The Wealth of Wall Street with Oren Cass | The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart

What this episode is about

The discussion explores the incoherence of economic policies under the Trump administration, highlighting the prevalence of right-leaning economists and the impulsive nature of these policies. It emphasizes the rising concern over the overfinancialization of the economy, with calls for a reevaluation of how financial services dominate and potentially harm the broader economic landscape.

Key takeaways

• Trump's economic policies: like a toddler with a crayon, no coherent vision emerges.
• The GOP's cultural whiplash over a halftime show reveals their sensitivity to artistic expression.
• Mara Lago: a daily reminder that language history can be lost on those in power.
• Financialization has become a monster; profits are prized over tangible societal contributions.
• Private equity firms: turning local gems into profit machines, often at the expense of community.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Jon Stewart (Host) · 57 min speaking
• Oren Cass (Guest) · 38 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 10:00: Financial Times, John Stewart, Oren Cass, American Compass
2. 10:00 – 20:00: Ground News, Congressman Adam Smith, Ronald Reagan, Friedrich Hayek
3. 20:00 – 30:00: Congressman Adam Smith, Ronald Reagan, Bill and Hillary Clinton
4. 40:00 – 50:00: Congressman Adam Smith, Marco Rubio
5. 50:00 – 1:00:00: Bill and Hillary Clinton
6. 1:00:00 – 1:10:00: American Compass, Congressman Adam Smith
7. 1:10:00 – 1:20:00: Ninja Lux Cafe, John Stewart, Oren Cass, American Compass
8. 1:20:00 – 1:30:00: John Stewart, New York Times, Bill and Hillary Clinton, J.D. Vance
9. 1:30:00 – 1:34:23: John Stewart

Notable quotes from "The Wealth of Wall Street with Oren Cass | The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart"

• An over financialization of the economy may portend for the future stability of our economy. So, I'm delighted to welcome back Orin Cass.

  about Oren Cass · at 2:44

• Constructed it. And so the core of the problem in my mind is that you know the entire premise of capitalism you go all the way back to Adam Smith and all the way back to the…

  about Congressman Adam Smith · at 9:36

• Killing us, but the antidote the antidote is information. And that's where Ground News comes in. Ground News, it's this website now designed to give readers a better way, an…

  about Ground News · at 14:11

• Conservatives and they would not have described themselves as conservatives. In fact, Hayek maybe his most famous essay is called Why I am not a conservative.

  about Friedrich Hayek · at 17:51

• And what happened in our politics is Ronald Reagan came along and Reagan built this coalition. Reagan combined what you would call the free market libertarians, the Hayek and Freriedman's, the all, you know,.

  about Ronald Reagan · at 18:45

• Everything on this. There is only one answer. and, the kind of Clinton White House walked these Nobel laureates up to the briefing room to sort of lecture people that if you did not see how great this was, you just were not smart.

  about Bill and Hillary Clinton · at 56:50

• Orin, it's always such a pleasure to talk to you. Fascinating stuff.

  about John Stewart · at 1:18:12

• Talking about how the left and right agree on the diagnosis. And in his article, he refers to Marco Rubio and JD Vance as people who have talked out against financialization.…

  about Marco Rubio · at 1:22:11

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• John Stewart — Person · Host · 5 mentions · first at 0:46
  Hosts the episode, frames the discussion around financialization, and interviews Orin Cass while adding political and cultural commentary.
• Oren Cass — Person · Main guest · 2 mentions · first at 2:49
  Primary interview subject; argues that US economic 'financialization' has grown at the expense of productive investment and broad-based prosperity, and discusses policy/cultural remedies.
• Congressman Adam Smith — Person · Referenced foundational economist · 6 mentions · first at 9:44
  Invoked to argue capitalism’s legitimacy depends on aligning self-interest with public interest (the 'invisible hand'), and that modern 'market fundamentalism' misreads Smith.
• Ronald Reagan — Person · Referenced political figure (historical context) · 2 mentions · first at 18:47
  Used as a pivot point for the rise of a right-of-center coalition combining libertarian economics with conservatism and Cold War priorities; discussed as shaping post-1970s economic orthodoxy.
• Friedrich Hayek — Person · Referenced economist (ideological foil) · 1 mention · first at 17:38
  Presented (with Milton Friedman) as emblematic of libertarian 'self-regulating market' ideology; cited for 'Why I am not a conservative' to distinguish libertarianism from conservatism.
• Bill and Hillary Clinton — Person · Referenced political figure (bipartisan context) · 3 mentions · first at 22:26
  Referenced to emphasize that globalization/financial deregulation were bipartisan and not solely Republican—implicitly pointing to Bill Clinton-era policy consensus.
• Marco Rubio — Person · Referenced politician (example of 'new right') · 2 mentions · first at 44:19
  Mentioned as a Republican figure who has spoken against financialization (per the post-interview commentary) and as part of a cohort shifting GOP economic rhetoric.
• J.D. Vance — Person · Referenced politician (example of 'new right') · 1 mention · first at 1:22:15
  Cited as part of a newer Republican cohort (with Rubio, Hawley, etc.) that criticizes financialization and supports reindustrialization/worker-oriented economic rhetoric.
  Talking about how the left and right agree on the diagnosis. And in his article, he refers to Marco Rubio and JD Vance as people who have talked out against financialization.…
• Melania — Person · Referenced public figure (satirical aside) · 2 mentions · first at 1:18:01
  Appears in a joke about a 'Melania memecoin,' used to satirize crypto speculation and the broader cultural drift toward gamified finance.
  There's a Melania documentary in cinemas. I've heard I meant other Yes, that's also a good use of it. But I think it also shows again like just because you came up with.

Companies & orgs

• American Compass — Company · Business focus · 3 mentions · first at 3:08
  Think tank where Orin Cass serves as chief economist, discussed in the context of economic policy and financialization.
  The founder and chief economist at American Compass think tank, contributing opinion writer for the Financial Times and the New York Times, which is why I wanted to talk to you.
• Financial Times — Company · Referenced work · 2 mentions · first at 2:28
  Orin Cass is a contributing opinion writer for the Financial Times, mentioned alongside his work for the New York Times.
  The founder and chief economist at American Compass think tank, contributing opinion writer for the Financial Times and the New York Times, which is why I wanted to talk to you.
• New York Times — Company · Referenced work · 2 mentions · first at 3:23
  Orin Cass is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, mentioned in the context of his op-ed on financialization.
  The founder and chief economist at American Compass think tank, contributing opinion writer for the Financial Times and the New York Times, which is why I wanted to talk to you.

Products & tech

• Doge — Product · Incidental mention · 1 mention · first at 1:29:58
  Mentioned in passing as an example of gamified financial systems.
  John, do you think Doge would have done a better job at releasing the Epstein files?

Sponsors

• Ground News — Product · Sponsor · 3 mentions · first at 14:15
  Sponsored segment promoting Ground News as a tool for navigating news bias.
• Ninja Lux Cafe — Product · Sponsor · 2 mentions · first at 1:18:36
  Sponsored segment promoting Ninja Lux Cafe as a home coffee solution.
  Listeners of this show get $60 off the Ninjalux Cafe premiere series with code stewart exclusively on sharkninja.com while supplies last. That's $60 off the Ninjalux Cafe premiere series.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 When I look at a Trump administration filled with more right of center economists and and people of that thing, it feels incoherent. You sort of can't wrap your mind around what we are and and how they're designing these policies, not as correctives for pendulum swings or societal ills, but as kind of impulse, like giant baby impulse. Well, I I think what you have with the Trump administration is President Trump and Right. I mean, I think, you know, Fair enough. Fair point. Fair point.

0:44 Hey everybody, welcome to the Weekly Show podcast. My name is John Stewart. I am the host uh of this. And today, oh, special thing. Tonight, uh, the halftime of the podcast, uh, we're going to have someone do a halftime show entirely in Latian. They're just going to the same thing. I I'm still recovering from just the the anger and outrage that the right expressed over a fun musical perform. They've gotten so so weak, so so thin, so feeble that that that they can't go 15 minutes without hearing a country song. It just it hurts them. It hurts the country. It hurts the foundation that we were built upon to have something like that. My favorite was somebody mentioned, you know, Trump is complaining the whole thing is in Spanish. You're like, you know the the name of the place you live. You know the language that's derived from, right?

1:42 Mara Lago. Yeah, that ain't that that ain't from London, brother. Uh, but moving on to more important things. uh you know I I I read an article just recently that I've been waiting for so long to read uh as coming from someone from the right which was about how uh our economy has over has been overfinancialized you know that the financial services has become too large a part and it's hurting uh ultimately the bottom line and I you know and I'm sure that there are 50 years of of left-wing economists out there who saw the article and just rolled their eyes and thought, "Yeah, finally." Uh, but I was excited to see it and to see that it was written by our old pal, friend of the show. It's a title not bestowed off, friend of the show. Uh, and he is joining us today to discuss this article and to discuss these uh larger issues in general that an over financialization of the economy uh may portend for the future stability

2:49 of our economy. So, I'm delighted to welcome back Orin Cass. Ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to reintroduce himself. His name is Orin Cass. Uh Orin Cass. Orin, it's so nice to see you again. You are the chief economist at American Compass. And that is a a self-imposed title or that

3:15 self imposed is good. Yes, self-imposed. the founder and chief economist at American Compass think tank, contributing opinion writer for the Financial Times and the New York Times, which is why I wanted to talk to you. You recently wrote an op-ed in the New York Times and I it is an op-ed I have been waiting for young man for for many many years uh to come from someone who is more or is classified as more on the right. So to get into it, I want you to briefly explain it was about the idea that the financialization of our economy is a net negative, but I I want you to give just sort of a a brief description of of this op-ed and sort of what what motivated you to to write it.

