Transcript:
The transcript from this week’s, MiB: Kyla Scanlon on Vibecessions & Gen Z, is below.
You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Bloomberg. All of our earlier podcasts on your favorite pod hosts can be found here.
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00:00:02 [Speaker Changed] Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News.
00:00:09 [Speaker Changed] This is Masters in business with Barry Riol on Bloomberg Radio.
00:00:15 [Speaker Changed] This week on the podcast, I have a delightful guest. Kyla Scanlan is the person who created the phrase vibe session in 2022. She wrote the book In This Economy How Money and Markets really work. She is quite an accomplished 26-year-old who has built a career as a investing and economic literacy expert, helping to educate people about how the economy really works, why there’s a disconnect in what people feel versus what’s really happening, what we should think about things like sentiment and the dollar and green energy and go down the list. I thought this was a fascinating conversation. I really enjoyed it, and I think you will also, with no further ado, my interview with Kyla Scanlan.
00:01:07 [Speaker Changed] Thanks for having me.
00:01:08 [Speaker Changed] Well, thank you so much for coming. I’ve been looking forward to this since I got the book over the summer. I will tell you, I didn’t see many other people on the beach in the Hamptons reading this, but I enjoyed it. It’s filled with fun. Not only concepts, but sketches and illustrations, and I could tell you had some fun writing this. Yeah,
00:01:27 [Speaker Changed] I
00:01:27 [Speaker Changed] Did. So let’s talk a little bit about your background. You, you graduate western Kentucky in 2019, triple major financial management, economics and business data analytics. That sounds like you knew exactly what you wanted to do.
00:01:43 [Speaker Changed] Well, I didn’t. I didn’t. You did not. Yeah, I didn’t even know you could major in economics till I got to college.
00:01:48 [Speaker Changed] But in college, those three things scream markets and the economy. Right?
00:01:53 [Speaker Changed] Yeah. I mean, it was like kind of funny. I don’t know why there was such a big disconnect, but I was trading options when I was in high school. Right. And I got to college and I was like, oh, I’ll just be an engineer. Like I’ll, you know, do that path. And then I took an econ class as a general education course and I just loved it. And then I was like, oh, you can actually major in finance and like you can trade options for a living. Which I didn’t end up doing for obvious reasons. But yeah, so I really fell in love with the data and with the analysis and just the classes were so fun. I had a great time.
00:02:25 [Speaker Changed] You know, the old options traders joke, right?
00:02:29 [Speaker Changed] No, I
00:02:29 [Speaker Changed] Don’t really, what is it? Option traders never die. Oh, they just expire worthless. Right? I mean that’s a, that’s a classic. We’ve all dabbled with options. I, I, I find them compelling and addictive, but I, you know, 90% investor, 10% degenerate speculator. Yeah. Options are perfect for that. Yeah. How, how did you do as an option? Straighter?
00:02:50 [Speaker Changed] I did poorly, which is why I don’t really do it anymore. I’m more of a buy and hold sort of person. There you go. Yeah. But options were fun. It taught me a lot about risk. It, it taught me a lot about management. It was great.
00:03:01 [Speaker Changed] So, so you, you graduate, you joined Capital Group as an associate pretty much right into the pandemic. Tell us what you were doing at Capital Group and, and what was it like starting work right into that mess?
00:03:13 [Speaker Changed] Yeah, it was hard. I remember I graduated, you know, basically June of 2019 and I moved out to LA from Kentucky like five days after I graduated school. I’d never been to LA before. That’s where Capital Group is based. And you know, six months later a pandemic happens. But Capital Group was wonderful. There was a rotational program that I was a part of called the CAP Group. And so I got to experience fixed income. I got to sit on an equity desk, I got to do macroeconomic research. I got to do a big stock project. But I ended up leaving to focus more on financial education because that’s where I felt I wanted to be, um-Huh. Which was really surprising. I thought I’d spend the rest of my life at Capital Group. It was kind of the perfect path. And then I was like, I just, I can’t know what happens without like trying to do this, trying to do the financial education stuff.
00:04:01 [Speaker Changed] I can’t imagine two places more different than Kentucky and la. What was that transition like? It was
00:04:08 [Speaker Changed] Really hard. Yeah. I didn’t understand what it was like to live in a big city. I’d never been to New York at that point. I’d never really left Kentucky those couple years, the whole life that I had there. And yeah, I mean I used to have to be at Capital Group very early in the morning because it’s on the west Coast, right? We do east coast hours. And so I would just like walk around really early in the morning and LA and that’s not so safe. And I got a couple of run-ins there.
00:04:33 [Speaker Changed] Oh, no kidding. Yeah.
00:04:34 [Speaker Changed] Yeah, because I just didn’t know any better. Like nobody gives you a playbook when you move to LA on like how to live there. And so it was, it was a really good experience. The pandemic of course was, was difficult, but it definitely helped me grow a lot faster being in a big city like that.
00:04:50 [Speaker Changed] Did the pandemic and being locked down at home lead to you writing this book?
00:04:56 [Speaker Changed] I think so. Yeah. I had a blog all throughout college that named Majuli actually was reading when I was in college, which was crazy. But it was called Scanlan on Stocks. And so I’d always been really passionate about writing, had always been really passionate about sharing ideas. And then when I got to Capital Group, obviously I was under compliance, they were like, you really can’t be talking about stocks online. That’s like not cool. And I was like, okay, fine. So I started doing these big data analysis pieces and like harvesting data from the various apps I would use that
00:05:25 [Speaker Changed] You could do just not specific stocks.
00:05:26 [Speaker Changed] Yeah, not specific stock stocks. So I do things like with the ride share data with Uber and Lyft that I had like dating app data, like all these different projects. But then during the pandemic, I think a lot of people, myself included were like, oh, you know, maybe I don’t wanna spend the rest of my life doing this thing. And like, I would do want to take a chance because I don’t know what’s going to happen next. And so that’s how I ended up leaving Capital Group, which was really scary. And I joined a tech startup called OnDeck and built out their investment education arm. And then, then I started doing social media basically at the same time. So
00:06:01 [Speaker Changed] It’s funny, I had the exact same experience with compliance at a brokerage firm in the early two thousands when I launched the big picture. Write whatever you want, just don’t recommend or buy or sell any specific stocks. You know, if you stay away from that, you’re fine. Which in hindsight was pretty hip. A lot of places wouldn’t even have given you that much. But data analytics, knock yourself out. Yeah. Whatever you wanna do. Yeah.
00:06:25 [Speaker Changed] Which is cool. So the name of the blog changed the Scanlan on stocks or Scanlan on stats. Sorry?
00:06:30 [Speaker Changed] On stats.
00:06:30 [Speaker Changed] On stats, yeah. It didn’t stay the same.
00:06:32 [Speaker Changed] Can scaling on stocks to scaling on stats. Yeah. So I’m, I’m fascinated by the partnership you have with O’Shaughnessy Ventures. I, I love what Jim is doing with that. Tell us about that experience and and that help you transition to what you’re doing today.
00:06:47 [Speaker Changed] Yeah. No, Jim O’Shaughnessy is amazing. So I approached him with an idea for a financial education startup and he had been, you know, really supportive him, Patrick, both his son. And I was like, Hey Jim, like I’m thinking about starting this tech company that might do financial education. And he was like, do you have a plan? And I was like, sort of. And then this book deal came along and so I was like, it’s gonna be really difficult for me to build a company and then also write a book. And I ended up deciding to focus fully on the book. And so Jim kept me on the team as an entrepreneur in residence. Right. For a year. And so that was neat. It was just kind of like almost a fellowship of sorts that supported me as I did this like book endeavor.
00:07:31 [Speaker Changed] Were you the first entrepreneur in residence that he did? Because now Nessy Ventures almost does like a MacArthur grant Yeah. To a number of people. Were were you literally the first one?
00:07:41 [Speaker Changed] I was the first one, yeah. Wow. Yeah, it, it was really cool. I think what he’s doing is incredible. It’s really nice to see, I guess, I guess you’d call it venture capital money, you know, be used in that way. Like to support
00:07:53 [Speaker Changed] These just less focused on on traditional technology companies. Exactly. And more towards content oriented things. Is that, is that a
00:08:01 [Speaker Changed] Fair description? Yeah, and like maybe stuff that isn’t going to have immediate returns. Like it’s not so much a multiple, which I think traditional VC tends to focus heavily on because that’s their whole game. But I think he is like, okay, like there’s a bunch of people who need just a little bit of money. Right? Right. Like I didn’t, they didn’t gimme a ton of money, but it was enough for me to be like, okay, I’m safe to focus on like this project that is going to take up so much of my time. Right. But also eat away at the other projects that would have earned me money. Huh.
00:08:27 [Speaker Changed] Really kinda interesting. So at your YouTube channel you do a lot of short clips, explainer videos, short form contents on financial topics, really just financial literacy and education. What motivated this idea, this is not your typical, most people go through a cycle of working their way through various aspects of Wall Street before they out of sheer frustration say, Hey, we need a lot more financial literacy and we don’t have it. What led you to financial education so young?
00:09:00 [Speaker Changed] Yeah, I mean I think growing up in Kentucky you just kind of see like financial literacy and I sold cars, I sold Hyundais for a summer. And I think that was really formative because people would come in the car lot and they wouldn’t even really know what an interest rate was. Right. And so you were signing these people on 84 month, you know, car leases,
00:09:23 [Speaker Changed] 84 month, believe it or not, Hyundais by the way know it’s, you’re not paying off a Ferrari. You’re paying off a Hyundai. Hyundai,
00:09:29 [Speaker Changed] Right? Yeah. And like you’d have to do all sorts of financing tricks to make sure they could get a card even if their credit wasn’t so good. Right. And so I just saw a lot and I saw a lot of people that could have possibly just been helped if somebody had taught them what an interest rate was, if somebody had taught them like what a car payment meant, if what depreciation was. Right. And so that was when I was 19 and it stuck with me all throughout the rest of my time in college. I worked at a small asset manager in Kentucky called Hilliard Lyons. And I like saw a little bit of stuff there, but it was really the car dealership and just my time growing up in Kentucky that was so formative to this idea that financial education really matters. Like the fact that I didn’t know economics was a major until I got to college. Like isn’t something that should happen. Right. And so I think that’s the goal is just like, talk about econ more, make it more interesting for people. Bring more people into the fold because not only will they learn more and hopefully make better decisions, but it can also put a lot of people on a path that they might not have gone on in the first place.
