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Transcript

Episode 408: Be Thankful! · Words & Numbers

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Hi, I'm James and I'm Anthony. And this is words and numbers
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brought to you by the good people at Khaki, the Center for
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American Culture and Ideas. Ant, what's new and exciting in
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your world this week? Well, not so new, but certainly
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exciting. president-elect Donald Trump has pledged big tariffs on
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the United States, three largest trading partners.
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That's Canada, Mexico and China. In that order.
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He said that he wants to impose a 25% tariff on imports from
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those three countries. Because those Canadians and
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Mexicans are just killing us. Yeah, well, there's a couple
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things to think about here. 1 is a tariff is no different than a
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sales tax. The only difference between a
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tariff and a sales tax is that the tariff applies to goods that
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are coming in from a foreign country.
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Other than that, in every way it looks just like a sales tax.
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We've said this before, but we have to say it again.
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The end consumer pays the tariff.
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Yeah, the end consumer's going to end up paying for this.
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Why is that? Largely because of competition.
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Foreign producers will look at the globe and say, well, I can
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sell in the United States for 25% haircut, or I can sell
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anywhere else on planet Earth and not have the 25% haircut.
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So if I'm going to sell in the US, the US consumers better pay
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me an extra 25%, otherwise I'm going elsewhere.
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And it works that way literally every single time.
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This is not news. We learned this when we we, I
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say the science of economics moved out of the mercantilist
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age around what, the early 1700s?
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That's how long ago we figured out the tariffs are a bad idea.
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And yet, in the public mind, we're going to charge China,
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Mexico and Canada. Somehow, magically, foreign
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nations will pay. But it's not foreign nations
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that are doing business with us. And the businessmen in these
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foreign countries aren't doing business with the United States.
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They're doing business with people right here in the United
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States. Yeah, now it gets worse than
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this. Because on the one hand,
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Americans who purchase things from abroad are now going to pay
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25% more. Another thing worth considering
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is that China, Mexico and Canada are likely not to take this
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sitting down. They're going to impose their
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own tariffs. Now that becomes a problem for
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the United States because US producers export to foreign
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countries, and the top three foreign countries they export to
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are Canada, Mexico and China. In fact, of the 50 U.S. states,
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12 of them are net exporters. That is, they export more than
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they import, so any US manufacturer who's exporting is
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going to get hit subsequently with similar tariffs imposed by
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the home countries. And this goes far deeper than
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just say produce, but I looked up produce a few minutes ago and
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we get 60% of our produce from Mexico and almost 20% from
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Canada. So about 80% of your produce is
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about to skyrocket in price, 25%.
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It is. Now an astute listener would
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say, all right, well, fine, the Americans producers are selling
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stuff to the Canadians, the Mexicans and the Chinese.
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But following the arguments that you and I have just laid out,
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what's going to happen is that the US producers will charge 25%
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more to overcome the tariffs that Canada, Mexico and China
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will impose. And yes, that's all correct.
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But here's the kicker, at the end, those goods when they hit
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the foreign markets will cost the foreign consumers 25% more.
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And what are they going to do? They're going to buy less
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because it's more expensive. And so we American producers are
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going to be selling less to foreign consumers.
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We American consumers are going to be buying less from foreign
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producers. And across the board, you get
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what you and I repeat constantly, which is you will
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have less of the thing you tax. In this case, we're going to
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have a lot less consumption and production.
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Including groceries, which is the thing everybody was pissed
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off about in the 1st place, right?
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The price of groceries has skyrocketed.
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Well, buckle up because it's about to get worse if these
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tariffs go through. If they go through, I would like
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to do an episode as I'm fascinated at the answer you
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gave me on the previous episode when I asked, does the president
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have the power to impose a tariff all unto himself?
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I thought you were going to come back and say, oh, no, no, no,
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this has to go through Congress. But you indicated that maybe
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not. I don't want to go into that
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now, but that's going to make a good future episode.
