March 10, 2025 • 29 mins
In this episode of One Thing Trump Did, we dive into the complicated economic impact that Trump's slew of tariffs (and ensuing trade war) could have on the United States and its allies. Jeremy is joined by Moody Analytics' Chief Economist Mark Zandi. #OTTD #onethingtrumpdid #Trump #tariffs #economy #Canada #Mexico #China #USMCA
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Welcome to One Thing Trump Did, available exclusively on The
Middle Podcast feed. I'm Jeremy Hobson. Each week on this podcast,
we're looking at one thing President Trump did, since there
is so much happening, and we're going to try and
break things down in the same rational, nonpartisan, factual way
we do on the Middle. Well, in this episode, our
(00:35):
one thing is the new trade war that Trump has
started with Canada, Mexico, and China. Trump ordered tariffs on
goods coming in from all three countries, even though Canada
and Mexico are in a free trade agreement with the
US called the USMCA, which Trump himself negotiated in his
first term. The President claims these countries are not doing
enough to stop the flow of fentanyl into the United States.
(00:59):
All three countries he's responded with tariff threats of their own.
Here's Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
No, it's not in my habit to agree with the
Wall Street Journal. But Donald, they point out that even
though you're a very smart guy, this is a very
dumb thing to do. We two friends fighting is exactly
what our opponents around the world want to see.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Well, joining me now is Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi. Mark,
it's great to have you on the show. We haven't
talked in a long time. We used to talk all
the time. It's great to have you.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Yeah, Jeremy, it's a pleasure. I love hearing your voice
and seeing the face to the voice.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yes, exactly. Our listeners can't see it right now, but
you can and I can see your face. So let
me ask you. I guess let's just start with the
sort of the pros and cons of tariffs. They go
all the way back in this country to George Washington,
Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln liked them. What are they good for?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Well, I'd say what I would call targeted strategic tariffs
might be useful. So, for example, we have a beef
with China over certain trade arrangements, and in that case,
targeted tariffs to make a point about the unfair trade
(02:24):
practices would be a use of possible use. In fact,
then President Biden did that towards the end of his term.
He imposed tariffs on about eighteen billion dollars worth of
product from China. Very targeted. You know, batteries, evs, certain
types of products that are very strategic. So yeah, especially
(02:49):
in the world that we live in, where the World
Trade Organization is no longer, you know, a very viable institution,
and we've given up on free trade deals. You know,
if you go back before President Trump, President Obama came
pretty close to signing a trade deal with Pacific rim nations,
the so called Trades Specific Partnership, that was a free
trade deal that excluded China because they did not play fair,
(03:12):
and that was the strategy. But you know, in this
world that we live in, when with that all blown
up and wtowter, I think strategic tariffs are a tool
that has some use, but much be Honestly, I don't
see it.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
You're saying, like, if you would use the tariff specifically
for the thing that you want to have made in America,
like this item, I want to specifically target this thing
because that's going to have a direct effect. You wouldn't
use the tariffs just to get countries to do other
things that you want.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Yeah, exactly. So solar panels, We'll say the Chinese are
way ahead of us on solar panels. They dominate the market.
Those panels are subsidized by the Chinese. Very difficult for
that industry to make any headway here in the United States.
So you say to the Chinese, hey, guys, you're not
playing fair with regard to solar panels. Chinese says, I
(04:07):
think we are well. In that case, you say, Oka,
I'm going to post TIFFs on your solar panels to
make it viable for my solar panel industry to develop
and to grow. So in that case, it is case
by case, it's product by product, it's country by country.
I see a use case for terrorists, but beyond that,
I don't.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
And when you look at the negatives, for the last
many decades, the US has embraced free trade around the world.
We have not been very tariff heavy. Why what are
the arguments against using tariffs.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
It's a tax. It's a tax on American consumers and
business people. And it's a very regressive tax in that
it's born to a larger degree by lower and middle
income Americans because of the share of the budget that
they devote to imported goods compared to hire income households.
(05:02):
It invites retaliation. Other countries don't sit on their hands.
They say, hey, that doesn't make sense to me, that's
not fair. You can see it. The Chinese are worry
retaliated with regard to the terriffs President Trump just put
into place. Canadians, they put in some tariffs, and you know,
is this tariff war goes on, and trade war goes on,
more and more countries will put on their own tariffs
(05:24):
and trade restrictions, which hurts American jobs and then, you know,
longer run, it impedes competition. You know, competition, I think
most of us would agree is a good thing. You know,
it makes businesses really focus on being the best at
what they do efficient, offer the lowest price to consumers
(05:46):
and to businesses, and they innovate, you know, they're looking
for ways to come up with new products and services
and do different things to serve their marketplace. And that
competition is a very very healthy thing. So you do
you undermine that with tariffs. You make it much more
difficult for that to occur. And then in the current context,
(06:09):
the way the President is implementing the tariffs is creating
this chaos, you know, havoc because no one knows what
they are are on again off again, this country, that country,
that product, this product, that company. You know, there's something
that businesses label stroke of the pen risk, meaning if
the president can do something by the with the stroke
(06:30):
of a pen in tariffs because of its executive order,
he can, They're just not going to touch it because
they have no idea you know what the President's going
to do. And if you have no idea, how can
you make any kind of investment decision or hiring decision.
You just can't, So you sit on your hands. And
that's what's you know, the problem in the here and.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Now right And just just to remind our listeners, the
president basically when it came into office that I'm going
to put these tariffs on Mexico and Canada right away.
Then he had conversations with the leaders of both countries
on the phone, then said we're going to do a
one month delay, and then he came back in and said, okay,
now we're going to do it for real at the
beginning of March, and then like a day later pulled
back on that too. But it's very uneven. It's not
(07:10):
quite clear you know which things will have tariffs in
the meantime, but it is this on again, off again
something that businesses also just don't like that kind of uncertainty.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
How do you deal with that. Okay, I'm a manufacturer.