00:10:34 [Speaker Changed] So I’m a little older than you. Just a touch. When I was in middle school and high school, this is how long ago the boys would get segmented off into shop class. Yeah. Where you would lose a finger if you weren’t paying attention. And the girls, and I’m saying boys and girls purposefully, ’cause we were 10 and 12, they would get shuffled off this way into home economics, which has much less to do with economics than you would imagine it. It’s more about housekeeping and cleaning and cooking, not here’s how to manage a household budget. People are perennially discussing about bringing things like civics back to high school, bringing things like basic budgeting and economics. It never seems to happen. How important is it to teach just basic economics, basic budgeting, basic things that, that we take for granted to, to high school kids?
00:11:34 [Speaker Changed] I think it’s important. Would you agree
00:11:36 [Speaker Changed] A hundred percent? I I, I’m, you know it, it’s amazing. I can’t remember the last time I used calculus. Yeah. But I deal with the budget every day. Yeah. I have a running total of my checking account in my head. I know where my investments are. These are all skills, you know, auto didacticism, teaching yourself this, you kind of forced to. ’cause unless you are study this as a major in college, nobody teaches you how to do this. It’s just trial and error. And hopefully the errors aren’t too, too expensive. So I I’m completely in, in agreement with you on that. And to take it a step further, the big challenge with financial literacy is it has a very short half life. Even people who are fairly financially literate, you know, six to 12 months later, half that stuff is gone. So you have to keep drilling into people, here’s how this works, here’s what happens. There’s a, there’s something you wrote sort of related to what we’re gonna talk about later that I wanna bring out here a quote from the book in this economy, which is you write that people are the economy, so let’s make the economy about the people. Explain the thinking behind that.
00:12:53 [Speaker Changed] Yeah, I mean the general idea there is kind of tied into the vibe session where it’s this idea that like how people feel really matters. Like how people feel about their economic circumstances, how they feel about their ability to have upward mobility, basically, like how people are thinking about themselves is going to influence how the economy succeeds or fails. And so I think that’s just something I tried to center throughout the book was that ultimately people and the decisions that they make are the entire economy, right? Like everything that we do is, is the economy, like a coffee cup is an economic transaction, the labor, the beans, the supply chain, all of those things. And throughout the book, I tried to center people because I feel like most of the time in economics education, the reason it doesn’t work in high schools is because the kids are like, this doesn’t really relate to me. I don’t really understand budgeting. Like I don’t have any tangible experience with this.
00:13:51 [Speaker Changed] Sure they do. They have an iPhone, here’s what the iPhone costs, here’s the credit that’s built in, here’s the interest rate impact on it. Here’s supply chains from a million places. Here’s what you pay for apps. Like, I think you could take an iPhone and teach kids everything they need to know about the economy markets and budgeting one device.
00:14:08 [Speaker Changed] Yeah, no, I think that’s a great idea. And that is an experience with the economy and it’s a people-centric one. Right? And so that’s, that’s exactly it. It is like you have to sort of center it on people’s lived experiences, so that way it all feels relatable
00:14:21 [Speaker Changed] And, and you’re, so this theme comes up over and over again. You can’t separate the economy from people. It’s one and the same, isn’t it? Yeah,
00:14:29 [Speaker Changed] I would, I would definitely say so. Some people might argue with that, but I think that that is ignoring the fact that like all the decisions that people make, you know, consumer spending is such a big part of the economy, government spending, all of these things. And those are all people making decisions. Right.
00:14:46 [Speaker Changed] I have to ask you, you are the ripe old age of 26. What led you a few years ago to say, I know I’m gonna write an economics book?
00:14:55 [Speaker Changed] Well, so it actually, I’ve always really loved writing. I, I wrote these books and I was eight about a penguin. And so I’ve always been writing and I wrote a book, a book, you know, quote unquote every year for, I don’t know, five or six years after, after that little penguin book. And so being an author had always been something I’d I’d had was really excited about. I never thought I’d have the opportunity so early. I never actually thought I’d have the opportunity to like be a published author. But the, how it came about was I published this piece with New York Times opinion on the Bob session and Penguin Random House approached me and they were like, have you ever thought about writing a book? And I was like, yeah, I have. And we, we came up with this idea to do a almost like a beginner guide to the economy, but with 60 illustrations all done by me just doing it in a much more fun and accessible way. You know, trying to make an economic guide for the 21st century.
00:15:55 [Speaker Changed] It, it’s funny you mentioned the penguin because in the book you compare the labor market to a goat steadily climbing a mountain. Yeah. While the Fed actively trying to slow the goat down in their progress. So first is this frequent usage of animals and metaphors something you’ve been doing a while, and what made you think of the labor market as a goat and the Fed pulling the rope trying to slow ’em down?
00:16:21 [Speaker Changed] Yeah, I, no, lots of metaphors in my, in my writing. I have a substack too, kyla substack.com and I, I always employ some sort of metaphor that I think my readers are like, okay, you know, calm down. So the book was definitely heavy with metaphors, but I really wanted there to be tangible visualizations in the book. So the beginning of the book is this economic kingdom because I think the interconnectivity of the economy is where a lot of people get stuck. It’s like, well how does the inflation, how does inflation, you know, influence labor market? How do they work? Like how does the Fed influence the labor market? How does the Fed influence inflation? How does fiscal policy work? What does the dollar do? And so I drew that at the beginning of the book as kind of like this economic kingdom land where all the castles were interacting and then yeah, the Fed and the labor market mountain or the Fed and the mountain goat. It was just another metaphor on top of that.
00:17:14 [Speaker Changed] So you tackle a number of weighty topics in the book. Let, let’s do a speed round. Tell me what people either get wrong or don’t understand about each of these issues. Let’s start with national debt.
00:17:27 [Speaker Changed] I mean, I think this is a tough one because sometimes people are right, but a lot of people think it’s totally unsustainable. Like the US is gonna go bankrupt. And there’s definitely a plausible like case that the US could go bankrupt, especially ’cause we have that debt ceiling situation that’s coming up in I think 26 days as of time of recording. And so a lot of people get that wrong where they are like, oh, the national debt’s gonna explode. The dollar is gonna not become the reserve currency anymore.
00:17:53 [Speaker Changed] By the way, I’ve been hearing that since I was in college, since Reagan was president. And it’s always, it has yet to be proven wrong. Yeah. I think if you’re wrong for half a century, you’re not early, you’re just wrong. You’re just
00:18:04 [Speaker Changed] Wrong. Absolutely. And like you could say maybe in 500 years the dollar won’t be reserved currency.
00:18:10 [Speaker Changed] And then you’re right. I won’t even give you, I’ll give you 200 years, 250 years. But
00:18:14 [Speaker Changed] If you’re dead and like, are you still right if you’re dead, you know,
00:18:18 [Speaker Changed] More importantly, does it even matter? I don’t know Right at that point. Recessions, what do people get wrong about recessions? Two
00:18:25 [Speaker Changed] Quarters of negative GDP growth.
00:18:27 [Speaker Changed] I, that is a pet peeve of mine that I have been pushing back against for years. It’s a, yeah, it’s, it’s, there have consistently been two quarters of negative GDP that haven’t been recessionary. Yeah. And if you look at what took place in 21 and 22, remember GDP people don’t realize this GDP is reported in real terms, meaning inflation adjusted terms. When you have two negative quarters, maybe it means the economy is slowing down or maybe it means the economy is overheating and prices are going up. Those are two totally different things, aren’t they? Yeah,
00:19:00 [Speaker Changed] Absolutely. I think a lot of people get stuck on that one that is unpopular. Yeah,
00:19:04 [Speaker Changed] Very unpopular. What about labor market dynamics? What don’t people understand about that?
00:19:08 [Speaker Changed] I mean, I think the biggest one here is that when the labor force participation rate expands, the unemployment rate can still go up. Go up. Right? That, that’s a tough one. ’cause people are like, oh, like, well that unemployment rate is going up so people are losing their jobs. But sometimes it’s just more people are entering the labor force. Right?
00:19:25 [Speaker Changed] I, I like to call that denominator blindness. Ooh. Because people don’t pay attention, they just see the big scary number. They don’t see the context of the larger data set underneath. Like, hey, this company’s laying out, laying off 10,000 people. Is that a bad thing? Do they have 20,000 people or is it Walmart with 4 million and 10,000 is, you know, a rounding error. It’s one out of one person at every fourth store. Something crazy like that. People ignore the broader context. And you talk about context and framing throughout the book. What about housing market issues and the problem with affordable housing and first time home buyers?
00:20:04 [Speaker Changed] Yeah, housing is something I spend a ton of time on right now. I mean, I think the biggest issue is that, you know, people think that expanding the housing supply will make all home values go down. It’s not necessarily the case, right? It’s very important to expand housing supply. It’s very important that people have access to housing. So I think that’s a big one. There’s a lot of nimbyism that can arise. And then also, this is something that I don’t think a lot of people realize is that if you have a mortgage, you have to have insurance and you, which
00:20:32 [Speaker Changed] Is another crisis you talk about. Yeah,
00:20:34 [Speaker Changed] I’m really concerned about insurance right now. But yeah, I’d say those are the two things with housing. Yeah,
00:20:39 [Speaker Changed] Right there. There was an interesting piece that came out recently, I don’t remember if it was Bloomberg or somewhere else, but I definitely saw it in the past two weeks that the states that build the most amount of houses are having the fastest GDP. So if you look at places like Florida and Texas, and I think we’re probably at peak Florida right now, but hold that aside, Florida cranking up housing left and right. Texas builds a lot of houses. When you look at even fairly robust economies, California and New York, they’re growing much more slowly than those southern states. And they have horrific nimbyism and really challenging to put up new housing. Oh. Unless you’re knocking down another house in just replacing it that you can do, but expanding the amount of housing, big problem in big states. Yeah.
