November 17, 2025 • 51 mins
In this episode, Breitbart's John Carney breaks down the real numbers driving today’s economy — from inflation and wage growth to employment trends and the growing impact of technology. Carney examines how rising prices shape everyday life, why wage gains differ across income levels, and how the Federal Reserve’s decisions ripple through the market. The conversation also digs into the challenges facing new college graduates and the media narratives that influence how Americans feel about the economy. It's a Numbers Game is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday & Thursday.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome back to a numbers game with Ryan Gerdusky. Thank
you all for being here again. I need to start
off the show with a correction from Thursdays All Ask
Me Anything show. I had a listener named Brock who
asked me about the Jewish votesince October seventh, and I
had some kind of brain fog. I don't know what
was going on. I promise you I don't use drugs,
(00:24):
so I can't even blame it on that. But I
had a brain freeze and I forgot what year October
seventh happened, and I for some reason assumed it was
last year and it was this year. It was like
maybe sorry, I thought it was like maybe this year,
and it was like two years ago. So we have had,
I said, the only election we've had since then. It
is the New York City mayor of Virginia, governor, a
New Jersey governor election, and we had a presidential election
(00:48):
that I completely forgot about. So Brock, I want to
correct myself for you and for any listeners who care
about this topic. So the organization that I mentioned, there's
an organization that looks at the Jewish vote every single
year and they say that they are a nonpartisan organization,
but they are liberal hacks, and I remembered it after
the podcast was over, oh over last week. It's called
(01:08):
the Jewish Electoral Institute. The Jewish Electoral Institute, whose numbers
I never trust, but the media post them because they
are the first ones who come out with numbers of
the Jewish vote. They said that Harris won the Jewish
vote seventy one to twenty six. That's what you'll see
that number in the media a lot if you look
it up. It comes from them. They are partisan hacks.
They should be ignored. The Pew Research Center, which had
(01:32):
a very deep dive investigation into the election of different demographics,
of multiple demographics, looked at the Jewish vote and said
it was more like sixty three to thirty five in
favor of Harris. So Harris did win the Jewish vote,
but that is actually a swing towards Republicans. Now, Pew
did not look at the election from twenty twenty. I
(01:54):
looked at other data analysis has said that Trump went
around twenty five twenty six percent, So we might have
seen about a twenty point swing between what the Democrats
lost and what Republicans gained. Overall, with the Jewish vote.
In twenty twenty four, Steve Sailor, who is very controversial
so the media will not cover him fairly or accurately,
he actually looked at Jewish donors and this is really fascinating.
(02:16):
In twenty twenty, Jews gave Democrats more money if in
their presidential and congressional runs Thanblican Republicans five hundred and
seventeen million for Democrats four hundred and eleven million for Republicans.
In twenty twenty four, Jewish donors for Democrats dropped their
donations by thirty three percent, while increasing their giving to
(02:38):
Republican presidential candidates obviously Trump and Republicans running for Congress
by twenty nine percent. So in twenty twenty four, Republicans
actually received more money from Jewish donors than Democrats did,
by a five hundred and twenty nine million dollar margin
for Republicans and three hundred and forty four million for Democrats.
That's very insightful. It really does speak to where the
(03:01):
voters or especially the donors, really feel like the party
is representing the best interests of Jewish Americans. I think
that that's very fascinating. So the Jewish votees swung towards
Republicans by a good measure, but Jewish donors really swung
towards Republicans. And obviously, if you look at the mayor's election,
or Quama won the Jewish vote certainly, and in New Jersey,
(03:23):
the Jewish vote swung heavily towards the Republican candidate for
the governor of New Jersey. All right, enough of the
Jewish vote. We're going to talk about affordability this episode.
It is the topic, the word, the buzzword that the
media is grabbing onto, that the White House is grabbing onto,
that Congress is talking about ever since Mondani won in
New York City, speaking about the issue of rents and
(03:44):
the costs of transportation, all the rest of the things
that are playing in New Yorkers, And obviously New York
is one of the most expensive places in the country.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
I live in.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
There is a real feeling in the country. And I've
talked to people of many different income brackets, many different
They work in different sectors of the economy, they are
in different age groups, where they have genuine anxiety over
the state of the economy. The issue that they feel
like they are barely getting by or not getting by
or just getting by inflation. I think you know, inflation
(04:18):
is down year to year from the height of when
Biden was presidency, but prices overall have not fallen because
we're not in a deflationary period, right, So just inflation
is slowed, but we are in a new normal, whether
we like it or not. Our everyday prices we're not
going back to twenty twenty. And I think that's what
angers a lot of voters who felt like, let's get
(04:42):
Trump in office. He'll have a magic wand somehow and
will return to a pre COVID world that I just
don't see that we're ever going to come down to.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Now.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
We all know certain things in our everyday lives have
gone up, right, Food prices, electric bills, home prices have budge.
Some of it is related to Trump's tariffs, right, like
clothes clothes are much more expensive, but some of it,
some of and some of them by the like electricity
has nothing to do with tariffs, right, because it's the
data centers and other things are going on. But according
(05:13):
to CBS News, it's very unusual which items are seeing
the biggest spikes and which ones are decreasing, right, So
according to CBS News, home appliances, smartphones, gasoline, computer software, televisions,
they're all cheaper than they were in twenty twenty two.
Furniture is actually stagnant. There's not been an explosion in
(05:34):
the increasing cost of furniture since twenty twenty two. Interestingly,
interestingly enough, gasoline, when adjusted for inflation, is actually cheaper
in twenty twenty five than it was in nineteen seventy three.
Nothing to do with the conversation, but I saw that,
and I was like, I gotta say to somebody Otherwise
I'm just up at Wikipedia middle of the night looking
at random gas prices throughout the years, so items have
(05:56):
increased for other things, though, things in our daily lives
that we feel we have to kind of have. Car
insurance is up fifty five percent since twenty twenty two.
Home insurance is up thirteen percent. Medical equipment is up
thirteen percent. Dental services are up eighteen percent, pet food
is up twenty percent. Tools and hardware are up twelve percent.
Airline fees are up twenty two percent. I fly all
(06:18):
the time. I trust my feeling this and overall food
is up eighteen percent. Now that's not every item but
that is you know, the overall number since twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Why is this?
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Yeah, some of it is terrorf related, which is what
the media has been talking about NonStop. If you read
nothing besides the mainstream media, it is tariffs are responsible
for everything. But it doesn't it doesn't make sense, right,
Tariffs are not responsible for your home insurance or your
car insurance. It's an easy out, It's an easy explanation,
especially from a media that looks to blame Donald Trump
for absolutely everything.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Part of it, and part of.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
It is Trump's fault and Republican's fault. Because of a
new study I read from MIT, it said forty two
per of all inflation is related to deficits spending. Every
time the government is posting a trillion dollar deficit, you
are losing purchasing power of your of your dollar.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Right.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
It is the tax that they are there. You know,
Democrats say, let's do a middle class tax cut. Republicans say,
that's a tax cunt everybody. Every time they pass and inflation,
it is a tax increase without them telling you about it.
And that is really a big chunk of why your
dollar is not going as far and hasn't for quite
(07:32):
some time. Now, This doesn't mean that all companies are
you know that because our daily lives are the cost
of our daily lives are increasing, that all these companies
are about to fail or are failing. There was a
new consumerer sentiment is down. But price But but eighty
five percent of firms and the sm P five hundred
(07:53):
actually beat their Q three quarterly profit estimates. Right, companies
are doing fairly well, like the sky isn't falling. I'm
not saying things are great. I'm not trying to overstate it.
I'm not doing I'm not bag Dad Bob saying no,
everything is cheap and easy.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
It's not.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
But anyone telling you that you should, you know, consider
hiding your money in a shoe box and then bearing
it is probably overstating the situation. Earnings are strong for companies,
which explains the resiliency of the stock market. So inflation
is down from where it was during the Biden presidency.
It's ticked up slightly. Over All, the three percent companies
are showing strong profits. The stock market is strong. But
(08:35):
the cost increase that really has ratchet up since the
recession hasn't come down. Right, The new normal is hurting
working class people the most. In twenty twenty five, twenty
five percent of families are living paycheck to paycheck and
increasingly living on their credit cards. That's actually down, believe
(08:55):
it or not, the amount of people living paid it
to paycheck according to polling from twenty twenty twenty three,
where it was twenty nine percent. You've may have heard
a lot about delinquencies, right. People are delinquent on their mortgages,
delinquent on their our credit cards, are on their cars.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
I want to talk about a broader context to really
understand when they say delinquencies where they're at. When you
look at the last twenty two years, student loan delinquencies
were usually eight point five percent, credit cards six point five,
mortgages four auto and Audi cars two point five, autos
two point five, and helocks two percent. Currently, student loans
(09:35):
are way up there, fourteen percent, way way higher than normal.
Credit cards are slightly up there at seven point one percent,
and auto is up to three percent. It's up, but
maybe it's actually it's up a little bit, but it's
not up terribly. It's up by half a point.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Mortgages and helocks are actually.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Below the national average. For the last twenty two years,
and that's because inflation is growing faster than meeting incomes
for lower and middle class people, people who are more
dependent on the credit card, who you know, maybe can't
afford their monthly car payment, but either they don't own
a house, they're living in an apartment, or you know,
(10:13):
they have a house that is a more reasonable cost
and it's what they prioritize. This went really into overdrive
around February, but it's it's been happening for some time,
and it probably explains why you saw shifts among white
working class voters in the presidential election and the last
(10:34):
governorship elections of a few weeks ago. Working class voters,
white working class voters and latinos because they're both at
the same are very similar economic standings, right, and one
didn't just flip. They both moved. They both went in
the same direction. They're both feeling this economic pressure that
the average middle and lower income person is feeling. A
(10:57):
big part of this discussion is a spec actually focused
on young people. Unemployment for recent college graduate stands at
nine point three percent higher than it was during the
Great Recession. This is especially true for STEM graduate. STEM
was we were told get a STEM degree, you'll have
a job for life. That's not true for a lot
(11:18):
of STEM graduates, recent STEM graduates, which makes the conversation
over H one b's even more infuriating. Unemployment for sixteen
to twenty twenty four year old stands at ten point
five percent. This and many of them are in school,
but still that's very, very, very high. And I want
to understand, want to make listeners understand the political gravity
(11:39):
of this when they talk about youth unemployment. It is
not just the young people who are feeling this anxiety towards,
you know, not having a job, or being underemployed, or
having to settle for a job where you didn't get
your degree in. It also affects their boomer parents and
their gen X parents, right, people who have co signed
their student loans, who are saying, hey, my kid got
(11:59):
a good degree from a good school, why are they
not making what they should They're feeling the nerves too.
