Make Me Smart November 9, 2023 Transcript

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Kai Ryssdal 

Everybody, I’m Kai Ryssdal. Welcome back to Make Me Smart. Making today make sense is what we do on this podcast.

Kimberly Adams 

Right. And I’m Kimberly Adams. Thank you, everyone for joining us on this Thursday, it is November the 9th.

Kai Ryssdal 

So we’re gonna do what we do on Thursdays, listen to some audio from the storage of the week, we will chitchat about it, and then we’ll move on. So let’s go.

Jay Powell

The FOMC is committed to achieving a stance of monetary policy that is sufficiently restrictive, to bring inflation down to 2%. Over time, we are not confident that we’ve achieved such a stance. We know that ongoing progress toward our 2% goal is not assured, inflation has given us a few head fakes along the way. If it becomes appropriate to tighten policy further, we will not hesitate to do so.

Kimberly Adams 

Not on my bingo card for Jay Powell.

Kai Ryssdal 

You know what I wonder for Jay Powell? Neither neither was a little hot mic moment. But we’ll get to that in a minute. Yeah. You know what I wonder about Jay Powell? I wonder because it’s sort of sounded there, and it sounded this past Wednesday night yesterday, but a week ago, Wednesday, it’s like, he’s a little bored of saying the same thing. He’s been saying the same thing. Now for months and months and months and months and months, right, we’ve got a long way to go. We’re not there yet. We’re gonna stay restrictive as long as we need to blah, blah. And you can tell he’s just sort of getting sick and tired of saying it. Anyway, that was Jay Powell today at a conference organised by the International Monetary Fund, Gita Gopinath was there, Kenneth Rogoff, was there a bunch of other big names in economics, and arguably the biggest of all, Jay Powell, the chairman, the Fed, saying, again, what he has been saying for months and months and months and months and months, which is that the Fed’s not done yet. The reason he said it, though, is because the market in the past week has basically been looking at Jay Powell and gone, we don’t care what you say, then we’re going to send bond yields down and stocks up and we don’t believe you that you’re going to keep rates up. And I think he’s just trying to make sure the market believes it. That’s what I think.

Kimberly Adams 

You know, we’ve talked about this a little bit, but this concept of economic belief versus economic reality keeps showing up everywhere in this economy. And it really is so fundamental, like people will tell any kind of story they want believe any kind of story they want, even when the data goes the other way. And that goes in economic policy when it comes to politics, but also in terms of what the Chairman of the Federal Reserve says he is going to do.

Kai Ryssdal 

Right, right. Totally, totally. Anyway, just because I alluded to it, Powell was interrupted by some climate protesters near the top of his remarks, and got caught on a hot mic moment, saying the way to keep people out of those meetings was to just close the front door. Except he didn’t say front, it was pretty funny. Ladies, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, if you use the F bomb in polite conversation, you too can grow up to be a central banker. That’s all I’m saying. I’m kidding. You cannot. Kids don’t. Don’t. Don’t really okay, so.

Fran Drescher

It is historic. And we got so much, so much important stuff, and improvements financially in so many different places. That I feel like we all in our negotiating committee, slept much better last night than we have in months.

Kimberly Adams 

I mean, did they sleep in the last few months, that negotiating committee? So of course, that is the very recognizable voice of Fran Drescher actor, actress and president of SAG-AFTRA speaking to CNN about the agreement that was reached with all the heads of the Hollywood Studios. That strike has been going on for how many hundreds of days was it 118 days, that strike went on. And so it’s a big deal and some of the details from Variety. It says that the deal will see the first ever protections for actors against artificial intelligence, and a historic pay increase the deal will see most minimums increased by 7%, which is 2% above the increases received by the Writers Guild of America and the Directors Guild of America. It also includes a streaming participation bonus, as well as increases in pension and health contributions. And they said that the union says the contract is worth more than a billion dollars in total. They, they really fought on this one and the actors. I mean, you live in LA What’s it been like watching all these actors on strike for so long?

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, it’s not, Yes, it’s the actors, but it is also all the other ancillary industries and people and companies and businesses. I went to a fundraiser for a local organization here and look, my small town is not out in Hollywood. It’s not on the west side. We’re, you know, north of downtown LA and whatever. So we’re not like an industry town. But attendance at this fundraiser. was down, total amount of given was down and it’s hit everywhere truly it has.

Kimberly Adams 

How long do you think it’ll take LA to bounce back?

Kai Ryssdal 

I don’t think couple of months maybe to get geared up again, right. I mean, I think there’s a huge sense of relief that’s palpable right now. But, but look, gears gotta get turning, and it’s been shut down for 100 and something days. And so I think it’s gonna take a little bit to get things back up and running, I think. I think you know, by the holidays ish, right?

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, I should have gotten all those cameos while I still had the chance. So that would have been good holiday gifts or something. Anyway, okay. Let’s hear the next clip.

