.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
So back then.
Speaker 4 (31:52):
Back in twenty twenty one, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook,
announced with great fanfare that he was renaming his company
Facebook to Meta in honor of this idea, the Metaverse.
He said, we were all going to be sort of
living with these digital avatars. And strangely when it announced
(32:12):
when when this first happened, the avatars had no legs,
and everyone was like, really, think.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Do you remember that?
Speaker 8 (32:18):
Weird?
Speaker 3 (32:19):
And then there was this big this moment.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
I'll just play you a little clip where Zuckerberg announced
that they had legs.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
This was one more feature coming soon.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
That's probably the most requested feature on our roadmap, legs.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Also, this is we're we're watching a video of like
animated Mark Zuckerberg.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Is that is he talking to his wife?
Speaker 4 (32:42):
No, it's it's like an engineer, but it's animated Mark Zuckerberg,
with great fanfare in uh, let's see, I believe that
was like twenty twenty two October twenty twenty two, talking
about how they had just brought legs to the Metaverse. Saycey,
you are not going to believe how much they spent
on this on legs.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Tragically, the Metaverse did not have like this was.
Speaker 4 (33:02):
The central product of Meta's pivot. Horizon Worlds, the the
division that Horizon Worlds was in, has lost to date
almost eighty billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
They that's like a GDP.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
Yes, it's like a small countries GDP has been uh
has has been lost developing this technology?
Speaker 2 (33:23):
There was the Metaverse was a country of sorts.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
It was there were management consultancies, really really smart people,
not just Mark Zuckerberg, who were absolutely one hundred percent
sure this was going to be a huge thing. Mckensey
had a report saying this was going to be a
five trillion dollar industry. I remember sitting and watching one
of these demos where a censure another consulting company said
with great fanfare that they were in the Metaverse and
(33:48):
they had what was called the nth floor NT floor
where assentire consultants were going to be able to get.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Like un a virtual building inside of the metaverseh you
know how.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
We sometimes go to the sixth floor of the bloombergerg
houilding the coffee. You were going to go to the
nth floor with your legs that Mark Zuckerberg had created,
my real legs, and well they're not real. They just
look sort of they just like like anyway, This is
all probably allude to say that the Metaverse Horizon Worlds
is no more. Facebook is cutting its support for the
(34:17):
virtual reality version of this product, which was the main version,
and a lot of people are having a lot of
fun because although Mark Zuckerberg and McKenzie and a Center
all thought this was obviously a good idea, many normal
people were skeptical from the beginning.
Speaker 9 (34:31):
Let me ask you though.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
I mean the Metaverse it hung on right, like because
I went there when it was kind of dead. I
read this really funny story about this reporter was running
around the Metaverse and there were like went to the
like there were supports to be all these sort of
flirty spaces where you could kind of meet hot avatars,
and they were all empty, right except for some droids.
(34:55):
And I ran around some art museums. It was like
very weird wasteland. And then there were like little avatars
walking in circles because I guess they were bots.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
But it hung on who was there? Like how did
it even hang on? This momentum there.
Speaker 4 (35:10):
Is so first of all, and and people who are
really into the metaverse they still exist.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Cearently there aren't very well, but they.
Speaker 4 (35:16):
Will say is that. Actually the metaverse is still very popular.
Roadblocks is a sort of metaverse. That's a game. Minecraft
is a sort of metaverse. Even Second Life. I haven't
checked recently, but.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
Second Life no, no, but it was hanged it is
it had.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
Hung around as of a couple years ago. Did they
finally kill it?
Speaker 5 (35:36):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (35:36):
Rip to Second Life as well. Basically there are versions
of this. I think the thing where Facebook went wrong
was the idea that you would want to do this
at work. What you really wanted was to see all
the people that you work with, not in their physical
sense but as a weird avatar, and that you were
(35:58):
going to somehow like do work that way. I think
the only thing people want to do with this stuff
is like basically play games or you know, I hate
to say this, but have sex probably as well.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
If you have.
Speaker 4 (36:08):
Thoughts on the medverse, or if you're hanging on like
Stacy in Horizon World just hoping someone will come say
hi to you, say yes, everybody's at Bloomberg dot net.
That's everybody's with an asset Bloomberg dot net.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
All right, and.
Speaker 4 (36:20):
Stacy, before we go, fact check coming in my ear
right now from Magnus, our producer, Second Life still exists.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
I can't believe it. Well, like you.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Said, people want to be in virtual I.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Think we need to open up. We need to open
up in everybody's business office on the end floor in
Second Life. The show is produced by Jasmine, JT. Green
and Stacy Wong.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Magnus Hendrickson is our supervising producer. Sam Roganic handles engineering
and Dave for self fact checks. Special thanks to Jeff Muscus,
Julia Rubin and Maria Lane. If you haven't can it,
please rate and review the show. It means a lot
to us. And if you have a story that should
be our business or if you have a business in
Second Life, email us at Everybody's at Bloomberg dot net.