I'm trying to decide whether I should invest in a
new I don't know, food processing plant. Right that processing
plant is going to be in operation for at least
a decade, maybe two decades. So I'm deciding where I'm
going to locate that food processing plant based on the
(07:43):
rules that are in place. But if there's no rules
and the rules are changing, how can I make that
investment decision. You know, I'm a business person. I'm an economist,
but I'm a business person. I have a couple hundred
commists around the globe that worked for me, and we
have to make business decisions. And you know, if I'm
going to think about an investment, I open up a spreadsheet,
you know, very simple. Simply put put in my expected revenue,
(08:03):
put in my expected cost. Calculator return, compare that to
my cost to capital. If my return is greater than
cost the capital, and make the investment. If I can't
fill in every cell in that spreadsheet, I can't calculate
the return, I can't do the calculation. It's not like
I go fire people, but I say I'm not doing
that until I can actually put it in the spreadsheet.
(08:24):
You can't put anything in a spreadsheet in the current
in the current environment, because it's it's all over the place.
Who knows, you know, how this is going to play out.
And the other thing that you know is more even
more kind of debilitating, is we don't know what the
motivations are. You can tell me what's motivating all this,
then I can maybe make some judgment as to how
it's all going to play out. But I can't tell
(08:46):
you what the motivations are. They're just all over the place.
So given that I can't, I can't fill in this,
I can't build in the cells in the spreadsheet. I
can't calculate. I'm not investigating. That's what's happening.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Well, And you know, on the motivation side, we mentioned
that he says he wants to stop the flow of fentanyl,
but you know, if you actually look at the numbers,
the fentanyl overdose deaths in this country are way down
over last year. And then on the issue of kind
of what Trump wants, it seems like right now he
is punishing countries even when they do exactly what he asks.
(09:19):
So it's like, am I supposed to do what he
wants in order to get these tariffs removed or does
it matter because he might just punish me anyway, even
if I do what he asks for.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Yeah, I mean like a take. He said, Look, I
want you guys to Canada Mexico to work on the
fentanyl problem and the immigration problem. Well, there's a great
piece of the New York Times this weekend. The problem
on the North, on the Canadian border is that Americans
are illegally going into Canada, not the Canadians coming into
the United States. So what's what's what's the problem? What
(09:51):
are we trying to fix? And the Canadians are asking
themselves that question too, and by the way, they're getting
pretty upset about it, you know, because they go, what
the heck is this all about? And they can't figure
it out, and so you know, they're naturally upset. And
it's you can see it already if you go look
at foot traffic at stores across the border from the
Canada and to the United States way down. If you
(10:12):
look at an hotel occupancy in those same cities way down.
I mean, they're boycotting American product, and you go, well, okay,
but they can't figure out what the problem is. What
are you trying to do here, and so they think,
you know, it's all made up. And so if it's
all made up, then you know, how do you respond
to that? What do you do with that?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Yeah, they've taken Jack Daniels off the shelves apparently in Ontario,
and the CEO of Jack Daniels is very upset, say
this is worse than the tariffs because we're not even
for sale right now in Canada. But who well, who
is the Who are the winners and losers in right now?
If with a trade word, let's just talk about Canada.
Who are the winners and losers if we're in the
(10:52):
middle of this and are the Are the US consumers
going to pay more because of our tariffs on Canada
or because of Canada's retaliatory tariffs on us?
Speaker 3 (11:01):
All of the above, I mean takes steel and aluminum, right,
That's what the President has been focused on in terms
of tariffs on products, because that's what he did in
his first term in that trade war, and that's what
he's doing here this go round. Who benefits is the
steel and aluminum producers because they're protected, you know, they
(11:21):
benefit from the terra jeremy. How many people work in
the steel and aluminum industry. I'll tell you one hundred
and twenty five thousand people. I think Walmart. I have
no idea, but you can google it or g chat, GPT.
It's got to be at least twice that you know.
So we're prettecting that. And then okay, now think of
where stealing aluminum goes. Remember that food processing plant, Well,
(11:45):
it goes there if you want a can of tuna,
goes into the vehicle industry. He goes into the machine
tool industry. It goes into the aircraft industry. Those guys
get nailed the building. Think about this for a second. Look,
we've got an affordable housing shortage. We can't put up
enough plumbs because the cost of building is too high.
Now we impost tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China. Well,
the cost of lumbers going up. The cost of all
(12:06):
electrical equipment and materials that go into the comes are
going up. The washing machines and dryers and the fixtures,
they're going the price. So that's going up. Now that
builders are looking at that, they go, now, I'm gonna
have to raise the price even more. I can't build
an affordable home So who wins in all this, the
steel and aluminum guys with one hundred and twenty five
(12:26):
thousand employees or the rest of the economy, the rest
of us. You know, we're paying a higher price. And
that's even before the retaliation. That's even before Canada, Mexico,
and China retaliate and put their own restrictions in tariffs
on so and then you ask yourself, look if we
actually go down this path of a full blown trade war,
and that's I wouldn't have said that. I thought we
(12:47):
were going in that direction for six weeks ago, but
I don't know, but it feels it feels like we're
going down that path. Then that's going to push this
in very likely into an economic downturn recession. And then
the steel on the loom of them guys are even
going to be hurt by that because they're going to
sell less. So who wins? Nobody wins? Nobody wins.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Well, and I want to ask you about the economic
consequences of this after the break, but just before we
take a quick break, do you see a strategy here
on the part of the Trump administration? Is there a
game plan? Is there a long term plan on how
this is all going to play out, and why this
is going to get something for the United States that
it hasn't gotten so far.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
I'm guessing, you know, I don't know. I mean four motivations.
I'll just list them.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
One.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
It's just politics. I'm just you know, I said I
was going to do this, now I'm doing it. Number
Two of the trade balance, trying to get that the
US trade deficit down. That's not going to work with tariffs. Three,
try to incent or force businesses foreign and domestic to
produce more in the United States. That's definitely not going
(13:55):
to happen with the trade war. Fourth, and this is
the one that may feels like more likely increasingly. I
want revenue. It's a tax. I'm going to tax American
consumers and business. I'm going to generate this revenue. And
I want that because I want to pay for other
stuff I want to do on the tax side, other
tax cuts that we're talking about for corporations, and you know,
raising the cap on the salt tax, all that kind
(14:17):
of stuff, kind of reorient you know, where the revenue
comes from. If that's the case, Jeremy uh and and
our foreign partners figure that out. They're going to realize
this is going to be in place. These arks are
going to be in place for the foreseeable future. You
can count on them responding with their own tariffs and
trade restrictions. We're going to be in a full blown
(14:37):
outright trade war. It's going to relay us in recession,
and he's gonna have to back There's there's no way
he's going to have to backtrack on this whole process.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
But that that tax, h the the indirect tax on
American consumers that are paying more for goods, That one
is okay with the Club for Growth and the and
the Republicans basically like that's not a tax that they
would be against, uh because the government Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Yeah, good question. Is that rhetorical?
