Retcon on Season One (+ Executive Orderpalooza)

Optimist Economy got its start almost exactly one year ago with a phone call that began, "Hear me out…" Thirty-two episodes later we ask, “What have we done?” Mostly we conditioned ourselves to keep our eye on the ball – the better U. S. economy and future that are possible – through a lot of very bad news days. In the background, we both moved. Kathryn kept a lot of pregnancy symptoms hidden. We incorporated a nonprofit. And somehow, we managed to drop a new episode every Tuesday. Thanks to all our listeners for being our spiritual sponsors on this journey. Take Our Listener Survey!https://tinyurl.com/op-econ-survey

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:28Speaker 01

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• 0:30Speaker 02

  I was talking to someone who's a journalist. This is not good, by the way. I'm really professional. I was talking to some outlet about something. Anyway, they recorded me. It was all on the record, so I hope I sounded okay.

• 0:48Robin Rauzi?

  Sorry.

• 0:50Speaker 02

  Now, I don't even remember what I was gonna say. That victory, we're done for the season. Cut it right there.

• 0:57Speaker 02

  I got Robin to do a spit take. Oh, okay.

• 1:06Speaker 02

  Hello and welcome to Optimist Economy. I'm Catherine.

• 1:09Robin Rauzi?

  I'm Robin.

• 1:10Speaker 02

  On this show, we believe the US economy can be better, and we talk about how to get there, one problem and solution at a time.

• 1:23Robin Rauzi?

  Except not this week.

• 1:24Speaker 02

  Except not this week. We aren't talking about a problem or a solution, unless it's a problem with the show, because this is our last show of the season. And when we started this, we kicked off with an introductory episode of who we are, what we were doing, how I tricked Robin into doing this with me, at what point she lost free will and said yes. And now, we want to end the season with, you know, a show about, I don't know how to go.

• 1:53Robin Rauzi?

  Where we are.

• 1:54Speaker 02

  Where we are. We typically start off after announcements. We go into retcon, but really, this show is just one big retcon. It's my dream episode.

• 2:05Robin Rauzi?

  I was actually thinking, you know, that it's been almost exactly a year since you called me, kind of out of the blue, and said, "Hear me out."

• 2:16Speaker 02

  Hear me out. Hear me out.

• 2:18Robin Rauzi?

  And I had no idea, no idea what was coming.

• 2:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I did know that your wife liked our Zoom chats, so I was like, maybe just ask her what she thinks.

• 2:29Speaker 02

  Before you say no, do you want to just check with your wife real quick? I was so willing to go above you.

• 2:37Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah, yeah. I think at the time I said, I'm not saying no. I think was my, my answer.

• 2:44Speaker 02

  Oh, it was such a victory. I was like, oh, my God, she didn't say no.

• 2:47Robin Rauzi?

  I'm, I'm kind of still at, I'm not saying no.

• 2:53Speaker 02

  Her goal for season two is to get Robin to be like, yes, I'll do this.

• 2:58Robin Rauzi?

  Yes, I'll keep doing this.

• 3:00Speaker 02

  Yes, I'll keep doing this. So this is one big retcon, which I think we don't need to do terms and conditions, or, you know, we could just go, unless you had one that you wanted to do.

• 3:11Robin Rauzi?

  Uh, I don't have a term or a condition. Do you?

• 3:14Speaker 02

  I mean, I had kind of a silly one, which is that I read my three-year-old a book about Marie Curie. And when they described it back to me of like, can you read this book? They referred to Marie Curie as a scienzer instead of a scientist. And I just thought, that's awesome and better. We should have scienzers. We shouldn't have scientists. We should have scienzers. And I was like, you know, Mama's kind of a scienzer. There was like a little bit of a moment of like, does mommy have a Nobel Prize?

• 3:46Speaker 02

  Because a key part of the book is that Marie Curie has two, in fact.

• 3:51Speaker 02

  So, you know, um, Mom's a bad scienzer.

• 3:55Robin Rauzi?

  And then there were scienzers.

• 3:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. Marie Curie was a real scienzer. I'm a podcast host, so that gives you a sense of how good of a scienzer I am.

• 4:09Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 4:10Robin Rauzi?

  So you went back and listened to the, to our first episode?

• 4:14Speaker 02

  Yes. And I think there's some real fun nuggets in there. I do manage to reference both the BLS and testify in front of Congress, so that's on brand.

• 4:25Robin Rauzi?

  And you've done it again, so, you know, drink. If you're playing the optimistic kind of drinking game.

• 4:32Speaker 02

  It was all there in the beginning, defending apolitical institutions and bragging about Congress.

• 4:40Robin Rauzi?

  Breaking about arguing with Congress, I think is really more than...

• 4:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. Part of me is like, oh, this is so cute.

• 4:50Robin Rauzi?

  It's so cute in our early amateur podcasting days.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  We're only a few...

• 4:55Robin Rauzi?

  I suppose we're our advanced amateur podcasting days.

• 4:59Speaker 02

  I mean, in some ways, it sounds more professional than we sound now.