4:05 Sure. Well, thank you for having me on to talk about it. These these are always a lot of fun. um always

4:11 you know financialization I guess we probably have to define it as as a starting point um it is essentially and there are all sorts of technical definitions but but essentially refers to the increasing role of financial markets in the economy where they sort of become ends unto themselves and people start transacting and and rejiggering and configuring businesses and taking cash out not with any effort to create anything valuable in the real world simply simply to generate more cash out of the activity.

4:42 Give give some examples of what of what financialization specifically what what that might be.

4:48 Sure. So you see it in a lot of the kind of Wall Street firms if you think about hedge funds, private equity funds, right? A lot of the time what they're doing is they're they're collecting a whole lot of money and you know interesting question where that money comes from and then they're going out and looking for things that they think they can buy at one price and sell at a higher price. So if if you're a hedge fund, right, in the case of what's called a highfrequency trading hedge fund, you don't even care what you're buying and selling. You're literally building bigger fiber optic cables to try to race your trades to the floor faster so that you can get out in front of whoever else is bidding on them. You make a teeny teeny little bit on millions of transactions and ta-da, you've generated a profit. You haven't actually done anything useful. You've you've just extracted value from somewhere else. If you know you're a

5:34 private equity firm, in a lot of cases, what what you're trying to do is say, "Let's go out and find a series of smaller businesses. Maybe they're privately run. Maybe the people running them aren't even just maximizing profit. Maybe they're veterinarian clinics, let's say, or nursing homes, right? And can you buy up a bunch of them, combine them together, uh maybe squeeze out, you know, squeeze the customers a little harder, squeeze the workers a little harder, get more cash out of it? Now you have a profit. And now can you sell it to someone else? Can you, you know, when you talk about financial engineering, can you do what's called a capital restructuring? So add a lot more debt to it so that you can earn more money. Now, you've also added more risk, which means if something goes wrong, turns out firms bought by private equity funds are five to 10 more times likely to go bankrupt,

6:21 right? Well, if you're a private equity fund, okay, well, if I buy a hundred, I'm okay with a bunch of them going bankrupt. I can generate more profit on balance from taking more risk. uh even though of course all the workers at at the firms that went bankrupt only had the one job and and so you see in in financial markets a lot of this kind of activity I think it's important to say financial markets are important right like I think capitalism is great

6:47 generally to economists I would say that's that's there you go right like the idea that you want to have bankers and others who are collecting people's savings collecting capital finding productive ways to deploy it

7:00 that's incredibly important They deserve a return on doing that. I have no problem with someone making a good living becoming rich doing that,

7:08 right? The problem is that the share of the activity on Wall Street and financial markets that actually represents productive investment actually causing anybody to build anything new and useful in the world keeps going down. And so even as financial markets, the financial sector as a share of our economy keeps getting bigger, bigger share of GDP, the biggest source of corporate profits, the number one place that people from top business schools go to, that keeps getting bigger. And yet in parallel, the actual amount of real investment happening in our economy keeps going down,

7:41 right? And so that's the disconnect that first of all I think is just that is a problem in and of itself but it also then obviously has incredible consequences for the real economy for the for the country as we experience it.

7:54 This is I think generally a a critique that has been leveled more on the on the left would you say that that is and you I think are more associated with the right and I guess my question is do you still have an office where you are or have they once they read this oped they put you in the mop room? Are you do you have a window? I guess.

8:13 Well, as you can see, I have I have lovely windows behind me. I figured they weren't that's not your real office where

8:18 No, no, this is my office. I'm uh I'm I'm out in the woods. Uh we have a lot of snow on the ground, but uh no, the the nice thing about being chief economist is uh I guess you can you can say whatever you want.

8:30 Um but dictates its own terms. Is this is is financialization is it a perversion of what sort of the the markets is the critique that uh first of all why do you think it happened? Why do you think that these financializations grew faster than what you would consider to be uh the economy of uh of real things and industrial policy and those kinds of things? What h how did this happen? Yeah, it's a it's a great question and and the way I understand it is, you know, not quite that it's a perversion and and I think it's also important to say, you know, at the end of the day, the folks doing a lot of this stuff on Wall Street, uh, you know, it's also in a lot of companies that are even operating companies, increasingly they try to suck money out for shareholders rather than build up companies. You know, it's not like they're doing anything illegal. It's not, you know, they're they're not even

9:31 lying about it. It's not a scam. they are operating in the system as we have constructed it. And so the the core of the problem in my mind is that you know the entire premise of capitalism you go all the way back to Adam Smith and all the way back to the invisible hand

9:49 the core of your critique is the entire system of capitalism. No, exactly the opposite that I think that the entire system of capital then well this is so this is a good point, right? A lot of people say like well this is the problem. capitalism is just broken and can't work.

10:03 I feel exactly the opposite. I I think that the the basic premise of capitalism, the idea that that you want to have a system where you know people are always going to pursue their self-interest, right? So the question is can you have a system in which people pursuing their self-interest also serves the public interest so that the things that generate the most profit for you also turn out to be good for other people. And if if you go all the way back to Adam Smith and the invisible hand, this is actually exactly what he was describing. You know, the the invisible hand has become this like magic. It's a bad metaphor because it sounds like this magical force like it doesn't matter what you do, somehow magically it will work out great for everybody

10:42 as long as you don't intervene. I mean, wasn't the idea of that that governments should not intervene in in what these markets will create on their own through supply and demand? And the

10:52 Well, that that was certainly not that was certainly not Smith's view. that that is what it has become for a lot of modern economists. But if you go back people the the paragraph where Smith uses the term invisible hand, he only uses it once

11:04 is it actually starts by noting that he's expecting that people will prefer investing domestically to investing in foreign countries and that people will prefer to invest in the ways that produce the the most things of greatest value. Um, and what he's saying is that if though if that's true, if somebody pursuing profit, the way they're going to do it is by investing a lot domestically in creating things of value, then it's like there's an invisible hand that somehow ensures that what they are doing in their own self-interest also serves the public interest. So he's explaining how this can work, right? This is like at at the very outset of markets, people are like, "Whoa, what's going on here?" And he's saying, "No, no, no. See, look, if if the things that people are doing earning a lot of money also leads better outcomes, then this could be a great system.

11:55 It'll be quite stable. Uh, and but the way it turned out is the invisible hand sometimes slaps you across the face. And then that's the difficulty.

12:03 That's right. I I think and and so this goes to my point about like what are people doing? What's gone wrong? Is is it seems to me that, you know, people in their self-interest are then always going to look at the system and say like, okay, well, is there an even easier way to make more money? uh maybe that doesn't create so much good stuff for other people and you see over and over again throughout history that happening right so if you go back to you know the industrial revolution you had a period where the industrial revolution was working out horribly for most workers I mean people were literally getting shorter dying earlier and people had to say like gosh we probably need like some labor laws

12:42 if you're 8 years old you shouldn't be in a factory right maybe maybe that also like maybe this will work better if one of the constraints we impose is if you want to make a lot of money building big factories, you also have to use adult workers and treat them reasonably. That that will work and then in fact people started doing that and you had what I would call the much more beneficial industrial revolution that led to huge productivity gains you know ultimately the creation of the middle class. You had the same thing uh you know at the end of the 19th century with the giant trusts right Rockefeller and so forth and as you had railroads and utilities people were saying like oh like I could make a lot of money if I just monopolize this thing and well that's a fair point and that's when Teddy Roosevelt shows up and says like well okay right Teddy Roosevelt Republican uh but this is not this

13:31 system does not work we actually are going to have to do trust busting uh and so I I think you sort of go through these cycles where then what happened in the second half of the 20th century you have the financialization and and I think globalization are sort of parallel a lot of people said wow and and you know obviously we pursued free trade we deregulated financial markets and people said well this is great the easiest way to make a lot of money is to do this set of things that does not create good jobs does not necessarily produce growth so that's what people started Wait, look, the the algorithm the algorithm is killing us, but the the antidote the antidote is information. And that's where Ground News comes in. Ground News, it's this website now designed to give readers a better way, an easier way to navigate the news. It it pulls together every article about the same news story from all outlets all over the world and

14:30 puts them in one place and not not incentivized for like the worst, most hostile, most partisan take. It tells you where it's coming from. The bias comparison feature highlights specific differences in reporting from across the political spectrum. It's it's an amazing learning tool. You you can see starkly in black and white how these different organizations and algorithms are manipulating the information that we get. Ground news helps you understand the full picture rather than just the slice of it these bad actors want you to see. You can use it to stay informed.

