EconVersations: The Biden Economy (episode 219)

Dr. Dan Sutter, of the Manuel Johnson Center for Political Economy, hosts EconVersations, a program that explores the role of free markets in promoting prosperity through conversations with Manuel Johnson Center faculty and guests. In this episode, Dr. Sutter interviews Dr. Ginn's affiliation can be President, Ginn Economic Consulting, as they discuss The Biden Economy

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The opinions expressed on
this programrepresent the viewpoints
of individual authorsor contributors
and do not necessarily reflectthose of Troy University.
This is E Conversations,
a joint production of TroyTelevision and the Manual H.
Johnson Centerfor Political Economy.

(00:20):
Now, here's your host, Dr.
Dan Sutter.
Hello and welcometo your conversations.
I'm your host, Dr.
Dan Souder of the Johnson Center
for Political Economyat Troy University.
Political strategistJames Carville coined
the memorable phrase, It'sthe economy, stupid.
During Bill Clinton's1992 election campaign, economic

(00:42):
conditions clearly impactAmerican elections.
So how is the economy doingas we head
towardour presidential election?
The current state of the economyseems more contentious
than ever, as by some measures,the economy is improving
with inflation
having fallen while GDP growthwas unexpectedly strong in 2023.
Yet many Americans reportthat they're struggling more

(01:04):
than ever to make ends meet.
Are some Americansvoicing their opposition
to President Biden
when they say that the economyis doing poorly?
Aggregate economic statisticsonly tell part of the story.
So today, only conversationswill be doing a deep dive
into where the economy standstoday.
Join me on the show today tohelp dig into the numbers as Dr.

(01:24):
Vance, again,
the founder of and presidentof Economic Consulting.
Doctor, again, your bachelorsand doctoral degrees
from Texas Tech University
and taught at TACand Sam Houston State
before moving into the publicpolicy world
where he previously workedfor the Texas Public
Policy Foundationand the Pelican Institute
and has also servedas an economist

(01:45):
with the Office of Managementand Budget.
He hosts the Let PeopleProsper Podcast and serves
as a research fellow
with the American Institutefor Economic Research.
Welcometo you Conversations. Vance.
Hey, Dad, it'sa pleasure to be with you today.
So let's get started here.
The we know a couple of yearsago, inflation

(02:06):
hit a 40 year high.
So we know that the economywas not doing very well
a couple of years ago.
And in 2020, we had a huge
spike in unemploymentdue to the COVID recession.
But, you know, let's take a look at whether
where the numbers stand now,
because it seems likewe're doing a little better.
you're right.
So things have been lookingbetter.
And when you're lookingat the unemployment rate, 3.9%

(02:29):
currently 3.2% inflation rate,when you're looking at CPI,
inflation, what you havethere is the misery index,
where you just addthose two together
showing 7.1%,which kind of looks like
the middle of the packright now.
When you go backover the last 20, 30 years,
it's not quite as high,of course, as it was in 2000,

(02:50):
whatever
we were during the pandemicand the economic lockdowns
and everything elsethat happened during that
period, as the unemployment ratesoared to about 14%,
even though inflation stayedcloser to 2%,
you were looking at 16,17% misery index.
So today, from
that standardof the misery index,
I think things are lookingbetter.

(03:11):
And that'swhat Biden has talked about
during the State of the Unionand other situations.
The problemis, is when you start
looking at more of the details
under the hoodof those highlights,
where you really startto see more of the problems
that I'm surewe'll talk about today.
Yeah. Yeah.
Here'sanother way of looking at this.
The last one
was a snapshot of the economywhere we stand now versus

(03:32):
where we stood in February ofof those previous years.
Where we've done here is it's just we have some things up
over the president first
three years essentiallyof the presidential term.
So we have the total increasein the CPI
and then the averageunemployment
rates of unemploymenthave been higher earlier
and it's low now.
We're catching that

(03:53):
with an average over the entirethree years of the presidential
term.
So and here we seea pretty markedly
different story compared toour recent administrations.
Well, that's right.
And I think what we've seenis that
higher level of inflationover the last three plus years
has really contributed to thatcumulative increase of 18.5%.

(04:16):
If you just look at January 20,21 to now, basically
when Biden took officeuntil now,
you know,
average weekly earnings,which I think is a good measure
to look atwhen you're looking at how much,
how many, how much the people'shourly wages are going up
or decreasing
along with the number of hoursthat they're working.
You look at the average weeklyearnings
and what you seeis that adjusted for inflation,

(04:37):
they're down 4.2%since January of 2021.
That's also indicative of whyI think people are concerned
about the economy.
It's still one of the topconcerns that's out there.
Even as inflation has moderated,inflation
was close to 9% in October 2022,not that long ago.
Now it's down closer to 3%.

