Kimberly's final cheers on "Economics on Tap" | Economics on Tap | Make Me Smart Livestream

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14:52 Hello everyone.

14:52 I'm Kimberly [music] Adams.

14:54 Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where none of us is as smart as all of us.

14:58 Thank you for joining us,

14:59 whether you're watching on the YouTube live stream or listening to the podcast.

15:04 Welcome to our Friday Happy Hour episode, Economics on Tap.

15:07 [music] And in case you missed it on yesterday's show,

15:11 this is actually going to be my final economics on tap

15:14 for the my time as the host of Make Me Smart.

15:18 In June, I'm going to be stepping into a new

15:20 role at Marketplace as the host of Marketplace Morning Report.

15:24 I'm super excited about it.

15:26 But today, for my sort of last harrah,

15:29 I've invited my predecessor on the Morning Shift,

15:32 Marketplace host extraordinaire David Bronacio to join me.

15:36 He hosted Marketplace Morning Report for 13 years

15:39 and was at Marketplace even longer than that.

15:41 But now he's a special correspondent for us.

15:44 David, welcome back to the show.

15:47 I am so honored to be here during your um swan broadcast.

15:52 [laughter]

15:54 Well, it would not be much of a Swan broadcast without swan drinks, I guess.

15:59 Cocktails, mocktails.

16:00 What you got?

16:02 what I've got.

16:03 It's uh it's pretty obvious actually, right?

16:06 I'm sure the jokes.

16:08 Okay.

16:08 [laughter] So, no, but when I tell you what it is,

16:12 this must be what everybody does every week.

16:14 Um this of course, given your status as in transition.

16:19 Yeah.

16:19 This nice glassware.

16:20 It's from Mary's grandmother.

16:21 Um Mary Bronachio, this of course is a last word.

16:27 That's what this cocktail is, right?

16:29 That's what you would [laughter] have to have this evening.

16:32 I've been squeezing limes.

16:34 I had some uh you know, I had all the ingredients going there.

16:38 And um so to you, congratulations on uh your new endeavor.

16:46 Thank you.

16:46 Because I'm drinking a last goodbye cocktail with Of course.

16:52 Right.

16:52 We didn't coordinate, dear friends.

16:54 This was just great minds.

16:57 [laughter] Um yeah, I was thinking of something to think,

17:01 you know, drink along those lines as well.

17:03 So mine is um conac, uh peach brandy,

17:08 uh grenardine and lime as well and triple sick.

17:13 And so yeah, cheers David to all the versions of goodbye.

17:18 All the versions of goodbye.

17:19 The other reason I'm having this is because it's super easy to make because um

17:24 all the ingredients in a last word are equal size.

17:27 [laughter] So, you know, the green chartreuse is the same as the lime juice.

17:32 No, it's so hard to find right now.

17:36 Yeah.

17:36 No, I still had some.

17:37 You [laughter] can just You can see what kind of lush I am.

17:39 I've had my bottle for about two years.

17:42 Um waiting for this moment, I'm sure.

17:45 So yeah, I had it from uh prior to supply chain issues.

17:50 [laughter] Well, that's great because there's another there

17:54 are other themed cocktails in the chat.

17:56 Elizabeth says that they, you know, she's got a last word.

18:00 Debbie's got a sangria soda diluted with Soda Stream sparkling water.

18:05 Um, [laughter] and my sister who is,

18:09 bless her, joining the chat while she's recovering from surgery,

18:13 is having water on the rocks.

18:15 [laughter] [gasps] Um,

18:17 Kay is having strawberries in champagne with pushcido and merllo infused cheese.

18:24 Very fancy.

18:25 Ava having a sunset orange, clearly Canadian.

18:29 Oh my gosh, there's so many cool drinks.

18:31 Um, I'll I'll read it.

18:34 Y'all know how I feel.

18:35 Chris is having a Tangare Jin martini with a twist.

18:38 I still think Jyn is the devil.

18:40 [laughter] Another David in the chat is having a Samuel Adams Boston logger.

18:46 Uh Diana with a paper plane.

18:48 Wow, you guys are doing the most.

18:50 I'm so happy to see everybody in the chat.

18:52 David, your face went strange when I said Jyn is the devil,

18:55 but I just I don't Jyn and I don't get along very well.

18:58 No, no, I understand.

18:59 A lot of people are that way because the juniper makes some people allergic,

19:02 including my spouse.

19:03 So, I have it on the slide because I am not allergic.

