The Invisible Economic Forces Shaping Your Life w/ Planet Money's Alex Mayyasi #1151

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel and today I'm
talking about the invisible economic forces shaping your life with
Alex Mayasi. Okay, try to explain consciousness. Go ahead, I'll wait.

(00:29):
It's almost impossible, but that doesn't make it any less real.
Same thing with gravity. You can't see it, but it
shapes every moment you're awake and while you're sleeping, right,
and it did long before anyone could fully explain it, right,
even after Isaac Newton put words and math to it.
Economic forces work similarly to gravity. You don't always see them,

(00:51):
and you might not fully grasp what's going on behind
the scenes, but they quietly influence every financial decision you make,
from the biggest to the smallest. And that's what today's
show is all about. Alex Miassi is a journalist. He's
a podcaster. He's author of the book Planet Money, where
he explores the heat hidden economic forces shaping everyday life.
Yes that Planet Money, MPR's Planet Money. And he's got

(01:13):
a new podcast, actually to launches today, Gastronomics. It's all
about the business of food, which I'm excited to listen to.
So Alex, thank you so much for joining me today.
On the podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Oh, thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
I'm looking forward to this. A first question, though, I
got to ask everybody out of the gate is what
they like to explore? John, what's your craft beer equivalent?
Even while you're doing smart stuff with your money for
your future, what are you blowing it on now?

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Well? Sometimes it is craft beer. I do enjoy that.
I'm like with wine and beer, you know, a relatively
smaller splurriage can't get you something that is so amazing.
It kind of like high up in the world of
craft beer. My other answer is coffee, and I think
very specifically, I'm like self employed, independent, and so I

(01:59):
really value going to my favorite coffee shops and splurging
on like a nice espresso or drink like that. But again,
it's nice that, you know, going to get the best
espresso in town is like five dollars maybe, you know.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
So you're right, because like you can get a three
dollar beer that's that's not very good, and you can
or you can get like an eleven dollars beer and
it's like the best beer you've ever had, And the
same is true kind of in that coffee space right
where you can you can get like a three dollars
espresso drink that's not very good, or you can get
a five dollars one that like blows your mind. And
so it's the price GAP's not always significant, but like

(02:32):
the enjoyment gap can be real for sure. And as
someone who's okay, who is creating a podcast about the
intersection of food and finance, what, yeah, are you going
to have a coffee coffee episode at some point?

Speaker 3 (02:45):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (02:45):
I mean, I think the question there will definitely be one,
and the question is how many probably can I do
without there. I'm not like the coffee guy, but I
think coffee is like a particularly interesting Yeah, it's a commodity,
but it's also something that's so high valued. You get
into trade, you get into kind of varieties and economies
of scale. Yeah, there's there's a lot to talk about

(03:07):
with coffee. So I'm already thinking about several episodes.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
I'm actually reading a book called Uncommon Grounds right now,
which about the history of coffee. Fascinating, fascinating because you're right, like,
it's just it involves kind of world history, it involves trade.
I mean, every it touches every single part of human existence.
So it is it's just one of those fascinating substances
that we've we've grown to love and uh and the

(03:31):
story of it is is just fascinating. So I'll tune
into that episode when it launches. Let's let's dig into
some of the new book though. I mean, economics impacts everything, right,
everything that we touch. We are economic units in in
some sense, like we're humans, but like we also economics
impacts our lives on a daily basis. So as a
long time Planet Money contributor, how does how does that

(03:53):
reality play out in the lives of normal, everyday folks
who maybe are walking around as economic beings in this
universe but not really realizing it.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah, I mean, I think a really helpful idea early
on in working on the book was to think about
the book as a field guide, Like we want to
be a field guide. You could almost imagine like waking
up in the morning and picking up the Planet Money
Book and like tucking under your arm before you leave
to like help you navigate all the economic forces waiting
out there for you. Because I do think you know,

(04:25):
it's helpful to have a map, because there are a
lot of things that can impact our lives, whether we're
aware of them or not. And I think oftentimes we
might kind of hear about interest rates inflation, there are
other forces that are maybe a little bit less obvious,
but I think for all of us, it's really helpful
to like better understand you know, what causes you know,

(04:45):
inflation or the business cycle or these kind of like
big kind of waves that can come up and impact
all of us, and it's helpful to understand them and
then hopefully, you know, if we're gonna I'm mixing my metaphors,
but I from now I'm in waves, you know, learn
how to ride some of them rather than just kind
of like look at them as they start towering above you.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
I think that's really what the book does so well,
and such an important thing that people maybe dismiss is
the better we understand why things happen economically, the better
we can react to them. You're right, like surfing the
wave instead of getting instead of getting smashed by it.
Is that is that kind of that's got to be
a big goal of this book is to help people
realize what's happening around them so that they can better
engage with it.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Absolutely, like better understand some of these forces and how
they might impact different decisions you might make. And then
also I think hopefully raise kind of like the economic
AQ for all of us, we can be better voters
and understand. You know, no one individual can solve inflation
or the high cost of housing, but I think if

(05:46):
we all better understand what's causing those things, that can
also help us kind of demand more of politicians and
be better voters in many cases on a local level too,
where I think, you know, one person or one group
of people who are motivated and engaged can't make a
big difference.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
And it's interesting, like the more you realize about how
complicated complex some of these markets are. Even so we
talked about coffee, the housing market, inflation, you're like the
hollow promises of politicians feel more palpable because you're like,
you're not going to solve that, Like you might have
the ability to influence in small ways, how like policy

(06:24):
that impacts us down the line, but you're not fixing
high housing prices. Like they're just these forces outside of
the control of one person at the top. And yet
we as uninformed individuals sometimes like to think that that
person can solve the problem.