(37:10):
That's Everybody's with an us at Bloomberg dot net.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Thank you for listening. We'll see you next week.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
This is Everybody's Business from Bloomberg BusinessWeek. I'm Stacey Fanick Smith.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
And I'm Max Chafkin.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Max.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
The war in Iran is front and center again this
week and especially in these last few days. The economic
and structural impacts continue to evolve. Oil has jumped as
high as one hundred and twenty dollars a barrel. It's
down a little bit now. But also global inflation is
on the rise. There are supply chain choke points, including
(00:37):
for products like fertilizer and plastics, and all of it
just seems to continue to spread.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
Yeah, and air travel has been completely disrupted worldwide, and
not just worldwide, but here in the US. The partial
government shutdown is kind of adding to the uncertainty and
this sense of chaos. In fact, our producer, Jasmine JT.
Green took a short trip to our local airport, John F.
Kennedy International, to see what was happening there.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
It is Howard JFK Airport. They will go to the
air train JFA Airport.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
We're here at JFK. What brings you here today?
Speaker 5 (01:15):
We're doing Southeast Asia, so Thailand, Cambodia.
Speaker 6 (01:18):
Bringing my mom waiting in the line of TSA. She's
going to Louisiana, but then she's going to Miami.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Have you been hearing about the current like wait times here.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Yeah, I'm a little worried about the whole we might
start shutting down airports thing, which I saw a headline
about yesterday.
Speaker 6 (01:32):
I knew before I even had an app that told
me like how much time you need to wait in
each terminal. So we have been here like ten minutes,
and I think we're doing good.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Even following at all like the news regarding like the
Department Homeland Security and relationship to these long lines.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
We're hoping the PreCheck is going to do us good today,
but I don't know. Time will tell.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
I got nervous when they almost canceled PreCheck recently, but
fortunately we've still got it for now.
Speaker 6 (01:55):
We saw that in Louisiana you have to be five
hours before, so that's why today we came three hours
before her flight, so we will.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Be on time.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
I feel like they just add an hour every time
there's a crisis, Like I remember when you only had
to be the airport like an hour early, and now
it's five hours.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
No, I mean it is it is wild and you know,
a lot of this, like you said, Max, has to
do with the partial government shutdown, So TSA agents like
by and large are not getting paid right now.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
This has a lot of people calling.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
In six so there are very few agents and in
certain places the lines are just Yeah, it's kind of
a mess.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
And you know, beyond just air travel and beyond the
chaos in the Middle East, Stacey, I think we're really
living through a time where some of the systems that
we thought we could trust are just proving a little
bit more brittle, a little less trustworthy than we had
first assumed.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
We're seeing a lot of weaknesses start to get exposed.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
And that gets us to retirement.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
You wrote a story about workers who are dealing with
retirement by just not retiring.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
A lot of people keep working for sometimes financial reasons,
sometimes not.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
That is either kind of heartwarming, you're like wow, like this,
you know, that's so cool, or maybe a sign of
you know, a lack of economic security.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yeah, there's just a lot of stress I think being
put on all these different parts of the economy, and
we're feeling the impact in kind of surprising ways.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
Which is the perfect transition to our other topic, the
Epstein class, which is another area.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yes, I mean that's true, and well we'll.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Talk all about this with Dina Shanker later in the show.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
But it's another area where you know, again, some of
the parts of our of our society that felt most solid,
the most respectable, most trustworthy people, somehow seem a little
bit less trustworthy.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yes, exactly, I mean these power structures, be they economic
or societal, like the financial exactly. And Max, you've got
a story out now about the Epstein files and a
little bit about how they are exposing these systems as well,
in the same way that maybe right now the conflict
in Iran is exposing some of our economic weaknesses.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
All that's ahead, but we got to get through security. Stacy.
Let's let's get.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Five hours betimes like my personal nightmare.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
It's going to be a long podcast, settle In. Stacy.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
It's been some weeks since the big DOJ Epstein files release.
But because these documents are so big and so long,
and there's so much in them and have come out
gradually and so many powerful people upsetting.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
It is really upsetting.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
I have to say that there are every time I
think that I cannot be horrified anymore that I've jaded
on this front. As it turns out, there is another
level of horror that emerges.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
I just published piece in BusinessWeek about this brand, and
we we have a second piece also in Business Week
same month that the two pieces are kind of in
conversation with one another. This one is written by Dina Shanker,
who is a friend of the podcast Bloomberg Reporter.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
She is here now, hey, Dina, Hey.