00:21:29 [Speaker Changed] Big problem. And it’s like, it’s kind of funny, I think we maybe saw the same graph where it’s like blue versus red. Like it’s actually a political divide where red states are doing a great job building more housing and, and blue states aren’t. And that’s, you know, we should all be building more housing because that’s kind of the housing theory of everything is something I heavily subscribe to where if people feel like they’re able to get a home, they’re able to afford it, it’s not a big worry. You know, everything will hopefully improve from that.
00:21:54 [Speaker Changed] You, you buy a house, you’re then gonna furnish it. You’re gonna buy durable goods and appliances, you’re probably gonna buy a car or two, you’re gonna spend a ton of money. It means you have a job. It means you have good credit. The housing theory of everything is pretty persuasive. Tell, tell us a little bit about that.
00:22:09 [Speaker Changed] Yeah, I mean I, I think it’s, it’s super important. It is that idea that like you will participate in the economy. And I think also for, you know, there’s a chart, the distribution of financial assets from the Federal Reserve. It’s one of my favorite charts and I talk about it all the
00:22:22 [Speaker Changed] Time, is Z one flow of funds or something else. It’s
00:22:24 [Speaker Changed] A distribution of financial assets. Okay. So it shows the breakdown of wealth.
00:22:27 [Speaker Changed] Oh, by deciles or,
00:22:29 [Speaker Changed] Yeah. Yeah. So like they’ll have like the bottom 50%, you know, the top 0.1% and if you look at the bottom 50%, all their wealth is in their house, the top 10%. It’s in business ownership and equities. So there’s a lesson to be learned there. But yeah, homes are a wealth generation tool for a lot of people. And I think to the point of like, what do people get wrong about housing is that maybe it can’t be both a speculative asset where, you know, people do invest so much into an expected to appreciate so rapidly and a place to live. I think that’s gonna be a tough dichotomy over the next few
00:23:01 [Speaker Changed] Years. Right. You know, my parents’ generation when they were buying houses for 25, 35, $40,000 and they lived through that big inflationary cycle and then rate crash over from 1980 to 2022 home, you have to live somewhere. Plus, if your home prices appreciate dramatically, hey that’s great for your retirement. I, I’m not so convinced that the current generation are gonna have the same experience.
00:23:29 [Speaker Changed] Oh, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to buy a home. And I think a lot of people in my generation feel the same way. So I’m technically a Gen Z and one in four Gen Z do own homes, but 78% of them got help from their parents Right. To buy that house. And so I think that’s gonna be the thing for this upcoming generation is that it’s really going to help if your parents did well, they’re the greatest wealth tr the greatest generational wealth transfer is about to happen.
00:23:56 [Speaker Changed] It’s already happening. Right. How is it, what is it I keep seeing 48, 60 8 trillion? Yeah. Crazy, crazy numbers.
00:24:02 [Speaker Changed] 90 trillion by 2045. It’s a lot of wood. It’s a ton of money. Right. And yeah, some people will get a house outta that and I think that’s gonna be maybe the only way that you get a house. People,
00:24:13 [Speaker Changed] Even if you get a down payment out of it, it’s still, oh gosh, it’s gonna help move you in the right, right direction. Absolutely. Public transit. Give us a, what are people getting wrong about public transit? I
00:24:24 [Speaker Changed] Mean, I think people think it’s like not useful to have public transit. Whenever I come to New York, it’s so wonderful because the subway is so efficient. But I think a lot of people are like, no, we should just expand the highways. But if we invested just in light rail in these cities, rather than adding another lane to the highway, you could transmit so many more people and you could free up the gridlock. People really love their cars in the United States because it’s an, you know, it’s a place where you can go, it’s an individualistic thing. But if we are able to invest in public transit, the economy will grow. People will be able to get around better. Just imagine like, you know, not having to rely on a commute in order to go into work. It, it would expand the opportunities for so many people who right now are maybe strapped by not having a car or not wanting to do a certain commute.
00:25:12 [Speaker Changed] Right. And the data shows adding additional lanes to highways just creates additional traffic. It does not, it does not solve the problem. The other thing that’s so interesting about housing is the racial divide. When you look at who’s wealthy and who’s not and where it comes from. African Americans tend to own houses at a much lower percentage rate. When you look at the sources of wealth, let’s call it the, we’ll ignore the top quartile, like the bottom 75%. Very often people who are middle class or above housing, wealth is a big part of it. And you just see much lower ownership rates amongst blacks in America than amongst whites. Has a huge impact on income inequality by racial divides.
00:25:58 [Speaker Changed] Oh no, we have, I think, I believe income inequality has improved, but wealth inequality has worsened since the pandemic, meaning
00:26:06 [Speaker Changed] The difference between salary and your assets. Yeah,
00:26:09 [Speaker Changed] Yeah, yeah. So like a lot of people, you know, didn’t appreciate or didn’t get to benefit from the appreciate of the rise in stock market. Right. Values, they didn’t have a home that was appreciating and value real wages did go up. But you know, that’s not quite enough I think for a lot of people. And it has created a lot of disparity and I think that’s going to, it’s really tough to navigate that. I think the candidates for the election are like trying to figure out like, okay, how do we sort of fix this? And like, one way that the government could address it is by taxing people so they have more money so they could maybe distribute more money. But that’s very unpopular. So like we have to have a total rethink, I think, of these social programs because we’re like just helping people to close that inequality gap because that is going to be a, a massive issue over the next decade.
00:26:57 [Speaker Changed] And, and our last speed round question, green energy. What are your thoughts on renewable or green energy?
00:27:03 [Speaker Changed] Oh, I think it’s so important. I, I mean, I think the thing is a lot of people think it’s all or nothing. You kind of still have to have fossil fuels as you
00:27:11 [Speaker Changed] Try natural gas gonna be a transitional fuel for decades to come.
00:27:14 [Speaker Changed] Transitional is the perfect word for that. Yeah. You have to like still have all that stuff. You can’t just go green right away. But, you know, solar power is becoming extraordinarily useful. You know, hydrogen, all that stuff is solar
00:27:27 [Speaker Changed] Is now cheaper than coal. Yeah. And it’s about to become cheaper than oil. Yeah. Which is a huge, like 20 years ago, that was unthinkable. I know.
00:27:34 [Speaker Changed] And it’s exciting and I think a lot of people are still stuck on, you know, oil being so important. But green energy is, is the only way that we can move forward as a society if we’re just gonna have to rely on the traditional fuels for a little longer.
00:27:47 [Speaker Changed] Tell us about, I I like the way you, you phrase this, the abundance mindset.
00:27:53 [Speaker Changed] That’s Derek Thompson’s term from the Atlantic. Yeah. He’s, he’s tremendous. But that is kinda this idea that we tend to think limiting, right? Like, we’re like, oh, we can’t have all this, we can’t have all this, we can’t have that, we can’t do this. And Derek Thompson argues like, well we can, like we can have abundance, like we can focus on immigration, we can build more housing. Like we can have all these things. We can do green energy, like we can do all of these things. Right? There’s a Keynes quote that’s about that,
00:28:21 [Speaker Changed] About scar, the scarcity mindset, right?
00:28:23 [Speaker Changed] Where it’s like, if, if the gov I think it’s, if the government can pay for it, you can do it essentially.
00:28:27 [Speaker Changed] Is that right? And why can’t the government pay for it? If you think about, you know, it’s ironic how often politicians ignore what Lord Keynes taught us a century ago, which is during economic contractions the government should spend to make up the shortfall and consumer and, and business spending. What politicians always tend to forget is, and when the economy is expanding, well then you pull back and let the private sector fill that gap. The problem is we never seem to pull back. It’s it’s pedal to the metal all the time.
00:28:58 [Speaker Changed] Yeah. Which is, that’s going to be interesting with the insurance thing that we were talking about. ’cause the government’s gonna probably have to backstop all of that. And I don’t know how that’ll go, but yet
00:29:07 [Speaker Changed] Why, why should the government backstop that if you, if you move to a part of the world that is being dramatically affected by climate change? Oh, and by the way, if your state governor doesn’t believe it and refuses to do anything to moderate it, why do I as someone in a different part of the country have to bail out your bad decision? It’s one thing when a hurricane hits and, and everybody is shocked. It’s another thing when you’re building waterfront property and no private sector insurer will cover you. ’cause they’re like, no, the, the odds are you’re gone in 10 to 20 years, we’re not gonna take that risk.
00:29:44 [Speaker Changed] Yeah. I don’t think the government should backstop those, those that, those decisions. But I, I think it’s going to be really tough because there is that mindset where it’s like, oh, I should be able to build wherever I want. And there’s, you
00:29:58 [Speaker Changed] Can build wherever you want. Well, but you just can’t insure wherever you want. And those are two very different things.
00:30:03 [Speaker Changed] Yeah. But people expect insurance and you can self-insure if you do cash, but Yeah.
00:30:08 [Speaker Changed] A a bank won’t finance you. Yeah. So I remember during Sandy, my wife and I went for a drive along Dune Road out in the Hamptons. And it was shocking to see what essentially is a barrier island that’s been there for hundreds of years. The ocean going straight through it. Oh wow. Like there are parts where you houses were floating away and oh my gosh, big gaps. It was crazy what had taken place there. And the Army Corp of Engineers come in and they rebuild it. The only thing that really has changed is that FEMA has mandated, I think you have to be 11 feet above sea level, above high tide. And so all these houses are built on stilts. And so you could kind of drive up to like the third or fourth step. And so by the time you get to the ground floor, you are relatively safe. If we get another sandy, the house at least shouldn’t wash away, but that doesn’t do any good if the rest of the barrier island washes away. Right. So should I know we have a shortage of housing, do we have a shortage of housing that’s ocean front?
00:31:10 [Speaker Changed] I mean, that’s a good question. It’s, it’s like not only ocean Front though, like insurers have pulled out of California too because
00:31:16 [Speaker Changed] Of wildfires, because of the
00:31:17 [Speaker Changed] Fires. Right. And they’ve pulled outta Louisiana for the same worries about of hurricanes they pulled outta Florida because of the issues with hurricanes too. And so I think it’s just like there’s an increasing climate risk and that’s across, across the board. Right.
00:31:33 [Speaker Changed] It, it’s one thing for politicians to argue about climate risk, but when insurers say, yeah, oh no, we’re not gonna cover that because we’ve done the numbers. This is an opinion. They’re uninsurable in that part of the world or that part of the country. It really raises some fascinating questions. Yeah.