Speaker 3 (06:42):
That we have.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yeah, I mean, I think one distinction I might make
there is is I do feel like I think it's
that kind of riding the wavepoint again. I think there's
a way that you might look at, say a politician
saying I'll fix this. But I think if you understand
economics better, you might be able to kind of see
whether there's credibility there, because you know, there's there's many ways,
Like this book we might talk about some of these

(07:03):
examples is full of uh, you know, include some stories
of politicians in some cases, you know, presidents or prime
ministers you know, wanting to change to kind of bend
the world economy to their will, and often they are
very humbled and it does not work. But I think
right like, if you work with these economic forces, if
you understand them, you know, then maybe you won't just

(07:23):
be kind of bowed over by the rate the wave,
but you can work with them. And as much as
I think like economics and financial markets can be seem
complicated and intimidating, and certainly there is complexity there, I
do think a lot of ideas that can be very
powerful are often quite simple. So I do think this
is a book that will hopefully that I think will

(07:45):
appeal to both people who understand and have a lot
of experience with say finance or economics or business, but
also people who don't. And I think it has.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
A lot of value for both as you kind of
like dug into history and the history of kind of
markets and economics. Are Are we in a uniquely weird
economic moment or does it just kind of like feel
that way, But times are always tenuous or weird, or
economics are always it's like kind of a constant battle
we're always waging or something something we're engaging with, and

(08:18):
it just, I don't know, it feels like people are
that the average American feels like we're in weird times,
like these are unprecedented times. I'm just curious as to
whether or not you would think that's true.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
I think yes and no. Right, I think previously we
did have this kind of really unusual period that's sometimes
called the Great Moderation where the economy, you know, the
Great Recession happened during this time, which was a huge
impact on say, like you know, me and my sister
both graduated into it. So it's not like nothing happened,
but it was a period where there was very little

(08:52):
inflation that specifically what about the Great moderation is about
there's much less of kind of a business cycle. So
I do think there's a way that now, you know,
economics has felt much more pressing for people, where suddenly,
you know, suddenly we're in these huge trade wars and
there are big concerns about automation NI. But I also
think over the long swoop of history, like, it is

(09:16):
very common for people to have these concerns and anxieties
even when economic growth is rather healthy and you know,
we're not in a formal recession and employment numbers might
actually look quite good. You know, people have been extremely
worried about automation and the prospect of you know, incredibly
high layoffs and joblessness for centuries. We've kind of gone

(09:38):
through phases of that, going back to the start of
the Industrial Revolution. Concerns about inflation, of course, have been
you know, if anything, it's kind of uncommon that Americans
have gotten to enjoy this kind of several decade period
of low inflation where a dollar just kind of was
worth a dollar was worth a dollar year after year
after year, and inflation was so small we barely noticed
that money was this thing that could was you know,

(09:59):
a social construct that could kind of just like change
just like that all of a sudden, Like.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
The nineties and the early aughts were kind of unique
in terms of stability.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
Yeah, yeah for Americans. Yeah, but yeah, and I think
like what would have certainly been reassuring from spending all
this time thinking about the economy and ring the book
is that over the long run, like over the last
two hundred plus years, the overwhelming dominant story is one
of increasing prosperity in countries like the United States, Western Europe,

(10:31):
but as well as many other countries increasingly too, of
just less poverty, you know, fewer people in hunger, more
and more people able to afford, you know, a nice
place to live, and you know, have greater longevity, you know,
greater health across the population and not just for a
small elite like that is the overwhelming story of the

(10:51):
last you know, two plus centuries, is this increasing prosperity
and more people enjoying that prosperity. But yeah, during that time,
everyone has always had concerns and anxieties and worries about
the economy and not unfounded. So that's kind of this
this tension that we all live with.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
Well, it's it's interesting you point that out, and I
totally agree, and it makes me think of I had
Mary and Tupy on the podcast not too long ago
around Thanksgiving, and he wrote the book Super Abundance, and
there's like abundant proof that this is true, that we
have gotten richer, that we live lives that even people

(11:30):
sixty years ago couldn't couldn't quite fathom on average. Right,
So I guess, but there seems to be a disconnect.
Where is that disconnect, Alex, that that most people don't
feel that way or maybe don't even believe that's true
even though they're hearing you say that.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's a hard question.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
I think there's probably more than one reason, right, And
lots of people have been kind of making different cases
for different theories. I mean, I think one reason that
people feel this way is just that we think more
about kind of like relative wealth and prosperity more than
absolute And so you know, I'm that way. I like
know that, like, man, am I lucky compared to you know,
people centuries ago. But that doesn't, you know, change the

(12:14):
fact that I'm living in this time and I'm kind
of my baseline is much higher, and that's a good
thing that our expectations for everyone are much higher than
they use.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
So your yacht is also much smaller than Jeff Bezos.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
I just bought like an adult kiddie pool for my backyard.
My yacht is non existent. It is not smaller, it
is non existent. But I think there are some other
pieces too. I think one that I'm I've been thinking
about that maybe I haven't seen it as much analysis
on or people mentioning, is just the way that on average,

(12:50):
the average worker does have kind of like a higher
salary even when you kind of adjust for inflation, you know,
cost of living, those sorts of things than they did,
you know, a decade ago, decades ago. But I think
this is a big butt. A lot of the things
that have gotten cheaper over time are goods, you know,

(13:10):
like so it's now much easier to afford like a
big screen TV. But a lot of the things that
have gotten either have not become more affordable or have
even gotten more expensive, are these kind of big fixed
costs that are really essentials, you know, So the cost
of housing, whether that's your rent or your mortgage, healthcare, childcare, right,
and so I do think it's just a lot harder.

(13:33):
Even if like you're kind of salary compared to cost
of living might look pretty good on like a trend
line that an economist could look at over time or
some sort of analysts could look like compare over time.
I think there's a big difference when you know the
absolute essential things, those kind of fixed costs are higher
because you know, it's it's easy. I mean, it's easier

(13:53):
to cut back on kind of things like you know,
purchasing new clothes or meals out, but right like childcare
and your rent, those aren't things you can really kind
of just like pinch pennies on or like cut those
costs down. Right, if you know, those things that you're
worried about do happen, Like if you know, automation does
become disruptive and leads to layoffs, or you know, X,

(14:15):
y or z things that we might worry about or
a coming recession. So I think that does. That's why
you can live in this place where people are on paper.
I think that's one part of why people can on
paper be living, you know, seemingly by the numbers better
than in past years, and yet feel more precarious and
more worried and anxious economically.

Speaker 1 (14:36):
I mean, when you look at the chart right of
inflation and what's gone up in price and what's gone
down in price, you're exactly right right that, Yeah, my
cell phones have gotten cheaper, and my television has gotten cheaper,
and my smart phone service has gotten cheaper. But the
things that are truly costly that have skyrocketed in price
higher education and healthcare being two of them ones. Childcare

(15:01):
is another one, right, Like you reference in the book
that like light bulbs are cheap, thinking about where led
bulbs were ten years ago and how much they cost now,
But childcare is not. So to what do you associate
the rise in costs of services? What goods are becoming cheaper?

