Make Me Smart October 20, 2023 Transcript

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Kimberly Adams 

Everybody is popping off in the chat.

Reema Khrais 

Yeah, what are they saying?

Kimberly Adams 

They’re just saying they’re so excited to see you. Hello, everyone. I’m Kimberly Adams. Welcome back to Make Me Smart where we make today make sense. It is Friday, October the 20th Kai is out today. But joining me is Marketplace’s Reema Khrais host of the podcast, “This is Uncomfortable.” Welcome back.

Reema Khrais 

Hi, it’s great to be here. I always love talking to you, Kimberly. And thanks to all those joining us on the podcast and on the YouTube live stream. It is Friday, which I’m very happy about. That means it is also time, I know dude I needed this, this is also time for economics on tap. Make Me Smart’s weekly, happy hour.

Kimberly Adams 

Yes. So we are going to do some news then we’re going to take a break. And then since Rhema is here, we are actually going to play a different game. But before we get into it, Reema, what do you have to drink?

Reema Khrais 

So I am drinking, you can’t see a banana cr- already opened it, a banana cream soda from Olipop. Are you familiar with this brand?

Kimberly Adams

No.

Reema Khrais 

Let me open the can. It’s good. I like it. It’s a semi-popular soda brand. Its whole shtick is that it’s healthier soda alternative. So it doesn’t have a lot of sugar. And it has prebiotic fiber and botanicals, which is supposed to be good for your gut. But honestly,

Kimberly Adams 

That is so healthy.

Reema Khrais 

Yeah, I don’t see I didn’t really get it for the health reasons. I actually had this in the fridge because this is a whole other story. But my husband and I had this blind taste test party that we did a couple of weeks ago, where we bought a bunch of different drinks. And like mostly seltzers and tried to get our friends to guess the flavors. And so we didn’t use all the drinks. They’re a bunch of leftovers in the fridge. So this was one of them. But I do like this flavor, even though it might be controversial.

Kimberly Adams ,

That’s a really fun idea for a party just especially with all these new like non-alcoholic mixers and seltzers and you know, specialty drinks coming on the market. That’s actually a really fun idea.

Reema Khrais 

Yeah, it’s fun. And there’s so many, and people got really into it. So yeah, definitely.

Kimberly Adams

I remember one time I had a, well, one time I had a party at my house because we got together a bunch of the Women Business and Economics journalists in DC and we did an econ ladies happy hour because we’re nerds. But one of my friends who’s not in journalism was studying to be a sommelier. And so she made us a blind taste test of all these women own wines. And

Reema Khrais 

Oh that’s fun.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, so what I have to drink is actually hard cider today. It’s perfect because like Kai would drag me if I brought hard cider in his presence. But earlier this week, I was out reporting in Southern Virginia, I think it was Western, Southern, not quite sure it was far away. And on the way back, our DC intern Maya and I, we stopped at this cider mill to get apple cider doughnuts and grilled cheese sandwiches that they were selling. And they were selling hard cider. So I got a Virginia BlackBerry hard cider from, it was called Old Hill. Yeah, Old Hill cider. It’s Old Hill ciders in Timberville, Virginia. Yeah. So anyway, I tasted it already. So I already know it’s delicious. But we’ll pour it into this very nice glass that actually one of the Make Me Smart listeners sent a while back. It’s so nice. Yeah. People are so friendly. Really appreciate that. Can you see the YouTube chat and see what drinking?

Reema Khrais

Someone said that’s a nope for banana cream. Which, okay, so I said this in the chat earlier this week that was gonna be drinking this soda. And Ellen who writes our newsletters. She shared this article about how artificial banana flavored doesn’t actually taste like bananas, right? And that’s because of, she shared some interesting history of like, basically, there’s a flavor of banana flavor that is based off of this compound. Can’t remember what the compound is called, but it is more prominent and an older banana species that died out in the 90s because of a fungal outbreak. And apparently those bananas are more flavorful. It was more bananaee. And and it’s based on that. That is my recollection of the article that I read but interesting history that I knew nothing about.

Kimberly Adams

Wow, learn something new everyday man.