They're feeling that anxiety too. So although they may be
fine in their jobs, they're invested. Their biggest investment is
not their house, it's their child. And this is good.
This is the trend that's been going on for some time.
(12:21):
It didn't just start when Trump became president. It's been happening.
Part of the reason that young people are feeling, especially
this terrible economy right now, a little bit could be
exposure to AI, but I've read a few papers and
studies that say that they doubt it. Part of it
could be uncertainty. I mean, Trump is a wild man
(12:41):
to a lot of people, right So if you're a
company and you don't know which way, especially with tariffs
are going, maybe you slow down hiring. Part of it
could be that they hired a lot of people during
the recession and now they don't need workers. I mean,
that's also a big, big part of it. And this
entire context that we're having about rising costs and tariffs
and AI and h one b's and all of this nervousness,
(13:04):
especially towards younger people and where the stand in the
economy happens at the time that Moody's has stated and
rated that twenty two states are currently in a recession. Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana,
New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode, Island, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington, Washington,
(13:27):
d C, West Virginia, and Wyoming. I don't know exactly
if what the state of their recession is because only
two of those states have reported GDP declines in the
first two quarters this year, being Arkansas in Mississippi. Arkansas
not even on that list, Mississippi's only one on that list,
and none posted job losses. My overall assumption throwing all
(13:50):
that data at you is this, the economy is not great,
especially if you're a working class, middle class employee, especially
if you're a young person. It is a slog and
it is not a great time to be unemployed. If
there was ever a good time to really be unemployed,
but this is not it. I think that what we
are dealing with as a society is redjusting to a
(14:11):
new normal that we will not feel normal in for
a very, very long time. I don't think there's a
magic wand that can go back to twenty nineteen. I
wish there was. It'd be much easier for me, who
works a million jobs seven days a week, could even
feel because even I'm sitting there and saying, wow, these
prices are getting really expensive. Not that I'm a billionaire,
but I'm noticing these on my on my general life,
(14:34):
and I make a good income, I work really, really hard.
I have employees to sit there and pay for We're
all noticing it. And what it will mean if we
can't get some kind of restitution by election night is
that these swing voters, especially the ones who said let's
trust Trump because he can sit there and wave a
magic wand they're going to sit there and say, you
know what, I'm gonna either stay home or I'm gonna
(14:55):
give Democrats a chance. That puts Republicans in a very
precarious situation. And they don't have a lot of time
to address this, and that's why it's more important than
ever they focus on getting Americans back at work and
increasing stability in the economy Overall. With me today for
this episode is the brilliant John Connie from bright Bart News.
He's going to go over all these data, all these numbers,
(15:17):
and really make it understandable for people, for fellow college
dropouts like me, and for everyone else who's not an economist.
That's coming up next. We're having a national conversation around affordability,
right especially since Mandani one, you've heard the White House
talk about it more, Congress is talking about it more,
you write about you, you know. And it's an interesting
(15:39):
moment because stocks are up and companies are posting really
strong profits, but people are not feeling it. What do
use have a sense of the true state of the
economy right now? Is it as bad and diret people
say it is.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
No, the economy is not in dire straits. It's doing
okay right now. I think there are risks. I do
think a lot of the unhappiness that we're hearing from
people is really what I'll call like bidenflation hangover unhappiness.
The main complaint is that prices are very high. Inflation
(16:13):
is still above where most it was for most everybody
who's going to watch this lot lives. It went up
to the highest level under Biden in forty years, but
still at around two and a half to three percent.
That's too high. And remember that's two and a half
(16:33):
and three percent on top of the giant increases we
saw under Biden. So I think people even if we
had almost no inflation right now, I think people would
still be worried about affordability. We don't have almost no inflation.
We have inflation that's still a little bit too high.
It needs to be brought down further. But I think
(16:54):
it's frankly, I think it's going to take years for
people to feel like, to get used to the new
price level. I feel it myself. I got to dinner
and I think, like, what did I said to my
I didn't say it. I thought it to my friend.
I was like, did you bring us to like the
fanciest restaurant in your town? Because these prices are out
of control and it's just the normal restaurant price, right,
(17:16):
you know. But yeah, and it makes me feel really old,
like I'm like, you know, oh, when I was a boy,
my Hamburgers only cost fifty dollars and now they're forty two.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
I feel it completely. And it's not even across the board.
So I was looking at CBS posted a whole of
things of what where prices up and where are they down?
Certain things they are down, right, Computer software is down,
gasoline is down, smartphones is down, home appliance is down,
furniture is stagnant. It's even gasoline is actually lower by
inflation measures than it was in nineteen seventy three. But
(17:51):
then you look at home insurance, pet food, food, hardware.
Some of it would make sense that the terror you
know on clothes, for example, tariffs clearly have had an impact,
but home insurance.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
They terears have nothing to do with home insurance.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
So why are we seeing certain things that affect our
daily lives? Car insurance is up like twenty percent from
twenty twenty two. Why are certain things just spiking and
exploding that affects people's daily lives.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Yeah, so there's a few reasons for this. The car
insurance thing really actually does have to do with the
fact that we've made our cars into computers and so
that repairs to cars are much more expensive. And I
talked to a friend of mine who works in the
business of car repair. He said, actually, like the it's
(18:43):
easier to total a car, meaning you know, make it
unusable than it used to be, because it used to
be you got in an accident and you could take
some parts out and put parts back in. If you're
driving like an electric vehicle, you can't take anything out.
It's all basically one big part. And just even hybrids
(19:04):
and internal combuntion engine cars are much harder to repair
these days, so they're much more expensive. That drives up
inflation prices in general. Though I do think that what
we're seeing is, like I said, a it's I don't
think there's much of a teriff effect. But you named
all those things that aren't up much at all, or
(19:25):
aren't or are actually down in price that people thought
would be more expensive from terraffs, cars, furniture, appliances was
a big thing, right, Appliances, We're gonna like, we're gonna
see a big increasing applians cost We haven't. Apparel is up,
pails up a little bit, though, I mean it's actually
not up as much as you know, you might have
(19:47):
thought if you were a tariff fear monger. Shoe costs
shoes are down, which is weird, all right. So, and
one of the things about that is we're not seeing
the every thing goes up a lot kind of inflation
we saw. I'm bided we are. Some food prices are up,
beef is up, egg prices are down a lot.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
So what were they were so high? I mean they
were at one they had the company to go higher.
I mean, how many chickens are dead?
Speaker 3 (20:17):
I mean, like, well, yeah, I mean and also I
mean it's one of the reasons. Beef prices, like food,
particularly proteins are substitutable. So if egg prices go up,
you eat more bacon in the morning, or you or
you make pancakes or whatever, you know, beating you shift
away from the super expensive stuff. The and the same
(20:40):
thing that happens with with beef. Frankly, people okay, you know,
I'll buy some chicken instead of buying the you know,
the steak, and so people shift their proteins prices come down. Uh,
I don't. I know that Trump administration is like lowering
tariffs on some foods. That may help a little, but
(21:01):
I actually don't think it's going to have a big effect.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Well, when it comes to coffee mobile, the biggest costs
from food is transportation, right, Transporting food and energy is
the biggest cost of food. And something that I have
never seen someone write I've kind of thought about it is,
as electricity prices have increased, the cost of refrigerating food
must be going up because it has to affect everything. Walmart's,
(21:26):
you know, the Walmart grocery store, or Kroger's or wherever
you're buying. Grosses from their costs are going like your houses,
so they're passing those costs on to consumers. Am I
crazy for thinking that?
Speaker 3 (21:35):
No, No, that's a that's actually a really good insight
is that when you do have this problem of higher
electricity costs, and we actually did a really bad job
in this country of preparing ourselves to use more electricity,
we really we haven't built enough electricity plants. There's all
(21:56):
sorts of reasons for that. You know, a huge part
of it is like climate change fears. People were demanding
that if you build new electricity plants that they you know,
that they only be powered by wind or solar somehow,
and you can't. You can't actually do that. And some
climate activists actually oppose all expanded energy because they feel
(22:18):
like it's actually a bonus to have energy costs more.
The more expensive it is, the less we'll use it,
and therefore somehow if you know, if it becomes too
expensive for you and I to you know, turn on
our lights at night, then that'll save the earth from
climate change. Obviously that that's that's wrong, but that that
really is the part of the idea they discourage the
(22:41):
building of new energy generation. I think that now I
think we're going to build more electricity, but it's going
to take some time.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
So when you look at the wage growth, right, something
that we saw in the first Room administration was very
high wage growth among the lower quadrant of workers, right,
lower percentile workers. That has not changed now where lower
lower class workers are actually making there their wages are
growing at the slowest amount unlike they used to grow
(23:09):
at the highest amount or in the first time administration.
What do you because that that middle tier and lower
tier income bracket is who's feeling inflation the worst. And
when you saw the New Jersey and Virginia elections, especially
the New Jersey elections, it wasn't just a latinos had
moved against Trump and they are in that quadrant of
the lower class, but also white working classes moved against
(23:31):
Republicans in big numbers. Those are they have the same
economic levels, So why are those workers not seeing wage
growth at at a strong level like they used to?
Speaker 3 (23:42):
So I think actually we're going to see it. I
just think it's too early. A few things are going
to drive it one there and this will set a
little trickle down economics. Uh, but we there is going
to be this investment surge coming from the tax bill
that will actually result in more demand for workers. That
(24:03):
will push up wages, and then the deportations and the
closing off of the border will also help push up wages.
It's actually funny hearing people complain about this because at
the same time, you keep hearing people complain that we're
going to experience some sort of horrible labor shortage from
Trump's border policies. So I expect that what we've seen
(24:28):
in sort of the lower death siles of income not
performing maybe as well as people had hoped, that that's
actually again. And I hate to keep saying this, like, oh,
it's a hangover from Biden, but look like electing Donald Trump,
you know, like it's not going to change the economy immediately, right,
(24:51):
we are still dealing with Biden policies for a while
and what So what I'd say is like, look, give
some time. I think it will come back. Politically, you know,
the Trump administration has to hope that it comes back
in the next six months, right because sometime around you're
(25:12):
the political guy, not me, but you know, sometime around
next May, people's mindsets will, you know, like they get
fits that's what the economy will be in their mind
till November. So I'm saying it's going to get better.
The political question is does it get better in time?
And do people notice it in time?
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Well, is there going to cut range?
Speaker 3 (25:33):
You think? I Well, so here's a question. No, unless
we get less of an unless we get a terror.
So we're getting a job's report this week on Thursday.