Speaker 7 (05:13):
And also I just want to say with Courtney Rubin,
another writer, that we worked on this together, so it's
definitely a team effort.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
But your piece is about Peter Attilla, who is a
sort of podcaster celebrity doctor wellness guru.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
I had thought of him sort.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
Of as like one of these like annoying voices that
you sometimes hear telling you to like, you know, making
unrealistic promises about your health and that your most ambitious
friends are into.
Speaker 8 (05:44):
That's the Holy Grail. Metric of longevity. Cardio respiratory fitness
outperforms every other variable we can measure. This includes blood pressure,
this includes cholesterol, this includes BMI smoking, It even includes age,
which just blows my mind.
Speaker 7 (06:02):
That's probably the way a lot of people perceive him.
He has been preaching his longevity philosophy for his podcast,
launched in twenty eighteen. He had a book out in
twenty twenty three, so like for.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
A while now, and a.
Speaker 7 (06:17):
Lot of what he talks about is basic preventative medicine,
you know, like eat healthy, exercise a lot, maintain emotional
connections with other people. And then he also likes to
really push off label use of certain pharmaceuticals and supplements.
So that's where he really gets into what he calls
evidence informed rather than evidence prove.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
That in my article evidence informed. But what kinds of things? Like,
what kinds of medications? What is this thing?
Speaker 7 (06:46):
So, for example, one medication is called wrapamycin. It is
FDA approved for cancer patients for people who have recently
received organ transplants. He says it's also an anti aging drug,
and so he used it for anti aging purposes until
it gave him some mouth sores.
Speaker 6 (07:03):
Suck.
Speaker 7 (07:04):
Yeah, never exactly. So he does a lot of stuff
like that.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
That is an informed yes experience, right.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
I think most people became aware of this guy when
if you weren't already listening to the podcast, which he
had a lot of listeners when Barry Weiss, the new
head of CBS News, named Himmens one of the new.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Contributors for CBS News.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
So he was right on the verge of being zoomed
into the living rooms of every boomer in America.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
It was like the new doctor Oz.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
Yeah, basically, yeah, exactly, the new Doctor Oz. And then
the Epstein Files came out.
Speaker 9 (07:40):
That's right.
Speaker 7 (07:40):
Yeah, it was like, I think within days of his
CBS announcement that the Epstein Files dropped, and pretty quickly people.
Speaker 9 (07:46):
Found his name in there.
Speaker 7 (07:48):
They found that For example, he had a part in
his book where he talked about a low point in
his life when he was in New York and his
wife calls him from California that there baby, their son,
had stopped breathing. And Atiya tells this story as an
example of him being a bad man. Instead of flying
(08:09):
back to California, he said, just call me and I'll
talk to the doctors in the ICU, And it took
him ten days.
Speaker 9 (08:14):
To go back pretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
People, that does make him sound like a bad man.
Speaker 7 (08:18):
Yeah, that would be some bad parenting, bad partnership, I
would say. But then adding the fact that it turned
out that it was during the people used the Epstein
files to figure out that during that time he was in.
Speaker 9 (08:28):
New York and having plans with Epstein.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
What came out in the files? What did he do?
Speaker 4 (08:32):
So?
Speaker 7 (08:33):
What we basically the story of him and his involvement
with Epstein that we uncovered is he met Epstein while
he was fundraising for a nonprofit that he was running,
and he meets Epstein in the hopes of fundraising, but
also because he's starting a concierge medical practice, and he
says to he does some blood work for Epstein and
(08:53):
then Epstein says, what do I owe you? And he says, actually, no,
you don't need to pay me. Instead of paying me,
I'm looking for either connections to people that can help
me with the fundraising or patient referrals because I'm starting
this boutique practice and I'm looking for wealthy people who
want to live longer, essentially, and that's the beginning of
their relationship.
Speaker 9 (09:12):
In June twenty fifteen.
Speaker 7 (09:14):
There's some favor trading or apparent favor trading. It's really
unclear if anything ever came of any of this, with
introductions and things like that, but eventually what you see
from reading all these files is that they became friends.
Like Epstein knew the name of the woman who he
was having an affair with and asked about it. So
what started as a transactional business type of relationship eventually
(09:36):
evolved into I don't know that Epstein was capable of
having friends, and I should say his people say that
this was not a friendship.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
We should say on top of that, on top of
that denial that also there's nothing in these files with Atia.
And this is true of a lot of the very
famous people who are in the Epstein files suggesting criminality
or that he was party to Epstein's abuse. And you
have this kind of interesting thing in the Epstein files
(10:06):
where there are these like very specific and very upsetting
things that actually do get to Epstein's abuse of teenage girls.