Janet Yellen

Playing politics with IRS funding is unacceptable. Cutting, it would be damaging and irresponsible.

Kai Ryssdal 

The equally recognizable voice of the Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, talking this week about nominally the 2024 tax filing season, which is about to be upon us. But more to the point, the thing that we talked about previously on this podcast speaker, Mike Johnson’s effort to tie funding for Israel, to the tune of $14 billion to a cut in funding for the Internal Revenue Service. And of course, the challenge there is if you cut spending for the Internal Revenue Service, you actually increase the deficit because the Internal Revenue Service is whence a lot of government revenue comes hello? And we’ll see where that goes. I mean, I mean, look, just just ancillary, and we should point this out. Speaker Johnson is having the devil’s own time getting almost any of the spending bills that he has talked about doing, laddering them as Chris as, as Kimberly was talking about on the radio show yesterday, right? All of these are going nowhere, because the Republican conference in the house is so split that he can’t please anybody. And oh, by the way, the 17th is what like eight days from now, right? I’ve long Yeah, yeah. We’re closing in on a week.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, I was I need to find this article. That just had me cracking up. I mean, it didn’t have me cracking up and me going, huh, about Mike Johnson, apparently not having a checking account, or any kind of sort of reportable income. For as you know, Senator, outside members of Congress are supposed to report their bank accounts and their income and their revenue and everything like that. And this is The Washington Post story it said in his most recent annual financial disclosures released last year, Johnson reports no assets at all, no retirement accounts, no money market funds, no stocks, no crypto, not even a basic checking or savings account. Even more peculiar. His disclosures have never listed any checking or savings accounts on any of the forms he has filed going back to 2016. The year he was elected to Congress. So just no wonder he’s not a huge fan of the IRS.

Kai Ryssdal 

Totally, totally. Alright one more before we go.

Brandie Smith

Right now, we are so focused on making sure that these pandas are returned to China and they return you know, happily and safely that I can’t see beyond that. I know these animals, I know them as individuals, they mean so much to me, and I’m really gonna miss them.

Kimberly Adams 

Pandas. So that was national zoo director, Brandie Smith and former panda curator, speaking with PBS news hour about China’s pandas leaving here in Washington DC. leaving the United States because the loan agreement for the pandas expired leaving the Smithsonian National Zoo without Pandas for the first time in 23 years. This is a diplomatic tradition that goes back to the Nixon administration. on NPR this morning, they were playing a little clip of I guess, a phone call that Nixon made to his wife when he got the deal for the pandas. And she was so excited. It was really cute. Anyway, I’m very glad that I got to see them a couple of times. And whenever I’d have friends come to visit, I’m like, if you’re going to be you gotta go to the African American History Museum and you gotta go see the pandas. I know those two things are very different. But the pandas are adorable.

Kai Ryssdal 

It’s a huge bummer. Honestly, it’s a bummer just on the pure, they’re really cool to see. And it’s really interesting, and on the geopolitical level to the idea that we couldn’t figure out the negotiations at this point in the Sino-American relationship as opposed to any point in the last 50 Whatever it is, years, 51 years. It’s a total bummer. It’s a total bummer.

Kimberly Adams 

It says a lot that relates, the relationship has deteriorated that badly that you know, can’t even exchange living stuffed animals. Yeah.

Kai Ryssdal 

Totally right, totally right. Sorry did you say living stuffed animals. That’s pretty funny. Actually. That’s pretty good. That’s what they are.

Kimberly Adams 

Let’s get on with it. Yeah, I mean, the last time I went to see them, it was just like he was just like walking around and then just went rolling down the hill, just for fun back up the hill, rolling down the hill, and I’m just like, silly pandas, silly pandas so cute. Anyway, that’s it for today. Go cuddle some other animals since the pandas are gone not that you could ever cuddle the Pandas for real. They do still have the red pandas, which are also quite adorable. And they stand up on their little hind legs and do things. It’s very cute. Anyway, tomorrow we’re going to be back for economics on tap that YouTube livestream. It’s going to start at 6:30 on my side of the country, 3:30 on Kai’s side of the country. You can join us for more new, drinks and a game, what we’re on different sides of the country? The whole best, worst, thing.

Kai Ryssdal 

That’s fair, that’s what I was chuckling at. Today’s episode of this podcast, which is called Make Me Smart was produced by Courtney Bergsieker with assistance from H Conley. Audio engineering by Drew Jostad. Ellen Rolfes writes our newsletter. Our intern is Niloufar Shahbandi.

Kimberly Adams 

Marissa Cabrera is our senior producer. Bridget Bodnar is the director of podcasts and Francesca Levy is the executive director of Digital. What are they gonna do with all that panda swag and gear and toys?

Kai Ryssdal 

I don’t know, right? It’s an infrastructure thing because these these zoos spent millions of dollars building these facilities for these animals and also a whole marketing thing. And and all of that it I think it’s actually a huge story just for these zoos. Anyway.