15:10 You can use it to stay engaged. You can use it to say uh educated without uh becoming an angry 3:00 a.m. [ __ ] poster. If you want to see the full picture, go to Ground News. They can help you through the noise. Get to the heart of the news. Go to groundnews.com/stewart. Subscribe for 40% off the unlimited access Vantage subscription. Discount available only for a limited time. And this brings the price down to like $5 a month. That's groundnews.com/stewart or scan the QR code on the screen. What you are describing feels very akin to my view like as you speak uh it it feels like a sav to my soul. I I hear what you're saying. You say, you know, financial uh markets at profit is a wonderful driver of these things, but to utilize the energy of that profit motive, governments must also find ways to create uh a more sustainable value for the people through their labor and other things. That's my

16:26 understanding of of sort of what you would think is is leftist economics isn't kind of Milton Freriedman, you know, the patron saint of of this sort of No, that's not what economics and capitalism is about. It's about pure profit and that pure profit and the pursuit of it is actually what will create the the most value. Is this a a rebuttal to to that to Freriedman who I mean if you could say in the 70s when he comes out that sort of leads us into the deregulation of uh the financial markets and leads us into globalization and all these uh political policies that might lead to incredibly high you know capital then wins and labor kind of loses.

17:22 Yeah. It's it's definitely a rebuttal of them. Um I think the important thing to say in the political context though is that until they came along, this wasn't a leftright fight in the way that we think about it now. So you know, Freriedman and the other guy gets associated with this a lot, Friedrich Hayek.

17:40 Yes. And you're going to get some nasty letters from the Hayek, man. Those guys, they are they are active online for sure. Well, they what you find is that Freriedman and Hayek were not conservatives and and they would not have described themselves as conservatives. In fact, Hayek maybe his most famous essay is called Why I am not a conservative. Literally, that's the title of the essay and and it goes to exactly what you were just describing, which is that Hayek basically says the wonder of the self-regulating market is what produces prosperity and you just basically have to have faith that it will work and get out of the way. And all these conservatives out there like don't have enough faith in that. And that's a real problem,

18:23 right? And so up until that period, as you said, kind of the 70s and the 80s, obviously conservatives and and progressives were fighting about all sorts of things, but it wasn't the conservative view that well, if we just get out of the way, um markets will magically fix everything. I mean, just thinking about like that doesn't actually sound very conservative if you stop and think about it for a moment. And what happened in our politics is Ronald Reagan came along and Reagan built this coalition. Reagan combined what you would call the free market libertarians, the the Hayek and Freriedman's, the all, you know, literally guys walking around with Adam Smith neck ties. Um,

19:01 do they still sell those? I don't know if they do. I I I wanted to reference it saying, so I tried to do a little research. I think we've moved on maybe from that, but the

19:12 combine that with the more traditional mainstream conservatism and then also the Cold War hawks, right? You had a whole bunch of people all of a sudden who were like, "Let's go start lots of wars."

19:22 And it's also they viewed it as, I think, a battle between communism, which they viewed as sort of a a very a blanket uh suffocating state that was dictating terms.

19:34 That's exactly right. That's what these groups had in common was they all believed that the top priority was defeating communism. Whether that was in market economic terms, whether that was in social and religious terms,

19:44 putting in God we trust on a coin and then moving on and and grand strategy from all perspectives. And I give them a lot of credit. It worked, right? They did win the Cold War and that was very important. But that coalition then sort of lived on even after its animating purpose was gone. And and so it's really in a lot of ways after the Cold War is won that things get out of control that you start just saying we're just going to keep cutting taxes no matter what. I mean Reagan raised taxes five times when his initial reform didn't generate the revenue he wanted. Reagan was a protectionist. Reagan slapped all sorts of tariffs and stuff on the Japanese.

20:23 After the Cold War is won, the this coalition sort of just keeps going. So you get the economic view that no, no, no, it really is just the market is the end unto itself. You know, I use the term market fundamentalism, which people think like, yeah, sure, it's a little derogatory. It doesn't sound great,

20:41 but it's it's also a descriptive term. I mean, what is a fundamentalism? It is a sort of overly simplistic attempt to impose a very rigid set of beliefs, often in a way that completely misinterprets the original texts, but that concentrates are you sure you're not a lefty? You're you're preaching, baby. I keep trying to keep myself from going, "Amen, Orin. Come on, brother. Keep it coming."

21:07 Well, you're going to get me in trouble with this, John. So you got to maybe we'll do a quick fiveminute interview where I give you some of my more conservative views.

21:14 We'll go back the other way. Um but you know fundamentalist in a sense of sort of not only just reinterpreting texts very rigid view but that is specifically designed to give all of the authority to this narrow set of people who claim a special wisdom over what must be done. And so this is what certainly right of center economics and to some extent I would say broadly economics became. It was this sort of uh almost priesthood where if you didn't understand that financial deregulation and free trade were going to be great for the typical worker. That was just because you were not sophisticated enough

21:52 or did they even care? Oh, I think they did for the most part. I my experience having been in the political world for a while is like yeah there are you know outright

22:03 bad actors but by and large if you're an economist if you're you know even someone running for office in most cases if you want to work in government you you may have convinced yourself of this in some way in various ways but at the end of the day you you are trying to do good things and so a lot of folks really deeply believed and and let's remember on on the I globalization, financialization. This was as much Clinton as it was Bush. It was it was an entirely sort of

22:33 bipartisan consensus and and so these folks really they really did believe it. Let me ask you when because my understanding of sort of the the shift of this was we shift it from kind of if if I'm thinking about it in kind of epochs you know you have the new deal epoch where it's kind of the government decides we also have to create uh a kind of framework of a safety net around to help maybe uh in some ways ameliate the collateral damage that the the system they create for people at at the lower levels. And then that begins to shift in the 70s with Freriedman and those guys into this, you know, the famous laugher curve uh 1980s supply side trickle down economics. Is that what made that switch into trickle down?

23:31 And and what were they using to kind of justify that? and and are the things that you're saying is that consistent with sort of that understanding of those eras?

23:42 Yeah, I think I think that's a good description of the eras. I I would think about it more as a pendulum swinging though that that I think it's helpful to in general think about what happens in our politics, right? The the New Deal emerges in response to the Great Depression and you know what had been a very minimalist government that clearly was not serving people's needs at that point. And so I think with FDR you get this real swing of the pendulum all the way from you know we're much too far to one side you come to okay we got to fix this and then swing through to an overcorrection where by the kind of great societ you know LBJ great society programs of the 60s

24:21 is that where conservatives would look at okay I mean they were against maybe the new deal as well but is it the great society that is the cleaving point for them

24:30 you know I think certainly if you talk about sort of what parts of the welfare fair state as it's been constructed that we would say like yeah that was really good versus that's not so good. Um there's definitely a very different view of New Deal type you know social insurance right basic social security um fair labor standards. You don't see a lot of Republicans out there saying like let's get back to child labor or whatever.

24:54 There's a couple of them. There's a couple you you can find them. But, you know, by and large, I think people on the right would say those were good. Great society in the 60s, I think you'd see more of a mix. I think on things like Medicare, obviously, that's widely supported,

25:09 right? But wasn't I mean, Reagan famously came out, I don't know if you've ever heard that great recording of Reagan talking about Medicare as the socialist creep coming, you know, he cut advertisements against against Medicare.

25:22 No, that's right. So there's that is certainly where well of course if you go back to the 30s you would have Republicans you know saying the same thing about social security and so you get

25:32 there's both sort of an more of an acceptance of good parts over time more of I think an increasingly sharp critique of of pieces that didn't work

25:40 right um but so you get in the great society I would say you swing through the oh these were good things that that we really should have in this country into whoa we're starting to build up some stuff that is creating problems S I think you see the same thing for instance with organized labor where I think the idea of worker power workers having unions etc. That's a fantastic thing. By the way, Adam Smith did too. But you swing from they don't have any power representation at all to okay, good, they have a seat at the table. They have equal standing to by the 1970s in a lot of cases they are actively leveraging that power into a lot of quite counterproductive things I would argue in the economy

26:20 and becoming somewhat corrupt in and of their ownelves and using the money and those things. Right. And so I I think if you if you think about, you know, what was called the sort of stagflation of the 1970s, we were in a in a very bad position economically and what the the supplyiders came in and said, which was fundamentally correct. Like I would describe myself as a supply cider, is you can't just fix the economy. You can't get the growth you want just through what had become the main government model, which is just give people more money to spend. that at some point the question is what are the incentives for businesses to invest and build stuff or not. Right? It goes back to that piece of capitalism I think we entirely agree on which is you do want the profit motive driving positive behavior.

27:08 And so the the basic idea of supply side economics is to say look one of the best ways to spur growth would actually be to improve the incentives of people to invest and build and grow businesses that that can be good for workers too. I think that's correct. But I think that then you you pull this pendulum back in the other direction. You do some things that are more businessfriendly. You create a better environment for investment. That's great. And then that swings straight all the way through to anything that's good for corporations and leads to more profits or reduces taxes is is always going to be better,

27:40 right? And same with okay, you know, we did have overregulation a lot of cases. Well, therefore any right and and we did need various types of deregulation. let's swing that all the way through to just the less regulation the better the market will automatically work and so I think we sort of got all the way back up to that side of the pendulum and now we are we need to swing back down again. So then it becomes what are the tools in the arsenal that that can help us swing the pendulums back and and does the policy be discussion become all right are the tools you know tax incentives disclosure rules uh or as you were saying like limits on buybacks or so so what are the tools now that we look at you know or the metrics that we look at that tell us we've gone too far. Is it, you know, I can point to wage growth.