Reema Khrais

We do. Verbena from the West Coast in the Discord chat is drinking ginger kombucha with St. Germain, which sounds really interesting. I actually have some lemon ginger kombucha, and I have St. Germain. So I may try that this weekend. Hmm, what else? What else? What else? Lots of water, which is good. Very healthy. All right, we should probably get to news.

Reema Khrais 

Yeah. News as we drink these tasty drinks.

Kimberly Adams 

Cheers, Reema. Yes.

Reema Khrais

Cheers. So mine is some news that came out this afternoon, afternoon about the US deficit. Now Kai and I have been talking at length about the deficit, how fast it’s been not well, the national debt really how fast it’s growing because of interest rates causing problems. And today, we got new numbers about the federal budget deficit. So I’m just gonna read here from the New York Times, “the latest Treasury Department figures showed a budget deficit of $1.7 trillion in 2023, up from $1.37 trillion in 2022. Those numbers make the deficit look smaller than it actually was last year because of an acute accounting mirage related to student loan forgiveness.” So the actual deficit, according to The New York Times, effectively doubled in the 2023 fiscal year, slumping tax receipts, rising interest rates and persistent demand for expiring pandemic relief benefits, strained the nation’s finances. So all of these things that Kai was laying out the other day about the fiscal problems that we’re having that are getting worse because of rising interest rates. Yeah, it’s bad. And I was looking over in Bloomberg. And it said, you know, well, the ballooning gap coincides with a surprisingly resilient US economy. It also points to the longer-term fiscal risks that in recent months have spurred fresh warnings from economists, politicians, and credit rating agencies. And, you know, we’ll have many more conversations about this, but the numbers are pretty astonishing. And the lower income tax receipts is a big part of it. You know, the Democrats obviously want to blame the Trump tax cuts. The Republicans want to blame people spending too much in government. But it’s, it’s it’s all of those things and more, and we need some pretty systemic policy solutions to get it under control. If you’re even in the camp that we need to get it under control. If you’re in the modern monetary theory camp, and you just like doesn’t really matter, you know, whatevs.

Reema Khrais 

Yeah. Well, it also comes at an interesting moment as President Biden asks Congress for more government spending for Israel, and Ukraine, there is news out about how the White House asked Congress for more than $105 billion in foreign aid, which includes about 14 billion for Israel and more than 9 billion for humanitarian aid for Israel, Gaza, Ukraine and other conflicts. So that is all happening to this backdrop. And that actually leads

Kimberly Adams

How are you doing Reema?

Reema Khrais

Oh, I’m, you know, not great. That leads me into my news. So, you know, I had a I have a news item to share about Gaza. And I Slacked you this earlier, Kimberly. My family is in Gaza. Most of my family lives there. So I was debating whether or not to share that with this news item. But, and I can get into it in a little bit. But let me get into the news first. And I can talk about how I’m feeling. So you know, there was a big headline out today that Hamas released two hostages right and Israeli-American mom and daughter. And another big headline today is around aid for Gaza. So after the attack from Hamas, Israel put Gaza under complete siege, which means no food, fuel, water or medicine has entered Gaza for the last couple of weeks. And when President Biden visited earlier this week, he struck a deal to let aid get through. But as of this recording, there are still truckloads of aid just stuck

Kimberly Adams

Dozens of trucks.

Reema Khrais

Yeah, I think I read a 200 trucks.

Kimberly Adams

Oh, wow.

Reema Khrais

So yeah, they’re just outside the Egypt-Gaza border. I’ve seen reports that say the trucks should enter within the next 24-48 hours. So we’ll see but, you know, people in Gaza have been facing what the UN has called in, you know, an unprecedented catastrophe, others have called humanitarian crisis. Typically more than 400 trucks a day apparently enter Gaza. And so right now things are just, they’re dire. You know, all of Gaza’s wastewater treatment plants are non-operational, people are running out of drinking water, electricity has been cut off. You’ve got hospitals that are facing medical supply shortages, their fuel reserves for backup generators are running low. And the hospitals are just generally incredibly overwhelmed. I mean, I don’t know if you saw this news report. But there was this one hospital that was using ice cream trucks as makeshift morgues, which is so bleak. And, you know, meanwhile, and in retaliation to the Hamas attack, which killed about 1,400 people in Israel, Israel has been waging an intensive bombing campaign, the death toll in Gaza, last I checked was, you know 13,18. That’s not number, 3,800. About 1,500 of which are children. And more than 12,000 people are injured. And Israel ordered, you know, meanwhile, yeah, so homes, neighborhoods getting destroyed. Meanwhile, Israel ordered about a million people in northern Gaza last week to evacuate their homes. So you have about half of Gaza’s population who are currently displaced. And going back to how you know how I’m doing. That includes my family.