Speaker 2 (15:18):
Yeah, So this is a very powerful economic idea called
cost disease. And so there's kind of a story behind
it where this economist back during the JFK administration was
asked to look into like, hey, like why why are
all these like theaters like Broadway theaters and artists, like
why are they all struggling financially? And so this economist

(15:40):
to his himself a kind of like an avid sculptor
on the side and highly motivated, he goes and you know,
interviews producers and gathers data backstage, he's looking at ticket stubs,
that sort of thing. It comes up with this this
very elegant theory of why you know, the artists aro
is starving, and he kind of gives this like simplified
version of the economy where you can break it up

(16:00):
into two parts. There's like part A of the economy,
which is parts of the economy that really get more
productive and efficient over time thanks to technology. You know,
So agriculture used to be something like seventy percent of
Americans worked in agriculture. Now we produce even more food
than those our American farms did in the past. But
obviously those farms have been mechanized, electrified, you know, they've

(16:21):
just gotten much much more efficient. Obviously this has happened
to all sorts of factories as well.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
Of Americans are farmers now.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
Right, Yeah, something you know single digits. You know, software
is another area right where you can have like Instagram
famously was like a one billion dollar company with like
twelve employees. So they are these parts of the economy
Part A that gets like more and more efficient and
productive over time. And then part B of the economy
is often these kind of labor intensive services, so the arts,
you know, haircuts, childcare right like you still it's not

(16:53):
like we used to have like one person taking care
of ten kids and now one person can take care
of a thousand kids. You know, we haven't seen like
at one hundred ex efficiency gains, but like that has
happened in the other part of economy or like no
one's giving five beard trims now in the time that
in the fifties it took to do like one beard trim.
And so cost disease is a problem, a problem of

(17:14):
success that when you have part A of the economy
getting more and more productive, more efficient, that creates more wealth.
You have salaries going up in the kind of part
A economy, like those parts of those businesses really want
to hire people. And so the kind of like childcare workers, teachers,
you know, ushers on Broadway. They'll look over at like

(17:34):
the increasing salaries and the part A economy and they're saying, like,
no matter how much I love being a teacher or
you know, working on Broadway, at some point, if I
don't get a raise like I'm going to I'm going
to go over there. And so that's cost disease that
all these kind of like theaters, schools, childcare centers have
to raise the wages for their workers. And since it's
you know, very labor intensive, that makes it that makes

(17:56):
it more expensive. So it's this actual kind of like
problem of our own success that as the economy actually
successful and we grow richer collectively, these certain types of
services get more expensive. And some of them are incredibly important,
you know, uh, firefighting, public schools, childcare. You know, they

(18:19):
can get some gains from from technology and get more
efficient in some ways, but not in the way that
that those other parts of the economy are. And so
that's why we really see this kind of dynamic where
like big screen TVs went from being a status symbol
to something so affordable that like you can never brag
about your big screen TV anymore.

Speaker 1 (18:35):
And used to steal them, and they don't steal them
anymore because there were.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
So that was like the plot, like the plot of
the first Fast and the Furious movie was like stealing
DVD players in big screen TVs and like they like
dispatch like a special agent to investigate, right, and that
seems absurd by the time, Like now Fast and furious
movies are coming out, and that would be like absurd
to like steal like those little dinky TVs they were
stealing back then like that, this is the same movie
series has even changed. That's that's how fast this can move.

Speaker 3 (19:01):
Is this a case we're being aware of?

Speaker 1 (19:03):
It is just super helpful because it sounds like the
way you're describing this that for some of these it's
not like something is going to come along and happen
to dramatically impact and reduce the price of some of
these services where that we've seen go up at a
rate that's faster than the average rate of inflation. Is
this just something that we have to kind of be

(19:25):
aware of, or is there something that we can do
in action we can take because of that?

Speaker 3 (19:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
I mean, I think on a personal level, it's helpful
to recognize what it means to join some of those
very labor intensive services industries, businesses that do kind of
suffer from cost disease. You know, it's like a little
bit of a bummer if that's your passion, But I
think it is helpful to recognize that there is this

(19:52):
dynamic where these very labor intensive industries are ones that
are probably over time going to have lower salaries because
of cost disease. Like I do think that is a
helpful insight, even if you know it's it's maybe not
helpful if like, you know, you feel born to be
a teacher and that's what you want to do. But
then I think on a societal level, it's also very
helpful because I think, you know, I totally understand the

(20:15):
perspective of people who are like I live in a
place where taxes are quite high. My taxes shouldn't go
up anymore, and you know, maybe you feel like, you know,
the government should become more efficient, or you know, I
don't think it's helpful to raise taxes ever higher they're
already high. But I think once you're thinking about cost disease,
you kind of realize that's that's the road to popperdom,
you know, like if taxes don't go up, we love

(20:36):
the thing that the government does are very labor intensive policing, firefighting,
public schools, you know, teachers, and so you know, this
has happened where a lot of Americans are resistant to
tax increases, and that has squeezed the budgets of public
schools and of firefighting departments. So yeah, it's not just
as an individual. You can't necessarily there are limits to

(20:58):
like what you can do with this knowledge. But I
think it's really powerful if more people were aware of
the implifications, If more people were aware of the implications
of cost disease, I think it could lead to greater
understanding of like why taxes probably should go up over time,
like if you have a successful economy or taxes, like
your tax rate probably should be going up so that

(21:18):
you can subsidize those services that are really important. And
I think it also is just a very powerful case
for progressive taxations that you can subsidize things like childcare
because you know where it's this crazy situation where America
is probably you know, one of the wealthiest countries, perhaps
the wealthiest country in the history of the world. But

(21:42):
then you have couples who they both have good jobs,
they're successful, and they're just incredibly stressed over childcare and
wondering if they can afford it. And that's a kind
of crazy situation to be in. And that's because of
cost disease. But like we know, like the economistic coin
who came up with this theory, did the math, and
like there's enough wealth being created by like all those
efficiency gains and technology gains to subsidize important things like

(22:05):
healthcare and childcare and teaching that get squeezed by cost disease.
But you know, it's it's a political problem, Like we
need to recognize the problem and then you know, decide
collectively to address it.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
All Right, there's more I want to cover with you, Alex.
I want to talk about pricing, how that impacts everything
we view and experience as consumers, what signals prices send.
And then I want to talk about tariffs a little
bit too. They're not just kind of the word of
the moment. There's there's a history that we need to
cover as well. We'll talk about that and more. Right

(22:38):
after this, we're talking with Alex. May I see we're
talking about the invisible economic forces shaping your life. Just
talked about cost disease, and man, Alex, theres so much
good stuff in this book. I want to I guess
I want to set it up again. I want to
ask another like kind of broad question. When we talk