But then there's this additional layer of people, including Atia,
who sort of wanted something out of Epstein or wanted
to be in this world and were basically willing to
look the other way. This was years after Epstein's two
(10:29):
thousand and eight guilty plea for soliciting sex.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
From a minor.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
He was a known sex offender, and as you get
later in these files in twenty fifteen, in twenty sixteen,
twenty seventeen, there are lawsuits that were repeatedly bringing this up.
This wasn't like unknown to people.
Speaker 7 (10:46):
Yes, And so there's two things I will say in
terms of a teat. First of all, a tia one
of his trademarks. One of the things that he has
built his reputation on is his intensive research that he
does on everything. So when he's talking about evidence informed,
he really is informing himself. He really is reading every
study on this drug, and he can talk about it
at length. He talks about always having a guru for everything.
Speaker 9 (11:09):
He says he doesn't eat.
Speaker 7 (11:11):
Yeah, he's got a watch guru. He told Epstein about
his lipid gurus.
Speaker 9 (11:15):
He's very into finding.
Speaker 7 (11:18):
The smartest people on a topic and learning everything he can.
So how could he have not known anything about Epstein? Now,
the other piece of it is that even if you
take him at his word, he did not see anything
that indicated misconduct, et cetera. You go through those emails
and you can see that he knew at the very
(11:38):
least that Epstein was a creep, because he would say
things like I really want to help you live longer,
if for no other reason just to have more sex,
and then I really want to help you live longer,
just so you can at least keep up with the twenty.
Speaker 9 (11:49):
Three year olds.
Speaker 7 (11:50):
Like there were a number of things like that where
you're like, this guy is quite.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Like creep recognizes creep ye, I would actually, So one
takeaway that I've had from going through these files about
a tea specifically, but also then reading the news about
all the other people is and I'm curious, Max, what
you think of this theory.
Speaker 7 (12:10):
Is that I don't think that this was a vast conspiracy.
I actually think that it was a relatively small conspiracy
among well known, powerful creepy men who like it's the
same names over and over again that week. And it
doesn't mean there aren't going to be more that come out.
But I think you have this group of losers. I mean,
(12:30):
these guys only hung out at Epstein's house. They're in
New York City. Go to a restaurant, there's a million
places to go. You want to meet women, go to
a bar, go to a dance club.
Speaker 9 (12:40):
I don't know.
Speaker 7 (12:40):
I mean, not that we want these people in public places,
but the fact is that we see the same group
of people over and over again that just seem to
be incapable of functioning in normal society.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
I think you have to be careful because again, there
were crimes committed, there are victims, and so so it's
not the only takeaway is not that they the people
that we're talking about, were losers. But I do think
this is like a major cultural phenomenon. There are millions
of people doing this, and when you look at like
the content that's being pumped out on TikTok and on
(13:15):
social platforms, this is like a fixation. And beyond the
crimes of Epstein, the second takeaway is just what you
just said to you know, losers. It's like the people
that you thought of as the smartest, most responsible, richest,
just the people you wanted to get health advice from
and money advice from. And in the case of Rummeler,
whose White House counsel protect the presidency, all just acting
(13:38):
like school children. They can't spell. The men seem incapable
of meeting women. They're just losers, And I think that
is really damaging, and I think it's going to be
something that we as a society are going to be
living with for a really long time. Like there was
already so much kind of anger at even before the
(14:01):
release of these files, and now I think we've just
dropped a bomb in kind of like our relationship with
power that is going to take decades to resolve.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
I have a question for you, Dina that also relates
to Max's article, which is there is something interesting at
the center of this that are a lot of these
were sort of the most respected people that people listen to,
who are seen as like the most successful people in
our society, the most rewarded, hugely profitable positions, heads of
very influential people, heads of companies, losers, though they may
(14:35):
be a lot of power. Do you think there's a
difference between Atia and some of the other people who
came up in the Epstein files because of the wellness business,
which you've covered a lot, or is this all kind
of the same thing, like you can't trust.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Like Max was saying, the.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
People at the top of the at least the economic
food chain.
Speaker 7 (14:53):
So one thing that I think happens a lot in
the health and wellness space is that the basic vice
we've all heard a million times and we all know,
and so people that really want to you know, like
I said, eat, sleep, exercise, et cetera. So people that
really want to say capitalize on something or try to
(15:15):
make themselves stand out, they have to try to go.
Speaker 9 (15:17):
Outside of that.
Speaker 7 (15:19):
And so what Attiya did was he was like, I
am going to be extremely credible.
Speaker 9 (15:24):
I am going to be so well researched.
Speaker 7 (15:26):
I am going to have people on my podcast that
maybe you've never heard of, but they are the absolute experts.
Speaker 9 (15:32):
And now you get to hear the expert. And I'm
going to by.
Speaker 7 (15:35):
Being the person who pulls them all together, I am
also the expert because I am so credible. I care
so much about the science, and I'm in this space,
but I stand above.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
You can trust me.