(04:58):
So it's moderated.
We also have to remember thatthat is compounding over time,
which is where you get this18.5% increase.
And average weeklyearnings have not kept pace.
And that's not a good sign.
And it makes it more difficultto put food on the table,
save for a rainy dayand do a lot of other things.
One thing we also saw, Dan
during COVID and everything elsewhere these checks

(05:19):
that were sent out,the plus ups with unemployment
insurancethat were increased by the
by the federal government,
all that added
to a lot more money in people's for households and savings.
Excess savings,what it's called,
increaseddramatically during that period
that is now being depletedquickly
because inflation has gone upso high
and people are havingto use more of that income

(05:39):
when all that goes away, Dan,
it's going to be interestingto see what happens
to consumption, to investment
and whether or notpeople want to work
because they've been ableto rely on a lot of that
excess savingsover the last couple of years.
And that'll put them in a muchworse situation.
Yes, it's
sort of
those extra savings is providea little bit of a buffer here.
But I think those who have thatbuffer have pretty much

(06:02):
expended it at this point.
But if we look a little bitfarther, I mean, certainly,
you know, the stock markets,this is the Dow Jones
Industrial Average,
but the stock markets
tend to be doingpretty well as as well.
They've all in the last coupleof days here reached new highs.
So the stock market is anotherarea where you sort of certainly

(06:24):
we don't have a stock marketcrash going on or anything
horribly, terribly
wrong going on in the stockmarket at this point.
All right.
Yeah, that's right.
I mean, here recentlywe've seen it break out of the
the trend that had beenfor a while
as you kind of see it goingkind of flat for that
in that in that chart.
And now it's come up hererecently And, you know,

(06:47):
we've hit at recordhighs in nominal terms,
although if you adjustedfor inflation,
I think we've still gota little bit of ways to go.
But it's it's it's nearthe top either way.
But the question to me, though,Dan, too,
is to look at the underlyingfundamentals of the economy.
What have been the profitabilityof many of these firms?
Profits haven't been as great.
And if profit is the mother'smilk, if you will, of

(07:08):
the stock market,
then how why are we goingso high on this on these stocks?
And I think a big part of that
has to dowith the Federal Reserve.
You have tolook at what Congress did
with running upmassive deficits.
The debt is increased byabout $10 trillion since 2020.
So that was under Trumpand Biden.
We've got a lot of excessspending going on.
But then when you look atwhat the Federal Reserve

(07:28):
did, their balance sheet,our central bank's balance sheet
increased from $4 trillionbefore the pandemic
to $9 trillion,
and now it's down to about sevenand a half trillion dollars.
But it's still nearly doublewhat it was before the pandemic.
So there's a lot of liquidityand money
that's goinginto all these markets.
And if you don't want it
in the housing market,if you don't want it in
other assets that are out thereand you want to put something

(07:49):
where you want to geta rate of return,
you look at the stock marketand I think that's why the Dow
Jones, the S&P 500, the NASDAQ,the major indices have hit
these record highs hererecently.
But one of the thingsthat I'm concerned about
is the price to earnings ratio,the p e ratios, which
give you an indication
of whether or notthey're overpriced
or if there are bubblesand things of that nature.
Historically,

(08:10):
they've been somewherein the range of 16 to 18,
and now they've been running
above 24for quite a while, actually.
And so that is a concernthat I think we have
with the stock market,is that the earnings
are not keeping pacewith these stock prices,
which could indicate, you know,slower prices or lower prices
in the near future.
Well, and that would be important for
people who have their savings

(08:31):
now in the stock market, ifthe stock market is overpriced.
Now, as we get intowhen you know,
although the numbers overallare not looking,
you know, not looking bad,
when we lookat the overall numbers,
one thing is troublingis that a distressing
percentage of Americansare saying

(08:51):
that they think the economyis doing badly or saying
that they're having a hard timemaking ends meet.
And this is
just a couple of callsfrom the Pew Research Center,
but it's you see thisin a number of different polls.
It wasn't just like pickingone out,
one pollhere to get this result.
So talk a little bit aboutthis and like, you know,

(09:13):
I guess, are Americans seeingsomething that isn't there
or that isn't showing upin the aggregate statistics
or whatdo you think's going on here?
Yeah, Dan,I think that's a great point.
And you're right,
you're not cherrypicking the data
because a lot of polls areshowing the same results here.
And so whatever I'm looking at
and you'relooking at the headline numbers

(09:36):
that come out, you know,it shows 250,000 jobs created.
The unemployment rate, 3.9%.
All of these things, I think,can make things look good.
But whenever you startpulling people,
asking them how they're doing,
they're indicating thatthis is not a good situation.
And so even though that miseryindex
that we talked about earlieris, you know,
about middle of the pack, maybeit's kind of average right now.
We'd like for it to be lower.

