Latest / Words & Numbers / Episode 451: The Productivity Paradox

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Episode 451: The Productivity Paradox · Words & Numbers

0:00
Coming up on words and numbers, Spinal.
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Cord implants more listener questions, And what do the two
0:06
smallest countries in the world have in common besides being
0:09
small? The Orgy Dome.
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And for today's main episode, we're going to talk about the
0:14
difference between being productive and productivity.
0:17
Hi, I'm James. And I'm Anthony.
0:19
And this is Words and Numbers. Words and Numbers is a civil
0:27
original podcast. Check it out at civil.com.
0:30
That's C ivl.com Ant Let's do an exciting in your world this
0:35
week. We got an interesting listener
0:37
question this week from David Schoen, and so many of these
0:42
listener questions cause me to think about things differently
0:46
or think about things I hadn't thought about before.
0:48
This one is unique in that he actually told me something
0:51
factual that I had no idea about, hadn't even heard David
0:56
writes there. He this is in response to a
1:00
couple episodes ago. We were talking about Africa
1:02
being poor. He says there there actually is
1:05
a good reason Africa is poor, geography.
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I became aware of this reading Thomas Soul, but I've read it
1:13
elsewhere. Unlike Europe, America or even
1:16
China which have deep navigable rivers that open to the ocean,
1:21
African rivers are that are navigable aren't navigable to
1:25
the ocean. That's really, really
1:26
interesting that that e-mail caught my eye too.
1:29
I thought it was fascinating. I had no idea, but of course it
1:32
makes perfect sense, you know, given that that's the case.
1:35
And and let's just stipulate that there are other problems.
1:38
Well, there are other problems, but, but herein lies the
1:41
interesting thing about economics and all things social.
1:46
They're all tied together. So it's not that A causes B
1:51
causes C, but it goes in a circle.
1:53
And so Africa's got all kinds of property rights problems.
1:56
It's got human rights problems. It has the navigability problem.
1:59
And I would submit that those three things feed on each other
2:03
probably. With another dozen.
2:05
Yeah, I think that's exactly right.
2:06
And thank you, David, for sending that along.
2:08
I thought it was fascinating. I'm going to ask you two
2:12
countries, Anguilla, which is 35 square miles, population 15,000.
2:19
I know all about Anguilla there. There's a James R Harrigan there
2:23
who writes for the Anguillan Times.
2:25
No way. Really.
2:27
Yep. Yep, my apparently my black
2:30
counterpart in Anguilla. Huh.
2:33
I don't even know if I'm pronouncing it correctly.
2:35
But I looked, I had to look it up on Google and at least Google
2:38
tells me it's Anguilla. OK.
2:41
But nonetheless, that's one. Second is Tuvalu which is a
2:45
collection of low lying a tolls which is actually being
2:48
inundated by the sea. They are 10 square miles
2:52
compared to Anguillas 35, also about 10.
2:56
There are 10,000 people, Anguilla's 15,000.
2:58
So here's my question, besides being small and most people
3:02
haven't heard of either one of them, what major thing do they
3:05
have in common? Beachfront.
3:07
Property. Yes, the interesting thing is
3:10
that they each derive almost 10% of their GDP from selling domain
3:18
names. How about that?
3:21
That's smart. Because every country is
3:24
assigned an extension, the dot something Anguilla's is dot AI.
3:31
Nice balloons TV. Tubaloosis.tv.
3:36
Yeah, those those turned out to be very fortuitous extensions.
3:40
Very good for them. Yeah, so they're making a ton of
3:43
money relative to their economies.
3:45
I'll bet that's that's interesting.
3:48
I've got something that I think is even more interesting.
3:51
You know how I like to keep an eye on science and medical kinds
3:55
of things, unlike the people in our government who are in charge
3:58
of science and medical things, the the Israelis are on the
4:03
verge of doing an operation. And what caught my eye was a
4:08
story, I believe it was in the Jerusalem Post and it said
4:12
spinal transplant. And I'm thinking, no way, spinal
4:16
transplant. You know how big a spine is, how
4:19
complicated A spine? Never going to happen.
4:22
And then I did some digging and, and the the Times of Israel used
4:28
the word implant instead. And turns out that's much more
4:32
correct. And what they're going to do
4:35
just very broadly is put something before new cells,
4:41
before and after the point of a spinal injury.
4:46
And they have regenerated mice to the ability to walk normally
4:52
again after having a a broken spine.
4:55
Wow. And they're about in the next
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couple of months to do the first operation on a human being
5:02
that's paralysis might be a thing of the past.
5:06
Yeah, yeah. But but remember aunt, nobody
5:09
ever cures anything. Doctors.