• 5:02Robin Rauzi?

  Devolution.

• 5:02Speaker 02

  It was a tight conversation. We had like a very clear outline. Nobody has taken on more work than they thought they would take on an unpaid podcast hobby that cuts into prep time. And we were very prepped. But it's an interesting moment in time because we recorded just a few weeks into the Trump administration.

• 5:24Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 5:25Speaker 02

  We both mentioned that like we knew that there would be hard news days ahead.

• 5:29Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah. I don't think we knew it would be every single one of them.

• 5:32Speaker 02

  No, we didn't know. We didn't know the fire hydrant of bad news days that were coming our way and just the extent of them. I didn't know. I had this like moment of listening in of like, man, good for us. We're literally sitting there saying like, it's about to get bad. So we're going to create a safe space to talk about how it doesn't have to stay bad and we won't let them win by turning to despair and pessimism. And I, so there's something like, kind of like cute about it of like, oh, this is a girl who doesn't even know that a BLS commissioner can be fired and slandered.

• 6:05Robin Rauzi?

  Right.

• 6:07Speaker 02

  She has no idea.

• 6:09Robin Rauzi?

  She has no idea it's coming.

• 6:10Speaker 02

  She has no idea that the only black woman ever appointed the Federal Reserve Board of Governors is about to be target of a smear campaign in order to take over interest rate policy. Things not on her bingo card.

• 6:22Robin Rauzi?

  Oh, God. So many things.

• 6:24Speaker 02

  So many things. Like, looking back, like, what a great encapsulation of a moment of time of like, it was almost this declaration of like, we will not succumb to the despair and pessimism that we know is coming. And we will be here every week finding something to be optimistic about, which is funny on some level because we have lots of episodes where people are like, wait, where was the optimism in this one?

• 6:50Robin Rauzi?

  It's true.

• 6:50Speaker 02

  It's true. It's true. So I, I had some questions for you and I about wrapping up season one. What kind of reaction did you get from friends and family? When the podcast went live and we started airing episodes? Any good ones? Any like surprising ones? Any funny ones?

• 7:12Robin Rauzi?

  Hmm. I will say, I am continually surprised that people that I know only maybe through someone else reach out on social media or some other way to say that they've been listening to the show.

• 7:30Robin Rauzi?

  But one of the funnier things that happened to me was I got together with my high school friends over the summer and they were all driving from a couple hours away. And so they used that opportunity to listen and catch up on the podcast on their way. And we hadn't been there an hour when my friend Emily said, "I was just about to say something to you about something I just learned and then I realized I learned it on your podcast."

• 8:00Robin Rauzi?

  You're just in the flow of conversation. And so it was really, but it was great to see, this is, I think, what we had hoped, is that we'd hoped that we would be giving people information and facts and an understanding of things that they hadn't had an opportunity to think about so that, that they would feel armed and empowered to take that into their own conversations with their own family, with their own friends.

• 8:26Speaker 02

  Even if Robin is in those conversations?

• 8:29Robin Rauzi?

  Turns out, if I've actually heard that conversation a few times. That was a, I think that was my kind of funniest podcast moment.

• 8:38Speaker 02

  I think after the paid family leave episode, that was an incredible, for me, to find out just how many people listened to the podcast and how quickly they listened to it. Because I, for almost a month, would get text messages that was like, "Oh, my God."

• 8:54Robin Rauzi?

  Because that's when you said that you were pregnant.

• 8:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, "I just listened to paid family leave. You're pregnant again."

• 9:00Speaker 02

  So that was really fun. And then I, and then I have had people in conversation, maybe like closer friends will drop in something like, "Oh, consuming leisure, are we?" And I'm like, "Oh, my God, you've been listening."

• 9:13Speaker 02

  When we said we wanted to inform people and help them talk about the economy, it was just to ruin their language as much as mine is ruined.

• 9:20Robin Rauzi?

  Exactly. Exactly. I love a good buzzword as much as anybody and I'm pleased that we have populated consuming leisure into the discourse. That's satisfying.

• 9:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. The things that have resonated with people and the people who have gotten in touch, and especially people that we have, we don't know them, like the reviews we've gotten, like I love the person who was like, "You said you were unhinged. Don't get hinged." That one was great.

• 9:52Speaker 02

  Like, "The show is a disaster. I love it." Like, every review has meant so much. Just the number of people that we've, that have emailed, like, I don't want to say that we're so bad at podcasting that we started this without actually thinking deeply about audience.

• 10:06Robin Rauzi?

  That might be true.

• 10:08Speaker 02

  That might be true.

• 10:10Robin Rauzi?

  That might be true.

• 10:11Speaker 02

  That might be true.

• 10:11Robin Rauzi?

  I mean, I think that if we'd thought too much about it, I don't know if we would have done it.

• 10:15Speaker 02

  I don't think, definitely wouldn't have done it, yeah.

• 10:16Robin Rauzi?