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Yeah, it's rhetorical. Well, stand by, We're going to continue
with Moody's Analytics Chief economist Mark Zandy in just a moment,
One Thing Trump did. We'll be right back. Welcome back
(15:28):
to One Thing Trump Did exclusively on the Middle Podcast Feed.
I'm Jeremy Hobson. This episode, we're talking about tariffs on
our adversary, China and on our friends in Mexico and Canada.
I'm joined by Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi Uh Mark,
I guess let's talk about China for a second, because
they are a huge economy. We haven't really been focusing
(15:50):
as much on China as we have on Canada and Mexico,
just because it's a little more surprising to have these
these tariffs go on Canada and Mexico. But in terms
of China, a lot of the tariffs that from the
first Trump administration did continue under the Biden administration, but
now they're ramping up further. Do you worry about what what?
What are you concerned about when it comes to China
and these tariffs, and do you worry that a trade
(16:11):
war with China could turn into something more?
Speaker 3 (16:16):
I do? I mean, for you know, first, a level
of concern is you know, it just means higher prices.
China's a massive trading partner, right, I mean, China, Canada,
Mexico each account for about the same amount of imports
into the United States. They're four hundred and fifty fifty
five hundred billion dollars a year. Twelve thirteen percent of
(16:39):
total imports are from each of those countries, so they
matter all of the matter A lot so it's a
big trading partner. And if you if we jack up
tariffs on their product and they jack up tariff's on
our product, that does a lot of damage in terms
of the taxes that the tariffs. Our consumers are going
to pay and businesses are going to pay, and it
hurts American companies that sell into China. So that's gonna
(16:59):
that's going to happen. But you know, more broadly, and
by the way, we're not we're talking about big tariff
increases now, right because under President trump first term, the
tariff increased effective tariff rate on Chinese product was ten percent.
Now with everything he's announced, we're now at thirty percent,
and you know it's rising thirty percent, So that's a
(17:20):
pretty massive increase in teriff. So it's not inconsequential. But
the thing that worries me is that our economies are
now quickly moving apart. They already have decoupled, and they're
disengaging and uh, you know, it's becoming self reinforcing. You know, yes,
they didn't play fair, but you know, we hit him
(17:40):
over the head. So now they're pulling away and playing
less fair, and you know, we're just pulling away like this,
and the thing I do worry about longer run, and
maybe it's not as long as wrong long run as
I think as the geopolitical implications of that. Take Taiwan.
You know, we're taiwan Is sitting there in the Chinese
say that's part of their country. We say, oh no,
it's not. And by the way, our economy is very
(18:01):
reliant on Taiwan because we get despite everything, we still
get a lot of our chips from Taiwan, critical to
the chip industry and everything else that you know, the
chips go into. And you know, it's one thing when
we're our economies are integrated, you know, and we're tightly
wound together as we were back in twenty seventeen eighteen.
Just think about you know, when you're hugging somebody, it's
(18:23):
very difficult to hit them over the head, you know,
because you know you're hugging them. You don't want you know,
you're tied together. But if you're apart and you're stirring
each other down and you're not as dependent on each
other economically, and that's certainly the case, much more likely.
You know something's going to happen. You know, you know geopolitically, militarily,
we're going to take a swing at each other. There's
going to be a mistake. Tensions are already rising. You
(18:44):
can see it in this in the South China Sea,
the Chinese Navy is creating havoc for the Filipino sailors.
You see what they had exercises off the coast of
New Zealand and Australia. There's a Chinese airfire that went
into the air Japanese air space for the first time
(19:05):
in decades. You know, it's happening, and I just worry
that something is even by a mistake, is going to occur,
and we have a whole level, another level of hurt here.
It's not just a trade war, it's an actual war.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
What about the strength of the economies in these countries.
I was kind of surprised on our trip to Canada
to hear from people who are Canadian about how bad
their economy is right how bad they feel their economy
is right now. And I'm like, oh, right, the US
is actually in a much better position in post COVID
than a lot of other countries. Even our close neighbor Canada.
(19:40):
Their dollar is way down, so it's very expensive for
them to buy things from the United States. Anyway, what
about China right now? China's economy is not in near
the kind of shape that the US economy is right now.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Yeah, that's very much. That's very true, and part because
of this decoupling. I mean, the Chinese economy is much
more open, does much more t aid than the US.
And so when the US and China pulled apart here
over the past five, six, seven, eight years, that hurt
both our economies, but it hurt the China Chinese economy
more so. You know, I do think the Chinese economy
(20:15):
is struggling with that and other issues. You know, real estate,
the real estate downturn is doing havoc. They have all
kind of environmental issues, stayed on enterprises, They kind of
backtracked on some of the privatization the efforts that they
put in place over the last couple of decades. So
they definitely are having difficulty. This US economy that came
(20:37):
into this year the strongest in the world by orders
of magnitude, so a very different place. But having said that,
the Chinese economy is an authoritarian economy. It's not a democracy,
and they can digest a lot of pain before it
has any political ratifications. Doesn't mean it's going to change
(20:58):
their policies or she's use on anything anytime soon. Very
very different than in democracies like Canada or even Mexico, you.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Know, although we remember the different pressure that they came
under with the COVID lockdowns and then all of a
sudden people started protesting President she and then they said, oh,
never mind, no more lockdown. If you just do whatever
you want now.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
The rules are done. I mean, I don't want does
conducives do a well functioning economy in the long run,
but it gets them through these scraps that they're in
right now.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Yeah, what about the US economy? How worried are you
about a recession just because of the tariffs. There's a
lot going on, and ask you about it, But what
about just the tariffs? Could that lead the US into
a recession?
Speaker 3 (21:37):
It could depending on the scenario. I mean, if let's
suppose President Trump follows through on everything he said he's
going to do on Canada, on Mexico, on China, on
the EU, on on steel, on autos, on the pharmaceutical industry.