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We'll get into it down the road. The ever so slightly longer
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answer is that Congress is involved, but we'll see where
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that all leads soon enough. You know, there's this website
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that I kind of track from time to time just called Study Finds
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if you ever. You know, I think I have.
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Yeah, I recognize the name. Just kind of grabs various
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academic studies from around the world and puts them in very
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clear English terminology so you can go from academic E to
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American English pretty quickly. And today's the headline how
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political hatred turns people against everything from
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chocolate to charities. If you think about it for a
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second, you have to ask yourself, how far does my
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political hatred go? Does it go so far that it can
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take something that I'm generally in favor of and turn
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it into something that I'm generally against?
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And I remember a conversation I had with a Co worker years ago.
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We had stopped for a drink at a convenience store and I grabbed
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a Snapple. And he said, why would you buy
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Snapple? And I said because it's tasty
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and delicious. And he said yeah, but they
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support pro-life causes. And I said, well, who cares?
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And he couldn't believe what I had just said, couldn't believe
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it. And I said, would I not buy Ben
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and Jerry's because they're a pack of Pinko's?
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They make the best ice cream I've ever had.
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Why would I not buy their ice cream?
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They're competing in the market for my dollars.
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I'm going to go with the things I love.
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And it never occurred to me that I should somehow punish
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companies who I disagreed with politically.
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And I think I was in the majority at that time.
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This was probably 30 years ago. 35 years as time has gone by, I
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think I'm definitely in the minority now.
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The studies that they're looking at seem to indicate that I'm
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exactly right. So I'm going to leave the link
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in the show notes so people can take a look.
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But the interesting question is how much of your regular life is
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determined by what the opposition is up to?
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Will you change your mind about something that you have always
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been in favor of because somebody in the opposition party
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is now also in favor of it? Right.
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This goes for everything from, say, ice cream, which is an
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example that they gave in the article.
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Donald Trump famously loves cherry vanilla ice cream.
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So now liberals don't like cherry vanilla ice cream Any.
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Oh, come on. Yeah, no, it's to that level.
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It seems ridiculous, right? They go a step further and they
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start asking questions about fashion, something that I know
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zero about. As you well know, every piece of
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clothing in my closet is black. Just to save myself in trouble.
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All right, now I have to interrupt you.
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James came to visit me couple of weeks ago and he was on his way
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in between places, hadn't done laundry.
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So he brings a bunch of laundry and my wife threw his laundry in
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the thing and she had to go somewhere and he was sleeping as
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James does. And so I need to use the dryer.
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His shirts are there, so I pulled them out.
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I figure I'll put them on hangers for the James.
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They're all nice. He had like 7 shirts.
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They were identical in black. Not like, you know, interesting
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patent, just straight up black shirts.
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Seven of them, absolutely the same.
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When you find something that works, can't you stay?
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I just bought four more of those same shirts, but I digress.
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They showed pictures of various politicians wearing certain
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things and people's responses to the clothing items.
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We're deeply tied to the political figures that wore
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them. Wow.
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Now if you can look at a red tie that party A is wearing and then
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look at the same red tie that party B is wearing and like one
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of them and hate the other, you're the problem.
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And that's where we've gotten, it's gotten so profound at this
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point, the party hatred, that we will find any reason to hate
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each other. Yeah.
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It's somewhat baffling, and it should be baffling to everybody,
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but of course it is not. Just draw this out, right?
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OK, fine. We're talking about red ties.
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Well, what about when we talk about trade policy?
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I remember not too long ago when the Republican Party was the
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party of free trade and the Democratic Party was the party
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of protectionism. What the hell happened there?
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Now, Republicans hate free trade.
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Do Democrats hate protectionism? Well, yeah, but if and only if
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there's a Republican in the White House, you see how this
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goes. As with all things economic, I
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think each generation has to relearn principles of econ and I
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thought we'd covered this trade thing once and for all back in
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the Clinton era with NAFTA when economist said this is going to
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be a great thing. And indeed, it was a great
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thing, contrary to the detractors claims.
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And here we are, what, 30 years later, doing the same thing all
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over again, only in reverse. We're going to.