  I mean, you had given it more thought than I had, obviously, because you had come up with the name, Optimist Economy, and other things about the structure of the show. But, um, yeah, I think that if I had any idea, I don't know that I would have gotten past "I'm not saying no."

• 10:31Speaker 02

  I just didn't know we would have so much interaction. I had come from, you know, writing columns and making TikToks and Instagram videos. You know, you put a lot out, you don't get a ton back in return. And I was expecting that type of low bar interaction of like, "We're gonna put ourselves out there and we'll get, we're gonna get a little bit in return." We get so much in return.

• 10:52Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah, we did.

• 10:53Speaker 02

  I don't think I could have counted on it because it would have been like, "I can't get my hopes up." But, yeah. Low bar people, that's the, that is the clearest path to optimism, is having a low bar.

• 11:05Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah. I think that's true. I was replying to emails last night, and I actually emailed somebody, and she got back to me right away and said, "Oh, my God, I'm listening to this, your podcast, right now." So I'm freaking out a little bit.

• 11:23Robin Rauzi?

  And the funny thing is that we're just regular people. We're just sitting here answering our own email. And that email might be from you. So I have really enjoyed the interactions I've had with people who've written into the show especially. And, oh. Among the things that I loved, in fact, we should probably just run the entire thing at the end of this episode. We got a voicemail. It's actually three voicemails in a row. It adds up to almost, I don't know, nine minutes from a listener who explained in fantastic detail the problems of paid family and medical leave implementation from the point of view of somebody who works in payroll accounting for a multi-state staffing firm.

• 12:08Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 12:09Robin Rauzi?

  So if you can imagine, if you have a staffing company where people don't all work the regular number of days and they are operating in different states and each state has different rules about paid family medical leave and who qualifies and who doesn't and what it takes to go over this threshold about whether you pay the tax. And you're a staffing firm, it's a nightmare. It's absolutely a nightmare. And this person, she knew that we would understand and she could call us and tell us exactly what a gigantic pain in the ass it is that every state in the country has a different paid medical and family leave if they have one at all.

• 12:46Speaker 02

  Oh, man. Okay, well, so she needs to call back and tell us about unemployment insurance because that's going to hit her as well.

• 12:51Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 12:52Speaker 02

  Another thing that we talked about.

• 12:54Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 12:55Speaker 02

  We wanted to do something about the bad news fire hydrant that we knew was coming. You said in particular, fire, wait, bad news, the fire hydrant, drinking out of a fire hydrant, drinking out of a fire hose, which is it?

• 13:06Robin Rauzi?

  Either one, yeah. But I was thinking about, well, I was thinking about the fire hose of falsehood.

• 13:10Speaker 02

  Fire, okay. It's been rough.

• 13:13Robin Rauzi?

  I honestly don't know how these nine months would have gone for me if I weren't doing this podcast. I mean, I don't know about you, but this has been a way to focus on something that isn't that fire hose.

• 13:27Speaker 02

  It's kept me so motivated.

• 13:29Robin Rauzi?

  I think there's something about talking on a podcast that has made me take my own thoughts a little more seriously.

• 13:34Speaker 02

  How so?

• 13:35Robin Rauzi?

  Isn't that weird?

• 13:36Speaker 02

  No.

• 13:37Robin Rauzi?

  Just looking back at your list here of thoughts we put down when we started the show in February, March about despair is paralysis. Now, it's not my thought, I stole that from my friend Peter. But when I said it aloud, I thought, you know, I have to live that. I've said it aloud on a podcast, so apparently I am committed to it now.

• 13:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, it does change the way I process the news.

• 14:01Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah. So this is Peter Kalmis, who's a climate activist and scientist, and I helped him a little bit on his book. Anyway, he also said despair is different than grief. And I think a lot of what we're all processing about what's happening with everything from layoffs to shutdowns to immigration kidnappings to all of it is grief. And grief is something that you go through. You don't just stop at. But despair is paralysis. Anyway, the wisdom of that has stuck with me.

• 14:41Speaker 02

  Something that I've said when we're talking about specific policies is you have to keep your eye on the ball.

• 14:46Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 14:47Speaker 02

  And this show has functioned of like, keep your eye on the ball. They want you to look away, but don't look away from the future.

• 14:56Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 14:58Speaker 02

  You know, when the BLS commissioner was fired, that was a bad day for me personally. That one hit home. I mean, you always kind of internalize news by its proximity to you.

• 15:09Robin Rauzi?

  Right.

• 15:10Speaker 02

  So the attacks on federal employees, that one hits. And the attacks on economists at statistical agencies, that one hits too. When Doge started firing federal workers at random and attacking certain agencies because they were the ones that were saying Elon Musk needs to be regulated in payment processes, so he's going to go after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, I mean, just like the personal vendetta aspect of it all, it was so upsetting, I couldn't talk about it on the show. You just put it in a box and just lock it up. And you put it in the closet, and you don't think about that feeling.

