Make Me Smart April 29, 2024 Transcript

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Kai Ryssdal 

Alright, now we turn the microphones on and actually let people hear what we’ve been saying. Because, you know.

Kimberly Adams 

Yes, cause surely there was no recording of it earlier.

Kai Ryssdal 

Surely. You know what I really fear is the blooper reel when eventually I leave this freakin place. My blooper reel is going to be stunning. Anyway.

Kimberly Adams 

It’s going to be epic.

Kai Ryssdal 

Hi everybody, I’m Kai Ryssdal. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where we make today make sense.

Kimberly Adams 

And I’m Kimberly Adams. Thanks for joining us on this Monday, April 29th. And welcome back, Kai. We missed you.

Kai Ryssdal 

Thank you. I missed you guys, too. I was in. I don’t know if you gave people the skinny. I was up in Alaska doing some reporting up there. I was in Point Barrow, the northernmost place in the United States, where it was five degrees and 30 knots of wind coming off the Arctic Ocean. I literally walked on the Arctic Ocean because it was so frozen. It was kind of wild. It was kind of wild.

Kimberly Adams

That’s cool. That’s a flex.

Kai Ryssdal

It was very cool. I will also point out though that Jayk Cherry, our engineer who was up there, who stayed actually to go skiing or snowboarding. Actually, it was snowboarding. We were outside on the top of an atmospheric observatory, literally at Point Barrow. And he was outside for five minutes, and his shotgun microphone froze and stopped working. So yeah. So, there was that.

Kimberly Adams 

You know, now we can tell Jeff Peters upper and lower limits.

Kai Ryssdal 

Alright, anyway. Let’s do some news, and then we’ll do some smiles, and you get to go first.

Kimberly Adams 

Okay, so I have a news item and then some context for it. So, the Biden administration on Friday released some new regulations. You know, my favorite things. Basically, saying that if you want government money for medical related things, that is from CMS for Medicaid programs, hospitals, doctors’ insurance plans, you now have to expand the sex discrimination rules to include LGBTQ+ Americans. So, the Trump administration specifically excluded transgender people from non-discrimination protections under the Affordable Care Act. And this new rule restores those protections and also expands them a little bit further. It’s broader. I’m reading here from The 19th News. It’s “broader than the Biden administration’s initial policy proposal, as it refers less often, and less explicitly, to sexual orientation and gender identity while still laying a foundation to protect against LGBTQ+ discriminations. Potential exemptions for religious groups are also more easily obtainable under the new rules, although not as extensive as they could have been.” This using Medicare and Medicaid funding and all these kinds of things is the same way that the federal government stopped discrimination in hospitals against Black people because you used to have like Black hospitals and white hospitals. And at one point, in some communities, Black people, like set up their own ambulance services because they were facing this kind of discrimination. And so, the federal government basically said, integrate your hospitals or you can’t get federal funding anymore. And so, this same civil rights era law that makes that happen, they are tweaking these regulations to make it more expansive and to cover, so that when queer folks and trans folks go into the doctor’s office, they should not face discrimination for their health issues. And if they do, it could put the funding of that medical facility in jeopardy. So, that’s the overall news item. I’m sure there will be many lawsuits. There are already some religious groups in the Heritage Foundation lined up against this. They want broader religious exemptions, among other things. But you may have noticed a large number of regulations coming down the pipeline recently. We’ve talked on here about the new nursing home rules, about the new title nine rules. And because I like regulation stories, I’ll be probably talking about more. But there are indeed more of them happening right now. And that is because we are coming up on a deadline in mid to late May for the Congressional Review Act. So basically, at the beginning, when there’s an election, and you know, the House and Senate may flip or whatever, they can look back on any regulation that was filed like 60 days before the last Congress adjourned and overturn that with like a simple majority. And so, when the control of the House or the Senate flips. Well, particularly the house usually is when this is most relevant. When control of Congress flips, one of the things they like to do is go back and undo the previous administration’s regulations. Trump did this quite a bit because a lot of people did not expect him to win. And so, they were not as cognizant of this deadline when it came to regulations. And so, when he came in with Republicans, they were able to roll back a lot of regulations. And when something is undone by the Congressional Review Act, it basically stops you from re-issuing a similar rule in the future. So, it’s pretty big deal. And the estimates are that in order to beat that CRA lookback provision, as it’s called, the Biden administration needs to get all of its new regulations in by May the 22nd. So, we’re about to see even more regulations coming down the pipeline. And even though they know they’re going to get sued for many of them, they want to get those on the books before they hit that deadline.