19:06 [laughter]

19:08 Well, let's talk about you for a bit and what you're doing next at Marketplace.

19:12 You're going to be a special correspondent, but you've got a new beat.

19:16 Tell us all about it.

19:18 What a great topic.

19:19 Let's talk about me.

19:21 [laughter] Yes, it's an amazing topic.

19:22 And then and then we can talk about you, too.

19:24 So, I've been doing the the wonderful marketplace

19:27 morning report for 13 years, as you say.

19:29 It's an incredible team that you are inheriting.

19:32 Um, but I will say we moved to California, as you know, uh,

19:36 as some people know a little over a year ago, about a year and a half ago,

19:40 and, um, you know, it's a live show,

19:42 so I'm getting up three hours earlier Pacific time.

19:46 And that meant alarm at 2:00 a.m.

19:49 first editorial meeting,

19:51 not at 5:15 like you'll have to do Eastern time, but at 2:15 a.m.

19:56 I'm a morning person.

19:57 I'm fine with that.

19:59 But [laughter] that's the middle, you know.

20:02 You know, over the years, you're like, can I keep doing this?

20:05 And um and and the new beat is, I think, compelling.

20:10 Um, I am going to become uh a special correspondent covering future effects.

20:16 All those times that you will say what

20:19 the NASDAQ and the S&P are doing this hour.

20:23 [laughter]

20:24 That's short-term thinking, my dear friend.

20:26 Right?

20:26 And I I was a perpetrator as well for all those years.

20:30 And uh you know, the morning report does favor

20:33 stuff you didn't know when you went to bed, right?

20:36 That's what a morning show can be all about.

20:38 We also bring context to the stories,

20:40 but it's a lot about what's happening and that can be shorter term.

20:43 So, I'm on the longterm beat.

20:45 Now, I don't know.

20:46 Why don't we Why don't we do this game, Kimberly?

20:48 Um, we could let's trade some ideas for what

20:52 the meta issue that underlies all our problems in this world.

20:57 Right.

20:57 So, someone would say climate change.

20:59 Uh, what do you got?

21:00 You got something there that it's like one of the greed.

21:03 I Yeah, greed.

21:05 Indeed.

21:05 Some people might say money and politics, right?

21:08 Fix that.

21:09 You fix a lot of a lot of issues.

21:11 Uh you know, the tendency of um people who develop

21:15 new technology not to think about the impact of their work.

21:20 Now, that is a interesting longer term question, isn't it?

21:23 In other words, instead of just inventing something,

21:26 what's it going to be doing for or to society in 5 10 30 years?

21:31 Often that question is not asked.

21:33 uh I want to ask questions like that.

21:35 So I'm arguing here that a like a good candidate for the meta

21:41 issue that underlies all issues that fa we face is short-term thinking.

21:46 So

21:47 let's do some stories in which we explore

21:51 longer term effects of the decisions we make now.

21:54 Let's do some interesting explorations of how we can fix

22:00 the natural human tendency to only look at the next two weeks.

22:06 And uh it has a fancy pants economic term.

22:09 It's called hyperbolic discounting.

22:11 Um a a way to understand why they use a term like that is

22:16 if you graph the um results when you ask this kind of question.

22:21 So, Kimberly, would you like a $100 in three months or $20 now, right?

22:29 Uh, you know, Kimberly, you're mature woman of the world.

22:32 You'll probably take the hundred.

22:34 Lots of people would say the 20.

22:36 Uh, partly because they're like, I don't trust Bronachia.

22:38 Where's he going to be in a couple months?

22:39 He may not pay off.

22:40 That's is one thing, but also because immediate gratification.

22:43 That's how humans are.

22:45 Um, an interesting issue that I certainly

22:48 will also explore maybe on your mind is

22:52 is thinking about the future a privilege when

22:55 so many people in America are living hand-to-mouth, paycheck to paycheck?

22:59 Yeah, they might want to think about the future,

23:02 right?

23:02 Exactly.

23:03 Exactly.

23:03 So, we're going to have we're going to go deep.

23:06 We're going to have fun.

23:07 We're going to do a big combination of this.

23:09 Um, I don't know.

23:11 We were talking um not too long ago.

23:15 I don't know if Do you remember when

23:16 I told what was the inspiration for this beat?

23:20 Is the uh was this the Secretary of the Future thing still?

23:24 Yeah.

23:24 Yeah.

23:24 Yeah.

23:25 You should tell this story because not everybody knows this story.

23:28 Okay.