• 15:47Speaker 02

  And actually, most therapists will tell you repression is a really good technique. And you should do it more often and don't talk about your feelings. But then I think about six months later, Erica being fired. And like, I don't know, it was easier for me to like also deal with the bad news, knowing that like I had this like constant task of, of keeping your eye on the ball for the future.

• 16:10Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 16:11Speaker 02

  And at the start, that was hard. And then the show is like, exercise this muscle. So that means we're on a break for, for family leave. Nothing bad can happen.

• 16:20Robin Rauzi?

  We're just gonna.

• 16:20Speaker 02

  And I'm sure it's gonna go great.

• 16:22Robin Rauzi?

  I'll just send a postcard to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Let them know.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  Sorry.

• 16:28Robin Rauzi?

  We need you to slow down for a couple of months. We're taking a hiatus.

• 16:31Speaker 02

  Just, just go golf, come back in January and then start your bullshit again.

• 16:38Robin Rauzi?

  Well, you know, I, it's funny, one of the things that I have, that has been in the back of my head related to optimism in general is something that I heard from my favorite yoga teacher years and years ago, that has always stuck with me, which is, think about what you want, don't think about what you don't want. And I do think that there's a certain amount of staying informed that we need to do. And like, to your point, the, the things that I've had to put in a box and stick in a closet is the attacks on the news media. The attacks on the freedom of the press and the freedom of speech in general, in addition to everything else. But that's the one that strikes, that strikes close to home for me. And to your point, I've done a lot of exercising, of like, mental exercising around,

• 17:23Robin Rauzi?

  think about what you want and don't give in to letting your attention be dominated by somebody who wants to dominate your attention for no good purpose.

• 17:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. And it, you know, he's a reality TV star. He's good at getting attention.

• 17:44Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 17:45Speaker 02

  I was on the record talking to someone about something about the economy.

• 17:49Robin Rauzi?

  Probably, yeah.

• 17:50Speaker 02

  No, I said, I said, it makes a lot more sense if you think of him as a reality star and less than as a president. And it's just about drama and distraction and ratings and attention. And that was, that was like a helpful filter for me of like, there's some producer that's like, you know what you should do.

• 18:11Speaker 02

  Fire her, or like, you know, something.

• 18:15Robin Rauzi?

  Sending Marines and National Guard into my hometown.

• 18:19Speaker 02

  Sending Marines and National Guard into my home for, of a decade. My second city, my second hometown city.

• 18:29Speaker 02

  I guess adopted hometown city. I guess I just really love it. Maybe I should just say that it doesn't have to have a title. I just love DC. God, you know what's crazy? When we started this season, I lived in another place.

• 18:40Robin Rauzi?

  We both lived in different places when we started the show. I mean, I, when I think about, like I said, it was, it's a year ago that you first called me to say, I'm going to do this podcast and I think you should do it with me. And I can see myself sitting in my house in Spokane, sitting on the couch in our front room, a house which we no longer own. There's just so many things that are just beyond just the news that have happened in our lives. I think that it's kind of a whirlwind.

• 19:08Speaker 02

  I know, also, like, we cannot, we cannot thank Andy and Sophie enough. Y'all didn't hardly notice that, like, I moved across the country. We didn't record for like three weeks. Or, I mean, we had an episode, I'm just, I'm, part of me is like, you know, we actually had an episode posted every Tuesday for like nine months.

• 19:29Robin Rauzi?

  It's, which is amazing. I mean, when we started this show, a couple of things that I, that I think back to, one was, we had to give ourselves a lot of permission to fail and said, as Catherine put it, you know, we can't be afraid of going to podcast jail.

• 19:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, that we, we could very easily end up in podcast jail for doing something we're not supposed to do, but.

• 19:47Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah. And then, and then the second thing was, we thought the show would be 25 minutes long.

• 19:52Speaker 02

  That is actually the funniest part. Looking back, that's the absolute funniest part of how, how tight we thought we were going to keep this. Like, half hour episodes, easy.

• 20:00Robin Rauzi?

  Top. Because this is, this is a show you're going to listen to while you walk your dog.

• 20:03Speaker 02

  That is exactly right. I was like, I'm walking my dog and I'm thinking, I'm envisioning a show where I walk my dog and listen to the episode. No.

• 20:12Robin Rauzi?

  No. And I think what we also didn't realize is the fact that we couldn't hold ourselves to that meant that everything we do takes more than twice as long.

• 20:21Speaker 02

  Everything we do, yeah. The, the quality control listens and the audio checks and everything took longer.

• 20:27Robin Rauzi?

  I listen to your voice so much, I feel like you live in my house.

• 20:36Speaker 02

  I must haunt Sophie's dreams.

• 20:38Robin Rauzi?

  While you were traveling and I was like, did Catherine move out? Like, what happened?

• 20:47Speaker 02

  I mean, someone asked my husband if he listens to the show and he's like, I hear it a couple of times. I've been here since the concept stage.

• 20:59Speaker 02

  So, call back to the first episode. You said that you were so outside your comfort zone.