(09:58):
But there's something else
that's happeningto people's incomes
and their way of life,their livelihoods.
That's not reflectedin those numbers.
And I think that's where it goesback into the situation of
the inflation
that's been compounding overtime, where their real average
weekly earnings are down 4.2%since January of 2021.

(10:18):
They just can't buyas much as they could before.
You have other things.
Other priceskeep going up at a faster clip.
You have many people who arestill sitting on the sidelines.
Is the labor force participationrate continues to struggle
across the economy.
I think that'sanother big part of this.
And finally,
I think people are concernedabout their jobs for the future.
One of the things you look at

(10:39):
is the non-farm payroll job
show, 250,300,000 jobs added per month
when you lookat the household survey.
Those have actually beendeclining.
Jobs have been decliningin four of the last five months.
And so that also indicateswhy people are
concerned about the economy.
Well, another possibility,
you know, certainlyPaul Krugman and some other

(10:59):
prominent commentatorshave raised this possibility.
There's a pretty strongpartizan divide
when you look a little bitdeeper into those surveys
as some additional numbersfrom the Pew folks out.
But again,this is representative
what you seewith a lot of the polls
that, you know,when you ask Democrats,
about 44% of Democratsthink the economy is doing

(11:20):
excellent or good,
but only about 12%of Republicans rate it that way.
And that gives us about
an average overall, about 28%,which isn't particularly high.
But this divergenceis pretty significant.
You know,it does raise the question,
as I mentioned,that some economists
have been speculating aboutmaybe Republicans just don't
like Biden, and it's maybe it'swishful thinking or projection

(11:43):
for them to think, the economy'sdoing so terrible.
But they are. They are.
I personally think that there issome objective
truth out there.
So we we do need tolook at these numbers.
And if it was only in the handsof Republican voters, that
those who think that the economyis doing bad, you know,
I guesswe would want to dismiss that.
But that's what we've got to dig

(12:04):
into these numbersa little bit more here, right?
Well, yeah,that's exactly right.
Dan, one of things that I wouldhighlight from that survey
you just put out therewas only 44, 44% of Democrats
think it's excellent or good.
So, yes,it's down to Republicans.
So that may be a reason
for politics and everything elsethat's going on.
But even the Democratsare saying
that less than a majority ofthe Democrats are saying

(12:25):
that this is not an excellentor great economy.
And so I think that's reflective
of a lot of the discussionthat we were having here today
is we've got to look underneaththe headlines.
That's great.
Well, what we see on TV,
but let's make surewe actually see the
what the facts are behind that.
Other parts of the labormarket has also been that
people are workingmore part time than full time
and they're taking on multiplejobs.

(12:46):
That's also not a good situation
for a lot offamilies across the country.
Well,
what do you do, Joe, to
jump off hereis that when we think about the
CPI particularly,that's an average.
And so, you know, they're tryingto measure the market basket.
They're taking a marketbasket of goods,
but that's like onesort of standard

(13:07):
or typical market basket.
And not all pricesgo up at the same rate.
So that means that
if you want to think about
the fact of the inflation ratethat some people face
is going to be differentfrom that average CPI number.
So to talk a little bitmore about this for us.
Yeah, that's a great point.
And you know, the CPI,the Consumer Price Index,

(13:29):
is this basket.
They go out
and they
they measure
about 60,000 goods services theyput into this overall basket.
And they do thison a monthly basis.
They have a base yearof 1982, 84.
And we know that a lot of thingshave changed since then.
So there's different biasesthat are involved
substitution, bias, income bias.
There's different onesthat that are part of this.
But it doesat least give us something

(13:51):
to be able to look atwhat the changes are over
time for this
basket of goods and services,even if it is an average.
But there certainly has beenincreases in food and energy.
Some of those are coming down
now, which is bringing downthe headline number.
But even the core CPI.So exclude food and energy.
So you just look at the more
stable prices,those are up nearly 4%.

