May 14, 2025 • 30 mins
In this episode, economist Allison Schrager discusses her insights on risk, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. She reflects on her unique journey to writing her book, 'An Economist Walks Into a Brothel,' where she explores the complexities of risk in unconventional settings. The discussion delves into the duality of sex work, the misunderstandings surrounding risk, and the evolving state of expertise in society. Schrager emphasizes the importance of understanding personal values and making informed choices in life. The Karol Markowicz Show is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Wednesday & Friday.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Mark Woods Show
on iHeartRadio. I got a listener email. I love listener
emails about a segment I did on a recent episode
of the show. It was from my interview with Liz
Wolf last week. Liz and I were talking about the
idea that life ends after you have kids. I'll play
(00:24):
a short clip from it.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I think the thing that's really frustrating to me is
like it feels like people live in this world of buyingary,
like very false choices and binaries, where it's like either
you have to be full on feminist girl bossing it
up and wait until you're forty five to have kids
and make sure you freeze your eggs, or you have
to be like barefoot and pregnant eternally.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
In the kitchen.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
And to me, this is just like it's such a
pointless conversation that people have surrounding troud wiferyy and motherhood,
because like, this isn't actually how people operate in the wild.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
I have a job, I also have a child who.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I spend a lot of time with. There are lots
of people who have these sort of hybrid arrangements, and
there are also lots of people who maybe they have
one vision for the timeline that these things will happen at.
But then, I mean, your story is I think definitely
a point like a story in this favor where it's like,
you don't know on what, sir now timeline things are
going to pan out for you. And how frustrating and
(01:19):
frankly disrespectful for people to be told that, like, oh, well,
you're doing it wrong if in fact there's a bunch
of circumstances where like it's actually quite prudent to wait
until you're in a good partnership, ideally a good you know,
covenantal marriage before you begin to bring a bunch of
children into the mix. And like, for lots of people,
it seems like the coupling upside of things is happening
later and later, and they're not feeling stable and secure
(01:42):
in that. I'm a little bit less sympathetic to the oh,
the finances aren't in order type of argument, because I
think people kind of don't realize how inexpensive having a
child can be and how you don't necessarily have to
have you know, every child in their own room or
every child going to for your ivy league and institution,
like you have a lot of options beyond that, and
(02:03):
people are unimaginative with their sense of what having a
child actually entails. And I think that our parenting culture
suffers because of that, because we believe that it has
to be so much more complex with you know, five
summer camps that all costs you know whatever, three thousand
and four thousand dollars apiece for every kid, and it's like, well, no, wonder,
it seems unfathomably expensive, But that's right negotiable. That's something
(02:25):
that's optional. And I wish more young women didn't feel
shame about the timeline or trajectory that they're on, but
did do a little bit more rethinking, Like it's not
necessarily as binary as work or quit. It's not necessarily
as binary as have your finances perfectly an order or
be destitute. There's a lot of range that a lot
of people are working.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
With, absolutely, and your whole economy is of scale thing too.
A lot of the things that people think is going
to cost you know, again, you don't buy five cribs.
You buy the one crib and you pass it down
and you I heard one time somebody says something like,
oh you know, I grew up poor, We grew up
with hand me downs, and I was like, I don't
know how rich I need to be that my kids
are not gonna be wearing each other's hand me down.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
It's like you are.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
They're all wearing each other's hand me downs forever. Like
it's definitely like, oh, you need a new pair of cleats,
Let's go see if your brother has an old pair.
And that's how I think it's supposed to go. You're
so right, though, And I think about this a lot.
Where people are just maybe it's because of the online
culture and they think that you could put everything neatly
into a box of you know, girl boss or trad wife,
(03:26):
but most people are a some combination. And just because
you think your life is going to go a certain
way doesn't mean it will. I when I got married,
our plan was I was going to be a stay
at home mom, and then I opened an unrelated business,
and then I got into journalism, and you know, you
just don't know where life is going to take you,
so you can't have what you're doing in this moment
(03:48):
be your identity. And I think that's the thing that
people don't understand. They're scrambling around for like what am
I going to be? Well, maybe just don't think of
it like that, Maybe think about what you're going to
going to do instead, And it's it's a tougher ask
because what am I going to be? Sort of gives
you the roadmap, but nobody is just that one thing.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
You know.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
The Drake album More Life m this is I feel
like my mantra and probably yours too, Like both of
us have a little bit of this, like this antsiness,
this eagerness to like stick our hands in a million
different charts, even if we're overextended, like I've always had this. Yeah,
like Iggy Pop puts it as like lust for life.
Right in Drake World, it's more Life, but there's a
little bit in the sense.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Of just like you know, it's it.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
I think there's this narrative out there that's like, once
you have a child, your life is over.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Your life must be and say.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Goodbye to going out and to the fancy restaurants and
to parties with your friends, and you know, forget about
throwing a house party ever again. You really have to
step into this, you know, different state of being. And
in some ways it's true, right because you can't do
cocaine and stay out till I say, am if you
have a newborn that you need to nurse right.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
The listener writes in I loved your conversation with Liz Wolf.
You said that women shouldn't solidify into an identity like
girl boss or trad wife. But I find that very difficult.
I'm twenty eight years old and getting married next year.
My entire life, I have heard that I have to
have something of a brand. The idea is pushed in
(05:17):
college all the time. You have to have a path
to what you are in everything you do. I would
find it very difficult to switch between my current career
path and being a trad wife, for example. I don't
judge them, it's just impossible for me to consider changing gears.
I love this email because my first instinct was to say, Wow,
(05:38):
I'm so old, this is so crazy. This whole idea
about having a brand is all so new. But then
I remembered a conversation I had in my early twenties
where I felt completely pigeonholed in my very specific career path.
Right out of college, I became a pharmaceutical paralegal working
(05:59):
in a legal department, of a farmer company. It was accidental,
but because that happened to be the first job I
was offered out of college, I kept being offered only
roles in that field. I had no idea about anything.
I didn't know anything about the field at all, and
the skills I was using in that job could have
(06:21):
been easily applicable to literally any role in the legal field, really,
any role in any field. I was doing what I
later would refer to as like monkey work, checking that
papers were numbered correctly, making sure boxes went out on
time and were perfect. People have been doing this whole
(06:42):
You chose this at twenty two. Now you'll be this
forever thing for a long time. But what I want
people to know is that it's a lie. And not
only is it a lie, but you can switch and
then switch again. I've worked full time, part time contract
work for myself four other people, owned my own business,
(07:05):
and was a stay at home mom. It's all very possible.