You know, he just he follows through and he imposes
those tariffs and leaves them there for any length of time,
(21:59):
a few months, a couple quarters. That's the flodder for
an economic downturn. Yeah. Now you know, something else might
have to come along and push us in. But it
wouldn't take much to push us in at that point.
You know, things happen all the time. And clearly you
said don't think about all the other economic policies that
are playing out here, because they're also creating a lot
of uncertainty, as everyone knows. But even abstracting from those
(22:22):
other things, I do think the tariffs, if we got
into a full blown trade war, knockout, drag out with
other countries, recession is a real possibility.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Yeah, if you think about the other economic changes happening
since Trump came in just a matter of weeks ago,
you have the huge cuts to the federal government, layoffs
of tens of thousands of federal workers, at least, the tariffs,
new focus on bitcoin, giant tax cuts could be on
the horizon that would definitely favor the wealthy, not to
(22:54):
mention the billionaires with power that they've never had before
in this country. What do you focus on as an
economist as you look at all of those changes.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Well all of the above, but you know, first front
and centers of the trade war. Second is the DOGE
consistent contemporaneous with the trade wars. The DOGE cuts to
not only the government employment, but to federal funding. You know,
it's affecting large parts of the private sector and other
(23:25):
parts of the economy because of the funding cutbacks or
the freezes on funding. I do worry in the most
immediate future about a government shutdown. That's a possibility here
in the next couple, you know, three weeks. I worry
about the immigration policy and the context of labor supply.
You know, certain industries rely very heavily on immigrant labor. Construction, manufacturing,
(23:50):
transportation distribution very very reliant on immigration immigrants, both documented
and unauthorized. And then the thing that I you know,
it's going to come on the radar screen here it
hasn't hit, it hasn't come up yet, but it will
is the Treasury debt limit. That clock is ticking that
you know, Treasury, that deat limit has now been reinstated.
(24:12):
Treasury can't issue debt beyond that, so they're running down
their cash and they're going to run out of cash
sometime in late July early August. At that point, someone's
not going to get paid. That's a default. So that's
a real drama that's going to play out here at
some point in the spring of the summer. So there's
a lot of things to worry about. They're all, you know,
they all come together in a very noxious kind of
(24:34):
uncertainty stew and the economy's gagging on that. And if
this continues on for much more longer, economy is going
to choke on it, and that's a recession.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
I have been through my share of debt limit fights,
and they usually pull back at the last second. But
you never know right now because who's they control everything
at the moment that Trump, the Trump sort of maga
Wright controls all the branches they do.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
But think about the uncertainty that it always creates, and
think about the backdrop that we now have with regard
to all the other things we're worried about. So throw
into the mix a debt limit drama, the uncertainty on
top of all the trade war drama, on top of
the dose drama, on top of the immigration drama, on
top of the president's efforts to rework government drama. You know,
(25:20):
just add that all up and it becomes, you know,
pretty tough to digest.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Let me just come around to one of the things
that President Trump has said that the tariffs would help,
which is like bringing back jobs. And let's say manufacturing.
Do you see the best case the tariffs, you know,
have some sort of an impact. Could they actually bring
back a lot of US manufacturing jobs if done right?
Speaker 3 (25:46):
No, not possible, not happening. I mean, first of all,
we're not talking about a lot of jobs. The manufacturing
base accounts for about ten percent of all employment ten percent,
and it's falling. It's falling. So the number of people
working and manufacturing that's flat to down. It's not going
(26:10):
to rise. It's a very productive industry. Most of these
plants that come into the that are being constructed are robotics,
they're not people. You know, that goes to the to
the to how efficient these things are. And then why
would any company decide to locate in the United States
based on tear the current tariff regime. President Trump is
(26:31):
going to be present through twenty twenty eight. What happens
after that? Again, these plants are they're made to last
for a decade two decades, three decades. They're not for
the next year or two years or three years. They're
there for the long run. So you know, am I
going to count on that tariff that he put into
place that's going to be there nine in twenty twenty
nine or twenty thirty. No chance, there's zero probability that's happening.
(26:54):
And then and then on top of that, people around
the world, every business person around the world, is looking
at what's going on here, and they're saying, how reliable
is the US UH government and the rules of the road?
The one the secrets, we the United States has a
number of things that makes us exceptional. In the secrets,
one of the elements of the secret sauce is the
(27:16):
rule of law. There's rules, there's there's rules about how
to change the rules, and everyone knows what they are,
and they live by them and they die by them,
and they courts adjudicate those rules and decide what's right
and what's wrong. If there's a if there's if there's
a if there's any disagreement, you monkey with that. And
that's what we're doing here. We're monkeying with that basic principle,
(27:39):
the rule of law. They're gonna say, you know, what
am I going to do with that? I'm not. This
is no different than if I located in I don't know,
pick a country, you know, somewhere else, not here. So
it's just not it's not conducive to supporting long term investment.
It's just not. So No, the answer is absolutely not.
It's going to be just the opposite.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Do you think econ profts around the country are starting
to teach Holly smoot in a bigger way? Now?
Speaker 2 (28:07):
You know what?
Speaker 3 (28:07):
I think they should show my One of my favorite
movies is Ferris Bueller.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Ferris Bueller, Yeah, right, exactly.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Yeah, top ten, top ten.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yeah, you know, actually I did that is one of
my favorite movies too. And there's a sort of behind
the scenes there's another professor, not ben Stein, but there's
another professor that where Sloan Peterson is in the class
and then she gets pulled out. And the professor was
like a second City comic, and he wanted to stress
all the wrong word, wrong syllables to make it as
(28:36):
boring as possible, and so he goes.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
In what way does the author's use all the prism anyway?
Speaker 1 (28:51):
I remember that very vivid.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
I don't remember, Mark, I gotta I gotta go.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
You gotta go back and watch that that again. It's
very funny, uh, Mark Sandy, chief economists for Moodie's Analytics,
Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah, anytime, Jeremy, and thanks.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
For listening to one thing Trump did. It was produced
by Brandon Condritz and Harrison Patino. Our next Middle episode
will be in your podcast feed later this week. Will
be joined by a pair of artificial intelligence experts to
take your questions about AI. You can call it an
eight four four four Middle and if you like this podcast,
rate it, tell your friends and make sure you sign
up for automatic downloads. Our theme music was composed by
Noah Haidu. I'm Jeremy Hobson and I'll talk to you
(29:24):
next time.