• 21:05Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 21:07Speaker 02

  And I said, like, I felt like I was about to get called up to the front of the classroom and people were gonna laugh at what I was wearing. That kind of went away. I feel a little bit more comfortable here.

• 21:19Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 21:20Speaker 02

  But, man, optimists out there, you should know, I try so hard to make sure everything I say is accurate. And I end up listening to the show four times because I'm like, every fact, every random citation, every... I mean, this is why we have to retcon is because I'm so nervous about getting it wrong. And I don't want to, I don't want to do that. So that, believe it or not, this unhinged podcast has a lot of perfectionism behind it.

• 21:48Speaker 02

  Not in like, the way that you're thinking.

• 21:51Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah. In terms of being outside my comfort zone, I was at a party last weekend with a whole lot of newspaper people that I've worked with over the years. And my wife was there with me and she is our biggest hype man. And so she walks around and telling people about the podcast all the time. And I have to say, I'm still a little embarrassed.

• 22:16Robin Rauzi?

  And I don't know, I'm not embarrassed of the show at all. I'm embarrassed that I would think that I could do this.

• 22:26Speaker 02

  Oh, I have like, a little bit of embarrassment of like, you know, I used to have a real job.

• 22:32Robin Rauzi?

  I think partly because I'm an editor. We're really behind the scenes people. And...

• 22:38Robin Rauzi?

  I think what we do is important and valuable, but it's not front and center usually unless you're Jeffrey Goldberg. And so being on a podcast really does feel like drawing attention to myself in a way that I didn't think that I would do. I feel like editing has value, but I don't know that, I didn't know that it would be valuable in this context.

• 22:59Speaker 02

  It's so valuable. I will hear from economists and they'll say things like, I'm so glad you're doing this because I would rather die than do it.

• 23:13Speaker 02

  I mean, it's a lot of detective work of people who work, they're at their desk, they're at their computer, and they're going through data and they're looking for patterns and they're building up, I mean, just the smallest conclusions that the world can think of. You know, with the evidence on like school lunch, I think that I probably summarized 25 different papers over the course of that episode of just how small one paper's contribution can be, but like how important that you have all of those contributions lined up. And so I've heard from so many people who work on that, like just like frontline detective work, who have said, I mean, I'm so glad that you're doing this because I don't like what you're doing. I want to keep doing what I'm doing. I want to be like in the closet, at the computer,

• 23:58Speaker 02

  looking at the data, not talking to anybody. But I've had so many reach out to say that like, there's this, I'm glad that you are communicating this to other people in kind of sharing what we know and hold to be facts and making this information less of a privilege. I was at a conference and I talked to a specific economist and I was saying like, oh, I'm actually putting together a column on that. I was going to cite your paper. And he's like, but no one will talk to me, right? I was like.

• 24:27Robin Rauzi?

  I don't have to talk to anyone about it, do I?

• 24:29Speaker 02

  No one has to talk to you. You don't even have to talk to me right now. He just goes, thank God.

• 24:37Speaker 02

  So it's helped me be more confident here and feel less ridiculous, knowing that there are people who are very much like silent warriors in the process for social justice and a better economic future. You know, we don't all need microphones. Especially if I'm hogging it.

• 25:00Robin Rauzi?

  Well, one of the things that I really like about the fact that we've done this show is that, I mean, I saw your videos, of course, and they certainly are you, but they aren't the this you that I knew, right? They weren't the slightly snarky, can be really funny Catherine Edwards that I knew was beneath all those very serious Bloomberg columns.

• 25:19Speaker 02

  And very like pointed TikToks where I'm just trying to explain and I don't make many jokes. I had, I had, I did have a TikTok video I put up recently and they were like, why aren't you funny like you are on the show?

• 25:34Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah, I mean, I do feel like it's like the three faces of Catherine. There's the Bloomberg Catherine, there's the TikTok Catherine, and then there's Podcast Catherine. And I don't know if any, if people didn't know, they would know you're the same person.

• 25:46Robin Rauzi?

  Except for your love of the BLS comes, comes through in all of them.

• 25:49Speaker 02

  The only thing that shines through is my love for the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

• 25:56Speaker 02

  There are many things that have been happening in parallel to the podcast this season. That's, Optimist Economy is a podcast, but we have.

• 26:04Robin Rauzi?

  Oh, my gosh, yeah.

• 26:06Speaker 02

  We have so many.

• 26:06Robin Rauzi?

  That's the only thing, like so much, like all the other stuff we've done.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:12Speaker 02

  Okay, so like in the background.

• 26:14Robin Rauzi?

  In the background.

• 26:15Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, we record this show, but in the meantime, and we thought at the start of the show, we'd sell ads. Like, I'm sure y'all need mattresses or ads from the Beef Council or like tips on how to hire Equifax workforce solutions or like, we were gonna sell our soul to Big Cinnamon, Big Sin plays. I get so many Big Sin comments of like,

• 26:39Speaker 02

  Robin, your dislike of the Cinnamon Agenda is amazing.

• 26:44Robin Rauzi?

  Went to Trader Joe's the other day and there they were. I was like, I should just take a picture of this and post it.

