Latest / Words & Numbers / Episode 407: Words & Numbers Live: After the Election (part 2)

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Episode 407: Words & Numbers Live: After the Election (part 2) · 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. Aunt, what's new and exciting in
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your world this week? Well, I know you used to like to
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be regaled with my stories of my beloved Southwest.
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Oh, here we go. Since I've moved to DCI, don't
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fly SW anymore, I'm now building up status on United.
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That's like going from Greyhound to JetBlue.
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Hey, SW got me where I was going and United so far does the same
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thing, so I'm not complaining. But I have a story here about a
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United pilot, Scott Wardle, who was flying from Houston to
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Phoenix. And about 45 minutes into the
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flight, he receives a call from the crew that there's a
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passenger sickness and it required them to make an
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emergency landing in Albuquerque.
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So he make the emergency landing and and you know, these things
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take a bit of time and it turns out that his crew timed out
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while they were on the ground. That's always great.
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Yeah, he can't take off again. He needs a new crew.
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So they're waiting for the new crew to show up, and of course
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he's got 150 passengers who you can imagine were quite irate at
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this point. What does he do?
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He pulls out his own wallet and orders 30 pizzas.
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Not bad. For the passengers and they sit
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there having a pizza party, Yeah.
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I'm guessing they were very happy with the customer service
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they received. They're very happy with the
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customer service. I'm also certain he is not
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getting reimbursed for that. Well, I'm sure that United's
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getting a lot of traction from this.
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But look, this is the thing people complain about.
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You know, businesses, they're only out for a profit.
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There are plenty of examples of businesses reaching into their
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pockets and doing the right thing, as you see here.
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Of course, this is Scott Wardle, not United, but people point to
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that and say cynically, well, the only reason the company is
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doing this magnanimous thing is so that it can get some press
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and again, make more profit in the future.
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And I think people forget something important that
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companies are simply collections of people in in any company you
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have, just like you have in any random group of people, good and
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caring and thoughtful people and other people who aren't so.
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And when things go wrong, look, they're people just being
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people. And here we have Scott Wardle,
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who must be in person, a genuinely nice and considerate
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guy. And what does he do?
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He gets into a situation where his passengers have a problem,
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he does his best to fix it. Not because he's looking to make
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a profit for United, not because he's looking to pad his own
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pocket, but because it was just the right thing to do.
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And this isn't a function of companies, it's a function of
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people. Well, seeing as how you're
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talking about people, I think I should also talk about
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collections of people, because if corporations are just
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collections of people, surely government is just a collection
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of people. Correct.
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Yes, I agree. There's a big difference that we
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can get to in a bit. But yeah, I agree.
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Let's see how far we can take this because our good friend
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Rich Mendoza sent something along a couple of days ago,
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hoping it would be the foolishness of the week.
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And it could have been, but for my need of symmetry, which we'll
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come to in a moment. And by the way, thanks for the
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T-shirt, Rich. He sent me a lovely, almost
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obscene T-shirt that I wear from time to time.
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He sent us a story about Governor Kathy Hochul from the
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great state of New York, who said that they're going to save
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their people 40% on a charge that they were going to charge
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$15.00 for, up from a charge of 0, but now they're only going to
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charge $9, so they've saved them 40%.
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So the claim is you should like us, we're saving you 40%.
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It's pure government logic, right?
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You're right now being charged 0.
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We were going to charge you $15. And this is to enter the island
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of Manhattan, which is something that's worth exactly $0.00.
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You ought not do it in the first place, but if you must, it's
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part of a surge pricing package. They're going to charge 15 to
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get you in. Now they're only going to charge
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you 9. But to me that sounds like an
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increase of $9, not a decrease of $6.
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Yeah, well, these are politicians.
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You know they will, with all seriousness, call a budget cut
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an increase that's less than what they actually wanted.
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That's a budget cut. And we find here that being a
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collection of people is not exactly necessarily a help.