Welcome to One Thing Trump Did, available exclusively on The
Middle Podcast feed. I'm Jeremy Hobson. Each week on this podcast,
we're looking at one thing President Trump did, since there
is so much happening, and we're going to try and
break things down in the same rational, nonpartisan, factual way
we do on the Middle. Well, in this episode, our
(00:35):
one thing is the new trade war that Trump has
started with Canada, Mexico, and China. Trump ordered tariffs on
goods coming in from all three countries, even though Canada
and Mexico are in a free trade agreement with the
US called the USMCA, which Trump himself negotiated in his
first term. The President claims these countries are not doing
enough to stop the flow of fentanyl into the United States.
(00:59):
All three countries he's responded with tariff threats of their own.
Here's Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
No, it's not in my habit to agree with the
Wall Street Journal. But Donald, they point out that even
though you're a very smart guy, this is a very
dumb thing to do. We two friends fighting is exactly
what our opponents around the world want to see.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Well, joining me now is Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi. Mark,
it's great to have you on the show. We haven't
talked in a long time. We used to talk all
the time. It's great to have you.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Yeah, Jeremy, it's a pleasure. I love hearing your voice
and seeing the face to the voice.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yes, exactly. Our listeners can't see it right now, but
you can and I can see your face. So let
me ask you. I guess let's just start with the
sort of the pros and cons of tariffs. They go
all the way back in this country to George Washington,
Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln liked them. What are they good for?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Well, I'd say what I would call targeted strategic tariffs
might be useful. So, for example, we have a beef
with China over certain trade arrangements, and in that case,
targeted tariffs to make a point about the unfair trade
(02:24):
practices would be a use of possible use. In fact,
then President Biden did that towards the end of his term.
He imposed tariffs on about eighteen billion dollars worth of
product from China. Very targeted. You know, batteries, evs, certain
types of products that are very strategic. So yeah, especially
(02:49):
in the world that we live in, where the World
Trade Organization is no longer, you know, a very viable institution,
and we've given up on free trade deals. You know,
if you go back before President Trump, President Obama came
pretty close to signing a trade deal with Pacific rim nations,
the so called Trades Specific Partnership, that was a free
trade deal that excluded China because they did not play fair,
(03:12):
and that was the strategy. But you know, in this
world that we live in, when with that all blown
up and wtowter, I think strategic tariffs are a tool
that has some use, but much be Honestly, I don't
see it.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
You're saying, like, if you would use the tariff specifically
for the thing that you want to have made in America,
like this item, I want to specifically target this thing
because that's going to have a direct effect. You wouldn't
use the tariffs just to get countries to do other
things that you want.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Yeah, exactly. So solar panels, We'll say the Chinese are
way ahead of us on solar panels. They dominate the market.
Those panels are subsidized by the Chinese. Very difficult for
that industry to make any headway here in the United States.
So you say to the Chinese, hey, guys, you're not
playing fair with regard to solar panels. Chinese says, I
(04:07):
think we are well. In that case, you say, Oka,
I'm going to post TIFFs on your solar panels to
make it viable for my solar panel industry to develop
and to grow. So in that case, it is case
by case, it's product by product, it's country by country.
I see a use case for terrorists, but beyond that,
I don't.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
And when you look at the negatives, for the last
many decades, the US has embraced free trade around the world.
We have not been very tariff heavy. Why what are
the arguments against using tariffs.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
It's a tax. It's a tax on American consumers and
business people. And it's a very regressive tax in that
it's born to a larger degree by lower and middle
income Americans because of the share of the budget that
they devote to imported goods compared to hire income households.
(05:02):
It invites retaliation. Other countries don't sit on their hands.
They say, hey, that doesn't make sense to me, that's
not fair. You can see it. The Chinese are worry
retaliated with regard to the terriffs President Trump just put
into place. Canadians, they put in some tariffs, and you know,
is this tariff war goes on, and trade war goes on,
more and more countries will put on their own tariffs
(05:24):
and trade restrictions, which hurts American jobs and then, you know,
longer run, it impedes competition. You know, competition, I think
most of us would agree is a good thing. You know,
it makes businesses really focus on being the best at
what they do efficient, offer the lowest price to consumers
(05:46):
and to businesses, and they innovate, you know, they're looking
for ways to come up with new products and services
and do different things to serve their marketplace. And that
competition is a very very healthy thing. So you do
you undermine that with tariffs. You make it much more
difficult for that to occur. And then in the current context,
(06:09):
the way the President is implementing the tariffs is creating
this chaos, you know, havoc because no one knows what
they are are on again off again, this country, that country,
that product, this product, that company. You know, there's something
that businesses label stroke of the pen risk, meaning if
the president can do something by the with the stroke
(06:30):
of a pen in tariffs because of its executive order,
he can, They're just not going to touch it because
they have no idea you know what the President's going
to do. And if you have no idea, how can
you make any kind of investment decision or hiring decision.
You just can't, So you sit on your hands. And
that's what's you know, the problem in the here and.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Now right And just just to remind our listeners, the
president basically when it came into office that I'm going
to put these tariffs on Mexico and Canada right away.
Then he had conversations with the leaders of both countries
on the phone, then said we're going to do a
one month delay, and then he came back in and said, okay,
now we're going to do it for real at the
beginning of March, and then like a day later pulled
back on that too. But it's very uneven. It's not
(07:10):
quite clear you know which things will have tariffs in
the meantime, but it is this on again, off again
something that businesses also just don't like that kind of uncertainty.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
How do you deal with that. Okay, I'm a manufacturer.
I'm trying to decide whether I should invest in a
new I don't know, food processing plant. Right that processing
plant is going to be in operation for at least
a decade, maybe two decades. So I'm deciding where I'm
going to locate that food processing plant based on the
(07:43):
rules that are in place. But if there's no rules
and the rules are changing, how can I make that
investment decision. You know, I'm a business person. I'm an economist,
but I'm a business person. I have a couple hundred
commists around the globe that worked for me, and we
have to make business decisions. And you know, if I'm
going to think about an investment, I open up a spreadsheet,
you know, very simple. Simply put put in my expected revenue,
(08:03):
put in my expected cost. Calculator return, compare that to
my cost to capital. If my return is greater than
cost the capital, and make the investment. If I can't
fill in every cell in that spreadsheet, I can't calculate
the return, I can't do the calculation. It's not like
I go fire people, but I say I'm not doing
that until I can actually put it in the spreadsheet.