00:31:49 [Speaker Changed] When Florida’s second biggest insurer is the government, it’s citizens insurance. And so that’s kind of the funny situation that we’re going to be in. You know, natural disasters are only in increasing just because of what’s happening to the environment, which is why green energy is so important. And I, I think that’ll just be a big reckoning moment where it’s like, you know, housing is so important, but we also have to have this huge conversation about how we’re going to insure these homes. Right. Because insurance has gone up 20% on average, I think, and since 2023 across the whole country. Right. Like property insurance is a huge burden for a lot of people right now. And that’s something that you have to consider with the broader conversation around what does it mean to own a home in the United States.
00:32:30 [Speaker Changed] Right. I I recall when my mom moved to Florida, you know, decades ago there was a fantastic arbitrage opportunity. The cost of living there was a fraction, real estate was a fraction. Now between taxes, problems with insurance and all the HOA fees, the homeowners association fees for condos and houses have gone up. Hmm. Because their costs have gone so much up. It doesn’t feel like that it’s a bargain anymore. Hey, maybe you get nicer weather when there’s not a hurricane. Yeah. But it doesn’t seem to be the same bargain.
00:33:01 [Speaker Changed] No, I I think Florida’s in a really unique spot as a state because they, there’s nothing that’s being done to like make the homes more insurable. Because one way that you could do that is to maybe invest in climate resilient infrastructure.
00:33:16 [Speaker Changed] No, no. It’s a hoax. We can’t waste money on that. Climate change is a
00:33:19 [Speaker Changed] Hoax. I know. It’s, it’s, it’s a And like, there’s other reasons why insurance has increased other than climate. Like you do have to talk about the reinsurance companies. They there, the people who insure the insurers, they’ve raised rates, you know, inflation has impacted the cost of everything rebuilding the homes. So like, there’s other reasons outside of climate change, but like, we can’t live in this state of denial. Not to like turn into this, into a climate change conversation. But,
00:33:41 [Speaker Changed] But it’s a, it’s a factor and it, I think it’s a more of a factor for your generation than my generation. Yeah. ’cause by the time climate change is really bad, we will be dead and buried for a long time. You’ll still be clear clearing up the mess that I like to blame my parents on. I I’m semi green, you’re probably much greener than me. I have a hybrid. I have an electric vehicle. I also, you know, fly and, and yeah. My house is probably too big relative to what I really need. Yeah. But that’s a very generational thing. You could see how, how Yeah. People’s carbon footprints really vary with, with age. So what happened with the egg situation in 2022? What did people get so wrong about that?
00:34:25 [Speaker Changed] Oh man. I, I think eggs were, it’s funny, like thinking back to it, I’m like, that was so long ago now, but it was, you know,
00:34:31 [Speaker Changed] It was a year or so ago, right. The one, so there was a chicken flu going around Yeah. That was killing Yeah. Millions of hens. Yeah. And people lost their mind when eggs were like seven, $8 a dozen. Yeah,
00:34:43 [Speaker Changed] Yeah. No, people freaked out. They were like, oh, you know, inflation is so bad. Everything is so bad. You know, the eggs, there’s price gouging going on, all this stuff. And it was really just kind of like a supply and demand misbalance because of the chicken flu.
00:34:56 [Speaker Changed] And there was price gouging going on, just not with eggs of all the things to point out to eggs was a legitimate, Hey, you kill 50 million chickens, guess what? Less eggs. Yeah.
00:35:05 [Speaker Changed] And I remember there being egg shortage at the grocery store. People were freaking out, but it all, I mean, it all calmed down like a month. Like it, it really normalized quite quickly. Yeah.
00:35:15 [Speaker Changed] That’s a pretty short gestation period for birds, right?
00:35:19 [Speaker Changed] Yeah. They lay a lot of eggs good for us, I guess when we eat them. But yeah, that was just kind of, I think the, a good example of, you know, people and how important they are for the economy because how people freak out ultimately does impact how everyone feels about things. Because that was kind of like mass hysteria in a really big way too. Like the egg situation. I mean, I remember some of my friends were texting me about it and they were like, Kylo, what’s going on with the eggs? Like economically speaking
00:35:45 [Speaker Changed] By the way that, that would take you a little 30 seconds to figure out on Google. I’m always surprised, like there, there’s an acronym that I haven’t seen recently on Twitter, but it used to be, let me Google that for you. L mgt let me fy And it’s just like, come on, why are you asking me such a readily accessible answer? Ask something more complicated. But people see higher egg prices, they lose their mind. Let’s talk about something else that I found fascinating from the book. People’s eyeballs are now dollar signs. Explain what you mean by that.
00:36:17 [Speaker Changed] Yeah, so this is something I talk a lot about in the presentations I give too, because the attention economy is really important. I think that our eyeballs are the most expensive things that we have because advertisers will pay so much to acquire them. And so I think that is both good and bad, right? Like it’s, it’s valuable as a consumer because you kind of are the product. And so a lot of products can be free, like the social networking sites, right. But I think there’s this general sense of exhaustion where people are like, I’m really sick of being advertised to, I know how expensive my attention is and I don’t wanna pay attention anymore. And so I think that’s kind of what we’re seeing with the attention economy is people are quite tired of it because their attention is so valuable.
00:36:57 [Speaker Changed] And, and you mentioned advertising. The younger guys in my office, half their wardrobe comes from Instagram. They see something they like click and, and buy it right From that it’s, it’s, it’s almost as if the advertisers are being removed from the middle. It’s, here’s an influencer wearing this. Oh, I like that. Bang. You’re, you’re purchasing it in real time.
00:37:20 [Speaker Changed] Yeah. Instagram shopping is extraordinarily powerful and that’s true. Is is people like, and that’s kind of I think the exhaustion too. Like you do see sort of this influencer pushback. I wrote about this at the end of last year, like the influencer apocalypse that could be upon us where people are very sick of like not knowing what’s an advertisement and what’s not. Right. But there’s also such power in the curation that influencers provide that. I think it’s more just people are like, I, I don’t wanna deal with it, but I think it’s really valuable and the influencers do get paid quite a bit of money to, to be essentially a billboard for these companies. Right.
00:37:55 [Speaker Changed] You know, it’s funny because you and I both do a lot of content marketing, which is a phrase I don’t love. But anybody who pays attention to someone who does that, it’s because, hey, I’ve been following them for a while. I understand their process. I trust their judgment. They’re not for sale. And if they’re telling me, go read this or go look at that, it’s because they’ve done it and they think it’s valuable. Like, is that gonna go away? Also, what, what point, how far down does the influencer apocalypse go?
00:38:25 [Speaker Changed] I don’t know. I I wrote
00:38:26 [Speaker Changed] He he asked self, interestingly.
00:38:28 [Speaker Changed] Yeah, right. Like, what do you think? Yeah, I wrote this piece in February of this year around trust and ’cause I think trust is a very expensive commodity too. And I think that trust is, you know, there’s not a lot of it going around. It’s very difficult to gain trust. And so I think people will still have, you know, people like you where they trust, they, they trust your judgment. They’re like, you knows what he is talking about. He’s not gonna try and peddle me a product. But like, once you do petal somebody a product,
00:38:55 [Speaker Changed] Now variable annuity is coming to you from Right. Once that happens,
00:38:59 [Speaker Changed] Once that happens, trust
00:39:00 [Speaker Changed] Is gone. You’re done, you’re done. So I, I’ve told this war story a million times, but it’s just so perfect. The same day during the lockdown, I wanna say it was like March or April early in 2020. No, maybe it was May or June, but you know, first half of the year, still early days, I get an email f from two different companies the same day. And one was Delta saying, Hey listen, we know you’re stuck at home and this sucks. And everybody’s really frustrated. One thing you don’t have to worry, worry about are your miles. They’re gonna last forever. And your silver Medallion status now platinum, oh, your silver Medallion status won’t expire, will extend it for another 18 months. You don’t have to worry about it once you’re ready to, once this ends and you’re ready to start traveling, Delta’s ready when you are.
00:39:47 And I’m like, holy cow, that’s fantastic. And then I read the next email from Starbucks and it was, Hey, your Starbucks points, which are nonsensical things that you get a free latte if you, you know, buy enough stuff, they’re gonna expire at the end of the month. So go out and use ’em right away. And it’s like, oh wow, are you kidding me? I don’t, I don’t know if it was the juxtaposition, but I know that since then I fly Delta a whole lot and I go to Starbucks a whole lot less. Mm. And I don’t know if the guy from Chipotle is gonna do anything about that, but it just seemed like such a petty, silly, panicky thing to do. Yeah. Like, wait, the, your cost of food is like the least expensive part of the real estate, the labor, everything you do. My dumb egg white whole wheat McMuffin. You’re gonna just take that because we’re in the middle of a pandemic. Yeah. Nobody’s going to your store. Wouldn’t, don’t you don’t you wanna encourage, I I guess that was their attempt. Use it or lose it. It it that lo I’m curious your thoughts on how does corporate America capture and maintain trust from people who, my generation is arguably more loyal to brands. Like my neighbor’s grown up, he’s a Ford guy, he’s a Chevy guy. I don’t, I don’t know if that, that sort of brand loyalty really let exists anymore.
00:41:13 [Speaker Changed] There’s a really good piece called Life After Lifestyle by Toby Shoren. And he kind of talks about this how like some parts of brands are influencing culture, but it’s not the traditional brands. So it would be brands like, you know how your office guys go on Instagram, it would be like Allbirds Allbirds is now a terrible stock, but Right. That’s just one example. Like where,
00:41:32 [Speaker Changed] Oh God, we’ve had those for like seven, eight years. Yeah. That’s like mid 2 20 10.
00:41:36 [Speaker Changed] But, but that they were, they were kind of like the pinnacle of like forming some part of culture and some sort of brand identity. But as you’re saying, people jumped immediately to the next thing. Right. So I don’t think it’s like cohesive brand stories anymore. It’s kind of like these brands that patch together to create like an archetype of a person. Right, right.