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Undo all the benefits that a North American free trade
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agreement gave us instead of doing the smart thing and giving
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us a global free trade agreement.
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Oh well. This of course brings us to the
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foolishness of the week and we're back to the great state of
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California, and specifically the Bay Area of California, where I
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found a headline today. Get this, the minimum qualifying
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income for a home in the Bay Area.
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Not with the home costs, but what you must make to qualify
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for a minimum home purchase. Right for a bank to even talk to
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you. For a bank to talk to you so you
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can buy the cheapest house in the Bay Area, you have to make
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how much $320,000? Wow, wow.
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I don't know the numbers exactly, but I'm pretty sure
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that puts you in the top 2%. Top 1% is like 450.
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I know for a fact it's top five. Oh yeah, definitely it's top
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five. It's at least top five, So if
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you're living in the Bay Area, you're probably going to be
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either renting or homeless for the rest of your life.
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By the numbers, that's literally true because everybody can't be
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in the top 5%. It just doesn't work that way.
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And California is going to have fewer and fewer people in top 5%
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the more it makes its taxes progressive.
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It leans on the higher income people and higher income people
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are going to leave. I guess in this case, they have
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to leave. They can't afford to live there.
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Well, they've been leaving. California has been a net
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exporter of human beings for a while now.
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And it's not the poverty ridden people who, you know, load up EU
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Haul and get out. It's upper middle class and
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upper class people who leave. And they're leaving for Arizona
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and Texas. Shocking, I know.
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The response in California will doubtlessly be, well, we have to
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mandate higher salaries, which will just have the net effect of
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driving more people away and increasing the cost of homes
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simply and then raising the amount of money people have to
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make in order to afford those homes, right.
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This could be the beginning of a death spiral for California if
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they don't realize what's going on and take measures to change
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it right now. And the odds of them doing that
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are approaching 0. So best of luck to you.
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If you live in California, I can't imagine why anybody in his
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right mind would stay there. It's kind of interesting, when
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you think about it, that California's kind of painted
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itself into a corner politically.
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They're very much about vilifying the rich, and yet
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their policies are largely aimed not intentionally, but they have
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the effect of making it only possible for the rich to live
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there. That's right, geographically
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it's got everything. It's a hell of a piece of
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property and yet through single party rule they found a way to
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just RIP it apart. Yeah, if you thought two party
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rule was bad, look at California.
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Just wait until you get single party rule.
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For One Stop shopping for all things James and Aunt, visit our
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If you'd like to contribute, go to patreon.com/words and
13:24
Numbers. Oh, that was your foolishness.
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I'm sorry I haven't been keeping count of things.
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This wasn't my foolishness, Aunt.
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It was the foolish. It was.
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The foolishness we're recording now a couple days before
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Thanksgiving. So this episode will air after
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Thanksgiving, before Christmas, and it's a good time to think
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about being thankful, which we try to do this time of year each
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year. And you know, if it means
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anything, we're. Always late, right?
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Yes. We try to be thankful and we
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forget and then we're late. I recorded a video several years
13:58
ago in which I was arguing that the world is becoming a better
14:02
place. And I gave all kinds of data to
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that effect. And one of the things I talked
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about was that we have become so rich and it's happened over
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generations, so you tend not to notice it.
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But we have become so rich that what I'm about to say is not an
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exaggeration. What we call today poverty 100
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years ago was middle class. And I've got some good numbers
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to back that up. In fact, I spent the last week
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going through, I collected 22 data sources to put together
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this thing that we're now going to talk about.
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So let me throw out just a few facts.
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In 1924, so 100 years ago, the average annual earnings for a
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worker was around 1300. Fourteen $100.00.
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Of course that's not adjusted for inflation, that's thirteen,
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$1400 in 1924. And you know today the median
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workers making over 60,000. So of course huge difference
14:59
there. But what matters is you know
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what you can buy with that. So let's do a little bit of math
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here. If you look at the average
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worker in 1924 earning thirteen, $1400 a year, and the average
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number of hours worked in 1924, not 40 hours a week, it was 50
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hours a week. Federal income tax rate was 2%
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for this person. So when all the dust settles,
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this person's taking home after federal taxes $0.51 an hour
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versus today the meeting worker takes home $32 an hour.