28:35 You know, you don't get a tremendous amount of wage growth or income inequality tells me the system is out of balance. What are the tools that that we can use then that that bring it more back into that balance? Yeah. So, that's that's exactly where where the rubber meets the road on all this. And and I think it's interestingly where you start to see some of the the traditional political divisions reemerge. Um because you know my view is it's a real problem if you have left and right disagreeing on the diagnosis. Do they disagree still or or is it it feels like there's still disagreement

29:13 less much much less so there there is some so I think if you look back to you know the 2000s let's say the the Republican party had really dug into a position of saying essentially we have achieved equal opportunity everyone can succeed and build a great business uh and actually if we adjust the numbers in this way everybody's wages are going up and therefore that's that's you would be surprised how many people's full-time job is to adjust the numbers to show that wages are going up. Yes, I'm sure.

29:49 But and and sort of therefore tada. We we don't need to take action on any of these fronts because in fact everything is going great. And and you would also see that on things like you know I think like climate change is another quintessential example where well we're not sure if if if we acknowledge that climate change is an issue well then are we going to just have to embrace the Green New Deal? Let's just say that it's not a problem. Um and and I think in you know we have plenty of of issues of that type on on both sides. I would say you know we could talk about ways where you know the left doesn't want to say that something is a problem because if they do well then what right center answer do we have to accept. Sure. Well, you're seeing that now with the argument about housing supply where you'd say, you know, they they want to say that uh this is a problem, but we don't want to also

30:36 say that overregulation might be a problem, especially, you know, environmental regulations that may have to fix it. So, you have I I I I see those tensions in in any of the places.

30:46 And so, you know, my view is just that that that is a very unhealthy partisanship, right? Like there's nothing partisan about trying to figure out what is actually happening in the world. we we should be able to reach a common description of that. Now, we might apply different values to it, say which parts are good versus bad. So, conservatives might say we're comfortable with a relatively higher level of inequality than progressives might, but we shouldn't be disagreeing on what that level is

31:14 or that it exists. Exactly. That's right. Or what direction the trend is in and so forth. And so, you know, something like financialization, I think, is a great example of this where there are a lot of very difficult discussions to have about, okay, what would you do to address this? But we should be able to agree that the scale that Wall Street has grown to and a lot of what it's doing just is not creating value in the world.

31:40 That's right. and and and the the percentage you know you you talk about it in the article you know the idea of financialization is sort of what percentage it takes up of economic activity.

31:52 Yeah. And you were saying years ago it might have been at 10%. But it has doubled meaning that these sort of financial instruments and and is containing it so difficult because you know in truth I would imagine financialization is more agile than industrial policy. Certainly investing in uh manufacturing or warehouses or creating value for workers takes a much more stable uncertainty is going to throw it. financialization is, hey man, I just came up with this idea. What if we bundle mortgages, you know, it it seems much more agile.

32:34 Yes. And harder to catch up to. I think that's exactly right. And so I that's a great sort of way into this question of what do we do? Because I think, you know, one place where I at least perceive still very large differences between how, you know, someone like I would think about addressing this versus folks on the left is I think the the more left of center view tends to be okay, we we essentially need to find the things that we don't like and pres and prescribe them and sort of construct a regulatory apparatus that is going to sort of keep these things in bounds. figure out which ones we do like versus which ones we don't like.

33:11 And like in the case of of you know 2008 saying well you know maybe banks shouldn't leverage at uh 35 to1 40 you know creating uh you know stress tests

33:23 that don't allow it to become a hydrogen bomb for the economy. You know I'm a I'm a traveling man. I'm a rambling man. you know, I like to go. I like to see the world or oh no, wait, that's not me. I like to sit at home. But there are people out there who do like that. And let me tell you something. If you do enjoy seeing the world, you know, it could be a little a little bit of this, a little bit of cheese. You got to put a little cheese on that taco to go see the world. Uh but imagine if you had some kind of like rewards program. You know what I'm talking about? Like a miles program, etc. But it's a rewards program that you pay rent through and then earn points for travel, dining, shopping, etc. 2026.

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34:50 But then if you look at what DoddFrank actually is, right, it's it's thousands of pages generating thousands of pages of regulations that in a lot of cases end up doing things like saying, well, if banks can't lend make certain risky loans, banks will instead lend to this new set of institutions that we will call private credit and they will make the risky loans. And to your point, that will typically be more agile than the regulators will be. And a lot of that stuff though is added in by to be fair by lobbyists for these financial institutions. You know the difficulty again is

35:25 you also have a congress that is has much more access to the lobbyists for these very rich financial firms than to the people that they're sort of you know trying to help avoid these catastrophes.

35:39 Yes. But it is important to take that as a baseline reality when you're deciding what we should do. Right? In other words, I I do get very frustrated with my friends on the left when they're like, "No, but this would have worked better if not for the lobbyists." I'm like, "Well, did you have a plan for there not being the lobbyists?" Because if not, that's

35:56 well, poor people need better lobbyists. I've always said that. I I think the question of how you represent workers more effectively is is a super important one. Well, I think the idea is for the left that your representatives are your lobbyist. In other words, you look to them as a bull work against that uh financial group rather than this kind of entity to be corrupted or swayed by it that you you kind of view it as that's the balance.

36:26 And that sounds fantastic. And then I would again say, and how's that working out for you? Right.

36:32 Not fair. That is not fair. We conservatives are pragmatists if nothing else. So, how do you design it? How do you catch up to because they're kicking our ass? I mean that's the thing that that makes it so difficult is they're so much more agile even in the way of let let's use your sort of example of part of financialization is in some ways like setting up microwave towers right next to where the trading is going so that you're making all your money on volatility or payment for order flow or all these other kinds of invented uh or gifying it so that it It resembles more, you know, FanDuel than it might anything resembling the real economy and the SEC is completely over. Matt, how what are the things you can design to get ahead of it in in pragmatic terms?

37:31 Right. So what this leads me to is to to think is that what we really need is quite sort of blunt broadbased constraints

37:39 like vulkar rule kinds of that one page if you're a bank you can't use savings to finance your whatever adventurism and financialization

37:50 right so very clear lines what kinds of institutions can and can't do very clear transparency and disclosure requirements so if you are going If you are planning to collect 7% of people's investments in fees to yourself, you actually have to publish that very clearly. Uh so that you know a pension fund knows that's what you're doing.

38:16 Um things like just stock buybacks are not allowed which which was the case until 1983. It's very funny you say we should get rid of stock buybacks, people like oh like that's Marxist. I'm like, well, it was also US law for more than 200 years, so you know, we're

38:31 right. But they say anything you do is, you know, you really are you're winging into a battle that I think the left has been fighting for a really long time, which is there's this strange kind of dichotomy that if the government intervenes with the market in quotes on behalf of labor, that's Marxist. But if they intervene on behalf of financialization, easing their road, that's capitalism. Like I think that's that's the frustration. You know, you talk about I understand the frustration that you may have with the left, but that's the frustration I think that the left has that, you know, there's this, as you said earlier, kind of this dogma.

39:19 The government doesn't pick winners and losers. And I think if you're on the left, you go, "No, it it does all the time, but it just picks the winners that have the most access to it and the most money." And and that's our frustration.

39:32 I think that's right. I think it is it is a frustration on a on a large segment and a growing segment of the right as well. I mean, you've seen obviously a very sharp fallout between, you know, business roundt and chamber of commerce and so forth and and the right of center and the Republican party. Um because I think there there's an increasing recognition and it goes back to that point about just like what are the basic facts that this really isn't working. Um and and we really do need to understand why it's not working and do something about it. And the thing that I always emphasize to folks on the right is, you know, what we have right now is not sustainable, right? Like the cover your ears and and tell people things are great. What parts of it in your mind are are least sustainable? Like what what is it inequality? Is it what what are the things specifically that you're looking at that you go, man, this is we're

40:29 creating something that's not going to hold. I So I think there's what I would call a micro element at the personal level and a sort of macro element at the national level.

40:40 Okay. And and I'll just hit the macro one first because it's a little quicker, right? Uh the reality is that the the US economy it performs great on the measures like stock market valuation and you know topline GDP figures and so forth. Our actual capacity to make things to prov to create jobs to innovate to compete with China is in sharp decline. uh and a a system that does not reward that above all else is not going to produce the kinds of outcomes that we want. And so, you know, whether it is on these question of financialization, if it's on these questions of of trade and industry, uh I think there's an interesting sort of immigration dimension to it and the extent to which we sort of say, well, we you know, we're just going to have to bring in we we can't find the workers we want here, so our solution is to just bring in somebody else. um we the the formula we have settled on is not one

41:38 that is actually conducive to the liberty and prosperity of the United States and and I think we are on what many people rightly feel is a downward slide that we need to to reverse now wouldn't people on the right say no reversing it is an artificial contrivance that what we've learned is financialization uh financial services, legal services, tech services. That's we're actually manufacturing is the old economy. We're actually creating the new economy. And why would you want to go back to that? I disagree with that view. But isn't that what they would say?

42:25 They're they're not they're getting out of the way and allowing these future markets to dictate our economy. There there is a small and shrinking and declining in influence group that will go down with the ship saying that. Uh I would say it is at this point pretty far out of the mainstream. uh certainly within the Republican party and Republican politics uh and in a lot of the sort of you know new republications uh what you know the kinds of programs younger people are participating in uh there are there are very few people at this point who would say uh no that things things have been going well this is the right track

43:10 even as they point to you know look at our GDP it's you know you realize it's seven companies and like you AI data centers that we don't even know will ever be used.