(23:00):
about personal finance, we're focusing mostly on individual choices. We
just kind of talked about a way that you think
we need to think a little more collectively. But like,
and this might be like a determinism burst free will question,
But would you say that macro economic forces hold more
sway than personal choice because so often on this podcast,
like we're talking about we're talking about broad macroeconomic realities,

(23:24):
but then also how you respond as an individual, Like
maybe it's like what came first, chicken or the egg,
But how do you think about kind of that interaction
between people's choices, the ability to kind of, you know,
zig when somebody's zagging. You talk about Warren Buffett's able
to do incredibly well even when the market is suffering.
Is what does that balance look like or the tension

(23:47):
I guess between a person's individual choices and kind of
what's happening on the macro level.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
Yeah, you know the subtitles to this book, A Guide
to the Economic Forces that Shape Your Life. I actually
first came up with it when thinking about Warren Buffett
because he, I think relatively generously has talked about how
his wealth and success were only possible because of the
conditions he was born in right where He's talked about

(24:13):
how women who were born at the same time as him,
it was very hard for them to get an education, Whereas,
of course he was going to get an education because
he was born born, male, born relatively middle class, if
I remember correctly, and similarly that you know, he didn't
face the types of racial discrimination that prevented so many
people from, especially back when he was younger, getting education,

(24:34):
accessing opportunities, jobs, being taken seriously. And so, you know,
I think something similar happens right where, you know, I
think it's important to get that information about what you
can yourself do, whether that's something like personal finance or
say negotiation. But there are ways, right Like, no matter

(24:56):
how much you learn about negotiation, if you're just in
a situation where jobs numbers are not great, like there's
a lot of unemployment and your employer sees you as
pretty easy to replace, you just don't have a lot
of leverage. And so no matter how much you know
you learn about negotiation, it will be hard for you
to negotiate for you know, increase in your wage. Whereas,

(25:18):
if you you know, are in a kind of context
where the economy is doing really well, unemployment numbers are
really low. You know, employers are really like competing for labor,
and you've gotten to like, you know, you've gotten a
good education and you have skills that are scarce. Obviously
some of that's in your control, but some of it
is kind of the context you're born in. Then, yeah,

(25:40):
it's going to be a lot easier to negotiate for wages.
You might just be offered wages regularly because your employer
knows that someone you know, people are competing for for
workers and someone else might just come and offer you
a good, you know, a higher wage, so they need
to proactively give you really good bonuses and wage increases,
you know, wage bumps every year. I think it's really

(26:00):
valuable for people right to like use some of the
tools that you're providing to think about their own finances
and make the best out of their own situation. But yeah,
it's incredibly powerful like that, you know, when you're born
and what the economy is like is super impactful and
shaping kind of like what what's possible for you and
like whether you will be an easy mode or hard

(26:22):
mode in terms of navigating the economy.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
Yeah, well, I think I think it's I think it's
so true, and there's yeah, there's like a reality that
you have control to a certain extent, and then there's
if you were, like I was saving up my down
payment and then housing prices ran away from me. Then
there's also the reality that it buying that home becomes
much much harder than it was for maybe someone five

(26:46):
years older than you. And so there are there's this
there's this tension in terms of how you react or
and there's often bad advice too. Just when you were
talking to me, I was thinking of kind of the
advice of learned to code, like Trump and tell truck
drivers to learn to code, and guess what that turns
out to be terrible advice At this point too. Truck
driving is probably probably an industry with less threat than

(27:14):
the coding industry right now, given what's happening with AI.
I want to talk about pricing too. Pricing is one
of the most basic mechanisms of economics, and as consumers,
we encounter them all the time at the grocery store,
at the gas pump. How do individuals interact with prices
and what do prices tell us?

Speaker 2 (27:32):
Yeah, I think this is this has been fascinating to
learn about because I think you often think of a
price tag is just like what you need to pay,
but prices are doing something really powerful the lose. The
economist Tyler Cowen and a colleague who coined this term
that like prices are both like an incentive wrapped up

(27:52):
in a signal, or maybe it was a signal wrapped
up in an incentive, but it's doing right. These prices
are doing two key things. They're both a signal and
an incentive. So way you can think about this is
like as an incentive, like if the price of something
goes up really high that you know, for you as
a consumer, that's just a bummer you have to pay
a high price. But it's also an incentive for people
across the entire economy. So for customers, they might look

(28:14):
for an alternative. It's like peanut butter got really expensive.
It's like, what's going on with almond butter? You know,
let's explore some alternative nut butters because maybe those are
those are cheaper, and then that's you know, the fact
that people are kind of pushed to explore other alternatives
will help like bring the price down, you know, because
now there's less demand. And on the other side, okay,
peanut butter got really expensive. You know, maybe the good

(28:38):
people at jiff I hope they're good people a lot
of their probably exactly but Jiff, you know, they'll they'll
incentive for them, Oh we can make more money by
making peanut butter. Can we increase production? And that's also
kind of like the signal. You know, it's that like,
you know, a high price or a really low price,
is this kind of like signal to people that something
is going on there they might want to adjust their behavior.

(28:59):
And there's this kind of key point that everyone making
these decisions, you don't actually need to know why the
price of peanut butter got really really high, Like maybe
something happened where to like the peanut crop in an
area that grows lots of peanuts. Maybe there was a
huge recall. It doesn't really matter, like individuals will just
like adjust. So the price is this really powerful, Like

(29:20):
it takes all this information about things going on across
the entire economy and puts it in one number that
people then can react to. And so this is this
is the invisible hand at work, Like this is why
we don't have like a brainy, centralized group of technocrats
like deciding okay, open a factory here and you know,
you get this peanut butter and making kind of economic

(29:41):
decisions for everyone. We live in this kind of absolutely
crazy world if you think about it, where absolutely no
one's in charge of the economy. But like there's like
seven million people living on an island where food didn't
get there, you know every day, it would be insane chaos,
And we're not trusting to any one specific person to
make sure the food gets there and all the important
resources get built and made and gets the place that

(30:03):
they need to go to it it's kind of done
by all of us in this very decentralized way, because
that's like the invisible hand at work. It's all of
us responding to the information contained in prices and the
signals and incentives created by high emode prices.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
And the fact that it works most of the time
incredibly well is what blows me away. I think there's
a lot of there's just a lot of complaining, let's
be honest at times about how things don't work as
well as we'd like them to. And then when you
look around in so much of the rest of the world,
it's worse and prices are higher, and when you see

(30:40):
how well, I think that's what blows me away. I'm
like goll lee, this works well most of the time.
I went to get to a random store today because
my wife needed some wheatberries because she makes her own bread.
She mills them and she makes her own bread. And
I'm like the fact that this place exists not too
far from my house and I can they can fill
it up by the five gallon bucketful of wheatberries for

(31:01):
a reasonable price, and this store survives. Like that's cool
to me, you know, and that there's room in the
market for these people to specialize in this business, and
they have to change their prices based on a lot
of different factors too. But yeah, that to me, that
always blows me away. I like to be thankful for
it because I think it is so when when I

(31:21):
step back, I'm like, it's mind blowing.