And I should note that a lot of that I
did after I was married, because yes, having the stability
of a spouse less you take more chances. But some
of that I did when I wasn't married too. I
went to graduate school I switched fields all before I
(07:26):
ever even dated my husband. So don't listen to the
voices saying your life must go this one way that
you picked when you were twenty. You're going to find,
especially after you have kids, that it may take a
turn and then turn again. It's okay to lean into changes,
and no one should pigeonhole you into just one thing.
(07:50):
You may be a girl boss and a treadwife at
different points of your life, and those are also very
reductionist labels all around. Probably will be somewhere between those
two all along. Your life is not an Instagram account.
You can do various things with it and not care
what the quote unquote audience wants to see. Thanks for listening.
(08:13):
Coming up my interview with Alison Schrager, But first I'd
like to change gears for a minute and talk about Israel.
It's now the month of May, and eighty years ago
this very month, the horror of the Holocaust, the final
solution came to an end. But do you know that
half of all Holocaust survivors live in Israel.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
The pain of the past now.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Intensified today by October seventh, and the rise of anti
Semitism everywhere and along with other elderly Jews, thousands in
Israel live below the poverty line. There's no safety net.
That's why I support the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.
The Fellowship provides a lifeline to these precious ones in
the form of hot meals and boxes full of healthy food.
(08:56):
And for only twenty five dollars, you can help provide
a food box. Better yet, three hundred and thirty five
dollars provides hot meals for an entire year. To give generously,
call eight eight eight for eight eight IFCJ eight eight
eight four eight eight four three two five, or go
online to give at IFCJ dot org. That's IFCJ dot org.
(09:26):
And Welcome back to the Carol Marcowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
My guest today is Alison Schrager. Allison is an economist,
Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, contributing editor at City Journal,
a columnist at Bloomberg Opinion, and the author of a
book I really loved called An Economist Walks into a
brothel and other unexpected places to understand risk. Hi, Allison's
(09:49):
so nice to have you on.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
It's great to see you.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
You know, I was a big fan of your book
when it came out, and it really helped me during
COVID because I thought that one of them main problems
during those years was that people hadn't read your book
and they didn't understand risk. Did you feel like it
was maybe ahead of its time?
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Yeah, I mean I actually started to work on a
second book that's still with a publisher, but really thinking, yeah,
people really have a poor understanding.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Oh yes, particularly the part where.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
You know people tend to get fixated on one risk
and not see others and just assume that, you know,
risk reduction at all costs is valuable. I thought about
it a lot, and maybe it also explains a lot
of my own COVID behavior that was probably at a
step with most people's because I felt quite confident in
my ability, not that I'm a scientist.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Or a doctorship ability to do we were right, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
I'm mostly things like wearing masks outside. Never did that,
you'd get screamed out on the shoots in New York.
Oh yeah. I even wanted to set to a friend
of mine, you know, she's like, what's important that we
wear masks outside? And I'm like, well, you know this
doesn't have any medical value. She's like, that's not what
it's about. It's like showing that we all care.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
I hate that.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
I know. It's like, listen, I ran like sheild our
faces out of social subtildarity.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
It's like, I am all.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
Down for doing anything that will make you know, society
healthier than as negative externacs and externalities. But I'm not
doing something incredibly like sort of disruptive and uncomfortable just
for the sake of it.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Yeah, well, it's very brave that you didn't mask outside.
I did, even though I knew from the beginning that
it was stupid and it had absolutely no benefit, because
I didn't want to get yelled at, and I'm more
than anything else didn't want to get yelled at with my.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Kids in tow.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
But I wish I had kind of took that stand
in a more aggressive fashion because, of course, when Anthony
Fauci delivered the line, as we've been saying all along,
masking outside is like not necessary, and I knew he
had not been saying that all along, but that that
made me feel like, wow, I should have really, I
(12:03):
should have stood stronger and not done it, because I
knew that the risk was minuscule.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
Yeah, I mean with your kids, it's harder because you
don't want to expose them because people would get quite nasty.
I know.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
The general strategy was to wear headphones all the time
and I don't hear you.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
Was waving.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Yeah, so how did you get to a brothel? Where
did this come from?
Speaker 4 (12:31):
So? I had this idea that I wanted to do
a book that made financial economics, which is it's the
study of risk and markets, more accessible in the way
Freakonomics did. But I didn't have a research portfolio like
Steve Lovett did because I hadn't been done much research
out of grad school.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
So I wanted to tell stories.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
And you know, I'd worked as a journalist too, so
I kind of felt like I could report. But then
I realized I don't know how to do reporting on
stories like I write about economics. So I was having
a drink with a cousin who kind of has some
nefarious hobbies and.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
I loves like that.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Yeah, the most religious of all my cousins. Too interesting,
and he I was like, he's.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
A lawyer, So I was like, do you know, just
committed a cry and like that could be a good story.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
And maybe that's a place to start.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
And he said, well, actually, my girlfriend runs a sort
of sex business online where she matches submissives who want
to have sex with their clients and she makes sure
it's a safe transaction. And I'm like, oh, that's interesting.
So I think that could be a good story. So
I interviewed her and it was interesting becau I'm writing
about risk and the whole ideas we pay for safety.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
I think there's always trade offs of how much risk
you want to take on.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
Like the women who worked for her paid her thirty
percent of their earnings, so to make sure that there's
a very risky transaction. You can meet some random on
the internet and he's going to tell you up and
then you have sex with them. You want to make
sure he doesn't kill you because the probability of that
isn't trivial. So she would get thirty percent to make
sure that didn't have happened. And I'm like, oh, it's
a risk premium. So I wrote this column, I think
(14:03):
for courts at the time, and it did really well,
as you would expect. Yeah, And so the Bunny Ranch
PR guy, who is quite aggressive and good at.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
His job, reached out to me, and it's funny.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
He's like, I guess there's a hierarchy and prestige with brothels,
which I didn't know.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
And the Bunny ranch is like right at the top right.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
He was like, I don't know why you're writing about
this no name person in the war, and like here
we were at brothels. Who's worrying about the best brothel
and that's ours. So I was like, I don't write
about brothels. I'm a retirement economist, but you know i'll
take this call.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Why not, right of course? And yeah, who wouldn't take
that call?
