SpaceX Just Got Fast-Tracked Into Your Portfolio

Ed Elson is joined by Michael Green to break down the impact of SpaceX’s early entry into the Nasdaq 100 and what it means for the future of passive investing. Then, Kathryn Anne Edwards joins the show to break down the June jobs report and why she thinks wage growth is the most important thing to focus on. Finally, Ed gives his take on the latest evidence of Trump’s kingmaker economy. Michael Green is the Chief Strategist and Portfolio Manager for Simplify Asset Management. Kathryn Anne Edwards is a PhD economist, economic policy consultant, and columnist for Bloomberg News. Subscribe to the Prof G Markets Youtube Channel Check out our latest Prof G Markets newsletter Follow Prof G Markets on Instagram Follow Ed on Instagram, X and Substack Follow Scott on Instagram Send us your questions or comments by emailing [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:01Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra because it's not just a superior like beer. It's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  Here's your report.

• 0:31Speaker 02

  Oh, thanks, Jane. I wish I could hire someone just like you.

• 0:34Speaker 01

  Try LinkedIn Hiring Pro. It's more than a job board. It's like the recruiter you always wished you had. Hiring Pro uses real time insights to match your role to LinkedIn's unique network of professionals and delivers a shortlist of best fit candidates. You'll spend less time sorting applicants and more time talking to the right people.

• 0:50Speaker 02

  Let's do it. You're irreplaceable, Jane, but another you would be great.

• 0:54Speaker 01

  Hire right the first time. Post your job for free on LinkedIn today at LinkedIn.com/quality.

• 1:01Speaker 03

  Low energy, unfocused, foggy? You might be dehydrated. Gatorade Zero powders have been scientifically designed to help improve hydration balance in the body with a clinically proven electrolyte blend and no artificial colors or flavors. Great tasting hydration, no matter where you're going. Shop now online or at retailers nationwide. Gatorade hydrates better than water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist.

• 1:35Speaker 04

  Money markets mad. If money is evil, then that building is hell.

• 1:45Ed Elson?

  Welcome to Prof G Markets. I'm Ed Elson. It is July 7th. Let's check in on yesterday's market vitals. The major indices rose as chipmakers climbed out of last week's slump. The Dow closed above 53,000 for the first time. Oil was stable as Saudi Arabia cut its prices and OPEC increased its production target. And finally, Dell stock popped as much as 8% after some comments from the president. More on that later.

• 2:16Ed Elson?

  Okay. What else is happening? It's official. SpaceX is part of the NASDAQ 100. As of this morning, SpaceX's performance will influence the more than $1.4 trillion that is benchmarked to the index. The stock currently has a weight of about 1%. And now tens of millions of Americans invested in the NASDAQ 100 index funds indirectly own it. SpaceX got in under new fast track rules, which cut the required trading history to just 15 days and also got rid of the float requirements altogether. The NASDAQ's rapid inclusion of SpaceX leaves investors with many questions, one of them

• 2:57Ed Elson?

  being, has this company proven itself enough to be included in one of the world's most followed stock indices? Here to discuss this question, we're speaking with Michael Green, Chief Strategist and Portfolio Manager for Simplify Asset Management. Michael, it's good to see you again. I think a lot of people were wondering if this company should really be a public company, if it was profitable enough, and also if the price made any sense. But now there's sort of another question, which is, should it be in passive index funds,

• 3:36Ed Elson?

  specifically the NASDAQ 100, which a lot of passive investors own indirectly? What do you make of it?

• 3:45Speaker 06

  Well, I mean, unfortunately, I think this is the logical conclusion of America's shift towards passive index investing. Rather than have a choice being made by an individual or by a portfolio manager, we now have a choices that are being made simply by the index, which has an obvious incentive to get companies public, get them listed on the NASDAQ, offer NASDAQ inclusion as a component of that in order to get the listing on the NASDAQ index as compared to the New York Stock Exchange or other exchanges that could potentially have listed on. So we understand why this is occurring or we have a very strong sense for why this is occurring.