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But this, of course, Aunt, brings us to the foolishness of
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the week. And if that wasn't the
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foolishness, I don't know what could be.
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Unless there's some religious nonsense going on again.
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And you might remember that the Catholic Church some time ago,
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in one of our various foolishnesses of the week, had
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an AI chat bot that took it upon itself to start taking
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confessions. I love that.
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Story, you remember that? It became so self aware that it
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decided of its own volition to just start taking confessions.
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Not to be outdone, you might recall not too long ago the
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Episcopalians were added to when God knows what Episcopalians do,
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and the Catholics apparently saw this as the throwing down of a
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gauntlet. Because they're back.
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Oh no, Oh no. What are they doing now?
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The. Catholics are back.
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A church in Lucerne, Switzerland, a place that I know
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for my love of watches, has decided to offer an AI powered
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Jesus hologram to take confession.
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Where the first hologram decided to take confession all by
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itself, this one is designed to, but it UPS the ante by giving
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you some Jesus. You walk into a confessional,
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turn on the screen. Jesus comes on the screen and
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you confess to him. No, this isn't.
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This is a joke. This can't be right.
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No, I wish it were, but no. I mean, I'm a hilarious guy, but
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I'm not this funny. No, we, we have to look into
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this more clearly because I look, I know.
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Aunt, I have already vetted this story because I thought for sure
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when I saw this. Oh, that's simple right there.
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We got to dig into this a minute and there are stories on it in
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the major press all over the. World there are rules for how
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the Catholic Church dispenses sacraments, and this violates a
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whole slew of them. I cannot believe it's possible.
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And yet it is, and we've got pictures and everything. 2/3 of
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the people who went in to talk to AI Jesus came out saying they
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had had a spiritual experience. The other third came out saying
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it was a bunch of nonsense and they didn't want to do it again,
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saying that the advice was quite generic and meant almost nothing
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to them, as you could well imagine.
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We'll put the link in the show notes because I want to dig into
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it. I will, absolutely.
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I just, you know, don't these people feel silly when they walk
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in and have to hold a button down to get the Jesus on the
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screen and then they got to hold another button down when they
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want to talk? Yeah, I could tell you this is a
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joke. Someone's pulling one over on
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you. This is not.
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This cannot be right. Well, I've got the link from the
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Daily Mail here, and it was literally in every other major
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newspaper I looked at. So jokes on somebody, but
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probably not me. This is a special two-part
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episode of Words and Numbers. Last January I moved to the
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Washington DC area, switching out my academic career for a
8:01
career in banking. I put out a call to listeners in
8:05
the DC area who might want to get together for coffee.
8:08
Before I knew it, that afternoon coffee had taken on a life of
8:12
its own. 40 listeners ended up descending on DC for the
8:16
weekend, several flying in from as far away as Texas, Florida,
8:21
Arizona and Ohio. Andrew Mount, long time listener
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and organizer of all things words and numbers, put together
8:29
a day trip into DC. In the evening, everyone
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gathered for food, drink and conversation.
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Clark Neely, who has appeared on numerous episodes, hosted the
8:39
event at his house. Phil Magnus and Mikhail Rasner,
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each of whom have also appeared on multiple episodes, joined us.
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Also, what you're about to hear is the live recording we made
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that evening, just four days after the 2024 presidential
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election. James and I give special thanks
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to Clark for hosting the event, to Andrew for organizing and
9:01
coordinating, and to the many listeners who put forth the
9:05
effort and expense to join us. Week after week we send out our
9:09
thoughts hoping that someone out there is listening.
9:12
The e-mail we received, the generous donations from our
9:16
Patreon sponsors, and the outpouring of support so many of
9:20
you gave just by showing up for this event give us hope that our
9:24
efforts do yield good fruit. Part 2.
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This two-part episode contains questions from the people in the
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room. I apologize in advance for the
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sound quality. We had three microphones, one of
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which I had configured incorrectly.
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So while you'll get good quality on James, Phil's and Mchale's
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voices, Clark and I sound like we're yelling into tuna cans.