43:22 Yeah. No, so that's that's a perfect example. I think you'll find and and again the the you know politics is politics. People whose job is to promote how well the Trump administration is doing will point to the things that show the Trump administration is doing well. But in in the actual sort of intellectual debates, today's equivalent of what Freriedman and Hayek were arguing in a prior generation, you won't find anyone anymore saying, "But look at the S&P 500, things are fine." Uh that's that's a punchline, not an actual argument,

43:53 right? And and I think you see that even in if you look at the sort of next generation of of leaders on the right of center. um and and listeners are are free to support them or not, but if if

44:05 they're free to do that now, we don't 6 months from now, they may not be free to support them or not. We don't know what's going to happen.

44:12 I I I suspect that freedom will persist just fine. All right. But on on these issues that that we're talking about, you know, if you look at what a JD Vancer, Marco Rubio was doing in the Senate, you know, if you look at a Josh Holly, Bernie Moreno, who's a new senator uh from Ohio, Jim Banks from Indiana, this is stuff that they talk about all the time and and in these terms. And so I think the the the newer it takes time obviously for these things to turn over in a political party. But at at the staff and writer level and at the political level I I think you see a pretty significant shift certainly on these macro questions on the need to re-industrialize on the need to um to take on China and so forth. Why hasn't that then coalesed into something more coherent at the policy level? And this gets into maybe a larger discussion and it's one that I stepped in [ __ ] in last week with, you know, uh, economists

45:12 being very angry that I'm confusing economics with policy. But when you talk about that, why hasn't that shift in mindset created a more coherent governing philosophy of economics? When I look at a Trump administration filled with these, you know, I'm assuming more right of center economists and and people of that thing. It feels incoherent. I'm going to take 10% of Intel. You know what? I'll let you sell chips to China, but you've got to give me a cut of that. Oh, also I'm going to put 50% tariffs on Brazil because I don't really like the way they've treated Bolson. And then and you sort of can't wrap your mind around what we are and and how they're designing these policies, not as correctives for pendulum swings or societal ills, but as kind of impulse, like giant baby impulse.

46:14 Well, I I think what you have with the Trump administration is President Trump and Right. I mean, I think, you know, fair enough. Fair point. Fair point

46:28 to to to my point, you know, in parallel to my my point to the left about uh taking as a a a baseline reality that you have the lobbyists, there there's also a baseline reality that the the head of the executive branch is Donald Trump and Trump is someone who, as you just described, tends to go in a lot of different directions.

46:47 I call it tantronomics. Tantronomics. Tantronomics. um the you know and and it's important to say I think what's so fascinating about him as such a non ideological person is that I think that actually had some real benefits in his willingness to reject everything that had been standard Republican dogma

47:08 but you can't replace it with a sort of nihilistic and and vindictive well so that's right so the the the metaphor that that I always use is is there is the building metaphor right which is that like demolition is an important part of a rebuilding process. If all you do is demolition and then go find the next thing to demolish, um you you are less likely to be remembered as a great builder.

47:32 I see. So, you're saying right now we're in the east wing part of our economy, but we haven't yet gotten to the ballroom. We're waiting to get to the ballroom of the economy.

47:41 That's I I think it is certainly fair to say that that there has been a lot of demolition.

47:46 Yes. uh and I think the you know the interesting thing when you mention you know take 10% of this company and so forth

47:53 right what you see at the sort of fundamental level is in fact a shift toward you know we are going to do industrial policy

48:01 or a state-run capitalism but you know we we get into this this loop now which is how do you then prevent the kind of kleptocracy and and feeding at the trough of the patrons of the president. You know, it's very hard to look at any rebalancing of the economy when people can say but the president has benefited by the tune of $4 billion through through the course of this. isn't, you know, at the base of this, we have to preserve what kind of got America to this point, which is a baseline of there are stable rules of the road that that we will honor that allow for, you know, they always say in the economy, the worst thing is uncertainty. Have we lost that that was our gold standard? and and how do you rebuild before we can even tackle the kinds of remedies that you're talking about? Don't we need to rebuild kind of that baseline stability?

49:10 Yes. I I think that's an incredibly important point that there are certain, you know, when

49:17 when we think about the the the sort of interaction between politics and the economy, you know, this is one of the things that was so lost. Like it's it's funny. There didn't used to be a field called economics. It was called political economy. People called Adam Smith a political economist and it was only really in the 20th century that you defined this separate field of economics which was you know just with math and abstract models and so forth we can kind of say what should be done uh when in reality the the political dimension is is almost always inseparable certainly at the level of of what should we be doing.

49:53 But don't economists try and have it both ways. I have to say, you know, one of the the things that felt disingenuous about we talked to Richard Thaylor last week, which by the way, I love talking to that. I thought it was a great conversation, but there were a lot of economists that were really pissed, not at him, at at me for ignorance and all kinds of other things. But one of the things they were pissed about is you don't understand the difference between economics and policy, but don't they want it both ways? Because they don't just study it in an ivory tower and put it in a terrarium. They're in the room when these policies are made. You know, they are incredibly influential in designing the parameters of of our economy. And yet, if you criticize that, you know, it stirs up a they're, if I may say, very mean. They're very mean people.

50:42 Yes. The uh So, I completely agree with that. I think the uh in in debating circles we refer to that as a a Mott and Bailey which is uh Are you familiar with the Mott and Bailey?

50:53 I am not familiar with the Mott and Bailey. Oh, let me tell you about let me tell you about the Mott and Bailey.

50:57 I would like the Mott and Bailey. The Mott and Bailey is the configuration of a a medieval village that had I might get them backwards, but I believe the M was the small fortress on top of the hill and then the Bailey was the sort of open village area that everybody preferred to live in.

51:13 Okay. And so you lived out in the Bailey and then if you know the barbarians were attacking you could retreat into the M.

51:19 Solid move. Welld designed. There you go. And so the the M and Bailey form of argument is you sort of spread out and make these very expansive claims and sort of have a great time and then when you actually get attacked you retreat to this much narrower thing that you can defend. And then when you're in your M, you yell insults at anybody who dares

51:42 like like the Monty Python. Um and then but as importantly, as soon as the attackers have gone, "All right, fine." and moved on, you spread right back out again into your Bailey.

51:51 Well, they've been baileying my M and I don't like it, buddy. If you're like me, you're a victim of your own inertia. The body at rest stays at rest. If I got something I'm doing, I just keep doing it. Does it matter that it's better? No. Does it matter that it's worse? Probably not. I just keep doing it. Slogging along like a snail, moving through the garden of life. That's actually pretty dark. But the point is, that's what screws me on telephone bills. Yeah. Stop paying for too much wireless just cuz I don't know.

52:28 That's just what I do. It's how it's always been. That's just my company. Mint exists purely to fix that. Same coverage, same speed, just without the inflated price tag. You can change your coverage people. Mint is the premium wireless you expect. You know, your your unlimited talk, your unlimited text, your data, but at a fraction of what others charge. And for a limited time, you can get 50% off 3 month, 6 month, 12-month plans of unlimited premium wireless. The only thing keeping you from doing it is inertia, laziness. Don't be the bean bag chair. Be the Trying to think of something energetic. Pogo stick. Be the pogo stick.

53:09 That's probably not right. Bring your own phone number. Activate with eim and minutes. Start saving immediately. No long-term contracts. No hassle. With a 7-day money back guarantee and customer satisfaction ratings in the mid90s. Mint makes it easy to try it and see why people don't go back. Ready to stop paying more than you have to? New customers can make the switch today and for a limited time get unlimited premium wireless for just $15 a month. Switch now at mintmobile.com/tws. That's mintmobile.com/tws. So this is a a constant feature of of the economics debates that I think is very important is that yes there is an important valuable discipline of economics that has useful insights that that uses both analysis and uh data and so forth to make useful points that we should consider when we are making public policy. And then there is the actual policymaking process and economists have have gotten very

54:12 comfortable asserting that their narrowly useful technical insights dictate what policy should be. So our model shows that free trade is efficient.

54:22 That's right. If you only followed the right therefore anybody who questions our prescription of free trade is an idiot. And it's like, whoa, whoa, actually, I understand your model of free trade. Here are 10 reasons why in the real world, like, first of all, maybe I just have values for optimizing around other things. Second of all, here's ways other people are going to behave that you're not taking into account. Third of all, here's what's going to happen to our politics if we do that. And if we undermine our politics in that way,

54:53 what do you think is going to end up happening to the economy? And so on and so forth.

54:57 And it creates a credibility issue. Yes. that I think undermines, you know, rightfully so, and I I probably consider in the way that I think a lot of people view the Iraq war as a kind of cleaving point for American credibility, right, overseas. And again, you probably can go back to the 60s and 70s and say the Vietnam War did a very similar thing. I think the 2008 financial crisis and maybe it's been an overcorrection against that credibility, but it really for something that was so uh devastating to the broader economy and to the jobs and to the and labor and all that and the direct result of the financialization and instrumentation uh of the economy, I've been surprised at how resilient the architects of all that remain. pain in the economy. How how is that?

55:52 Well, I think at least until recently, this goes back to the sort of priesthood phenomenon, they were the arbiters of it. I mean, you can even find all sorts of great papers, unsurprisingly, about how the great financial crisis was not their fault. Um, which which are technically the authorative authoritative journal. if it's in the journal.

56:15 It's it's in the journal of financial regulatory economists. It turns out that they had nothing to do with it. Um but I, you know, I really do think it's the double whammy of of the the financial fallout from the Great Recession and the the sort of industrial fallout from free trade with China that are these because that also was such an iconic, you know, I love quoting Larry Summers on this point. I think I can still do that maybe a little bit longer. Wait, the room just got cold. I don't know what happened.