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So like 60 times that, right? But let's look at prices. 1924
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loaf of bread was nine cents, pound of butter 52 cents, dozen
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eggs, 51 cents. A kWh of electricity cost you
15:53
three cents. A brand new Chevrolet James base
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model 580 dollars. Oh come on Ant, everybody knows
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the correct rejoinder here. None of this is adjusted for
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inflation. No, it's not adjusted for
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inflation. So what you do here is you ask
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the question, how long would this 1924 worker have to work
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earning his $0.51 an hour? How long would he have to work
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to earn enough money to be able to afford a brand new Chevrolet
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or an average home, or a dozen eggs or whatever it is?
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Let's take a step back here, because to my mind, this is
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actually a much better measure of what's going on in the
16:37
economy. I think so because it's
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measuring what you actually want to get at, which is how much
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effort do I have to put in to get the thing I want.
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That's exactly it. It measures my output for my.
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Input. Yes, right.
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There are difficulties in measuring inflation.
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I'm not saying we don't do a pretty good job of it.
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I think we do a very good job of it.
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But this does an excellent. Job of it, yeah.
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And it doesn't take into account certain things that we have now
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that we didn't have back then. Yeah, so you get scientific
17:07
advance and yes, we all have Internet access now, obviously a
17:11
non starter in 1924 and all of the many things that make life
17:15
better. But if you want to get to brass
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tacks, you know a car, eggs, bread and butter, these are
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pretty good measures. Yeah, let me throw out just
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three basics here. A pound of butter, dozen eggs
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and a pound of coffee. Or I can throw in another one, a
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gallon of milk. So we got those four things,
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Butter, eggs, coffee, milk. Each one of those in 1924 cost
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one hour's worth of Labor for the average worker.
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So given how much you're earning, you each each one of
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them an hour's worth of Labor, plus or minus a bit.
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Oh, throw in a pound of bacon also, that was 45 minutes, a
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little bit less. So we have butter, eggs, coffee,
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milk, bacon, each one of those things individually, about an
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hour's worth of Labor. That accounts for the number of
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hours the person's working, how much he was earning, and the
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federal income tax rate, all in 1924.
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Here's where life gets really interesting.
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The median worker today do the same thing.
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The median worker pays if you do the married filing jointly, he's
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paying on average about 6% income tax, making after tax 32
18:21
bucks an hour if you take today's prices.
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And this is after we've gone through this period of inflation
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in 2022, right? Those five items I listed that
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took an hour's worth of Labor to afford in 1924.
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Today, pound of butter, 9 minutes.
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Dozen eggs, 6 minutes. Pound of coffee, 12 minutes,
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Gallon of milk, 8 minutes, Pound of bacon, 13 minutes.
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So you do the math and the median worker today's purchasing
18:52
power after tax purchasing power is like what, 4-5 times what the
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median workers purchasing power was back in 1920?
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Four, I'm looking at the chart, and it would be a good thing to
19:06
include the chart in the show notes, but I'm looking at the
19:09
chart and the median worker in 2024 works less, generally
19:14
speaking, than the top 1% wage earner in 1924.
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Yeah, in 1924, the average work week was 50 hours.
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It's actually 34 hours today. But the top 1% of all earners
19:27
still spent more time working to get these things then the median
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worker does in 2024. If you shift your gaze to the
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top 1% in 1924, I actually pulled tax records for 1924 from
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the IRS looking at this to figure out.
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But to be a top one percenter in 1924, you had to earn about
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$10,000, of course, in 1924 dollars.
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But in 1924, a top one percenter, How much time did it
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take him to buy those various things?
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The butter, 10 minutes. The eggs, 10 minutes.
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The coffee, 8 minutes. The gallon of milk, 11 minutes.