If the job's report is awful, and by that I
mean probably would have to be negative, so it would
(25:55):
have to show that we've lost jobs. If it comes
in at like thirty forty fifty thousand, that's actually a
pretty good jobs report. It will mean that unemployment is
not rising, we're creating enough jobs to fill the growth
of the economy. That number is a lot lower than
it used to be because we were not admitting a
million illegal aliens every year.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Now that war that mean right, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Yeah, the millions that were coming in meant that you
had to be generating, you know, one hundred and twenty
five hundred and fifty two hundred thousand jobs a month
just to keep up with the new entrance. That's a
lot lower now, So like fifty thousand is actually a
pretty good number.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
So eightyps it is about fifty thousand Goldman Sachs as
we've lost one hundred thousand.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
So if we get a number like that, then the
Fed will probably cut. If we get a shock, you know, No,
if we get a positive number and it's you know,
not like three jobs, but you know, tens of thousands,
then I think the Fed stays on hold. I think
(27:00):
that there's a greater risk to the economy right now.
I think the economy is doing okay, but there are
signs of risks to the economy. I think the Fed
should cut in December, just to hold off the risks.
But there's two reasons why they don't want to. One,
(27:23):
I think that they want Trump to fail. I think,
you know that they are political. I don't think that
they look at this and say like, oh, you know,
we better you know. I don't think they want a recession,
but they would, in mind if things go pretty badly
over the next six months, so that you know, people
vote for the Democrats. And I also think that they
(27:47):
have a theory that is wrong, which is that tariffs
are going to cause inflation. And they look and they say,
tariffs didn't cause a lot of inflation yet. But rather
than correcting themselves and be like Oh, well, maybe we
were wrong about that whole terraf inflation thing. They just
keep saying, well, that just means it's going to get
worse in the future, right, So every time we get
we get a price report that shows not a lot
(28:08):
of terror inflation, they're like, oh, yeah, man, but that
means you know it's it's coming. And they're going to
keep saying this at least until May, when Jerome Powell
is leaves the chairmanship. We don't even know if he's
going to leave the FED. By the way, he may
be there for he could. He has a couple more
years in his term as governor, so he could do
(28:29):
something that almost no FED governor is FED chairman has
ever done, which is like stubbornly stay on the FED
when your chairmanship is done. And he shouldn't do that. That
would be irresponsible. It undermines the next chairman. Uh, every
other FED president except one leaves or FED chairman leaves
when their term is done. So but I think we
(28:53):
may get a change from the Fed in May, but
before that, I don't think they'll cut unless something starts
to go really bad in the economy, meaning like they're
not they're not willing to do like a preemptive like
or precaution cut. They need to see like you know,
people with like you know, tin pans in the streets
like and barrels over their you know, cells, because they.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Don't have any clues.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Yeah, the I was looking at different trends on costs
and and there's not much that you see a dramatic
change from Biden. Like the trajectory of lower income people
to or having having their wages decrease started during Biden,
and it has been increasing and it just still has continued.
So I don't see that that. And also inflation doesn't
(29:38):
explain home insurance increases, like it just doesn't explain a
lot of other things. Dental services are up like, so
it's it's very very strange. The the other thing I
wanted to ask you about was what is going on
with college graduates having such high unemployment rates because that
is leading to I think a big part of it
is when young people have high levels of unemployment, it
(30:01):
doesn't just affect them, it affects their parents, grandparents who
like host sign student loans. So the Gen X and
baby boomers who have Gen Z children are like, why
is my kid graduated from a computer science major from
a good college. Why is he unemployed or why is
he working at Starbucks? He should have a really good
job right now. And they're anger, and you know, anxiety
(30:24):
about the economy is because of that. Their kids and
doing well. So why are college graduates having such high
unemployment rates?
Speaker 3 (30:32):
So yeah, yeah, I think you're absolutely right. And I
love that insight into the fact that it's not just
the people who are having the trouble getting the jobs.
It's their parents, and actually it's the parents of even
younger kids. If you've got a kid in high school
and you see that college graduates aren't getting jobs, you
become anxious. You say, oh, you know, this is I
have this huge expense. You know, if you're helping your
(30:52):
kid out with college that I'm going to be paying
and if they can't get a job, that'll be bad.
So I think you're right. It is a it's big
or than you know, just that it creates anxiety much
broader than just the people who can't get jobs. I
think there's a few things going on. One is that
we are coming through a period in which employers hired
(31:13):
a lot and they probably overstaffed, and so you know,
we got down to, like, you know, unemployment rates that
we hadn't seen for two generations. And I think that
some employers are still sort of digesting those workers. They're
worried about that. There is probably some AI effect, not
(31:37):
so much that AI is doing people's jobs. Yet, you know,
do you have can I ask you, am I excited
about anxiety? I think? I mean I worry a little
about like stock market evaluations based on AI.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
They're very there's definitely a When I saw a commercial
for the AI the AI mattress, I go, oh, man,
this is Pet's stock, and I'm like, this is not
going well at all. Like the AI mattress was like, guys,
it's a wrap. Like there's no way that this is real,
but anyway, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Yeah. No, it does start to get worrying. But one
problem I'll just say about bubbles is that bubbles can
last a long time. You know, Like people were calling
like tech a bubble in ninety seven and ninety eight,
and it had a few years to go. So when
you know, when you say, oh, something looks like a
bubble to me, I I you know, I try not
(32:36):
to like even think necessarily whether something's in a bubble
because that makes people think it's about to collapse, but
it actually may have years to go, and we may
have years to run on this. Uh. And and also
just because something's a bubble doesn't mean it's not real.
You know that there was an Internet bubble, but guess
what you and I are here on the Internet right, like, yeah,
(32:59):
it it can become something very real. And there's a
bunch of companies that exist on the Internet that are
the world's most valuable companies. And so you know there's
a bubble, doesn't mean that you're not actually creating value
in technology over time. So to get to your real question,
like you're like, you know what. So I think that
(33:19):
some employers are probably holding back on hiring young people
in part because they want to see, maybe I don't
need as many people, right, maybe I can hold back
see what AI can do what it can't. So there
may be a friction there, but I actually don't expect
(33:40):
that to last very long. Historically, I'm not one of these, Like,
I'm not an employment doomer from AI. And I have
I have friends who are, by the way, friends who
are like no, like you have no idea, We're all
going to be unemployed.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
I go back and forth like I'm like, I won't
be so bad. I'm like it's the worst. So yeah,
i'magine Rocana actually on my podcast next week to talk
about this.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
Yeah, So I'm not a dumer. When it comes to employment. Typically,
what happens, and again this has sound like really like
overly optimistic, but typically what happens when we have a
new technology that displaces workers, we find new work for
the people because the people then become an underutilized resource
(34:26):
and you can use them. That's so, and history bears
that out, by the way, including some recent economics studies
they just gave the Nobel Prize for this that showed that, like,
technological innovation actually doesn't lead to long term unemployment, which
is very different, by the way, from when you outsource
jobs to another country that actually does lead to a
(34:46):
permanent lower level of unemployment that doesn't get picked. So
technology tends to free up resources, and outsourcing jobs actually tends.
They're often conflated in people's minds like, oh, technology also
takes away people's jobs. It's different than outsourcing jobs. Technology
doesn't tend to be to permanently lower employment. Maybe it'll
(35:09):
be different this time. You know it could be.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
I mean, jennerf AI is different.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
I think that's why I think there was a real
clear thing when Sam Altman said we're going to have
to have a bailout for AI companies, and then immediately
who's the head of AI for the White House?
Speaker 2 (35:24):
A billionaire I can't remember his name top my head now.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
He he said there'll be no bailouts for AI companies
like the same day, and he's very bullish on AI.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
So I think it's I think it's interesting.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
I don't think we're at a place yet where everyone's
going to get replaced, But I do worry if there
is enough unemployment, what people's politics when you get to
that level switched dramatically, and it's going to elect Mundani's
across the country. If twenty percent of our youth cannot
get jobs, yeah, we need.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
To, we need to. We need to worry about that.
If if that, if it gets to that level. The
other big bet, by the way, is it becomes a
problem for the businesses themselves because you can't only be
run by senior people, because those senior people get old,
they retire, they die, and if you're not training the
next level of senior people. And like, let's say you
need one hundred senior people to run your organization. You
(36:16):
don't just need one hundred junior people because you don't
know which of those hundred are going to be good.
You need a thousand junior people so that you can
winnow them out to get to the senior And if
you are not training them because all their younger the
junior jobs are being done with AI, you are going
to run into a business problem in the future. I
don't know how that's exactly going to work out, but
(36:36):
it is. It is a business problem that businesses are
going to have to face.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
What do you my last well, yeah, how one last
question for my last last question? How much do you
think of This could also be anxiety the way that
they I've noticed the way that the media covers the
economy and the economy are two very different things. And I
always really have been right. I have been waiting for recessions.
Sometimes month, when the Democrats in the White House, it's
(37:02):
going to be a recession a day, When the Republicans
the whit House, it's going to be a recession any day,
depending on what mediality you look at, how much do
you think maybe the slowing down of hiring, especially young people,
could be of Let's see where these tariffs go. Let's
see what the what the Orange man does. Let's see
how things shake out before we sit there and start
making these Because they're having profits, they're having growth. It's
(37:23):
not like our our companies are failing left and right.
But is it just that the economy is growing? The
GDP is growing too, So is it that?
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Is it? Part of it? Could be?
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Hey, I have anxiety over Trump's the way that Trump behaves,
and who knows if this is a possible like you know,
we could make a wrong turn.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
Yeah, And look, just a few months ago there were
like widespread recession predictions that the tariffs were going to
push us in during recession. Uh, and I do think
that probably caused company. Remember, companies don't like change their mind,
like you know, every single day they make year ahead projections,
they have plans, think it revised them. This time goes on.
(38:03):
But if you think about like where we were a
year ago, Donald Trump's coming into office, He's promised to
put a twenty percent terriff on everything, which we don't
have a twenty percent terraff on everything. By the way,
we have a lower tariff. The average teriff rate is
probably around eighteen percent. It might be a little lower
right now. So companies were worried. A lot of economists
(38:27):
were saying that like it was going to destroy the economy.
When he announced the tariffs in April, people were like,
you know, people don't jump out of windows anymore because
you can't open them.
Speaker 4 (38:37):
But like there were more or less like that's it,
it's over, you know, And it didn't happen, and so
I think we may see more hiring actually as companies.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
The other the final piece of this I'll say is
I think the Fed's monetary policy has been you type
for most of the year. That it became clear that
inflation was not going up, that tariffs aren't pushing up inflation.