Speaker 4 (14:39):
So we started talking and he's describing how there's no
set prices, that every transactions individually negotiated. And I was like, oh,
so you have like women who are like eighteen negotiating
with men in their sixties were super rich for money,
Like that's interesting. He's like yes, and you know they
tend to not know their value when they come. So
we have a negotiation training program and I had this
(15:00):
wonderful editor at the time, a wonderful Lauren Brown, who said,
you've got to go with a videographer.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
So I said to.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
Jeremy Leemer, who was their PR guy like, I want
to come and film this, and he they they need
pr because they can't advertise. So yeah, he's got an
invite from Dennis Hoff and off we went. And in
the process of learning how they negotiate, I learned how
prices were set and saw a risk story there, and
(15:29):
then I went back a couple more times to do
more research. So I guess that's that's how it was
a very felt unlikely to me I ended up there,
but that's how it happened.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
That's amazing. Dennis Hoff is Actually he somehow kind of
crossed into the mainstream right. He used to be on
Howard Stern. I came across an article about him not
that long ago where Tucker Carlson sent him some I
want to I don't know. I don't I don't want
to mess up the details, but it sounds like a
penis made out of elephant husks, something along those lines,
(16:04):
and somehow, you know, Tucker Carlson sent that to him.
It's just it doesn't seem like the kind of thing
where he is a weird kind of side guy. He's
he's kind of become a mainstream figure.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
Well, he unfortunately died a couple of years ago. Yeah,
I believe.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Acy died or actually died.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
Like they think he did, and he I liked him
a lot, and I think a lot of people, mainstream
people like Tucker, who granted is in a different place now,
did go to his funeral because.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
First of all, he's very charming.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
But second of all, you know, when you really people
have very strong feelings about sex work, and I understand why,
but they it's really often not what they think. And
I had I liked about Dennis Is. I had very
complicated feelings about him, and I like people I've complicated
feelings about, because no one's all good or bad, and.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
There was a lot of really good things.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
About him and that, you know. So he gave all
the women financial literacy training. It's the best financial literacy
program I've ever seen, and I study this like it
was very effective. These women who grew up in very
financially insecure houses, a lot of them were really like
talking about the index funds.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Therefore, when K's were in yeah, and being very financially.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
Savvy, he made them all do vision boards because he
says to me, it's like, most of these women are
never going to make this kind of money again, so
I want them to like learn the skills and set
life goals beyond here.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
But then you'd say, also, they'll work harder and like
have more sex with people.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
So it's like, on the one hand, he's really I
go to staff meetings and he was like this motivational
speaker telling these women, a lot of whom had really
never had anyone in their lives encourage them, encourage them
and tell them anything they set their minds too, they
could do. And you're like, yes, But then he also
is taking fifty percent of their money when they have
sex strangers, so you know, and.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
They have sex with him. That was also fut of
the Yeah, they encourage each other to have sex with
him because if he likes you, then you get a
better situation.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
They want his approval, they want his attention. If you're
having sex with him, you're more likely to do that.
There was a lot of weirdicky things. But also you know,
who else is you know, advocating for them in this way.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Who else is giving them this training in different forms.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Of human capital? So I said, I kind of he's
very charming. He was very very charming too. I mean,
I said, I like people have complicated feelings about I
had very very complicated feelings about him. There's a lot
of things about sex work that I think, you know,
you you do feel very conflicted about. Like I was
talking to someone recently said that she's against all sex.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Work and no forgot things that goes on, even she
doesn't feel.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
That way because it's always these young women who are
being exploited and trafficked, And I'm like, that really isn't
most sex transactions, Like a lot of sex transactions are
mentally handicapped, people who still have physical needs. There's also
it's common veterans maimed in battle, people with severe physical ailments.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
That's a big part of the industry.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
And you know, a lot of people have needs for
intimacy that we don't like to talk about, and it
does serve a purpose, And who's being exploited isn't always
so clear, So.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Not something you do learn there.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
It's not what you think, and there's a lot of
It's definitely not something I felt comfortable with.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
I'd say every minute in the brothel, I felt incredibly uncomfortable.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
But it's hard to really have a strong judgment either.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Yeah, what don't people misunderstand about risk.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Two things. One is, you know that there's upside to risk.
I think people forget that. The second is, and this
astounds me because.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
People seem to think they can get nothing something for nothing,
Like if you're gonna get that possibility upside, you do
have to face downside risk too, So it's like two
sides of the same coin. And I think it's amazing
to me that people work in finance are supposed to
be risk experts, often forget that. They're always like, aha,
I found this asset that will beat the market, but
(20:01):
it faces no downside risk, and that's their sales pitch
right they buy into it. It's like mortgage backed securities
or burning battle, or even like our society at large
is that people think they can reduce risk and they're
not going to be any loss, or they can get
upside and not face downside risk. And it's like, you know,
the sort of underlying theory of all of finance is
(20:23):
like there's no arbitrage, like there's no beating the market.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Without taking on risk.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Yet like for some reason, people, even experts, even people
with PhDs and finance seem to forget this all the time.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
How did you get into this risk, yeah, or just
being an economist? What was your path here?
Speaker 4 (20:40):
I took my first economics class when I was in
high school, and something about it like really connected with me.
I think because I grew up in a very small
town that the industrial and ess now it's everyone's talking
about it de industrialized quite early in southern New England
and the economic scars of that never really recovered.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
I think that I was a multi generation as fourth
generation and grew up there. I think that bothered.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Me a lot, really, the persistence of the poverty and
how a community that.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Sorry, but I thought you meant that it was that
it bothered you that you were the fourth generation to grow.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Up there too, not to have that continue.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
But especially I think the being multigeneration made me feel
more connected to the community.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
It was a very academic community too.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
I think other people who had professional parents and feel
as connected as I did. So I had a lot
of questions growing up, like the community was also very
averse to development and growth. I couldn't figure that out.
So when I started taking economics, it started giving me
answers and I felt like I just wanted to know
more and that never stopped. I'm still there where I
(21:45):
want to understand the economy better. Really, since I was sixteen,
I haven't really studied anything else.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Right, Wow, So I was gonna say, was there ever
a plan B? Like if you didn't become an economist,
what would you have done?
Speaker 4 (21:57):
You know? I was very like adamant that I was
going to be an economist.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
I feel like there was no plan B. Y, Yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (22:05):
Called myself that. I even like took time off before
I went to college where I wasn't like in school
and wasn't clear I was even.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Going to college. But I still thought of myself as
an economist.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
And then do you know, did a whole PhD in
it and like when I finished the things didn't go
well for me on the job market for a variety
of reasons.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
And it was the first time at that point out
a PhD.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
I was like twenty eight, twenty nine, and I was like, whoa,
maybe I'll do something else to be So I thought
about it and I didn't really have a plan B.
