The U.S. is in the Hole. Will We Stop Digging?

The national debt is $36 trillion — a panic-inducing big number. So maybe it will help to understand how the U. S. ran up that debt. We’ve blown 37% of it on tax cuts, with precious little to show for that. But 28% went to stabilize the economy during two major crises (in ’08-’09 and during the COVID pandemic), which is when you do want the federal government to pull out its credit card. Good news is we don’t have to get the debt to zero. We just need to get pointed in that direction. And for listeners who’ve been waiting for Kathryn Edwards to discuss MMT (Modern Monetary Theory), your moment has come. ✨ Support the Optimist Economy podcast at: https://optimisteconomy.substack.com/subscribe or https://buymeacoffee.com/optimisteconomy ✨ Complete show notes with links to articles and data at optimisteconomy.com https://optimisteconomy.substack.com/. You can also find Optimist Economy on: TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@optimist_economy YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@optimist_economy Instagram https://www.instagram.com/optimist_economy/

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  At Radiolab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  But, but, we do also like to get into other kinds of stories, stories about policing, or

• 0:12Speaker 00

  Politics.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  Country music.

• 0:13Speaker 00

  Hockey.

• 0:14Speaker 01

  Sex of bugs.

• 0:16Speaker 00

  Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not-science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers.

• 0:23Speaker 01

  And hopefully, make you see the world anew.

• 0:24Speaker 00

  Radiolab, adventures on the edge of what we think we know.

• 0:28Speaker 01

  Wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:35Speaker 02

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

• 0:37Robin Rauzi?

  I'm Robin.

• 0:38Speaker 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.

• 0:53Speaker 02

  For our newer listeners to Optimist Economy, we welcome you to the show. And start by saying that you can support us, join us, be part of us at optimist economy dot com. We have a newsletter that you can subscribe to. We absolutely take donations. We also have a Buy Me a Coffee account where you can do the same.

• 1:09Robin Rauzi?

  Information on all of this at optimist economy dot com.

• 1:13Speaker 02

  Optimist Economy dot com. Just a quick sidebar for our long-term listeners. Doesn't it feel like we're getting more natural at that part? Like, new listeners, we've been good at this the whole time. Old listeners, what about the journey you're witnessing here? You'll notice when I'm uncomfortable, sometimes I speak incredibly quickly, like, hey, by the way, give us money, we really needed to do the show. Okay, so go ahead. Robin, what's your retcon?

• 1:39Robin Rauzi?

  The only retcon that I had listened, when I listened to our last episode, was the question about discharge of debt and bankruptcy. And we had said, for instance, that student loans were among the things that you could not get rid of by declaring bankruptcy. Along with other, some certain things, like apparently the injuries you cause in drunk driving accidents and alimony and child support, tax debt. So you can appeal? You have to have a special hearing?

• 2:07Speaker 02

  Yes. Yeah. I mean, it's not easy.

• 2:10Robin Rauzi?

  It's not easy. It's not automatic.

• 2:13Speaker 02

  Right. If you go into bankruptcy, you have to file a separate hearing to get permission to discharge your student loan debt. And if you do, they take into account like how hard you tried to pay it back. So it's not just you go into bankruptcy and you have debt and it goes away. Like it's, it's, it still comes down to their behavior and they can say, no.

• 2:33Robin Rauzi?

  Got it. Okay. Reccons for you?

• 2:37Speaker 02

  I have, I have like a whole host of reccons.

• 2:39Robin Rauzi?

  I know you got like a list, I see.

• 2:40Speaker 02

  I have like, yeah, I have a list going. Well, so just to kind of go backward in time for past episodes, we had a listener write in about the fertility episode saying that we weren't right in how we talked about maternal mortality rates. And I think we were using different measures. So I, maternal mortality has measures where like you can look how far out you look, whether or not you look at any cause of death or a cause of death related to pre or postnatal conditions. And so the listener wrote in to say that, you know, she works in this space and she thought that we were mischaracterizing maternal mortality. So we posted the letter and some links to how the CDC talks about how hard it is to

• 3:22Speaker 02

  measure maternal mortality and kind of the ways that it happens. I think her material point, which is one that we can emphasize here, is that maternal mortality is really uneven in the U.S. Rich women, white women, women in urban areas, women at large teaching hospitals in urban areas, they just have very different risk than say someone in rural areas, someone who goes to worse hospitals, women of color.

• 3:46Robin Rauzi?

  I think that she also pointed out that in her eyes, women are also dying from things that are not directly related to their childbirth, but things like postpartum depression, suicide, et cetera, and that she thinks that that's also part of the kind of maternal health question.

• 4:03Speaker 02

  It's an acute time in people's life. Something that I didn't bring up in the fertility episode that this kind of called to mind and was, you know, the other part of my retcon for fertility is, we never talked about how people who can limit their fertility because they have such a hard time in pregnancy. Right. You know, and like, okay. If they have a rough pregnancy, they don't want to have another one. Yeah, rough pregnancy, rough labor and delivery, rough postnatal care. Yeah. Like, you end up with some type of eclampsia, you have, I don't know what the condition is, but some people have this condition where like, they never get over morning sickness and their morning sickness is incredibly acute. And that, that would be a, I don't think I should do this again. Yeah. Because it was so harmful to my health as a, as a woman. That's not something that you can, that policy can fix.

• 4:48Speaker 02

  But we should recognize that like, we, the whole conversation, there was no mention of like, also, pregnancy blows. [laughter] And if you were to say, you know what, I've had my fill, and I am not doing this again. Yeah. That is another thing that policy, you know, would not change. Not going to change. Not going to change. The childcare episode, when we were talking about how fraught friend and family care reimbursement can be. I didn't say plainly, something that I genuinely believe to be true, is that this care matters. And it's not easy to incorporate it into a federally reimbursed system, but it's often the type of care that people prefer, especially when their kids are really young.

• 5:31Speaker 02

  And the difficulty of it doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. I think what I was overemphasizing is I'm so worried that if we get it wrong, it'll be used as like, a justification to pull back childcare investments. And so I, I did not like, give as much space to just how much people like and want friend and family care, and that just because it's difficult to incorporate in the system doesn't mean that we can't. The other thing, I got a comment on one of the socia's about this, is that someone said, the biggest argument that resonates with conservatives about childcare is that people don't think that they'd have a choice in whether they send their kid. Which was wild to me.