Kimberly Adams

Was your family in Northern Gaza? Did they have to move?

Reema Khrais

Yeah, they’re all in Northern Gaza, Gaza City. Did they have their northern Gaza in Gaza City? So my family on my mom’s side, they left last week, they went to Southern Gaza and started knocking on doors and found some strangers to let them in.

Kimberly Adams

Like literal strangers?

Kimberly Adams

Literal strangers. Yeah. And there are about 30 of them. So it’s my grandparents and cousins, aunts, uncles, one of my cousins has a one year old and pregnant with twins. It’s just it’s a terrible situation. I feel like words are so trite when I talk about this. But yeah, and then my family on my dad’s side decided to stay put. But yeah, this is, you know, a story that obviously hits very close to home. Just, you know, the hospital explosion that got a lot of headlines earlier this week. My dad worked there for 10 years. Oh, my so it’s, yeah, it’s it’s a, it’s a lot. It’s, um, yeah, it’s hard.

Kimberly Adams

You know, so often, in our line of work, we’re asked to, like, not exist as humans, with experiences. And, you know, this came up a lot for me during the Black Lives Matter protests, you know, where there’s a certain cadre of people who will always say that you simply speaking your truth is biased or not being objective, even if you’re just speaking, your lived experience, and on this issue is so polarizing, in particular. And yeah, I mean, I just, I’m so sorry, because I’m sure it’s a struggle to do the work with this hanging over you.

Reema Khrais 

Well, yeah, it’s, it’s been a lot these last couple of weeks, I’m not gonna lie, it’s, um, especially with, you know, electricity has been cut out in Gaza. So the updates we get are very sporadic. And when we don’t hear from them out for, you know, 24 hours passed, of course, we get nervous, and it’s very distracting. And so even today, as I was looking at the news, and I was like, okay, I’ll talk about this. Should I talk about my family? Should I not? It just feels wrong not to because this is all consuming, right? The only thing that’s been on my mind these last couple of weeks. And yeah, to your point, I think, because especially Palestine, Israel is such a polarizing topic. I think, that gets discussed very often in these binary ways. I think there are a lot of critics out there who might be quick to dismiss a Palestinian perspective, especially if you’re a journalist, I think they might be more inclined to see your coverage as biased. But um, yeah, and so it’s tricky, like, on the one hand, I don’t, you know, I don’t want to have to downplay, like, where my family comes from, or who I’m like who I am or not mentioning it, but I also don’t want it to be held against me sometimes. And so that’s, that’s the thing that I’m always balancing in my head. Whenever Gaza is in the news, and you know, again, because this…

Kimberly Adams

Well, no go ahead.

Reema Khrais

Well, no, I was just gonna say I think again, with this topic, especially, you know, you see real repercussions for people who I’m debating whether or not I should get into this, but what were you gonna say then I can maybe join.

Kimberly Adams

Yeah, well, one of the things that’s really jumped out to me and you know that I lived in Egypt for a while, and I ended up covering this conflict quite a bit from there. And I was living in a place where a lot of folks definitely had very conflicted feelings about it, because Egypt, you know, an ally of Israel in, you know, sort of technical terms. But on the other hand, a lot of the population very much against the actions of Israel. And, you know, some of the issues that are at play here have been going on for decades. And so what your family lives through, even before all of this, I mean, if you want to talk about it, in terms of what it’s like to live in Gaza, is beyond challenging, and the United Nations is often raising, you know, the alarm on that. And so, one of the complaints that’s been coming up is all of the attention on the people in Gaza now, when it’s really been building for so long, and no one is going to be out here saying that what Hamas did was in any way justified, but then you want to talk about your own experience without diminishing the horror of what was done.

