Jobs Numbers, Dick Cheney, and Thanksgiving Turkey
Summary
Labor Market Weakness: Multiple speakers highlighted soft payrolls, rising unemployment to a cycle high, and ongoing downward revisions indicating a fragile jobs backdrop.
Fed Policy Uncertainty: With delayed data and mixed signals, the Fed is seen as flying blind into December, complicating odds for near-term rate cuts.
Consumer Credit Stress: Rising delinquencies in credit cards, auto loans, student loans, and mortgages point to mounting household strain and potential knock-on effects.
Buy Now Pay Later: BNPL growth was flagged as a symptom of affordability issues and inflation, extending repayment horizons and masking weak real purchasing power.
Housing Affordability: Discussion emphasized supply constraints, regulatory barriers, and elevated mortgage stress/foreclosures as core drivers of unaffordable housing.
Health Care & Education Costs: Persistent price inflation in healthcare and higher education was linked to subsidies and restricted supply rather than productivity gains.
Protectionism: Higher tariffs and a broader protectionist tilt were cited as growth headwinds, with weakness noted in logistics-adjacent employment.
State Fiscal Stress: Potential tax revenue softness and inability of state/local governments to print money raise risk of cuts, layoffs, and pro-cyclical tightening.
Transcript
[music] Welcome back to the Power and Market podcast. I'm Ryan McMaken, editor and chief at the Mises Institute. And with me today are two of our contributing editors. We've got th Bishop and we have Connor O'Keefe and we're going to talk about a variety of different issues today. I think maybe just uh I feel like we we got to mention the jobs numbers. It's been a while since we had any jobs numbers. Why? Well, because the government was shut down. The federal government was shut down. And of course, we've had plenty of nasty things to say about jobs numbers, about official government data. But since this this data is used to make Fed policy and is used in predicting Fed policy, we might as well have a look. And uh the So now we've just got September's numbers. We got caught up to September's numbers, which should have been released many weeks ago in early October. So, they're now putting these numbers out. And a lot of the theorizing was that the the jobs numbers were going to look very very bad. Uh why? Because why why were they so unenthusiastic about doing anything to get the jobs numbers uh out to the public again? And uh it turns out that uh they they have they have uh put out an estimation of 119,000 jobs gained. Now this is nothing like the sort of jobs numbers that we frequently saw during the Biden years as they that they were pumping out which were boy 200 190,000 200,000 that sort of stuff 220 uh this is 119 so still substantial but we've been down this road before. We know how this this works. you put out a big number with your initial release on the jobs numbers and then you revise it down substantially afterward. So, this isn't even really a big number being down around 100,000. But if the last several months is any sort of indication, it's going to be revised out substantially. And we can see this in the recent numbers because if we look at what happened throughout the summer, we already knew that we had negative job growth in June and uh July showed a bit of an increase. Uh and May had very very weak numbers as well. So they've done some additional revisions uh releasing these new jobs numbers today. And so August actually turned negative again on that and down to -4,000 jobs. Uh and that have been revised down from plus 22,000. And so here we are now with over the summer two different months with negative jobs numbers, very weak jobs numbers in July and in May. So what what are we to make of that? Well, if you if you were to listen to uh Jerome Powell on this in recent months during his FOMC press conferences, he really started emphasizing uh the unemployment number. Started saying, well, the payroll numbers uh they're okay, but really we're looking at at the unemployment rate now. And part of that part of the rationale behind that was was that even though there was very very little new job growth, he was pointing to the fact that there was also a substantial decline in total uh of number of available workers because thanks to deportations, even though he didn't put this away, uh deportations were driving down total hires but also of course driving down demand for jobs. So he said, "So we're going to look at the unemployment rate and that's what really matters now." He emphasizes both in the last FOMC meeting and the one before that. So what are those numbers now? Well, it's up to 4.4% in September was the unemployment rate. That's a that's a cycle high. It's the highest in four years. So we're seeing then continued increases in uh unemployment there as well. And remember this is coming at a time where you're having substantial people leaving the workforce both due to less immigration due to self-deportations and also just due to the fact that uh among other groups as well you're having declining labor force participation. So considering all of that and still having an increase in the unemployment rate uh that's that's not a sign of a great labor market. And remember these are the government numbers. These are the best that they can come