• 6:16Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah, I've heard that too.

• 6:17Speaker 02

  Like, they won't let me stay home. They're gonna make me take my kid to some like communist run.

• 6:24Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah, government, some sort of government camp childcare.

• 6:27Speaker 02

  She was like, be sure to tell people that this would still be voluntary. And I was like, why on earth wouldn't it be voluntary? But yeah, I guess that's, that's something that comes up a lot is people are told, kind of in the activating people against more support for childcare, that like you wouldn't have a choice. Like, I guess it resonates on some level of like, the government will make you work. I'm like, well, there's a lot of people would say that the government does make them work. So maybe that part is more intuitive than, and you'd be required to take your kid to a childcare center. I wanted to make sure I got that in there. Those are two things I didn't say about childcare. The last thing I'll say about this is that we like getting these comments. Like, we, this is a long retcon because I was going through a ton of comments beforehand.

• 7:10Speaker 02

  And I, I think that this is one thing we like doing about the show is just, it's not a one direction of conversation. And we like hearing from you. We like getting letters from you at optimist dot economy at gmail dot com. We like getting comments on the socials and on the Substack, and it's really helpful. So we, we like being able to make this more of a conversation. It's not definitive or declarative.

• 7:30Robin Rauzi?

  Well, it's pretty declarative, but.

• 7:32Speaker 02

  I mean, I'm declarative, but I will listen to declarations and response. So is it, what's that called, dialogue? I don't know.

• 7:39Robin Rauzi?

  Conversation?

• 7:40Speaker 02

  Yeah. Speaking of which, did you look up any terms and conditions?

• 7:45Robin Rauzi?

  You know, I didn't look up a term, but I did, I, I looked up a condition this week. I knew that we were gonna talk about the debt, and I also knew that Moody's had in mid-May downgraded the US credit rating. And I realized that I don't know anything really about bond credit ratings. So I wanted to know, like, well, where are we? Like, where do we, where do we stand? What happened? So we went from a AAA bond to an AA1 bond. This is in a 21 notch system that is, I'm just gonna say needlessly confusing, which is AAA, AA1, AA2, AA3, and then it goes into the Bs and then the Cs.

• 8:28Robin Rauzi?

  What I wanted to know was like, okay, well, who else is AAA? So Germany still is, Australia, Canada, Switzerland, Denmark.

• 8:38Robin Rauzi?

  We are kind of in the ballpark of like Finland and Austria. Oh, yes. And then also the, if you wanted to buy government bonds in the Seattle water treatment system, that is also AA1. So, you know, we're right up there with cleaning sewage in Seattle.

• 8:55Speaker 02

  Robin, this show is called Optimistic Economy.

• 8:58Robin Rauzi?

  No, I mean, Finland's okay, right? Austria, they're okay places.

• 9:02Speaker 02

  They all sound like countries.

• 9:03Robin Rauzi?

  They all sound like legit countries.

• 9:05Speaker 02

  This is our third downgrade. There's three major agencies. Standard and Poor, Fitch, and Moody's. And Standard and Poor and Fitch had already both downgraded. They did it around debt ceiling standoff of like, wow, is this a government that's supposed to pay us back money that is like really at the fringes of functioning normally? And they did it kind of as a result of the debt ceiling standoffs that we've had. Moody's was interesting. I mean, they basically did it because of the tax bill.

• 9:37Robin Rauzi?

  And they did it. And said, and said as much.

• 9:39Speaker 02

  And they said, like, you're about to pass a really bad piece of legislation that will add to the debt that is not fiscally responsible. And like, I mean, in the world of credit rating agencies for bonds, which admittedly isn't necessarily a rodeo, I thought that was a pretty wild report.

• 9:56Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah. And they just, I mean, it reads like an op ed, frankly, you know? Yeah, not exactly what you expect from a staid credit rating agency.

• 10:03Speaker 02

  This brings us to our centerpiece today, which is we wanted to talk about the national debt.

• 10:08Robin Rauzi?

  Let's talk about the debt. Actually, I wanted to say from the start, I am impressed that on a show about optimism, that you're like, let's talk about the debt.

• 10:18Speaker 02

  Well, we did get a lot of questions about it. I think the debt instills some kind of natural sense of panic, which certainly like debt in our personal lives is enough to leave one with like low grade anxiety.

• 10:30Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah. And well, and we just talked about the bond situation and Moody's was fairly strong in its statement about the effects of the budget just paying interest on the debt, which gave me a little bit of a panic attack when I read it.

• 10:45Speaker 02

  Sure. Yeah, we gotta, you gotta take these things head on. So let's get back to the optimism part later.

• 10:51Robin Rauzi?

  Okay, we'll, we'll work our way up to it.

• 10:54Speaker 02

  We're gonna work our way up. Gotta build, gotta like break you down and build you up. The US debt. So this is, this is money that people have lent to the US government. Primarily through the sale of treasury securities like bonds that the government promises to pay back.

• 11:10Robin Rauzi?

  Right.

• 11:11Speaker 02

  And the occasion for borrowing mainly comes from the annual shortfall in how much the government collects in taxes and how much it spends in outlays in the given year. That if there is a difference there that's negative, it's a deficit. So if you're going to spend a hundred dollars, but you only took in ninety-five dollars, you've got to borrow the last five. And that is part of the debt. So one way to think of the debt is that it's the accumulated deficits that the US has had over many years. Then there are other things that, you know, we can also just sell bonds because people will buy them. And then like social security holds a lot of bonds as well as a special debt holder, but it mainly comes from accumulated deficits.

• 11:54Robin Rauzi?

  Right. I think one of the ways I knew I was an adult was when I understood the difference between deficits and the debt. I remember in the nineteen ninety-two election, actually, it was the, when Ross Perot was out there with his charts. And that was then, of course, after that election, it was the Clinton administration was the only time in my voting adult life that we had, and I am not young, a surplus.

• 12:18Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 12:19Robin Rauzi?

  Did not run a deficit.

• 12:20Speaker 02

  So the, the brief, like, history of the US debt is that it got real big in World War II. This is a technical term, real big.

• 12:31Robin Rauzi?