Speaker 9 (15:44):
You can trust me exactly.
Speaker 7 (15:45):
So I think people are going to have to decide
whether he is really the credible person that he has
spent years building himself to be, or if he's maybe
more like the rest of that wellness space that has
so much squishiness in it.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
Dina Shaker, thanks for being here.
Speaker 7 (16:04):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
So Max.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
The markets, prices oil, it's all been on a pretty
wild ride, which is causing all kinds of worries all
over the country. People are worried about their budgets and
affording things, and also retirement. I think retirement's a big
issue on people's minds right now at this moment of
great flux.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
Yeah, both because of the job market being uncertain, as
we've been talking about for a long time, but also yeah,
anytime the market is gyrating the way it is, or
if you have the threat of sort of a long
term period of market uncertainty and the rice is going up,
you are a certain age, right that's going to have
an impact on your ability to retire.
Speaker 6 (16:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
And Business Week we have a bunch of stories out
right now about retirement, but we wanted to talk to
somebody who's in the news, looks at this stuff all
the time, who could give us some perspective. We're really
lucky to have Martha Gimble, executive director of the IL
Budget Lab with us.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Hi, Martha, Hello, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
So, Martha talk to us a little bit about when
we see this moment like we're having right now, with
some prices going up, a lot of volatility, a lot
of uncertainty, what does this mean for people's budgets?
Speaker 2 (17:22):
What does this mean for regular Americans?
Speaker 5 (17:25):
I think, in particular, there's a lot of stress about
the labor market, which is interesting because the labor market,
relatively speaking, is fine. And if you look at how
people say they are feeling about the labor market today,
it's about where you'd expect given the unemployment rate, which
(17:47):
is low. But if you ask them about how likely
they are to have a job in say, six months,
they are much more pessimistic about that then you would
expect them to be, given how low the unemployment rate is.
So there is something in the water, whatever it is,
that is causing people to think, Man, I'm okay right now,
(18:10):
but I think something might be coming where I'm going
to be in.
Speaker 10 (18:13):
A lot of trouble.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
Just stepping back on the question of sort of retirement,
like what is happening with savings right Like are people
saving enough money? Are you know we're you've sort of
transitioned in this country away from defined benefits to these
to four oh one. K's what's your assessment of the
retirement picture in the United States.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
So you just.
Speaker 5 (18:34):
Asked a question that has should have a really simple answer,
and I'm going to do the very economist thing and
say there's not a really simple answer to your question.
And so it partly depends on how you're thinking about it.
If you're just looking about like dollars in retirement accounts,
there's more than there used to be, right, But that
is the thing that people stress out about. One point
(18:55):
that researchers have made though, is that one of the
ways that we save for retirement in this country is
by paying into Social Security.
Speaker 10 (19:05):
And so there's a huge amount.
Speaker 5 (19:06):
Of debate among economists about how much you should quote
unquote count that, and different economists will give you different
responses on that. If you account for Social Security, people
are doing okay.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
One of the issues, though, you were talking about the
job market. People worried feeling like maybe in six months
they don't know if they're going to have a job,
maybe because of the economy, maybe because of worries about
robots taking our jobs or whatever.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
But people aren't worried about that. In the US. A
lot of our four to one.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Case, even our social security, it's all tied to our jobs.
So this does seem maybe especially problematic in the US
compared to other countries at a moment, like right now,
it does seem like it adds an extra layer of worry.
Speaker 5 (19:52):
Yeah, and it's not just retirement right, it's your healthcare.
We in general tie a lot of things to work
in country that other countries don't, and we don't have
a lot of supports for people if and when they
do lose their jobs. Our unemployment insurance system is not
very generous if I'm remembering correctly, which I may not be.
Speaker 10 (20:15):
But it's about this.
Speaker 5 (20:16):
The maximum weekly an insurance payment in Mississippi is something
like two hundred dollars a week.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
If you lose your job that you get two hundred
dollars a week to live maximum wow.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
And the more you make in your job, the more
you get.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
So if you are earning the top amount of money,
you get two hundred dollars a week. So in a
moment like this of great uncertainty, are Americans worse off?
Or do they have better reason to be worried than
in other developed, economically developed nations?
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Or is it the same?
Speaker 5 (20:49):
There's pros and cons here. On the one hand, if
you lose your job in the United States, you have
many fewer supports than you get in other countries. On
the other hand, the US economy even now is generally stronger,
doing better than many other countries. It tends to have
a much more resilient labor market. One thing we were
(21:12):
gesturing at the beginning of this conversation was energy shocks
and the way that can affect people's budgets but also
the broader economy. But the United States is actually more
resilient to energy shocks because we are such a big
producer of energy.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Shocks being like high gas prices.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
High gas prices, electricity prices.