up with. Uh and it's probably going to be revised down then the next time we see these numbers. Now you remember a couple of months ago the revisions were so huge that became embarrassing uh because they would put out these big job gains numbers uh throughout the early summer and then they would come back and do big downward revisions. And then Trump threw this little temper tantrum where he's like, "Oh, this is ridiculous to have all these numbers that end up being revised down so much, so I'm going to fire the head of the BLS." Uh, so he did that. It apparently hasn't made any change. I mean, obviously Trump was like too dumb, I guess, to figure out that the the revision scam that they run made him look good just as much as it made Biden look good when Biden was president. Uh so you don't actually want to get rid of that because the way it works is you put out the big positive number, it gets reported in the press and then you get much less coverage for the revision numbers later. So maybe he just decided after the fact that okay, I don't really want to stop that situation. So now here we're just living through uh big initial numbers followed by downward revisions. But then on top of that, we're looking at a rising unemployment rate. That's the highest we've seen in years. Uh also, uh seeing increases in initial claims and just a lot of weakness in general in the job markets. So I as far as other issues go, what'll this mean? I think that's bad for if you wanted another cut to the federal funds rate. Um because if if Powell can point to these numbers and say, "Well, uh look, we gained a bunch of payroll jobs and I I don't know what he'll say about the unemployment rate number made that it's not that high." I guess if he's going to draw all this attention to the unemployment number and then say, "Well, okay, it went up to a four-year high, but uh that's not enough for us to cut rates." We get mixed messages every month from the Fed on these numbers. And so maybe he'll just have a completely different criteria for for what matters next time. But at least this report gives him something he can point to and say, "Hey, look, payroll numbers were up, so therefore we don't need another cut to the federal funds rate," which I'm sure would just enrage Trump even more. And that sort of thing, cuz Trump's on this big easy money kick right now. Uh nevertheless though, it's hardly then I think baked into what the policy is going to be in December at the next FOMC meeting which the FOMC press conference will be on the 10th. Uh so what's going to happen then? I don't know. Uh this if the jobs numbers had been terrible, I think we could have just easily said, "Oh yeah, they're clearly going to cut in December." But now I don't think it's nearly as clear in this case. So we shall see. Um, and the one one wrinkle to that though is the fact that the next job numbers aren't going to come out before that meeting. They've announced that there's that the November numbers which will come out which normally would come out in um December are going to be delayed. And so it looks like right now, if I'm reading that correctly, that they're going to meet on the 9th and 10th and not have the most recent jobs number. So, as has been happening the last 6 weeks or so, the Fed is just kind of flying blind on this and that may continue then into December. So, we're just expecting them to make policy based on all this partial data and everything after being told, of course, for the last 50 years that they have the best economist, the best data and it's all data dependent and everything. Yet again, it looks like they're just making stuff up because they have even worse data than the private sector has in many cases. So job situation uh nothing to write home about. If you are unemployed, you're probably in deep trouble because uh these payroll numbers aren't really doing much to assuage the the current situation of what Powell himself calls the no hire, no fire economy where, yeah, there's overall not a ton of net layoffs, but there's not much hiring either. So, uh I'm [laughter] if you got something good going on, I'd say stick to it. Don't uh don't quit. capricciously unless you really really hate your job. >> Yeah, absolutely. And and this that's an interesting jobs report one in the October numbers, right? We're just we're washing those away, right? That's not coming out at all, right? Because the government shutdown and so that's why we have that that that continued delay there. Um it will be interesting to see there there is something I think in terms of the the the political angle which is all you know the big driving point of all this right now is that if you're trying to make a a very rosy um selling point some of the subsections um you looking at our analysis from our good friends at Zero Hedge um does help highlight that you know perhaps the best selling point that if you were um looking to sell uh the administ frustration right now is that uh nativeborn uh uh employment has gone up by a million something jobs while foreign um labor is driving a lot of the downward pressure there which obviously is going to going to play to a particular audience there. What I I think is most interesting though is that within the broader uh spectre of tariffs as the top policy, some of the weakest areas from the report are in sectors such as warehouses