  Real big.

• 12:32Speaker 02

  Real big. It got real big. And it was over a hundred percent of GDP. So the number for the size of the US debt doesn't really make a lot of sense. It really is how large is the debt relative to our economy.

• 12:45Robin Rauzi?

  Wait, when you say the number, you mean like the actual dollar amount of the debt?

• 12:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, the actual dollar amount.

• 12:49Robin Rauzi?

  Isn't the relevant question, the question is, how is it compared to how, how much? It's like, you know, it doesn't matter if you own a million dollar, if you own a million dollars on your house, if you have a $23 million house.

• 13:00Speaker 02

  Right.

• 13:01Robin Rauzi?

  But if you own a million dollars on a $500,000 house, you're in trouble.

• 13:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, problem. So we kind of measure the US debt as a percentage of our gross domestic product, which is the estimate of the size of the US economy. And in World War II, it got over 100%. In the decades afterwards, it fell, but starting around 1980, it took off again. And it had been, it had been mainly falling since World War II. And we, you know, there's, there's ups and downs and blips in there, but the, the actual size of the US debt was, was falling relative to the size of the-

• 13:35Robin Rauzi?

  Is that also because the economy is growing?

• 13:37Speaker 02

  Because the economy is growing.

• 13:38Robin Rauzi?

  Right.

• 13:39Speaker 02

  So it's not like the debt itself has ever gotten smaller. It's mainly that our economy, like relative to the economy, we're outgrowing it. I mean, we're paying it down and, and outgrowing it. Well, that lasted until around the 1980s and debt had gotten to about 30% of GDP. And then it just really started to rise again. And for the next 15 years, debt increased from like around 30% of GDP to 65. And this is like the 1992 election, Clinton's first term, debt as a share of GDP has doubled in 15 years. And people are really worried about what is going to happen with the debt. Ross Perot-

• 14:21Robin Rauzi?

  And this is Ross Perot, you know, showing bar charts of this exact thing.

• 14:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. So how big the debt was getting as a, as a size of our economy. So keep in mind that the economy was also not great during a lot of those years. And we really ramped up spending in the 80s, a lot of defense spending. So it was just like a combination of like, well, this is not like, we are not seeing good income growth. That affects the bottom line. We're spending a lot of money on defense, also affects the bottom line. And the economy is not necessarily growing the way that it would. And- In the mid 90s, not only did Congress drastically cut spending, like ending welfare, and doing a bunch of other cuts to balance the budget and lead the US into surplus, but we also had a super strong economy at the end of the 1990s, and a lot of people went

• 15:09Speaker 02

  to work and started paying taxes. So we had this period of booming tax receipts, cut spending, we had a surplus, and we were paying down the debt, not just because we were growing, but because we were putting some of our surplus to the debt.

• 15:23Robin Rauzi?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:24Speaker 02

  And so when we get to 2001, the US debt as a share of GDP has fallen, it's, you know, it's gone down like five points, but it's on a downward trajectory, and the trajectory is crazy. So the Congressional Budget Office estimates, in 2001, this is towards the start of the year, that within eight years, on the trajectory it was on, of like, it was in a budget surplus, the economy was growing well, within eight years, the US debt would be zero, which is incredible.

• 15:54Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 15:55Speaker 02

  And a lot of people would tell... But, now, spoiler, that did not happen. But this was considered this like shining moment of US like fiscal and budgetary policy, that we had gotten to such a stable place. And of course, like, this poisons politicians, because then it's like, "Oh, you mean we have money to burn?" And you wouldn't find, I mean, you're not going to find an economist that says, "Our debt needs to be zero."

• 16:17Robin Rauzi?

  Right.

• 16:18Speaker 02

  And in fact, if you were to poll economists of like, "What does the US debt need to be to be at a stable level?", like, they wouldn't come up with a number. They couldn't even come up with a number of like, "What is debt relative to GDP?", that's really, really bad. About 15 years ago, two economists tried to come up with that number, and they were, and we were like, skewered, of like, "This makes no sense." They said 90% of GDP, and people were like, "No."

• 16:40Robin Rauzi?

  Well, did people say no because they thought it should be higher or lower?

• 16:44Speaker 02

  They just said like, the number was a totally artificial threshold, and to say like, "There's some limit to how much debt can be as a share of the economy", doesn't make any sense, because it's not this, it's even, even if like, the number of the debt size doesn't matter as much as the size to the economy, the debt itself... Does not have like a clear and obvious effect on the economy in a negative way. It's really depend on how it's managed, what it's for, like what directions is going in, how much borrowing costs are. Like, there's so many things that would make debt bad that matter more than just like 90 versus 91. So even those economists are, would say like, yeah, we had a threshold, but a threshold doesn't make sense.

• 17:25Speaker 02

  So in this moment in 2001, where we have a budget surplus, where the US is paying down its debt rapidly, where we're going to be a debt-free country, we take a hard turn in the other direction. And we are now at 120% of GDP as part of our debt. And you are starting to see these downgrades in the US credit, which would have been unfathomable 25 years ago. That our debt has been downgraded three times. And we are now on a trajectory that, I mean, you can't get anyone to defend and say that we're in a good place. So we went from in a really good spot to not in a really good spot, and we did it really quickly.

• 18:08Robin Rauzi?

  And people voted for it. I mean, let's face it, George W. Bush ran on tax cuts.

• 18:12Speaker 02

  He ran on tax cuts.

• 18:13Robin Rauzi?

  And he, and he gave us two right away.

• 18:16Speaker 02

  Yes, he did. And then they were made permanent in 2012. Now, the Committee for Responsible Federal Budget, which is a nonpartisan, you know, nonprofit think tank, which mainly advocates for being better about the budget. They have this really fascinating paper where they look at the increase in the debt from 2001 to 2024. And they apportion it out to like, what is the debt increase due to? And they say it's 37% tax cuts, 33% spending, and 28% recession response.

• 18:56Speaker 02

  Because recessions are very expensive. It's a time when your tax receipts are going to fall because people lose their jobs. They're not hiring as much, wage and income growth slows. Investments often don't pay off, so you're going to hit to capital gains as well. And you need to send money to help people. And you need to prop up things like food stamps and unemployment insurance. You need to send money. State governments-

• 19:20Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah, automakers, I mean, we've helped out some big things.