Speaker 3 (31:23):
It's mind blowing.

Speaker 1 (31:24):
I want to talk about chapter chapter four. What do
Argentina's laws and apple reveal about free trade, globalization and protectionism?
Those are all topics that maybe you know, during those
nineties and early odds, Yeah, they weren't. There weren't things
that we had to think about quite as much, but
they're certainly timely now.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
Yeah, so that was, Uh, there's this incredible case study
of you know, a leader of the country who really
felt that they should be manufacturing more things at home,
They should be making things themselves rather than import them
from all over the world. And this might sound familiar,

(32:03):
but this was this is also the story of Argentina
under President Kirchner, you know, several decades ago, were kind
of in the early two thousands, big kudoos to some
big kudo excuse me to some my Plan Money colleagues
who first reported the story a number of years back,
and then suddenly it became so so relevant once again
because what was going on there is, you know that

(32:24):
the president really wanted Argentina, Argentina to manufacture things, and
so used tariffs and other regulations you know, so much
what we're seeing today to force companies to manufacture things
in Argentina. And so we focused particularly on the case
of BlackBerry. This is back when like President Obama was
still famous for using his BlackBerry, and BlackBerry was still

(32:46):
like a very hot smartphone.

Speaker 3 (32:47):
I was going to say, tell the youngsters what that
was like.

Speaker 2 (32:49):
Ver he is out right, you know, early early smartphone.
You know Obama's you know, using his his his BlackBerry.
They're called crackberries. Because it's the first time people are
like glue to their phones, and you know, the only
way for you know, the company behind BlackBerry to keep
selling them in Argentina, which was a big market for them,
was to assemble BlackBerry phones in Argentina. And they were

(33:13):
kind of given some from some of those like prodding
from the government. They were pushed to make those phones
in a place called Tierra del Fuego, which is like
the Land of Fire, which is this kind of like
island or archipelago so far south. It's actually where many
boats would like leave if they were headed for Antarctica.
So it's a very remote place. It's the last place

(33:34):
you would think as like a logical choice of like
where to assemble smartphones. Like advanced manufacturing and somewhat remarkably,
like BlackBerry works with a local firm and manages to
like set up the line and they get all the
like advanced machinery that can do things like track dust
mites in the air, I guess, so they don't get
in the phones and do all the things you need

(33:55):
to do for advanced manufacturing like that, and they create
you know, BlackBerry phones assembled in Argentina, and there's a
brief period where where President Kirchner and Argentina seems like
they're kind of pulling this off. Like there's all this
manufacturing in Argentina, there's this kind of economic boom in
Tira del Fego specifically, like people are driving around in
nice cars. You know, it's very prosperous. But then they

(34:18):
have this problem, which is that like they assembled BlackBerry phones,
they made BlackBerry phones in Argentina, but it took so
much longer and was so much more expensive. These phones
are just less good than phones made in than Blackberries
made in other parts of the world where they have
great supply chains and comparative advantages and in electronics, and
they're more expensive. And so Argentinans like they don't necessarily

(34:39):
want to buy those Blackberries, but they're pretty happy to
buy like a black market, you know, phone smuggled in
if someone like you know, flies into Argentina with some
Blackberries like stuck into their socks or hit in their luggage.
And so BlackBerry and other companies had this problem where
just like they didn't really see good sales. BlackBerry ended
up like shutting down that factory in Tierra del Fuego

(35:03):
and It's this really great kind of like case study
that shows why it's so hard to bend the global
economy to your will, even if you're someone like a
president who you know, really can like to some extent,
tell countries what to do. You know, I think it's
very tempting for political leaders to kind of see people
who are left behind by globalization, you know, places like

(35:24):
the rest belt in the US, and say, well, why
can't we bring back those jobs for those people? But
you know, they're like comparative advantage in globalization are very
strong forces where you know, like the rest Belt used
to have all these advantages that let them to manufacture
things and export them all over the world. But some
of those advantages are just gone and the world has changed,
and you know, one one country, even a powerful one,

(35:46):
can't kind of restore them by FIAT. That's kind of
the case of being like bowled over by the wave
rather than riding the wave.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
And you're highlighting too that tariffs create these other incentives
for manufacturers and for individuals to kind of to skirt
to get around them if they can, if they can
save money, and that is just a kind of reality
of human existence as well, that you have to combat,
and oftentimes the policy is so unpopular that people will

(36:16):
go to great links to avoid paying additional costs.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
Yeah, while I was writing the book, I was at
my local Subrew dealership and there was a car for sale.
I think it's called the Brat or something like that.
It's this really weird looking car, but I was so
excited because the reason this car exists, if I'm remembering
this all right, is that, like the US had imposed
really high tariffs on trucks, so it was really expensive

(36:42):
to import a truck into the United States. So I
think subrou had tried to like they'd like imported a
car and it was kind of like a pickup truck,
but there were like seats in the back, and the
ideas you would import it as like not a truck,
and then you would just like take rip out the
seats and stuff, so it was now like a pickup
truck or it had a bed. And I think this

(37:04):
eventually didn't fly and they weren't able to do it.
But for like you know, like that's that's your kind
of point about how when you have tariffs, suddenly there's
an incentive to do like tariff engineering. People call it, right,
Like the whole industry springs up, and like CEOs and
executives start spending their time not trying to like you know,
get more efficient and produce a better product, but instead

(37:24):
in just trying to like get around these tariffs that
might you know, increase the costs a certain cost thirty percent,
fifty percent, whatever it is. And then you get, yeah,
like we're not trying to the economy is not really
growing as much because a lot of time is spent
like creating weird non pickup trucks to see if you
can import them in the US and not have to pay.