And I'm still an economist.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
I feel like a lot of economists like playing poker.
If that's uh, you know, that would that's a solid
plan B. No risk involved at all.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Yeah, you know. I mean I've only played poker three times.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
I've won two times, though, Oh wow, really large groups.
I think I don't like it because I think everyone
expects me to be good at it for that reason.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
Yes, I agree.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
I think I just think that there's some natural connection there.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Yeah. Well, I mean I'm a naturally probabilistic thinker, and
then there's a game theory.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Yeah, and I'm.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Actually calculating risk all of that.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
Yeah, but that's also I don't like it because poker
is like a big game of risk and there's a
lot of things I can't control, but everyone expects me
to be good at it.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
We're going to take a quick break and be right
back on the Carol marcoid Show.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
What do you worry about lately?
Speaker 4 (23:29):
I'm worried about expertise, the state of expertise. I'm worried
on the one hand that everyone's just disregarding expertise.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
When we really need it still.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
But I'm also really mad at experts for abusing their
so on the one hand, there's part of me that
welcomes let's overflow the experts. They've abused their power. They
have really let their science go shoddy. On the other hands,
like what's replacing it might be even worse.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Yeah, I think about that a lot. Also, I feel
like I've been mad at experts for a while. The
COVID years really really, you know, bothered me a lot
the way things were handled. And but what we're moving
away from these experts and into people who are not
just like into the topic. They're just completely dabbling in
(24:16):
these topics. They like read the Wikipedia entry and then
pontificate on it. I'm not sure that's any better. But
a lot of people who were not experts did a
lot of really great work during COVID. And if I
saw that kind of movement again, of like regular everyday
amateurs who immersed themselves in the information and in the
data and in the numbers and let things lead them
(24:40):
where they may, I feel like I'd be more into
throwing the experts out.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Well, it depends how you do.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
I've been thinking about this a lot, you know, because
I'm an economist. I hate tariffs. I think they're horrible
for the economy. But and this is like the one
thing all economists agree on. But then there's part of
me that is like down with the experts, and we're
all at experts, and you know, experts are wrong, particularly
when you have consensus amongst experts, you should be suspicious, right,
and so and I see here these people who are like,
(25:08):
all the economists are wrong, and I'm like, okay, I
feel like I should be open to their arguments.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
But then I notice they're not engaging with our arguments.
And I think this is the difference.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
Is It's like you can say, hey, you know, the
thing about the economy particularly is well, not everyone's an economist.
Everyone participates in the economy, so they always have some
insight I don't have. So there's a way you can
be critical of experts if you understand their argument and
can explain why they're wrong. And what I'm seeing with
a lot of the sort of anti tariff brigade is
(25:40):
they're not doing that. They're not engaging with our arguments.
They're just saying, well, this will be good. Yeah, not
at the same time understanding where we're coming from, the
data we're grappling with, and explaining why we're wrong.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Right. I mean, I'm I've always been fairly anti tariffs,
and I find myself right now being like, let's see
what happens, because maybe I'm wrong, but what may happen
could be disastrous, So I don't know. It is a
delicate balance. But I definitely have softened a little bit
(26:11):
on tariffs only because I do think, what if what
if I'm incorrect? What if all of all that I
believe and I have read is wrong. There is that
place where I wonder if I'm not too committed to
positions and maybe should bend a little.
Speaker 4 (26:28):
I just said I want to feel that way too,
and you know, but part of me then wonders if
the tariff fans are then doing themselves a disservice because
their arguments are terrible. Like, I'm open to the idea
the entire economics profession is wrong. We've miss seen things.
I mean, it's not even that we're wrong. We're basing
it on past world And you could argue we're in
a different world and economies change and evolve and the
(26:50):
old real change. I'm open to that. I'm open to,
you know, I'm really trying to be open to that.
But like their arguments are poor, Like you can the
sort of prevailing expertise if you have a good argument,
but they're not bothering to do that, and maybe they exist,
I just haven't heard it yet.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Interesting. What advice would you give your sixteen year old self.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
I would have faith in your choices.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
I made some really strange choices throughout my career and
I was told constantly that they were terrible choices and
it would ruin my life. And they worked out after
a while, sometimes not right away. So I would have
faith that your choices would work out. And you really
have to, like I think I knew myself very well
at a very young age. Like you know, we've discussed
(27:36):
you lived in Scotland. I went to University Edinburgh undergrad
just sort of like sort of being in Europe out
of college and that at the time that was kind
of an odd thing to do, but it really was
the best thing for me.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Yeah. I love Scotland. It's I mean that that is
a place that could do as a financial overhaul. But
other than that, I just.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
Like the SNP.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
It's like the worst government in Europe.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Yeah, it's funny. My second time living in Scotland, I
was young and dumb, and I was very into their
independence movement and I was looking for a job and
I ended up almost going to work for the SMP
before they were even ever elected to anything like literally
just free Scotland. But I ended up passing on that
thankfully and working in the Scottish government at the time.
(28:19):
But I just told the story to my fifteen year
old recently and she was like, I could not believe
that I was SMP or I was for any of that.
I was like nineteen years old.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
To be fair, different party.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
I think what I've learned from the SNP is this
is probably really into the weast for people. Maybe yeah,
it's okay, but a bigger point is no party should
be in power for that long on a post like
they were new. They just had a new government when
you were there, and so it was an interesting party
and independs always stupid that they had a point. But
the problem is they've been unopposed for like twenty five
(28:54):
years in Scotland and like no part like that's even why.