Kai Ryssdal 

That’s a good little tidbit of information from our senior Washington correspondent about how things actually work. That’s a good little tidbit. Amen.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah. So, when you see like this deluge regulations, it’s not because everybody in Washington is a regulatory nerd like me. It’s because of this.

Kai Ryssdal 

Politics.

Kimberly Adams 

Politics. What’s your news?

Kai Ryssdal 

So, mine’s equally dorky, but on a different topic. Two articles in major newspapers today about foreign exchange, the foreign currency markets, and what it means. The Wall Street Journal has a story about the Bank of Japan intervening in the foreign exchange markets to strengthen the yen, which is at a 34 year low against the dollar, and then the New York Times as a piece about the strength of the dollar globally, why it matters, and what it may be doing. And this is super weedy. But it’s really important, and here’s why. And I’ll just read from the Times article for just a little bit. “The dollar is on one side of nearly 90 percent of all foreign exchange transactions. A strengthening US currency intensifies inflation abroad, as countries need to swap more of their own currencies for the same amount of dollar denominated goods. That includes imports from the United States, as well as globally traded items, including,” oh, by the way, oil, right?? Oil is dollar denominated, unless you’re like Russia and China swapping Russian oil, right? But when things are dollar denominated, you need more dollars to pay for them. And so, you have to get them at the risk of your own currency. It’s also challenging for American companies because when the dollar is super strong, their goods for export seem and are more expensive on the global market. And that is challenging for companies that depend on exports. So, don’t sleep on foreign currency right now. And look, politicians and some treasury secretaries will say, we want a strong dollar. And they do to a point. When the dollar is as strong as it is now globally, and it’s strong now globally because the American economy is the strongest economy in the world coming out of the recession. We are by miles the strongest developed economy in the world for a whole lot of reasons, which is a whole different podcast, but people want dollars, right? They get more interest on their dollars here, right? The Federal Reserve now is the world’s central bank, like literally practically, in effect, as opposed to just you know, nominally, as we talked about most of the time. Do not sleep on the foreign exchange markets. It’s a very big deal.

Kimberly Adams 

And for folks who have been wondering why it seems like everybody on your social media feed is vacationing in Japan. This is why.

Kai Ryssdal 

That’s why. Exactly, that’s why. And also look the Euro is close to parity. The British pound is weaker in value. I mean, take your currency, you can get it for cheap now. You know?

Kimberly Adams 

So, there’s this Instagram account I follow that just hurts my feelings all the time. It’s called Cheap Houses Japan. And it’s basically these beautiful, abandoned homes in Japan because they have declining birth rates, and their countryside is emptying out. And so, they’ll show these beautiful historic homes compounds that are like $25,000, $50,000, and they’re beautiful. And some of them have like views of the ocean or the Seto Inland Sea or something like that. And I just look at it, and I’m just like, man, if I spoke Japanese. If I could work from Japan. If they didn’t have some, you know, problematic cultural things related to race, you know, if only.

Kai Ryssdal

Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Kimberly Adams

The houses are so cheap. Anyway.

Kai Ryssdal 

All right. Let’s do something else.

Kimberly Adams 

So, I saw you had a cat story.

Kai Ryssdal 

I did. I almost left it for you, but then I said, nah I’m early. I’m taking it.

