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

(Originally aired June 10, 2025) The national debt is $36 trillion. That could be a panic-inducing big number. So maybe it will help to understand how we 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 it moving in that direction. And for listeners waiting for MMT (Modern Monetary Theory) to make a cameo, that moment has arrived. Support Optimist Economy by becoming a paidSubstack subscriber here https://optimisteconomy.substack.com/, or by making a contribution athttps://buymeacoffee.com/optimisteconomy Complete show notes with links to articles and data atoptimisteconomy.com https://optimisteconomy.substack.com/p/podcast. 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/ Read more: From Riches to Rags: Causes of Fiscal Deterioration Since 2001 https://www.crfb.org/papers/riches-rags-causes-fiscal-deterioration-2001 [Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, 2024] Economic Effects of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R48485 [Congressional Research Service, 2025] Is Modern Monetary Theory Nutty or Essential? https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/03/13/is-modern-monetary-theory-nutty-or-essential?giftId=b7374e67-68c2-4a7a-8e22-3400ee099622&utm_campaign=gifted_article [The Economist, 2019] Is This What Winning Looks Like? https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/06/business/economy/modern-monetary-theory-stephanie-kelton.html?unlocked_article_code=1. NE8.exHW. LDamslXyLqfX&smid=em-share: Modern Monetary Theory, the buzziest economic idea in decades, got a pandemic tryout of sorts. Now inflation is testing its limits. [New York Times, 2022]

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Mitt Romney and Ted Kennedy were about as different as two politicians could be. The lanky businessman and the stout old senator, the conservative darling and the liberal icon. But did you know they once teamed up to tackle an elusive challenge? Universal healthcare.

• 0:18Speaker 00

  In season four of the Big Dig podcast, we tell the story of Romney Care and the odd couple alliance behind it. Find Mitt and Ted wherever you listen.

• 0:30Robin Rauzi?

  Hey, optimists, Robin here. Don't get too excited. Optimist Economy is still on vacation, but it did seem like a good moment to maybe rerun this episode that we did last year on the national debt. When we released it in June 2025, the debt was $36 trillion. And last month, in August 2026, it topped $40 trillion. So interest payments on that debt add up to nearly $1.2 trillion a year now, and those payments are the federal government's second biggest expense after Social Security. When this makes me personally feel a little bit panicky, I actually think back on the conversation that I had with Catherine here and its takeaways, including about how debt is in itself neutral and it depends on what you're buying with the debt and how the debt's

• 1:13Robin Rauzi?

  trajectory is the thing that matters more than its actual dollar amount. Catherine and I will be back with new episodes at some point later this month, but until then, from June 10 of 2025, here's our episode, "The U.S. is in the Hole. Will We Stop Digging?"

• 1:35Speaker 02

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

• 1:38Robin Rauzi?

  I'm Robin.

• 1:39Speaker 02

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

• 1:53Speaker 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.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.

• 2:10Robin Rauzi?

  Information on all of this at optimist economy.com.

• 2:13Speaker 02

  Optimist Economy.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, bye. Robin, what's your retcon?

• 2:40Robin Rauzi?

  The only retcon that I had, 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?

• 3:08Speaker 02

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

• 3:11Robin Rauzi?

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

• 3:14Speaker 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.

• 3:34Robin Rauzi?

  Got it. Okay. Retcons for you?

• 3:38Speaker 02

  I have, I have like a whole host.

• 3:40Robin Rauzi?

  I know you got like a list, I see.

• 3:41Speaker 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

• 4:23Speaker 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.

• 4:47Robin 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.

• 5:04Speaker 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.

• 5:20Robin Rauzi?

  Right.

• 5:21Speaker 02

  You know, and like, okay.

• 5:22Robin Rauzi?

  If they have a rough pregnancy and they don't want to have another one.

• 5:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, rough pregnancy, rough labor and delivery, rough postnatal care.

• 5:27Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 5:28Speaker 02

  Like, you end up with some type of a clamp, see, oh, 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, because it was so harmful to my health as a, as a woman. That's not something that you can, that policy can fix. But we should recognize that, like, the whole conversation, there was no mention of, like, also, pregnancy blows.