• 4:27Speaker 06

  It is, you know, an opportunity to effectively exploit the index position to bring the company public, get it listed, drive the capacity for insiders to sell shares and ultimately create liquidity for those inside investors. As to whether or not that's a good idea, obviously, I think it is not from the tone that I'm using. I think it is candidly quite manipulative. We have allowed index investing to receive special treatment under the law and which it done, under which it does not have the same requirements that active management has for fiduciary standards or suitability standards. If I run a strategy that says I'm going to do X when I suddenly unexpectedly change

• 5:09Speaker 06

  that, I'm allowed, my investors are allowed to sue me. We are by and large protected from that in the index world as long as the index methodology has changed rather than simply the inclusion of a new stock. In this case, they published their intent to do this in advance of the listing and it was open for comment period. My understanding is the comments were almost universally negative. I certainly contributed several of those myself. It was much like Chicago. I voted twice and often, even after I had died. But, you know, the, this simple reality is, is that they were intent on doing this. It's a profitable decision. It draws attention and gets us discussing the NASDAQ 100 or the QQQ ETF, which is part

• 5:53Speaker 06

  of the objective as well. And now we're confronted with a scenario in which funds can actually be invested in under the idea that they are passive, that they receive special treatment under the law. And yet they've exposed themselves as not at all being passive. It's the logical conclusion of what you would expect. Eventually we'll figure out how to manipulate anything to generate profits.

• 6:16Ed Elson?

  It seems as though if we were to just sort of go through the winners and losers here, I think you and I both agree that the loser is the passive investor who doesn't really know what's happening and the rules are being changed. Basically for this specific company, SpaceX potentially for Elon Musk. Point being, it almost breaks down the whole point of passive investing. As for the winners, clearly it's kind of a win for NASDAQ. It's probably a win for some of the ETFs that track the NASDAQ, like, you know, Investco, QQQ being, being the largest one. Probably a win for SpaceX too, because it means that you're getting all of this passive

• 7:00Ed Elson?

  investment, which boosts your share price. Just specifically this index from the NASDAQ 100, there was a question as to whether the S and P was going to include them. They were debating it. The S and P decided no. The NASDAQ is smaller than the S and P, but it has included it in, in the index. Tens of millions of Americans own an index that tracks the NASDAQ 100, $1.4 trillion in capital, as I suggested. What kind of upward pressure will this actually put on the stock? Like, how much of a win is it for SpaceX to be included in the NASDAQ 100?

• 7:40Speaker 06

  Well, when you highlight that it is in the neighborhood of 1.4 trillion that is tracking it and it is roughly a 1% weight, although it is receiving additional weight because of the float multiplier that is being used. You are talking several, you know, billions, tens of billions of dollars that are ultimately going to flow into these investments. The big winners there are those who are seeking liquidity, the insiders who are actually looking to sell shares, whether those are investors who invested during its private period, its extended private period, or whether those are employees who have waited for liquidity. The answer is it's the insiders. And that unfortunately, I think contributes to the general perception that the stock

• 8:22Speaker 06

  markets are really not set up for the average investor at this point. Although we're thrilled to see them move higher, given our participation through things like 401Ks, it's a, you know, it's a little bit of a slap in the face to see somebody become the world's first trillionaire on the basis of manipulating an index that we were all told we could trust.

• 8:42Ed Elson?

  What do you think this means for passive investing in the future? I mean, if we're getting rid of the float requirements, we're getting rid of the, the amount of time that you have to be listed before you're included. We're changing all of the rules. It feels like this is kind of just a race to the bottom. I mean, I don't see why you don't just get rid of all the rules.

• 9:01Speaker 06

  I think there's definitely some truth to that. I think, you know, what we need to remember is, is that passive was never passive by its own definition. The definition of a passive investor is somebody who never buys or sells. That makes sense to many individual investors who threw their 401k or quote unquote "buy and hold," but that first step, the buy, actually is a really critical component because you are contributing cash to the portfolio that causes the portfolio to need to be rebalanced, that causes trading and influences prices. Over the last five to seven years, we've learned an extraordinary amount about the influence of passive investing.

• 9:41Speaker 06

  My work suggests that the impact of passive strategies is rising the S and P, increasing the S and P by nearly 18% a year now. I know that sounds like an astonishing number, given that the S and P was only up 15% last year. So we're actually looking at an index that overall probably would have declined had we not chosen to invest this way. We decided to do this because we thought that it simplified the process. It did simplify the process for average investors. It also simplified the process of taking advantage of those investors, as we have just seen.