Speaker 1 (37:42):
Tax if they start to teariff podcast. I'm gonna call
this an audiobook, you know. I mean like there's just
all sorts of ways that people will will try to
avoid which which just makes sense. I mean, just like
during Prohibition, right, like people find a way to get
the booze they want and it just might not be
as as tasty or yeah, safe to make. I'm curious
post industrial Revolution, we've gotten insanely used to kind of

(38:05):
just perpetual growth up into the right, even if the
stock market has its downtimes, which it does, Like we
have just gotten used to being living in an existence
of growth decades centuries of growth that were not the norm,
right pre Industrial Revolution. So you talk in the book
about how technology has increased productivity of course, has led

(38:28):
to innovation, leads to higher living standards. What do you
see that continuing, like, and what are the threats to
that continuing in the way that we've experienced it?

Speaker 2 (38:38):
Yeah, I mean I suspect we should not take it
for granted, right, Like, as you alluded to, if you
look at a history of like economic growth over all
of human history, you know, for centuries, for millennia, it's
basically a straight line, you know, very very little increase
in living standards, and then all of a sudden, starting
a few centuries ago, it starts going up into the
right that just like perfect exponential growth curves after the

(39:00):
Industrial Revolution, first in countries like Britain in the US,
but then increasingly around the world, like people just get
wealthier and wealthier, you know, not just a small elite,
but increasingly large middle class, you know, et cetera, et cetera.
I mean, I do think there's a kind of like
de growth critique of like you can't have you can't

(39:21):
keep growing every year forever on like a planet with
fixed resources. But I kind of feel like that's a
hypothetical for like so far in the future, it's not
really worth worrying about, right, I mean.

Speaker 1 (39:31):
And there have been a lot of predictions about from
the d growth movement that have not come to pass.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
Yeah, like like early Industrial Revolution days, like politicians in
Britain were like, all our growth is based on coal.
What if the coal runs at right right? You know,
And that was this kind of mindset of like we're
fixed by resources, but right like we're only just starting
to tap into like what solar power can do, you know. Like,
so I don't think I think that's a kind of
like such a far off concern that it's maybe purely

(39:57):
hypothetical and gets into science that's that's you know, beyond me.
But yeah, I absolutely like don't think we can take
it for granted. I mean, certainly you see cases from
like older history where you know, these kind of like
civilizations grow wealthy, but then they really just fall and
they don't recover for a long time. Even more recently,

(40:18):
I mean you can see cases like Ireland where I mean,
if you look at the impact of the potato famine,
like they don't recover in terms of population or living
standards for a very very long time. And that was
absolutely like exacerbated by you know, colonialism at the time.
But you know, there we like unfortunately, we absolutely can

(40:39):
make decisions that you know, slow that growth or put
us in reverse. So yeah, I think we absolutely like
should not take rising living and standards for granted. I
think it's you know, quite famous in the US that
there are parts of the country where it's no longer
the case that the next generation can expect you on

(41:00):
average to grow up to have better liverd and standards
than their parents.

Speaker 1 (41:05):
Certainly a lot more doubt too when you look at
the polling that that will be the case.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
Yeah, and so you know there has been economics restress
on this there. It's it's you know, there's a research
team that actually created an atlas that kind of shows you,
like basically where the American dream is still alive because
they kind of show you economic mobility like by census
block or buy like zip code, and so it is
kind of fascinating. This is why I say in the book,
it's like the American dream isn't dead, it's just not

(41:29):
evenly distributed. So I think that's both sad and hopeful. Right, Ideally,
we would want the entire atlas of the US to
be all green with you know, showing that there's economic
mobility there. People on average are grown up to be
wealthier and enjoying better livered standards than their parents or grandparents.
But yeah, like we've experienced this in the US. It
is not hypothetical where you know, we used to see

(41:51):
and also beyond money, like you know, we've for for
so long Americans kept like life expectancy kept going up,
and other kind of like health indicators kept going up,
and a lot of those have really started to stack Nate.
So yeah, I think it's certainly something like it's comforting
to me to see that graph and think that the
long that, like, people have always had worries and concerns,

(42:13):
and the long story over the past two centuries is
one of crease increasing prosperity. But I am still anxious.
I'm still worried, and it's it's probably kind of like
how uh, I don't know. My own bad comparison is
that I think whenever I started a new project, I'll
be kind of like worried and stressed about it. And
as much as I tell myself like, no, you figured
it out, this happened last time and it went great,

(42:34):
I'll still kind of stress and worry about it. And
it's like, I don't know, maybe the stress and worry
just has to be there. Ye, you just assume you're
gonna like make it work like you did every other
time in the past, and you don't worry or stress
about it at all.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
Would we be a human being happened if there wasn't
some worry involved.

Speaker 3 (42:47):
Yeah, Yeah, So I don't.

Speaker 2 (42:48):
Yeah, you know, I'm not gonna, you know, tell everyone
don't worry. It all works out and there's always going
to be at least two percent growth rates because we
know the opposite can happen, Yes, for sure, and we
shouldn't take it for granted.

Speaker 1 (42:58):
And again, a lot of complex inputs into like politics
and natural disasters. I mean, there's all sorts of things
that impact that that we that we can't predict.

Speaker 3 (43:11):
I appreciate your humble reaction to that.

Speaker 2 (43:13):
And to bring it back down from kind of a
societal level to the personal level, right where you spend
a lot of your time thinking about what is in
people's control, like a lot of times that story that's
broadly a happy one of more economic growth of technology
making us more prosperous as a society. I mean, something
economists will repeat over and over again is that, like
technological progress, innovation creates winners and losers, and so usually

(43:37):
new technology creates you know, at least in the long run,
more winners than losers and greater prosperity. But you know,
I think it is important for people to be aware
because certainly there are times where you know, you might
be the one whose job is really impacted by whether
that's globalization and more trade or by automation, and just

(43:57):
because that kind of makes society collectively better off, you know,
it might be the case that has negative impacts on
your career. But they're absolutely you know, case studies and
examples and in this book of people who have kind
of seen technology coming for them but chosen to see
it not just as a threat but as an opportunity
and really been able to you know, use it. I

(44:18):
mean one of these great examples is actually from the
book and movie Hidden Figures. It's about this group of
African American women who were computers at what would become
NASA computers back when like a computer was a person
who computed things, who did math and helped astronauts get
into orbit and back down. And you know, they realized
that like these computers were coming, like like electronic computers

(44:39):
that were going to do the math, and that was
a threat to their jobs. But they one of the
leaders of this group, she realized it was also an opportunity,
and she encouraged women in her group the other computers,
to take classes so they could learn how to, you know,
do early coding of these computers and then be able
to kind of say to their bosses, like, look like
you should hire us to do the computing. We have

(44:59):
the skills, and so we have the kind of experience
of working. You know, the astronauts trust us, we understand
the agency. And so for them, you know, they took
what could have been a real negative and turned it
into a positive. And so, yeah, I think from uh, yeah,
when we go from the kind of like society looking
in society why to looking at like the personal level,

(45:19):
certainly it's important to kind of be aware of changes
in the economy because, yeah, technology is largely a happy
story of progress and increasing prosperity, but it does create
winners and losers in the short run.