and you know uh courier jobs and kind of the whole sort of the logistics aspect of the economy is where some of the the worst data came from all of this. Um but again but this is the problem though is that you know the underlying issues that we know existed right that sparked as you mentioned the firing of the BLS head right the issues in terms of the way they um the formulas they use for these numbers have not been revamped um you know we're still we haven't dealt with any sort of radical change in that position you know the revisionist aspect of it isn't going away anytime soon um so again like you know these these numbers are a press release they are you Twitter fodder for 24 to 48 hours. It is scary to the extent that it will directly impact monetary policy or at least be used as a rationalization for monetary policy in December. And it is interesting that uh you going back to our friends at Zero Hedge that despite some of the you know mixed um narrative from the underlying reports odds for a December rate cut um did go up from their own measurements. Take that for what it's worth. Again, you know, this is all all a guessing game at this point. Um but but even that even even the the more positive silver lining from the original estimates from, you know, various indust industry figures, it is certainly not um you know, setting the stage for uh you know, hawkish, you know, pal to return by any means. >> Yeah, Connor, I mean, what was your general impression of this? >> What just stands out to me is how familiar this all feels. It feels like the same thing that we were going through under Biden. And yeah, you're right to point out the fact that this is probably going to get revised away um if the past couple years is any indication. Um and I don't know if like the Fed will factor that into their decisions at all, but it's just I I guess like to me the vibes just sort of feel like um the same as they were under Biden. I think that's backed up by the polling. I I read some there was a Fox News poll that came out last night that said it was 76% of voters are uh not happy about the economy and that's up from 70% under Biden and it it got down to like I think like 67% or so over the summer. So it feels like people were you know not feeling good under Biden you know in the Biden years. um we had, you know, these jobs reports coming all out all the time and then getting revised away. That was sort of the chief dynamic. It's what we talked about last week that people weren't feeling good about the economy. The um the White House and the media were saying, you know, you're stupid if you if you're feeling bad about the economy. Um and then Trump comes in and I guess people thought that there would be some changes happening but it's just kind of continued on and it seems like now um the uh according to that poll um more people [clears throat] are feeling um unhappy with the with the state of the economy and I I imagine some of that is probably just some frustration with the fact that nothing's really changed and it kind of to me it feels like we've sort of settled into this like a minor stagflation kind of situation where the economies You know, it's not terrible. We're not in the middle of a recession for sure, but it's not great. And inflation is high enough that the the Fed is at least a little bit worried about just cutting rates dramatically. And it doesn't really feel like there's an end date to this, like we're just going to kind of keep floating along. Um, you know, there there could be some dramatic crisis, you know, a few weeks down the road. like for all we know there there's no telling but it's just um it just kind of feels like we're floating and this jobs report just it just felt like the same thing that we've been seeing. Well, I'm curious to see what the tax revenue data is going to show in the next few months. I think that'll tell us a lot about earnings uh at the individual level significantly and then then we'll know more. I mean, the the Treasury has gone really into a full speed ahead in terms of trying to deal with all of this maturing debt that's happening right now and they've got uh ongoing deficit issues and if that's just going to become all the more acute if u revenues go down at all. The assumption in all the models is always that revenue will there won't be a recession. Right? You look at any of these uh congressional reports that come out talking about what are interest rates going to be 5 years from now, it's always stable, more or less, maybe a very slight drift upward, but always very stable. And tax revenue is always stable and there's never any real uh recession on the horizon. That's just like standard operating procedure for these government uh forecasters. So that's that's when we know we'll be in a different situation, I think, is when tax revenue starts to really go down. then you won't even really be able to say anymore that oh things are holding steady it's just sort of a general malaise. uh then government starts getting into real trouble when that happens. And then people rarely talk about this, but when that happens, you also have parallel big-time cuts at in state and local government when that happens. And they can't just keep printing money. They actually have to start cutting jobs and cutting programs. That occurred in the early days under COVID, you may remember, where