• 5:57Speaker 02

  If you were to say, you know what, I've had my fill and I am not doing this again, that is another thing that policy, you know, would not.

• 6:06Robin Rauzi?

  Not going to change.

• 6:06Speaker 02

  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. 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.

• 6:48Speaker 02

  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.

• 7:17Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah, I've heard that, too.

• 7:18Speaker 02

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

• 7:24Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah, government, some sort of government camp childcare.

• 7:27Speaker 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 as 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.

• 8:10Speaker 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 socia's 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.

• 8:31Robin Rauzi?

  Well, it's pretty declarative, but.

• 8:33Speaker 02

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

• 8:40Robin Rauzi?

  Conversation?

• 8:41Speaker 02

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

• 8:46Robin Rauzi?

  You know, I didn't look up a term, but I did, I looked up a condition this week. I knew we were going to talk about the debt, and I also knew that Moody's had, in mid-May, downgraded the U.S. 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 triple A bond to an AA1 bond. This is in a 21 notch system that is, I'm just going to say needlessly confusing, which is AAA, AA1, AA2, AA3, and then it goes into the Bs and then the Cs.

• 9:29Robin Rauzi?

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

• 9:56Speaker 02

  Robin, this show is called Optimistic Economy.

• 9:59Robin Rauzi?

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

• 10:03Speaker 02

  They all sound like countries.

• 10:04Robin Rauzi?

  They all sound like legit countries.

• 10:06Speaker 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.

• 10:37Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah, and said as much.

• 10:39Speaker 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.

• 10:57Robin Rauzi?

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

• 11:04Speaker 02

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

• 11:09Robin 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.

• 11:19Speaker 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.

• 11:31Robin 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.

• 11:45Speaker 02

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

• 11:52Robin Rauzi?

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

• 11:55Speaker 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.

• 12:11Robin Rauzi?

  Right.

• 12:11Speaker 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 gonna 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 it is 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.

• 12:55Robin 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 1992 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, did not run a deficit.

• 13:21Speaker 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.

• 13:32Robin Rauzi?

  Real big.

• 13:33Speaker 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?

• 13:46Robin Rauzi?

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

• 13:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, the actual dollar amount.

• 13:50Robin 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 twenty-three million dollar house.

• 14:01Speaker 02

  Right.

• 14:02Robin Rauzi?

  But if you own a million dollars on a five-hundred-thousand-dollar house, you're in trouble.

• 14:07Speaker 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 a hundred percent. In the decades afterwards, it fell. But starting around nineteen eighty, 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-

• 14:36Robin Rauzi?

  Is that also because the economy is growing?

• 14:38Speaker 02

  Because the economy is growing.

• 14:39Robin Rauzi?

  Right.

• 14:40Speaker 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 lasts until around the nineteen eighties and debt had gotten to about thirty percent of GDP. And then it just really started to rise again. And for the next fifteen years, debt increased from like around thirty percent of GDP to sixty-five. And this is like the nineteen ninety-two election, Clinton's first term. Debt as a share of GDP has doubled in fifteen years. And people are really worried about what is gonna happen with the debt, Ross Perot.

• 15:22Robin Rauzi?

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

• 15:26Speaker 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 eighties, a lot of defense spending. So it's 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 nineties, 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 nineteen nineties. And a lot of people went to work and started paying taxes.

• 16:11Speaker 02

  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.

• 16:24Robin Rauzi?

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:25Speaker 02

  And so when we get to two thousand and one, 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 two thousand and one, 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. And a lot of people would tell us- 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.

• 17:09Speaker 02

  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 gonna find an economist that says our debt needs to be zero. 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 fifteen 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 ninety percent of GDP, and people were like, no.

• 17:42Robin Rauzi?

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

• 17:45Speaker 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 the, 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 ninety versus ninety-one. So even those economists are, would say like, yeah, we had a threshold, but a threshold doesn't make sense. So in this moment in two thousand and one, where we have a budget surplus,

• 18:30Speaker 02

  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 a hundred and twenty percent of GDP as part of our debt. And you are starting to see these downgrades in the US credit, which would have been unfathomable twenty-five 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.