23:29 So I, you know, one of the moments of my career that I'll never forget is

23:35 I was doing the public television show now and um I got

23:39 the last long form interview with a literary great Kurt Vonagget Jr.

23:45 um the great social critic and comedian, wise guy,

23:48 writer, slaughterhouse 5, player, piano, so many others.

23:52 and uh he was deep in his 80s,

23:54 crusty but charming and he was fantastic in this interview.

24:00 I was fine but I I didn't have to do much because he was so fantastic.

24:04 And uh he looks at me and it's about an 11second sound bite,

24:10 but it's become a bit of a meme if you take a look even all these years later.

24:14 It's been many years.

24:15 He looks at me and says,

24:16 "What no country has ever had is a secretary of the future,

24:20 and there are no plans for our children

24:23 and grandchildren." And then you see me lean in saying,

24:27 "That's a great idea." So all these years later,

24:30 I'm trying to execute on Kurt Vonagget's great idea.

24:34 And you know, by the way, some years ago,

24:36 my crew in the morning,

24:37 the one you're inheriting, they're wonderful journalists.

24:40 They found a country that has a secretary of the future.

24:45 Want to just guess randomly what part of the world that country resides in?

24:51 What country would be so enlightened they would have such a thing?

24:54 I would say someplace in subsaharan Africa.

24:58 Good for you.

24:59 No, [laughter] Scandinavia.

25:04 When you think of all like enlightened things,

25:06 often thoughts turn to Scandinavia as well as subsaharan Africa.

25:10 You and I share a passion for subsaharan Africa.

25:12 I've lived there and you've done work in uh the northern part of the continent.

25:19 Yes.

25:19 Yeah.

25:19 Not subsaharan.

25:20 North of the Sahara, but um it is in fact Sweden.

25:24 And they didn't call it a secretary of the future.

25:26 It has some turgid bureaucratic sounding title.

25:29 Some corporations have secretaries of the future.

25:31 They never call them that.

25:32 Sometimes they call them chief sustainability officers, right?

25:36 Um if they don't have any power,

25:40 it's just greenwashing and doesn't really matter if

25:43 they have the ear of the chief executive officer,

25:46 these secretaries of the future.

25:49 Um that can be a powerful position and you know,

25:52 of course, climate change is part of that.

25:54 The environment is certainly part of that, but it's not only that.

25:58 uh you know a a secretary of the future that goes to the CEO

26:00 and says look you're making a lot of money for the next

26:03 quarter doing this dumping of toxic waste on the sly and that is

26:09 you know uh acrewing to our bottom line now but it's

26:13 going to be found out in the fullness of time and we

26:16 are going to pay out terrible u you know damages when it's found

26:20 out stop doing that and you can actually have secretaries of the future

26:24 that advise like this so I'm really looking forward to the beat.

26:28 Um, we are still very much in the listening phase,

26:32 not the talking at phase, but we're interested what people are interested in.

26:37 Yeah.

26:38 When you ask the question of what people think

26:40 is like the most pressing issue for the future, lots of folks in the chat,

26:44 in addition to giving you a tons

26:46 of congratulations about your transition, have given answers.

26:49 So, we have a couple here.

26:52 Let me scroll back up to where everybody was saying it.

26:55 I saw somebody else in addition to greed was saying

26:58 like a lack of empathy which is similar in that realm.

27:03 Um there is also expanding inequality.

27:08 Uh that's from Jinpek.

27:10 Kevin from Rally says captive capitalism.

27:14 So there's that one.

27:16 And so yeah.

27:17 Oh um someone else said hate and divisiveness.

27:21 And another person said the meta issue

27:24 is manifestation of the tragedy of the commons.

27:28 So it seems like there's a lot of interest in this topic.

27:32 So I can't wait.

27:33 When are we going to start hearing your stories on this?

27:37 Well, I'm working on some now.

27:38 U we're still developing because we're listening.

27:40 I mean, I just wrote down some

27:42 of the things that people have suggested in the chat.

27:45 Um and but I think early summer, June, I've got a extravaganza.

27:50 I'll give you a little You want to hear a little like a

27:54 Yes.

27:53 a teaser about what it is?

27:55 Absolutely.

27:55 You know, absolutely.

27:56 I mean, I haven't done my reporting on this yet.

27:58 And and if you have some great sources,

28:00 folks who are in uh who have joined us here, I'm I'm all ears.

28:06 Um some people may remember a long time ago

28:08 I did a big series for marketplace on technological unemployment.