(14:12):
And what does this reallymatter?
Will the Federal Reserve hasa target inflation rate of 2%.
Now they like to look
at the personal consumptionexpenditures index,
a different measureof inflation,
which is also running around 3%.
But regardless,all the inflation measures are
running well above 2%
and some are sayingthey're going to cut
interest ratesabout three times this year.

(14:33):
I think that's very optimistic
because inflation has continuedto run hotter
and overthe last couple of months,
the rate of inflationannualized has been close to 7%.
So I think we've got a lotof other problems
within thisinflationary picture,
which is not reflected by
the data, the statisticsthat you put up on the screen.
And one reason whyI still have a lot of concern

(14:53):
for what's goingon, the future of the economy.
If they can't cut
interest rates as fastor as much this year,
what's that going to doin the stock market?
What's going to be
that's a mortgagemortgage market and other things
that are going to be reflectivein a slower
economy and less economic growthand fewer jobs being provided?
Well,those are excellent points.
And one other thing I'd add inthere is that we've seen a lot

(15:16):
of inflationin food and energy,
especially overthe last three years.
Those are a couple of the areasthat have been the highest.
And the statistics, consumptionstatistics show
that lower income Americansspend a higher percentage
touch of their budget on food and energy.
So that's one thing.
Yeah,
there are some reasonsfor excluding that

(15:36):
for like the core inflation,but for for many Americans,
lower income Americansespecially,
who probably don't havethe extra savings
to afford somewhathigher prices
they're facing, if anything upprobably a little bit.
They've faced a little bitmore inflation over the last
three years than their 89.5% run up as on.
Yes, exactly right.

(15:57):
And I think another thing, too,Dan, that
I know
you looked at some of thisand I have as well, is
of course, it's also different
depending on which stateyou're in.
Yeah, I'm in Texas now.
You're in Alabama.
That's going to have slower growth rates
and the cost of livingthis basket
than places like Californiaand New York. Right.
And then we wonderwhy people are moving with
their feet for those high tech,high cost of living places

(16:19):
to places that are cheaper
and have lower income taxesand other deregulation
and things of that nature.
We've
already mentioned that oncewe have inflation,
especiallya good amount of inflation,
you really have to look atwhether we call real
or inflation adjusted income asopposed to just nominal income.
And here we cansee some numbers

(16:40):
reflectingwhat we've already talked about,
how over the lastcouple of years
wages haven't been keeping upwith inflation.
But one thingI just want to add to this
is that some researchfrom the Federal Reserve banks
show that like in 2022,there is about 10 to
15% of Americans didn'treally get any raise at all.
And with inflation,

(17:01):
with the levelwhere it was that year,
if you were one of the Americanswho didn't get any
raise and inflation overallwas at least 7% for the year,
and that's a really big cutin your real income,
then inflation means your realincomes going down that much.
And that's a pretty
that's a pretty heftyreduction for some folks.

(17:21):
Yeah, it really is.
And especially it hurtsthe poorest
among usthe most as their inflation
goes up all around themand then their pay is more fixed
if they're gettingany pay increase at all.
And so that really hurts themeven more.
So as we're talking aboutsome of these averages,
like even mineearlier, of the 4.2% reduction
in real average weekly earningssince January of 2021,

(17:44):
of course, that's an average
that for the average personthat's out there.
So there are many,
many more that have beenthat seeing their wages
be deflated,their purchasing power go down
tremendously because their wagesare increasing at all.
And so this is a major problem.
It's another reason why, though,Dan, that many people over
the last few years have been switching jobs so frequently.

(18:05):
A number of one reasonwhy is inflation.
Well,they're not seeing an increase
in the job that they're in,
so they're going to go somewhereelse.
Right.
Well, that also hasa higher transaction cost
for each one of those employers.
They're now having to hireadditional worker
and train themand everything else.
And then that raises the pricesthat we pay at the same time.
So there are many factorsat play.

(18:26):
And then I don't knowwhere you were
this about,you know, four years ago,
but we had the where we hadthe pandemic and the lockdowns
and everything else.
There were a lot of economiststhat were talking about a
transitory inflation.
I'm doing air quoteshere, but transitory inflation.
And I think that made some senseearly
on because of the supply chaindisruptions.
The idea was once the supplychains came back online

(18:47):
that inflation would go down,
maybe even havesome deflation, prices
would go backto some sort of price stability.
But the problem was thatthere were so many other factors
at play with massive deficitsby Congress,
by the Fed,printing so much money,
too much money, chasing toofew goods,
you're going to have longerterm inflation.
So I was alwaysin the persistent inflation
camp, which I got a lot of badrap for a little while.