Speaker 5 (21:30):
Disrupting the supply of energy, specifically oil coming out of
the Middle East tends to flow through to prices for people,
which has economic effects, but the US is much more
shielded from that because of our role is such a
big producer of energy.
Speaker 10 (21:45):
Then, for instance Europe and big.
Speaker 5 (21:47):
Energy shock is much more disruptive for economies in Europe
than it is in the United States. On net, I
would still rather be a worker in the United States,
but there are pros.
Speaker 10 (21:59):
And cons here.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
So for my entire adult life, people have been talking
about Social Security sort of running out of money and
the fact that if you're a young worker you should
count on a benefit cut. On the other hand, I
think one thing we've learned politically is that those benefit
cuts are going would be extremely difficult to do maybe
even impossible, so impossible. How do you balance sort of
(22:23):
economic reality with the political reality.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
So I can give you a very nerdy response to that,
which is, the Congressional Budget Office generally scores policies on
current law, right, so what is in the law. There's
something that they basically score on current policy, and that
is Social Security. This Congressional Budget Office, when they're doing
their scores, assumes that Congress is not going to cut
(22:47):
Social Security. Now that's because that's how they've been told
by Congress to score it. But that kind of gives
you an idea, right of even Congress is going, yeah,
we're not going to do that.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
So, Martha, you said that you would rather be if
things go sideways in the global economy, you'd rather be
in the US than in another developed country. Would you
rather retire in the US or in another developed country?
Speaker 5 (23:12):
Ooh, do I get to retire in another developed country
with my savings from the United States, because that's what
I'd like to do.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
I think rules here, Martha, I am rules here.
Speaker 5 (23:24):
I should point out there's probably what I'm asking this
is there's been a huge increase in people who earn
a lot of money in the United States and then
retire elsewhere.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
I feel irresponsible for not asking Martha or you Stacy
about Trump accounts. These are the new savings accounts and
the one big beautiful bill, and basically this is I guess,
I'm not sure it's somewhat tax advantaged. And the idea
is we're going to get rich people, starting with Michael Dell,
to put money aside to help people save. And I
(23:56):
think members of the Trump administration have some time said,
maybe quietly so people don't get too mad, that maybe
long run, this could be a way to supplement or
even replace Social Security or somehow deal with the Social
Security crunch that like Michael Dell and his ILK, other
rich guys who want Trump to be happy will kick
(24:18):
in to our collective retirement funds. What do you make
of this policy? Do we have any sense of how
impactful it could be.
Speaker 5 (24:26):
I think the real benefit of people of the Trump
accounts is that if you have a child after a
certain date, you get one thousand.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
Dollars from Michael Dell. I think no, no in a laptop,
Oh in the law, okay, And then Michael Dell would
be on top of that.
Speaker 5 (24:42):
So part of what Michael Dell, and then some other
philanthropists have started talking about is in the law. It's
for children who are born after a certain date.
Speaker 10 (24:50):
So if you have a child like.
Speaker 5 (24:53):
I do, who was born in twenty twenty four, I
can set up a Trump account for her, but she
doesn't get that nice thousand dollars to watch grow over the.
Speaker 10 (25:01):
Next coming decades.
Speaker 5 (25:03):
And so I'm going to step in and fill this gap.
Speaker 10 (25:07):
We have a lot of forms of tax advantage saving
in this country.
Speaker 5 (25:10):
Which is like a longer conversation about how efficient or
good those different policies are.
Speaker 10 (25:16):
But the Trump.
Speaker 5 (25:16):
Accounts don't provide like a new form of tax advantage
saving that likely makes a huge difference for families. The
big thing that makes a difference is the thousand dollars
right that then can grow for children over time.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
I think part of the policy argument is that you
are going to see that thousand dollars, You're going to
have the Trump account, and then you're going to be
You're gonna say, oh, let me put a little more in.
It's going to be a sort of almost like a
cultural thing to encourage further saving and maybe further stock
in equities investments.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Like seeding the tip jar exactly.
Speaker 10 (25:52):
Yeah, I mean, we'll see what happens there. Again, the.
Speaker 5 (25:59):
We have a lot of forms of tax advantage saving
in this country.
Speaker 10 (26:03):
We have five twenty nine.
Speaker 5 (26:04):
There's all sorts of things that you can do for
your kids, and so I don't think the issue is
so much that people don't have these opportunities.
Speaker 10 (26:14):
It's that saving is hard.
Speaker 5 (26:16):
And if you're going to choose between buying your kid
shoes today or putting that money away for the future,
you might buy the kid the shoes because the kid
needs shoes. So, for those who haven't guessed, I have
a toddler who one does not qualify for the thousand
dollars in Trump accounts.
Speaker 10 (26:31):
And two often needs shoes.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
So should people who have their money in a four
to oh one k who are maybe near retirement, Like,
how worried should they be right now at this moment?