• 19:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, and state governments can't borrow. And so a lot of the times, the federal government in a recession is sending money to state governments to keep them from like, closing public schools. So it's an expensive time for the federal government's perspective. And the two worst recessions since the Great Depression happened in 2000, the 2008 financial crisis recession-

• 19:42Robin Rauzi?

  Right, sure.

• 19:43Speaker 02

  And the pandemic recession.

• 19:44Robin Rauzi?

  Right.

• 19:45Speaker 02

  They were both the most catastrophic and the most expensive.

• 19:50Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 19:50Speaker 02

  So that's a hit. And that would be all the COVID response would be grouped into the pandemic recession response. Twenty-eight percent just comes from like, this is the cost of doing a business. You are a big government that can borrow and you oversee a cyclical economy. Recessions are going to affect your bottom line. The next category of thirty-three percent for spending, it's kind of wild to me how quickly things fall into the rearview. But we did fight two wars.

• 20:16Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah, we did.

• 20:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, we did.

• 20:18Robin Rauzi?

  And then they were not cheap.

• 20:19Speaker 02

  They weren't cheap, no. So they probably... There's not a single consensus. Because like, how do you pull out like, defense spending from like, specific wartime spending from two different engagements? One that lasted like, ten years and one that lasted like, twenty years, roughly. But the... I think the best estimates is that each of those wars in Iraq and Afghanistan set us back two to three trillion dollars.

• 20:43Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 20:45Speaker 02

  And then the other big spending is that we expanded Medicaid. And we created Medicare Part D. We did that in the early 2000s.

• 20:54Speaker 02

  So we expanded the most expensive program in the US.

• 20:59Robin Rauzi?

  Medicare.

• 20:59Speaker 02

  Medicare. We fought two wars to the tune of several trillion dollars each. And we passed four tax cuts.

• 21:09Speaker 02

  And that is what happened to our budget.

• 21:10Robin Rauzi?

  Right. Not feeling optimistic yet.

• 21:13Speaker 02

  Not feeling optimistic yet. Yeah, I mean, it's a little embittering of just how much money the US government has burned through in two decades with not a ton to show for it. And in fact, you know, I won't say that the debt is neutral, but I think it's more neutral than people let on. Like certainly in your life, debt is not neutral. Like you are not the US federal government. You don't issue your own currency. Like your debt and the government's debt is very different. And so I think people have a hard time separating that as it functions in a large economy, the US debt is much more neutral than how debt functions in your life as a borrower.

• 21:50Robin Rauzi?

  Okay, explain what you mean by it's neutral.

• 21:52Speaker 02

  It's not like bad.

• 21:54Robin Rauzi?

  Okay.

• 21:54Speaker 02

  Like the US is, it's not like if the debt was 10% of GDP or 20% of GDP, this would, like the economy would be like twice as bad.

• 22:02Robin Rauzi?

  Okay.

• 22:03Speaker 02

  So.

• 22:04Robin Rauzi?

  It's not linear or?

• 22:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's not linear and it's not necessarily a bad thing. I mean, like, think of a recession. The debt is amazing because it lets the federal government, quote unquote, proverbially borrow from future growth, but actually borrow from people to prop up the US economy to keep it from getting smaller. That is an incredible role for debt. Like debt is great because it gives us the ability to maneuver around these big crises. Debt is also great if I, you know, it's really hard to pay out of pocket for a highway system, but I think that system is going to pay off. So if I borrow and put a highway system on my credit card and then I get a national highway system, like I can make that type of sweeping investment because I have the ability to borrow. So just.

• 22:44Robin Rauzi?

  Okay, so I think I misunderstand. I mean, you're saying debt as a concept or debt in general is a useful tool. It's a neutral tool as opposed to the national debt that we are facing at this moment and the size of it right now.

• 22:59Speaker 02

  What makes this debt so concerning is that almost all of it is financing current consumption.

• 23:05Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah, it's not, it's not investing in something that we believe is going to pay, pay us dividends in the future.

• 23:12Speaker 02

  I say this, I mean, a lot of people have grown up believing or being told that tax cuts are like the greatest economic policy. They're a salve to every wound, but truly most tax cuts are like taking money and throwing it into the wind.

• 23:23Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 23:24Speaker 02

  And it's because they're. They're very ineffective economic policy because you can do with it whatever you want.

• 23:30Robin Rauzi?

  Meaning individuals, like the individuals paid hundred dollars less in taxes, but we have, there's no focus for the way that money gets spent.

• 23:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, you might consume it, you might save it, you might not notice that it's there, it might go entirely to one purchase, to 10 purchases, to hire, like, it's so expensive to give 300 million people more money and you can't tell them what to do with it. So it becomes both expensive and very untargeted, ineffectual economic policy. Because to be a good economic policy, you have to like focus the money towards the person who's going to act, or the agent that is going to act in the way that you want. If I gave you $10,000, I'm just saying, I don't know what you're gonna do with it, and from an economic policy perspective, that's no good.

• 24:15Robin Rauzi?

  Right.

• 24:16Speaker 02

  I need to know, like if I'm giving you money, I need to know what you're going to do with it. This is why almost every program that goes to low income people isn't cash. It's, I'm not gonna give you cash, I'm giving you a voucher for food. I'm not giving you cash, I'm gonna give you a health insurance plan. I'm not gonna give you housing, I'm gonna give you a voucher for housing. Like, I need to know that you're gonna spend it on the way that I want, and some of that is very paternalistic. And some of it is just because I'm trying to direct the investment to a specific place. So, tax cuts for 37%, I mean, I don't know how much we can really show for all the money that went to Iraq and Afghanistan, but like, man, do we not have a lot to show for the tax cuts. And I should tell you that that is the official opinion of the Congressional Research Service.

• 25:02Robin Rauzi?

  Which is the research arm of Congress.

• 25:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. They looked at the 2017 tax cuts and they did like an eight-year retrospective that just came out that was like, look, we looked at every single paper from every economist and think tank that said, this tax cut did something and it is really, this money was absorbed into a full economy.

• 25:20Robin Rauzi?

  It was just, it's like water, water spread out over a flood plain that it just, and that just didn't change anything.