(08:24):
You can't put anything in a spreadsheet in the current
in the current environment, because it's it's all over the place.
Who knows, you know, how this is going to play out.
And the other thing that you know is more even
more kind of debilitating, is we don't know what the
motivations are. You can tell me what's motivating all this,
then I can maybe make some judgment as to how
it's all going to play out. But I can't tell
(08:46):
you what the motivations are. They're just all over the place.
So given that I can't, I can't fill in this,
I can't build in the cells in the spreadsheet. I
can't calculate. I'm not investigating. That's what's happening.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Well, And you know, on the motivation side, we mentioned
that he says he wants to stop the flow of fentanyl,
but you know, if you actually look at the numbers,
the fentanyl overdose deaths in this country are way down
over last year. And then on the issue of kind
of what Trump wants, it seems like right now he
is punishing countries even when they do exactly what he asks.
(09:19):
So it's like, am I supposed to do what he
wants in order to get these tariffs removed or does
it matter because he might just punish me anyway, even
if I do what he asks for.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Yeah, I mean like a take. He said, Look, I
want you guys to Canada Mexico to work on the
fentanyl problem and the immigration problem. Well, there's a great
piece of the New York Times this weekend. The problem
on the North, on the Canadian border is that Americans
are illegally going into Canada, not the Canadians coming into
the United States. So what's what's what's the problem? What
(09:51):
are we trying to fix? And the Canadians are asking
themselves that question too, and by the way, they're getting
pretty upset about it, you know, because they go, what
the heck is this all about? And they can't figure
it out, and so you know, they're naturally upset. And
it's you can see it already if you go look
at foot traffic at stores across the border from the
Canada and to the United States way down. If you
(10:12):
look at an hotel occupancy in those same cities way down.
I mean, they're boycotting American product, and you go, well, okay,
but they can't figure out what the problem is. What
are you trying to do here, and so they think,
you know, it's all made up. And so if it's
all made up, then you know, how do you respond
to that? What do you do with that?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Yeah, they've taken Jack Daniels off the shelves apparently in Ontario,
and the CEO of Jack Daniels is very upset, say
this is worse than the tariffs because we're not even
for sale right now in Canada. But who well, who
is the Who are the winners and losers in right now?
If with a trade word, let's just talk about Canada.
Who are the winners and losers if we're in the
(10:52):
middle of this and are the Are the US consumers
going to pay more because of our tariffs on Canada
or because of Canada's retaliatory tariffs on us?
Speaker 3 (11:01):
All of the above, I mean takes steel and aluminum, right,
That's what the President has been focused on in terms
of tariffs on products, because that's what he did in
his first term in that trade war, and that's what
he's doing here this go round. Who benefits is the
steel and aluminum producers because they're protected, you know, they
(11:21):
benefit from the terra jeremy. How many people work in
the steel and aluminum industry. I'll tell you one hundred
and twenty five thousand people. I think Walmart. I have
no idea, but you can google it or g chat, GPT.
It's got to be at least twice that you know.
So we're prettecting that. And then okay, now think of
where stealing aluminum goes. Remember that food processing plant, Well,
(11:45):
it goes there if you want a can of tuna,
goes into the vehicle industry. He goes into the machine
tool industry. It goes into the aircraft industry. Those guys
get nailed the building. Think about this for a second. Look,
we've got an affordable housing shortage. We can't put up
enough plumbs because the cost of building is too high.
Now we impost tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China. Well,
the cost of lumbers going up. The cost of all
(12:06):
electrical equipment and materials that go into the comes are
going up. The washing machines and dryers and the fixtures,
they're going the price. So that's going up. Now that
builders are looking at that, they go, now, I'm gonna
have to raise the price even more. I can't build
an affordable home So who wins in all this, the
steel and aluminum guys with one hundred and twenty five
(12:26):
thousand employees or the rest of the economy, the rest
of us. You know, we're paying a higher price. And
that's even before the retaliation. That's even before Canada, Mexico,
and China retaliate and put their own restrictions in tariffs
on so and then you ask yourself, look if we
actually go down this path of a full blown trade war,
and that's I wouldn't have said that. I thought we
(12:47):
were going in that direction for six weeks ago, but
I don't know, but it feels it feels like we're
going down that path. Then that's going to push this
in very likely into an economic downturn recession. And then
the steel on the loom of them guys are even
going to be hurt by that because they're going to
sell less. So who wins? Nobody wins? Nobody wins.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Well, and I want to ask you about the economic
consequences of this after the break, but just before we
take a quick break, do you see a strategy here
on the part of the Trump administration? Is there a
game plan? Is there a long term plan on how
this is all going to play out, and why this
is going to get something for the United States that
it hasn't gotten so far.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
I'm guessing, you know, I don't know. I mean four motivations.
I'll just list them.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
One.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
It's just politics. I'm just you know, I said I
was going to do this, now I'm doing it. Number
Two of the trade balance, trying to get that the
US trade deficit down. That's not going to work with tariffs. Three,
try to incent or force businesses foreign and domestic to
produce more in the United States. That's definitely not going
(13:55):
to happen with the trade war. Fourth, and this is
the one that may feels like more likely increasingly. I
want revenue. It's a tax. I'm going to tax American
consumers and business. I'm going to generate this revenue. And
I want that because I want to pay for other
stuff I want to do on the tax side, other
tax cuts that we're talking about for corporations, and you know,
raising the cap on the salt tax, all that kind
(14:17):
of stuff, kind of reorient you know, where the revenue
comes from. If that's the case, Jeremy uh and and
our foreign partners figure that out. They're going to realize
this is going to be in place. These arks are
going to be in place for the foreseeable future. You
can count on them responding with their own tariffs and
trade restrictions. We're going to be in a full blown
(14:37):
outright trade war. It's going to relay us in recession,
and he's gonna have to back There's there's no way
he's going to have to backtrack on this whole process.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
But that that tax, h the the indirect tax on
American consumers that are paying more for goods, That one
is okay with the Club for Growth and the and
the Republicans basically like that's not a tax that they
would be against, uh because the government Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Yeah, good question. Is that rhetorical?