Speaker 5 (26:42):
Well, it's very important when I'm answering that question to
know that I am someone who predicted a recession basically
every year between twenty eleven and nineteen.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
So you're just a cautious, cautiously minded person.
Speaker 5 (26:59):
Yes, the one year where I was like, there's no
way we're going into inter session.
Speaker 10 (27:02):
It's going to be great was twenty twenty.
Speaker 5 (27:05):
So I don't know that I'm the right person here.
Speaker 10 (27:11):
I do think that there are.
Speaker 5 (27:13):
A lot of risks in markets right now that aren't
getting fully priced in. It's been interesting to me talking
to friends of mine who watch energy markets more closely,
like why aren't energy markets responding more strongly to what's
happening in Iran?
Speaker 10 (27:30):
And They're like, we have no idea. It seems wild
to us.
Speaker 5 (27:33):
On the other day, if you have a four to
one K, it doesn't really matter what's happening in Iran,
right Like, You're in this for decades, hopefully, and so
I think the real thing if you have a four
to one K is to put money in there and try
really hard.
Speaker 10 (27:46):
Not to think about it.
Speaker 4 (27:47):
I was just going to ask you both what your
retirement philosophy is. I think we just we heard Martha's
just now, Stacy, what about you retire? I'm a poly
market right, Oh.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Yeah, I'm putting it all. I'm putting it all on
pollen market.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
I just I am very I'm maybe a little bit
like Martha. I'm like super cautious. I don't I'm like much.
I would much rather have my money in sort of
a safe, steady place than a place that's like a
high earning place. Like I was in the very low
risk four one K category when I started working.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
I chose the low risk one, which I know you're
not supposed to do. I don't like risk.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
I just don't. I know there's a big upside, but
I feel.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Like there's a big downside too. All right, Martha, thank
you so much for joining us.
Speaker 10 (28:34):
Thank you for having me, Stacy.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
It's time for our underrated stories. It is.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
I have a little preview because at the Bloomberg Mothership
we sit next to each other. And yeah, you were
not at your desk the other day. I wrote that
down on a little piece of paper where I keep
track of these things. Just kidding, you keep track of
my desk, attend. I know what you were doing. You
were going to I believe the opera.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yes, so the New York Philharmonic right now has a show.
It's technically not an opera. It's an oratorio, okay, but
it is all about Adam Smith's seminal economic work, The
Wealth of Nations.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
Wait oratorio is that like there's music playing and they talk.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
It's like, yeah, it's basically an orchestra, but they have singers.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
Okay, got it, it's an orchestra. Was saying.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
And the topic is the Adam Smith stage book, The
Guy who Invented Capitalism?
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Basically, yes, it was written and published in seventeen seventy six,
same year as the US declared independence.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
The birthday Adam Smith.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Yes, and so this is a whole work that basically
grapples with the free market economy, which I understand how
strange this sounds.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
I have like never felt so seen big fan of capitalism.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
Adam Smith seems like an important guy, But I cannot
say I'm super excited about this as a or a.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Even I was skeptical. I was like, is there demand
for this supply? You know, like do people want to
watch an opera about the glories of free trade?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
But it was actually extremely moving. Here is a clip.
Speaker 4 (30:23):
I'm like a little worried at this. This might not
be the time. I know it's a anniversary, but yeah, capitalism.
And we were talking about this earlier in the show,
like it's not a great time for capitalism that they
maybe should have, you know, waited a couple of years
before bringing out this oratorio.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Well, the composer David Lang actually takes a kind of
a critical look at the free market economy and it
brings in authors including Frederick Douglas and Edith Wharton kind
of in conversation with the US, and he has a
very very soulful take on the economy that it sort
of connects us all that the value the well the
ve nation comes not from the gold in its vaults,
(31:02):
but from our labor weirdiler alert.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Stay right now, see this. I don't want the ending
to be ruined.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Yeah, yeah, there's no twist. Double Door does not die
at the end of this. It was actually like really
beautiful and moving, mostly because the music is so beautiful
that even though the text, which he pretty much quotes verbatim,
is very stilted, the sort of moving music kind of
gets you through it.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
Okay, I'm into that my underrated story. Stacy, do you
remember cast your mind back to twenty twenty one? Speaking
of sort of okay, lasting art forms like opera, You
remember the metaverse.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
I went to the metaverse. I've visited the metaverse.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
It was very complicated to get in, but it was
also a very weird place.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
So back then.
Speaker 4 (31:52):
Back in twenty twenty one, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook,
announced with great fanfare that he was renaming his company
Facebook to Meta in honor of this idea, the Metaverse.
He said, we were all going to be sort of
living with these digital avatars. And strangely when it announced
(32:12):
when when this first happened, the avatars had no legs,
and everyone was like, really, think.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Do you remember that?