• 10:18Ed Elson?

  Do you think that passive investing is something that we should just be reconsidering altogether? Are you not a fan of passive investing in general, or is it only recently that your tune has changed?

• 10:30Speaker 06

  I've been doing research and reporting and writing on this for well over a decade now. Sometime around 2016, the formative literature and the awareness began to grow that there was an impact from passive investing, which had always been presented as effectively a not meaningful impact on the market. Even today, you will hear Vanguard and others talk about the small fraction of trading that is involved in passive trading. Those are simply misrepresentations, unfortunately. What they consider is what's called the organic trading. It excludes all of the flow characteristics that I just walked you through. So when we look at what's happening in the markets today, we have about a trillion dollars that is flowing into index funds.

• 11:15Speaker 06

  We have somewhere in that neighborhood that is actually leaving the discretionary active community. My lament is not about the active community, it's about the impact that has on the markets. We're destroying the process of price discovery. You asked, is it the right price for SpaceX? The reality is, nobody knows, and nobody bothered to look at it, and everyone who has has come to the conclusion that it's fantastically overvalued. In fact, it really shouldn't even be called SpaceX, it should be called XAI, because three quarters of the expected value and most of the forecasts are tied to its money-losing, non-profitable, and lagging AI business. Why that justifies such an extraordinary multiple and valuation is somewhat beyond

• 11:58Speaker 06

  me, but once you declare it into the index at those levels, the index accepts that the last price was right. And that's really the key of passive. It passively accepts the price. And so when you involve them in the process of listing in this manner, you are structurally changing outcomes.

• 12:17Ed Elson?

  It's a tough one because, you know, a lot of the, I like the point that you bring up, that there's no such thing really as passive investing. Someone has to buy at some point, and someone has to be the one to make that decision. And the thing that seems to hold it all together, at least from my perspective, is trust in the rules and the regulations that sort of govern those passive index funds. I mean, if you trust that there is a framework in place that says, we're only going to buy these types of companies that have proven themselves over the long term, that only makes sense in these conditions, then it sort of makes me feel a little bit more comfortable

• 12:58Ed Elson?

  to close my eyes and say, okay, you guys handle it, you at the Nasdaq, you at the S and P, and I'm down, and I'll put it in. And to be fair, it's worked for a lot of investors who have just dollar-cost averaged into the S and P and it's all been fine. It does seem that there will come a point, though, where if they continue to make these exchange requirements, that might not work out, because SpaceX could implode over the next six to 12 months. We've got all of the lockups expiring over the next few months, which is going to put huge downward pressure on the stock. It could ultimately be a bad decision, which ultimately may lead to outflows. And I wonder if that's the next chapter in the story, that people say, you know what,

• 13:41Ed Elson?

  we don't trust these people managing our money anymore, I'm taking matters into my own hands, I'm going to choose exactly which stocks I'm going to buy personally. Is that the next chapter in your view?

• 13:51Speaker 06

  I don't think so. I think actually the next chapter is we will see more of this type of manipulation. There are many, many publicly or privately held companies that would love to list under these types of conditions and to receive the multiplier. My hunch is, is that we will actually see that exploitation and a repeat of the late 1990s IPO boom before we see anything resembling the outflow type components that you're highlighting.

• 14:18Ed Elson?

  Final question here on SpaceX. I think we both, it sounds like we both agree on SpaceX, but many people wouldn't. Your views on the company, the valuation, the financials, and whether or not it is a sound investment?

• 14:33Speaker 06

  Ultimately, I want to be clear, for an investor into the Nasdaq 100 or into any index, like the total market indices that have already included SpaceX because of its size in their indexes, ultimately, whether it turns out to be a good investment or a bad investment, is not going to be all that material. It is relatively a small fraction of the index, so even if it went to zero, the ultimate impact on the index investor would be largely negligible. The downside is actually what's happening from a societal framework. This is an enrichment tool that allows corporate executives and insiders to dump shares onto an unsuspecting public. And the last thing I would highlight, Ed, is that I think you're giving people, by and large, too much credit.