• 25:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it was pouring down rain and you, you know, were firing the hose off your roof.

• 25:32Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 25:33Speaker 02

  The role of the national debt is that it gives the federal government wiggle room to do all kinds of economic investments.

• 25:41Robin Rauzi?

  Things that we need to do.

• 25:42Speaker 02

  And that we need to do. There's no like number or threshold where debt goes from good to bad based on its size.

• 25:50Robin Rauzi?

  Really? So you don't think that this situation with the with the interest rate payments is? I mean, that's what's concerning to me.

• 25:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So what Robin is explaining is that what Moody's brought up in their downgrade is that the interest payment on the debt, so I you loan money to the federal government, you it's at an interest rate that you was determined at sale. And then they have to pay you back interest on that debt, just like you have to pay interest on your mortgage or on your car or on your student loan. Well, those interest payments that the federal government has to pay are becoming a larger and larger share of total spending.

• 26:22Robin Rauzi?

  Right.

• 26:23Speaker 02

  Where at the pace that we're at now, by 2035, interest payments will be a third of the US government spending.

• 26:30Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah, and isn't it already one $1.07 now, something like that?

• 26:34Speaker 02

  Uh, I thought the last I checked it was like 15%.

• 26:37Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah, that would be about $1.0 out of every seven.

• 26:40Speaker 02

  Yeah. Oh, look at us.

• 26:42Robin Rauzi?

  Look at me doing math in my head.

• 26:43Speaker 02

  Look at you. Yeah, I mean, we pay a lot in interest and that number is getting higher. And so this is the difference of did we spend it on the right things? Did it lead to economic growth? And what is the trajectory? I think this is what makes the conversation about debt much more nuanced than I think people realize is that it is a multidimensional positionality.

• 27:03Robin Rauzi?

  3D chess.

• 27:04Speaker 02

  It's totally 3D chess because on the one hand, it's what we spent it on.

• 27:08Robin Rauzi?

  Mm hmm.

• 27:09Speaker 02

  Right? Saving the US economy during crippling recessions.

• 27:12Robin Rauzi?

  Important, yeah.

• 27:14Speaker 02

  Very good. Lowering the estate tax, I would say not getting a lot of bang for your buck there, if anything at all. So it's it's what we spent it on. It is what we were able to sell it for in the bond market.

• 27:28Robin Rauzi?

  Mm hmm.

• 27:29Speaker 02

  And then it's kind of where the relative position of the US is going from more debt or less debt.

• 27:36Speaker 02

  So each of those areas have problems with the exception being that the bond market has basically always been in support of US debt. And we do not have a hard time selling it.

• 27:46Robin Rauzi?

  Didn't yields just go shoot up like a half point in a month?

• 27:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. Up until January of this year, like we go and sell debt, we don't even really have to sell it for that much.

• 27:55Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 27:56Speaker 02

  Like if it was, if people really didn't trust the US government, the bond would get more and more and more expensive because people are like, yeah.

• 28:04Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah, too risky.

• 28:05Speaker 02

  I mean, you're paying, US gotta pay at least 10% before I invest in you. That's not been the case for the most part. People have always given us really good rates and the US is seen as a really safe place to put your money. So what's happened over the past couple of months is that the combination of tariffs and this tax bill have shaken a lot of the bond market, which you should read as people are starting to need more money to take on US debt. Like you need to pay me a higher percentage interest for me to, you know, lend the government a small amount of money via a bond. That poses an incredible unsustainability in the future.

• 28:43Robin Rauzi?

  Mm-hmm. Because most of these are on fixed terms and so when they come due, if you want to sell more debt, you're gonna have to sell it at whatever the current going rate is.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  Yes. See, like so right now, and like remember that you live in America and all this information is public. So.

• 29:03Robin Rauzi?

  Small, small.

• 29:04Speaker 02

  You live in a transparent economy. So, so right now, I mean, you can look up the average debt interest rate in the US and it's, it's just over 3%. I think it's like 3.3. Last year it was around 3.2, but like, I mean, one thing about borrowing our debt is like the interest that we currently owe is not that high relative to.

• 29:23Robin Rauzi?

  But Treasury yields now are above 5.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  Right. So that means that like we borrowed more cheaply in the past than we will in the future.

• 29:30Robin Rauzi?

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, this, this 3D chess of debt and how people feel about it is what gives a lot of credence to things like modern monetary theory, AKA MMT.

• 29:42Robin Rauzi?

  Oh, I didn't know, I didn't see this coming.

• 29:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:45Robin Rauzi?

  You don't want to sneak that in.

• 29:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I mean, the idea that the debt being too high would become problematic is something that is at the core of MMT theory, that there is no point to reach. MMT has a lot of implications, it has a lot of followers, it has a lot of fans, and its chief advocate right now, Stephanie Kelton, is a very smart economist who has an answer for anything that I might say about it. So if you've read her, you'll be like, she would say this. I know she would say it.

• 30:15Speaker 02

  But the central idea of modern monetary theory is that the US can't default on its debt. It issues its own currency and it borrows in its own currency, the US dollar. So if it ever had a debt situation that it couldn't face, it would just print more money and pay off the debt.

• 30:34Robin Rauzi?

  Wouldn't that devalue our currency?

• 30:36Speaker 02

  It would increase inflation.

• 30:38Robin Rauzi?

  And increase inflation.

• 30:39Speaker 02

  So if you take that as like the central anchor, it makes deficits a lot less problematic. And so it's become, I think, something that a lot of liberals have gathered around because it gives kind of a macroeconomic support for having big government spending.

• 30:56Speaker 02

  And what's interesting is I think that if you look at recessions, like this is exactly the type of intuition we apply during recessions, that like investing in the economy is more important than paying off our debt, especially when the economy goes south. And so you give the economy preference over deficits during a recession. MMT is kind of like giving the economy preference over deficits with a broader brush. The problem with that is that it could lead to inflation. And the kind of pushback from MMTers would say, you know, if there is inflation, you would just have more fiscal control, like you would, you know, raise taxes, which is the fiscal policy for dealing with inflation. I get asked all the time, what do I think

• 31:40Speaker 02

  about MMT? And do I think MMT is good? And I think my biggest problem with it, and I think it's something that might not be obvious to a lot of people, is that MMT kind of replaces our current monetary policy in the role of the Federal Reserve with a lot of fiscal policy in the role of President and/or Congress. And I just think that you can't look at the past 20 years and make any kind of argument for Congress and the President being good fiscal stewards.