00:41:54 [Speaker Changed] Especially in fashion that changes so rapidly. Although, oh gosh, these aren’t Warby Parkers, but they seem to be doing pretty okay. Yeah. Like some companies develop a relationship. I love my Maui gyms or my AKA shoes. And at a certain point, maybe this is being an old man, but it’s just like you, you just know, just reorder the next one. Yeah. Oh, these shoes are ratty. All right. Bring leave ’em out at the beach house. Order another pair. Yeah. Get a new pair. The beach house. But I don’t know if that’s true for your generation.
00:42:24 [Speaker Changed] No, I, I think it is that, you know, you sort of follow the trends. There’s a really good book by Douglas Rushkoff called Present Shock, where he talks about how everything moves in a fashion timeline now. So like people just recycle, like they, they just move through stuff so quickly because
00:42:39 [Speaker Changed] Literally fast fashion is the, is is what, you know, shine and those companies are all about. Yeah, yeah.
00:42:44 [Speaker Changed] Trends move so fast and you wanna, you know, be on top because your whole life is, you know, on on screen,
00:42:50 [Speaker Changed] On screen to say the least. So what were you looking at that led you to the phrase vibe session?
00:42:58 [Speaker Changed] Yeah, I mean, I think for me it was really fortunate because I had all these comments. Like I was making these social media videos, so I’d get hundreds of comments a day of me talking about how GDP was going. Okay. And then people would be like, we’re in a recession, I’m upset. Like, what are you talking about? And so I was like, what’s going on? Like, why? Like the economic data’s okay, but all these people are extraordinarily upset. And so I was on a bike ride one day and I was thinking about that and it’s kind of like this disconnect of, of vibes, right? Like it’s this disconnect between consumer sentiment and economic data. And that gap is really the important part. The vibe session has taken a life of its own, which is really cool, but it’s been used incorrectly a couple of times.
00:43:37 [Speaker Changed] How do people use it incorrectly? They’ll
00:43:39 [Speaker Changed] Be like, people shouldn’t be feeling bad. It’s like, and that’s not the point of that word.
00:43:45 [Speaker Changed] That’s a generational thing, isn’t it? We, you and I were talking earlier, my buddy Dave, our, our friend, mutual friend Dave, Dave Nig was saying, Hey, people over 50 hate five session concept and people under seem to get it. What is it about the way it’s being misused that reflects a lack of comprehension
00:44:05 [Speaker Changed] From my experience of having conversations. ’cause a lot of people don’t like the word I got death threats over it. It was
00:44:12 [Speaker Changed] Ah, toxic social media. Right? But what is better than Twitter since Elmo took it over? Oh God,
00:44:18 [Speaker Changed] It’s a nightmare right now. It was lucky. This was two years ago. You know, just to make that word. ’cause I don’t know what the comments would be like currently, but we’re kind of seeing a real time social experiment with that. Like, it’s almost like four chan come back to life, but none of these people are anonymous.
00:44:35 [Speaker Changed] Well, plenty of ’em are anonymous and, and my guess is 30 40% of them are just bots.
00:44:41 [Speaker Changed] Yeah. Yeah. That’s the, the foreign interference is a yeah. Really big thing.
00:44:45 [Speaker Changed] Some domestic, but a lot of China, North Korea, Russia, Russia elsewhere for sure. Russia, arguably I ran, although I I I’m not, not as convinced of, of that. Yeah. So you coined this phrase June, 2022, right? By coincidence, CPI inflation peaked at 9% in June, 2022. How much of vibe session was just utter frustration with rapidly rising inflation?
00:45:14 [Speaker Changed] A lot of it, yeah. So the way that I talk about vibe session now, you know, tears years later, is that it is an element of structural affordability, right? Like inflation is really high, even with inflation going down, that doesn’t mean the prices are going down. Housing is unaffordable as we talked about. Elder care is extraordinarily unaffordable. Childcare costs are up 32% since 2019. So like, there’s a structural affordability that is being captured in people’s vibes that doesn’t necessarily show up in the broader economic data. Like, you don’t look at GDP and say, okay, people can’t afford to put their mom in a nursing home. And there’s also media headlines, like the media has become really negative sentiment has, you know, decreased over time too. And so I think it’s those two things where it is unaffordable and then also there’s a lot of stories about things being really bad and that is creating a obsession.
00:46:09 [Speaker Changed] So it’s interesting you mentioned sentiment. I I, I did a blog post around the same time and I was kind of fascinated that the University of Michigan sentiment survey was lower than the pandemic lower than the financial crisis lower than September 11th. Yeah. Lower than the.com implosion. That seemed to be wildly inappropriate. What do you, what else do you think factored into that disconnect? Well,
00:46:38 [Speaker Changed] I don’t know if you saw the Harris Guardian poll that like a lot, God, I can’t remember the exact number, but a number that is way too high percentage of people think that now is worse than the Great Depression. And so I, I think that that’s kind of what’s going on is people are like looking at circumstances and as we were talking about earlier, maybe not having context for what’s happening right now. Like right now we’re not in a great depression. It’s unaffordable,
00:47:04 [Speaker Changed] But we’re not, we’re not even in a recession.
00:47:06 [Speaker Changed] We’re not even in a recession.
00:47:07 [Speaker Changed] Arguably you were expanding two and a half, 3%. Yeah. Somewhere in that range in the third or fourth quarters of, of 2024. So I, I have to ask you this question. I, I, I forgot I looked up the quote. The, the future is here, it’s just not evenly distributed Yeah. By William Gibson. How much of what you describe vibe session is about the abundance of our economies here. It’s also not evenly distributed. Yeah. I, I’m old enough to recall that the baby boomers are in trouble. They’re never gonna pay the wealthiest generation in history. Everybody got that wrong or a lot of people got that wrong. We see Gen X doing well, we see Gen Z kind of coming up a little bit and now they’re a new generation that’s calling Gen Alpha or something like that. Yeah. So, so how does the distribution of wealth backend loaded to the oldest people who have been working and saving and investing the longest, how does that impact the concept of vibe session?
00:48:11 [Speaker Changed] Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, there’s, so there’s a couple of things there, right? Like, there’s a saying where America has a lot of wealth, but not a lot of prosperity. And I think that’s kind of the situation where a lot of people have a lot of money and a lot of assets, but that is not evenly distributed as, as you said. And I think also because people are living longer and, you know, staying in jobs longer, taking longer to retire, there isn’t maybe as up as much upward mobility as there used to be. Well,
00:48:40 [Speaker Changed] You people hurry up and die. No. Is that I’m not, is that what’s the problem here?
00:48:44 [Speaker Changed] No, I, I just, it isn’t, it’s, I don’t think people should die. But it is interesting because there’s, I, I need to do more work on this, but there’s almost kind of like a leadership slash mentorship crisis where it seems like
00:48:59 [Speaker Changed] Certainly with remote work is giantly problematic. Yeah,
00:49:03 [Speaker Changed] Absolutely. Because like, how do you train up the next generation if you’re not with them? And also there is an element of resistance to training up the next generation, I think because there’s elements of ageism, like the older people don’t wanna be pushed out of their jobs, right. And they feel like that’s happening. And it’s, it’s tough within, like, within the generations too. Like I think it’s 43% of baby boomers have no retirement savings and then some of ’em have, you know, a, a
00:49:28 [Speaker Changed] Bunch a ton, right? It’s not evenly distributed. No doubt about
00:49:30 [Speaker Changed] That. Yeah. And so I, I think that’s totally true. ’cause in the US we are very much a in all or nothing society. Like you either figure it out or you don’t. Right. And there’s nobody who’s going to help you.
00:49:41 [Speaker Changed] So you’re hinting with the mentorship issue, you’re hinting at something vibe session related, which is, I mean, let’s talk about the 800 pound gorilla in the room. How big an impact was the pandemic, the lockdown being forced to work remotely, not being able to have the sort of social interaction that my generation took for granted when I was your age. How big of an impact was that mess on? And, and let’s be blunt, the pandemic was not well handled by the previous administration. You can argue that at least they got the vaccine out and it was somewhat better handled by the, the next administration, although both of them contributed cares, act one cares, act two and Cares Act three, that massive fiscal stimulus is a big part of the inflation spike. Yeah. How much did the pandemic contribute to vibe, obsession feelings?
00:50:37 [Speaker Changed] I, I think a lot. Yeah. I think, you know, to the point of social interactions, like I graduated basically into the pandemic and I still don’t know how to like talk in adult spaces, right? Right. So I think that’s a definitely a big part of it is like the lack of social interaction and then too, like a lot of people ended up just consuming content all day long. Right. And, and what goes viral as you know on social media is dor stuff, right? And so I think that’s a big thing is like, people were consuming because we were stuck inside. It was extraordinarily scary. Nobody knew what was happening. And you had people telling you that the world is ending and you’re like, okay, yeah, that makes sense to me. And you just kind of keep on consuming that info even after things get better,
00:51:21 [Speaker Changed] Right? That that lack of information hygiene is really important. Here’s another generational difference, and I want to ask you how this contributed to the vibe session. So people, I don’t know, over 50, maybe even over 40, like that, that were all already in their teens or twenties when the internet came about, the internet has always been a room in the house we would visit, yeah. Oh, I’m gonna go online for a while. Whereas the 40 and under generation, the internet has always been there. Is that true? 40 and under, let’s say 30 and under, certainly since the mid nineties. And they exist in the internet. It it, it’s not like a separate thing. It’s part of their virtual reality. So it raises the question, what’s the impact of social media on that generation’s self-identity there? The, at least a decade ago, we’re so focused on likes and social approval and you mentioned going viral. Does that lead them to be less data driven, less, more, more embracing of these subjective measures of reality,
00:52:29 [Speaker Changed] Maybe? Yeah. That’s interesting. I think definitely. Yeah. Like the internet is something that, it’s like a room that you go into in your head, right? Right. Like, you are not with other people if you’re on your phone, even if you’re around them, right? And so I think that’s something that we’re like just sort starting to grapple with. I’ve noticed it within myself where it’s like, once I start scrolling, I’m not in the room with my friends, right? Like I’m in the room on Twitter. And so I think that’s a big part of it too, where you do everything does end up being influenced by feelings versus like quantitative measures. And you kind of know how it feels in your head and you kind of extrapolate that out into the world beyond you. And so maybe we do have a more subjective generation that is like, well, this is how I feel about stuff because look how feelings perform on the internet.