5:11
Doctors just want to keep you sick so you know they can make
5:13
money. Well, yeah.
5:15
And I would remind listeners because you know, from time to
5:18
time we talk about people complaining about the price of
5:21
healthcare and, and I don't want to appear, I don't want to
5:24
appear insensitive to that, but I do want to remind everybody
5:29
that the magical things like this, this is the fruits of an
5:34
expensive healthcare system. The reason you're paying so much
5:37
in large part it, I shouldn't say large part in, in some
5:41
insignificant part is because we're paying for R&D.
5:45
That's right. And and research goes on
5:48
constantly behind the scenes. Most of it fails, right?
5:53
Yes, most, most research fails and you never hear about it.
5:58
By the time people are are yammering on about doing a human
6:02
trial, they have passed muster. Yeah, yeah.
6:06
And, and this is an exciting, exciting thing.
6:10
I know people who are in wheelchairs from terrible
6:13
accidents. They might walk again.
6:17
Yeah. Oh my God, who would have ever
6:20
thought anyway, From the high to the low, we go to the
6:25
foolishness of the week. I don't know, Aunt, if you pay a
6:29
lot of attention to the festivities every year at
6:31
Burning Man, I kind of do. I've only just.
6:35
Wanted to go to Burning Man. Nope, Nope.
6:37
Nope. No, you haven't.
6:38
No, you haven't. No, no, no, no.
6:42
That's like saying hell. Looks like it would be an
6:44
interesting place. I I think I should go there.
6:47
Nope, you don't want to. I, I want to talk about one
6:52
thing specifically, but then more broadly about Burning Man.
6:57
The the one thing specifically is that a sandstorm, A windstorm
7:02
rolled on in. People don't seem to realize
7:05
that that's a regular occurrence in the desert.
7:08
You know where I live? Where I live, we get warnings to
7:12
seek shelter because the windstorm is coming.
7:16
Really. If you're on the highway between
7:18
Tucson and Phoenix, you might not make it.
7:20
If the windstorm comes, you have to pull over and just wait it
7:24
out. And and they are forceful, let's
7:29
just say. And one rolled through Burning
7:32
Man. And the biggest casualty, and
7:35
this is, you know, I wrestle with theism as, as you know, I'm
7:39
an agnostic. I don't know what's going on.
7:42
I know that, you know, you're a you're very set in your
7:45
religious ways and and I'm just kind of floating around out
7:48
there. But every now and then something
7:50
happens. And I think, yeah, there just
7:52
has to be a God. And he or she or it has because
7:57
God has pronouns. He or she or it has one hell of
8:02
a sense of humor, because when the windstorm rolled through
8:05
Burning Man, it took out the orgy tent.
8:10
The orgy tent. Yeah, so there's something
8:12
called the orgy tent. First I have.
8:14
All kinds of questions now. I don't doubt that.
8:17
And now there's not an orgy tent and the.
8:21
I'm not sure I want the answer to this question, but were there
8:24
people? How should I say?
8:26
The orgy tent was as activity inside.
8:29
It. The orgy tent was at that time
8:33
unpopulated. OK.
8:35
So no one was harmed in the orgy tent, so it could have been a
8:39
lot. Sadder and funnier than it is.
8:42
I would go with funnier on that one.
8:45
Yes it could have been, but the orgy tent was destroyed and
8:49
those in charge of this idiotic event in the desert every year
8:53
have declared that the orgy tent will not be rebuilt.
8:56
I saw pictures of it and it it it it.
9:00
They call it a Dome, but it's really just a gigantic tent and
9:04
it it had a bunch of couches around the perimeter and it had
9:08
a bunch of mattresses on the the ground and and I had two, two
9:13
thoughts really quick. You're you're only allowed in if
9:17
you show up with a partner. So I guess that's how they get
9:21
around the problem of having only men in the orgy tent.
9:24
But anyway, I had two thoughts. How filthy must all those things
9:29
be by the end of the event? And what does?
9:35
What does it smell like inside of that tent?
9:37
Oh please. Hey man, I'm just telling you
9:39
what I'm thinking, but you're the one with all the questions,
9:42
so fire. Away I don't I I have to say my
9:46
knowledge of Burning Man is is limited, and given the story,
9:51
I'm not sure it's going to expand much in the future.
9:54
But it seemed, from what I understand of people who attend
9:57
Burning Man, the surest way to ensure that there is something
10:04
like this tent next time is to tell them that they're not
10:09
allowed to have one. Yeah, that's.
10:10
Probably right? Exactly so and but it gets worse
10:14
because of the storm. People were told that if they
10:17
were on their way to to Burning Man, what should have taken 1/2
10:22
an hour would become an 8 plus hour ride.