Speaker 1 (45:31):
And it just highlights that the ultimate reality always change,
right like, you can't avoid it, and so you have
to be aware of it and you can use it
to your advantage or you can you can get bowled
over by it. Got more questions I want to get
to with you, Alex. I kind of want to talk
ask you a few questions about your new podcasts. We
want to talk about housing first. We'll get to a

(45:52):
few more questions with Alex right after this. We're back
still talking with Alex Maasi talking about the just man.
Everything around you is economic, and yet so often we're
unaware of it.

Speaker 3 (46:11):
Alex.

Speaker 1 (46:12):
One of the one of the markets I want to
dig into with you, just briefly is I want to
talk about housing and they're just man. I think I'm
constantly fascinated by the housing market because it's always moving
and it feels like this this organism that is, it's
got its own life. But there are just so many
inputs that factor what happens with housing, Housing prices, affordability.

(46:35):
Obviously we're in an era of unaffordability, might be in
a plateau though, at least in the housing market, So
that might be changing and making it easier for more
people to be able to buy homes if they're if
they're so inclined. But how what would you say, how
do people make smart decisions that, you know, when there
are all of these hard to predict inputs and someone

(46:56):
doesn't necessarily want to buy a house in a two
thousand and eight scenario when you know that that house
might not be worth that value for another decade.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
Yeah, yeah, just spend hundreds of thousands of dollars buying
a house in the middle of a Recessionally that's this
you know, why why didn't you do that?

Speaker 3 (47:11):
Yeah? Right?

Speaker 2 (47:12):
Yeah, I do think. You know, there are absolutely ways that,
like the tax code incentivizes home ownership, and it can
be smart to take advantage of that. But I do
think there are times where, like the push to home ownership,
there can be an assumption that if you're renting instead
of owning, that you're somehow at chump and I absolutely

(47:36):
don't think that's the case. I think renting like can
be a very smart move, like housing prices often do
go up, but I think, you know, one of the
most powerful ideas when it comes to saving for retirement,
for investing, for managing your money is diversification. And so
if you put a huge amount of your net worth,

(47:56):
both your current networth you know, your current savings and
your future income into a mortgage and buying a house,
that is in many ways the opposite of diversification. That
is in some ways a huge bet that you know
your house, the value of it will increase or at
least stay stable and not go down. And I think
many Americans have the idea that you know, it will
go up and it will be a nest egg, and

(48:18):
that has been historically true, and the US government has
often been committed to that idea and making sure housing prices,
you know, stay stable or keep going up. But it
is not inevitable, and so you know, I think in
some ways, I almost think, like buying a house, I
almost wish it was a little bit less of an
economic decision for some people. I think people are so
fixated on the idea of like, oh, I shouldn't be

(48:39):
a chump and rent, I should make all this money
by buying a house, and I think it's well worth
also just kind of taking a beat and thinking about, like, well,
do I really want to buy a house. Do I
want to be a homeowner? Is it because I want
to this is the neighborhood I love, and this is
where I want to raise my kids or something like that.
I think sometimes there is a rush to treat homes
as an asset, and I don't want to miss out

(49:02):
this kind of fomo. I don't want to miss out
on like rising house prices. You know all the stories
of people who bought their house for one hundred thousand
dollars and you know, however, many years later it's worth
a million, and that's very enticing. But there are other
stories too of people who just kind of got trapped
by their mortgage and then they needed to move. It
really would have been great to be able to move
for their job, but they couldn't because the house of
the price had in the short run gone down, so

(49:22):
it would have been really financially costly to sell. Like,
those stories are out there too.

Speaker 1 (49:27):
But to your point, the average American has more wealth
tied up in their home than in anything else, than
in the stock market, than in rental properties like anything,
right Like, their primary source of wealth is the value
of their home, and that's often cited as a reason
why more people should own homes, and I think that
it's actually an opposite indicator. So much to the time

(49:50):
it's like yeah, I mean, and.

Speaker 2 (49:51):
Then I think right, like on the societal level, I
think a lot of people are reconsidering this idea that
the US you know, the fact that the US government
has been pushing home ownership not just as it's nice
to own your home and you know, have have your
own place, but as essentially a retirement package and as
people's life savings. Because of course, if you know, some extremely,

(50:14):
if some large percentage of the American population relies on
their house price going up to be able to retire
and you know, stay solvent, what does that mean for
all the other people who want to buy homes? You know,
you want homes to be affordable for people who need
to buy their first home, but you also, if you know,
how do you have there be affordable homes if all
these other people are you know, depending on the price

(50:35):
of their house I was going up and up and up,
because that's their nest egg, that's their retirement savings.

Speaker 1 (50:40):
And it creates those perverse incentives to limit supply, which
harms the next generation who's trying to get that same
foothold into the housing market right and finds it finds
it hard.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
So I think you know, probably some a good number
of your you know, listeners are aware that that is.
I think no one knows for sure what will happen,
but that that is kind of an argument that has
gain traction and there has been a lot more energy
and enthusiasm for removing the obstacles to building new homes
and new apartment buildings so that homes can be more affordable,

(51:11):
which I think is a very positive story, but it
also has implifications, implification implications for sure for anyone who wants,
you know, who's thinking about putting, you know, the vast
majority of their money into a mortgage, because then that's
going to be uh, because they're counting on the value
of that has to go up and up.

Speaker 1 (51:28):
One of the things you highlighted in the book too.
And I don't want to dwell on this because I
want to get I want to start talking about food
for a second. But like you talked about how even
high end, fancy, nicer units can reduce prices, like when
they're built in areas where there are housing constraints, and
I think that is an underappreciated thing that just removing
some of those constraints, that literally just more supply is

(51:50):
the answer so often to this problem, and we make
it seem like it's so much more complex. And it's
not that there aren't other inputs that that factor into
housing affordability, but that has that's the number one, right,
And if we just increase supply, even if it's like
higher end units that seem like they're expensive, it can
help reduce or mitigate price increases in that housing market

(52:14):
where those where that new supply is built. And we've
seen it happen in Austin, Texas like pretty significantly that
more supply helps reduce rent costs.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
And we have seen some places with rents going down
that have that have.