(19:08):
But I think that it's importantfor us to understand
the dynamics of inflationand the economy
and not just look at one offthings
like supply shocksor something else.
But you mentionedthe supply chain disruptions.
And that's another reasonwhy we you know,
the perhaps the CPI numbers,they were at a 40 high, 40 year
high,
but theythey might not have been

(19:29):
telling the whole storybecause there is
there are real costswhen goods aren't
actually available,even at a higher price. Right.
Exactly right.
And recently there was agood paper out by Larry Summers,
who was in the Clintonadministration.
He also did some workin the Obama administration.
So more of a left of center,if you will, in a lot of ways.

(19:51):
And his research
showed that if we usethe same sort of CPI basket,
because they change it upover time
with different weightsand things of that nature,
if it was the same aswhat would they had been doing
using back to the 1980s,
inflation
would have
been higher than the 9%,
it would have been closer to 12or 13%.
So that may better reflectthe cost that we're paying.
And why is that?

(20:11):
Well, it's because today CPIdoesn't include interest rates.
It doesn'tinclude the other costs
that we're seeing for creditcard debt, for mortgage debt.
It just looks at the rate
the imputed rent that you'repaying on your mortgage,
not the higher interest ratesthat are associated with that.
So it keeps the inflationrate lower
than what it otherwise would be,meaning

(20:31):
the cost of that basketis going to be lower
than what it otherwise would be.
And so I think this is also morereflective
of what peopleare feeling on the ground.
And yes, the supplychain disruptions were costly
and hit us pretty hardand they came back online.
But remember, many countriesdidn't open up four years later.
In fact, China shut down
multiple times

(20:53):
and that restricted the supplychains across the country.
What did America do?We switched to other countries.
We buy a lot more from Taiwan,Vietnam, other places
that were kept more in lineat a lower cost.
And it's one reasonwhy I think it's so important
for us to keep lookingat our corporate income tax.
The Biden administration
came out recently to sayto raise it from 21 to 28%,

(21:13):
which would make us lesscompetitive in the world.
Well, we had reduced itin the Trump administration
from 35%, which was the highestin the developed world, to 21%,
which is about the developed world's average.
So if we start raisingthat again,
we're goingto have even more incentive
for businessesto move elsewhere.
Instead of havingmore production here at home.
Just why we
mention one more thing here,because the baby formula

(21:36):
shortagewas really terrible for parents
with young childrenneeding a formula.
But I think it also story
shows herethat when a good isn't available
either, the pricethat enters into the CPI
becomes a little bit misleading
because
the CPI is sort of presumingthat the good is available there
for a purchase at that priceand when it's not available at

(21:59):
all, that's a that's painor real hardship
that people face,that they're simply being left
out of of the CPI.
So, you know, as things weren'tavailable in another way, I put
you could think about itis that how much would
the price of baby formula orother goods have to have gone up
to keep some on the shelves,to keep some available?

(22:19):
And that would have been a
higher inflation would have been higher
than was being measuredat that time.
So, you know, something
that hit us, too, Dan, because we had a baby around that time.
yeah,we couldn't find baby formula.
So it affected us directly
and it was very difficultfor a little while
of trying to find itand everything else.
And then you maybepay more online,

(22:40):
but we were willing to pay it,
willingand able to pay that price.
Many people were not.
It's also a good economic lessonof how
we have to be cautiousabout calling things
price gouging and everythingelse.
Remember, the market is the bestat allocating
resources through the pricesthat are given.
You're either
going to have rationingthrough the price system,
which is well functioningor through rationing.
And in this case,we found rationing

(23:00):
to be the caseinstead of the prices.
So we've got to be carefulabout talking about,
you know, pricegouging or something
where people who spentan entire afternoon driving
from store to store tryingto find baby formula, okay.
Even if they were able to findthey didn't
have to pay that much.
But think of all the gasthey used up
and their time that they spenttrying to get that.
Now, you've
mentioned the interest rates,mortgage interest rates.