Like I was begrudgingly okay with Labor winning and announsking
the Tories, like, while I am more inclined to conservatives
in the UK, I feel like they're inmpowered too long.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
You need to go out, you need to go back
in the wilderness. You need your regroup.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
No party is good in power forever, and P when
you were dealing with them, were a very different party.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
So yeah, in all fairness to you.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Yeah, thank you, thank you. Nineteen year old Carol really
appreciates that well. I've loved this conversation. I always find
you so interesting and so just wonderful and us here
with your best tip for my listeners on how they
can improve their lives.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
I think you have to be really aware of what
makes you happy. I mean not to be don't be selfish,
but like what matters to you, what your values are,
and be true to them.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
I love it. That's really what it's all about. She
is Alison Schrager. Check her out in City Journal, Bloomberg
Opinion and buy her book, An Economist Walks Into a
Brothel and Other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk. Thank you, Allison,
thank you, thanks so much for joining us on the
Carol Mark With Show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Mark Woods Show
on iHeartRadio. I got a listener email. I love listener
emails about a segment I did on a recent episode
of the show. It was from my interview with Liz
Wolf last week. Liz and I were talking about the
idea that life ends after you have kids. I'll play
(00:24):
a short clip from it.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I think the thing that's really frustrating to me is
like it feels like people live in this world of buyingary,
like very false choices and binaries, where it's like either
you have to be full on feminist girl bossing it
up and wait until you're forty five to have kids
and make sure you freeze your eggs, or you have
to be like barefoot and pregnant eternally.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
In the kitchen.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
And to me, this is just like it's such a
pointless conversation that people have surrounding troud wiferyy and motherhood,
because like, this isn't actually how people operate in the wild.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
I have a job, I also have a child who.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I spend a lot of time with. There are lots
of people who have these sort of hybrid arrangements, and
there are also lots of people who maybe they have
one vision for the timeline that these things will happen at.
But then, I mean, your story is I think definitely
a point like a story in this favor where it's like,
you don't know on what, sir now timeline things are
going to pan out for you. And how frustrating and
(01:19):
frankly disrespectful for people to be told that, like, oh, well,
you're doing it wrong if in fact there's a bunch
of circumstances where like it's actually quite prudent to wait
until you're in a good partnership, ideally a good you know,
covenantal marriage before you begin to bring a bunch of
children into the mix. And like, for lots of people,
it seems like the coupling upside of things is happening
later and later, and they're not feeling stable and secure
(01:42):
in that. I'm a little bit less sympathetic to the oh,
the finances aren't in order type of argument, because I
think people kind of don't realize how inexpensive having a
child can be and how you don't necessarily have to
have you know, every child in their own room or
every child going to for your ivy league and institution,
like you have a lot of options beyond that, and
(02:03):
people are unimaginative with their sense of what having a
child actually entails. And I think that our parenting culture
suffers because of that, because we believe that it has
to be so much more complex with you know, five
summer camps that all costs you know whatever, three thousand
and four thousand dollars apiece for every kid, and it's like, well, no, wonder,
it seems unfathomably expensive, But that's right negotiable. That's something
(02:25):
that's optional. And I wish more young women didn't feel
shame about the timeline or trajectory that they're on, but
did do a little bit more rethinking, Like it's not
necessarily as binary as work or quit. It's not necessarily
as binary as have your finances perfectly an order or
be destitute. There's a lot of range that a lot
of people are working.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
With, absolutely, and your whole economy is of scale thing too.
A lot of the things that people think is going
to cost you know, again, you don't buy five cribs.
You buy the one crib and you pass it down
and you I heard one time somebody says something like,
oh you know, I grew up poor, We grew up
with hand me downs, and I was like, I don't
know how rich I need to be that my kids
are not gonna be wearing each other's hand me down.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
It's like you are.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
They're all wearing each other's hand me downs forever. Like
it's definitely like, oh, you need a new pair of cleats,
Let's go see if your brother has an old pair.
And that's how I think it's supposed to go. You're
so right, though, And I think about this a lot.
Where people are just maybe it's because of the online
culture and they think that you could put everything neatly
into a box of you know, girl boss or trad wife,
(03:26):
but most people are a some combination. And just because
you think your life is going to go a certain
way doesn't mean it will. I when I got married,
our plan was I was going to be a stay
at home mom, and then I opened an unrelated business,
and then I got into journalism, and you know, you
just don't know where life is going to take you,
so you can't have what you're doing in this moment
(03:48):
be your identity. And I think that's the thing that
people don't understand. They're scrambling around for like what am
I going to be? Well, maybe just don't think of
it like that, Maybe think about what you're going to
going to do instead, And it's it's a tougher ask
because what am I going to be? Sort of gives
you the roadmap, but nobody is just that one thing.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
You know.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
The Drake album More Life m this is I feel
like my mantra and probably yours too, Like both of
us have a little bit of this, like this antsiness,
this eagerness to like stick our hands in a million
different charts, even if we're overextended, like I've always had this. Yeah,
like Iggy Pop puts it as like lust for life.
Right in Drake World, it's more Life, but there's a
little bit in the sense.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Of just like you know, it's it.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
I think there's this narrative out there that's like, once
you have a child, your life is over.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Your life must be and say.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Goodbye to going out and to the fancy restaurants and
to parties with your friends, and you know, forget about
throwing a house party ever again. You really have to
step into this, you know, different state of being. And
in some ways it's true, right because you can't do
cocaine and stay out till I say, am if you
have a newborn that you need to nurse right.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
The listener writes in I loved your conversation with Liz Wolf.
You said that women shouldn't solidify into an identity like
girl boss or trad wife. But I find that very difficult.
I'm twenty eight years old and getting married next year.
My entire life, I have heard that I have to
have something of a brand. The idea is pushed in
(05:17):
college all the time. You have to have a path
to what you are in everything you do. I would
find it very difficult to switch between my current career
path and being a trad wife, for example. I don't
judge them, it's just impossible for me to consider changing gears.
I love this email because my first instinct was to say, Wow,
(05:38):
I'm so old, this is so crazy. This whole idea
about having a brand is all so new. But then
I remembered a conversation I had in my early twenties
where I felt completely pigeonholed in my very specific career path.
Right out of college, I became a pharmaceutical paralegal working
(05:59):
in a legal department, of a farmer company. It was accidental,
but because that happened to be the first job I
was offered out of college, I kept being offered only
roles in that field. I had no idea about anything.
I didn't know anything about the field at all, and
the skills I was using in that job could have
(06:21):
been easily applicable to literally any role in the legal field, really,
any role in any field. I was doing what I
later would refer to as like monkey work, checking that
papers were numbered correctly, making sure boxes went out on
time and were perfect. People have been doing this whole
(06:42):
You chose this at twenty two. Now you'll be this
forever thing for a long time. But what I want
people to know is that it's a lie. And not
only is it a lie, but you can switch and
then switch again. I've worked full time, part time contract
work for myself four other people, owned my own business,
(07:05):
and was a stay at home mom. It's all very possible.