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The pound of bacon, 7 minutes. In other words, in terms of
20:08
purchasing power, that one percenter in 1924 looks a lot
20:13
like the median worker today. And that's, I think, what gets
20:17
lost as generations pass, right. And you said something earlier
20:21
that triggers this thought. Every generation we have to
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relearn certain things. And well, why is that?
20:28
Well, because we have no experience with previous
20:30
generations. Yeah, right.
20:32
Somebody. Right now says, well, life is so
20:34
hard. And what are they comparing it
20:36
to? Well, life four years ago.
20:38
Like six years ago, not life 100 years ago.
20:41
And there's an ebb and a flow to these things over time.
20:45
And we're not here to tell you that everything is milk and
20:48
honey. It isn't.
20:50
And when you look down at cars and housing, you start to get a
20:53
sense of where the problems might lie, if indeed there are
20:56
problems. Before we go to bigger ticket
20:59
items, let me talk about someone earning 7/25 an hour, so 7/25 an
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hour today. I mean, I hesitate to even call
21:07
it the minimum wage anymore because so many states have
21:09
minimum wages at the 1015 dollar an hour level, but 725 still the
21:15
federal minimum wage. So let's talk about someone
21:17
who's full time, 40 hours a week, 7/25 an hour.
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This person has about the same purchasing power as the median
21:26
wage worker did in 1924. So go back to the butter, the
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eggs, the coffee, the milk, the bacon, each one of which cost
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our 1924 middle class worker an hour of Labor.
21:37
The 7/25 an hour worker today, it actually cost him a little
21:42
bit less than an hour. The pound of butter is 45
21:45
minutes, the dozen eggs, 30 minutes.
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The coffee's an hour. The gallon of milk, 36 minutes,
21:51
the pound of bacon, also an hour.
21:53
So in the same way that today's middle class worker looks like
21:57
A1 percenter in 1924, today's 7/25 an hour worker looks like a
22:03
middle class worker in 1924. Yeah, that's pretty telling it.
22:08
Really is. Again, I think you hit the nail
22:10
on the head when you say, look, you know, your fortunes ebb and
22:13
flow and you know someone born in 2000 is not going to take
22:18
much solace in this saying, look, I'm making 7/25 an hour
22:22
and I've got nothing compared to other people.
22:24
And that's absolutely right if you compare yourself to other
22:27
people who exist today. But what we're encouraging
22:30
people to do here is to take a deep breath and say, OK, but
22:33
there's also this other comparison.
22:36
Compare yourself to humans who came before you.
22:39
And it's not saying necessarily that it makes you any better off
22:43
today, but it does at least put in perspective the fact that
22:46
what we are thinking of as poverty, humans never before
22:51
ever thought of poverty. They thought that what we call
22:54
poverty was really good. I think if you do look more
22:58
broadly, you do have to be pretty happy.
23:01
Is probably not the right word, but at least content with things
23:04
at present, when the average poor person in the United States
23:08
can afford a smartphone. I think the very definition of
23:11
poverty is very, very different than it once was, because
23:15
poverty Once Upon a time was that you were starving and not
23:17
living underneath a roof. Yes, right.
23:21
So things have in fact changed for the better for everybody.
23:24
And given the various social programs we have, not everyone,
23:28
but almost everyone has those guarantees.
23:32
You're going to get food. It might not be as much as you
23:34
want. It might not be the quality that
23:36
you want. But with food stamps, with SNAP,
23:38
you've got something. You got a roof over your head
23:41
with Community Housing and government subsidies.
23:44
And these sorts of things may not be exactly what you want.
23:47
It may not be the best, but it's something.
23:49
Whereas, you know, prior to this century, if you were poor, well,
23:53
you died. I want to drive home the point
23:56
that what Ant said is literally true.
23:58
People don't realize that. They think that that's a way
24:02
that we say things now. It's an idiom of some sort.
24:05
It's not. It's the literal truth.
24:07
Let's get on to the things that maybe have shifted over time.
24:11
Yeah, let's look at some other things here.
24:13
So some higher ticket items. Let's talk about rent, because
24:16
people are complaining about rent.