28:14 It was called robots ate my job.

28:16 I went across the country um and in part

28:20 uh trying not to ever encounter a human.

28:24 You can drive from the Atlantic to the Pacific

28:26 these days because uh machines have replaced so many of us.

28:30 This is going to be called we think robots ate my taxes.

28:35 Now, setting aside, and this will be part of the coverage,

28:38 the argument that someday, Kimberly, if all this AI stuff works out,

28:43 you will be so AI empowered that you

28:46 can do nine of these podcasts live every hour,

28:51 and because of your productivity, you're going to get paid all this money,

28:54 and because of that, you'll be paying a lot of taxes.

28:56 Let's just stipulate, yeah, maybe in the fullness of time.

28:59 Not so sure that's the case, but that's one argument.

29:02 However, there is nobody nobody says it is not going to be

29:06 disruptive for a while and it could be quite a while.

29:10 And by disruptive, they mean people losing their jobs.

29:13 And if they find other jobs,

29:14 maybe they're not better jobs, at least in the disruptive phase.

29:19 If it's that disruptive and all these people get thrown out of work,

29:22 they will not pay income tax

29:26 and it will destroy every state budget in the country and it

29:30 will wreck the federal budget even more than it's already wrecked.

29:35 And so if you take a look and some

29:36 tech companies are on to this, including AI companies,

29:39 and they're saying not all that loud,

29:41 but they're saying, "Yeah, it's an actual issue.

29:45 society has to deal with this somehow.

29:48 And there'll be some interesting approaches.

29:50 There's interesting ways of thinking about what do we do if AI,

29:56 even if it makes the economy bigger and better someday,

30:00 has a medium-term effect of acting like the Great Depression of 2008 and nine.

30:07 Uh so I'm working on that uh because I think

30:10 it's something we got to deal with that's about the future,

30:13 but we got to be talking about it now.

30:17 Oh my gosh, there's so many things where it's this is similar

30:19 to like the energy crisis where I was doing some reporting on all

30:23 the investments in nuclear energy and it's like a 10-year solution to a two-year

30:28 power supply problem and we're not quite there's a big gap in between.

30:33 Okay.

30:33 Okay.

30:33 Well, anyway, um I'm probably going to be bugging you

30:36 a lot later for tips on how to transition my sleep schedule,

30:40 but before we go to the break and the game,

30:43 I do want to ask you maybe for like a jump start on my summer reading list,

30:49 uh some some of the books that and full disclosure,

30:53 I asked you this in advance, so I know you're ready.

30:55 uh things that books that really stand out to you

30:58 as just like good mindfring works to move into this new role.

31:04 I mean it was a hard question because you and I have been swimming

31:07 in the same fish tank for so long

31:09 that we're liable to have read the same things.

31:12 You're also extraordinarily well read.

31:14 So I mean you know maybe you you know

31:16 that's already part of the uh of your reading list.

31:19 But the book everyone said I needed to read

31:22 before I took the show the uh role of host

31:25 of the afternoon show back in 1993 when I

31:29 came back from London was uh Michael Lewis's Liars Poker.

31:33 Have you read that yet?

31:35 I haven't.

31:35 No.

31:37 It it's it's it's it stands up.

31:39 Some things don't.

31:40 This is about his time as a youngster um at uh

31:45 at Solomon Brothers on the bond trading floor learning how

31:49 raw capitalism really works and it was gripping because you

31:54 know Michael Lewis grew up to be the legendary non-fiction author.

31:57 This I think is his first work and you really get a sense of the uh rawness

32:04 and aggressiveness and the take no prisoners nature

32:08 of um financial markets in that kind of context.

32:12 And so it's a great read.

32:14 It's it's worth uh putting on your on your reading list.

32:17 Um what was the second one I was talking about?

32:20 Numbers Go Up by Zeke Fox, which is interesting because Zeke was I have

32:25 I didn't I didn't actually finish reading the book.

32:27 I skimmed like the beginning of it,

32:29 but he was on our show talking about Sam Bankman Freed's trial.

32:35 Yeah.

32:35 I mean, uh Fox is an amazing investigative reporter.

32:38 He's done some time at Bloomberg for instance and uh he was

32:43 curious you a couple years ago he started his voyage about you

32:47 know what's the what's the deal with this crypto business [laughter] and he

32:52 had a hard time finding a real business model underneath it all.

32:56 He found lots and lots and lots of hype.