There's a new paper out of the San Francisco Federal
Reserve that people are talking about a lot that shows
that actually tariffs tend to push down inflation, not up.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
And so I read that.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
But it was also because they have job losses, they've
lost some money, so there's less inflation that was there.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Yeah. You all I can say is everybody should read
bright Bart Business Digest because I am going to spend
the next several days explaining exactly what I looked.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
I looked for your take on it. I didn't see it,
and I was like, Okay, I'll get to it. Like
I'm sure he'll'll publish about it pretty soon.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
I mean, you know, follow me on ax.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
You know, I have one last.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Question where we get to the promotion of John Karney,
which everyone should read John Karney.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
But my last question.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
So there was a paper out by Moody's and so
that twenty two states are already in a recession. I
looked at their hiring and their GDP. All of the
states listed had GDP growth. Only states have had GDP
losses in the last two quarters, which was Arkansas, Mississippi,
neither of which are on that list, and they all
(40:09):
had they none of them had job losses. So how
are these states in a recession?
Speaker 3 (40:16):
Yeah? So, I mean that's part of the thing is like, look,
what you define as a recession is, you know, is
in a way very subjective. It's it's actually defined by
a committee up in Cambridge officially and so so, but
what so, but that's not a dasherbal level, So what
(40:36):
do they mean? Like it's their recession. It could just
be something as simple as has the unemployment rate moved
up by fifty basis points that Clady as sam Is,
an economist, said that that is one of the best
recession indicators. And although she has said more recently like
it's not a lock that you're in a recession if
(40:57):
that happens, she actually uses it's like an alarm bell
that the government should start to think about what it needs.
The government, the fed uh should start and the fiscal
authorities should start to figure out what they might need
to do to aid the economy. If you get a
half point increase within six months of like so you
(41:20):
have a high level or you have you know, one
level of unemployment and over the course of six months
you go up half a point, that's a like quite
steep increase. That con that that has historically been a
recession indicator. So maybe that's what they mean. What I
would say is it's a little weird to have. Like
(41:40):
it's like when people say a sector isn't a recession, right, Like, oh,
I mean you can say I say it housing is
it a recession? Right? The problem is a recession, like
parts of the economy are always doing better and worse,
and same with parts of the country. Parts of the
country tend to there tend to be some places that
are doing really well in some places that aren't. So
(42:03):
it's weird to pick out a place to be like,
you know, Housing recession or Oklahoma recession, right, because what
a recession really is is almost everything all at once
and almost everywhere all at once doing badly. Because that
means you can't move to another sector to get a
better job, and you can't move to a better different
(42:23):
part of the country to get a better job. So
I don't like the word recession when you use that.
That said, I like I said, I think some parts
of the economy, housing in particular, have been pretty weak
because interest rates have been too high, and so I
wouldn't be surprised if that starts to show up in
(42:44):
various places. I mean, although we just got one of
the first economic reports in quite a while because the
government reopened, and it actually showed that construction was better
than expected. It was expected to decline like a tenth
of a basis point and went up two tenths of
a business point. I know, it's like, it doesn't seem
like a lot but but like that's a big deal.
(43:07):
A lot of us were expecting, including me, that like
we're gonna have to start to see layoffs in the
construction sector, which has been doing pretty well because construction
spetting was probably gonna sink. But this is this is
an old number. It's an August number, but it or
September number, I guess. But it shows that construction spetting
(43:28):
is going up, which is you know, and that's pretty impressive.
So maybe maybe I was too fearful.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
Well, John, where can we go to read all your
brilliant insights? And you are brilliant. I do live reading
your stuff, and it's easy for people who are not economists,
for college robouts like myself to understand.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
So where people read you all the time?
Speaker 3 (43:48):
I'm glad you say that. I try to, you know,
I definitely don't write for economists. I try to write
for everybody. And so Break our business digest comes out
every day. It's free subscribe to. It comes to your mailbox.
You don't even have to like go to the web.
You can just you know, read on your phone. Breitbart
dot com, Slash Economy, my x speed at carneycar and
(44:12):
e Y you know has a lot of it. We
talked about that San Francisco Fed paper. I'm going to
explain why the negative interpretation of it, like, oh no,
it means like the economy has to do badly once
you put tariffs in for a press to go down
is wrong. One of my favorite things to do actually
(44:33):
is like a lot of journalists, I'm sorry to say,
seem not to read the economic papers they talk about.
You know, they just go on X so they're like,
this says we have to have a recession or whatever.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
That is true a journalists in any sector, they do
not actually read the papers that they talk about.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
That is very very very common, yes, or they're.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
Afraid to admit they don't understand them. You know, when
I don't understand something, I start making calls to get
somebody to explain it to me. It's one of my rules.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
I call you, John, I don't understand anything that's going on.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
And I have a rule that if I don't understand something,
I don't write about it until I do, right, Like
that's the that's and I'm not embarrassed to say like
I don't get that one yet. And uh, that's actually
proven a very safe thing for me. Because it saves
you from a lot of mistakes. But anyway, you know,
write our business digests. Everybody should subscribe to it. It
(45:26):
is uh, it's fair because it's where I explain not
just like what happened, but why and how and what
it probably means for the future.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
All Right, John Carney, thank you for coming on my podcast.
I always appreciate you.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
Yeah, it's great to see you. Ryn.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
You're listening to It's a Numbers Game with Ryan Grodowsky.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
We'll be right back now.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
It's time to Ask Me Anything segment of this podcast.
If you want to part of the ask Me Anything segment,
email me Ryan at Numbers Game Podcast dot com.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
That's Ryan at.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
Number Numbers, Numbers Gamepodcast dot com. I love getting these letters.
I love getting these emails. I like to know that
there's someone listening and I'm not just getting a chart
of what my numbers like day to day. This email
comes from Joey. He says, Hi, my name is Joseph Hegler.
I just finished listening to one of your podcasts with
Niki Hilly's son.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
It was good.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
I did think it was interesting how so many younger
generations look at the boomers and the life they were
able to have, and resent them for it, I know,
you know, and that's why I tried to tell nail
In when I was having the conversation. Was things easier
for baby boomers? Yes, in some respects, but it wasn't
easier in many others. They grew up in a very
turbulent time and there I think a lot of things
(46:40):
that happened that the silent generation voted for and did
was blamed on Baby boomers. And there was also they
some of them were drafted, some of them had a
real hardships. They grew up in a much more dangerous
society than we do now. It wasn't all sunshine and roses.
It wasn't like they all were able to buy, you know,
a home that's now worth ten million dollars for you know,
five bucks. That didn't really happen. There are some things
(47:02):
that definitely Boomers could be blamed for as a generation,
but it's not. I mean, younger people really have a
lot of pent up resentment towards Baby boomers for sure. Okay,
My question is this, why does nobody talk of the
national debt being thirty trillion leading cause for inflation? Exactly
what I said about this podcast, which is basically at
taxing everybody.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
But I completely agree with you. That's why I did
this podcast episode. Joseph.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
Why we need multiple people in a home to be working,
which means they're not even raising their own kids, so
they put the kid in childcare services, which is very expensive.
Why the cost of living does not match the live wage. Joseph,
You're one hundred percent right, and it's we're not talking
about it because it's uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable to sit
there and say. The only real way we are going
to sit there and get to a balanced budget and
(47:45):
a budget surpplus is either we have to grow the
economy to unimaginable numbers, which maybe with AI that's what
they're saying, Ay I is going to do. I don't know.
I really don't know. We're gonna have a conversation in
AI next week and I'm looking forward to that. It
could also be or we have to increase taxes, which
not just on the wealthy, it's going to be a
tax increase very much across the board, which nobody wants.
(48:06):
It's very unpopular. Or we're gonna have to touch our
entitlements and our military spending. It's gonna have to be everything,
and the cost of servicing the debt is going to
be the largest part of our budget pretty soon. I mean,
you know, they've talked about printing a trillion dollar coin
and just paying off the debt or whatever. I don't
know if that's I don't know if that's possible. I
(48:28):
don't know what else they're going to sit there and do.
But they have to get into realistic terms because we're
paying for it. We are paying for the debt every day.
One hundred percent agree with you. They're not talking about
it because one, it's not sexy for the media. It's
much more sexy to talk about other things, like you know, Epstein.
But it's very, very, very important, and it's very uncomfortable,
which is why people don't want to do it. Okay,
(48:49):
next and last question, this comes from Christopher. Christopher writes, Hey,
big fan of your podcast, listen to every episode. Thank you, Christopher.
I I beyond appreciate you. I have no idea that's
what you do. I have two serious questions, one serious
and one not so much. First, I've been speculated that
Trump and Beset have been working deliberately to derail the
economy this year to force the bet to reduce rates
(49:11):
and make it easier to require refinancing of trillions of
dollars a debt that're rolling over. Do you buy this
argument or have any evidence for or against it? Do
I have any evidence? No, I don't have an envidence
for that they're for or against it. I don't think
that that's the case.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
Though.
Speaker 1 (49:23):
My general suspicion is that Trump loves the headlines to
sit there and say everything's going great. I do think
that he likes tariffs. I just think that he fundamentally
thinks tariffs work for his end, and I don't think
I don't believe the tariff's response for all our costs
of increase. As I've said in this whole podcast episode,
I think and I think the set is a very
(49:44):
smart man. I don't think he wants to see the
economy fail. I think some things are bigger than the president,
and I think that that's part of the part of
the problem. And I think compared to Trump term one,
I mean, honestly, he's been much more toned down and
much more even keel, where it's not like crazy and
you don't know what's going to happen day to day.
(50:04):
So I don't buy that argument, Chris.
Speaker 2 (50:08):
So, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
I heard it, but I don't buy it. Second, what's
the story with a theme music? It sounds like video
killed the Radio Star? Is that correct? That is exactly correct, Chris.
I am a big fan of new wave. I'm a
big fan of eighties music. I used to go to
eighties clubs in New York City back when they were
still open. Love It did, Pyramid Club and I went,
I mean, I did all those clubs.
Speaker 2 (50:30):
I love, love, love eighties music.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
I picked that song as my theme song because you know,
video did kill the Radio Star and podcasting and new
media is killing traditional media. So I thought it was
appropriate and very meta, and I'm sure that nobody got
it whatsoever. A different listener asked me if it was
the Golden Girls theme song, and I was like, no,
what are you talking about? So, yeah, that's why I
(50:55):
picked it. I love eighties music, I love new wave,
and I love and I thought it was the very
you know, highbrow thought process of like, oh this is
what this is going to mean. I'm sure no one
got it besides me, But what can I tell you?