24:17
So Census gives me some average figures going back to 1924 for
24:22
large cities, medium cities, small cities.
24:25
And I'm going to discount the large cities right off because
24:27
look, if you choose to live in New York City, don't complain to
24:31
me about the rent. There's plenty of other places
24:33
in the country you can live. That rent is half of what you're
24:36
paying. So let's look at a medium city
24:39
in 1924. A month's rent in a medium city
24:44
cost the median worker 1 1/2 weeks of Labor, so 1 1/2 weeks
24:50
of your paychecks. That covers the rent right there
24:53
today. Median worker little bit more
24:56
than one week. So he's actually a little bit
24:58
better off than the median worker of 1924, but roughly the
25:02
same. Top 1% in 1924 was 1.2 days.
25:07
So if you look at this, our median worker today looking at
25:10
rent, our median worker today looks like the median worker in
25:13
1924. Doesn't look at all like the top
25:15
1% worker. Meanwhile the 7/25 an hour
25:19
worker today, it takes him a full month to earn enough to pay
25:24
rent. So you could see here your
25:26
people complaining about the poor not being able to afford
25:29
housing. If it takes you 100% of your
25:33
paycheck for an entire month to pay the month's rent, you've got
25:37
nothing left. By definition.
25:39
Right at 7/25 an hour. Right.
25:42
And in medium city it takes 1.2 months.
25:45
Right, 1.2 so you're actually behind the table.
25:47
So this is with rent, but then there's a counter argument to
25:51
this. It took me a while to find the
25:52
data on this, but here's some things to think about.
25:56
Yes, housing today is much more expensive than 1924, but today's
26:02
average house, in terms of square footage, the average
26:05
house is double the size of the average house in 1924, and the
26:11
typical family size is about half the family size of 1924.
26:16
So. Oh, wow.
26:17
Yeah, in terms of square footage per person, you've got four
26:21
times as much house today as you did in 1924.
26:25
That's actually saying something.
26:27
Well, that alone makes our 7/25 an hour worker look a lot like
26:32
the median worker of 1924. Right, because you could cut
26:36
this into the price per square foot.
26:38
Right. Yes.
26:39
Instead of the price per home, you could cut it into the price
26:42
per square foot and get radically different results.
26:45
You're back to the minimum wage worker today, looking like the
26:48
median worker of 1924. But let's stick with price per
26:52
home. It's just easier for people to
26:54
conceptualize. But before we go there, because
26:56
what I'm going to tell you now applies to homes as well, it's
27:00
not just the size. In 1924, what fraction of houses
27:05
did not have indoor plumbing? In 1924, boy, this is going to
27:09
be a seat of the pants guess for me.
27:12
I'm going to guess it's going to sound crazy to people, but I
27:15
think I'm probably closer to right 65%. 65% did not have
27:21
indoor plumbing. The correct answer is 99%.
27:25
Holy. I'm way up. 99% of houses did
27:29
not have indoor plumbing, 70% did not have electricity, and
27:34
zero of them had HVAC. Right.
27:37
So forget about the square footage when you talk about a
27:42
rental on an apartment or purchasing a house in 1924
27:46
versus today. They're not the same thing.
27:49
No, they're not. And let's be clear, many of the
27:53
things that we just accept as given in our housing is mandated
27:59
by government. Right.
28:00
So if you're upset that the price is high, well, we could go
28:05
back. We don't have to have indoor
28:07
plumbing. That's right.
28:09
We don't have to have air conditioning.
28:12
And of course people are jumping up and down saying hey, you're
28:15
an idiot, what's wrong with you? Of course.
28:17
Well, and that's the difference between want and need.
28:21
And we've decided that our wants are actually necessities, and
28:25
that has the net effect of driving the price up all the way
28:27
around. I'm OK with it.
28:30
I'm not going to look at a house that doesn't have plumbing and
28:32
air conditioning and electricity, but understand that
28:35
these things are not free. And that's worth underlining.
28:38
The houses without electricity, without indoor plumbing, that
28:42
was the standard in 1924. Today it's illegal.