And I should note that a lot of that I
did after I was married, because yes, having the stability
of a spouse less you take more chances. But some
of that I did when I wasn't married too. I
went to graduate school I switched fields all before I
(07:26):
ever even dated my husband. So don't listen to the
voices saying your life must go this one way that
you picked when you were twenty. You're going to find,
especially after you have kids, that it may take a
turn and then turn again. It's okay to lean into changes,
and no one should pigeonhole you into just one thing.
(07:50):
You may be a girl boss and a treadwife at
different points of your life, and those are also very
reductionist labels all around. Probably will be somewhere between those
two all along. Your life is not an Instagram account.
You can do various things with it and not care
what the quote unquote audience wants to see. Thanks for listening.
(08:13):
Coming up my interview with Alison Schrager, But first I'd
like to change gears for a minute and talk about Israel.
It's now the month of May, and eighty years ago
this very month, the horror of the Holocaust, the final
solution came to an end. But do you know that
half of all Holocaust survivors live in Israel.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
The pain of the past now.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Intensified today by October seventh, and the rise of anti
Semitism everywhere and along with other elderly Jews, thousands in
Israel live below the poverty line. There's no safety net.
That's why I support the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.
The Fellowship provides a lifeline to these precious ones in
the form of hot meals and boxes full of healthy food.
(08:56):
And for only twenty five dollars, you can help provide
a food box. Better yet, three hundred and thirty five
dollars provides hot meals for an entire year. To give generously,
call eight eight eight for eight eight IFCJ eight eight
eight four eight eight four three two five, or go
online to give at IFCJ dot org. That's IFCJ dot org.
(09:26):
And Welcome back to the Carol Marcowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
My guest today is Alison Schrager. Allison is an economist,
Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, contributing editor at City Journal,
a columnist at Bloomberg Opinion, and the author of a
book I really loved called An Economist Walks into a
brothel and other unexpected places to understand risk. Hi, Allison's
(09:49):
so nice to have you on.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
It's great to see you.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
You know, I was a big fan of your book
when it came out, and it really helped me during
COVID because I thought that one of them main problems
during those years was that people hadn't read your book
and they didn't understand risk. Did you feel like it
was maybe ahead of its time?
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Yeah, I mean I actually started to work on a
second book that's still with a publisher, but really thinking, yeah,
people really have a poor understanding.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Oh yes, particularly the part where.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
You know people tend to get fixated on one risk
and not see others and just assume that, you know,
risk reduction at all costs is valuable. I thought about
it a lot, and maybe it also explains a lot
of my own COVID behavior that was probably at a
step with most people's because I felt quite confident in
my ability, not that I'm a scientist.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Or a doctorship ability to do we were right, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
I'm mostly things like wearing masks outside. Never did that,
you'd get screamed out on the shoots in New York.
Oh yeah. I even wanted to set to a friend
of mine, you know, she's like, what's important that we
wear masks outside? And I'm like, well, you know this
doesn't have any medical value. She's like, that's not what
it's about. It's like showing that we all care.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
I hate that.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
I know. It's like, listen, I ran like sheild our
faces out of social subtildarity.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
It's like, I am all.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
Down for doing anything that will make you know, society
healthier than as negative externacs and externalities. But I'm not
doing something incredibly like sort of disruptive and uncomfortable just
for the sake of it.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Yeah, well, it's very brave that you didn't mask outside.
I did, even though I knew from the beginning that
it was stupid and it had absolutely no benefit, because
I didn't want to get yelled at, and I'm more
than anything else didn't want to get yelled at with my.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Kids in tow.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
But I wish I had kind of took that stand
in a more aggressive fashion because, of course, when Anthony
Fauci delivered the line, as we've been saying all along,
masking outside is like not necessary, and I knew he
had not been saying that all along, but that that
made me feel like, wow, I should have really, I
(12:03):
should have stood stronger and not done it, because I
knew that the risk was minuscule.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
Yeah, I mean with your kids, it's harder because you
don't want to expose them because people would get quite nasty.
I know.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
The general strategy was to wear headphones all the time
and I don't hear you.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
Was waving.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Yeah, so how did you get to a brothel? Where
did this come from?
Speaker 4 (12:31):
So? I had this idea that I wanted to do
a book that made financial economics, which is it's the
study of risk and markets, more accessible in the way
Freakonomics did. But I didn't have a research portfolio like
Steve Lovett did because I hadn't been done much research
out of grad school.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
So I wanted to tell stories.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
And you know, I'd worked as a journalist too, so
I kind of felt like I could report. But then
I realized I don't know how to do reporting on
stories like I write about economics. So I was having
a drink with a cousin who kind of has some
nefarious hobbies and.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
I loves like that.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Yeah, the most religious of all my cousins. Too interesting,
and he I was like, he's.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
A lawyer, So I was like, do you know, just
committed a cry and like that could be a good story.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
And maybe that's a place to start.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
And he said, well, actually, my girlfriend runs a sort
of sex business online where she matches submissives who want
to have sex with their clients and she makes sure
it's a safe transaction. And I'm like, oh, that's interesting.
So I think that could be a good story. So
I interviewed her and it was interesting becau I'm writing
about risk and the whole ideas we pay for safety.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
I think there's always trade offs of how much risk
you want to take on.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
Like the women who worked for her paid her thirty
percent of their earnings, so to make sure that there's
a very risky transaction. You can meet some random on
the internet and he's going to tell you up and
then you have sex with them. You want to make
sure he doesn't kill you because the probability of that
isn't trivial. So she would get thirty percent to make
sure that didn't have happened. And I'm like, oh, it's
a risk premium. So I wrote this column, I think
(14:03):
for courts at the time, and it did really well,
as you would expect. Yeah, And so the Bunny Ranch
PR guy, who is quite aggressive and good at.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
His job, reached out to me, and it's funny.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
He's like, I guess there's a hierarchy and prestige with brothels,
which I didn't know.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
And the Bunny ranch is like right at the top right.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
He was like, I don't know why you're writing about
this no name person in the war, and like here
we were at brothels. Who's worrying about the best brothel
and that's ours. So I was like, I don't write
about brothels. I'm a retirement economist, but you know i'll
take this call.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Why not, right of course? And yeah, who wouldn't take
that call?