• 32:12Speaker 02

  That's probably like my biggest hesitation with MMT is like I, I mean, I love big government policy, but I just, I don't think that changing monetary policy to be fiscal policy to remove kind of downplay what the Federal Reserve can do and put it all in the hands of Congress will lead us to a good place because I just don't think Congress is very good, especially at long-term things.

• 32:35Robin Rauzi?

  Can you explain the difference between fiscal control and monetary control?

• 32:42Speaker 02

  Monetary policy is interest rate and money supply policy that comes from the Federal Reserve, an independent central bank that the president doesn't really have a lot of control over and you kind of know it because Trump is pretty pissed off he doesn't have a lot of control over it. Fiscal policy is policy that comes from the federal government, mostly Congress, because Congress has the power to tax and spend. So in a recession, you would have monetary policy that the Fed lowers interest rates. And it kind of puts money into the economy to get people to spend it. And then fiscal policy would be Congress sends you a check, Congress increases unemployment benefits, increases SNAP benefits, makes SNAP easier to get so more people can buy food, Congress sends money to state governments. When Congress does something, that's fiscal policy.

• 33:27Speaker 02

  When the Fed does something, that's monetary policy. It's really about the actors. So MMT kind of switches a lot of the action to the fiscal side.

• 33:37Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 33:38Speaker 02

  The Congress side. What is it, 535% clown car side?

• 33:42Robin Rauzi?

  Exactly. Versus the guy who won't even crack a smile during a press conference side.

• 33:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. To be fair, MMT really took off as like a very appealing theory for dealing with the world right after the Great Recession, when the financial crisis was really shattered faith in institutions, including central banks, when the policymaking ability of the central bank was limited by just how awful the economy was doing. There was so much concern with our banking system that this approach of like, we should just put control back in the hands of government and we should use all this money. To like, give everybody a job, had much more appeal than it does right now when the central bank is now seen as like, a stalwart of our economy and is like, holding up integrity. And it's Congress where you're like, oh my god, what are you doing?

• 34:33Speaker 02

  If the risk to MMT really comes down to inflation, like, how well do you think Congress will be able to handle it? Versus, how well do you think the central bank will be able to handle it? I mean, I think this last bout of inflation that we had, you know, has shown that the central bank had nerves of steel relative to Congress and the president. But I understand the appeal of MMT. I guess on some level, when people bring up MMT to me, I say, I don't think we need an alternative theory for dealing with the macroeconomy and borrowing and currency or anything like that. Our current system supports amazing investments, we have not chosen to make them. MMT would have more appeal to me if I thought our system didn't support the investments that I think are necessary. Our system absolutely supports

• 35:16Speaker 02

  it, we just do not have people in Congress doing them. Which is very different.

• 35:20Robin Rauzi?

  All right. So, to get back to the question of the debt and how you're gonna make me optimistic about our situation and standing to the debt.

• 35:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:28Robin Rauzi?

  I have lived with growing debts, the national debt, my entire adult life, but only recently really did start to feel, I mean, by recently, I would say the last 10 years, where it just seemed like the tax cuts just keep coming in and the revenues don't. And I just wonder, like, well, what would be the downsides, or what would be the risks or the harmful effects of just continuing to grow the debt?

• 35:54Speaker 02

  At some point, our borrowing costs would get so high, it would crowd out spending on other things, and it would force drastic cuts to social security and Medicare. Medicare first.

• 36:05Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 36:06Speaker 02

  So, the consequences accumulate, the more we are spending on our debt.

• 36:12Robin Rauzi?

  Right.

• 36:13Speaker 02

  You can grow your way out of this problem. Some people will tell you that you can kind of inflate your way out of, not all debt, but you can, inflation actually makes the debt cheaper. So, some people will say, like, you know, we've had such low inflation for the past 25 years, this is a recent episode with standing, that's one reason why the debt is... Getting so high and it's been easy to borrow. I mean, interest rates have been so low. Like, the debt we acquired when it really went high was also really cheap.

• 36:42Robin Rauzi?

  So nobody, so nobody was terribly worried about it because it was so cheap to borrow.

• 36:45Speaker 02

  It was so cheap. Like, I mean, that's the thing. Like, debt as a side of GDP. Debt relative to GDP is one measure. But, I mean, debt relative to the interest rates you're paying on them is another. And a lot of this debt was accumulated during periods when, like, the interest rate was so low.

• 37:00Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 37:01Speaker 02

  That, you know, it wasn't free money, but it was a lot closer to free than like 5%. So it's, yeah, there's nuances here. What I would stress about the national debt, kind of as a basis for optimism, is that it doesn't afford a lot of room for bright lines or blanket statements. And I think some of the optimism has to come from knowing that the nuanced picture has a lot more light than the black and white one. Like, if you just looked at debt to GDP and what our debt looks like, you would be like, "Our country is over."

• 37:38Speaker 02

  Had a nice run, but blew it all on tax cuts in the end. Like, couldn't, we just couldn't do it. But, which I think is, that would be really disheartening. But, but if you, if you think, like, all you have to do is be like, "Okay, hang on a second. A lot of this debt was really cheap and we can pay it off." And also, like, we voluntarily reduced our income to an incredible degree. I mean, the 2017 tax cut was really unpopular. And the one that they're passing now in the middle of the night in closed-door hearings that people fall asleep, also really unpopular. So, like, keep in mind that a lot of the debt represents the country being taken to a place it doesn't want to go. And then, yeah, we can be blamed for voting for short-sighted politicians, but like,

• 38:20Speaker 02

  it's not as if America doesn't have a sense of, like, "I don't like this, like, this is where the money is going." And so I, I take, I take optimism from the nuance. I take optimism from the potential and from...

• 38:34Robin Rauzi?

  The poten, I'm sorry.

• 38:35Speaker 02

  The poten, I mean, like, we raised so much money. I mean, yes, our debt is crazy high. At, you know, 30, if I tell you debt is $36 trillion, it's like, okay. And then also, like, be sure to call 911 if you're having, like, if you're, if you're feeling heart palpitations. Like, you know, like, I understand that that's a scary number. But of course, like, our economy is $30 trillion.