Speaker 3 (52:27):
Built a lot like meaningfully down.

Speaker 2 (52:29):
And I think it's hard for people like I get
it if you see like the new housing that gets
built is like advertises, like luxury condos. It's hard to
see a connection between that and kind of say a
working class family being able to you know, afford their
place and having their rent stay stable. But the way
that say a housing Economisteril Fairweather likes to explain it

(52:52):
very well, I think, is that there's this kind of
like game of musical chairs that was going on in
the housing market, right and like, and the next generation
is coming and they places to live, and so you
need to keep adding chairs. And it's obviously great to
be able to add like new, you know, units of
affordable housing, but even those like you know, even if
it's like new expensive homes, new expensive condos like those

(53:16):
also help too, because those are adding more chairs. And like,
if you don't add them, then like, you know, someone
someone who could afford that really expensive place is just
keeping their chair. They're not going to get up and
take the new one.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
Tell me about your new podcast. It's called Gastronomics. It
comes out today, And wet my whistle a little bit.
How how do food and economics intersect in interesting ways?

Speaker 3 (53:36):
What kind of stories are you playing on telling?

Speaker 2 (53:38):
Yeah, I mean, I really love I was actually a
food editor for five years, and so this is kind
of marrying my twin interests about economics and food. And
actually you kind of notice if folks pick up the
Plan of Money book, that two of the chapters in
the first section are about food. And that's kind of
a vestige of how originally I'd hoped that the first
section of the book could all be about food and
drink because I just think it's such an interesting, fascinating

(54:00):
way to learn about business and economics, and those are
some of My favorite business in Econ Stories is ones
about food. And so, you know, some of what I'm planning,
you know, I really like pointing out how like economics
shapes the modern menu and what we eat. So like one,
you know, one episode I have planned is about trend forecasting, right,

(54:20):
So these are say people who might look at, you know,
data from like fifty thousand restaurant menus around the country,
as well as social media and focus groups, right, and
they're kind of tracking trends. So one of a lot
of people are familiar with is like do buy chocolate
got super popular? Right, It's suddenly like pistachio and chocolate
combinations are like everywhere. Or my personal favorite is ube,

(54:43):
which is like a purple yam. Seeing a lot of
like Filipino food, It's kind of seemingly always kind of
been like on the cusp of popularity, but I feel
like now you're starting to really see it come out
in like coffee shops. It's being used in a lot
of drinks like ube lattes. So I think that's that's
a fun place, right where like these kind of big
national chains, we'll go to trend forecasters trend fitigure out, like, Okay,
is this ingredient going to be popular enough that when

(55:04):
we put it on the menu, like lots of people
recognize it all around the country or is it kind
of like a trend that will like fizzle out and
won't really kind of achieve that kind of mainstream where
lots and lots of people will be excited about it.
Another type of person I really want to talk to
is I think there's some like big companies, like like
the people who make nutella. You know, they will like

(55:25):
go to the financial markets and you know, buy and
sell like futures to effectively make sure that like if
the price of sugar or hazel nuts or something goes
up a lot, they will be able to like have
some kind of like effective insurance so that they can
keep the cost of their ingredients for like nutella low,
so they're not paying so much for hazel nuts that
suddenly the price of nutella jumps like three dollars all

(55:48):
of a sudden, kind of.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
Like what some airlines have done with jet fuel in
the past.

Speaker 2 (55:51):
Yeah, and it's actually like part of the reason that
the increasing cost of oil has led to such big
swings in the cost of airline tickets is because airlines.
So my colleagues plenty of money actually report on this
that like they largely stopped doing that, And so there
is a way where it's like fascinating that you know, you,
like you an important person at like a candy company

(56:14):
or like a grocery company might be the person who's
like in financial markets kind of making these trades in
the commodity markets to kind of lock in prices and
make sure they have price stability for their business.

Speaker 1 (56:27):
It's fascinating, all right. I'm looking forward to listening to
some of those episodes. It sounds like right up my
alley too. Amazing, Alex, the new book Planet Money is out,
your new podcast Gastronomics is out.

Speaker 3 (56:37):
I really appreciate you joining me. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (56:39):
Oh it's been such a pleasure. Thanks so much, Joel.

Speaker 1 (56:41):
All Right, such a fun conversation with Alex, and I'm
really really excited to check out his new podcast as well.
But when it comes to my big takeaway, well, one
I just enjoyed the book. I think it's really fun
to kind of put anecdotes and history to economics, which
is a force that impacts all of us that I
am just constantly fascinated by, and I think when it

(57:04):
comes down to it, my big takeaway from this conversation
was that life is full of uncertainty and there is
a lot that we are not in control of. But
similar to everything in life, like you can't you can't
help when someone cuts you off in traffic, but you
can you can change how you react to that person, right.
You can use your your fingers to make it signed,

(57:26):
to really drive home the point that you're not happy
with how that went down. You can roll down your window,
you can shake your fist, you can yell, or you
can deal with it differently. And I think that is
ultimately what you realize when you read the book, that
there are just a lot of things that are impacting us,
but yet still we have agency in how we respond

(57:49):
to the impact of those of those economic forces. So
life is full of uncertainty, but we also have some
agency inside of that reality. It's tough to feel like that.
Sometimes it feels like we're being acted upon and it's
not that that's untrue, but we are also actors in
this situation as well. And I guess one other thing
that I thought was interesting too is how he talked

(58:10):
about relative wealth versus absolute wealth, and how we are
so much better off on average than our parents' generation
like you in terms of what we have, even despite
cost disease services going up in price. And that's a
reality that's been well documented and I'm glad we discussed
it today. But the truth is, like we man, we

(58:32):
have a lot to be thankful for as well, and
if we would just kind of maybe think about our
absolute wealth and less our relative wealth, think less about
our comparison to the people around us, maybe follow people
less who make us feel bad about what we don't have,
we would probably live a calmer existence and actually enjoy

(58:54):
the benefits of the wealth that we've been able to
create and hold on to. So hope this episode was helpful,
it was fun to record, and hope you check out
the book Planet Money, which of course that's a great
podcast as well. They beat us last year for Best
Business Podcasts. I still haven't forgiven them, but maybe this
is an Ali branch having Alex on totally kidding.

Speaker 3 (59:13):
They deserve it.

Speaker 1 (59:14):
They're awesome all right, Let's gonna do it for this
one Until next time. Best Friend Out,

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Invisible Economic Forces Shaping Your Life w/ Planet Money's Alex Mayyasi #1151