• 26:48Speaker 02

  I think someone commented on one of the Big Sin video clips that we put on TikTok that like, there should be an executive order of people who don't know how to shop at Trader Joe's, have to go at like a special time.

• 26:59Robin Rauzi?

  Exactly.

• 27:02Speaker 02

  But when we started this, we were like, okay, we'll get people who will listen to the show, they'll download it, we'll take that and like get sponsors and put ads in the show. And like, we thought of this as being like a very much a self sustaining, sell y'all energy drinks.

• 27:18Speaker 02

  Or like yogurt or something, I don't know.

• 27:20Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah, we obviously didn't think that through.

• 27:21Speaker 02

  We didn't think that part-

• 27:22Robin Rauzi?

  How many companies are going to alienate before we finish the first five episodes?

• 27:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it was the union episode where I kept on trashing Starbucks that I was like, I'm starting to see why maybe we don't, we aren't going to get a ton of sponsors. But we pivoted in the background in another way, which was that we've now incorporated Optimist Economy as a nonprofit. And we see the podcast as being like step one.

• 27:45Robin Rauzi?

  The tip of the iceberg.

• 27:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was the first thing we did and it'll, if we're lucky, it'll be one of the smallest things we do to make this-

• 27:53Robin Rauzi?

  Wait, what?

• 27:55Speaker 02

  Wait, what, Robin, I'm sorry, what did you, no, I'm sorry, no, Robin, what? Nothing, nothing? I haven't signed you up for a ton of work, it doesn't matter. Anyway, you said yes, you said not no.

• 28:06Speaker 02

  You're on the hook. I just, you know, we just know we wanted to get out our message and that we hoped it would have an audience and that that would somehow come together with funding. And we want to make Optimist Economy more than just a podcast, but an organization whose mission is to inform and empower, not just through a podcast, but through many avenues. And that this is the beta version.

• 28:33Robin Rauzi?

  This is the first one, yeah.

• 28:35Speaker 02

  This is the building the plane while we fly it, maybe we should do more than just podcasts, maybe we should get this message out in any way we can. And all of that happened in the background of season one. And so we've, we've basically been building two things at the same time, the podcast that you download and the nonprofit that we're building.

• 28:54Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  I don't know if we should put this in, but we are going to have a book, but not for like two years, because it takes along to write and publish, but-

• 29:04Robin Rauzi?

  And by we, she means her.

• 29:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. I, I will have-

• 29:09Robin Rauzi?

  You are going to write a book.

• 29:10Speaker 02

  I'm going to write a book. Everyone has to buy 10 copies, hardback preorder, thank you.

• 29:17Speaker 02

  And like a year, we'll stop asking for you to give us money. We'll be like, stop what you're doing. Go buy Catherine's book on pre-order.

• 29:26Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 29:27Speaker 02

  I'm looking back at the start of the first season of like, we're wrapping this up. And I'm already thinking about how like, oh, man, I can't like, we're gonna be at the end of season two and being like, oh, my God. Like, look at all we've done. I'm looking forward to that moment. Like, I already see it.

• 29:44Robin Rauzi?

  I may be in better off not looking too far ahead. I feel like.

• 29:48Speaker 02

  Oh, I am the, I am, I am an eternal optimist, like, in my soul. It's not a persona I put on for y'all. I am, in fact, an eternal optimist.

• 29:57Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah, I believe, I like to be, uh, did you ever ride motorcycles? Like, when you ride motorcycles, you have to find this, like, exact distance that you want your focus to be at. You don't want to be looking too close. You don't want to be looking down at the ground. You absolutely don't want to do that. But you can't look too far out because you really need to stay attentive to the things that might go under your wheel. That's kind of where I am. It's kind of a journalist looking slightly far ahead, but not too far.

• 30:19Speaker 02

  We get it, Robin. You rode motorcycles. You're cooler than all of us. I have two kind of ways to end this conversation. We try not to talk about politics on this show. Because it's not really about the politics of the day. It's about the economics that will build a better future. But at some point, those two have to meet. You know, getting into the politics is, is a part that comes eventually. And I've appreciated that, to have this, like, moment of like, well, we're going to get through this time and I don't have to think about how any of this becomes real or how people get it out the door. It's just like a nice, almost like, fresh and raw, like, this is ju, these are just the ideas.

• 31:00Robin Rauzi?

  And why not? Why not do that? I mean, do other things by all means. But we're in a moment where, you know, if all you do is respond to what you hate and what you don't want, you're not thinking about what you do want. And if you're not thinking about and articulating what you do want and what you do need, you're not going to get the politicians who give it to you.

• 31:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:21Robin Rauzi?

  Right? This isn't, you go to Target and all the choices you have are the shirts that are on the rack. You know, this is, you have to go and demand what it is you want.