• 15:18Speaker 06

  I think this audience very well may be aware of what you're discussing, but the really critical changes were made in 2006, when we created what's called the Pension Protection Act, rolled people, we switched our retirement system of 401ks from what's called an opt-in framework, in which they had to choose to participate, into what's called an opt-out framework, where they had to choose not to participate. That exploded the number of people who held 401ks to climb from around 25% to today it's around 65%. It radically reduced the investment choices that most people are exposed to. And candidly, I would argue that most people are sleepwalking through this process, not

• 15:59Speaker 06

  really aware of what they're investing in or why they're investing in it, they're simply doing as they are told. That's always, that can be a good thing, it can also be a bad thing. If everybody starts doing what they're told, as we are seeing, it creates the distortions that we are experiencing as markets become increasingly disassociated from fundamentals. So should this be happening? No, but we made a choice to do it this way, and this, as I said at the very beginning, is likely the logical conclusion. We will figure out a way to exploit this phenomenon and turn it into profits for, you know, those who are highly incentivized to create those profits.

• 16:40Ed Elson?

  Michael Green is Chief Strategist and Portfolio Manager for Simplify Asset Management. Michael, really appreciate your time. Thank you.

• 16:48Speaker 06

  My pleasure, Ed.

• 16:50Ed Elson?

  After the break, worrying signs in the jobs report. And for even more markets insights, you can subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Simply Put, at simplyput.profgmedia.com.

• 17:10Speaker 07

  Flowing ad budget on metrics that look great, till the CFO sees them, that's bullspend, and marketers are calling it out, in. Dashboard confessions.

• 17:20Speaker 08

  I remember telling my boss, it'll be good for the brand, when leads were slow. Yeah, it wasn't.

• 17:27Speaker 07

  Cut the bullspend. LinkedIn lets you target by company, job title, and more. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a $250 credit. Go to LinkedIn.com/campaign. Terms and conditions apply.

• 17:42Speaker 09

  Low energy, unfocused, foggy? You might be dehydrated. Whether it's hot yoga, over 100-degree weather, or too much sun. Gator Light, with a specialized blend of five electrolytes, was scientifically designed to help move fluids into the body faster for rapid rehydration. Shop now at retailers nationwide. Gator Light hydrates faster than water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist.

• 18:11Speaker 10

  Welcome to Sephora.

• 18:12Speaker 11

  I'm looking for a perfume that's not too perfumey.

• 18:16Speaker 10

  I got you.

• 18:17Speaker 02

  Serum moisturizer, or moisturizer serum.

• 18:20Speaker 10

  Let's get into layering. My concealer is making me look worse. Sounds like the wrong shade. Let's get you matched.

• 18:29Speaker 11

  There's only one store that really gets what you're going for. Get beauty from people who get beauty, only at Sephora.

• 18:35Speaker 10

  Hi, I, uh... Let's get you a basket.

• 18:44Ed Elson?

  We're back with Prof G Markets. The June jobs report came in weaker than expected. The economy added just 57,000 jobs in June, less than half the number economists were forecasting. April and May payrolls were also revised downwards. And while the unemployment rate actually fell to 4.2%, that was largely due to a sharp decline in the labor force participation rate, rather than a surge in hiring. Roughly 720,000 people left the labor force between May and June, which dragged the participation rates down to its lowest level in about five years. So joining us to discuss the June jobs report,

• 19:27Ed Elson?

  we're speaking with pod favorite Catherine Ann Edwards, PhD economist, economic policy consultant and columnist for Bloomberg News. Catherine, welcome back to the show. It's great to see you. This jobs report here doesn't seem great. And the labor force participation number doesn't seem great either. In fact, it seems quite concerning. But what's the truth? What's the reality? What should we make of it?

• 19:56Kathryn Anne Edwards?

  I mean, I think in some ways this report really puts us in the place that we've been for about a year and a half, which is the labor market is treading water. And so many of the indicators that we look at so closely, I mean, they're, it's almost like they're bouncing within their standard error. You know, just they're, they're right around zero. They go up a little bit, they go down a little bit. But we're not seeing a trend that we can monitor over time. We're not seeing it just fall apart and just decline. We're not seeing it just take off and recover and become stronger. We're just seeing this almost like noise around the mean and the mean is treading water. I think it makes it hard to parse on a monthly level. But the upshot is this is a weak labor market. Because if it weren't weak, it'd be very obvious to see it growing, showing signs of strength, and we just don't see it.