Speaker 8 (32:18):
Weird?
Speaker 3 (32:19):
And then there was this big this moment.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
I'll just play you a little clip where Zuckerberg announced
that they had legs.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
This was one more feature coming soon.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
That's probably the most requested feature on our roadmap, legs.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Also, this is we're we're watching a video of like
animated Mark Zuckerberg.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Is that is he talking to his wife?
Speaker 4 (32:42):
No, it's it's like an engineer, but it's animated Mark Zuckerberg,
with great fanfare in uh, let's see, I believe that
was like twenty twenty two October twenty twenty two, talking
about how they had just brought legs to the Metaverse. Saycey,
you are not going to believe how much they spent
on this on legs.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Tragically, the Metaverse did not have like this was.
Speaker 4 (33:02):
The central product of Meta's pivot. Horizon Worlds, the the
division that Horizon Worlds was in, has lost to date
almost eighty billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
They that's like a GDP.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
Yes, it's like a small countries GDP has been uh
has has been lost developing this technology?
Speaker 2 (33:23):
There was the Metaverse was a country of sorts.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
It was there were management consultancies, really really smart people,
not just Mark Zuckerberg, who were absolutely one hundred percent
sure this was going to be a huge thing. Mckensey
had a report saying this was going to be a
five trillion dollar industry. I remember sitting and watching one
of these demos where a censure another consulting company said
with great fanfare that they were in the Metaverse and
(33:48):
they had what was called the nth floor NT floor
where assentire consultants were going to be able to get.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Like un a virtual building inside of the metaverseh you
know how.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
We sometimes go to the sixth floor of the bloombergerg
houilding the coffee. You were going to go to the
nth floor with your legs that Mark Zuckerberg had created,
my real legs, and well they're not real. They just
look sort of they just like like anyway, This is
all probably allude to say that the Metaverse Horizon Worlds
is no more. Facebook is cutting its support for the
(34:17):
virtual reality version of this product, which was the main version,
and a lot of people are having a lot of
fun because although Mark Zuckerberg and McKenzie and a Center
all thought this was obviously a good idea, many normal
people were skeptical from the beginning.
Speaker 9 (34:31):
Let me ask you though.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
I mean the Metaverse it hung on right, like because
I went there when it was kind of dead. I
read this really funny story about this reporter was running
around the Metaverse and there were like went to the
like there were supports to be all these sort of
flirty spaces where you could kind of meet hot avatars,
and they were all empty, right except for some droids.
(34:55):
And I ran around some art museums. It was like
very weird wasteland. And then there were like little avatars
walking in circles because I guess they were bots.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
But it hung on who was there? Like how did
it even hang on? This momentum there.
Speaker 4 (35:10):
Is so first of all, and and people who are
really into the metaverse they still exist.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Cearently there aren't very well, but they.
Speaker 4 (35:16):
Will say is that. Actually the metaverse is still very popular.
Roadblocks is a sort of metaverse. That's a game. Minecraft
is a sort of metaverse. Even Second Life. I haven't
checked recently, but.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
Second Life no, no, but it was hanged it is
it had.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
Hung around as of a couple years ago. Did they
finally kill it?
Speaker 5 (35:36):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (35:36):
Rip to Second Life as well. Basically there are versions
of this. I think the thing where Facebook went wrong
was the idea that you would want to do this
at work. What you really wanted was to see all
the people that you work with, not in their physical
sense but as a weird avatar, and that you were
(35:58):
going to somehow like do work that way. I think
the only thing people want to do with this stuff
is like basically play games or you know, I hate
to say this, but have sex probably as well.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
If you have.
Speaker 4 (36:08):
Thoughts on the medverse, or if you're hanging on like
Stacy in Horizon World just hoping someone will come say
hi to you, say yes, everybody's at Bloomberg dot net.
That's everybody's with an asset Bloomberg dot net.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
All right, and.
Speaker 4 (36:20):
Stacy, before we go, fact check coming in my ear
right now from Magnus, our producer, Second Life still exists.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
I can't believe it. Well, like you.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Said, people want to be in virtual I.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Think we need to open up. We need to open
up in everybody's business office on the end floor in
Second Life. The show is produced by Jasmine, JT. Green
and Stacy Wong.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Magnus Hendrickson is our supervising producer. Sam Roganic handles engineering
and Dave for self fact checks. Special thanks to Jeff Muscus,
Julia Rubin and Maria Lane. If you haven't can it,
please rate and review the show. It means a lot
to us. And if you have a story that should
be our business or if you have a business in
Second Life, email us at Everybody's at Bloomberg dot net.
(37:10):
That's Everybody's with an us at Bloomberg dot net.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Thank you for listening. We'll see you next week.
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