00:53:14 [Speaker Changed] Right? And, and listen, social media has perfected the algorithm for outrage because outrage increases engagement even as it slowly eats away like a cancer society from the inside. You know, I, I have mixed feelings on the death of Twitter as it slowly circles the drain, you think
00:53:35 [Speaker Changed] It’s gonna die?
00:53:36 [Speaker Changed] I I think it’s dead already. Really? It, so last, last summer, not 24, 23. Yeah. I lost, I, I got hacked. I call him Elmo, but Elmo decided to make you pay for two-factor authentication, which is standard security practices. It used to come with it. And I came home from dinner Saturday night. Apparently you could send an email requesting a change of password and those idiots would just do it. Like if you don’t object to it in 60 minutes, that’s something silly. So, so that’s how I lost my Twitter account. And fortunately the folks here helped me get it back. It only took three months. Wow. And again, Dave Tigan and I, I was like, lamenting this and he’s like, you’re not, you’re not missing anything. It’s died already. This is a year ago. And I’m genuinely shocked at how the engagement has gone down. Yeah.
00:54:26 How the interaction and half the people I know IRL I’ve met on Twitter over the past 15 years ago. It, it’s so ter and there’s nothing else has come along that quite matches it. Just that. So, so now I’m pretty much down to just focusing on my lists at least. It used to be with your list, you weren’t seeing a lot of other junk Yeah. That even that’s starting to get corrupted. Yeah. ’cause I know I have a list on behavioral finance and a list on, on charts and markets and economics and a list on automobiles and a list on travel and a list on, I have all these lists and I used to be able to just go, you know what, I’m just gonna spend some time learning about, you know, the hills of, of southern Spain and you could do that. And now everything is just intruded with craziness and, and politics. But it, it brings, I wanna bring this back to the vibe session question. So we’ve talked about the pandemic, we’ve talked about inflation as a driver of the vibe session. How much of this is driven by social media? How much of this is that dor loop of people who have been wrong since the financial crisis and yet still have a big
00:55:47 [Speaker Changed] Following? Yeah, no, it’s, it’s something I combat all the time with the stuff that I post on Instagram and TikTok, because that’s what goes viral is like, not the truth, but, but big scary things. And that’s a huge problem on Twitter as we both know. And so I think it is definitely an issue because like, you know, we have these animal brains and they’re trying to protect us. And so they’re like, you know, pay attention to the big scary thing. And that’s always going to be a doomers story, right? Right. Like, nobody really wants to hear, okay, the economy’s going okay. It’s like, no, the economy’s going crazy and you’re in a lot of trouble. Like, that’s what you’re gonna end up paying attention to. And so I, I think totally the vibe session has been heavily influenced by social media. Even when I was writing that initial piece, I reached out to a lot of people in my comment section who had been commenting that they were like not feeling good and that they were very worried. And there’s of course like true economic pain out there, but a lot of these people are like, oh, I read an article that things are not okay. Right.
00:56:45 [Speaker Changed] And what’s the track record of that paper on that author? How, how, why do you assume that? Because it was published. It’s accurate. I’m always, yeah. I spend a lot of time fending off nonsense that clients read and say, Hey, you know, New York stock exchange margin debt is at record highs. So is the New York Stock Exchange look at the two as as long as you’re, it’s at all time highs. Yeah. Margin debt is also gonna be at all time highs. Why is that a problem? Back to denominator blindness, you gotta look at the broader context and yet people don’t seem to ask those questions.
00:57:19 [Speaker Changed] Do you think that’s an element of media literacy?
00:57:22 [Speaker Changed] There’s some of that. It’s also you, you brought up, you know, our, our lizard brains Yeah. Things that are good are not an existential threat. So, all right. It’s great things that are bad. Oh my goodness, this can end. Hey, I’m here to propagate my genetic lineage. Yeah. If, if this threatens that, you know, we we’re hardwired to be classic risk aversion, it’s Yeah. Losses feel twice as bad as gains because losses are an existential threat. Yeah,
00:57:54 [Speaker Changed] Absolutely. I, I was reading this really interesting article about the, you know, propagating the genetic lineage thing because I’m really interested in the dating apps and how they’re sort of influencing the mindset of the younger generation around that. And this, this guy, he is a sociologist and he’s arguing that our brains are actually switching away from the desire to repopulate and they’re more so becoming focused on the individual. And that’s maybe why we’re having more and more of a fertility crisis.
00:58:21 [Speaker Changed] Isn’t that a global issue? Oh yeah. Or are you seeing a fertility crisis around the world across the board? You mentioned the quant who works in my shop? Nick Ma, Julie. Yes. Yeah, he did some stuff years ago. Looks scraping the data from the apps. You should dig that up. I remember it was like just insane the sort of numbers he, he pulled out of that. I think I’m hard pressed to imagine that five years or 10 years of social media are gonna undo 2 million years of, of evolutionary biology. Maybe I’m wrong, but I, is this something that it’s just a novel theory? Or are you fighting against a lot of wetware and, and hardwired Yeah. Aspects of the human experience.
00:59:03 [Speaker Changed] Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s, it’s definitely like paper covering, right. The deeper, you know, need to do that because I do think that’s a genetic desire, but it is just interesting. Yeah. And like, maybe that’s like why the vibes are disconnected, right? Like why you see these high rates of depression, anxiety, et cetera. You know, whenever you talk about society at large, you’re always pulling theories and Right. There’s always gaps in them. But I think it’s just interesting to think about like, you know, what is the impact of dating apps? What is the impact of being on social media and seeing, you know, not real faces but edited faces, right? Like how does that impact how we actually exist in the real world and ultimately how we feel about everything that we’re doing and the economy at large.
00:59:42 [Speaker Changed] Well, well we know that kids have a much higher depression rate than they used to. Yeah. Ever since, you know, the iPhone came out. Yeah. And all the apps it, so it’s having a real effect. All right. Which leads to my last vibe session question, which is there were a number of economists who thought a vibe session would be a self-fulfilling prophecy and that we would end up a negative sentiment would end up driving recession. That didn’t happen. Why?
01:00:10 [Speaker Changed] Yeah. That, that was good. That was actually the title of the original piece. You know, vibe session self, a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I, I don’t think it ended up happening because the economic data has been so strong. Like the government is spending a lot of money, right. And that’s going to help prop up GDP and that’s going to help prop up the consumer. The consumer had an incredible savings buffer post covid and we did see a real wage gains. And so you had a resilient consumer who is ready to spend, especially on services. And so I think that helped us avoid a recession as we had a government who’s, you know, spending a lot of money. And then we had a consumer that up until recently has been quite strong in a labor market that was incredibly strong. We’re seeing weakness in that now, but I think that’s why we were able to avoid the self-fulfilling prophecy aspect of it.
01:00:54 [Speaker Changed] Are we really seeing weakness or are we just seeing less strength than we did before? We’re
01:00:58 [Speaker Changed] Seeing that’s, that’s a good point. It’s more lukewarm versus hot. Yeah.
01:01:01 [Speaker Changed] Right. And and the crazy thing, I think people, so you talk about the abundance mindset earlier. There are a couple of areas in the economy that scarcity is taken. So we don’t have enough single family homes. Yeah. There aren’t enough laborers. We’ve reduced the number of, of legal immigrants since nine 11. We lost a whole bunch of people to CO we launched, we have removed a whole bunch of people from the labor force through disability, including long COVID. Arguably we’re short two or 3 million houses. We’re short a few million automobiles due to the lag in ramping up semiconductor production. And we’re also short, I don’t know, pick a number. 1, 2, 3, 4 million laborers out of a labor pool of 162 million people. So we have all this abundance and yet at the same time there’s scarcity in very specific areas.
01:01:54 [Speaker Changed] Yeah, absolutely. And the abundance mindset is like, we can have all these things in great numbers and like, it doesn’t have to be this issue where there’s not enough of things. And that creates so much wording and concern for people. But yeah, I think that’s kind of the issue across the board is we don’t have enough and yet we have so much money as a country. Right.
01:02:13 [Speaker Changed] And so wealth but not prosperity. Exactly. I love that dichotomy where if you go to, I remember remember being in Europe right during the.com implosion and everybody was so stressed out in Manhattan, you could feel like, Hey, I get fired, I’m gonna lose my health insurance. What’s gonna happen if my kid needs a operation? You go to Europe and they’re in the cafes having coffee and they’re smoking clove cigarettes and nobody really seems to be bent outta shape that hey, the technology is imploding 80%, they’re all kind of just grooving life. Yeah. It’s a very different mindset where the focus isn’t on wealth, but it’s on prosperity. Yeah. It, it, it, are there that much geographic differences? Is the United States that unique compared to the rest of the world?
01:03:01 [Speaker Changed] I don’t, I mean I think the, there’s actually a big conversation kind of happening around this right now, like why the United States sort of does this to itself. And I, I think the US has these elements of workaholics. Like we, we love the work and Europe maybe doesn’t, but yeah, we’ve chosen maybe not to spend so much on, on the social aspect of it. And you do see consequences of that. Like I think having a social safety net for people is a really good buffer. Like once you have a sense of security, there’s kind of a lot that you can achieve.
01:03:33 [Speaker Changed] A lot less stress also. Yeah, absolutely. Although, although arguably we don’t have that safety net. We don’t And we’ve achieved a, I think the stress is what has driven us.
01:03:42 [Speaker Changed] Yeah. Because we’re, we know that we have to have a safety net.
01:03:45 [Speaker Changed] You better get off your and go do something otherwise no one’s feeding you Good luck being homeless. Oh gosh. Which kind of is really about, about the Wall Street bets and all the crypto bros that have fun being poor. Yeah. Was such an interesting basic approach to No, no, you gotta go do something. Even if it’s something like NFTs or crypto, figure something out. Yeah. That’s a uniquely American proposition.
01:04:09 [Speaker Changed] Yeah, absolutely. ’cause there’s nobody to catch you. Right. And so like, you have to go invest in Dogecoin and that’s like now we have this gambling issue as a society like sports gambling.