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Yeah, it's rhetorical. Well, stand by, We're going to continue
with Moody's Analytics Chief economist Mark Zandy in just a moment,
One Thing Trump did. We'll be right back. Welcome back
(15:28):
to One Thing Trump Did exclusively on the Middle Podcast Feed.
I'm Jeremy Hobson. This episode, we're talking about tariffs on
our adversary, China and on our friends in Mexico and Canada.
I'm joined by Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi Uh Mark,
I guess let's talk about China for a second, because
they are a huge economy. We haven't really been focusing
(15:50):
as much on China as we have on Canada and Mexico,
just because it's a little more surprising to have these
these tariffs go on Canada and Mexico. But in terms
of China, a lot of the tariffs that from the
first Trump administration did continue under the Biden administration, but
now they're ramping up further. Do you worry about what what?
What are you concerned about when it comes to China
and these tariffs, and do you worry that a trade
(16:11):
war with China could turn into something more?
Speaker 3 (16:16):
I do? I mean, for you know, first, a level
of concern is you know, it just means higher prices.
China's a massive trading partner, right, I mean, China, Canada,
Mexico each account for about the same amount of imports
into the United States. They're four hundred and fifty fifty
five hundred billion dollars a year. Twelve thirteen percent of
(16:39):
total imports are from each of those countries, so they
matter all of the matter A lot so it's a
big trading partner. And if you if we jack up
tariffs on their product and they jack up tariff's on
our product, that does a lot of damage in terms
of the taxes that the tariffs. Our consumers are going
to pay and businesses are going to pay, and it
hurts American companies that sell into China. So that's gonna
(16:59):
that's going to happen. But you know, more broadly, and
by the way, we're not we're talking about big tariff
increases now, right because under President trump first term, the
tariff increased effective tariff rate on Chinese product was ten percent.
Now with everything he's announced, we're now at thirty percent,
and you know it's rising thirty percent, So that's a
(17:20):
pretty massive increase in teriff. So it's not inconsequential. But
the thing that worries me is that our economies are
now quickly moving apart. They already have decoupled, and they're
disengaging and uh, you know, it's becoming self reinforcing. You know, yes,
they didn't play fair, but you know, we hit him
(17:40):
over the head. So now they're pulling away and playing
less fair, and you know, we're just pulling away like this,
and the thing I do worry about longer run, and
maybe it's not as long as wrong long run as
I think as the geopolitical implications of that. Take Taiwan.
You know, we're taiwan Is sitting there in the Chinese
say that's part of their country. We say, oh no,
it's not. And by the way, our economy is very
(18:01):
reliant on Taiwan because we get despite everything, we still
get a lot of our chips from Taiwan, critical to
the chip industry and everything else that you know, the
chips go into. And you know, it's one thing when
we're our economies are integrated, you know, and we're tightly
wound together as we were back in twenty seventeen eighteen.
Just think about you know, when you're hugging somebody, it's
(18:23):
very difficult to hit them over the head, you know,
because you know you're hugging them. You don't want you know,
you're tied together. But if you're apart and you're stirring
each other down and you're not as dependent on each
other economically, and that's certainly the case, much more likely.
You know something's going to happen. You know, you know geopolitically, militarily,
we're going to take a swing at each other. There's
going to be a mistake. Tensions are already rising. You
(18:44):
can see it in this in the South China Sea,
the Chinese Navy is creating havoc for the Filipino sailors.
You see what they had exercises off the coast of
New Zealand and Australia. There's a Chinese airfire that went
into the air Japanese air space for the first time
(19:05):
in decades. You know, it's happening, and I just worry
that something is even by a mistake, is going to occur,
and we have a whole level, another level of hurt here.
It's not just a trade war, it's an actual war.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
What about the strength of the economies in these countries.
I was kind of surprised on our trip to Canada
to hear from people who are Canadian about how bad
their economy is right how bad they feel their economy
is right now. And I'm like, oh, right, the US
is actually in a much better position in post COVID
than a lot of other countries. Even our close neighbor Canada.
(19:40):
Their dollar is way down, so it's very expensive for
them to buy things from the United States. Anyway, what
about China right now? China's economy is not in near
the kind of shape that the US economy is right now.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Yeah, that's very much. That's very true, and part because
of this decoupling. I mean, the Chinese economy is much
more open, does much more t aid than the US.
And so when the US and China pulled apart here
over the past five, six, seven, eight years, that hurt
both our economies, but it hurt the China Chinese economy
more so. You know, I do think the Chinese economy
(20:15):
is struggling with that and other issues. You know, real estate,
the real estate downturn is doing havoc. They have all
kind of environmental issues, stayed on enterprises, They kind of
backtracked on some of the privatization the efforts that they
put in place over the last couple of decades. So
they definitely are having difficulty. This US economy that came
(20:37):
into this year the strongest in the world by orders
of magnitude, so a very different place. But having said that,
the Chinese economy is an authoritarian economy. It's not a democracy,
and they can digest a lot of pain before it
has any political ratifications. Doesn't mean it's going to change
(20:58):
their policies or she's use on anything anytime soon. Very
very different than in democracies like Canada or even Mexico, you.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Know, although we remember the different pressure that they came
under with the COVID lockdowns and then all of a
sudden people started protesting President she and then they said, oh,
never mind, no more lockdown. If you just do whatever
you want now.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
The rules are done. I mean, I don't want does
conducives do a well functioning economy in the long run,
but it gets them through these scraps that they're in
right now.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Yeah, what about the US economy? How worried are you
about a recession just because of the tariffs. There's a
lot going on, and ask you about it, But what
about just the tariffs? Could that lead the US into
a recession?
Speaker 3 (21:37):
It could depending on the scenario. I mean, if let's
suppose President Trump follows through on everything he said he's
going to do on Canada, on Mexico, on China, on
the EU, on on steel, on autos, on the pharmaceutical industry.
You know, he just he follows through and he imposes
those tariffs and leaves them there for any length of time,
(21:59):
a few months, a couple quarters. That's the flodder for
an economic downturn. Yeah. Now you know, something else might
have to come along and push us in. But it
wouldn't take much to push us in at that point.