28:46
You're not allowed to have a house like that.
28:49
You can't even do it. Is that for the best?
28:53
Probably. But that which is best always
28:56
comes at a cost. Yeah.
28:57
And so when people come back as they will and say, well, all of
29:01
this is well and good, but the fact is I can't afford AI think
29:05
the average house today is $420,000.
29:09
I can't afford a $420,000 house. OK, that's a truth.
29:14
However, the house you're talking about was science
29:18
fiction to any generation that came before you.
29:21
It's like me bitching that I can't afford a Starship.
29:25
Yeah, I can't afford a Starship, but the fact is.
29:29
In total fairness, I have heard Aunt bitch that he can't afford
29:32
to. Yeah, I'm very annoyed about it.
29:34
But there will come a time, and I kid you not, there'll come a
29:37
time several generations into the future where a lot of people
29:41
can and some people can't. Other people who can't are going
29:44
to say, look, this isn't fair. I can't afford a Starship and
29:46
other people have starships and I'm back here from my previous
29:50
generations. I'm going to put my hand up from
29:51
the grave and say, what the hell are you talking about?
29:55
You know, you have to ask yourself, what would your great
29:57
grandparents think about the way you live right now?
30:00
Yes. And my great grandparents would
30:03
probably refer to me as Rockefeller.
30:05
Yeah, right before we started recording, you said that you
30:08
would just come back from exercising.
30:10
We're in this space now where our lives are so easy.
30:14
We have to simulate work. We call it exercise, but that's
30:18
what you're doing. You're simulating work.
30:21
There was a time in American history, not too terribly long
30:25
ago, when you would get home from work and you'd say, I'm
30:28
tired, give me dinner. Right.
30:30
Yes. Because you had been exercising
30:32
all day long. And then you'd go to bed because
30:34
there was no light, the sun went down.
30:36
Yeah, and you'd have extra blankets because maybe there was
30:39
no heat either. It's interesting how much better
30:42
life is now, and I don't know why human beings are incapable
30:47
of seeing it, but we are. Well.
30:49
I don't want to hit people too hard on that because the fact is
30:54
part of the reason we have all the wonderful things we do have
30:58
is that human beings said I want more, and we went out and we
31:03
figured out ways to have more. Right.
31:05
We are not complacent as a species.
31:08
That's right. Yeah.
31:08
And not being complacent, looking for more, looking to
31:11
better yourself, These are all great things.
31:14
But in this season of Thanksgiving, Christmas, it's a
31:17
good time to take a deep breath and remember also, in addition
31:21
to that, be thankful for what we do have.
31:25
It's not a bad time of year, right?
31:26
To sit back and I do this every year and look, some years I'm
31:31
way better off than I was the previous year.
31:34
Other years I'm way behind where I was the previous year.
31:38
You were all over the map. Yeah, you've gone from the first
31:40
quartile to the fifth quartile several times in our friendship.
31:45
And honestly, it's happened so many Times Now that I don't even
31:47
mind. Right?
31:49
It's fine. And I think that's part of what
31:53
living in America is right now, being able to know that it's not
31:57
the end of the world, right? Things will turn around.
32:00
Just give it a minute. It'll work out.
32:02
And it always does, right? Because we've got a society, a
32:05
system, however you want to typify it, that's designed to
32:09
yield these outcomes. That's the very design of the
32:12
thing. So why would you be shocked when
32:15
these outcomes happen? It's.
32:17
The last thing you should be shocked by?
32:19
And when you look back at what someone 100 years ago faced on a
32:23
daily basis, on a daily basis, how could you not be thrilled
32:28
with your lot in life that you were born now?
32:31
I'm thrilled knowing that my children will be far better off
32:34
than I am, and their children better yet.
32:38
And that's all the time we've got this week on words and
32:40
numbers. Until next time.
32:42
Send us e-mail wordsandnumberspodcast@gmail.com.
32:46
Try to be nice to one person who doesn't deserve it till next
32:49
week. Can't take it easy.
32:50
See you next. Week, James.