I think too much sometimes, Chris, thank you for listening
this podcast, and thank you all for listening to this
podcast episode. If you like this podcast, please like and
(51:15):
subscribe on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast YouTube, where you
can get these videos now. I'm so appreciated with my
YouTube channel growth. It's been really, really impressive and I'm
very excited to continue to see it grow and wherever
you get your podcasts, I will talk to you guys
on Thursday,
Welcome back to a numbers game with Ryan Gerdusky. Thank
you all for being here again. I need to start
off the show with a correction from Thursdays All Ask
Me Anything show. I had a listener named Brock who
asked me about the Jewish votesince October seventh, and I
had some kind of brain fog. I don't know what
was going on. I promise you I don't use drugs,
(00:24):
so I can't even blame it on that. But I
had a brain freeze and I forgot what year October
seventh happened, and I for some reason assumed it was
last year and it was this year. It was like
maybe sorry, I thought it was like maybe this year,
and it was like two years ago. So we have had,
I said, the only election we've had since then. It
is the New York City mayor of Virginia, governor, a
New Jersey governor election, and we had a presidential election
(00:48):
that I completely forgot about. So Brock, I want to
correct myself for you and for any listeners who care
about this topic. So the organization that I mentioned, there's
an organization that looks at the Jewish vote every single
year and they say that they are a nonpartisan organization,
but they are liberal hacks, and I remembered it after
the podcast was over, oh over last week. It's called
(01:08):
the Jewish Electoral Institute. The Jewish Electoral Institute, whose numbers
I never trust, but the media post them because they
are the first ones who come out with numbers of
the Jewish vote. They said that Harris won the Jewish
vote seventy one to twenty six. That's what you'll see
that number in the media a lot if you look
it up. It comes from them. They are partisan hacks.
They should be ignored. The Pew Research Center, which had
(01:32):
a very deep dive investigation into the election of different demographics,
of multiple demographics, looked at the Jewish vote and said
it was more like sixty three to thirty five in
favor of Harris. So Harris did win the Jewish vote,
but that is actually a swing towards Republicans. Now, Pew
did not look at the election from twenty twenty. I
(01:54):
looked at other data analysis has said that Trump went
around twenty five twenty six percent, So we might have
seen about a twenty point swing between what the Democrats
lost and what Republicans gained. Overall, with the Jewish vote.
In twenty twenty four, Steve Sailor, who is very controversial
so the media will not cover him fairly or accurately,
he actually looked at Jewish donors and this is really fascinating.
(02:16):
In twenty twenty, Jews gave Democrats more money if in
their presidential and congressional runs Thanblican Republicans five hundred and
seventeen million for Democrats four hundred and eleven million for Republicans.
In twenty twenty four, Jewish donors for Democrats dropped their
donations by thirty three percent, while increasing their giving to
(02:38):
Republican presidential candidates obviously Trump and Republicans running for Congress
by twenty nine percent. So in twenty twenty four, Republicans
actually received more money from Jewish donors than Democrats did,
by a five hundred and twenty nine million dollar margin
for Republicans and three hundred and forty four million for Democrats.
That's very insightful. It really does speak to where the
(03:01):
voters or especially the donors, really feel like the party
is representing the best interests of Jewish Americans. I think
that that's very fascinating. So the Jewish votees swung towards
Republicans by a good measure, but Jewish donors really swung
towards Republicans. And obviously, if you look at the mayor's election,
or Quama won the Jewish vote certainly, and in New Jersey,
(03:23):
the Jewish vote swung heavily towards the Republican candidate for
the governor of New Jersey. All right, enough of the
Jewish vote. We're going to talk about affordability this episode.
It is the topic, the word, the buzzword that the
media is grabbing onto, that the White House is grabbing onto,
that Congress is talking about ever since Mondani won in
New York City, speaking about the issue of rents and
(03:44):
the costs of transportation, all the rest of the things
that are playing in New Yorkers, And obviously New York
is one of the most expensive places in the country.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
I live in.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
There is a real feeling in the country. And I've
talked to people of many different income brackets, many different
They work in different sectors of the economy, they are
in different age groups, where they have genuine anxiety over
the state of the economy. The issue that they feel
like they are barely getting by or not getting by
or just getting by inflation. I think you know, inflation
(04:18):
is down year to year from the height of when
Biden was presidency, but prices overall have not fallen because
we're not in a deflationary period, right, So just inflation
is slowed, but we are in a new normal, whether
we like it or not. Our everyday prices we're not
going back to twenty twenty. And I think that's what
angers a lot of voters who felt like, let's get
(04:42):
Trump in office. He'll have a magic wand somehow and
will return to a pre COVID world that I just
don't see that we're ever going to come down to.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Now.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
We all know certain things in our everyday lives have
gone up, right, Food prices, electric bills, home prices have budge.
Some of it is related to Trump's tariffs, right, like
clothes clothes are much more expensive, but some of it,
some of and some of them by the like electricity
has nothing to do with tariffs, right, because it's the
data centers and other things are going on. But according
(05:13):
to CBS News, it's very unusual which items are seeing
the biggest spikes and which ones are decreasing, right, So
according to CBS News, home appliances, smartphones, gasoline, computer software, televisions,
they're all cheaper than they were in twenty twenty two.
Furniture is actually stagnant. There's not been an explosion in
(05:34):
the increasing cost of furniture since twenty twenty two. Interestingly,
interestingly enough, gasoline, when adjusted for inflation, is actually cheaper
in twenty twenty five than it was in nineteen seventy three.
Nothing to do with the conversation, but I saw that,
and I was like, I gotta say to somebody Otherwise
I'm just up at Wikipedia middle of the night looking
at random gas prices throughout the years, so items have
(05:56):
increased for other things, though, things in our daily lives
that we feel we have to kind of have. Car
insurance is up fifty five percent since twenty twenty two.
Home insurance is up thirteen percent. Medical equipment is up
thirteen percent. Dental services are up eighteen percent, pet food
is up twenty percent. Tools and hardware are up twelve percent.
Airline fees are up twenty two percent. I fly all
(06:18):
the time. I trust my feeling this and overall food
is up eighteen percent. Now that's not every item but
that is you know, the overall number since twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Why is this?
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Yeah, some of it is terrorf related, which is what
the media has been talking about NonStop. If you read
nothing besides the mainstream media, it is tariffs are responsible
for everything. But it doesn't it doesn't make sense, right,
Tariffs are not responsible for your home insurance or your
car insurance. It's an easy out, It's an easy explanation,
especially from a media that looks to blame Donald Trump
for absolutely everything.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Part of it, and part of.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
It is Trump's fault and Republican's fault. Because of a
new study I read from MIT, it said forty two
per of all inflation is related to deficits spending. Every
time the government is posting a trillion dollar deficit, you
are losing purchasing power of your of your dollar.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Right.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
It is the tax that they are there. You know,
Democrats say, let's do a middle class tax cut. Republicans say,
that's a tax cunt everybody. Every time they pass and inflation,
it is a tax increase without them telling you about it.
And that is really a big chunk of why your
dollar is not going as far and hasn't for quite
(07:32):
some time. Now, This doesn't mean that all companies are
you know that because our daily lives are the cost
of our daily lives are increasing, that all these companies
are about to fail or are failing. There was a
new consumerer sentiment is down. But price But but eighty
five percent of firms and the sm P five hundred
(07:53):
actually beat their Q three quarterly profit estimates. Right, companies
are doing fairly well, like the sky isn't falling. I'm
not saying things are great. I'm not trying to overstate it.
I'm not doing I'm not bag Dad Bob saying no,
everything is cheap and easy.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
It's not.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
But anyone telling you that you should, you know, consider
hiding your money in a shoe box and then bearing
it is probably overstating the situation. Earnings are strong for companies,
which explains the resiliency of the stock market. So inflation
is down from where it was during the Biden presidency.
It's ticked up slightly. Over All, the three percent companies
are showing strong profits. The stock market is strong. But
(08:35):
the cost increase that really has ratchet up since the
recession hasn't come down. Right, The new normal is hurting
working class people the most. In twenty twenty five, twenty
five percent of families are living paycheck to paycheck and
increasingly living on their credit cards. That's actually down, believe
(08:55):
it or not, the amount of people living paid it
to paycheck according to polling from twenty twenty twenty three,
where it was twenty nine percent. You've may have heard
a lot about delinquencies, right. People are delinquent on their mortgages,
delinquent on their our credit cards, are on their cars.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
I want to talk about a broader context to really
understand when they say delinquencies where they're at. When you
look at the last twenty two years, student loan delinquencies
were usually eight point five percent, credit cards six point five,
mortgages four auto and Audi cars two point five, autos
two point five, and helocks two percent. Currently, student loans
(09:35):
are way up there, fourteen percent, way way higher than normal.
Credit cards are slightly up there at seven point one percent,
and auto is up to three percent. It's up, but
maybe it's actually it's up a little bit, but it's
not up terribly. It's up by half a point.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Mortgages and helocks are actually.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Below the national average. For the last twenty two years,
and that's because inflation is growing faster than meeting incomes
for lower and middle class people, people who are more
dependent on the credit card, who you know, maybe can't
afford their monthly car payment, but either they don't own
a house, they're living in an apartment, or you know,
(10:13):
they have a house that is a more reasonable cost
and it's what they prioritize. This went really into overdrive
around February, but it's it's been happening for some time,
and it probably explains why you saw shifts among white
working class voters in the presidential election and the last
(10:34):
governorship elections of a few weeks ago. Working class voters,
white working class voters and latinos because they're both at
the same are very similar economic standings, right, and one
didn't just flip. They both moved. They both went in
the same direction. They're both feeling this economic pressure that
the average middle and lower income person is feeling. A
(10:57):
big part of this discussion is a spec actually focused
on young people. Unemployment for recent college graduate stands at
nine point three percent higher than it was during the
Great Recession. This is especially true for STEM graduate. STEM
was we were told get a STEM degree, you'll have
a job for life. That's not true for a lot
(11:18):
of STEM graduates, recent STEM graduates, which makes the conversation
over H one b's even more infuriating. Unemployment for sixteen
to twenty twenty four year old stands at ten point
five percent. This and many of them are in school,
but still that's very, very, very high. And I want
to understand, want to make listeners understand the political gravity
(11:39):
of this when they talk about youth unemployment. It is
not just the young people who are feeling this anxiety towards,
you know, not having a job, or being underemployed, or
having to settle for a job where you didn't get
your degree in. It also affects their boomer parents and
their gen X parents, right, people who have co signed
their student loans, who are saying, hey, my kid got
(11:59):
a good degree from a good school, why are they
not making what they should They're feeling the nerves too.
They're feeling that anxiety too. So although they may be
fine in their jobs, they're invested. Their biggest investment is
not their house, it's their child. And this is good.
This is the trend that's been going on for some time.