10:25
Oh my Lord. Right.
10:27
It's, it's just kind of fiasco. It's a a total fiasco.
10:31
Do you have any idea how many people attend this thing?
10:33
I, I don't, I've seen the number a couple of times.
10:36
I'm always shocked at how big it is, but I don't, I don't know
10:39
off the top of my head. I, I like the scene of that
10:45
gigantic fire at the end, right? I think that that's pretty,
10:48
pretty cool stuff, but I'm not going to go sit in the desert
10:52
for five days to watch it. What do they eat?
10:55
I mean, where's the water come from?
10:59
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11:14
This is probably a good time to talk about because my under,
11:18
well, I shouldn't say my understanding the the the set of
11:22
people I know who go to Burning Man are self professed
11:26
libertarians. And I think it's a good time to
11:29
to draw a distinction between libertine and libertarian.
11:33
You think? Of course there there can be
11:35
overlap, but the two aren't synonymous.
11:37
That the libertine has no rules. You go you, you do whatever.
11:41
But the libertarian? Similarly.
11:44
How should I say this? It's not that the libertarian
11:46
has no rules, but rather the rules that the libertarian lives
11:50
by our self-imposed. So rather than the government
11:52
telling me I shall and shall not do the following things, some
11:56
sense of character, of moral responsibility says to me, or
12:01
causes me to say, I shall and shall not do these various
12:04
things which. So what I'm hearing between the
12:07
lines is you would not go to the orchy tent.
12:09
No, I. You're taking a.
12:11
You're taking a little too long to answer that question.
12:15
No, yeah. No, that's not look, no, no, if
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it's taken me long to answer, it's because it's a question
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that is so far out of field of any question I've ever been.
12:25
Asked. Well, I've asked you plenty of
12:27
things that are far worse than that.
12:31
I'll do it later on maybe. I think this distinction between
12:35
libertine and libertarian is important because too often I
12:39
get people denigrating libertarians saying, well, if it
12:45
was up to libertarians, you know, life would be like that.
12:48
No, it's libertarians are not rule less people.
12:53
They just ask that the rules bubble up from the bottom, not
12:57
be imposed from the top. Yeah, but let's not forget there
13:00
are other libertarian events that have very similar things to
13:06
an orgy tent. This is always a problem.
13:09
This is always a problem with the libertarian movement, right?
13:12
That some in that movement are, as you say, libertines and they,
13:17
they just take everything too far.
13:20
And then there are right libertarians and left
13:23
libertarians, people who came in generally from the Republican
13:27
side. And there are people who came in
13:28
generally from the Democratic side.
13:30
And 1/2 of the, the, the people from the, the right libertarians
13:35
seem to care a lot more about economics than they do about
13:38
social issues. And the reverse is true of left
13:41
libertarians. And yet we find a way to
13:43
coexist. And I think that is the model
13:48
that Democrats and Republicans should actually try to follow,
13:52
that you can actually coexist with people who came to very
13:57
similar conclusions, but not the same conclusions from very
14:00
different places. And and what we forget in the
14:05
large is that Democrats and Republicans are all Americans.
14:09
And we start with a common pile of beliefs and instead of
14:16
concentrating on those, we concentrate on transsexualism on
14:22
one side at the extreme left and flag burning now on the extreme
14:27
right. Yeah, because we we don't have
14:30
discussions about principles. We talk about the consequences
14:35
and you can't get to the consequences well, unless you
14:38
start with the principles. But that's that's a heavy lift.
14:41
I don't think people are interested in in in undertaking.
14:45
They're much more interested in saying I believe in.
14:47
X Well, they'll be a lot more interested in it when things get
14:51
even worse. And because at some point you'll
14:55
have to have a reversion to the mean at some point it we're not
14:59
there yet, it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
15:03
But it will get better any anyway.
15:07
Yeah, go ahead. Yeah.
15:09
So this is probably worthy of an entire episode, but I I want to
15:12
at least throw out the question, in your opinion, are we do you
15:18
get the sense that Americans today are are split to the same
15:23
extent that they were split prior to Civil War?
15:27
No, not even close, really. I I'm not implying that a civil
15:32
war is imminent, I'm asking about the the the 2 ends.
15:37
There, there are things that you could say are similar, but you
15:41
you would say that of any large group of people that had
15:44
differences of opinions, which means you would say that about
15:47
any large group of people, right.
15:49
So no, we're, we're not there yet.
15:52
I'm not saying we never will be. We might be.
15:56
It's hard to imagine, hard to imagine, but we, we could, I
15:59
think, talk about that in a future episode.