Speaker 4 (14:39):
So we started talking and he's describing how there's no
set prices, that every transactions individually negotiated. And I was like, oh,
so you have like women who are like eighteen negotiating
with men in their sixties were super rich for money,
Like that's interesting. He's like yes, and you know they
tend to not know their value when they come. So
we have a negotiation training program and I had this
(15:00):
wonderful editor at the time, a wonderful Lauren Brown, who said,
you've got to go with a videographer.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
So I said to.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
Jeremy Leemer, who was their PR guy like, I want
to come and film this, and he they they need
pr because they can't advertise. So yeah, he's got an
invite from Dennis Hoff and off we went. And in
the process of learning how they negotiate, I learned how
prices were set and saw a risk story there, and
(15:29):
then I went back a couple more times to do
more research. So I guess that's that's how it was
a very felt unlikely to me I ended up there,
but that's how it happened.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
That's amazing. Dennis Hoff is Actually he somehow kind of
crossed into the mainstream right. He used to be on
Howard Stern. I came across an article about him not
that long ago where Tucker Carlson sent him some I
want to I don't know. I don't I don't want
to mess up the details, but it sounds like a
penis made out of elephant husks, something along those lines,
(16:04):
and somehow, you know, Tucker Carlson sent that to him.
It's just it doesn't seem like the kind of thing
where he is a weird kind of side guy. He's
he's kind of become a mainstream figure.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
Well, he unfortunately died a couple of years ago. Yeah,
I believe.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Acy died or actually died.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
Like they think he did, and he I liked him
a lot, and I think a lot of people, mainstream
people like Tucker, who granted is in a different place now,
did go to his funeral because.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
First of all, he's very charming.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
But second of all, you know, when you really people
have very strong feelings about sex work, and I understand why,
but they it's really often not what they think. And
I had I liked about Dennis Is. I had very
complicated feelings about him, and I like people I've complicated
feelings about, because no one's all good or bad, and.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
There was a lot of really good things.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
About him and that, you know. So he gave all
the women financial literacy training. It's the best financial literacy
program I've ever seen, and I study this like it
was very effective. These women who grew up in very
financially insecure houses, a lot of them were really like
talking about the index funds.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Therefore, when K's were in yeah, and being very financially.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
Savvy, he made them all do vision boards because he
says to me, it's like, most of these women are
never going to make this kind of money again, so
I want them to like learn the skills and set
life goals beyond here.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
But then you'd say, also, they'll work harder and like
have more sex with people.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
So it's like, on the one hand, he's really I
go to staff meetings and he was like this motivational
speaker telling these women, a lot of whom had really
never had anyone in their lives encourage them, encourage them
and tell them anything they set their minds too, they
could do. And you're like, yes, But then he also
is taking fifty percent of their money when they have
sex strangers, so you know, and.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
They have sex with him. That was also fut of
the Yeah, they encourage each other to have sex with
him because if he likes you, then you get a
better situation.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
They want his approval, they want his attention. If you're
having sex with him, you're more likely to do that.
There was a lot of weirdicky things. But also you know,
who else is you know, advocating for them in this way.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Who else is giving them this training in different forms.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Of human capital? So I said, I kind of he's
very charming. He was very very charming too. I mean,
I said, I like people have complicated feelings about I
had very very complicated feelings about him. There's a lot
of things about sex work that I think, you know,
you you do feel very conflicted about. Like I was
talking to someone recently said that she's against all sex.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Work and no forgot things that goes on, even she
doesn't feel.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
That way because it's always these young women who are
being exploited and trafficked, And I'm like, that really isn't
most sex transactions, Like a lot of sex transactions are
mentally handicapped, people who still have physical needs. There's also
it's common veterans maimed in battle, people with severe physical ailments.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
That's a big part of the industry.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
And you know, a lot of people have needs for
intimacy that we don't like to talk about, and it
does serve a purpose, And who's being exploited isn't always
so clear, So.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Not something you do learn there.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
It's not what you think, and there's a lot of
It's definitely not something I felt comfortable with.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
I'd say every minute in the brothel, I felt incredibly uncomfortable.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
But it's hard to really have a strong judgment either.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Yeah, what don't people misunderstand about risk.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Two things. One is, you know that there's upside to risk.
I think people forget that. The second is, and this
astounds me because.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
People seem to think they can get nothing something for nothing,
Like if you're gonna get that possibility upside, you do
have to face downside risk too, So it's like two
sides of the same coin. And I think it's amazing
to me that people work in finance are supposed to
be risk experts, often forget that. They're always like, aha,
I found this asset that will beat the market, but
(20:01):
it faces no downside risk, and that's their sales pitch
right they buy into it. It's like mortgage backed securities
or burning battle, or even like our society at large
is that people think they can reduce risk and they're
not going to be any loss, or they can get
upside and not face downside risk. And it's like, you know,
the sort of underlying theory of all of finance is
(20:23):
like there's no arbitrage, like there's no beating the market.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Without taking on risk.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Yet like for some reason, people, even experts, even people
with PhDs and finance seem to forget this all the time.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
How did you get into this risk, yeah, or just
being an economist? What was your path here?
Speaker 4 (20:40):
I took my first economics class when I was in
high school, and something about it like really connected with me.
I think because I grew up in a very small
town that the industrial and ess now it's everyone's talking
about it de industrialized quite early in southern New England
and the economic scars of that never really recovered.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
I think that I was a multi generation as fourth
generation and grew up there. I think that bothered.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Me a lot, really, the persistence of the poverty and
how a community that.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Sorry, but I thought you meant that it was that
it bothered you that you were the fourth generation to grow.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Up there too, not to have that continue.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
But especially I think the being multigeneration made me feel
more connected to the community.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
It was a very academic community too.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
I think other people who had professional parents and feel
as connected as I did. So I had a lot
of questions growing up, like the community was also very
averse to development and growth. I couldn't figure that out.
So when I started taking economics, it started giving me
answers and I felt like I just wanted to know
more and that never stopped. I'm still there where I
(21:45):
want to understand the economy better. Really, since I was sixteen,
I haven't really studied anything else.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Right, Wow, So I was gonna say, was there ever
a plan B? Like if you didn't become an economist,
what would you have done?
Speaker 4 (21:57):
You know? I was very like adamant that I was
going to be an economist.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
I feel like there was no plan B. Y, Yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (22:05):
Called myself that. I even like took time off before
I went to college where I wasn't like in school
and wasn't clear I was even.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Going to college. But I still thought of myself as
an economist.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
And then do you know, did a whole PhD in
it and like when I finished the things didn't go
well for me on the job market for a variety
of reasons.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
And it was the first time at that point out
a PhD.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
I was like twenty eight, twenty nine, and I was like, whoa,
maybe I'll do something else to be So I thought
about it and I didn't really have a plan B.