56:45 You know, he he testified before Congress as Secretary of the Treasury that, you know, economists disagree on everything on this. There is only one answer. Um, and, you know, the kind of Clinton White House walked these Nobel laureates up to the briefing room to sort of lecture people that um, you know, if if you did not see how great this was, you you just were not smart enough to understand it,

57:07 right? You don't understand the science and you're an idiot. and and then even worse, it carried on after it was obviously wrong. So, you know, I worked for for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign in 2011 2012.

57:19 Uh and and Romney actually was because he came from more of a business background was was very focused on the China issue and the ways that free trade with China was was clearly not working out. And this was, you know, 10 12 years into this debacle. Uh and economists just absolutely denied it. They just that that's just not true. free trade works well for everybody.

57:41 And was it a misunderstanding of that sort of capital can travel but labor can't? Is it just the advantages that capital had in this new like electronic world economy that labor just was was naturally going to get its ass kicked? You know, I I think that's a piece of it. I I think the the two other problems though, one is they always just assume that trade would be balanced. So if if a whole bunch of capital flee, you know, heads to China to make something cheaper in China, that's okay. There's going to be something else that we may not, you know, we make here now to trade for the stuff from China. And it it was a sort of rockolid principle. This was actually Paul Krugman wrote a famous essay talking about what should we teach undergraduates about economics and and one of the core things was trade deficits are self-correcting. So you you can't have a long-term I I was on a podcast with him last year and and

58:41 mentioned this to him. He didn't remember, of course. He must have been very excited to hear about He must have been very excited to be reminded of that article.

58:48 And then I said, "No, no, I, you know, I'm always always ready to read the quote as needed." And and he said, "Well, that was naive." I was like, "Well,

58:56 oh, okay. Well, that's credit credit to him. I wish you hadn't written the accompanying essay suggesting that people who could not understand your economics should be ridiculed because ridicule is more powerful than actually trying to argue with them." Yeah, I'm aware of that as well. That's my M and Bailey. This now you're just misusing terms left and right. Um, but this this was sort of the the the MO of of all of this. And so,

59:23 right, if you figure, oh, a whole bunch of stuff will go to China. That's fine. We'll get something else instead. Um,

59:30 maybe that could have worked out. But it turns out that that that was simply wrong. And then the other core assumption under all of this economics that the economists hate talking about is that all they care about is consumption. Like quite literally the the way that e economics defines the good is having more stuff to consume. And in fact it defines work as the bad. Right. The the ideal economic

59:55 explain this. What what does that mean? because I I'm familiar with, you know, sort of the consumer index and and consumer spending being 70% of the economy and all that, but isn't work productivity what they would define as productivity or is that still only in uh defined as it is to consuming?

1:00:14 It's so in in in the formal economic models, it is for the sake of the consuming. And so, you know, Jason Ferman, who was uh chair of Obama's Council of Economic Advisors,

1:00:25 right, uh now teaches the intro-level econ at at Harvard, gave a speech a year or two ago in Geneva at the WTO, World Trade Organization convening where he specifically noted that, you know, economists know that imports are the good thing that we get and exports are just the bad thing that we have to do to get more imports. So it's basically we're all working for the weekend.

1:00:50 Well, that's what we're Yeah. All right. Exactly. Fair enough. Right. So, so the ideal if you're kind of, you know, they do what they called scoring policies, right? We're going to run our model and say what's the best policy. The ideal policy would be one where we get just everything we want to consume and don't have to do any work.

1:01:07 I think that's Elon's f. I think that's what he says is going to happen to us through AI.

1:01:11 Well, this is an interesting question, right? Would that be good or not? Right. Wouldn't that make see this gets us in this is such an interesting because from the the sort of the powers that be within the the tech world the new billionaires that are going to design uh the whatever dystopian world we're going to live in they look at you know the gig economy that automation and AI not only is it you know going to replace us to certain places it's better that it does that they look at it in the way that that you're saying which I think misses out also on that people want to feel relevant.

1:01:54 Yes. That that's an important part of of life. Yeah. Is the feeling that what you do through your labor matters in the in the smallest of ways. Whether that you know it's that idea of we all would like to be essential workers. We don't want to be replaced. We just want a wage commensurate with being able to live, not paycheck to paycheck for that relevance.

1:02:23 Yes, that's so that's exactly right. And this is the the the core of the the point that I try to make and and my organization American Compass focuses on is the idea that there are a lot of things we actually need markets to do. So, as again, we love capitalism. We want markets we we think markets are the right way to organize an economy. We want them to work well. And what that means is there's actually a lot of things we need them to do besides just give us access to cheap stuff. And one of the most important is is be generating jobs in the places where people live com aligned to the kinds of things they can do that allow them to support families,

1:03:02 right? And and so, you know, we're all the way back to the Adam Smith invisible hand thing again. Are the things that are happening in our economy the kinds of things that generate that outcome? And economics formally is just completely blind to that.

1:03:15 Well, certainly financialization is for sure. Well, that's right. The financialization, it reflects a market where the incentives are not to do that. Economics as a field of analysis just doesn't really have a way to measure that. Right? So, G when you see GDP go up, that doesn't tell you anything about whether it is going up in a way that supports those things or not.

1:03:38 Why Orin? Well, let me ask you this because I remember and maybe this is because it was kind of a self-regulating proposition, but if you remember there was a movement, it wasn't even that long ago, 1015 years ago, that ESG movement.

1:03:52 Mhm. Where corporations were now also going to judge themselves or be judged on whether or not their economic production was also positive or a net positive. and they created sort of these different parameters about environment and social justice and these different things and it was a disaster politically and otherwise.

1:04:19 Yes. Why would that be given sort of what we're talking about? If if I may make a respectful point regarding the left at this moment.

1:04:31 Yes. ESG the the idea that we do need to care about things besides profit is very important. One of the most unfortunate elements of ESG was that it said the things that we therefore really need to concentrate on more are essentially the progressive agenda. Right? So there was a a very heavy focus on climate change and what are you doing to reduce climate change?

1:04:57 Although a lot of it was to be fair a lot of it was lipir. I mean a lot of it's kind of nuts. Absolutely. But to the extent that you want to take it seriously, it was not actually focused on the set of things we've been talking about here. Are you investing domestically? Are you creating the kinds of jobs that are going to allow people to support families?

1:05:13 I I see what it was focused on the set of essentially the left of center side of this elite that is is generally happy with how things are going on but but wanted to impose a particular set of policy priorities around things like climate change. uh you know a certain conception of social justice

1:05:33 and maybe illdefining it. Yeah. Although the social justice part you know I I've always been so surprised at the push back on especially for those who you know talk about meritocracy. I would think you know if you think about social justice in terms of markets aren't these communities that have been traditionally excluded oftentimes explicitly by by the law. Couldn't you just reclassify them as emerging markets and suggest that you wanted to create better investment in emerging markets to create a larger more meritocratic system ultimately with more competition? Isn't I I always viewed that as I it was surprising to me that it was viewed so negatively because it's basically taking a legacy system and kind of breaking it down,

1:06:24 right? I mean, I think that, you know, again, if you're just putting your hat on as a as a business leader trying to maximize profit, what you like about an emerging market typically is it's a place to generate a lot of profit. And in the US, as you've defined it, for the most part, those, you know, groups that have typically been excluded, places that have been left behind, um, those don't tend to be the places where a lot of the the profit opportunity is. And again, short term. which is which is what they're looking at and and which connects and which connects back to another of the big problems with financialization which is when you're making all of your money in financial services you know to some extent in tech in media you are you can generate a lot of growth but you are there you are making the most profitable things the boosting and lifting up of those narrow enclaves that are already doing best

1:07:20 and and one of the most powerful things I think we need Uh and and again I think this is where the you know you'll then get different answers across the political spectrum is okay what does it mean to drive more investment back out into the rest of the country. In my view it's you aren't going to get that done by basically making a bunch of rules saying you have to go do that. What what you want to do is is create these very broad rules. Even taking a tariff as an example, you want to create a broad rule that says it's going to be cheaper to sell something that you've made in the United States than it is to sell something that you made somewhere else.

1:08:01 Oh, which is awfully difficult when you think about the imbalances of regulation overseas and what they get away with paying people and what their standard of living is. That's that's a really hard thing then to engineer, isn't it? Well, that that in my mind is exactly the the argument for something like tariffs is to say if if all we want is the cheapest thing, then this is great. If if Chinese slave labor makes it, it will be cheaper. The problem with the tariffs though is ultimately, and again, not to push back on uh the dearest of our leaders. But ultimately that ends up being a regressive tax on consumers and the people that can least afford, you know, to to pay that premium. and that money may not come back to them in investment. So, it's isn't it aren't we punishing the very people we purport to help? There is potential for it to be regressive. There's there's actually a wonderful um I guess he's an an economic

1:08:59 historian officially named name named Michael Lind who makes this point that I think is so important and and wrote a great essay for us about it that it's really important to remember that the progressivity or regressivity of our income of our tax system isn't the primary question. It it is a secondary thing that we do to make up for all of the other inequality. How else do you make it up? Taking tariffs as an example, if we do things to restructure our economy in ways that are actually going to benefit typical workers, left behind parts of the country, are going to ideally generate better economic outcomes. If that comes alongside less progressivity in the tax system, but the end result is better jobs and opportunities for the typical worker,

1:09:44 right? That's a great outcome. But isn't that what wouldn't you say like the chips act? Isn't that what that would be? And then so why on the right was that such a controversial and and negative response to it? That sounds like in terms of what you're saying almost the perfectly designed political program to do such a thing.