(12:21):
It didn't just start when Trump became president. It's been happening.
Part of the reason that young people are feeling, especially
this terrible economy right now, a little bit could be
exposure to AI, but I've read a few papers and
studies that say that they doubt it. Part of it
could be uncertainty. I mean, Trump is a wild man
(12:41):
to a lot of people, right So if you're a
company and you don't know which way, especially with tariffs
are going, maybe you slow down hiring. Part of it
could be that they hired a lot of people during
the recession and now they don't need workers. I mean,
that's also a big, big part of it. And this
entire context that we're having about rising costs and tariffs
and AI and h one b's and all of this nervousness,
(13:04):
especially towards younger people and where the stand in the
economy happens at the time that Moody's has stated and
rated that twenty two states are currently in a recession. Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana,
New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode, Island, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington, Washington,
(13:27):
d C, West Virginia, and Wyoming. I don't know exactly
if what the state of their recession is because only
two of those states have reported GDP declines in the
first two quarters this year, being Arkansas in Mississippi. Arkansas
not even on that list, Mississippi's only one on that list,
and none posted job losses. My overall assumption throwing all
(13:50):
that data at you is this, the economy is not great,
especially if you're a working class, middle class employee, especially
if you're a young person. It is a slog and
it is not a great time to be unemployed. If
there was ever a good time to really be unemployed,
but this is not it. I think that what we
are dealing with as a society is redjusting to a
(14:11):
new normal that we will not feel normal in for
a very, very long time. I don't think there's a
magic wand that can go back to twenty nineteen. I
wish there was. It'd be much easier for me, who
works a million jobs seven days a week, could even
feel because even I'm sitting there and saying, wow, these
prices are getting really expensive. Not that I'm a billionaire,
but I'm noticing these on my on my general life,
(14:34):
and I make a good income, I work really, really hard.
I have employees to sit there and pay for We're
all noticing it. And what it will mean if we
can't get some kind of restitution by election night is
that these swing voters, especially the ones who said let's
trust Trump because he can sit there and wave a
magic wand they're going to sit there and say, you
know what, I'm gonna either stay home or I'm gonna
(14:55):
give Democrats a chance. That puts Republicans in a very
precarious situation. And they don't have a lot of time
to address this, and that's why it's more important than
ever they focus on getting Americans back at work and
increasing stability in the economy Overall. With me today for
this episode is the brilliant John Connie from bright Bart News.
He's going to go over all these data, all these numbers,
(15:17):
and really make it understandable for people, for fellow college
dropouts like me, and for everyone else who's not an economist.
That's coming up next. We're having a national conversation around affordability,
right especially since Mandani one, you've heard the White House
talk about it more, Congress is talking about it more,
you write about you, you know. And it's an interesting
(15:39):
moment because stocks are up and companies are posting really
strong profits, but people are not feeling it. What do
use have a sense of the true state of the
economy right now? Is it as bad and diret people
say it is.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
No, the economy is not in dire straits. It's doing
okay right now. I think there are risks. I do
think a lot of the unhappiness that we're hearing from
people is really what I'll call like bidenflation hangover unhappiness.
The main complaint is that prices are very high. Inflation
(16:13):
is still above where most it was for most everybody
who's going to watch this lot lives. It went up
to the highest level under Biden in forty years, but
still at around two and a half to three percent.
That's too high. And remember that's two and a half
(16:33):
and three percent on top of the giant increases we
saw under Biden. So I think people even if we
had almost no inflation right now, I think people would
still be worried about affordability. We don't have almost no inflation.
We have inflation that's still a little bit too high.
It needs to be brought down further. But I think
(16:54):
it's frankly, I think it's going to take years for
people to feel like, to get used to the new
price level. I feel it myself. I got to dinner
and I think, like, what did I said to my
I didn't say it. I thought it to my friend.
I was like, did you bring us to like the
fanciest restaurant in your town? Because these prices are out
of control and it's just the normal restaurant price, right,
(17:16):
you know. But yeah, and it makes me feel really old,
like I'm like, you know, oh, when I was a boy,
my Hamburgers only cost fifty dollars and now they're forty two.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
I feel it completely. And it's not even across the board.
So I was looking at CBS posted a whole of
things of what where prices up and where are they down?
Certain things they are down, right, Computer software is down,
gasoline is down, smartphones is down, home appliance is down,
furniture is stagnant. It's even gasoline is actually lower by
inflation measures than it was in nineteen seventy three. But
(17:51):
then you look at home insurance, pet food, food, hardware.
Some of it would make sense that the terror you
know on clothes, for example, tariffs clearly have had an impact,
but home insurance.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
They terears have nothing to do with home insurance.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
So why are we seeing certain things that affect our
daily lives? Car insurance is up like twenty percent from
twenty twenty two. Why are certain things just spiking and
exploding that affects people's daily lives.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Yeah, so there's a few reasons for this. The car
insurance thing really actually does have to do with the
fact that we've made our cars into computers and so
that repairs to cars are much more expensive. And I
talked to a friend of mine who works in the
business of car repair. He said, actually, like the it's
(18:43):
easier to total a car, meaning you know, make it
unusable than it used to be, because it used to
be you got in an accident and you could take
some parts out and put parts back in. If you're
driving like an electric vehicle, you can't take anything out.
It's all basically one big part. And just even hybrids
(19:04):
and internal combuntion engine cars are much harder to repair
these days, so they're much more expensive. That drives up
inflation prices in general. Though I do think that what
we're seeing is, like I said, a it's I don't
think there's much of a teriff effect. But you named
all those things that aren't up much at all, or
(19:25):
aren't or are actually down in price that people thought
would be more expensive from terraffs, cars, furniture, appliances was
a big thing, right, Appliances, We're gonna like, we're gonna
see a big increasing applians cost We haven't. Apparel is up,
pails up a little bit, though, I mean it's actually
not up as much as you know, you might have
(19:47):
thought if you were a tariff fear monger. Shoe costs
shoes are down, which is weird, all right. So, and
one of the things about that is we're not seeing
the every thing goes up a lot kind of inflation
we saw. I'm bided we are. Some food prices are up,
beef is up, egg prices are down a lot.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
So what were they were so high? I mean they
were at one they had the company to go higher.
I mean, how many chickens are dead?
Speaker 3 (20:17):
I mean, like, well, yeah, I mean and also I
mean it's one of the reasons. Beef prices, like food,
particularly proteins are substitutable. So if egg prices go up,
you eat more bacon in the morning, or you or
you make pancakes or whatever, you know, beating you shift
away from the super expensive stuff. The and the same
(20:40):
thing that happens with with beef. Frankly, people okay, you know,
I'll buy some chicken instead of buying the you know,
the steak, and so people shift their proteins prices come down. Uh,
I don't. I know that Trump administration is like lowering
tariffs on some foods. That may help a little, but
(21:01):
I actually don't think it's going to have a big effect.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Well, when it comes to coffee mobile, the biggest costs
from food is transportation, right, Transporting food and energy is
the biggest cost of food. And something that I have
never seen someone write I've kind of thought about it is,
as electricity prices have increased, the cost of refrigerating food
must be going up because it has to affect everything. Walmart's,
(21:26):
you know, the Walmart grocery store, or Kroger's or wherever
you're buying. Grosses from their costs are going like your houses,
so they're passing those costs on to consumers. Am I
crazy for thinking that?
Speaker 3 (21:35):
No, No, that's a that's actually a really good insight
is that when you do have this problem of higher
electricity costs, and we actually did a really bad job
in this country of preparing ourselves to use more electricity,
we really we haven't built enough electricity plants. There's all
(21:56):
sorts of reasons for that. You know, a huge part
of it is like climate change fears. People were demanding
that if you build new electricity plants that they you know,
that they only be powered by wind or solar somehow,
and you can't. You can't actually do that. And some
climate activists actually oppose all expanded energy because they feel
(22:18):
like it's actually a bonus to have energy costs more.
The more expensive it is, the less we'll use it,
and therefore somehow if you know, if it becomes too
expensive for you and I to you know, turn on
our lights at night, then that'll save the earth from
climate change. Obviously that that's that's wrong, but that that
really is the part of the idea they discourage the
(22:41):
building of new energy generation. I think that now I
think we're going to build more electricity, but it's going
to take some time.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
So when you look at the wage growth, right, something
that we saw in the first Room administration was very
high wage growth among the lower quadrant of workers, right,
lower percentile workers. That has not changed now where lower
lower class workers are actually making there their wages are
growing at the slowest amount unlike they used to grow
(23:09):
at the highest amount or in the first time administration.
What do you because that that middle tier and lower
tier income bracket is who's feeling inflation the worst. And
when you saw the New Jersey and Virginia elections, especially
the New Jersey elections, it wasn't just a latinos had
moved against Trump and they are in that quadrant of
the lower class, but also white working classes moved against
(23:31):
Republicans in big numbers. Those are they have the same
economic levels, So why are those workers not seeing wage
growth at at a strong level like they used to?
Speaker 3 (23:42):
So I think actually we're going to see it. I
just think it's too early. A few things are going
to drive it one there and this will set a
little trickle down economics. Uh, but we there is going
to be this investment surge coming from the tax bill
that will actually result in more demand for workers. That
(24:03):
will push up wages, and then the deportations and the
closing off of the border will also help push up wages.
It's actually funny hearing people complain about this because at
the same time, you keep hearing people complain that we're
going to experience some sort of horrible labor shortage from
Trump's border policies. So I expect that what we've seen
(24:28):
in sort of the lower death siles of income not
performing maybe as well as people had hoped, that that's
actually again. And I hate to keep saying this, like, oh,
it's a hangover from Biden, but look like electing Donald Trump,
you know, like it's not going to change the economy immediately, right,
(24:51):
we are still dealing with Biden policies for a while
and what So what I'd say is like, look, give
some time. I think it will come back. Politically, you know,
the Trump administration has to hope that it comes back
in the next six months, right because sometime around you're
(25:12):
the political guy, not me, but you know, sometime around
next May, people's mindsets will, you know, like they get
fits that's what the economy will be in their mind
till November. So I'm saying it's going to get better.
The political question is does it get better in time?
And do people notice it in time?
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Well, is there going to cut range?
Speaker 3 (25:33):
You think? I Well, so here's a question. No, unless
we get less of an unless we get a terror.
So we're getting a job's report this week on Thursday.