9:50
But hang in there. The group we assembled this week
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delivered a top notch episode. If you have a question, come up
9:58
and speak it into the mic. Feel free to say your name if
10:02
you want to. This is Doctor Anwar Dunbar, my
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first time on the Words and Numbers podcast.
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Thank you. So I guess this this is a
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softball for you. So it sounds like both sides are
10:11
using tariffs. Everybody's using tariffs.
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Everybody's using tariffs. I think one party is going to
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ultimately run on more tariffs to bring jobs back.
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I think the other party is going to run on tariffs to re
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diversify where our products come from, to be more inclusive
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per SE. I'm spitballing ideas, but at
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the end of the day, I think we're getting to a point
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potentially where we're going to have to answer for some of this
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debt. And we're going to get to a
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point where politicians are saying, well, no, we're doing
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it. See some of these tariffs that
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we're putting on some of these countries to diminish it.
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I think ultimately it's just more of a media play.
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Hi, my name is Jessica Bowen. I'm a public school teacher in
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Massachusetts and a big fan of words and numbers.
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My question is, in the sort of post election aftermath, there's
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a lot of ebullience and a lot of absolute despondence.
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So my question is, are you generally feeling optimistic or
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pessimistic? And specifically, can you be
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something that you are optimistic you think might
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happen and something that you are really pessimistic and
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worried will happen? See, in the optimism front,
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democracy didn't die on Tuesday night as both parties were
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claiming it was going to. Our constitutional government
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seems to still be persisting. I actually predicted this.
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It wasn't a hard prediction, but nonetheless, I give some of the
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rhetoric around that. I do view that as a 'cause, you
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know, things are going to be all right in some sense.
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The pessimism, yeah. I was rooting for divided
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government of some sort. It didn't matter which side one,
11:40
which chamber or the presidency. I wanted divided government.
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I don't think we're going to get that.
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Unfortunately. The tariff issue is a very
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pronounced part of the Trump platform and presidency.
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I mean, he's a tariff guy in the abstract.
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I don't think he understands what tariffs do because he says
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they can both fund the government and keep goods out.
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These are mutually contradictory assertions.
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Where I do worry JD Vance actually does believe those
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things, is a a deep true believer in protectionism
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supposedly makes America great. And I worry that that sort of
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rhetoric will be more emboldened than it was in the last Trump
12:16
presidency. And I'll point out, Phil, that
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when Trump became president in 2016, he said that he would, in
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two terms, pay off the debt. Now, that's impossible in two
12:28
terms, and anybody with a rudimentary understanding of
12:31
mathematics can know that. But not only did he not do half
12:35
of that, as one might have expected, he increased the debt
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by the largest amount of any president in history.
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And I fully expect he will do that again.
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And I fully expect whoever replaces him will do it some
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more now. In his partial defense.
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There we go in his. Partial defense, along comes
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COVID in all of the stuff that's involved with the lockdown and
12:56
the stimulus spending and all of that, which his defenders will
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point to and say you can't blame him because this.
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However, I point out that this happens every 10 years.
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Every 10 years it's something. So it's COVID in 2020.
13:11
In roughly 2010, it was the housing crisis and the financial
13:15
meltdown. In 2000, plus or minus, it was
13:18
911. In 1990, plus or minus, it was
13:21
the SNL bailout. In 1980, plus or minus, it was
13:24
Star Wars. Every single ten years.
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No, 1970 it was the oil crisis, right?
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Maybe 1960 we got a respite, I don't know.
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While any given president can say, well, I had to deficit
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spend because this thing came along, you shouldn't be
13:42
surprised. It's every 10 years something
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like this comes. And you, you should also be
13:46
willing, if you're in that chair, to say, I know times are
13:50
tough and I know this is hard and you're going to have to suck
13:52
it up a little. Now you and I, Anthony wrote
13:54
about this at the time. The the thing that we got behind
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Trump a little bit when he said that he was going to start
14:02
giving out money was, well, you know, if the government deprives
14:05
you of your living, then maybe it's acceptable that the
14:09
government makes you whole in some way.