32:59 Um, uh, Zeke is also amazing because there's an episode

33:04 where he gets the texts that we all get,

33:08 the spam texts, Kimberly, that say, um, did you like dinner last night?

33:13 Or, uh, you fell out of my contacts.

33:16 Who is this again?

33:17 Those ones.

33:18 And he, uh, on purpose answers it.

33:22 And what he finds takes weeks, it takes months.

33:26 There is a scammer playing a long game and the scammer won't

33:32 tell Zeke what they're up to or what kind of job they have.

33:36 I'm in financial services or something like that.

33:39 Over time, Zeke gets it out of them.

33:42 And it turns out I'm in crypto and I'm very wealthy now.

33:45 And uh he's like, "Oh, really?

33:47 I'd like to try that." And uh no, you wouldn't be interested.

33:51 And they actually won't engage with him at first.

33:54 But time goes on.

33:56 Sure enough, they get 200 bucks out of them and it produces a profit, right?

34:02 Because it's only 200 bucks because they're thinking

34:04 of him as a much bigger fish later.

34:06 Now, this

34:10 story pig butchering and it gets super tragic.

34:13 He's able to track down who what where's the boiler room producing these things.

34:20 And at the time he finds it's in Cambodia and it is people who are trafficked.

34:26 It is essentially enslaved people having to do this.

34:31 And it's just shocking to see what the backstory is on that.

34:34 Now this some of this right Kimberly now here

34:37 in 2026 pieces of this may get solved in a sense.

34:43 Not the potential for losing all your money

34:45 to scammers but the origins of the text.

34:48 That's all going to be AI coming after us.

34:50 It's not going to be uh trafficked people.

34:53 But it's it's a it's fascinating yarn that he tells.

34:58 The other book on your list was Pattern Recognition by William Gibson.

35:02 Why that one?

35:04 I mean, he's known for science fiction, right?

35:05 Um I love that one because he saw something coming.

35:11 I think that's from the early 90s, that book.

35:14 It holds up quite well.

35:16 It's uh the protagonist is a woman who's a brand

35:20 expert who advises big fashion companies on street fashion trends.

35:26 She's so sensitive to brands that she has to file off the word

35:31 Levis from the button on her jeans because brands she's so sensitive to them.

35:35 It makes her allergic.

35:37 She gets actually physically ill when she's

35:39 around a brand but she's sensitive to them.

35:42 But what the story is really about is at a time when we

35:45 were not even thinking about the internet as a distributor of video content.

35:50 There is a time when we didn't know it could do video.

35:53 I didn't know.

35:55 And um what happens is some found footage shows up on the web

36:01 and it captivates the whole world because it's mysterious.

36:04 Is it real?

36:05 What's it mean?

36:05 and there's little scraps of this video and it becomes this worldwide

36:09 mystery that the brand expert is called in to try to resolve.

36:14 I totally recommend that you grab this at some point this summer.

36:18 I'll probably start with that one because, you know,

36:20 I love a good sci-fi and I've read other William Gibson stuff, but not this one.

36:24 So, I'm definitely going to dig into it.

36:27 I was also thinking about what books um I might add to your summer reading list.

36:32 Um and there's one Oh, please.

36:34 Mhm.

36:35 Well, there's a book that I read and I was lucky

36:38 to interview the author when it came out back in 2021.

36:41 It's this book called The Some of Us by Heather McGee.

36:44 And I think about this book a lot.

36:47 It's all about, let me get the exact subtitle.

36:51 It's uh what racism costs Everyone and how we can prosper together, right?

36:56 And it's a history book in some ways about all the things

37:01 that we as a society have decided we would rather not have than share.

37:08 And the [laughter] Yes.

37:10 Yeah.

37:11 Like public pools for example.

37:13 And that was a story that she told uh in the interview

37:16 that I did with her about my hometown of St.

37:18 Louis where they literally shut down all

37:21 of their public pools rather than integrate them.

37:23 And it was like a huge thing.

37:26 And one of the underlying themes of the book was this idea

37:30 that the economy does not have to be a zero someum game.

37:34 It does not have to be that just because one person gets something,

37:38 someone else has to lose it.

37:40 We can build a different kind of economy

37:43 that can just expand the pie for everyone.

37:46 And I think especially when we do get into the rhythm of daily news,

37:51 it's easy to get caught up in zero someum thinking.

37:54 And so I was like, let me reread this book over the summer

37:57 and just like remind myself that it doesn't have to be this way.

38:02 Uh, and I really like the book.

38:04 I look forward to reading this.

38:05 Maybe I'll get started this next week.