16:02
For now, it's probably time to get to whatever ridiculous
16:05
economic thing you want to talk about.
16:08
I wanted to Yeah. I was writing a an article and
16:15
let me back up where this came from last week, coming across my
16:20
social media feed multiple times from multiple directions.
16:24
Was this map of the United States broken down by county.
16:29
There are, you know how many counties there are in the USI
16:32
didn't know this. I looked it up, 3000, there are
16:36
3000 counties in the US. That's that seems right.
16:40
Here's the US broken down by county and and most of it's
16:45
colored blue. Don't read anything into the
16:47
colors. It's just two colors.
16:48
Most of it's colored blue. And then there's spots of red in
16:52
the spots of red are in Los Angeles area, San Francisco,
16:57
Miami, at the tip of Florida, New York City, Chicago.
17:03
And then there's one in in Texas.
17:05
I'm guessing that's Houston. And here's the text that goes
17:10
with the map. 50% of USGDP is generated in those areas.
17:19
In in the tiny areas, sorry. So the the obvious questions, I
17:23
have an obvious question that everybody should ask.
17:25
What percentage of the population is in those areas?
17:29
Yeah. See.
17:30
And that's that becomes an interesting question.
17:32
I don't know the answer to that, but I've got something related
17:35
to it. I looked at these numbers and my
17:40
my knee jerk reaction actually was incorrect.
17:43
My knee jerk reaction was, look, you guys are measuring GDPGDP.
17:49
The way it's typically calculated is you add up the
17:52
things, the retail sales. So anything that's sold in a
17:56
retail store, you add up those things that GDP and, and
18:00
services, correct. Oh, and services, Yeah, yeah,
18:03
sure. And I said, hang on.
18:06
If that's what you're doing, then when you buy a $500
18:10
television in Los Angeles that was manufactured in Iowa, you're
18:14
taking all of the $500. You're attributing it to Los
18:18
Angeles when really a chunk of it should belong to Iowa.
18:22
So now I I think I understand something very quickly.
18:26
This is going to boil down in large part to food production.
18:30
Food production does play. Actually, food production could
18:34
go a long way to explaining my punchline, which I'll get to in
18:38
a second. But but that was my going in
18:40
argument that look, you guys are just, you're counting this thing
18:44
wrong. And I did did some digging and
18:46
it turns out that my counter argument was incorrect.
18:50
At a national level, when we calculate GDP, that's exactly
18:55
what we do. We add up all the retail things
18:57
that were sold. But when it's done at a county
19:01
or a state level like this, they don't do that precisely because
19:05
of the problem. I just said you're going to be
19:07
mixing stuff made in aisle with stuff that's made in in
19:11
California. So what they do is they go down
19:13
the the supply chain raw materials to parts to
19:17
manufacturing, to wholesale, to resale, and they break out where
19:22
each of these pieces happened. Well, that's complicated work
19:26
for 3000 counties. It is complicated work, but what
19:29
it means is that graph is correct.
19:33
Those 123456 areas, 6 little areas in the country do indeed
19:39
account for half of economic activity, half of GDP.
19:44
That's fascinating it. Is and this thing was going
19:46
around kind of in a snide way saying, look, middle America
19:54
needs to just keep its mouth shut because half of everything
19:58
is going on is going on in these areas.
20:00
And so everybody else should just sit down and be quiet.
20:03
And it occurred to me as I'm looking at that, you know,
20:07
there's a significant difference between production, which is
20:12
what GDP measures, and productivity.
20:17
And in English, we use the words, you know, kind of
20:19
interchangeably. But in economics, there are
20:21
actually two different things. Production is the total amount
20:25
that you've produced. Productivity is your production
20:29
on a per person basis. And now we come to your insight
20:34
that you can have an area, let's say Los Angeles, that produces A
20:41
tremendous amount of GDP. And it could produce this GDP
20:45
for either of two reasons. One is the people in Los Angeles
20:49
are hyper productive. They just produce a lot of stuff
20:52
individually. Or it could be that there's just
20:55
a lot of them. And indeed, or, or it could be
21:00
both. And I'll give you an example
21:02
going to going to countries. China is either the 1st or the
21:11
second largest economy in the world.
21:14
And I say either because and things get weird and we can do a
21:19
whole. In fact, we may have done an
21:20
episode on this. China's GDP is either 40% less
21:26
than US or 25% more depending on how you convert Chinese currency
21:34
to US currency. If you do it by the exchange
21:37
rate, you get one answer. If you do it by purchasing
21:39
power, you get a different answer.
21:41
But the long and short of it is without question the number one
21:45
and two slots for size of economy GDP is US and China.