Reema Khrais 

Exactly. Right. You captured that really perfectly. Because, you know, these events aren’t existing within a vacuum. There’s a lot of history and important context here. As it as is the case with everything, right, every news event, but yeah, and so with that, you know, what I was saying earlier is, with this topic, you do see people who, you know, students, even human rights activists who’ve been vocal about Palestine have been doxed and harassed. And you know, even I don’t know if you saw this headline, but the Frankfurt Book Fair recently rescinded an award it chose to give to a Palestinian author. And I can think of so many examples.

Kimberly Adams

Some students have had their job offers rescinded for saying things.

Reema Khrais 

Yeah, one of yeah, I mean, I could keep going. I was gonna say, once somebody,

Kimberly Adams

I want to actually comment here on somebody, and the question in the chat is asking about why Egypt is not sending water, etc, in through their border with Gaza. Egypt does control that Rafah border crossing, but it is also something they do in coordination with Israel. And Egypt is very worried about members of Hamas crossing into Egypt. If the border is open, and there’s a lot more politics at play, it’s not usually just a decision made by Egypt alone. But they’re also very concerned about, you know, letting people in that they don’t want that, Israel and Jordan, and Lebanon as well. I believe they’re all very cautious about letting in refugees from Gaza, because they are concerned that it will result in a long-term displacement of people that people won’t be able to go back. Is that accurate? Yeah. To some of them pretty accurate. Yeah.

Reema Khrais 

Yeah. So yeah, that is my news today, just hoping that, um, you know, my family and everyone stay safe.

Kimberly Adams

Is everybody okay, for now? Other than staying at the homes of strangers and running out of food and water and medical supplies?

Reema Khrais 

Yeah, no, we got some bad news today, but about some extended family members who, who got killed by an airstrike. I don’t know how to say that, you know, casually, but yeah, yeah. So it’s just it’s, I think it’s everyone who’s affected by what’s going on in Gaza, Israel right now. It’s just, it’s difficult time.

Kimberly Adams

Yeah, it is. There’s not going to be an easy way to make a pivot out of this. I know that my heart is with you. I’m so sorry that you and your family are going through this and everybody who’s suffering because of this, and we’re going to take a break and we are going to make a hard pivot because I think that you especially probably need a little bit of lightness at the moment. Yeah, so what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna take a quick break. When we come back, we are going to actually play a game from Reema’s show, which if you haven’t listened, you gotta go check out “This is Uncomfortable” with the thoughtfulness and care that you’ve just heard Rima talking about something deeply personal and difficult. You can no you have to sort of extrapolate that to the amazing things she does with this as uncomfortable so you should definitely go listen. On the show. They have a game An ish called defend your splurge which we’re going to play when we come back in a minute. Whew, okay.

Reema Khrais 

All right. Hard little reset.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, but so we’re going to do is, we’re going to play this game, which is called Defend your Splurge. And our friends over at “This is Uncomfortable” do this. Reema can you explain it and explain the ground rules?

Reema Khrais 

Yeah, well, you know, it’s pretty simple. Calling it a game might be a stretch. But it is fun. Just a fun thing to talk about. Like you said, I host “This is Uncomfortable.” It’s a narrative podcast. And we you know, we feature personal stories about our relationship with money, taking this as an opportunity to plug it. We do have a couple new episodes coming out next month before we launch a full season early next year. But anyway, we have this segment in our This is Uncomfortable newsletter which we call Defend your Splurge where we ask people how they’ve treated themselves lately and why. So it can be a small or big thing, but you just got to make a case for it. And we want to also hear from you. All right. So I think you can as we’re talking we can,

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah sorry. I was supposed to read those words.

Reema Khrais

I know. I was like, I can read them for you.