38:07 Actually, I can download it on Kindle.

38:09 the um you know, humans are wired to be um with a mindset of scarcity, right?

38:17 And so if you don't get there first,

38:19 you think that uh someone else is going to get what was coming to you.

38:25 And in a modern advanced economy, that isn't necessarily the case.

38:32 Um and uh also of course political forces exploit that as a kind

38:39 of uh divisive uh device in the culture to pull people apart

38:45 for political reasons when in fact um we can what's what's the name

38:50 of this program [laughter] about what's what's the subtitle of make me smart?

38:55 Right.

38:55 Together we can be bigger than all of us.

38:59 Yes.

38:59 And so that can work out economically as well.

39:02 Just because u you share doesn't mean you need to uh end up with less.

39:07 I look forward to reading that.

39:08 Thank you, Heather McGee.

39:10 Yeah.

39:11 And then there's a book that I'm listening to an audio book right now.

39:15 It's actually by two LinkedIn executives and so obviously

39:18 I'm sure they have a particular perspective on things,

39:21 but it's called Open to Work: How to Get Ahead in the Age of AI.

39:26 And it's very much I think it ties

39:28 very much into your future effects um conversations.

39:32 It's very much about the fact of where we are

39:36 in this moment of economic transition when it comes to AI

39:41 and how we as individuals can survive this economic transition

39:48 because the economic transition is going to happen somehow someway.

39:51 And obviously folks tied to LinkedIn and Microsoft probably want

39:55 to see it play out a certain kind of way,

39:57 but the rest of us are along for the ride.

39:59 And it's very interesting to hear their perspectives on what it will

40:03 take and the kind of thinking it takes to navigate this moment.

40:08 And I found it pretty interesting so far.

40:10 So that's what I'm listening to right now.

40:12 And then I'll probably end up rereading Heather

40:14 McGee right after I get through pattern recognition.

40:19 And you know what, Kimberly, here's the thing.

40:22 You have this new schedule, right?

40:24 I don't know if you've noticed this yet, but you're going to be done your day.

40:28 Done.

40:28 Done your day by late afternoon.

40:32 Uh, late morning Eastern time, you know,

40:35 midday at the latest if they call you to some ridiculous meetings.

40:40 Um, that means the afternoons now are yours.

40:43 And, you know, I am so excited about it.

40:46 Like I there's a version of me that's like I will do so many things

40:49 in the afternoon even though I realize I'm

40:52 probably going to crash and like want a nap.

40:53 But um I'm looking forward to a lot more like cuddling up on the couch

40:58 with artax and reading books and things like that while the sun is out.

41:02 [laughter] It's that's my most enduring um

41:06 memory of those 13 years here of doing

41:09 the morning show is sitting without having completed

41:14 my workday and it's early afternoon with golden light

41:18 coming in uh Eastern or Western and uh and just saying I don't have to you

41:25 know uh I I don't have to make any phone calls or look at any emails.

41:28 I'm just going to read.

41:30 I'm just going to, you know, go hiking or something.

41:33 I will give you something got to watch out for.

41:36 I never solved it.

41:37 Is it a good thing or a bad thing?

41:42 Fridays are complex because you might want to go out, right?

41:46 And and you want to go out.

41:48 So, you've gotten up at 4 in the morning Eastern and you've done

41:52 all this hard work and then you get to midday and you're free.

41:56 All right?

41:56 And so you're going to go do something fun and you're going to go get ice cream.

42:00 You're gonna go go on a hike.

42:02 Then all your pals are going to say,

42:04 "Let's go out." And you will do an 18-hour day.

42:07 Almost all my Fridays were 18 hour days because you're going to go straight

42:11 through to the normal time because you don't have to get up on Saturday morning.

42:14 So there you'll be at 11:00 at night when having when you got up at 4.

42:18 So watch out for that.

42:20 And I don't even have to tell you about the the tragedy of Sundays.

42:24 [laughter] You're not going to go to bed early enough on Sunday, are you?

42:29 No.

42:29 But we got to take a long overdue break and uh

42:32 then we're going to do a rapid fire version of our game.

42:36 So we are going to take a break.

42:37 We will be right back.

42:43 [music] All right, we are back.

42:48 We are going to do a super quick round of half full,

42:51 half empty, but with our always amazing Drew Justad, our longtime host.

42:55 We've got so many hosts on here today.

42:57 Drew, take it away.

42:59 All right, first up this week,

43:01 we have Are you half full or half empty on Cuddly Robots?