21:50
Nobody else comes close. I think the third one is Japan,
21:54
which is like 1/4 of of China, right?
21:58
So that's one and two. But here's the thing.
22:01
China produces about the same GDP as the US, but requires.
22:07
But. But requires five times the
22:10
labor to do it. And three times the people.
22:15
Well, five times the people, yeah, yeah, and probably yeah,
22:18
if you do buy labor force or maybe at three times, but
22:21
nonetheless you're dealing with buckets of five times the the
22:24
number of people. That's right.
22:26
So if you take this country that is either biggest or second
22:31
biggest in terms of GDP and you ask what is your, not what's
22:36
your production GDP, but what's your productivity?
22:40
GDP per capita. Their GDP per capita is 75th in
22:45
the world. Not great.
22:47
Yeah, they're they're basically a developing country.
22:51
That's right. And, and you, and you know this
22:53
cause, would you rather live in China, the first or second
22:57
biggest economy in the world, or anywhere in Western Europe?
23:01
Right. Yes, exactly.
23:02
Or, or better yet, anywhere in Central Europe.
23:06
Yeah. Right.
23:07
That that's probably an even better choice to offer, right.
23:11
So Estonia, just off the top of my head, or China and you'd be
23:16
out of your mind if you didn't go straight to Estonia.
23:19
Yeah. So, so China's huge product,
23:23
huge production is because they have so many people.
23:27
It's not because they're highly productive.
23:29
It's not because they have high productivity.
23:32
No, and we know this because their their standard of living
23:34
is so low. Yeah, exactly.
23:36
That's what that's what determines your standard of
23:39
living, not your GDP, your GDP per capita.
23:42
Per capita, that's right. Yeah, Yeah.
23:45
And you know, for example, I pulled up a couple of examples
23:48
here. They're interesting.
23:49
Highest GDP per capita in the world.
23:52
Liechtenstein is Liechtenstein is number 2.
23:56
Good, good call. Number one is Monaco.
24:01
Monaco. Thank you Monaco.
24:04
I should have asked GDP ChatGPT 3 is Luxembourg, 4 is Bermuda,
24:12
Ireland, Switzerland, and these are all, I mean, what does it
24:15
look like? They're small countries,
24:17
they're. All tiny except for Ireland.
24:21
Yeah, and they're GDPS. The total, the total produced is
24:25
small, but on a per person basis, it's gargantuan.
24:28
So standard of living through the roof on those countries.
24:31
We're, oh, by the way, we're #7 for GDP per capita.
24:35
But we're trying hard. Yeah, but you know what, as I
24:38
look at this list, as I look at this list, we are the only one
24:43
in the top. Wow.
24:45
We are the only country in the top ten, top 10 for GDP per
24:50
capita. We're the only one that also has
24:53
a gargantuan economy. So the United States has managed
24:56
to be not only one of the biggest producers, but also have
25:01
the highest productivity. Yeah, and, and it would.
25:05
We should be comparing ourselves in some realistic way to China
25:09
and India, right, The country's very big populations.
25:14
Yeah. Right, because it it's an
25:16
aberration in a lot of ways that a country with a large
25:20
population also has a high standard.
25:22
Of living, yeah. Yeah, very much so.
25:25
That that's a facet. We're going to have to talk
25:27
about this some more. That's a fascinating thing.
25:29
I'm going down the list. I'm sorry.
25:31
I'm going to geek out and you'll hear in a minute.
25:33
I'm going down the. List.
25:34
Wait, wait a SEC, you're going to geek out in a minute.
25:37
What the hell have you been doing?
25:39
I'm looking at GDP per capita and it's not until it's not
25:43
until you get down around 1718 that you've got Germany and UK,
25:47
which still are not gargantuan in terms of population but
25:50
they're mid size. Country, good size countries.
25:53
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, Words and Numbers is part
25:57
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That's civl.com. Use the code words and numbers.
27:03
That's one word for 50% off an annual subscription.
27:08
All right, now let me go back to that chart.
27:11
The the map that was going around social media showing,
27:17
ostensibly showing that middle America needs to sit down and be
27:20
quiet because the GDP is being produced by those 5 urban areas.
27:24
If you change your focus and ask not GDP but GDP per capita, oh
27:31
boy does that map change. All of a sudden the the swath of
27:35
America that has the highest GDP per capita runs in the north
27:41
from North Dakota almost straight down to West TX.
27:45
It's all those. I mean there are others, but
27:47
it's those counties largely. There's a huge chunk in Colorado
27:51
and Utah. Do I do I make it in in Arizona
27:54
or do I just miss? No, actually your county shows
27:57
up in both charts. Excellent high GDP and high GDP
28:02
per capita. How about that?