Kimberly Adams

You’re like, thanks. Sorry. No, it’s okay. Okay, so what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna play this game Reema is gonna explain, so she’s, we’ve got the ground rules, you just explain your splurge. But we do want to hear from people on YouTube. So I’m gonna talk about my splurge, Reema will talk about what your splurge is, and then we’re gonna go to you all who are in the YouTube chat or in the Discord. So start brainstorming something that you have splurged on to maybe treat yourself or just soothe yourself, because as we just experience, it’s hard out here. And whether that be physical stuff or experiences, or, you know, sometimes when I get really low, there’s a lot of research that shows when you do volunteer work or give to charity, you know that that can actually make you feel better. So if you dropped a big donation somewhere, and it made you feel warm and fuzzy, whatever it is, let’s let’s hear about it so remote, I’ll keep track of the Discord if you want to have a look at the chat. But first, what is your splurge?

Reema Khrais 

What is my splurge? So, you know, like I just shared it’s been a heavy time. So I’ve been craving an outlet, something to get excited about to do in my spare time. The other day, I was scrolling on social media. And I saw something that immediately grabbed my attention and I was like, oh, that that is what I need to do. So it was this video of someone making stained glass. I don’t know if, yeah I don’t so I don’t know if you ever get like this Kimberly but you like stumble across something and you become weirdly obsessive with this thing you knew nothing about five minutes ago, and you’re like I need this. Yeah. Oh yeah. That was that moment. And I was like, you know, if I don’t seize this inspiration, the moment will pass. And I’ll never revisit this again. So started googling what tools you need to make stained glass designs. And turns out, Kimberly it’s a lot.

Kimberly Adams

Lead, don’t do it. Well, and also lead, which can be problematic.

Reema Khrais 

So I was like, maybe, maybe, maybe I shouldn’t do this, I immediately felt discouraged. And then did some more research. And I found out that you can basically get the effect of stained glass by buying this paint that you can put on glass or windows when it dries, it basically looks like stained glass. So I said great, I’ll do that. So I bought $30 worth of glass paint. And then I bought this like black thin tape that simulates the look of stained glass so that you can create these geometric shapes or patterns. So it’s like little baby steps into investing in this hobby. So spent, like, yeah, maybe total $50. I started doing it last night. And I you know, it looks kind of cool. I need to finish the project that I’m working on. But I was walking past it earlier today. And I don’t know, it was just this nice reminder of like, hey, doing something, even if it’s imperfect, even if it’s not exactly what you envisioned, it’s a lot better than not doing anything at all, which is just a thing I’ve been trying to embrace lately.

Kimberly Adams 

I think that that is my sort of work in an industry where you have to be perfect all the time. Literally, like you can’t be wrong. You can’t be you can’t mess up. I mean, we do mess up. And we try to catch it and correct it when we do. But you know, having to be like perfect all the time can be really challenging. And so it’s nice to give yourself space to be imperfect in different things. So I’ve had actually a year-long splurge, so..

Reema Khrais

Okay tell me.

Kimberly Adams

I have so I turned 40 earlier this year. And I decided that over the course of 2023, I was going to try out 40 new things I’ve never done before.

Reema Khrais

Oh my gosh, I love that.

Kai Ryssdal

And so over the course of the year, I have been taking lessons, I’ve been taking classes, I’ve been going on adventures, and I made like a Google Doc and I shared it with all of my friends. And so when people want to join me they can but I’m not organizing. So I’m not trying to herd cats. But sometimes people are you know, coming with me we are a bunch of us went to Top Golf the other day. I’ve been to like candlemaking classes and mountain biking classes and all these other things, all many, some of them are expensive. Some of them are cheap, some of them are free. But it’s been really, really cool. Just to keep trying stuff. I think I’m on like number 34 now, so I gotta get five or six more and before the end of 2023. So it’s a really long splurge.

Reema Khrais 

I wish I was in DC so I could join you and do the things.

Kimberly Adams

Well you got to come for a visit. I’m sure number 40 is going to be it’s going to be epic. All right, so Reema why don’t you

Reema Khrais 

Well I want to ask you, what’s been your favorite thing?

Kimberly Adams 

No, it’s okay. My favorite thing has took a blacksmithing class. And that’s fine. We turned like horseshoes into knives and there was fire. It was awesome.

Reema Khrais 

That’s amazing. I need to talk to you about some stuff offline.