43:06 Oh, I saw this a video about this today.

43:09 Okay, so the guy who invented the Roomba

43:11 has invented like this very responsive cuddly robot

43:16 that looks kind of like a cross between

43:18 a large dog and a cat-like head type thing.

43:22 It's cuteish.

43:25 Um, but because of AI, it's like super duper responsive and things like that.

43:31 So, um, I prefer our tax.

43:34 I'm going to go half empty.

43:38 I'm gonna go half empty on this, too.

43:40 How about human contact?

43:42 Am I sounding [laughter] ancient?

43:44 Am I sounding agent here?

43:46 I mean, I need a virtual anything else.

43:48 More power to him.

43:49 I hope his entrepreneurial venture pays off for him, but not for me.

43:55 All right, what's next, Drew?

43:56 Next up, are you half full or half

43:58 empty on online courses being sold by influencers?

44:04 Oh, this was a interesting.

44:06 This was the interview that Kai did, right?

44:08 About um the influencer economy of of selling courses.

44:14 often sometimes there were even people selling courses

44:17 on how to sell courses about various things um

44:21 like how to be a better speaker or I was very close when we needed I needed

44:26 new head shot for the job and I was very close to signing up for an online

44:31 course on how to pose for better pictures

44:33 but I [laughter] didn't have time but David your face

44:39 you [laughter] you should just have called me right

44:41 I looked horrendous in every portrait for my entire

44:45 life until I went into television those years ago and then I know what to do.

44:51 You're so amazing, Kimberly.

44:52 You probably both your sides are good.

44:55 I definitely have a bad side and I needed to know what it was.

44:58 So, you hide the bad side and you just kind of go like this.

45:02 [laughter] It's good, right?

45:04 People listening on the podcast, he made a very debonire side angle face.

45:09 Yeah.

45:09 And and it got to the point where I even was able to do that for my driver's

45:13 license in New Jersey and I had for the first

45:15 time in my life an awesome driver's license photo.

45:19 But um yeah, no, look.

45:21 So what's the the question is uh full online.

45:25 I'm going to go half empty and read books.

45:27 I think books are still better.

45:28 Like let's preserve them while we have them.

45:31 And I think in particular the on the economy of influencers

45:35 selling so many courses without much like verification of skills.

45:40 I'm going to go half empty on that.

45:42 Well, that's the key, Kimberly.

45:43 Right.

45:43 You know, look, more power to them

45:45 as an entrepreneurial venture yet again, I will say.

45:48 But unless you can come up with a good housekeeping seal of approval,

45:52 does the person know what they're talking about?

45:54 Um, you know, at least if you had a professor at a college,

45:58 you [laughter] would they at least had a degree

46:00 of some sort that might maybe some expertise even.

46:02 Yeah, I'm half uh half empty on it.

46:05 Although I suppose some of those folks would say they

46:07 have their degrees from the school of the hard knocks.

46:11 All right, Drew, what's [laughter] next?

46:13 Next up is the audience poll.

46:15 All right, everybody in the chat,

46:17 and thank you everyone for joining in on this uh

46:20 sort of last harrah of Economics on Tap.

46:24 Let's do the poll.

46:24 What we got, Drew?

46:25 Are you half full or half empty

46:27 on this grassroots campaign to buy Spirit Airlines?

46:33 I love this story so much.

46:35 Have you seen this?

46:38 I I saw some headlines about it,

46:40 but uh you know there is a history right Kimberly of employeeowned airlines.

46:47 Why not make it a co-op?

46:50 What was the last employeeowned airline?

46:53 There was a point called there was an esop

46:55 it was called and was it United at one point?

46:59 There was uh there was a employees bought an airline I think out of chapter 11.

47:06 It's been many years.

47:06 I don't remember the full details,

47:08 but uh and it transitioned into a regular airline,

47:11 whichever one it was, but this is interesting.

47:13 I mean, good luck.

47:14 I mean, that's it's a very very hard business.

47:18 Can we all agree?

47:20 Yeah.

47:20 I actually saw the original post a couple days ago, you know,

47:26 shortly after the announcement where the guy was like,

47:28 you know, what if we were just to buy it?

47:30 Like, if it's so struggling financially, like maybe we could just buy it.

47:33 And all these people were in the chat like, "I'd pitch in.

47:36 I'd pitch in.

47:36 I'd pitch in." And now this guy is apparently like

47:39 going around and talking to investors and talking to lawyers.

47:42 And it's like a real thing.