• 20:39Ed Elson?

  The strangest part to me is the labor force participation rate. And just to clarify what that means for people, this is the share of the working age population that is either working, obviously, or looking for work, which fell, which to me tells me that a lot of Americans are saying, I'm no longer going to look for work now. And we see that that rate was especially among the 25 to 54 year old demographic, was especially pronounced. How do we make sense of that?

• 21:09Kathryn Anne Edwards?

  Labor force in the US this century, people tend to, not that you're doing this, but people tend to pick the, the rate that they want. If you look just at the overall rate for 16 and older, it's really low this century because it's reflecting the retirement of the baby boomers. Right? It doesn't have an age cap on our overall labor force participation rate, which is why you're right to look at the prime age. It's not really taking into account those big demographic shifts. But how much are people who are really expected to be working, working? And the cutoff for leaving the labor force because you've gotten, because you're no longer looking for work is really tight. It's just four weeks. So it's basically since the last survey, have you looked for work in the past four weeks? If you say no, you fall off.

• 21:52Kathryn Anne Edwards?

  So there could be people who have sent in, you know, like a lot of us have looked for a job. You're so frantic, you, you fill out 50 applications and then you're, it's almost like waiting, trying to buy a house. You've got to wait for something else to come on the market. And that can push you kind of mechanically out of the labor force. You know, for interpreting the market's strength, what to get from the prime age labor force participation falling in a month, you can think of it as maybe it's just noise, like I said at the beginning, or it's a function of what we have seen to be true in the labor market for some time, which is it is not generating jobs for people who have been looking for some time. Hiring is slow. The share of unemployed workers who have been unemployed for six months or longer has been increasing for a year and a half.

• 22:35Kathryn Anne Edwards?

  It has shown no signs of slowing, including, including in this report. So we have a lot of people who have been looking without much success for a long time. And even amongst prime age workers, that can result in them leaving the labor force in a month. Historically, prime age labor force participation is at a near high. But this particular, you know, time in the labor market has not shown as many opportunities for workers as it should, particularly for workers who don't have a job.

• 23:02Ed Elson?

  One of the big themes that we have continued to discuss whenever we have you on is the fact that almost all of the job growth that we've seen is coming from healthcare and social assistance. That's been true. It continues to be true, each report. Was it true in this report? Is that still kind of what's happening in the job market?

• 23:18Kathryn Anne Edwards?

  Yes, we are still seeing that kind of the only sector that is very consistently and predictably adding jobs are healthcare and social assistance. I think a lot of people were hoping that this month would see a big boost to leisure and hospitality from the World Cup, but it actually shed jobs in June.

• 23:34Ed Elson?

  Justin Wolf has also pointed out that since January 2025, 90% of all new non-farm payroll jobs have gone to women. Actually, women now hold a majority of all non-farm payroll jobs. How do we make sense of that statistic? Why is that happening? Do you think that trend will continue?

• 23:54Kathryn Anne Edwards?

  Well, men and women don't work the same jobs. And if you're adding jobs in places like leisure and hospitality and in healthcare and social assistance, those can often be dominated by women. And so it's really, it's, it's not so much that the labor market is favoring women versus the labor market is giving opportunities that women are much more likely to take. You know, some of your typically male jobs, especially something like manufacturing, has seen a hit over the past year and a half. Construction has, has been a little bit more, you know, stops and starts, but has seen some growth. But we just, you know, we have gender differences in employment, which is natural. But that means that men and women can fare differently based on how the economy is doing.

• 24:37Kathryn Anne Edwards?

  I mean, the 2007, the Great Recession was notoriously very male. I mean, it was a cratering of constructing and manufacturing employment. The COVID pandemic recession, that hit women so much harder because it hit healthcare and social assistance as well as leisure and hospitality. So I don't think these patterns spell, like, shouldn't be overinterpreted. Because at the end of the day, it comes down to, are we pursuing policy that helps the labor market and helps workers? I think the answer is no. You can't look at the war on, you can't look at tariffs, you can't look at deportation. You can't look at a deficit financed tax cut that cut Medicaid and food stamps and say, all of this is benefiting the worker.

• 25:20Kathryn Anne Edwards?