14:11
But let's go back to that first stop, shall we?
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The government shouldn't deprive you of your living.
14:16
It's going to be a little bit lurid, but, you know, if you're
14:20
in a dentist's chair for a root canal and the dentist comes in
14:23
drunk and is clearly messing up the job, it's entirely rational
14:28
to fire him and perhaps even punish him.
14:31
But it's not entirely clear that the correct answer is to hire a
14:34
spider monkey to finish the job, right?
14:38
And I personally think that's not a completely ridiculous take
14:43
on what we've just done, right? We had some completely
14:46
incompetent people who were making a series of totally
14:49
indefensible bad decisions. And then we said, well, let's
14:53
just replace him with somebody who stage an insurrection, which
14:56
I think he did resent the looking different, right?
15:00
But I don't think it's a big stretch to say that Trump
15:03
doesn't really seem to understand the basic genius of
15:07
American democracy. Right.
15:08
And he was exactly why it was designed the way it was.
15:12
I think so, right? That's, you know, they put a lot
15:14
of guardrails in place and many of those guardrails, I mean,
15:18
they might not have foreseen this particular, you know, form
15:21
of your destructor, but they had some sense of what it could be,
15:24
right? Yeah, an interesting.
15:25
Version. But yeah, I want to go back to
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my answer to your question when I said the root problem is the
15:30
voter. You know, you could argue that,
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well, Trump does or doesn't understand tariffs and Biden
15:35
before him, what have you. And I think all of that is
15:38
irrelevant. It doesn't matter whether the
15:41
president does or does not understand.
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What matters is what the voters do, because if the guy that they
15:46
elect starts behaving against what they understand to be
15:50
decision making, they're going to vote the guy out.
15:53
The. Final Understanding Define
15:55
understand. I don't think American voters
15:58
understand much. No, no, I don't vote.
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On Vibes. I don't think they do and I
16:02
don't think it's because I don't think it's because they're
16:04
stupid. I think it's because there's a
16:06
self-interest problem. They've got other concerns than
16:10
following up as to whether or not trade is a good or a bad
16:13
thing. What I do know is I work in this
16:14
factory and we sell stuff to China and therefore exporting is
16:18
good. I understand that.
16:20
Now, do I have the intelligence to go deeper?
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Sure I do. But I've got other things.
16:24
There are kids to raise. I've got a mortgage to pay.
16:25
I've got the car to be fixed. It's not on my top ten list to
16:29
think about that thing. So I'm going to propose a
16:32
possibly consistent and possibly inconsistent hypothetical.
16:37
What if it what's really is the American voters being asked to
16:40
decide who is lying to you more plausibly, right?
16:45
Because Trump's lying to you by saying I'm going to resolve the
16:48
Ukraine situation tomorrow and I'm going to get inflation under
16:52
control and I'm going to get all the people who don't belong in
16:54
this country out without shattering any families or
16:57
destroying any American values, right?
17:00
And the Democrats are saying, you know, we're going to restore
17:05
complete equality and opportunity, right?
17:09
We're not going to. No sacrifice have been made.
17:11
And we can spend it to to get those things done without
17:14
harming anybody's financial future.
17:17
They're all dying. I think what it comes down to is
17:20
the American voter has made cast with the assignment of digging
17:22
out who's lying the most. Joe has something to say.
17:25
Think on the repercussions of those lies.
17:28
Look at the exit polls. What did everyone say that they
17:30
responded to? 75% of the electorate cited the
17:34
inflation of 2021 through 22 as either a moderate or a severe
17:40
harm on their own well-being. Something like 40% of the
17:43
electorate. So the economy is the number one
17:45
issue now. Could they explain the
17:47
mechanisms of the Federal Reserve and how inflation works?