• 38:55Speaker 02

  Like, it's a big world and we, we make a lot of money. We, I would be so worried if the US economy has not grown consistently for 50 years, or 100 years for that matter.

• 39:05Robin Rauzi?

  I know, and it's still growing.

• 39:06Speaker 02

  And it's still growing. And like, if we have a recession, it'll be a blip and like, we'll go back to growing again. And so, we, we have all the conditions necessary to pay down our debts.

• 39:15Robin Rauzi?

  If we choose to.

• 39:16Speaker 02

  And if we choose to. And we have the policies in place to pay down our debt if we choose to. And I think that the world in which we do pay down our debt is a, not even pay it off to zero, but get, you know, remember, it's not just, it's not just where you are, but what direction you're going. I think that we could pretty easily change the trajectory of the US fiscal situation so that the debt is falling as a share of GDP. We're not living in the world of $2 trillion deficits. And we have all the nice things that I want, like childcare and school lunches and social security for days. Like, I don't think, I mean-

• 39:51Robin Rauzi?

  So, we don't have to pay, you're just kind of saying, we don't have to pay off $36 trillion in order to start-

• 39:56Speaker 02

  Before we get childcare.

• 39:57Robin Rauzi?

  Before we get, okay, now that's-

• 39:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:59Robin Rauzi?

  That feels optimistic, okay.

• 40:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, we do. It's not like we have to get, it's not like, it's like, hey, guys, so this sucks, but we actually can't have universal school meals until the debt gets to like 25. Like, it doesn't work like that.

• 40:11Robin Rauzi?

  Right.

• 40:11Speaker 02

  As long as we're in a place where we're moving in the right direction. Right now, we're moving in the wrong direction.

• 40:16Robin Rauzi?

  Right, yeah.

• 40:16Speaker 02

  That is the most concern. We are moving in the wrong direction. If we're moving in the right direction, we get to have nice things.

• 40:22Robin Rauzi?

  Right.

• 40:22Speaker 02

  And the right direction is fundamentally, and frankly, easily achievable with a few different policy decisions. And I think what, in some ways, this whole circus of this tax bill, the big beautiful bill, I didn't realize that's its official name in the House, is the big beautiful bill. I saw an amazing Onion article about like, Republicans comes to blow about whether or not the bill is beautiful or handsome.

• 40:52Speaker 02

  And I, I just, I was like, yeah, y'all, like, um, part of me is like, let them do this. Like, it's almost like children who are like screaming for ice cream before they go to bed. And on some of it's like, you know what? I told you, if you have ice cream at 11:00 PM after crying for 45 minutes, you're gonna throw up. But you know what? You don't believe me, and I've told you this. And so you know what? Take your sixth scoop of ice cream and throw up. And like, then we will move on because you, you don't seem willing to listen to me that you can't have any more without making yourself sick. So by all means, have it, make yourself sick. And then like, then we can move on with our lives. So this tax cut, like, y'all, it can't exist in 10 years.

• 41:34Speaker 02

  In 2035, a third of US spending goes to interest payments on the debt. That will not happen. Something will have to change. So this tax bill is like them being like, well, we're not gonna. And it's just like, okay, well, when the adults take over.

• 41:51Robin Rauzi?

  I, you, I guess you're much more optimistic that there, there are adults to take, to take over.

• 41:56Speaker 02

  I think so. I mean, the tax.

• 41:58Robin Rauzi?

  Do the adults want to run for office? I don't know that they do.

• 42:02Speaker 02

  America wants to be in a different place. Our leaders, our currently elected leaders are not taking us there, but they don't last for forever. And you have like, y'all, we got like just more than a year before we get a chance to do this again. And like, I don't know, I think people lose faith in the electorate. They lose faith in their leaders. And there are parts of this process that are really broken. But Americans don't want debt to be in a bad place. They don't want US credit to be downgraded. They want to be more responsible. And I do think that this is an area where Americans are much more passionate than you probably realize. And so we, we have the money, we have the big economy, and we know what we need to do.

• 42:42Speaker 02

  And yeah, you could say that possibly the electorate is fighting it like a toddler as much as Congress is. But we will get there. We have to. The alternative is that we cut social security and Medicare and don't have a Department of Defense. So we will get there.

• 42:58Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 42:59Speaker 02

  I don't think we'll get there early. I think we'll get there like, close enough to on time that we tell people, don't say technically we're late. Like, I, like, I call it pediatrician on time, meaning that I showed up at all.

• 43:12Speaker 02

  You know, like I got a three year old and a one year old in a car and got here on the day you wanted me to come. So I came on time.

• 43:21Speaker 02

  This is where America is right now. We have the appointment. Children are crying.

• 43:27Speaker 02

  Somebody has decided they don't want shoes.

• 43:32Speaker 02

  Somebody else got water on their shirt. They're taking their shirt off. However, there are car seats in the car. There are car seats in the car. The go bag is packed. I have diapers with me. We are gonna fucking get there.

• 43:49Speaker 02

  I don't care how many shoes I have to put on. We will get there. So that there would just be, it could be so much worse. Or, you know, it could be so much worse. It's all insane.

• 43:58Robin Rauzi?

  Look at this economy. It could be so much worse.

• 44:01Speaker 02

  Hey, you know what? You gotta take it sometimes, people. That's as

• 44:06Speaker 02

  the debt is large. So it could be worse and we want to be better. Is optimistic. But man, I put on like a clip on social media. We deserve to be optimistic. And I mean, y'all, the first 10 responses were like, nope, rich people own this country. There's no hope. I'd believe you if they didn't require like prison slave labor. And I was like, why do you follow me?

• 44:33Speaker 02

  I put up something that says, let's be optimistic. And the first comment's like, shit's bleak.

• 44:40Speaker 02

  Maybe, maybe, maybe you're not clear about what we're trying to do here.

• 44:48Speaker 02

  Oh, man. Oh, man. One of the more common comments we get, not just, you know, shit's bleak. Don't be optimistic is, y'all sound like a superhero team.

• 44:59Speaker 02

  I think because we sound like Batman and Robin because we're Catherine and Robin. And so I, that's the other thing we get on TikTok. So those are the two things you're, you're missing from TikTok.