  Who hurts from weak policy isn't going to be uniform. It's going to hit different people at different times. And right now, we're just, we're seeing male employment take a, take a hit.

• 25:29Ed Elson?

  I wanted to ask you about immigration as well, because that was one of the big themes in our previous conversation. And it's timely because Trump just posted on his Truth Social, he said that there was a Federal Reserve paper that according to Trump showed that illegal immigration under Biden increased home prices by 30%. In reality, that's not what the paper said. It actually said that, that immigration had driven up prices by around 6% during the, the Biden administration. And then it also had some details about how actually wage growth had not been suppressed or, or, or taken a hit because of immigration and also that employment actually increased.

• 26:11Ed Elson?

  Point being, there's some data that might suggest that the immigration that we saw was problematic to the housing market. Trump is obviously exaggerating it and using it as a way to sort of score some political points and kind of distorting the truth. But while we're here, what do you make of those comments? And also, what do you make of how immigration is affecting the economy and the job market right now?

• 26:37Kathryn Anne Edwards?

  I mean, I think it speaks volumes about how terrible his immigration policy is in 2026, that he's pointing to an effect of 2023 as being a reason why immigrants are bad for the economy. I mean, he's, we've had a historic year in the United States. We had a net loss in immigrants and the majority of them were legal immigrants that did not come because of restrictions on spousal visas, restrictions on H1Bs, I mean, restrictions on student visas. This hit the United States hard. We had a net decline in immigrants in 2025. And if there was some miracle cure waiting at the end of immigrants not being as important part of our economy, surely we would have seen it in 2026, the year after. And yet here we are talking about speculative and misrepresented comments

• 27:22Kathryn Anne Edwards?

  about a paper that took place years ago. It's, it's, for me, the, the hollowness is obvious. If there was some cure to not having immigrants in the economy or having fewer immigrants, you would have seen it by now. But instead, what you really see is that the people who have benefited from the decline in immigration are the immigrants who are still here, who are seeing lower unemployment rates and more opportunities. Because just like men and women don't hold the same jobs, native workers and immigrant workers, they don't hold the same jobs either. So if you deport part of the immigrant workforce, it tends to leave the remaining immigrants in higher demand and helps their wages accelerate because now they have more market power. So I, I mean, I suppose in some backwards way, he is doing some immigrants a favor, but at a really high cost to our society and the fabric of our democracy.

• 28:06Kathryn Anne Edwards?

  I mean, I do wonder at what point Americans will learn the lesson on immigration, that nativism has no economic benefit. It's unclear to me when that will happen. But, you know, so long as you need me to make the case on the show, I'm always happy to do it.

• 28:22Ed Elson?

  Well, I always do appreciate it because it's a helpful reminder. Just looking ahead, you pointed out that there's a lot of noise in these reports always, and it's kind of hard to know what to even pay attention to, what is actually important and what matters going forward. Open question, what does matter? What are you focused on in the job market? What do you think people are not talking about enough that they perhaps should be talking about?

• 28:48Kathryn Anne Edwards?

  I think what matters most to B tends to be what matters most to people, which is wage growth, right? The reason why we care about the payroll employment number is because if we're adding enough jobs, we can bring down the unemployment rate. And the reason why we care about bringing down the unemployment rate is so that people who need economic livelihood have it. And if the unemployment rate is false enough, that pushes up wages and we all earn more money. I mean, this is a market. It's called the labor market. It operates off of supply and demand, and we want it to be tight so that we can have higher wages. And given, given the oil price shocks from the war in Iran, and given the weak wages we've, or the weak labor market we've had for the past year and a half, we've had months where price growth is out matching wage growth. That is a pay

• 29:32Kathryn Anne Edwards?

  cut for every American worker. And I don't think I will feel like the economy is in a strong enough place, or the labor market is in a strong enough place, until we have consistently good wage growth for every worker, not just the workers at the top, but workers in the middle and at the bottom. And we have not seen it. And the aggregate, on the average, we haven't seen it in months. It hasn't really picked up pace since 2022, but we've also are coming off of decades when the bottom half of Americans have not seen good enough wage growth. So for me, like, everything is wages, because that is the payout, the literal payout for workers. Weak wage growth, like we've seen this spring, I mean, it's, that is just, it's so hard on families to have prices go up even inches at a time when

• 30:17Kathryn Anne Edwards?

  your paycheck's not going up at all.