28:03
That's Pima County for those of you who are wondering.
28:06
Pima County. Yeah, so that's looking pretty
28:08
good. So, So anyway, I I say to my
28:12
brothers and sisters in rural America, stand tall.
28:16
The only reason those five big urban areas are producing a lot
28:20
of GDP is because I got a lot of people.
28:23
The productivity is in the heartland.
28:26
And a lot of that is food. I would imagine a lot of food
28:29
when you stop, when you stop and think about modern farming that
28:33
with a handful of farmers plus all the technological equipment
28:38
we have, they can produce enough to feed 10s of thousands of.
28:43
People, yeah. And in that strip, right off the
28:46
top of my head, you're looking at cattle ranchers and people
28:50
who grow wheat and soy and things like this.
28:54
Yeah. And, and they're very, very
28:56
productive with modern technology, as you say.
28:59
Yeah. And not coincidentally, those
29:01
are some of our largest exports and that's what happens.
29:05
A country exports the thing it's really good at producing.
29:08
That's right. The I remember seeing a graphic
29:11
when I first kind of started hanging out with you and
29:14
learning economics of the United States, exporting wheat and
29:20
getting cars in return. That wheat, that wheat equals
29:25
cars, right? And that's really the way to
29:28
understand it. And any other way to understand
29:32
it only adds cost. Yeah, I I was actually, I gave a
29:36
talk today and and use that exact analogy that there are two
29:41
ways to produce a car. One is you shove materials to a
29:45
factory in Michigan, outcomes a car.
29:47
And the other is that you plant wheat in Iowa and send it across
29:50
the ocean, and cars come back, and invariably somebody in the
29:54
audience will say, yeah, that's a false comparison because the
29:58
one is manufacturing and the others trade.
30:01
To which I say as an economist, no, they're actually the same
30:04
thing. Both of these are processes that
30:07
turn what we have into what we want.
30:10
That's right. That's exactly right.
30:12
And so, you know, if you try and shut down trade or mitigate
30:16
trade with tariffs, this certainly helps the the process
30:20
in Michigan, but it does so to the expense of the process in
30:23
Iowa. And, and it's not just tariffs,
30:27
it's anything, anything. Right.
30:29
Any anything that gets in the way of purely free trade adds
30:34
cost, and at some point it adds enough cost that it stops it
30:39
from happening. So there you go.
30:42
This comes back to David Shones letter at the beginning of this
30:46
episode when he was saying about one of Africa's big problems is
30:50
it doesn't have navigable rivers.
30:52
Well, yeah, if you can't get your goods out of the country,
30:56
onto the ocean, to other countries, you don't have the
30:59
ability to to foster this thing, whatever it is that you're
31:03
particularly good at. Yeah, and, and look there, there
31:07
are so many problems with Africa that we could do a month's worth
31:11
of episodes on it. But this is a big one, right?
31:14
I wow. And again, thanks to David for
31:17
for sending it. I think that's probably all the
31:23
time we've got for this one though, Aunt.
31:26
Well, so if you have more notes, as you always do, I do.
31:30
I do I have a note. Yeah.
31:33
The So what? Yeah, So what I.
31:37
So I would refer back to one of one of our principles here at
31:41
Civil, which is, which is human respect.
31:45
And as this map is going around, I think what got me viscerally
31:50
is that it was reflecting, it was reflecting A distinct lack
31:55
of human respect. Everybody, everybody brings
31:58
something to the table, whether it's it's a low, low
32:03
productivity area that has lots of people or a high productivity
32:07
area that has few people or an area that has both high
32:10
productivity and lots of people. Everybody brings something to
32:13
the table. And the beauty of of trade, and
32:17
I don't just mean trade across countries, but any form of
32:21
exchange is that everybody has something to offer.
32:25
Even the people who would at first appear not to have
32:28
anything to offer, they do let let the markets flow, let goods
32:32
flow with minimal obstruction and and both sets of people will
32:38
be able to play off of their relative advantages.
32:41
Yeah, and you know, rising tide lifts all ships.
32:44
Yeah, Words and Numbers is a Civil original podcast.
32:49
We work with Civil to advance their mission of upgrading
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cooperation. We believe the most pressing
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33:09
We at Civil look to voluntary solutions to these and other
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new platform at civil.com. That's civl.com.
33:23
I have one more thing to add, too, and that's about the nature
33:28
of the sorts of things that you started with this graph that was
33:31
making its way through social media.
33:34
And this happens every week or two, right?