If the job's report is awful, and by that I
mean probably would have to be negative, so it would
(25:55):
have to show that we've lost jobs. If it comes
in at like thirty forty fifty thousand, that's actually a
pretty good jobs report. It will mean that unemployment is
not rising, we're creating enough jobs to fill the growth
of the economy. That number is a lot lower than
it used to be because we were not admitting a
million illegal aliens every year.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Now that war that mean right, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Yeah, the millions that were coming in meant that you
had to be generating, you know, one hundred and twenty
five hundred and fifty two hundred thousand jobs a month
just to keep up with the new entrance. That's a
lot lower now, So like fifty thousand is actually a
pretty good number.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
So eightyps it is about fifty thousand Goldman Sachs as
we've lost one hundred thousand.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
So if we get a number like that, then the
Fed will probably cut. If we get a shock, you know, No,
if we get a positive number and it's you know,
not like three jobs, but you know, tens of thousands,
then I think the Fed stays on hold. I think
(27:00):
that there's a greater risk to the economy right now.
I think the economy is doing okay, but there are
signs of risks to the economy. I think the Fed
should cut in December, just to hold off the risks.
But there's two reasons why they don't want to. One,
(27:23):
I think that they want Trump to fail. I think,
you know that they are political. I don't think that
they look at this and say like, oh, you know,
we better you know. I don't think they want a recession,
but they would, in mind if things go pretty badly
over the next six months, so that you know, people
vote for the Democrats. And I also think that they
(27:47):
have a theory that is wrong, which is that tariffs
are going to cause inflation. And they look and they say,
tariffs didn't cause a lot of inflation yet. But rather
than correcting themselves and be like Oh, well, maybe we
were wrong about that whole terraf inflation thing. They just
keep saying, well, that just means it's going to get
worse in the future, right, So every time we get
we get a price report that shows not a lot
(28:08):
of terror inflation, they're like, oh, yeah, man, but that
means you know it's it's coming. And they're going to
keep saying this at least until May, when Jerome Powell
is leaves the chairmanship. We don't even know if he's
going to leave the FED. By the way, he may
be there for he could. He has a couple more
years in his term as governor, so he could do
(28:29):
something that almost no FED governor is FED chairman has
ever done, which is like stubbornly stay on the FED
when your chairmanship is done. And he shouldn't do that. That
would be irresponsible. It undermines the next chairman. Uh, every
other FED president except one leaves or FED chairman leaves
when their term is done. So but I think we
(28:53):
may get a change from the Fed in May, but
before that, I don't think they'll cut unless something starts
to go really bad in the economy, meaning like they're
not they're not willing to do like a preemptive like
or precaution cut. They need to see like you know,
people with like you know, tin pans in the streets
like and barrels over their you know, cells, because they.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Don't have any clues.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Yeah, the I was looking at different trends on costs
and and there's not much that you see a dramatic
change from Biden. Like the trajectory of lower income people
to or having having their wages decrease started during Biden,
and it has been increasing and it just still has continued.
So I don't see that that. And also inflation doesn't
(29:38):
explain home insurance increases, like it just doesn't explain a
lot of other things. Dental services are up like, so
it's it's very very strange. The the other thing I
wanted to ask you about was what is going on
with college graduates having such high unemployment rates because that
is leading to I think a big part of it
is when young people have high levels of unemployment, it
(30:01):
doesn't just affect them, it affects their parents, grandparents who
like host sign student loans. So the Gen X and
baby boomers who have Gen Z children are like, why
is my kid graduated from a computer science major from
a good college. Why is he unemployed or why is
he working at Starbucks? He should have a really good
job right now. And they're anger, and you know, anxiety
(30:24):
about the economy is because of that. Their kids and
doing well. So why are college graduates having such high
unemployment rates?
Speaker 3 (30:32):
So yeah, yeah, I think you're absolutely right. And I
love that insight into the fact that it's not just
the people who are having the trouble getting the jobs.
It's their parents, and actually it's the parents of even
younger kids. If you've got a kid in high school
and you see that college graduates aren't getting jobs, you
become anxious. You say, oh, you know, this is I
have this huge expense. You know, if you're helping your
(30:52):
kid out with college that I'm going to be paying
and if they can't get a job, that'll be bad.
So I think you're right. It is a it's big
or than you know, just that it creates anxiety much
broader than just the people who can't get jobs. I
think there's a few things going on. One is that
we are coming through a period in which employers hired
(31:13):
a lot and they probably overstaffed, and so you know,
we got down to, like, you know, unemployment rates that
we hadn't seen for two generations. And I think that
some employers are still sort of digesting those workers. They're
worried about that. There is probably some AI effect, not
(31:37):
so much that AI is doing people's jobs. Yet, you know,
do you have can I ask you, am I excited
about anxiety? I think? I mean I worry a little
about like stock market evaluations based on AI.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
They're very there's definitely a When I saw a commercial
for the AI the AI mattress, I go, oh, man,
this is Pet's stock, and I'm like, this is not
going well at all. Like the AI mattress was like, guys,
it's a wrap. Like there's no way that this is real,
but anyway, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Yeah. No, it does start to get worrying. But one
problem I'll just say about bubbles is that bubbles can
last a long time. You know, Like people were calling
like tech a bubble in ninety seven and ninety eight,
and it had a few years to go. So when
you know, when you say, oh, something looks like a
bubble to me, I I you know, I try not
(32:36):
to like even think necessarily whether something's in a bubble
because that makes people think it's about to collapse, but
it actually may have years to go, and we may
have years to run on this. Uh. And and also
just because something's a bubble doesn't mean it's not real.
You know that there was an Internet bubble, but guess
what you and I are here on the Internet right, like, yeah,
(32:59):
it it can become something very real. And there's a
bunch of companies that exist on the Internet that are
the world's most valuable companies. And so you know there's
a bubble, doesn't mean that you're not actually creating value
in technology over time. So to get to your real question,
like you're like, you know what. So I think that
(33:19):
some employers are probably holding back on hiring young people
in part because they want to see, maybe I don't
need as many people, right, maybe I can hold back
see what AI can do what it can't. So there
may be a friction there, but I actually don't expect
(33:40):
that to last very long. Historically, I'm not one of these, Like,
I'm not an employment doomer from AI. And I have
I have friends who are, by the way, friends who
are like no, like you have no idea, We're all
going to be unemployed.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
I go back and forth like I'm like, I won't
be so bad. I'm like it's the worst. So yeah,
i'magine Rocana actually on my podcast next week to talk
about this.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
Yeah, So I'm not a dumer. When it comes to employment. Typically,
what happens, and again this has sound like really like
overly optimistic, but typically what happens when we have a
new technology that displaces workers, we find new work for
the people because the people then become an underutilized resource
(34:26):
and you can use them. That's so, and history bears
that out, by the way, including some recent economics studies
they just gave the Nobel Prize for this that showed that, like,
technological innovation actually doesn't lead to long term unemployment, which
is very different, by the way, from when you outsource
jobs to another country that actually does lead to a
(34:46):
permanent lower level of unemployment that doesn't get picked. So
technology tends to free up resources, and outsourcing jobs actually tends.
They're often conflated in people's minds like, oh, technology also
takes away people's jobs. It's different than outsourcing jobs. Technology
doesn't tend to be to permanently lower employment. Maybe it'll
(35:09):
be different this time. You know it could be.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
I mean, jennerf AI is different.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
I think that's why I think there was a real
clear thing when Sam Altman said we're going to have
to have a bailout for AI companies, and then immediately
who's the head of AI for the White House?
Speaker 2 (35:24):
A billionaire I can't remember his name top my head now.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
He he said there'll be no bailouts for AI companies
like the same day, and he's very bullish on AI.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
So I think it's I think it's interesting.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
I don't think we're at a place yet where everyone's
going to get replaced, But I do worry if there
is enough unemployment, what people's politics when you get to
that level switched dramatically, and it's going to elect Mundani's
across the country. If twenty percent of our youth cannot
get jobs, yeah, we need.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
To, we need to. We need to worry about that.
If if that, if it gets to that level. The
other big bet, by the way, is it becomes a
problem for the businesses themselves because you can't only be
run by senior people, because those senior people get old,
they retire, they die, and if you're not training the
next level of senior people. And like, let's say you
need one hundred senior people to run your organization. You
(36:16):
don't just need one hundred junior people because you don't
know which of those hundred are going to be good.
You need a thousand junior people so that you can
winnow them out to get to the senior And if
you are not training them because all their younger the
junior jobs are being done with AI, you are going
to run into a business problem in the future. I
don't know how that's exactly going to work out, but
(36:36):
it is. It is a business problem that businesses are
going to have to face.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
What do you my last well, yeah, how one last
question for my last last question? How much do you
think of This could also be anxiety the way that
they I've noticed the way that the media covers the
economy and the economy are two very different things. And I
always really have been right. I have been waiting for recessions.
Sometimes month, when the Democrats in the White House, it's
(37:02):
going to be a recession a day, When the Republicans
the whit House, it's going to be a recession any day,
depending on what mediality you look at, how much do
you think maybe the slowing down of hiring, especially young people,
could be of Let's see where these tariffs go. Let's
see what the what the Orange man does. Let's see
how things shake out before we sit there and start
making these Because they're having profits, they're having growth. It's
(37:23):
not like our our companies are failing left and right.
But is it just that the economy is growing? The
GDP is growing too, So is it that?
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Is it? Part of it? Could be?
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Hey, I have anxiety over Trump's the way that Trump behaves,
and who knows if this is a possible like you know,
we could make a wrong turn.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
Yeah, And look, just a few months ago there were
like widespread recession predictions that the tariffs were going to
push us in during recession. Uh, and I do think
that probably caused company. Remember, companies don't like change their mind,
like you know, every single day they make year ahead projections,
they have plans, think it revised them. This time goes on.
(38:03):
But if you think about like where we were a
year ago, Donald Trump's coming into office, He's promised to
put a twenty percent terriff on everything, which we don't
have a twenty percent terraff on everything. By the way,
we have a lower tariff. The average teriff rate is
probably around eighteen percent. It might be a little lower
right now. So companies were worried. A lot of economists
(38:27):
were saying that like it was going to destroy the economy.
When he announced the tariffs in April, people were like,
you know, people don't jump out of windows anymore because
you can't open them.
Speaker 4 (38:37):
But like there were more or less like that's it,
it's over, you know, And it didn't happen, and so
I think we may see more hiring actually as companies.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
The other the final piece of this I'll say is
I think the Fed's monetary policy has been you type
for most of the year. That it became clear that
inflation was not going up, that tariffs aren't pushing up inflation.