local and state governments were just laying people off, their employees. And this this persisted for a short period until the feds p uh printed so much money and handed out so much money to state and local governments that they didn't have to do that uh anymore. But that's one aspect of recessionary economics that people generally don't talk about is just uh there's so much focus on the federal government. But man, state and local spending that gets eviscerated during any sort of real recessionary period. So, I think that's when we'll really know uh for sure because that comes across as real dollars in terms of state and local revenues. So, >> well, and one thing too to go to Connor's point about Vibes, um you know, uh University of Michigan has their consumer sentiment um data that comes in and um I just pulled it up. They have their numbers for November already out and significant decrease from October and it's it's the the second lowest um of this particular measure. I think they've started like 2016 so it's the second you know lowest number in in a decade. Um and the only time that was worse than what it is right now was uh June of 2022 which is where you had inflation reaching you know 40 40 year highs. That was that was a very bad time. Um and that was that was you know not that far off from from where this number is. And so I think that is part of you know I think that is one measure you know as as inadequate as as you know we can we can we can critique those p those specific sort of survey sort of data all we want but if trying to to take into account you know that sort of vibes that sort of just just feeling sort of component out there. Um you know this is one measure that kind of very well illustrates exactly what Connor is pointing to. Well, and the default data just isn't looking any better either. If you start looking around at what's available for that, you continue to see, we've talked about this before, but 30-day credit card late payments, highest in 11 years. 90-day auto loan delinquencies, highest in 15 years. Student loan delinquencies, of course, at record highs, right? That's been dysfunctional for years. And mortgage delinquencies highest in eight years. uh some other stats I I showed I saw from Bloomberg said that uh mortgage delinquencies you know foreclosures which is an advanced very advanced stage of delinquencies up 20%. Now, that's starting from a very low number. Um, but you only need to do that so many times before you end up with significant uh foreclosure numbers. And remember, a whole lot of that we're still coming out of all of these moratoria and all these other efforts to prevent foreclosures uh during the COVID years. And it seems that in a lot of the trends there, everything's reverting back to what we saw say in about 2018 2019. Uh so it's at that stage now and that was all gearing up. 2019 was gearing up toward a recession because there was clearly looking at the data and the repo crisis and everything that was going on in 2019. Things weren't looking good for 2020 in a normal economy. But then COVID hit and they printed so much money that that ended up not being a problem. But uh whatever gains had occurred during COVID, it was just all money printed bubble economy is what was going on during that period. and that as that seems to be working its way out. Although it was so much money, it's taking a long time. And I think you're going to continue to see a lot of up and down numbers and things like jobs and delinquencies and all of that for a period until it's clear what the trend is. Um, but it's impossible to see where any great economic growth at this point is going to come from. Uh, with tariffs up, regulation hasn't substantially decreased. Uh, there's just really not any gas in the tank to, uh, make any substantial gains at this point. So, um I think if you were one of these young people looking for a job and we we've got these disastrous numbers in terms of right even a year later uh only about half of uh college grads are finding work uh in anything other than right waitressing or something like that. I it's if on the lower end it's it's very bad. And really I think it's a three- layered cake really you're looking at right now. There's right there's this top elite that is doing fabulous right now in terms of the economy. Asset prices are going through the roof still and they're doing great. Uh then you get the middle class which is which is struggling and not really keeping up. And then you got the lower classes which are just more and more on welfare and that seems to be the economy right now. And as long as you can keep those top that top slice numbers looking real good in the aggregate, that ends up working out to something that makes the economy look pretty decent. But for people on the inside, it doesn't look uh nearly as good. But but we're still relying on a lot of uh uh anecdotal information right now because the numbers themselves are are quite mediocre. But if you're looking for real dramatic stories, you got to you got to really just kind of look out on the street. Um, and then it's hard to say how how pervasive those examples are or how representative they are. I mean, you see a lot of it in social media. I mean, one guy one guy I follow yesterday, I assume it's a guy uh because it's it's Twitter. Um, where uh he said that his his Uber Eats people in