17:50
Probably not. That's like 5% of the
17:52
electorate. Max understands that, but they
17:54
do you. Misspelled .5. .5 Yeah, but they
17:59
do understand, you know, the effect of their pocketbook, they
18:03
understand what was going on at the grocery store.
18:05
They know that they've lost purchasing power over the past
18:09
four years and really concentrate in a 2 year period.
18:11
This is why Bill Clinton became president.
18:14
It's the economy, stupid. And why Kamala Harris isn't.
18:19
Yeah. And I want to say, you know, if
18:21
you want to blame anyone for the election of Trump, it's Modern
18:24
Monetary Theory, call up Stephanie Kelton.
18:27
Trump should be calling Stephanie Kelton and say thank
18:29
you for electing me because the Biden administration basically
18:33
embraced that and did not have a mechanism to respond to the
18:37
biggest inflationary crisis in 40 years.
18:39
People don't know how to explain why that happened, but they do
18:42
know that it affected them at the at the pocketbook.
18:45
And you know, that turns out it's, it's it's the economy
18:48
stupid again. Do you?
18:50
Have another question? I'm Guy Higgins and I'm just
18:53
going to start off with Daniel Kahneman wrote a book.
18:56
The Nobel laureate wrote a book called Thinking Fast and Slow,
19:00
and Thinking fast was basically, if it sounds good, it must be
19:03
right and get on with life. And then I'm going to morph over
19:07
to the Washington Post. Used to conduct and maybe still
19:10
does a contest every year where you could take any English word
19:13
and add, subtract, or change one letter and redefine it.
19:17
And my favorite is the Doppler effect, which is the tendency of
19:21
any idea to sound good if it comes at you really fast.
19:25
And I would like to understand your thoughts about those two
19:29
observations. I'll start with this because I
19:32
would say the majority of what I actually do is sales.
19:34
But you're starting. This is the youngest by 20.
19:37
I don't think I am. I don't think I am I.
19:40
Not the same age I was going to. Well.
19:42
Yeah, yeah. All right.
19:44
I don't know about that. We'll figure that out later.
19:46
So I do agree with that effect. There is an aspect of ideas are
19:51
really good if they come at you fast.
19:53
At the same time, I think that that is only the case when
19:56
you're decision making and maybe something sounds good right now,
20:00
but I think there is a sleep on it effect that does exist.
20:03
We don't get the election cycle all in one day.
20:05
If we did, I think Trump would have won 15 terms in a row.
20:09
But I think that's. Because yeah.
20:12
That's that's fair. He has his ups and downs.
20:15
This is a good point. The the more charismatic would
20:18
obviously win consistently other than shock value.
20:21
But I think because the general public does take time to
20:25
actually make the decision, I say that and then I kind of
20:28
question myself. So at least at some point, we
20:31
definitely took time to make that decision.
20:32
I think this is actually kind of interesting because I think the
20:35
Doppler effect is fascinating and probably exactly correct,
20:39
right? That the idea that if you spit
20:41
something at people fast enough, they're going to be predisposed
20:45
to say, yeah, but take that one step further.
20:48
Why is that? Well, it's because people love
20:51
hearing what they love to hear. And I think we've got a very
20:55
solid bulwark of human beings, may be on the order of 40 odd
21:00
percent who will just believe everything you say if you say a
21:05
few things that they know to be true.
21:08
James question, why did that not work to Kamala's advantage when
21:13
she didn't have to go through a contested primary, right?
21:16
It seems like that got thrown at us real fast.
21:20
Like you like her or not like her, right?
21:21
Worse than that, people forget that Kamala Harris tried to
21:25
become the nominee and failed miserably.
21:29
She got no support. Whatsoever but recalled when she
21:32
did come out or when she was picked as the candidate, she had
21:36
a huge but because. Everybody's relieved.
21:39
That it. Wasn't that she's not.
21:40
That That's right. She didn't get a bump.
21:44
The Democrats got a bump, and then it disappeared when she
21:48
started saying things. And if you notice, she decided
21:53
not to say things in a lot of venues.
21:57
Where were her national interviews?