There's a new paper out of the San Francisco Federal
Reserve that people are talking about a lot that shows
that actually tariffs tend to push down inflation, not up.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
And so I read that.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
But it was also because they have job losses, they've
lost some money, so there's less inflation that was there.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Yeah. You all I can say is everybody should read
bright Bart Business Digest because I am going to spend
the next several days explaining exactly what I looked.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
I looked for your take on it. I didn't see it,
and I was like, Okay, I'll get to it. Like
I'm sure he'll'll publish about it pretty soon.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
I mean, you know, follow me on ax.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
You know, I have one last.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Question where we get to the promotion of John Karney,
which everyone should read John Karney.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
But my last question.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
So there was a paper out by Moody's and so
that twenty two states are already in a recession. I
looked at their hiring and their GDP. All of the
states listed had GDP growth. Only states have had GDP
losses in the last two quarters, which was Arkansas, Mississippi,
neither of which are on that list, and they all
(40:09):
had they none of them had job losses. So how
are these states in a recession?
Speaker 3 (40:16):
Yeah? So, I mean that's part of the thing is like, look,
what you define as a recession is, you know, is
in a way very subjective. It's it's actually defined by
a committee up in Cambridge officially and so so, but
what so, but that's not a dasherbal level, So what
(40:36):
do they mean? Like it's their recession. It could just
be something as simple as has the unemployment rate moved
up by fifty basis points that Clady as sam Is,
an economist, said that that is one of the best
recession indicators. And although she has said more recently like
it's not a lock that you're in a recession if
(40:57):
that happens, she actually uses it's like an alarm bell
that the government should start to think about what it needs.
The government, the fed uh should start and the fiscal
authorities should start to figure out what they might need
to do to aid the economy. If you get a
half point increase within six months of like so you
(41:20):
have a high level or you have you know, one
level of unemployment and over the course of six months
you go up half a point, that's a like quite
steep increase. That con that that has historically been a
recession indicator. So maybe that's what they mean. What I
would say is it's a little weird to have. Like
(41:40):
it's like when people say a sector isn't a recession, right, Like, oh,
I mean you can say I say it housing is
it a recession? Right? The problem is a recession, like
parts of the economy are always doing better and worse,
and same with parts of the country. Parts of the
country tend to there tend to be some places that
are doing really well in some places that aren't. So
(42:03):
it's weird to pick out a place to be like,
you know, Housing recession or Oklahoma recession, right, because what
a recession really is is almost everything all at once
and almost everywhere all at once doing badly. Because that
means you can't move to another sector to get a
better job, and you can't move to a better different
(42:23):
part of the country to get a better job. So
I don't like the word recession when you use that.
That said, I like I said, I think some parts
of the economy, housing in particular, have been pretty weak
because interest rates have been too high, and so I
wouldn't be surprised if that starts to show up in
(42:44):
various places. I mean, although we just got one of
the first economic reports in quite a while because the
government reopened, and it actually showed that construction was better
than expected. It was expected to decline like a tenth
of a basis point and went up two tenths of
a business point. I know, it's like, it doesn't seem
like a lot but but like that's a big deal.
(43:07):
A lot of us were expecting, including me, that like
we're gonna have to start to see layoffs in the
construction sector, which has been doing pretty well because construction
spetting was probably gonna sink. But this is this is
an old number. It's an August number, but it or
September number, I guess. But it shows that construction spetting
(43:28):
is going up, which is you know, and that's pretty impressive.
So maybe maybe I was too fearful.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
Well, John, where can we go to read all your
brilliant insights? And you are brilliant. I do live reading
your stuff, and it's easy for people who are not economists,
for college robouts like myself to understand.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
So where people read you all the time?
Speaker 3 (43:48):
I'm glad you say that. I try to, you know,
I definitely don't write for economists. I try to write
for everybody. And so Break our business digest comes out
every day. It's free subscribe to. It comes to your mailbox.
You don't even have to like go to the web.
You can just you know, read on your phone. Breitbart
dot com, Slash Economy, my x speed at carneycar and
(44:12):
e Y you know has a lot of it. We
talked about that San Francisco Fed paper. I'm going to
explain why the negative interpretation of it, like, oh no,
it means like the economy has to do badly once
you put tariffs in for a press to go down
is wrong. One of my favorite things to do actually
(44:33):
is like a lot of journalists, I'm sorry to say,
seem not to read the economic papers they talk about.
You know, they just go on X so they're like,
this says we have to have a recession or whatever.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
That is true a journalists in any sector, they do
not actually read the papers that they talk about.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
That is very very very common, yes, or they're.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
Afraid to admit they don't understand them. You know, when
I don't understand something, I start making calls to get
somebody to explain it to me. It's one of my rules.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
I call you, John, I don't understand anything that's going on.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
And I have a rule that if I don't understand something,
I don't write about it until I do, right, Like
that's the that's and I'm not embarrassed to say like
I don't get that one yet. And uh, that's actually
proven a very safe thing for me. Because it saves
you from a lot of mistakes. But anyway, you know,
write our business digests. Everybody should subscribe to it. It
(45:26):
is uh, it's fair because it's where I explain not
just like what happened, but why and how and what
it probably means for the future.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
All Right, John Carney, thank you for coming on my podcast.
I always appreciate you.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
Yeah, it's great to see you. Ryn.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
You're listening to It's a Numbers Game with Ryan Grodowsky.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
We'll be right back now.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
It's time to Ask Me Anything segment of this podcast.
If you want to part of the ask Me Anything segment,
email me Ryan at Numbers Game Podcast dot com.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
That's Ryan at.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
Number Numbers, Numbers Gamepodcast dot com. I love getting these letters.
I love getting these emails. I like to know that
there's someone listening and I'm not just getting a chart
of what my numbers like day to day. This email
comes from Joey. He says, Hi, my name is Joseph Hegler.
I just finished listening to one of your podcasts with
Niki Hilly's son.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
It was good.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
I did think it was interesting how so many younger
generations look at the boomers and the life they were
able to have, and resent them for it, I know,
you know, and that's why I tried to tell nail
In when I was having the conversation. Was things easier
for baby boomers? Yes, in some respects, but it wasn't
easier in many others. They grew up in a very
turbulent time and there I think a lot of things
(46:40):
that happened that the silent generation voted for and did
was blamed on Baby boomers. And there was also they
some of them were drafted, some of them had a
real hardships. They grew up in a much more dangerous
society than we do now. It wasn't all sunshine and roses.
It wasn't like they all were able to buy, you know,
a home that's now worth ten million dollars for you know,
five bucks. That didn't really happen. There are some things
(47:02):
that definitely Boomers could be blamed for as a generation,
but it's not. I mean, younger people really have a
lot of pent up resentment towards Baby boomers for sure. Okay,
My question is this, why does nobody talk of the
national debt being thirty trillion leading cause for inflation? Exactly
what I said about this podcast, which is basically at
taxing everybody.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
But I completely agree with you. That's why I did
this podcast episode. Joseph.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
Why we need multiple people in a home to be working,
which means they're not even raising their own kids, so
they put the kid in childcare services, which is very expensive.
Why the cost of living does not match the live wage. Joseph,
You're one hundred percent right, and it's we're not talking
about it because it's uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable to sit
there and say. The only real way we are going
to sit there and get to a balanced budget and
(47:45):
a budget surpplus is either we have to grow the
economy to unimaginable numbers, which maybe with AI that's what
they're saying, Ay I is going to do. I don't know.
I really don't know. We're gonna have a conversation in
AI next week and I'm looking forward to that. It
could also be or we have to increase taxes, which
not just on the wealthy, it's going to be a
tax increase very much across the board, which nobody wants.
(48:06):
It's very unpopular. Or we're gonna have to touch our
entitlements and our military spending. It's gonna have to be everything,
and the cost of servicing the debt is going to
be the largest part of our budget pretty soon. I mean,
you know, they've talked about printing a trillion dollar coin
and just paying off the debt or whatever. I don't
know if that's I don't know if that's possible. I
(48:28):
don't know what else they're going to sit there and do.
But they have to get into realistic terms because we're
paying for it. We are paying for the debt every day.
One hundred percent agree with you. They're not talking about
it because one, it's not sexy for the media. It's
much more sexy to talk about other things, like you know, Epstein.
But it's very, very, very important, and it's very uncomfortable,
which is why people don't want to do it. Okay,
(48:49):
next and last question, this comes from Christopher. Christopher writes, Hey,
big fan of your podcast, listen to every episode. Thank you, Christopher.
I I beyond appreciate you. I have no idea that's
what you do. I have two serious questions, one serious
and one not so much. First, I've been speculated that
Trump and Beset have been working deliberately to derail the
economy this year to force the bet to reduce rates
(49:11):
and make it easier to require refinancing of trillions of
dollars a debt that're rolling over. Do you buy this
argument or have any evidence for or against it? Do
I have any evidence? No, I don't have an envidence
for that they're for or against it. I don't think
that that's the case.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
Though.
Speaker 1 (49:23):
My general suspicion is that Trump loves the headlines to
sit there and say everything's going great. I do think
that he likes tariffs. I just think that he fundamentally
thinks tariffs work for his end, and I don't think
I don't believe the tariff's response for all our costs
of increase. As I've said in this whole podcast episode,
I think and I think the set is a very
(49:44):
smart man. I don't think he wants to see the
economy fail. I think some things are bigger than the president,
and I think that that's part of the part of
the problem. And I think compared to Trump term one,
I mean, honestly, he's been much more toned down and
much more even keel, where it's not like crazy and
you don't know what's going to happen day to day.
(50:04):
So I don't buy that argument, Chris.
Speaker 2 (50:08):
So, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
I heard it, but I don't buy it. Second, what's
the story with a theme music? It sounds like video
killed the Radio Star? Is that correct? That is exactly correct, Chris.
I am a big fan of new wave. I'm a
big fan of eighties music. I used to go to
eighties clubs in New York City back when they were
still open. Love It did, Pyramid Club and I went,
I mean, I did all those clubs.
Speaker 2 (50:30):
I love, love, love eighties music.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
I picked that song as my theme song because you know,
video did kill the Radio Star and podcasting and new
media is killing traditional media. So I thought it was
appropriate and very meta, and I'm sure that nobody got
it whatsoever. A different listener asked me if it was
the Golden Girls theme song, and I was like, no,
what are you talking about? So, yeah, that's why I
(50:55):
picked it. I love eighties music, I love new wave,
and I love and I thought it was the very
you know, highbrow thought process of like, oh this is
what this is going to mean. I'm sure no one
got it besides me, But what can I tell you?
I think too much sometimes, Chris, thank you for listening
this podcast, and thank you all for listening to this
podcast episode. If you like this podcast, please like and
(51:15):
subscribe on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast YouTube, where you
can get these videos now. I'm so appreciated with my
YouTube channel growth. It's been really, really impressive and I'm
very excited to continue to see it grow and wherever
you get your podcasts, I will talk to you guys
on Thursday,
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