33:36
There's another thing that everybody loses their minds over
33:39
and points their fingers at each other, and they turn it into a
33:42
red versus blue argument. And these graphs are usually
33:46
pretty good. They tell you something that you
33:49
might not have known already, but they don't tell you
33:53
everything. And and even you aunt a trained
33:56
economist, your first take on it was exactly incorrect.
34:02
Yes, yes, not just incorrect, but exactly incorrect,
34:06
completely wrong. And and you were humble enough
34:13
to admit that in in public, right right now.
34:16
And and that's actually a big deal.
34:18
I looked at something and I thought A, but it turns out N
34:22
was correct. And that happens to me a lot
34:26
too. And you have to have some
34:28
humility when you look at data. And that's what all these charts
34:32
are. They're pretty solid.
34:34
They tell one story. What are the other stories that
34:38
lean up against that story? Because those are the questions
34:43
you need to ask. And before you get angry or
34:45
snotty about it, look into it a little bit, 'cause you like ants
34:52
might be wrong. I'm I'm hardly ever wrong and
34:56
all the time. But, and on that happy note,
35:01
this episode of Words and Numbers comes to a cheerful
35:03
close. Until next time.
35:06
I know it's hard in these terrible times, these trying
35:11
times. Be nice to each other.
35:14
Just just breathe a little bit, look around, see how lucky you
35:20
are and be nice to each other. Why are you still here?
35:29
What? What are you waiting for?
35:32
The episode is over. Well, all right, I guess we're
35:34
going to have to continue for a minute.
35:37
And aunt, you know I love you like a brother.
35:41
I do, I just, I wish you actually had a brother so I
35:45
could make a comparison to see if you just berate that guy as
35:49
much as you do me. I would.
35:53
I would for those of you who can't tell, I'm an only child,
35:56
but but anyway, I love you like a brother and I, I don't want to
36:02
embarrass you much, but you did this thing a couple of times
36:09
where you bought new shoes, broke them in and then walked
36:11
100 miles in Spain like an idiot.
36:14
That's right. And, and there was this one
36:17
event in the, in these two profoundly stupid things that
36:23
you did that is one of the funniest things I've ever heard.
36:27
And it's when you got into a literal fight.
36:34
With a goose. With with a bird.
36:37
So I I think I would like you to tell the people about the time
36:40
you fought a bird. Well, see, if I'd known you were
36:43
going to say that, I would have called up the the account of it
36:49
that I sent to you. Try not to be an idiot, just you
36:53
can remember you fought a bird. How can you forget the details
36:56
of this? But the story as as recounted is
37:01
so good. Let's see.
37:02
See, I've done this. This is Kamino, and I've done
37:05
Kamino so many times. And I write you every time I do
37:09
it. For those of you who have no
37:12
idea what Kamino is, that's when a bunch of Catholics, for
37:16
reasons unknown to everyone, start 100 miles or so away from
37:22
a church that has something in it that's not really what they
37:27
think it is, and they walk towards this church for days on
37:33
end, stopping along the way. I'm sure it isn't, but I'm not
37:38
walking 100 miles for anything. I don't know that I have.
37:43
I don't think I have the account here.
37:44
I've got it somewhere. Can you just, but can you just
37:47
tell the story you're killing? It was so good.
37:51
It was such a good story. I took so much time to write it.
37:54
Well, Ant, we go. Ant.
37:59
Let me just search for the word goose.
38:03
Camino Santiago, 2019. This might be it, James.
38:07
You're an idiot. Oh, goose.
38:10
Oh, here we go. Here we go.
38:12
I've got it. You're fucking killing me, man.
38:14
You're killing me. This is.
38:15
There's some. Swearing in here, do you mind?
38:19
Do I mind? OK, in a hamlet on the path,
38:23
this is We're walking to Camino. In the hamlet on a path was
38:26
Caesar's Pub. It wasn't even one room, more
38:29
like half a room. Walls were covered with pictures
38:33
of Caesar with other pilgrims. Caesar's proud of the pilgrims
38:37
who have come through and regales us with stories of their
38:40
stories in a language I cannot understand.
38:43
But this is of no consequence to Caesar.
38:45
He gives me coffee from an automatic drip coffee maker,
38:49
asks if I want cream. That's one of two interactions I
38:52
can handle in Spanish, the other being ordering a beer.
38:56
I say yes to the cream. Caesar's snaggle toothed friend
39:00
chuckles and makes motions with his hands.
39:02
He's telling me that the milk came direct from the cow.
39:07
This concoction is as good as it is disturbing.
39:10
I make it understood that I'm in need of a men's room.
39:12
Caesar's eyes light up. He jumps up and beckons me to
39:15
follow. We leave the half room, go
39:17
outside around the building and into a courtyard.
39:20
He points to a door, clearly a bathroom.