• 19:09Robin Rauzi?

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

• 19:13Speaker 02

  He ran on tax cuts.

• 19:14Robin Rauzi?

  And he, and he gave us two right away.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  Yes, he did. And then they were made permanent in two thousand and twelve. 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 two thousand and one to two thousand and twenty-four. And they apportion it out to like, what does the debt increase due to? And they say it's thirty-seven percent tax cuts, thirty-three percent spending, and twenty-eight percent recession response. Because recessions are very expensive.

• 20:00Speaker 02

  It's a time when your tax receipts are gonna 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 gonna 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-

• 20:21Robin Rauzi?

  Automakers, I mean, they've helped out some big things.

• 20:24Speaker 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 two thousand, the two thousand and eight financial crisis recession and the pandemic recession.

• 20:45Robin Rauzi?

  Right.

• 20:46Speaker 02

  They were both the most like catastrophic and the most expensive.

• 20:50Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  So that's, 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 gonna 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.

• 21:16Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah, we did. Yeah.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, we did.

• 21:18Robin Rauzi?

  And then they were not cheap.

• 21:19Speaker 02

  They weren't cheap. No, so they probably-

• 21:23Speaker 02

  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 10 years and one that lasted like 20 years, roughly. But the, I think the best estimates is that each of those wars in Iraq and Afghanistan set us back $2 to $3 trillion.

• 21:44Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 21:45Speaker 02

  And then the other big spending is that we expanded Medicaid.

• 21:49Robin Rauzi?

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:50Speaker 02

  And we created Medicare Part D. We did that in the early 2000s.

• 21:53Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 21:54Speaker 02

  So, we expanded the most expensive program in the US.

• 22:00Robin Rauzi?

  Medicare.

• 22:00Speaker 02

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

• 22:08Robin Rauzi?

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:10Speaker 02

  And that is what happened to our budget.

• 22:11Robin Rauzi?

  Right. Not feeling optimistic yet, just so you know.

• 22:15Speaker 02

  Not feeling optimistic yet. Yeah, um, it's, 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. 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.

• 22:51Robin Rauzi?

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

• 22:53Speaker 02

  It's not like, bad.

• 22:55Robin Rauzi?

  Okay.

• 22:55Speaker 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.

• 23:02Robin Rauzi?

  Oh, okay.

• 23:04Speaker 02

  So-

• 23:04Robin Rauzi?

  It's not linear, or-

• 23:06Speaker 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.

• 23:25Robin Rauzi?

  Sure.

• 23:26Speaker 02

  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 gonna 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-

• 23:45Robin 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.

• 24:00Speaker 02

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

• 24:06Robin Rauzi?

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

• 24:12Speaker 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.

• 24:24Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 24:25Speaker 02

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

• 24:31Robin Rauzi?

  Meaning individuals. Like, the individuals pay $100 less in taxes, but we have, there's no focus for the way that money gets spent. It's just-

• 24:38Speaker 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.

• 25:16Robin Rauzi?

  Right.

• 25:17Speaker 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.

• 26:03Robin Rauzi?

  Which is the research arm of Congress, yeah.

• 26:06Speaker 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.

• 26:21Robin Rauzi?

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

• 26:28Speaker 02

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

• 26:33Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 26:34Speaker 02

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

• 26:42Robin Rauzi?

  Things that we need to do.

• 26:43Speaker 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.

• 26:50Robin 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.

• 26:57Speaker 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, 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.

• 27:23Robin Rauzi?

  Right.

• 27:24Speaker 02

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

• 27:31Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah, and isn't it already $1.01 now? Something like that?

• 27:35Speaker 02

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

• 27:38Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah, that would be about $1.01 out of every seven.

• 27:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, oh, look at us.

• 27:42Robin Rauzi?

  Look at me doing math, in my head.

• 27:44Speaker 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 that's what makes the conversation about debt much more nuanced than I think people realize, is that it is a multidimensional positionality.

• 28:04Robin Rauzi?

  3D chess.