Kimberly Adams 

Okay, let’s go and see, yeah, I’ll send you the link. I’ll send you the link. So let’s look at what everybody else is doing because we’ve been going on forever. I’ll look at Discord. You can go ahead and see what’s in the chat. Okay.

Reema Khrais

Let’s see.

Kimberly Adams

So Tim from Austin, splurged on Lego sets, particularly they’re both technical line. And yeah, because Tim lost his job at the start of August and then his father passed away at the end of August. He says I enjoy Legos and needed something to mentally check but check out but also being engaged. I love that. And good for you Tim for choosing to soothe that way. And Verbena from the west coast to $200 to make a tap dance practice board for the $300 Intro to tap dance lessons I signed up for I love that I love it that’s gonna be cool is it like Irish tap dance or like artistic tap dance? What kind of tap dance is it? That’s cool.

Reema Khrais

There’s so many submissions. Elizabeth said writing retreats my friend and I go to hotel close the curtains me right and eat and read each other’s work and worry about nothing but our words and where we’re going to eat next. That sounds lovely.

Kimberly Adams

Let’s see what else. Oh, JC cat says my splurge is Epic Pass.  $700 But you only need to ski five times to break even. So Epic Pass is this pass that gets you to all these different ski resorts. If I didn’t, you know, injure myself so badly the last time I did, I do want to go skiing again, but I had a pretty epic wipeout a couple of years back, but I am gonna get back on there. Oh, and Verbena says it was regular tap dance.

Reema Khrais

Skiing is dangerous.

Kimberly Adams

Yeah but so is riding a motorcycle and I do that, you know I live for danger.

Reema Khrais 

Yeah, what else is here? Mermaiding did someone actually do that? That’s cool.
Kimberly Adams

I do that.

Reema Khrais

Oh, you’ve done that. I feel like yeah, I was getting deja vu. I was like, have I heard you talk about this?

Kimberly Adams

Yes. Yeah, let’s see. So, Carol Schaefer did a 10-day trip to the Netherlands. Last September, was a belated honeymoon delayed by the pandemic from a 2020 marriage. Congratulations. That’s great. Marvin Ramirez also on the Legos and Jin Peck says, I found these legal pads with awesome heavy paper on clearance with the safety elastic strap I bought for which I so don’t need, I cannot celebrate enough the joy of wonderful paper and fancy pens. I have like fountain pens, I love fancy stationery. It’s great. Let’s see what else?

Reema Khrais 

Taking piano lessons at the age of 74 from Terry. I love that.

Kimberly Adams.

Good for you, Terry. Yeah, that’s great. Um, let’s see. Marvin says we’re contributing to inflation. Yes. Yes, we are. But you know what, we gotta live over here. Alright, it’s amazing. I love everybody’s splurges but we are kind of going on here for a really long time. Yeah, so yeah, we gotta wrap this up.

Reema Khrais 

So before we go, if you liked this game, if you want to call it that and want to submit your own splurge or stay posted on the work we’re doing at “This is Uncomfortable,” you can sign up for our newsletter. You can do that by going over to marketplace.org/comfort. We always have great recommendations of things to read and listen and watch. And, you know, we get listeners and friends of the show to defend their splurges. Which is fun.

Kimberly Adams

And yeah, so you can submit your splurges your questions, your comments, to makemesmart@marketplace.org or you can leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART.

Reema Khrais 

All right, that is the music. Make Me Smart is produced by Courtney Bergsieker. Today’s episode was engineered by Juan Carlos Torrado and our intern is Niloufar Shahbandi.

Kimberly Adams

You got to do a bounce with it Reema.

Reema Khrais 

I’m buncing and bouncing.

Kimberly Adams

Thank you. The team behind the Friday game is Emily Macune and Antoinette Brock. Marissa Cabrera is our senior producer Bridget Bodnar is the director of podcasts and Francesca Levy is the executive director of Digital and on demand.

Reema Khrais 

That was the show. It was really nice to connect with you. I appreciate you.

Kimberly Adams

Yeah, you know, I’m thinking of you if there’s anything I can do to help out, let me know. If you even just want to like scream into the void I’ll listen with the volume down a bit.

Reema Khrais 

Honestly, I might do that. Go into my car and scream.