01:04:20 [Speaker Changed] Oh, unbelievable. Oh
01:04:21 [Speaker Changed] Gosh. It’s awful. Yeah. And it is, I really do believe it’s because we don’t have a safety net for people. And so they’re like, I don’t know what to do. I’ll just gamble my money.
01:04:29 [Speaker Changed] That makes sense. Yeah. Usually if I don’t know what to do, I, I I’ll go watch YouTube, but hey, whatever, whatever you have to do. So the vibe session did not become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I have to do a compare and contrast with something you wrote in the book. Inflation is entirely dependent on what people expect to happen. I disagree, but I want you to explain why you think that is.
01:04:53 [Speaker Changed] Yeah. So this is definitely an unpopular opinion. Jerome Powell actually talked about this in his Jackson Hole speech. You know, inflation expectations have been tempered so people don’t expect as much inflation as it used to. And that’ll help the Fed, you know, so let
01:05:07 [Speaker Changed] Tap on it. So lemme just, lemme just stop you right there. So after inflation has fallen from 9% to 2%, their expectations go down. That sounds quite backwards looking and lagging. Let me also point out that when inflation was about to spike up in 2001, everybody’s forward inflation expectations were pretty low. Isn’t this like asking people what their risk tolerance is? Aren’t you just getting whatever happened over the past six to 12 months?
01:05:35 [Speaker Changed] Yeah, usually. But I, I think the, the reason I said that in the book was like the expectations do matter and they’ll ultimately influence how the Federal Reserve makes decisions.
01:05:45 [Speaker Changed] I mean, Jerome Powell a hundred percent agrees with that. I just think he’s wrong
01:05:48 [Speaker Changed] Because you think it’s what? Like what, like you think inflation
01:05:51 [Speaker Changed] Is. I think people don’t know what the hell they think. They certainly don’t know what they’re gonna do. You ask them a question they don’t know. And because of the American educational experience where we’re tested within inches of our lives, hey, no penalties for filling in that bubble on your multiple choice. So people, nobody likes to say, I don’t know. So here’s a made up answer I guess. Go away. I can, I could talk about this stuff with you forever, but we have a hard stop. So I, I have to get to to my favorite questions that I ask all of my guests. Starting with what’s keeping you entertained these days? What, what are you listening to on podcasts or watching on Netflix, Amazon, Disney, what, whatever you like.
01:06:33 [Speaker Changed] Yeah. So I really like the podcast Philosophize this,
01:06:38 [Speaker Changed] Philosophize
01:06:39 [Speaker Changed] This, yeah. That’s one of my favorite podcasts. It’s by Steven West and he talks all about the different schools of philosophy. It goes back to the very beginning and it’s, it’s just phenomenal. And he walks you through everything and all the different schools of thought. And I, I think he does a fantastic job. And then there’s this series called Land of the Giants by Vox. Have you heard of
01:07:02 [Speaker Changed]
01:07:03 [Speaker Changed]
01:07:07 [Speaker Changed] Times and now he’s at Fox, I
01:07:11 [Speaker Changed]
01:07:13 [Speaker Changed]
01:07:16 [Speaker Changed]
01:07:16 [Speaker Changed]
01:07:19 [Speaker Changed]
They, they talk about like delivery apps, they talk about dating apps. They, they talk about Twitter and what happened with Twitter. And so I’ve really enjoyed that. And then I’ve been listening. I listen to a ton of audio books ’cause I, I’m on a, I bike a lot and so I’ll listen to a book on the bike and blood in the machine is really good. It’s talking. That
01:07:40 [Speaker Changed] Sounds so familiar.
01:07:41 [Speaker Changed] Oh, I can’t remember at the author’s name.
01:07:44 [Speaker Changed] So I’m gonna get to specific books. We’ll circle. Okay, sorry. Sorry. So hold on that for a second. Okay. So those are all podcasts. Any, any video, anything you watch on video?
01:07:54 [Speaker Changed] Like YouTube stuff,
01:07:56 [Speaker Changed] YouTube, Netflix, whatever. Oh,
01:07:58 [Speaker Changed] I don’t watch a ton of Netflix. I, I, I do listen to a lot of podcasts. And then on YouTube I’ve been listening to Eddie Burback. Have you heard of him? No. He’s kind of like a commentator YouTube guy. But he did this thing on AI recently. He did this funny video where he visited all the rainforest cafes in the country and he’s just a very good producer. And I really enjoy thinking
01:08:24 [Speaker Changed] About how many Rainforest cafes are there in the co There’s one like, didn’t that come out like 20 year, 25 years ago? Rainforest Cafe Wasn’t that Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwartz. And there, it wasn’t like a crazy collection. What I’m trying
01:08:36 [Speaker Changed] To like they teamed up.
That? I’ve heard of that, yes.
Yeah, Peter Kafka has done a couple of them, but like he, he
Was at business week for a long time and then I think it was briefly at the
Think. Yeah, I think so. I think that was his path.
Or unless it was backwards times business week, but whatever. Yeah. Like
He, he know. Yeah, he’s a, he’s a good economic writer
And he’s a great podcaster. Oh really? Yeah. I really enjoyed his, his dives.
01:08:38 [Speaker Changed] So after Planet Hollywood I, I, I don’t remember, that’s why I’m getting that wrong. I know that they were involved, some people were involved in Planet Hollywood and a subset of those people did Rainforest Cafe. I could be completely wrong about that,
01:08:52 [Speaker Changed] I don’t know. But yeah, he, he, he walks, I don’t know, maybe it’s not every,
01:08:55 [Speaker Changed] Are there a lot of these left?
01:08:57 [Speaker Changed] Yeah, there are. Well at least one in every state. I think so.
01:09:01 [Speaker Changed] It’s good. Huh? That’s crazy. I’m gonna share a channel with you ’cause you brought up Mass Transit. Yeah. There is a guy, he’s a Canadian, he moved to Amsterdam and he has a channel called just not just Bikes. Just Bikes. Yeah. And I’m addicted to, first of all, I love Amsterdam. It just barely edged out. Paris is my favorite city. But the whole concept of hey, what you do with your mass transit affects everything from wealth and in income and inequality to quality of life and why people in countries with better mass transits have higher happiness quotient and better health outcomes. And yeah. It’s crazy how it just cascades. Yeah. After higher education, that seems to be the next most important thing. Do you
01:09:45 [Speaker Changed] Know that the average car in the United States has more space for itself than the average person does? Yeah,
01:09:51 [Speaker Changed] Absolutely. Yeah. Look, just look at all the plus to say nothing of the parking spots. Gosh. That,
01:09:56 [Speaker Changed] Have you read Pave Paradise? No. Oh, it’s about parking and it’s great.
01:10:01 [Speaker Changed] So, so let’s get to your favorite books. No, let’s talk Pave Parking. Oh yeah. Pave Paradise. Pave Paradise About Parking. What else
01:10:07 [Speaker Changed] Do do you have? Yeah, it’s all about parking blood in the machine, which can, it’s this gorgeous book and he talks about the Luddites and he goes into deep detail and like talks about what it was like in obviously a very hard time, but what it looks like for their lives to be impacted by the introduction of like the spinning machine, right. And how AI is like, kind of comparing to that. And it’s just, it’s really good historical writing. And
01:10:30 [Speaker Changed] I, I just saw a research report this morning. I dunno who put it out. This is the problem with being a, a consumer of just too much junk. So much stuff that AI is gonna be a net positive. Oh, I know it was Torsten Slack looked at unemployment rates in Phil, the Philippines and somewhere else that a lot of, a lot of call centers and a lot of outsource stuff. And despite the introduction of ai, none of these places have seen an uptick in unemployment yet. Oh. Just kind of fascinating. Yeah. Like you would think that’s, that’s the canary in the coal mine. Right.
01:11:02 [Speaker Changed] And I think like the way that a lot of people are thinking about ai, not this author of Blood in the Machine, but as a compliment to the human laborer where it’s like that’s, it’s not something that places you, but something that, that enhances
01:11:13 [Speaker Changed] An augmentation.
01:11:14 [Speaker Changed] Absolutely. Yeah. I think I’ve, I’ve seen AI be an augmentation in my
01:11:17 [Speaker Changed] Life. A hundred percent. Yeah. Every time I do do the prep work for this, the last thing I do is, is enter into perplexity and chat GBT and see what comes up. It’s still is occasionally wrong. Yeah. I I you have to be very aware that it’s not trustworthy, but it’s getting a little better all the time. Yeah. And, and every now and then it’ll uncover a nugget that Yeah. We miss. And it’s, I have a research team. It’s not just me. And even still those deep dives will pull, pull stuff out. So Pave Paradise, blend the machine. Any other books you wanna
01:11:49 [Speaker Changed] Read? Oh gosh, yeah. I, I read a ton because I’m on the bike a lot, but I, I, I read this book about the founder of Glossier, which was really interesting. Or Glossier, I think it’s
01:11:59 [Speaker Changed] The water company.
01:12:00 [Speaker Changed] Glossier? It’s the makeup company. Oh,
01:12:02 [Speaker Changed] The makeup company?
01:12:03 [Speaker Changed] Yeah. Yeah. So it’s about that, that founder and like what it was like for her to build a makeup company. And that was quite good. I read a lot of fiction. So right now
01:12:13 [Speaker Changed] Those first three are all nonfiction you just
01:12:15 [Speaker Changed] Gave me. Yeah.
01:12:17 [Speaker Changed] So give, all right, so that’s three nonfiction. Give us three fiction that you’re enjoying.
01:12:21 [Speaker Changed] I I’m reading a gentleman in Moscow right now. Have you read that? I
01:12:25 [Speaker Changed] Have it on my list forever. It’s always in my queue. I never get to it. It’s
01:12:28 [Speaker Changed] Like, so I’m, I’m probably a quarter of the way through it and it’s kind of a lot of dialogue, which I don’t always enjoy. Like I really love world building and fiction novels like Lord of the Rings, et
01:12:39 [Speaker Changed] Cetera. Are you a sci-fi or fantasy? I mean obviously Lord of the Rings is a classic, but it like
01:12:43 [Speaker Changed] Kind kind of, it’s more of, I like settings to be very clear so I can have it in my head as a visual. I don’t know if that makes sense. But
01:12:53 [Speaker Changed] CJ Shera was this and you could tell she was a woman ’cause it’s initials. ’cause when she was writing back in the sixties and seventies, you had to hide that. She has, if you like, world building, go check out Pride of Shamu. C-H-A-N-U-R. Okay.