recent days have been young and good-looking. So, this is this is proof that it's all over that the economy is toast. Even these people are reduced to now uh delivering food and so just give up everybody uh batten down the hatches. I don't know. That's anecdotal evidence. Does it really reflect uh the reality? I don't know. Right on par with, you know, Greenspan's underwear index, right? When when people start if if people are buying fresh underwear, then that's usually a sign that the economy is good. And when your underwear has holes in it, it's a sign the recession is ahead. So, love how >> I mean, that's not wrong, right? Hey, you know, like there's a priority true. >> It's essentially deferred maintenance, right? How many holes are in your underwear? How long can you defer that purchase? Um, eventually you just run out of cloth and [laughter] and you got to make the purchase, but maybe you don't have the money. I mean, this could be applied to so many things. I mean, real estate, of course, uh, famously with all the deferred maintenance that goes on there, and that's how how conditions start to get worse. Um, but I where is this this money for uh capital investment going to come from? There's no savings. Savings rate are near all-time lows. Um, productivity. I mean, >> yeah. Like some of the biggest innovations we have right now, and I know we've got an article um, you know, touching on on this a bit, and this has been kind of a one of those topics that's been bubbling in the headlines for for quite some time. Um but it's you know the biggest innovation has been pay now buy later stuff like how how many how many different ways can we split up financial obligations for the future you know how how how far can we bottle down uh you know these these debt finance uh instruments you down to the burrito level you that's some of the the real innovation going on the modern American economy and I think that kind of speaks to very larger trends going on >> well that that speaks to the affordability issue um which let's go ahead and talk about that a a little bit. Connor, you had a column on this uh at mises.org this week on how to really address some of those issues and you take a pretty broad look at a lot of the things that have uh have experienced enormous uh increases in prices and that of course we're not talking about any of the real ways to address some of these these issues. So, I don't know. Can you just tell us a little bit about the article and kind of what just just the overall overall situation is if if we really want to do something about affordability? >> Yeah, I was motivated to write this after I think it was last week we were just talking about how the Republicans have no ideas for this stuff. So, yeah, they're sort of scrambling now after the off-year elections to be like, "Oh, we care about affordability, too." But they just don't really have anything to offer. And I thought that I would just try to lay out um a n what needs to happen on a number of fronts. Um I I think I looked at um education, housing, um energy and healthcare were the ones I focused on just because I'll have a similar u there's a similar dynamic at work with um in all those uh areas where you essentially have uh decades if not centuries of government intervention that very predictably cause these dynamics. Usually the government comes in, they restrict supply in some capacity and then that forces out prices and then they come in later with these demand side subsidies and flood the market with demand by pouring tax dollars in and then the price just explodes and it of course happens to be for a lot of these areas that people consider important. You know, like healthcare is a very important service and so people are usually more willing to let the government come in and help. the way that the government does that um has just led to this. It's just a complete disaster and it's true for a lot of these fronts. And when people are talking about the affordability crisis, it's usually those big things, medical bills, housing, things like that. And so I just wanted to go through and just point out that like okay there are specific policies we have to go back and eliminate um if we actually want to you know stop uh like constraining supply and like if we actually want to bring supply and demand back in you know uh to have it start like reflecting reality so that prices can kind of reflect reality like what do we actually have to go target? I just wanted to lay all that out because it's just not been a part of the conversation at all. And then of course at the end I I touch on money too. That's like the big one that always gets left out. Of course that's kind of the thing that we're always talking about um in our little corner of this world. But like the fact that the government aims to destroy the value of the dollar um every single year, you know, by by 2% but like there was um Alex Pollock gave a talk. We had an event at Cornerstone University a few uh at the beginning of the month and he was just pointing out that the fact that this is these are there's a compounding effect 2% every single year is substantial over the length of a lifetime and then if you just increase that a little bit he uh gave us the numbers for 3% too which is sort of where we've been hovering for a while like that that is not an in an insignificant um like