39:23
He reaches for a bamboo pole, points to a goose that is
39:28
looking at us, makes whacking motions with the pole, then
39:32
hands the pole to me. The goose eyes me warily.
39:38
With sudden concern, I realized the pole is to fend off the
39:41
goose. Yes, the goose has claimed to
39:44
the courtyard, and with it, the bathroom for his own.
39:49
The goose does not like interlopers.
39:51
The goose honks at me menacingly, but apparently
39:54
understands the implication of the bamboo pole and keeps its
39:58
distance. When I exit the bathroom, I do
40:01
so back to the wall and back out to the courtyard.
40:05
The goose trails me, honking it in I'm going to fuck up your
40:10
shit kind of way, but staying one pole length away?
40:14
There's something about. I'm going to fuck up your shit.
40:17
That transcends languages, even species.
40:21
The tone it carries is universally understood.
40:25
Goose knew. I knew, and goose knew that I
40:29
knew that the pole was the sole factor deciding fates while I
40:34
held it. I would escape unscathed, but
40:37
drop it and shit would go down like, well, through a goose.
40:41
That is the end of my goose story.
40:44
If if you can't take a goose without a stick, I don't know
40:47
what to tell. You.
40:51
That was wonderful. You have two legs.
40:53
You could kick a goose. Listen, this thing was big.
40:57
It was big. And they have, you know, they
40:59
start flapping the wings and all of a.
41:01
Sudden, Oh my God, Oh my God, you're admitting that you're
41:04
afraid of a goose. This is not like your little pet
41:07
ducks. Like take one of your pet ducks
41:09
and multiply by 10 and give it an attitude.
41:12
That's a goose. My ducks loved me.
41:16
Yes. Goose.
41:17
Geese do not. Yeah, no, I, I I don't like
41:21
geese at all. I think they should stay the
41:23
hell away. But they think they think the
41:25
same about us. But I'm I'm really not
41:27
frightened of them like you are. Listen, that's safe to say,
41:31
given that there's no goose within 100 miles.
41:34
Of you. I mean, if there's a bobcat in
41:36
my backyard, as there often is, bamboo stick wouldn't hurt.
41:42
But a goose? Come on man, Come on.
41:45
But I have to say, while we're on this, so this was, this was 1
41:49
of I've done 5 Caminos, 5 over the years.
41:53
I've done five, the first one. And I remember the first one so
41:57
well because this is one of these situations where my wife's
42:00
birthday was, was coming up a birthday ending in zero.
42:04
And she asked me and she's smart.
42:07
She asked me like a year, 2 years ahead of time for my
42:11
birthday. I want to go on Camino 2.
42:13
Years like an idiot Like an idiot.
42:15
Yeah, yeah, sure. Whatever present present you
42:17
didn't think about future you at all.
42:20
Exactly. So as the time starts
42:23
approaching and I start realizing that a, this is going
42:27
to be incredibly expensive. Well, incredibly expensive on a
42:33
professor or so, I guess. Incredibly expensive on
42:35
anybody's salary, but expensive. And it involves walking in
42:40
nature. Two things I do not care for at
42:42
all. And three, at the end of the
42:45
day, what have you done? You've gone for a walk in the
42:48
woods. I can do that here.
42:50
I don't have to travel halfway around the world.
42:53
So I'm starting to get buyer's remorse here.
42:56
But, you know, I said I would do it.
42:57
So I I can't back out of it. But the best I can do is
43:00
complain. And so you and I were on our way
43:05
to speak at a high school somewhere.
43:06
We were driving, it was out in the West.
43:09
You were driving and you start laughing and I say, what the
43:12
hell? And you say you're thinking
43:13
about me walking in the woods. And it was just, it was like
43:18
this wait on me. I just said, look, I cannot talk
43:20
about this. It's, it's, it's horrible.
43:23
It's the worst decision I ever made, blah, blah, blah.
43:25
Anyway, Fast forward maybe a month and we went on this Camino
43:31
and it took me about I'd say 2 days and I just fell in love
43:36
with it. So much so that I drug my wife
43:40
back four more times. The last time we were there for
43:43
five weeks, we walked 450 kilometers.
43:48
You are an idiot. It is wonderful, I highly,
43:53
highly recommend it. But but as part of the the
43:57
Caminos, the first several that I did, I would text James every
44:01
night knowing that he was he was up and with just kind of
44:07
commenting on what happened that day.
44:09
It was a it was a hoot. I enjoyed it anyway.
44:13
I hope the people enjoyed the story of your almost fight with
44:16
a goose. And next week I'll tell you
44:19
about my talks. Maybe catch you later, Aunt.
44:22
See ya.