• 28:05Speaker 02

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

• 28:09Robin Rauzi?

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:10Speaker 02

  Right? Saving the US economy during crippling recessions.

• 28:13Robin Rauzi?

  Important, yeah.

• 28:14Speaker 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. And then it's kind of where the relative position of the US is going from more debt or less debt.

• 28:37Speaker 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.

• 28:47Robin Rauzi?

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

• 28:51Speaker 02

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

• 28:56Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 28:57Speaker 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, I mean, if 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

• 29:38Speaker 02

  a small amount of money via a bond. That poses an incredible unsustainability in the future.

• 29:45Robin Rauzi?

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

• 29:57Speaker 02

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

• 30:05Robin Rauzi?

  Small, small.

• 30:05Speaker 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.

• 30:24Robin Rauzi?

  But Treasury yields now are above 5.

• 30:27Speaker 02

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

• 30:31Robin Rauzi?

  Mm-hmm.

• 30:32Speaker 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.

• 30:42Robin Rauzi?

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

• 30:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:46Robin Rauzi?

  You don't want to sneak that in.

• 30:48Speaker 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.

• 30:59Robin Rauzi?

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:00Speaker 02

  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.

• 31:16Speaker 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.

• 31:35Robin Rauzi?

  Wouldn't that devalue our current currency?

• 31:37Speaker 02

  It would increase inflation.

• 31:38Robin Rauzi?

  And increase inflation.

• 31:39Speaker 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 like liberals have gathered around because it gives kind of a macroeconomic support for having big government spending.

• 31:55Robin Rauzi?

  Mm-hmm, right.

• 31:56Speaker 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, 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, with that is that it could lead to inflation.

• 32:23Robin Rauzi?

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:24Speaker 02

  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 about MMT? And do I think MMT is good? And I, 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 and the role of President and/or Congress. And I just think that you

• 33:03Speaker 02

  can't look at the past 20 years and make any kind of argument for Congress and the President being good fiscal stewards. That's probably like, my biggest hesitation with MMT is like, I, I mean, I love big government policy, but I, 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.

• 33:36Robin Rauzi?

  Mm-hmm. Can you explain the difference between fiscal control and monetary control? Like, which?

• 33:43Speaker 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.

• 34:08Robin Rauzi?

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:09Speaker 02

  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. 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.

• 34:38Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 34:39Speaker 02

  The Congress side. The, what is it, 535-person clown car side?

• 34:43Robin Rauzi?

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

• 34:49Speaker 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, what are you doing?

• 35:34Speaker 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.

• 35:52Robin Rauzi?

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:53Speaker 02

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

• 36:21Robin Rauzi?

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

• 36:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:29Robin 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, 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?

• 36:56Speaker 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.

• 37:06Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 37:07Speaker 02

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

• 37:13Robin Rauzi?

  Right.

• 37:14Speaker 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.

• 37:23Robin Rauzi?

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:23Speaker 02

  So, so some people will say like, you know, we've had such low inflation for the past 25 years, this is a recent episode withstanding, 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.

• 37:43Robin Rauzi?

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

• 37:46Speaker 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 rate 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.

• 38:01Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 38:01Speaker 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.

• 38:20Robin Rauzi?

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:21Speaker 02

  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 our, what our debt looks like, you would be like, our country is over.

• 38:39Speaker 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 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.

• 39:08Robin Rauzi?

  Also.

• 39:08Speaker 02

  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.

• 39:15Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 39:16Speaker 02

  And then, yeah, we can be blamed for voting for short-sighted politicians, but like, 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.

• 39:29Robin Rauzi?

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:30Speaker 02

  I take optimism from the potential, and from.

• 39:34Robin Rauzi?

  The poten, I'm sorry.

• 39:36Speaker 02

  The, 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. 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.

• 40:06Robin Rauzi?

  I know, and it's still growing.

• 40:07Speaker 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.

• 40:16Robin Rauzi?

  If we choose to.

• 40:17Speaker 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, or 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-

• 40:52Robin 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-

• 40:56Speaker 02

  Before we get childcare.

• 40:57Robin Rauzi?