destruction of value of the currency and like that of course is leading to higher prices and I I guess I was just I was fed up with everybody talking about how they want to talk about affordability and not having anything to uh to actually say about it and I think it's important if you know to to the extent that the public can pressure politicians at all if the public can have a better understanding what actually has to happen then it would be you know a lot easier to dismiss politicians that like Amam Donnie who claims to want to you know make life more affordable but isn't actually interested or knowledgeable about the actual causes of um our affordability crisis. >> Well, I noticed that historically there was a there was a switch uh toward the late uh 19th century where early on when you got big gains in productivity and economic growth and all that uh a lot of the focus on making life better was on increasing supply and in bringing down the prices of things by increasing supply. So there was a lot of evidence or a lot of emphasis on reducing regulatory barriers. They didn't really use this language back then, but reducing regulatory barriers and really uh increasing competition and more entry into the workplace. Uh this was right at this was in the 70s, ' 80s and 90s of the of the 19th century. And that was really sort of your neocclassical gospel back then was, oh, if we want more stuff, if we want more people to buy things, we have to somehow bring down the cost of making those things. But that ceased to be the popular economic um leaning bent um uh idea. And that was replaced by all of this, hey, we have to just uh subsidize and supplement demand. And uh that started to gain currency in the early 20th century with the progressives. But really then by the 30s, right, that just became established policy with the New Deal was we just start funneling money, whether it's printed money uh or whether it's just a tax transfer to get people buying more things. But as keeps coming up again and again, when you're just funneling more money into specific types of goods and services, this just makes the price go up without any gains in productivity, without any gains in efficiency in terms of uh how many of these units can we make? Uh and there certainly doesn't produce necessarily more competition because actually subsidies tend to help already your big incumbent firms that can take advantage of these government uh programs best. uh because there's so much paperwork is all highly bureaucratic and everything and small startup firms that just presents more of a barrier for them to overcome to to get their hands on that sweet government money and so it's just a to the whole thing's been inverted and turned on its head where the idea was we need to produce more and make things more cheap. Uh, and now it's, oh, we need to just give people more money so so that they buy more stuff. But all that does then is bring up demand and raise prices because at that point there's no motivation to be more productive to produce more goods at a lower cost because you now have built-in customer which is the federal government that's just going to keep funneling money toward you. And you see this clearly in health care and in higher education. And has there been any improvements in quality whatsoever? Um, thanks to medical science, because there's a side of of medicine that is just actual research and science and separate from the uh the the the services provided at the consumer level. Uh that's where you see all those price increases at the consumer level in healthcare. And it's really quite remarkable at how much those price go up and they just always outnumber actual gains in income. Why? Because it's based on government subsidy, not based on actual ability to pay in the private market. So, you just see those prices are out of control. Prices in um higher ed. I mean, it's just really amazing. And you don't get any of the benefits of a more streamlined and productive economy. And that's been the gospel now for over a hundred years. And unless we can get start people thinking in terms of reducing prices instead of increasing spendable income then I I just it's hard to imagine how they're going to be able to change uh the way they're doing things. >> Of course, one of the areas where we've seen that um seen growth in making you revolutionary changes on the supply side is like direct primary care and of course in I'm going to make my pitch now. February 21st, Oklahoma City uh first event for the Mises Institute. Uh we've got uh Dr. Keith Smith who with Oklahoma Surgery Center, one of the the great uh success stories out there, um of of working that model and expanding it elsewhere. We'll have other great entrepreneurial study uh uh leaders hitting this very topic of actually solving these problems that that politics creates. Uh so mises.org/events book up now. Um, but one thing though I think is interesting, Ryan, and I know this is a topic that Connor uh looks at a lot as well is that if you think about because imagine now, right, imagine today if you were to have a massive austerity push and I mean like a real austerity push, right? Like not like a a decline of projected growth where it's, you know, we're now we're now spending 2% more rather than 5% more, right? But in an actual massive austerity uh pitch, you you'd be inundated with non-stop