1:10:09 Yeah. So I love the chips act. We pushed we pushed very hard for the chips act.

1:10:14 I saw that bumper sticker on your car. That's right. The uh I'm I'm a I'm a huge hit at cocktail parties. the um you know ultimately I think something like 16 or 17 Republican senators voted for it and so you're right it's something that was it divided the Republican party at this point because you had the the more old guard folks who were like oh that's not what we do and you have an increasing segment that say like oh yes actually this is what we should do

1:10:41 and maybe more positive than tariffs which they support across so but this is the key is I think you can't do it all through those kinds of policies right you can't go and find every industry and everything you wish we did and design a government program to boost it. Um I think that kind of industrial policy can be really valuable where you have like a particular must-have thing. So semiconductors is a great example. Um you're seeing it now with critical minerals is a great example. But if you want to think more broadly about we want people investing in the US, bringing back the kinds of things that can be done here productively, you do need to address that problem you just described, which is labor and environmental regulatory issues, uh just baseline wages and so forth. There are an awful lot of reasons not to build things in the US. Other countries give so much more support to their producers in a lot of cases. And

1:11:36 so we we do need something to offset that. Meanwhile, we've got even within our own country a kind of miniature globalization dynamic in that there are certain states that work to undercut the protections and wages of other states. You know, the kind of so so we're almost facing that same battle at home that we're also facing overseas. and in in this model, is there anything you can do to address that aspect of it?

1:12:09 Yeah, it's a it's a tricky balancing act because the flip side is that we like the idea of states competing against each other in constructive ways, right? There are all sorts of things we would say it's good that states can go their own way. If states are actually competing on like who can have the most efficient process for permitting something new, that's that's good. We should want that. And so the the sweet spot it seems to me is is you need to have good national baselines, right? You need to have the national labor law, the national employment standards, the national environmental standards paired with then allowing and encouraging states to compete with each other. And so I I don't think we have it exactly right, but I would say that it is actually one of the real benefits of the American system that that we have some sort of flexibility and give and take in that

1:13:00 the federalism that I think on balance probably benefits us. Right. So ultimately as we sort of bring it all around to a circle, you know, you describe this kind of pendulum swing from labor to capital and all these things that financialization is kind of a metastasized version of what that is and different policies that can kind of gain it under to get it under control. Can I ask is is ultimately is it a product of A obviously I think it's more agile than our political system but B is it a function of the fetishization of growth over you know and we see that in in a lot of areas you know the the stock ticker is down at the bottom of your screen as though that's a you know an actual important way of determining the health of the economy when it's just this tiny part of it. Does the fetishization of growth skew all these incentives in favor of these quick hit big profit doesn't build uh the types of stability

1:14:18 and industrial base that you're you're talking about? And is that a problem that goes all the way back then to Freriedman, which is it's about maximizing shareholder value and these guys coming in and working purely for that.

1:14:35 I'm I'm glad you brought it around to that because, you know, that's where I I end my essay as well is on on the point that there's a there are all sorts of policy discussions to be had, but in the final analysis, this is also a cultural question. You know, there have always been ways to make money that are just not good things to do. Sure. That are embarrassing. Frankly,

1:14:57 greed is good. I mean, that was that's the catchphrase from the 80s. That's right. That was one of the the sort of transition points. You know, there are plenty of ways to go make money that are are legal in the United States today that most people would still say like, oh, like that's not going to be the top thing the college kids are going to the recruiting presentation on,

1:15:16 right? And so I I don't think it's exactly the fetishization of growth because I do think growth is good. I think you know in the periods where the United States where the economy was working best people were absolutely obsessed with growth

1:15:28 or the right metrics of growth. Maybe maybe it's Yeah. Exactly. So I think that's more the problem is is that and this connects back to sort of some of what what especially the the more sort of market fundamentalists got wrong is there's been a very concerted effort to make the case that any pursuit of profit is productive and anybody who makes a lot of profit that must prove that they've done something valuable and I think it's just re and that is a cultural issue as as long as people believe that it's going to be very hard to sell them on, you know, we need the regulation or anything else. We we need to do anything differently.

1:16:05 And sadly, I I worry we're moving in the wrong direction because everything you're saying, if I look at sort of where the the weather vein is pointing, it's to the gamification. It's to creating a more uh gamified financial system. And is maybe sort of crypto the poster child for the direction we're moving in that is the antithesis of what you're talking about.

1:16:31 It I I think that's right. I guess I'm that that is what gives me optimism that I think we've finally sort of hit the reducio adabsurdum of it is just it is impossible to look at what's going on at this point and defend it. And I think people are starting to see and you know it's funny that of course my my editor was like you had to you know make this more in like everyday terms things people see and it's finally at the point where you can do that right like whether it's your experience trying to figure out how to watch the football game or youth sports or uh you know now you do see young people obsessed with prediction markets and crypto like

1:17:06 Cali and poly market I mean that's if you're looking at the growth segments that's where it all seems to be going and that seems to be the opposite. of what we're talking about.

1:17:15 Yeah. I mean, someone point out you, you know, if you watched the Super Bowl ads this year, you'd think our economy was driven entirely by, you know, chat bots, prediction markets, and weight loss drugs,

1:17:23 right? And and I think there's a way in which it is so obvious at this point that these things are not correlated with the actual well-being and human flourishing that that is the point of all of this that I I think there is there is increasing potential for a a political response. And and you have an optism of that because it's almost like looking at it as financialization is sort of it's it's standing in for political failure. Yes.

1:17:54 Right. Well, you have you have this conversation, and I say this with great respect, has convinced me to sell my Melania memecoin.

1:18:03 Or hold, you know, that's what I meant. Hold. That's what I meant. Hold. Because you got to remember if you're selling it, someone else is buying it. It may be better to just go down with the ship.

1:18:12 Uh Orin, uh it's always such a pleasure to talk to you. Fascinating stuff. Really enjoyed reading that article. uh Orin Cass, chief economist, American Compass, and uh just thanks again for for joining us and and having the conversation.

1:18:29 Well, thank you for for wanting to talk about it. It was great to see you. Beautiful. Nice to see you as well.

1:18:36 This episode's brought to you by Ninja Lux Cafe. You know, I I I got a question for you guys. You know how uh to drink coffee sometimes you have to leave your house? What's that supposed to be? You got to what? talk to people, share their space. It's not why I'm on this earth. No. If you'd rather not have to brave the outside world with the cold and the schleing and the people for your $20 latte with stuff in it that is pretty sure is not edible or drinkable, or would you rather just press a button, have one made in your own home? Home.

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1:20:02 I have to say I appreciate his ability to to discuss these matters in a way that feels accessible.

1:20:11 Yes. And not condescending. And not condescending. And not dickish. And I have to say I don't know what [ __ ] I've stepped in this week because I after talking to Richard Thaylor who was the economist from last week I was very pleased with the conversation. I thought well that was really interesting and spirited and said some things back and forth but I had no idea how mad the economists and they were [ __ ] mad.

1:20:39 They were mad. I will say though I was looking at a lot of the response and they weren't really from economists. They're just people that ride for economists for whatever reason.

1:20:48 Wait a minute. There's a beehive for economists. Yeah, apparently there's people really eager to just jump in for their defense. The summary just seemed to be not all economists as well.

1:20:59 But also the the summary seemed to be like, "Well, you're just [ __ ] stupid." Well, that too. And I was like, well, that I don't know if that's a really a a cogent critique of he this guy

1:21:12 is that constructive criticism. Not really. A lot of it was just shock. Like how can this guy have been on television for 30 years and not understand anything? And I'm like I I mean I I did Richard he's a Nobel Prize winning economist. He could have very easily said like I think you're completely misunderstanding or like he's a big boy. He could have handled the

1:21:35 he said you passed his class. People were literally writing articles like John Stewart is what's wrong with the American electorate and I'm like I think that's hyperbolic.

1:21:44 I love that headline like I don't really know what I'm getting into with this article. Could be a few things.

1:21:50 It was bad man. I was just like, whoa. Was there anything that he said that that struck you as um it's so interesting to me because it's so reflective, I think, of what what I would consider as kind of a more leftist view of what the economy is.

1:22:08 Something that kind of stood out to me is that in this conversation, he was talking about how the left and right agree on the diagnosis. And in his article, he refers to Marco Rubio and JD Vance as people who have talked out against financialization. But I thought it was interesting because he cites Marco Rubio in 2019 and JD Vance in 2023. And I haven't seen these people talking out against financialization recently where the president of the United States is benefiting so much from this drift. I'm against uh financialization except for the Trump eagle coin. The Trump eagle coin. Get it today.

1:22:48 Yeah. I mean, Orin, he calls himself a pragmatist, but I think it's very optimistic that he always thinks the Republican party is like right on the precipice of doing this.

1:22:58 I do think I do think he's optimistic in that term. And I imagine it's frustrating. you know, this has been, you know, since the the Keynesians kind of moved out of a position of of authority and kind of the Reagan revolution and deregulation moved in. I think it it's probably difficult for those on the left to hear it and not say like that's what we've been [ __ ] saying for 50 years.