• 31:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I think, I feel like as Americans, we tend to fall in love with politicians. I have a friend who's a presidential historian and she was like, we are a deeply optimistic people that falls in love with presidents. We like to be captivated and charmed and, you know, there's never going to be one person that has all the answers. They can just be the catalyst for making the answers reality. We tend to put that on a person and it seems almost safer to put it on a policy that we know will work and just look for the person who can help us get us across the finish line. Part of me thinks that having a show that's truly just about the ideas, at least for as long as we can do that, is a way to almost like take the pressure off of what we expect from politicians.

• 32:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. Like, at the end of the day, we need an executor. We just need someone who gets things done. Mm-hmm. I don't know, I've said before that like, in talking about what we're trying to do, the message isn't, here's the best version of paid family leave. The message is that we should stay optimistic about our economic future and whatever door you walk through to get there, I just want you to have a seat at the table. And I sometimes have this, you know, love metaphors, not so great at them, but I love them. And this idea that like, I'm just trying, like, what we're doing here is just opening doors for people to give them a path in, to get a seat at the table of like, I'm in, America's going to have a better future, it's however you get there.

• 32:58Speaker 02

  I mean, you, you say despair is paralysis. I, I have to tell myself over and over, like, you don't need to slam any doors and lock them shut. Like, you have to leave the door open, that someone's going to come and, and, I don't know if this metaphor, the longer I talk about it, the, the less confident, I get that it's making any sense, but I do think about that of like, who gets to sit at the table and this is...

• 33:23Speaker 02

  This space, this show, podcasts, nonprofit, everything we're trying to build is not about selling a specific policy of like, y'all, I'm here to get you to agree that we should have paid sick leave at least 10 days. Like, it's not about that detail. It's about getting you to think like...

• 33:44Robin Rauzi?

  Oh, it would, it could be different if we did this differently.

• 33:46Speaker 02

  It could be different. Like, the economy could be different, and we can make a different choice than the one we've made. And I-

• 33:50Robin Rauzi?

  I also think there's plenty of podcasts. I mean, the internet runs on outrage. There's plenty of podcasts for that. And, I mean, I don't know about you, but I very often will write a social media post and then just delete it all.

• 34:01Speaker 02

  Delete it, yeah, definitely.

• 34:02Robin Rauzi?

  And I do that, you know, and then it's out of my system, and then I, nobody needs to hear that from me. What I think listeners of this show has, have told us, is what they need from us.

• 34:13Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so we'll come back. That's almost a wrap on season one. This is the part where we move on to executive orders and spiritual sponsors, and we have a treat for y'all.

• 34:23Robin Rauzi?

  We do. You guys have been sending us so many executive orders, and we've been keeping them in a list over here. And we're going to read them all out now in our executive order palooza.

• 34:35Speaker 02

  Executive order palooza.

• 34:37Robin Rauzi?

  For instance, on this list is Nicole in Maryland. Buildings on main thoroughfares must keep 10 extra gallons of matching paint on hand to quickly cover up graffiti. That's my sister. What she really said is, you need to keep a bunch of extra paint around so when someone paints a giant dick and balls on the outside of your building, you can paint it over.

• 35:00Speaker 02

  Okay. Executive orders. Lee in Chicago. Product manufacturers must put barcodes in logical, scannable locations. No more hunting around creases, folds, or awkward positions at checkout. Endorse.

• 35:15Robin Rauzi?

  Endorse. Wynn in Columbus, Ohio says, everyone should switch to the now-legal gummies instead of smoking sneaky weed at the bus stop.

• 35:25Speaker 02

  I'm going to add a quick addendum that you also shouldn't smoke weed inside the car of a metro when people are on their way to work and don't want to smell like weed when they get to work. So I'm, yes, endorse and expand. Sarah in Washington DC, "We need to have a mandatory six to 12 month service requirement for all high school graduates and communities across different regions and socioeconomic classes to build empathy and understanding, and we can fund it by cutting military spending until they pass an audit."

• 35:54Speaker 02

  I love this. I wanted to put a real proposal like this out in the world, but it was called AmeriCamp, and it was a way to do summer camp where it would bring people together from different parts of the country. And so you'd fill out regions of the country for different camps and make people like travel and stuff like that. Like a civics camp that everyone had to go to. I'm really fun. It's a learning camp. Everybody wants it. Fun in the summertime.

• 36:24Robin Rauzi?

  Kyle, my buddy in LA, says Autocorrect cannot change correctly spelled words to different words that it thinks you meant, and definitely can't change it back again when you fix it. Endorse Kyle, endorse.

• 36:35Speaker 02

  Endorse Kyle. I'll also expand and say that any type of AI infrastructure, you have to be able to turn off on any program that you have.

• 36:42Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah, easily, please.

• 36:44Speaker 02

  Just turn off AI for at least two more versions. Y'all are not there yet. Okay. Rich in Michigan, "Hotels must reset alarm clocks after every guest checks out to address the national sleep emergency and end 5:00 AM wake-up calls from previous guest schedules. Make America Sleep Again."

• 37:04Robin Rauzi?

  He did send this in all caps, written like a tweet from the president.

• 37:07Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Oh, I do remember this one. It did come in all caps.