  Before we get, okay, now that's-

• 41:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:00Robin Rauzi?

  That feels optimistic, okay.

• 41:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, 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.

• 41:12Robin Rauzi?

  Right.

• 41:12Speaker 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. 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.

• 41:23Robin Rauzi?

  Right.

• 41:23Speaker 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 come to blow about whether or not the bill is beautiful or handsome.

• 41:53Speaker 02

  And I, I just, I was like, yeah, y'all, like, 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 level, 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.

• 42:35Speaker 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.

• 42:52Robin Rauzi?

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

• 42:57Speaker 02

  I think so. I mean, the tax-

• 42:59Robin Rauzi?

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

• 43:02Speaker 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.

• 43:37Robin Rauzi?

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:37Speaker 02

  And so, we, we have the money, we have the big economy, and we know what we need to do. 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.

• 43:59Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 44:00Speaker 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.

• 44:13Speaker 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.

• 44:22Speaker 02

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

• 44:28Speaker 02

  Somebody has decided they don't want shoes.

• 44:33Speaker 02

  Somebody else got water on their shirt, they're taking their shirt off. However, there are car seats in the car.

• 44:40Robin Rauzi?

  We're working our way toward the car.

• 44:41Speaker 02

  There are car seats in the car. The go-bag is packed. I have diapers with me. We are gonna fucking get there.

• 44:50Speaker 02

  I don't care how many shoes I have to put on, we will get there. So that, there'd just be, it could be so much worse, or, you know, it could be so much worse, is all I'm saying.

• 44:59Robin Rauzi?

  Optimist economy, it could be so much worse.

• 45:02Speaker 02

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

• 45:34Speaker 02

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

• 45:41Speaker 02

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

• 45:49Speaker 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.

• 46:00Speaker 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.

• 46:08Robin Rauzi?

  Oh, Jesus, yeah. Thanks, thanks.

• 46:11Speaker 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.

• 46:19Robin 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.

• 46:33Speaker 02

  100%.

• 46:34Robin 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.

• 46:47Speaker 02

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

• 46:56Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 46:56Speaker 02

  Okay, great. I'm glad you feel a little bit better.

• 46:59Robin Rauzi?

  I do.

• 47:00Speaker 02

  All right, so-

• 47:01Robin Rauzi?

  Palate cleanser.

• 47:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yes, palate cleanser, executive orders, although I don't know if it's actually gonna be a palate cleanser for me, so you go first.

• 47:08Robin Rauzi?

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

• 47:10Speaker 02

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

• 47:15Robin 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, in 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.

• 47:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:55Robin Rauzi?

  I'm for it.

• 47:56Speaker 02

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

• 47:58Robin Rauzi?

  Nice job, Erin.

• 47:59Speaker 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 explain things and hear their reactions to it, 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.

• 48:42Speaker 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.

• 48:51Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 48:52Speaker 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 post, 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.

• 49:36Speaker 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.

• 49:51Robin Rauzi?

  No, Ivy League specifically.

• 49:52Speaker 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.

• 50:02Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 50:03Speaker 02

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

• 50:06Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 50:06Speaker 02

  We did say it was a hard week.

• 50:07Robin Rauzi?

  It was a hard week.

• 50:08Speaker 02

  So let's, okay, let's get to the actual palate cleanser of-

• 50:11Robin Rauzi?

  Spiritual sponsors.

• 50:13Speaker 02

  Spiritual sponsors.

• 50:14Robin Rauzi?

  Okay, you want to go first?

• 50:14Speaker 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?

• 50:26Robin Rauzi?

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

• 50:33Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 50:34Robin Rauzi?

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

• 50:47Speaker 02

  Oh, thank you, Shannon. My spiritual sponsor this week is really fun friend group chats. Like, not all group chats end up-

• 50:57Robin Rauzi?

  Oh, yeah, I have one of those.

• 50:57Speaker 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.

• 51:06Robin Rauzi?

  Did you read that story?

• 51:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, I did.

• 51:09Speaker 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.

• 51:33Speaker 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.

• 51:43Robin 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.

• 51:54Speaker 02

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