Kimberly Adams 

That’s okay because I had a separate cat story which matches up because I currently have a two-cat household because I’m watching Yuki, who I’m sure will make his feelings about the issue known at some point during the show. But recently, we had a visit in DC from one of our former interns, Maya Marchel Hoff who used to be our DC Bureau intern, but who now is working for USA Today in Nebraska as a fellow and covering the election and everything like that. And she shared with us a story that she had done on Nebraska’s capitol cat, and I need to read the headline. “Nebraska’s ‘Capitol Cat’ brings paws-sitivity to politics.” And it says, “Nebraska lawmakers, legislative staff, and lobbyists start their day by walking into the State Capitol building to introduce, bills debate policy reform, and, if they’re lucky, be greeted by their favorite political animal: Cameron the Capitol cat. The dark brown and black striped tabby, who does have a home just a few blocks away, is usually seen lounging around the south and west doors of the state house, awaiting pets and treats regardless of party affiliation.”

Kai Ryssdal 

Cats don’t care, they’ll take the treats.

Kimberly Adams 

They will take the treats. They will take the pets, and it’s a very cute cat. So, that entertained me, and it’s nice to see one of our former interns doing that.

Kai Ryssdal 

Totally. That’s very cool. That’s very cool. Yeah. Okay, so mine is also cat related. And it’s also a little bit human related. So, there’s a piece in The New York Times today. “Stowaway Cat Gets From Utah to California in Amazon Returns Package.” These people had been packing up some work boots, somehow their cat jumped into the box. And they took it to the returns place and shipped it off with the cat in the box. And it was you know, five pairs of big heavy work boots, so they didn’t notice the extra weight of a cat. Five days later, the cat shows up when they open the returns box at the Amazon center in Utah. The cat is fine, a little bit dehydrated. Apparently, a piece of tape had come loose on the outside of the packaging, which is how air got in there. Cat’s fine. Galena has been reunited with her family. That struck me because let’s see. Let’s see, she’s 17 now. When our daughter was about a year and a half old, I was packing for a trip to Baltimore. And back in the day when my kids were really little, I used to take the red eye all the time because number one I was younger, and I could take the red eye and not have it kill me. But number two, you want to be home with your kids as much as you can. So, I was packing for red eye. It was like eight o’clock at night. And our daughter is sitting in my suitcase playing with what I later came to discover were my wife’s car and house keys. So, I’m packing, packing, packing. I get to the point where I have to close the suitcase. I picked Liv up, and I put her on the floor or wherever I put her. I don’t remember. I’m the terrible parent, can’t remember what I did with my child. Close up the suitcase. I get on the red eye. And the next morning, I get to my hotel in Baltimore, and I’m unpacking my suitcase. And there are my wife’s house and car keys. And we don’t have a spare set of keys for that car. Yeah, yeah.

Kimberly Adams

That must’ve sucked. What did you do?

Kai Ryssdal

She actually, I think she borrowed her sister’s car. Her sister lives around the corner from us. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was not the most popular guy in the house at that point. Let me just tell you. Leaving her with four young children and no car.

Kimberly Adams 

Oh, boy. All right, fine, but you survived.

Kai Ryssdal 

Everybody’s fine. Marriage survives. The kids are growing. Everybody’s fine. Yeah.

Kimberly Adams 

Everybody’s fine. We’re all fine. All right. Well, now that we have our full dose of cat news for the week, I think. That is it for us today. Tomorrow, we’re going to have our weekly deep dive now. Last week, we heard from a listener who’s gotten smarter about the history of the US trade deficit and a bunch of other listeners had follow up questions. So, tomorrow we are all going to get smarter about the trade deficit, why we have one, what it means for the health of the economy. It’s going to be super interesting. Do not miss it. And the dollar plays a role in this too.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yes, it does. Yes, it does. We used to have an underwriting credit that basically was foreign exchange trading carries risk and it used to air after an ad for bourbon. Evan Williams Bourbon. And so, our tagline around the shop was well let’s get drunk and trade foreign exchange. Anyway, Make Me Smart is produced by Courtney Bergsieker. Today’s program was engineered by Juan Carlos Toronto. Alan Roth has read your newsletter. Our intern is Thalia Menchaca.

Kimberly Adams 

Marissa Cabrera is our senior producer. There’s no way I’m going to make it. Bridget Bodnar, the director of podcasts. And Francesca Levy’s executive director of Digital. It’s okay.

Kai Ryssdal 

I think you were close.