1:23:24 Like what? But you're both right that the deregulation was a bipartisan project that got us into this mess. So

1:23:32 that's always the thing I'm always like deregulation. He's like well Clinton shut up.

1:23:37 DON'T YOU DARE TALK ABOUT THOSE GUYS. BUT BESIDES that besides that guy and Carter

1:23:42 maybe we should just only do economics conversation. Maybe next week we should have like a a a round table like come at me bro and we should just get all the

1:23:51 economists around. Do we get to invite Ferman back? Furman. Yes. I think Larry Summers might be busy though.

1:23:58 Yeah, it's not like how did that happen? Like the meanest conversation like economist, they're literally like there this group of bullies that just sit in a thing and just like every time you ask them a question like well if you understood anything

1:24:13 it's revenge of the nerds. I wish it was because they have so much power and control within the whole uh [ __ ] thing. But uh maybe next week we'll we'll or no, next week we're not Are we doing anything? We're on vacation.

1:24:25 Yeah. What? President's Day. President's Day. Uh we'll we'll jump in with something uh you know, more accessible, more culturally on We'll go we'll go engagement farming. We'll go engagement farming on the next one.

1:24:40 That's a no on the economics round table. That's going to be a no on the economics uh round table. Britney, what what do the kids want to know this week? All

1:24:47 righty. First up, John, can you please explain what Jeff Bezos is doing with the Washington Post? He's looks maxing it. He's mogging it. He's hitting it in the face with a hammer to get its chin a little bit more. Uh I mean, I think it's pretty clear what he's doing. I mean, talking about financialization, he's hollowing it out, you know? I Here's what I wonder. Let me ask you guys about this. Are do we have a nostalgic view of the Washington Post as because in in my mind it was kind of New York Times Washington Post were like the flagships especially post Watergate.

1:25:25 All the President's Men, right? I mean it's a great film. I've heard it's a book.

1:25:30 You're a newspaper that had a movie made out of you. There's very few that can say that. Maybe Boston Globe

1:25:36 with Robert Redford. Redford? Can I tell you that was he was my guy in the 1970s. Robert Redford was in every great movie that Three Days of the Condor, Electric Horseman, The Sting, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kit like

1:25:54 Jeremiah Johnson. Absolut Whoa. You're going I'm also a big fan. You're going Bley Redford with the beard

1:26:02 the way we were. But he he was the best. I completely forgot what I was talking about. Washington Post.

1:26:08 Jeff Bezos. Oh, the Washington hate. Robert Redford has ability to do that. Yeah,

1:26:13 there is a nostalgia. I mean, Bezos can do a lot of things with and the brand will continue. People have that recognition of the brand. So, and there's going to be good great journalists there despite any number of layoffs, but it's been on this trajectory for a long time. I mean media has been

1:26:33 I think the hope was you know in the grand tradition of billionaires wasting money on newspapers that he would have viewed it as a responsibility to the public more than something to arbitrage and like sell off for parts that he would that he would say like well [ __ ] if I can spend billions and billions on sending Katy Perry somewhat close to the troposphere like maybe I can keep this thing going in a robust way. I think that's my disappointment is what the [ __ ] else are you doing with the money that you have other than like what better use could there be?

1:27:14 There's a Melania documentary in cinemas. I've heard I meant other Yes, that's also a good use of it. But I think it it also shows again like just because you came up with a good way to get books to people faster doesn't mean you care or know the first thing of running you know a a quality newspaper. just it just it's disappointing that he would maybe it's this maybe he has like a weird relationship with the newspaper that like if it gets stronger his body gets frailer but as he gets pumped up the Washington Post must get frailer. Maybe they have maybe it's a weird symbio like

1:28:01 I think it's steroids but I don't know that's just me. I think we'll never know. We'll never know. What else do they want? What else do they know?

1:28:08 Uh, John, do you think Doge would have done a better job at releasing the Epstein files?

1:28:16 Come on. They're such selfserving like El I love how like his whole personality right now is I want to get to the bottom of this Epstein thing. I want to find out what am I doing in those files getting a massage. What? Wait, how did that happen? Uh yeah, that's Doge has always been the misguided tantrum of entitled billionaires who come in and suggest that the only way to discern value is to just walk in and cut 50% of something off without any real clear understanding of what it provides. So I there's so I can't [ __ ] like I'm so mad. Well, Elon, he could have just released his emails and then we would have gotten halfway there at least. So,

1:29:06 I love it now that he's like, I'll protect anybody who testifies and you're like, yet now

1:29:10 it's like a tweet a second about the Epstein files and it's all and it's all the same [ __ ] that they always like the antic. I'm a free speech absolutist. Somebody says something I don't like, they should be in jail.

1:29:22 Like the the contradictions I I don't understand how you just carry around in those heads and expect that people don't see through it, but they don't. Do you think you think people don't see through it?

1:29:32 I really I I think that there is there are very few people that have acolytes and are woripped in the way that like I can't tell you how often like thank you for saving free speech and you're like you support a president who threatens to put people in jail for saying the wrong thing. Like how the [ __ ] are you suggesting that that's supporting free speech? It's insanity, you know. But that's that's the end of it. But Doge, apparently Doge ended up costing America billions more than

1:30:02 You're kidding. No, for real. Yeah. No, it's I I I wrote it down. All right, final one.

1:30:12 Last one. Uh, John, can my vegan wife and I please buy you a vegan lunch in New York City between March 6th and 11th? Do you want me to connect them with your social secretary? Like,

1:30:29 first of all, what an enticing offer. It's I'm, you know, when we got we got ourselves a little rescue farm and we had no idea the world we were stepping into. And it's so interesting to me that the vegan world they describe I'm vegan and you're like no you're a human that has a certain diet but it is I had no idea what a competitive sport veganism was. It do you guys have you guys first of all have you guys ever done it? Have you ever gone and tried to do it?

1:31:08 Yeah. Yes. Uh [ __ ] hard. It is really hard. Especially if you don't cook. You have to cook if you're vegan.

1:31:15 No question. No question. And it's also really hard to do it. Like they always say like, "Oh, you just have more salads and stuff." The truth is you have more potato chips. Like

1:31:24 I was just about to say the thing that I became aware of is that there's junk food for vegans. Like there's a place called [ __ ] Vegan. They they yell at you when you walk in and say, "Hey, slut." Like there's definitely junk for every

1:31:39 Wait, that's how they greet you when you walk in? I was stunned, but I remembered where I was.

1:31:44 They're still in business. That's interesting, right? I would think they'd at least go, "Hey, vegan." No, they go with

1:31:50 It's 50/50. Yeah. You know, it's it's this world where like it's the most unwelcoming world I think I've ever been a part of. It's incredibly competitive and they're constantly stress testing whether you're living up to the right type. It's like the first thing if you say like I'm vegan. The first thing vegans will always say to you is like how long how long you've been vegan and you'll be like I I guess I it's been like 2 years and they're like yeah 15 years. I've been doing it 15 years. And then somebody else would be like well I knew when I was eight that it was wrong

1:32:31 to and then they're like and then so like you'll be talking again and they'll be like do you eat honey? And I'm like not completely. I mean like I have I have other [ __ ] and they're like

1:32:42 the damage that does to peas. And at a certain point somebody once told me they go you really want to [ __ ] them up just tell them mushrooms are more sensient than shellfish cuz that's true and just watch them implode.

1:32:55 Okay. Well, you're actually really harming my relationship to mushrooms right now.

1:33:00 Um but just to be clear, is that a no to lunch? I'll I'll see them there. I'll see them. You know what? Tell them I'll meet him at the [ __ ] vegan. Okay.

1:33:10 At around. All right. Uh uh how else how else can they uh uh get a hold of us there?

1:33:17 Uh Twitter, we are Weekly Show Pod, Instagram threads, Tik Tok Blue Sky. We are Weekly Show podcast. And you can like, subscribe, and comment on our YouTube channel, The Weekly Show at John Stewart.

1:33:26 Boom. We got next week off. Thank you guys so much. Enjoy uh your week off. Thanks again for your wonderful help in uh putting these episodes together, but also in helping me fend off the wrath of whatever community I've stepped in [ __ ] in. The Economist came after me last week. Be on the lookout for vegan emails cuz they're [ __ ]

1:33:48 Oh no. Oh god. They're they're coming, brother. Uh, lead producer Lauren Walker, producer Britney Mavic, producer Jillian Spear, video editor and engineer Rob Vola, audio editor and engineer Nicole Boyce, and our executive producers Chris McShane and Katie Gray. Thank you guys so much. Have a great week. Boy, The Weekly Show with John Stewart is a Comedy Central podcast. It's produced by Paramount Audio and Bust Boy Productions.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "The Wealth of Wall Street with Oren Cass | The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart"?

Jon Stewart (Host), Oren Cass (Guest).

What is "The Wealth of Wall Street with Oren Cass | The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart" about?

The discussion explores the incoherence of economic policies under the Trump administration, highlighting the prevalence of right-leaning economists and the impulsive nature of these policies. It emphasizes the rising concern over the overfinancialization of the economy, with calls for a reevaluation of how financial services dominate and potentially harm the broader economic landscape.

What is mentioned in this The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart episode?

15 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including John Stewart, Oren Cass, American Compass, Congressman Adam Smith, Ronald Reagan, Financial Times. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "The Wealth of Wall Street with Oren Cass | The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart"?

The episode runs 1 h 34 min; the transcript is about 16,772 words in 229 timestamped sections.

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