cable news media about how you're being deprived, you know, of of all the the good things in the world, right? It's this non-stop propaganda apparatus that the modern political media system has where you know there there everything is filtered through a political policy lens which is a gimme lens rather than being able to see sort of entrepreneurial you ventures pop up and things like that right the entire story is told from pol politics downward I mean that's where like right now right like if if you look at the most most radical reforms out there It's not about reducing government spending in these sectors. Like take take health care, right? We we finally have something that resembles um a healthcare reform uh uh plan out there. I know Rick Scott's been been working on something and and the big change um you the one of the biggest changes of this is rather than having government spending funnel through Obamacare subsidies, it'd be federal spending funneled through individual health savings accounts. And so like that that would that would probably be a massive improvement in the right direction based on what exists now, right? You have a lot more control there. It's similar to what we've seen kind of the state level uh education uh reforms, right? Where you you have parent driven uh vouchers rather than the top down model and a lot more flexibility within those things. But but all the the entire focus though is not should government be financing this, should government be spending this, right? Block grants would be like another example of like welfare reform. The question is not should we be spending this money. It is simply focusing on you know what are the best pipes to to funnel this through. And that's as radical as you can get. Saying that we shouldn't directly subsidize you know government insurance plans but instead give a little bit more consumer sovereignty on the issue. That's the closest thing you can get to a radical reform because everything is filtered through this political lens in the way that we you know your average person not us but your average person considers the the the individual relationship with broad economic sectors and so until there's a massive change you didn't have that problem right back in the you know the jonian era right your your your your whole thing is coming from like you know partisan uh penny newspapers and things like that right you're getting ideological you're being told you every single day like oh you know you're you're you're having your your bread taken from you because the politicians have cut this this spending program. It's entirely different framework and and a lot of that's driven through media persuasion on how your average person negotiates and and and sees themselves within this hyperpoliticized economy. >> Yeah, I think there's I wouldn't say there's like growing skepticism, but it feels like we're in a moment of confusion um on on this front. And I think kind of to what you're saying, Ryan, like we've had hundreds of or not hundreds, about a hundred years now of the government coming in and saying, "Okay, to fix this problem, we're just going to spend more money on we're going to help people pay for it." And you can only do that so many times, the same thing over and over again without it working before some people like just it's it becomes harder and harder to ignore. And like you just look back at all the big like progressive successes like Medicare all the way through like Obamacare and they were just acting like the problem had been solved that you know once Obamacare was passed like we we did it guys healthcare is fixed now and it clearly wasn't. Now, of course, they like shut down the government over these extra subsidies. And so, I think like that hasn't manifested, like I said, in skepticism about this, but I think people are confused. And I think there's an understanding that more uh production needs to happen. And I think that's fallen into two main camps. I think one is the protectionist side where people kind of yearn for that old like factory town um golden age. And you know, the the protectionists are people that talk about that a lot. So I think some people have been convinced um that tariffs are the way to go about that. But I think on the left more you see this with this whole abundance movement too where um and to their credit they've been I mean better than most progressives in the past past have been about admitting that like yeah especially in places like California the amount of regulations are hampering production but they still come at it from this very like central planning oriented the government needs to come in and coordinate all this stuff where what I was pointing out in this article is like the the good news with all this is that we don't need new government programs. We don't need new tax dollars. All we need the government to do is step back and allow more housing to be built, allow more health care services um to be offered. It's not like we actually like we don't need more bureaucrats figuring this problem out. We just need an absence of them. So I I think it's interesting that both of those movements are kind of having a resurgence right now. And I think in part that's because you can only tell people that, you know, oh, we just passed a new more spending and the problems are going to be a thing of the past. have