You know, things happen all the time. And clearly you
said don't think about all the other economic policies that
are playing out here, because they're also creating a lot
of uncertainty, as everyone knows. But even abstracting from those
(22:22):
other things, I do think the tariffs, if we got
into a full blown trade war, knockout, drag out with
other countries, recession is a real possibility.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Yeah, if you think about the other economic changes happening
since Trump came in just a matter of weeks ago,
you have the huge cuts to the federal government, layoffs
of tens of thousands of federal workers, at least, the tariffs,
new focus on bitcoin, giant tax cuts could be on
the horizon that would definitely favor the wealthy, not to
(22:54):
mention the billionaires with power that they've never had before
in this country. What do you focus on as an
economist as you look at all of those changes.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Well all of the above, but you know, first front
and centers of the trade war. Second is the DOGE
consistent contemporaneous with the trade wars. The DOGE cuts to
not only the government employment, but to federal funding. You know,
it's affecting large parts of the private sector and other
(23:25):
parts of the economy because of the funding cutbacks or
the freezes on funding. I do worry in the most
immediate future about a government shutdown. That's a possibility here
in the next couple, you know, three weeks. I worry
about the immigration policy and the context of labor supply.
You know, certain industries rely very heavily on immigrant labor. Construction, manufacturing,
(23:50):
transportation distribution very very reliant on immigration immigrants, both documented
and unauthorized. And then the thing that I you know,
it's going to come on the radar screen here it
hasn't hit, it hasn't come up yet, but it will
is the Treasury debt limit. That clock is ticking that
you know, Treasury, that deat limit has now been reinstated.
(24:12):
Treasury can't issue debt beyond that, so they're running down
their cash and they're going to run out of cash
sometime in late July early August. At that point, someone's
not going to get paid. That's a default. So that's
a real drama that's going to play out here at
some point in the spring of the summer. So there's
a lot of things to worry about. They're all, you know,
they all come together in a very noxious kind of
(24:34):
uncertainty stew and the economy's gagging on that. And if
this continues on for much more longer, economy is going
to choke on it, and that's a recession.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
I have been through my share of debt limit fights,
and they usually pull back at the last second. But
you never know right now because who's they control everything
at the moment that Trump, the Trump sort of maga
Wright controls all the branches they do.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
But think about the uncertainty that it always creates, and
think about the backdrop that we now have with regard
to all the other things we're worried about. So throw
into the mix a debt limit drama, the uncertainty on
top of all the trade war drama, on top of
the dose drama, on top of the immigration drama, on
top of the president's efforts to rework government drama. You know,
(25:20):
just add that all up and it becomes, you know,
pretty tough to digest.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Let me just come around to one of the things
that President Trump has said that the tariffs would help,
which is like bringing back jobs. And let's say manufacturing.
Do you see the best case the tariffs, you know,
have some sort of an impact. Could they actually bring
back a lot of US manufacturing jobs if done right?
Speaker 3 (25:46):
No, not possible, not happening. I mean, first of all,
we're not talking about a lot of jobs. The manufacturing
base accounts for about ten percent of all employment ten percent,
and it's falling. It's falling. So the number of people
working and manufacturing that's flat to down. It's not going
(26:10):
to rise. It's a very productive industry. Most of these
plants that come into the that are being constructed are robotics,
they're not people. You know, that goes to the to
the to how efficient these things are. And then why
would any company decide to locate in the United States
based on tear the current tariff regime. President Trump is
(26:31):
going to be present through twenty twenty eight. What happens
after that? Again, these plants are they're made to last
for a decade two decades, three decades. They're not for
the next year or two years or three years. They're
there for the long run. So you know, am I
going to count on that tariff that he put into
place that's going to be there nine in twenty twenty
nine or twenty thirty. No chance, there's zero probability that's happening.
(26:54):
And then and then on top of that, people around
the world, every business person around the world, is looking
at what's going on here, and they're saying, how reliable
is the US UH government and the rules of the road?
The one the secrets, we the United States has a
number of things that makes us exceptional. In the secrets,
one of the elements of the secret sauce is the
(27:16):
rule of law. There's rules, there's there's rules about how
to change the rules, and everyone knows what they are,
and they live by them and they die by them,
and they courts adjudicate those rules and decide what's right
and what's wrong. If there's a if there's if there's
a if there's any disagreement, you monkey with that. And
that's what we're doing here. We're monkeying with that basic principle,
(27:39):
the rule of law. They're gonna say, you know, what
am I going to do with that? I'm not. This
is no different than if I located in I don't know,
pick a country, you know, somewhere else, not here. So
it's just not it's not conducive to supporting long term investment.
It's just not. So No, the answer is absolutely not.
It's going to be just the opposite.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Do you think econ profts around the country are starting
to teach Holly smoot in a bigger way? Now?
Speaker 2 (28:07):
You know what?
Speaker 3 (28:07):
I think they should show my One of my favorite
movies is Ferris Bueller.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Ferris Bueller, Yeah, right, exactly.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Yeah, top ten, top ten.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yeah, you know, actually I did that is one of
my favorite movies too. And there's a sort of behind
the scenes there's another professor, not ben Stein, but there's
another professor that where Sloan Peterson is in the class
and then she gets pulled out. And the professor was
like a second City comic, and he wanted to stress
all the wrong word, wrong syllables to make it as
(28:36):
boring as possible, and so he goes.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
In what way does the author's use all the prism anyway?
Speaker 1 (28:51):
I remember that very vivid.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
I don't remember, Mark, I gotta I gotta go.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
You gotta go back and watch that that again. It's
very funny, uh, Mark Sandy, chief economists for Moodie's Analytics,
Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah, anytime, Jeremy, and thanks.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
For listening to one thing Trump did. It was produced
by Brandon Condritz and Harrison Patino. Our next Middle episode
will be in your podcast feed later this week. Will
be joined by a pair of artificial intelligence experts to
take your questions about AI. You can call it an
eight four four four Middle and if you like this podcast,
rate it, tell your friends and make sure you sign
up for automatic downloads. Our theme music was composed by
Noah Haidu. I'm Jeremy Hobson and I'll talk to you
(29:24):
next time.
Host
Jeremy Hobson
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