And I'm still an economist.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
I feel like a lot of economists like playing poker.
If that's uh, you know, that would that's a solid
plan B. No risk involved at all.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Yeah, you know. I mean I've only played poker three times.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
I've won two times, though, Oh wow, really large groups.
I think I don't like it because I think everyone
expects me to be good at it for that reason.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
Yes, I agree.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
I think I just think that there's some natural connection there.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Yeah. Well, I mean I'm a naturally probabilistic thinker, and
then there's a game theory.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Yeah, and I'm.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Actually calculating risk all of that.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
Yeah, but that's also I don't like it because poker
is like a big game of risk and there's a
lot of things I can't control, but everyone expects me
to be good at it.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
We're going to take a quick break and be right
back on the Carol marcoid Show.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
What do you worry about lately?
Speaker 4 (23:29):
I'm worried about expertise, the state of expertise. I'm worried
on the one hand that everyone's just disregarding expertise.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
When we really need it still.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
But I'm also really mad at experts for abusing their
so on the one hand, there's part of me that
welcomes let's overflow the experts. They've abused their power. They
have really let their science go shoddy. On the other hands,
like what's replacing it might be even worse.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Yeah, I think about that a lot. Also, I feel
like I've been mad at experts for a while. The
COVID years really really, you know, bothered me a lot
the way things were handled. And but what we're moving
away from these experts and into people who are not
just like into the topic. They're just completely dabbling in
(24:16):
these topics. They like read the Wikipedia entry and then
pontificate on it. I'm not sure that's any better. But
a lot of people who were not experts did a
lot of really great work during COVID. And if I
saw that kind of movement again, of like regular everyday
amateurs who immersed themselves in the information and in the
data and in the numbers and let things lead them
(24:40):
where they may, I feel like I'd be more into
throwing the experts out.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Well, it depends how you do.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
I've been thinking about this a lot, you know, because
I'm an economist. I hate tariffs. I think they're horrible
for the economy. But and this is like the one
thing all economists agree on. But then there's part of
me that is like down with the experts, and we're
all at experts, and you know, experts are wrong, particularly
when you have consensus amongst experts, you should be suspicious, right,
and so and I see here these people who are like,
(25:08):
all the economists are wrong, and I'm like, okay, I
feel like I should be open to their arguments.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
But then I notice they're not engaging with our arguments.
And I think this is the difference.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
Is It's like you can say, hey, you know, the
thing about the economy particularly is well, not everyone's an economist.
Everyone participates in the economy, so they always have some
insight I don't have. So there's a way you can
be critical of experts if you understand their argument and
can explain why they're wrong. And what I'm seeing with
a lot of the sort of anti tariff brigade is
(25:40):
they're not doing that. They're not engaging with our arguments.
They're just saying, well, this will be good. Yeah, not
at the same time understanding where we're coming from, the
data we're grappling with, and explaining why we're wrong.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Right. I mean, I'm I've always been fairly anti tariffs,
and I find myself right now being like, let's see
what happens, because maybe I'm wrong, but what may happen
could be disastrous, So I don't know. It is a
delicate balance. But I definitely have softened a little bit
(26:11):
on tariffs only because I do think, what if what
if I'm incorrect? What if all of all that I
believe and I have read is wrong. There is that
place where I wonder if I'm not too committed to
positions and maybe should bend a little.
Speaker 4 (26:28):
I just said I want to feel that way too,
and you know, but part of me then wonders if
the tariff fans are then doing themselves a disservice because
their arguments are terrible. Like, I'm open to the idea
the entire economics profession is wrong. We've miss seen things.
I mean, it's not even that we're wrong. We're basing
it on past world And you could argue we're in
a different world and economies change and evolve and the
(26:50):
old real change. I'm open to that. I'm open to,
you know, I'm really trying to be open to that.
But like their arguments are poor, Like you can the
sort of prevailing expertise if you have a good argument,
but they're not bothering to do that, and maybe they exist,
I just haven't heard it yet.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Interesting. What advice would you give your sixteen year old self.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
I would have faith in your choices.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
I made some really strange choices throughout my career and
I was told constantly that they were terrible choices and
it would ruin my life. And they worked out after
a while, sometimes not right away. So I would have
faith that your choices would work out. And you really
have to, like I think I knew myself very well
at a very young age. Like you know, we've discussed
(27:36):
you lived in Scotland. I went to University Edinburgh undergrad
just sort of like sort of being in Europe out
of college and that at the time that was kind
of an odd thing to do, but it really was
the best thing for me.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Yeah. I love Scotland. It's I mean that that is
a place that could do as a financial overhaul. But
other than that, I just.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
Like the SNP.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
It's like the worst government in Europe.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Yeah, it's funny. My second time living in Scotland, I
was young and dumb, and I was very into their
independence movement and I was looking for a job and
I ended up almost going to work for the SMP
before they were even ever elected to anything like literally
just free Scotland. But I ended up passing on that
thankfully and working in the Scottish government at the time.
(28:19):
But I just told the story to my fifteen year
old recently and she was like, I could not believe
that I was SMP or I was for any of that.
I was like nineteen years old.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
To be fair, different party.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
I think what I've learned from the SNP is this
is probably really into the weast for people. Maybe yeah,
it's okay, but a bigger point is no party should
be in power for that long on a post like
they were new. They just had a new government when
you were there, and so it was an interesting party
and independs always stupid that they had a point. But
the problem is they've been unopposed for like twenty five
(28:54):
years in Scotland and like no part like that's even why.
Like I was begrudgingly okay with Labor winning and announsking
the Tories, like, while I am more inclined to conservatives
in the UK, I feel like they're inmpowered too long.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
You need to go out, you need to go back
in the wilderness. You need your regroup.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
No party is good in power forever, and P when
you were dealing with them, were a very different party.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
So yeah, in all fairness to you.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Yeah, thank you, thank you. Nineteen year old Carol really
appreciates that well. I've loved this conversation. I always find
you so interesting and so just wonderful and us here
with your best tip for my listeners on how they
can improve their lives.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
I think you have to be really aware of what
makes you happy. I mean not to be don't be selfish,
but like what matters to you, what your values are,
and be true to them.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
I love it. That's really what it's all about. She
is Alison Schrager. Check her out in City Journal, Bloomberg
Opinion and buy her book, An Economist Walks Into a
Brothel and Other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk. Thank you, Allison,
thank you, thanks so much for joining us on the
Carol Mark With Show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts
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