• 45:07Robin Rauzi?

  Oh, Jesus. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks.

• 45:10Speaker 02

  So on that note, the debt will be better one day and none of us will understand it even then. But you'll be less scared of it. I promise to you.

• 45:19Robin Rauzi?

  No, I feel like, okay, you know, I have a slightly different perspective on the debt now that if we can get it going in the right direction, you know, if we stop burning through our home equity line of credit and just start making regular payments on our mortgage, we can buy a car.

• 45:32Speaker 02

  Hundred percent.

• 45:33Robin Rauzi?

  I know that personal finance is not the best metaphor for this, but it does kind of help me, you know, think about like what it really takes just to turn, just to turn the ship around a little bit and get it just going in the right direction.

• 45:46Speaker 02

  Direction is like 75% of the problem. And that means it's 75% of the solution, which is great because changing direction is a lot easier than paying off our debt.

• 45:55Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 45:55Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 45:56Robin Rauzi?

  Great.

• 45:57Speaker 02

  I'm glad you feel a little bit better.

• 45:58Robin Rauzi?

  I do.

• 45:59Speaker 02

  All right. So executive.

• 46:01Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 46:02Speaker 02

  Yes. Palate cleanser, executive orders, although I don't know if it's actually going to be a palate cleanser for me. So you go first.

• 46:07Robin Rauzi?

  I don't know that mine's a palate cleanser either.

• 46:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, yours is quite serious. Why don't, okay, why don't you go first?

• 46:14Robin Rauzi?

  All right. So my executive order comes from Erin in Portland, Oregon. I thought this was actually really smart. He says, all homes must include, when you sell a house, you have to include earthquake, wildfire, flooding, hurricane, et cetera, risk disclosures. He says, you know, home risk disclosures are all over the place. They are required in some states and not others. And even then, when you get a disclosure, it's really about whether you're in a hazard zone and some sort of defined hazard zone. It doesn't take into account maybe things that people have done to a house to make it less prone to risk. Anyway, so this is all insane. People really need to know what they're buying in terms of not just four walls, but what the actual risk to it is.

• 46:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:55Robin Rauzi?

  I'm for it.

• 46:55Speaker 02

  I love it. Good job. Good job, Erin.

• 46:57Robin Rauzi?

  Nice job, Erin.

• 46:58Speaker 02

  My executive order is I just consider my optimist audience to be a safe space. I think that everyone's social media comments should be entered into a repository and printed out and sent to their neighbors every year. And if you are the type of person that will casually trash someone on Instagram, like your friends and family, and you know what, maybe even your employer deserved to know it. I've been on social media for a while. I find it incredible to talk to people and hear from them and talk and, and, and explain things and hear their reactions to it. And, you know, one being like this show is totally an outgrowth of me going on TikTok and people on TikTok saying, you should have a podcast.

• 47:42Speaker 02

  Like I, I've been so changed for the better by it, but like. It will never cease to amaze me the casually cruel things people will drop into a comment.

• 47:50Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 47:51Speaker 02

  Part of me is like, would you say this in front of your mom? Like, if your wife was sitting right next to you, would you make this comment? One that I got recently, I always get worse comments on the Bloomberg posts, but one that I got recently was, you know, typical Ivy Leaguer. And I was like, my brother. I went to so much public school. I mean, from kindergarten through basically grade 21, which is the end of the PhD. I was at a public school, public university, public PhD, like, public all the way. Like, you can say, you can throw a lot of shade my way if you disagree with me, but do not accuse me of going to private school. I find this, like, you know, insulting to my core. And he's like, well, if you're a big government liberal, you're the same thing.

• 48:35Speaker 02

  And I just, like, had to put down the phone. And to all the people who make nice comments, I appreciate it. To the people who make hurtful misogynistic comments, or, you know, Jesus, accuse me of going to private school. Ugh.

• 48:50Robin Rauzi?

  No, Ivy League specifically.

• 48:51Speaker 02

  Ivy League, I mean, I guess on some level I was like, all right, I'm, I'm giving off I paid, you know, half a million dollars for my education, so I don't know if that's good or bad, but I guess I seem smart.

• 49:01Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 49:02Speaker 02

  I guess this is going against the optimism where we left the show earlier.

• 49:05Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 49:06Speaker 02

  We did say it was a hard week. So let's, okay, let's get to the actual palate cleanser of spiritual sponsors.

• 49:12Robin Rauzi?

  Okay.

• 49:13Speaker 02

  As you know, on this show, if you've been listening for a while, we don't have actual sponsors. But we do have spiritual sponsors that keep us going even in the hard weeks like this one. Robin, who is your spiritual sponsor?

• 49:26Robin Rauzi?

  Well, I wanted to say that this week, we got three of spiritual sponsors through Substack.

• 49:32Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 49:33Robin Rauzi?

  So I have reached out to all of them, but I heard back from one who said that I could use her name. It says, so our spiritual sponsor this week is Shannon Key of Huntsville, Alabama, who sponsored us on substack at optimist economy dot com.

• 49:46Speaker 02

  Oh, thank you, Shannon.

• 49:49Speaker 02

  My spiritual sponsor this week is really fun friend group chats. Like, not all group chats end up...

• 49:56Robin Rauzi?

  Oh, yeah, I have one of those.

• 49:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, not all of them end up in a good place. You know, they, maybe they go dormant, or maybe like, someone says like, "We should plan a vacation," and then like, no one ever responds to the chat again.

• 50:05Robin Rauzi?

  Oh, my God. Did you read that story?

• 50:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, I did.

• 50:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think, I think, I think you gotta use it judiciously, but I, I have had a friend group chat going since the pandemic, and it is just, it is such a delight. So that group chat is my spiritual sponsor this week, and anybody out there who has a really good friend group chat.

• 50:32Speaker 02

  That wraps it up for this week, and we, we struggle sometimes to be optimistic, too. But honestly, I feel better after recording, so.

• 50:42Robin Rauzi?

  I do, too. Thanks for, always for listening, and you can always reach us at optimist economy dot com, or email us at optimist dot economy at gmail dot com. We always love hearing from you.

• 50:53Speaker 02

  And we close our show by thanking our producers and audio engineer Sophie, and our producer and video engineer, Andy.