• 37:09Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah, this clearly happened to Rich. Yeah. He said, "This had happened to Rich," and he was like, "Executive order."

• 37:15Speaker 02

  Oh, it's happened to me, and I've been devastated.

• 37:19Robin Rauzi?

  Emily in Silver Spring, Maryland, says, "Real estate apps like Zillow and Redfin have to have a public comment section after each listing to collectively shame sellers who are pushing overpriced, low-quality properties. Endorse." First of all, I spend way more time on Zillow and Redfin than I do on actual social media. I would spend so much time commenting on people's homes for sale.

• 37:45Robin Rauzi?

  So maybe I shouldn't endorse. Maybe this would be like a time suck for me, but I love this idea.

• 37:51Speaker 02

  Robber in Virginia, "All legislation must use publicly accessible blockchain technology in real time, making each portion of a bill directly attributable to whoever authored it for transparency and accountability."

• 38:05Robin Rauzi?

  I like that. Who put this amendment on there?

• 38:07Speaker 02

  Who put this in?

• 38:08Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah. Who put this in here? I'm going to go to Teagan in Maine. "Car manufacturers must design car seats so you can actually vacuum underneath them instead of creating cosmic black holes for dirt, hair, and old receipts."

• 38:21Speaker 02

  Love it.

• 38:22Robin Rauzi?

  Endors.

• 38:23Speaker 02

  Claire in Philadelphia, "Diapers with color change wetness indicators cannot use that same indicator color anywhere else on the diaper. If the line is blue when wet, there should be no other blueprints allowed." Yeah, I'm with you, Claire. And also, make the line bigger.

• 38:41Robin Rauzi?

  All right. Kinzer in North Carolina says, "Drivers over retirement age must have regular license retesting." But Kinzer's only 23, and so we're not going to let him implement this until he's 35.

• 38:57Speaker 02

  All right. Stacy says, "Frozen pizzas that must be cooked directly on the oven rack for quote unquote 'best results' are banned. No more cheese, sauce, and toppings scorched and welded to the oven floor." Practical.

• 39:11Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 39:13Robin Rauzi?

  Roman in Washington State says, "Companies cannot demand credit cards for free trials. All subscriptions must be cancelable in one click, and every company phone line needs automatic callback."

• 39:26Robin Rauzi?

  Absolutely.

• 39:26Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 39:27Robin Rauzi?

  That basically is the, all the executive orders of season one rolled into one.

• 39:31Speaker 02

  All right. Mandy in Georgia, "All job postings must include compensation, location requirements with remote work clarity, application deadlines, and interview process timelines." Well, I endorse this.

• 39:42Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah, she sent this actually before we did the unemployment episode.

• 39:45Speaker 02

  Oh, man. Mandy, we are in sync, because I'm like, let's do that times 1,000.

• 39:49Robin Rauzi?

  And I, yeah, I replied to it at the time. I was like, oh, yeah, we're going to get to this. We have so many feelings.

• 39:54Speaker 02

  All right. Last one.

• 39:55Robin Rauzi?

  Last one is from somebody named Amanda in Massachusetts, who says, "Please, as hosts, introduce yourselves with your full names. And please, at the end of episodes, use your producers' full names, too, so that everyone involved in the production of the show is publicly recognized and given suitable credit for the excellent work you all do together as a team."

• 40:15Robin Rauzi?

  I'm Robyn Rousey. I'm an editor in Los Angeles.

• 40:17Speaker 02

  I am Catherine Anne Edwards. I'm an economist in Houston, Texas. And we end our show by snapping out our production team, Andy Robinson of Robinson Video Consulting and Sophie Lalonde in Chicago.

• 40:32Robin Rauzi?

  Who has a website at sophielalonde.com.

• 40:35Speaker 02

  Who we absolutely endorse, who run their own businesses, much like Robyn and I do.

• 40:40Robin Rauzi?

  But they're not nonprofits.

• 40:42Speaker 02

  They're not nonprofits. And they are available for all your podcast and video editing needs, especially as we break for the season.

• 40:51Robin Rauzi?

  Exactly. Thanks, guys.

• 41:00Speaker 02

  And we'll put in our spiritual sponsors. My season one spiritual sponsor is our listeners.

• 41:09Robin Rauzi?

  My season one spiritual sponsor is our spouses.

• 41:11Speaker 02

  Yep, they're deaf, deaf right there.

• 41:15Speaker 02

  Need both of them.

• 41:19Speaker 02

  To all of our listeners and spouses out there, thank you so much for joining us.

• 41:23Robin Rauzi?

  Thank you so much.

• 41:23Speaker 02

  Thank you for being original optimists here from the beginning for season one. We look forward to coming back.

• 41:31Robin Rauzi?

  We have a merch store.

• 41:33Speaker 02

  We're gonna have a merch store. We're gonna have so much.

• 41:34Robin Rauzi?

  Give us money.

• 41:37Speaker 02

  We're gonna have so much for season two. It's gonna be a disaster. I can't wait.