47:44 I think it would be just an amazing story.

47:49 If it could happen and this idea of people,

47:55 I mean, it's the ultimate market like function, right?

48:00 There's demand and a product rises to meet the demand.

48:04 Someone takes advantage, right?

48:07 Yeah.

48:07 And there are big enterprises owned by the consumers that utilize them.

48:14 There are utilities, there are water companies,

48:16 electric companies that are owned by the users.

48:20 Um, and uh, you know, there's some there's some vegetable markets,

48:24 co-ops owned by the people that use them.

48:27 So, you know, it just airlines is hard.

48:30 It's almost like the grocery business.

48:32 Margins are thin.

48:34 Uh all it takes is an international crisis

48:36 to make your prime input fuel extraordinarily expensive.

48:41 So, you know, more power to them.

48:42 Good luck.

48:43 But if you don't if it is owned by the, you know, regular people,

48:47 I guess it's what would make those people

48:49 different than shareholders in terms of demanding a profit?

48:52 And I guess it's sort of the ethics.

48:54 Is it owned by the employees?

48:55 Is it owned by people who are more altruistic and just want

48:58 it to exist as opposed to want to use it to make profits?

49:02 Anyway, I'm gonna go half full.

49:04 I want to see how this plays out.

49:05 What about you?

49:06 Yeah, half full as well because I want to see if

49:08 maybe if it's owned by actual people who fly the airline.

49:12 Maybe there will be like five feet between seats.

49:16 How about that for leg room?

49:18 Nice.

49:18 Well, it's a pretty even split.

49:20 Not almost even.

49:22 We've got 55% of folks saying half full

49:25 on the grassroots campaign to buy Spear Airlines.

49:27 45% are half empty and that is the end of the game.

49:33 [music] David, thank you so much for joining us on this last for Economics

49:41 on Tap and thank you so much for just your years and years of amazing reporting,

49:46 journalism coverage and grace on on Morning Report.

49:50 I'm super excited to step in.

49:52 Yeah.

49:52 And I can reverse everything you said and cast them upon you as well

49:55 because you've been here [laughter] and have

49:57 an incredible track record as a serious reporter,

50:00 a person who cares very much about public media.

50:03 And I am so happy that you're going to be in the chair, Kimberly.

50:07 Well, thank you so much and thank you so much

50:09 to our audience for tuning in for Economics on Tap all these years,

50:14 for listening to the show,

50:16 for being with us through the pandemic and everything else.

50:19 Uh, I'm looking forward to the next iteration of Make Me Smart,

50:23 as well as all the news of what you all are going into.

50:26 Feel free to keep sending us your story ideas,

50:29 your wins, your questions, your comments.

50:31 You never know where on Marketplace it's all going to show up.

50:34 That is it for today's show.

50:36 But before we go, we do have a quick reminder about a fundraising opportunity

50:41 that we have going on right now because it is public media as David just said.

50:47 It's public capital P and we do need your help uh

50:51 in these times especially and the deal is when you and 500

50:55 people like you donate to support

50:57 marketplace specifically marketplace before late

51:01 tonight you will unlock $25,000 in funding that is vital to us.

51:08 If you've never donated before,

51:10 it's a great time to invest in economic conversations like this that can

51:14 help all of us somehow make sense of this crazy world,

51:17 even when those conversations are hard, frustrating, or confusing.

51:23 Yeah.

51:23 And I mean, and if you I see folks in the chat talking about how

51:26 amazing the Make Me Smart community is and how kind we are to each other,

51:30 how much we engage with each other.

51:33 It is an amazing community and this community and all of the content

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51:41 So, if you can help us unlock

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51:47 we would be so appreciative.

51:49 There's also going to be a link in the show notes.

51:53 David, you got to do a chair dance.

51:54 This is like the final outing.

51:56 Yeah, there we go.

51:57 Love it.

51:59 Make [music] me Smart is produced by Courtney Bergseker and this episode

52:03 was engineered by Drew Jstad who's also our wonderful game host.

52:07 The team behind the YouTube Friday live [music] stream who gets

52:10 you all on here every week is Emily McHune and Antonet Brock.

52:13 Our supervisory senior [music] producer is Daisy Palasios.

52:16 Nancy Fargali is executive producer of marketplace shows

52:20 and Joanne Griffith is our chief content officer.

52:23 Thanks everybody and happy Friday.

52:26 Cheers David.

52:28 See you later.

52:29 You already finished your [music] drink, didn't you?