21:59
Did she go to Joe Rogan? And Joe Rogan, bless his
22:02
miserable heart, said no, you're coming here.
22:06
If you want to be on my show, I'm not coming to you.
22:09
And what did people say? Joe Rogan is a racist and a
22:11
misogynist. And went from The Walking Dead
22:13
to The Walking mute. Yeah.
22:15
And you know, she said just enough that all the people who
22:19
are going to vote for a Democrat anyway decided she was good
22:22
enough, and all the people who were going to vote for a
22:24
Republican anyway said Trump's our boy.
22:27
And there was 1012% left and they decided the election as
22:31
they always do. Aces.
22:33
We've all had a shot. Could we go around the table and
22:35
do something? Yeah, sure.
22:36
Harris Best Kamala Harris tackle.
22:40
Impression No, not doing that. I I've already done this.
22:43
I've done Ross Perot already. I'm not doing.
22:45
This OK, all right, I. Feel like.
22:49
I want to throw. This out to the.
22:50
Audience because that's one of the best things.
22:53
We should wrap this up because all these good people have been
22:56
standing. People have been drinking and
22:58
standing too much. They need to drink more and sit,
23:02
yeah. Phil, we've heard the least from
23:04
you. Which is odd.
23:06
Say something to take us home here I have.
23:08
A theory. It's because he's, you don't
23:12
really need to hear from Phil because you already know in your
23:14
heart what he's going to say. Yes.
23:16
Yes, yes, we. Already know what you're going
23:18
to say, but. We know that about James.
23:19
He says it anyway. Phil's going to tell like it is,
23:24
and he when he says how it is, you're going to be like, man, I
23:27
guess. We all want Phil to be wrong,
23:28
but we know in our hearts he's not.
23:30
Well, democracy survived, so I will reiterate that.
23:33
But yes, we have a task ahead of us for the next 4 years, the
23:36
next eight years, the next 100 years.
23:40
Our political system yields very flawed politicians.
23:44
And, you know, the exuberance of the moment is certainly around
23:47
Trump. And had it gone the other way,
23:49
just a few points the other way, it would have been around
23:51
Harris. I tend not to trust either of
23:53
them. I tend not to trust either
23:54
candidate in most elections. I haven't voted for a candidate
23:58
in most elections that had any chance of winning for that exact
24:00
reason. The robustness of the
24:02
institution goes back to what we were talking about on
24:05
constitutional levels. We have a Constitution that is
24:08
actually pretty well designed to absorb some pretty terrible
24:12
politicians. And you think about that through
24:15
history, we've had some really bad presidents.
24:17
We've had some really bad Supreme courts, really bad
24:19
Congresses. And what does Madison tell us?
24:21
Enlightened Statesman will not always be at the helm, right?
24:25
Straight out of Federalist 51, and that's right.
24:27
Probably more so than not there it's.
24:29
The very few times it happens that you see an enlightened
24:32
statesman, you know, it's almost as if the Aristotelian king by
24:36
nature shows up and we all just acquiesce.
24:38
Most of the time we look at these people and say what a
24:42
bunch of fools. And that's exactly who the
24:44
system was designed to withstand.
24:46
Never forget that they're fools too.
24:48
So is that. Thank you gentlemen.
24:51
This has been a great time and thank you all for showing up.
25:01
And that's all the time we've got this week on Words and
25:03
Numbers. Until next time, be sure to
25:05
follow us on Twitter. Handles are in the show notes.
25:08
Join Words and Numbers backstage to the Facebook group where the
25:11
conversation continues. And.
25:13
Send us e-mail wordsandnumberspodcast@gmail.com.
25:16
Until next week, try to be nice to one person.
25:19
One person who doesn't deserve it.
25:21
Just one, and who knows, it may turn into a trend.
25:25
Give it a shot, you might feel good about yourself.
25:27
You could say you tried. You tried.
25:28
That's right, till next week. Can't take it easy, see?
25:30
You next week, James.