01:13:08 [Speaker Changed] Pride of sha.
01:13:09 [Speaker Changed] If you’re like 20 pages into it and you’re not deeply in love, just throw it away. Okay. And you’re done. Yeah. But I may just have sent you down a rabbit hole that will
01:13:18 [Speaker Changed] Have a That’s all right. Yeah.
01:13:19 [Speaker Changed] And she’s just this amazing builder of worlds. That’s wonderful. That, that very few writers, like I just remember of all the sci-fi stuff I went through as a kid. Yeah. She just Totally, alright, so, so gentleman in Moscow, give us two more.
01:13:37 [Speaker Changed] I’m reading, I read Olive by, I can’t remember her name, but it, it got turned into a TV show. But it’s kind of really interesting because it’s about, and she has a sequel too called Olive Again. And it’s about this woman who just lives in this little town and she has all these little stories that surround this woman and all the stories interweave really beautifully. And I really like that kind of like time bending stuff.
01:13:59 [Speaker Changed] Elizabeth Strout Elizabeth,
01:14:01 [Speaker Changed] Thank you. Right. And then I,
01:14:03 [Speaker Changed] Google makes the universe of information. We, we don’t know anything but we’re knowledge adjacent. Yeah. Yeah. And there it is.
01:14:10 [Speaker Changed] Let me Google that.
01:14:10 [Speaker Changed] Oh wait, olive, olive again. She has too Emma Gannon or Ala or Elizabeth Strout. Those are,
01:14:18 [Speaker Changed] It’s Elizabeth Strout.
01:14:19 [Speaker Changed] Okay. Yeah. There’s another book called Olive by Emma Gannon.
01:14:23 [Speaker Changed] No,
01:14:23 [Speaker Changed] It’s from 2021. No,
01:14:25 [Speaker Changed] It’s Strout. Okay.
01:14:26 Yeah. And then I read Trust by Hernand Diaz. Have you read that? No. Oh, you should. It’s, it’s all about what this guy, it’s, I think it’s a fabrication, but it’s this guy that lived during the Great Depression and it’s actually three stories interwoven into one. And so you get the, like the fictionalized version of this guy’s life and then that guy becomes the second part of the book and we get to hear his actual story. Not one that’s like fabricated by this author. And then you get another part of the book that goes a little bit deeper into his wife’s life. Oh really? And so it’s, it’s really, it’s, I think I won Pulitzer. It’s, it’s quite,
01:15:04 [Speaker Changed] Yeah. I’m looking at it right now. Yeah. Gold surprise winner. Yeah.
01:15:06 [Speaker Changed] I, I love when authors are like
01:15:09 [Speaker Changed] 20, 23. That was last year. Yeah.
01:15:11 [Speaker Changed] It’s, it’s really
01:15:12 [Speaker Changed] Good. I don’t understand. The hardcover and the paperback are now the same price. Oh really? This is a new
01:15:17 [Speaker Changed] Books are tough, tough
01:15:19 [Speaker Changed] Industry. I guess one of the New York Times a hundred best books of the 21st century. Yeah.
01:15:24 [Speaker Changed] It’s, it’s quite good.
01:15:25 [Speaker Changed] As long as they’ve read every book in the 21st century so they can make an informed evaluation like that. It’s a big claim. I’m down with that. Yeah, I know. It’s again, more stupid media stuff for the modern era. So that’s a great list of books right there. Yeah. I skipped the question to get to books that I have to ask you. Sure. But I’m, I’m not sure if you’re gonna have a good answer, which is, oh, who were your mentors who helped shape your career?
01:15:52 [Speaker Changed] Oh, because what I said about the mentor
01:15:53 [Speaker Changed] Thing. Well I know Jim O’Shaughnessy is obviously a big influence
01:15:57 [Speaker Changed] Give, oh gosh. I’ve had so many people, like I could, we’d be here all day if I listed everybody.
01:16:01 [Speaker Changed] Give us, give us one or two. So
01:16:02 [Speaker Changed] The two people that have probably been the most influential because they believed in me before I did, was my two professors in college, Dr. Chachi and Dr. Lebinski. I basically would go to them and be like, I wanna start a club. I wanna do research around the s and p 500. I wanna, you know, go travel to this conference. And they’d be like, alright, good. And they would just help me kind of achieve all of these dreams that I had. Huh. And so they were phenomenal. Like I remember I was applying to jobs and I wanted to do a PhD ’cause I really wanted to teach. And Dr. Chachi was like, no, you should go work in in industry for a little bit and then you can go and get your PhD. And so it was just kind of like that really tailored advice and support. And they were probably the most important people to me during my college time.
01:16:47 [Speaker Changed] You know that, that’s really interesting. Angus Deaton, who is the British economist who won the Nobel Prize and I think he’s teaching, is he teaching at Princeton? Yeah. He is teaching at Princeton. And he said you could look across a thousand different factors and nothing impacts your life as much as a higher education. Yeah. We, we see it in wealth inequality, income inequality, health outcomes, whether you go to jail, whether you get divorced, like all these social things that you would think are unrelated. Your, your self-described happiness quotient, like deep, deep down the rabbit hole. And consistently there is a, a gap between, between what we see on the have a ho college education and don’t, it’s pretty amazing. Well,
01:17:36 [Speaker Changed] I mean it’s kind of four, like I worked three jobs during college, but like, it’s, it’s four years to sort of figure yourself out. And I actually think that’s really important. ’cause you learn how to socialize, you learn how to learn, you get tested. But in an environment where like if you fail, it’s okay most of the time. Like if you fail out of college, it’s not okay, but you kind of have the chance to make safe mistakes is what I would call it. And I Is
01:18:01 [Speaker Changed] That still true today with with Oh, I don’t, it seems like some of the campuses, some of that has kind of become more challenging. Well, every
01:18:07 [Speaker Changed] Yeah. From a political angle. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think
01:18:12 [Speaker Changed] Too the cost, but it should, but what you are describing should be true. It should be a place where you can make mistakes.
01:18:17 [Speaker Changed] I think so I graduated in 2019 and I think I was the last year to have that. I, I do because of the pandemic and because I, I just like, I, the scholarship package that I got and the reason that I went to Western Kentucky, it was a full ride and I was paid to go to school and there’s nothing like that. Sure. Unless you’re like a top, top, top student. And I was a good student, but it was an in-state school. And so I had all these opportunities because I was able to have a full ride. Right. And I, I just don’t think that’s,
01:18:48 [Speaker Changed] Where else did you consider going besides in-State? Oh,
01:18:51 [Speaker Changed] Well, Vanderbilt, I wanted to stay close to my family. So Vanderbilt’s, which was in Tennessee, I was in Kentucky. I was looking at Butler up in Indiana, Notre Dame. Yeah. Like just kind of
01:19:00 [Speaker Changed] Big schools, little schools both. Yeah. You looked at everything. Yeah.
01:19:04 [Speaker Changed] I wanted like a, a good school. Right. Because I, I did wanna
01:19:07 [Speaker Changed] Leave Kentucky. Well, none of these are bad schools. You’re talking about all good or better schools.
01:19:11 [Speaker Changed] Yes. Yeah. But like, I wanted to leave Kentucky and the only way I knew how to get out was like through education. And so that’s why I was looking at the schools. But I ended up staying in Western Kentucky because the scholarship and it turned out to be an incredible experience. Huh.
01:19:26 [Speaker Changed] To say, to say the very least. And our final two questions. What sort of advice would you give to a recent college grad interested in a career in either finance or investing education?
01:19:39 [Speaker Changed] So I think for me, and this is the advice I give when people ask, is like to read everything and to figure out what you like to read and then try to challenge yourself to explain it, to write about it, to learn about it as deeply as you can. And I think the only way that you actually understand stuff is if you can explain it simply. And so that’s what I’d recommend is just be a consumer ask questions. You’d be surprised how many people are willing to just take 30 minutes to chat with you and just ask for help as much as you can. But yeah, just absorb as much as possible, but then make sure you’re digesting it by repeating it back to yourself, whether through writing videos, et cetera.
01:20:15 [Speaker Changed] And, and our final question comes with a little bit of a caveat. So I always share the last five questions, partly because they require a little recall with our guests in advance. And I asked you, what do you know about the world of investing today that you wish you knew 25 years ago and you hilariously wrote back 25 years ago? I was one. Don’t bite the cat. I mean, I think that’s so funny. I don’t know if you said that or Dave Ick said that in our, our back and forth. I shared your answer with him and he think, I think he said, don’t bite the cat. Yeah, yeah. But what do you know today that might’ve been helpful earlier in your career?
01:20:55 [Speaker Changed] I, I think for me, there’s so many facets to finance. Like I was very much like, oh, there’s one thing I can do and it’s portfolio management, but there’s so much that you can do education, you can look into IRA space as you all do. You can do media. Like there’s just, and there’s so many different worlds within finance, commodities, fixed income, equities. It’s really massive. And so I think the advice that I would give to my 1-year-old self is to, you know, just keep on learning. And similar to the advice I gave previous, but really just know that the world is so big and there’s so much opportunity within these segments that are just fascinating to explore. You can spend a lifetime doing it.
01:21:32 [Speaker Changed] Well, thank you Kyla, for being so generous with your time. Yeah. I’m gonna have to have you sign this form me. Oh,
01:21:36 [Speaker Changed] Thank you.
01:21:37 [Speaker Changed] We have been speaking with Kyla Scanlan. She’s the author of In This Economy, how Money and Markets Really Work. If you enjoy this conversation, well check out any of the 500 or so we’ve done over the past 10 years. You can find those at iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you find your favorite podcasts. And check out my new show at the Money short 10 minute discussions about specific topics in finance, earning money, spending it, and most importantly, investing it at the money wherever you find your favorite podcasts. And in the Masters in Business Feed, I would be remiss if I did not thank the crack staff who helps us put these conversations together each week. Atika Val Brown is my project manager. Anna Luke is my producer. Sean Russo is my head of research. Sage Bauman is the head of podcast at Bloomberg. I’m Barry Riol. You’ve been listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.
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