(23:23):
And so let's come back to thisbecause as you said,
interest rates in general,
not just mortgage interestrates, they have a slide here
showing what's happenedwith mortgage interest rates,
but all interest rateshave gone up
and that impacts householdsas well as in a way, as you
mentioned, there's the CPI isand picking up.
So tellus a little bit about this.
Yeah, these theseinterest rates are influenced

(23:45):
a lot by the debt that Congressputs in place, right?
So if they issue more Treasurysecurities,
that pushes supply to the rightand a raise it
it reduces the priceand it raises interest rates.
And and
but that also influencesa lot of of the interest
other interest ratesthroughout the economy.
It also as influencedby the Federal Reserve,

(24:06):
our central bank
where they have a targetfederal funds rate
which is the overnightlending rate between banks.
That basically is telling you
how much the cost of credit isgoing to be across the country.
And they had it at basically
a zero, essentially zerofor a couple of years
during COVID to really allowfor more liquidity
into the marketplace.
This is alsowhen they increase their balance

(24:27):
sheetfrom 4 trillion to 9 trillion.
And then in July of 2022,
they began to raise or aroundthat time in 2022,
they began to raise thatfederal funds rate up to where
it got to 5.25 to 5.5%,where it's at today.
And they've been pausing nowfor a while and not changing it.
But during that time,we saw very low mortgage rates,

(24:50):
which are connected to the tenyear Treasury note rate that the
the Treasury puts out therewith their debt and debt.
It's also effortsby the Federal Reserve.
That'swhy bringing this all together
and that contributedto higher mortgage rates,
whatever those other ratesbegan to increase.
And I think that they're goingto stay higher for longer,
given that inflation is going tobe higher than longer as well.

(25:12):
And what does that mean?
That means just two years agoyou could have got a mortgage
at an interest rate of about 3% and now you're going to pay
in 7%. That's double.
If you happen to havean adjustable rate mortgage,
your mortgage paymentper month can double
compared to what you were before
that you can't afford itand you lose your home.
Or if you try to sell your homeand go buy another home,
you probably can't afford itbecause housing values are up

(25:33):
and interest rates are up.
So it's put people in a toughsituation in the housing market
where I really thinkthat we're going to continue
to see some depreciationof housing across the country,
especially in particular marketslike San Francisco, Austin,
which is nearby
where I'm at,
you're alreadyseeing a lot of this happen,
especially for new sales.
New sales aroundthe Austin area are down 18%.

(25:53):
The prices are just overthe last year.
So that that process, just likewe saw during the great
financial crisis of the 2000,is happening again.
Deflationary pressurewithin the housing market
because of thosehigher interest rates
and becausethe housing prices are so high.
So I think that's goingto continue for a while, Diane,
which is going to havea lot of influence
on people'slivelihoods across the economy.

(26:15):
And it's not just housing.
Is there anything that consumersbuy on credit?
Because many people are goingto buy a lot of things, Cars
in particular.
But also, I mean,many people will buy appliances
in other the home repairsand have to put on credit.
So all those interest rateshave gone up.
So all of those things,
people are getting squeezed
on a lot of different marginshere, right?

(26:38):
That's exactly right.
A credit card debt rateis reached $1,000,000,000,000.
And doesn't interestthose Interest rates
are now up to about 24%.
They'll come down
for a while, 16, 17%,but now they're back to 24%.
And if you were just real quickfor the audience,
I mean, back in the seventies,we had the great inflation,
double digits, inflationand everything else.

(26:58):
In about 1980, the prime rateor the rate for mortgages
was close to 20%.
So even at the 7%,we're still getting a relatively
good deal,historically speaking,
but it feels very expensivetoday.
This is one reasonwhy I've been so adamant
about the Federal Reservecutting its balance
sheet and Congress stop
spending so muchand running a massive deficits
because if we don't,we're going to run

(27:19):
into the same sort of problemwe did there in the 1970s,
and then we're all goingto be facing higher
interest rates, higher inflationand less economic opportunity.
Well, we're nearthe end of our time.
So anything you'd liketo add here to just sum up?
Well, I appreciateyou having me on the show, Dan,
and all these key,key issues that are going on.
I hope
America takes a more pro-growthpolicy approach moving forward.

(27:41):
And I hope maybe some people
check out my podcastat at Advanced Income.
You can check me outor let people prosper.
So whereverthey get their podcasts, well,
I hope they do it.
And thanks, Vance,for coming on the show.
And thank you allfor joining us.
Join us again next timefor another E Conversations.

(28:02):
This has been E Conversations,
a joint production of Joy, CoachVision and Emmanuel H.
Johnson Center for PoliticalEconomy at four University.