• 30:19Ed Elson?

  Yeah, and the negative real wage growth that we were seeing, to me, I totally agree, seems to be the most striking. Do you think that that will continue in 2026? Or is it just impossible to tell at this point? I mean, who knows about inflation?

• 30:36Ed Elson?

  But, I mean, the real question is, will, will wages keep up? So far, they haven't. And how much longer will that continue to be the case?

• 30:44Kathryn Anne Edwards?

  You know, if the economy is not producing jobs fast enough to get employment to the workers who want it, it's very hard to imagine a scenario in which workers have enough bargaining power to really bid up wages. I mean, at the end of the day, yes, it's a market, but that market's tightness is a way to give workers power to ask for more, to demand more from their employers. There has to be some channel of getting power to workers to ask for money to see wages grow up. If the market's not doing it, you could do it through things like unionization, collective bargaining, labor market regulation to give workers a lift. The labor market remains to be seen. I don't see it going up this year. I don't see a Republican-controlled Congress and House and Senate and presidency to really do much for the working class.

• 31:27Ed Elson?

  All right, Catherine Ann Edwards, PhD economist, economic policy consultant, and columnist for Bloomberg News. Catherine, we always appreciate your time. Thank you.

• 31:36Kathryn Anne Edwards?

  Thanks for having me back.

• 31:41Ed Elson?

  Dell stock surged as much as 8% yesterday, not because of any material information or any news related to the company, but instead because the president pumped it. Yes, yesterday on live television, Trump encouraged Americans to, quote, "go out and buy a Dell computer." And it was exactly at that moment that shares of Dell soared. Does President Trump own any Dell shares, you might ask? The answer is, of course, yes. According to his recently released financial statements, Trump purchased nearly a million dollars' worth of Dell last year, and now he is actively pumping it on TV. This is yet another example of

• 32:26Ed Elson?

  a dynamic that we are calling the kingmaker economy, and that is, the best way to increase your stock price in America today isn't to improve your product or to sell more goods and services, it is to have your stock anointed by the high priest of American markets, AKA the president. If you can do that, great things will occur. You might get a shout out in a national address, you might even get a government contract, who knows? The point is, it pays to kiss ass, not metaphorically, but literally. And that's why so many leaders

• 33:04Ed Elson?

  are now doing it, from Tim Cook and his Golden Apple Trophy, to now Sam Altman and his benevolent offer to sling OpenAI stock onto the balance sheet of the US government and hopefully get a bailout. Is this how free markets are supposed to work? Is this what capitalism is supposed to look like? Absolutely not. But that doesn't matter anymore. Trump has made it clear to American business, do something for the leader, and the leader will do something for you. Quid pro quo. We are becoming more and more like China every day.

• 33:49Ed Elson?

  Okay, that's it for today. This episode was produced by Claire Miller and Alison Weiss, and engineered by Benjamin Spencer. Our video editor is Brad Williams. Our research team is Dan Shalon, Kristin O'Donoghue, and Mia Silverio. And our social producer is Jake McPherson. Thank you for listening to Prof you Markets from Prof you Media. If you liked what you heard, give us a follow. I'm Ed Elson. I'll see you tomorrow.

• 34:16Speaker 11

  Close your eyes, exhale, feel your body relax, and let go of whatever you're carrying today. Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-CONTACTS. Oh my gosh, they're so fast! And breathe. Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste? Visit 1-800-CONTACTS.com today to save on your first order.

• 34:44Speaker 03

  1-800-CONTACTS.

• 34:47Speaker 13

  Booking.com is the easiest way from a day surrounded by noise

• 34:59Speaker 13

  to a state surrounded by nature.

• 35:06Speaker 13

  That's nice. Go on, book it. It's easy. Booking.com. Booking dot yeah.

• 35:16Speaker 14

  They're running a Cover 2 defense. But you're running to get game day deals on Uber Eats. Keep everyone at tonight's watch party fed with deals from your go-to restaurants. Or stock up with deals on your favorite snacks and groceries. Whatever the occasion, get game day deals on Uber Eats all season long. It's not football without food. Uber Eats. Order now. Terms apply. Product availability varies by region. See app for details.