the opposite happen uh so many times before people just stop believing you. >> Well, and I think we're approaching the final phase of uh this current scheme in some ways because as as you mentioned though, right, we've got the proliferation of these buy now pay later uh programs. It seems that you keep driving prices up, there's not a clear way to actually bring down the final cost of anything. They've got no ideas there. So, how do we get people to afford things? Well, you can just make multiple payments on your sandwich then and you just string out everything, finance everything. So, you can get the uh the one-time payment is lower, but then you have to make that payment multiple times. So, that's of course been the strategy for mortgages. And uh when it's when it's fixed rate and it's backed up by government insurance and that sort of thing, it's worked out pretty well. But we've got an article here by Hunter Smathers today at mises.org. The hidden cost of buy now pay later culture. And it just really looks at how our inflationbased economy and just the fact that prices of so many goods and services have gotten so high that the to accommodate this we've just now got buy now pay later for everything. >> Yeah. And that's I mean you can see how essentially that is the natural response to prices just being so high. And I think it then manages to uh to to string out longer your your inflation-based economy because even though yeah, I can't afford that car anymore. That's okay. I'll just have a very very long uh car payment schedule now. And of course, it it it used to be, right, you might have a year-long uh payment schedule, maybe 18 months, but now it just keeps getting longer and longer in terms of the amount of time you're paying off these cars. And you you almost by the time you pay it off, you want your next car. And that's that's I think a large part of the issue behind buy now pay later is you've even forgotten what this thing was you bought and you're still making payments on it. uh like your Subway sandwich or whatever like a month later you're still paying this stuff. It's really quite quite remarkable and I think it's a sign of economic weakness, not a sign of like financial innovation or anything. This is just a way to get people to buy more. >> Yeah. Yeah. Know using financial innovation very uh my tongue firmly through my [laughter] cheek there. Um but but yeah, I mean it's it's you know the growth of these things. I want to shout out uh the author uh Mr. Matters are a a student of tape FG at Montre College. So, always good to see that. >> Um but but again, like this has been, you know, and it's it's it's interesting because I think part of what is driving some of this is also this is a very dangerous thing, right? But it's also kind of an internalized understanding of of like just the inflationary culture that we have as well. It's not only the fact that they can't afford right now, but they also got to recognize, okay, well, you know, inflation is going to be bad, so might as well kick this can down the road as much as possible. Um but it's it's absolutely a topsyturvy world and and once uh u it's a sign of a severe moral decay and severe moral decline um when when this is what the consumer economy is larg is is you know being propped up by in in a significant way and there's definitely a generational component to this as well and I think this is why you see a lot of cynicism a lot of of anger a lot of frustration um and and you know where I think some of the most important work to be done is trying to educate you know, these sort of components to the youngest generations out there because like they're the ones that are coming into this world. Um, and and the ones most using these sort of products. And so this is a a very real problem and it all goes down to again this this massive affordability bubble that uh a crisis that's again has no real political solution at this point. >> Well, for our last few minutes, I wanted to bring up an important issue. I don't know if you've been uh watching the news, but apparently today was the funeral for former Vice President Dick Cheney. And uh I thought of this because Lou Rockwell has an article at visa.org uh I think we posted yesterday called I Why I Won't Be Mourning Dick Cheney. And Lou has to do this a lot where he has to start out the article by pointing out that this whole don't uh don't speak poorly of the dead is actually a mistransation of an earlier um Greek phrase which was actually more accurately do not malign the dead. Maligning of course would imply some sort of mistruth in what you're stating. However, by pointing out that Dick Cheney is one of the worst people who ever lived in America, where's the lie on that? I don't think uh that's [laughter] that seems like that's hard to uh to dispute. I mean, you look at Lou's article here and it's really just remarkable the damage a single human being had managed to do over the years. And it's just so irritating to see the way that the media still responds to um to politician deaths, right? You know that when Biden dies, we're going to have to sustain we're going to have to listen to days of the media talking about what an amazing human being he was, how great he was, what a hero he was for America, devoted all those. They they would never portray his 40 years of not having a real job as a bad thing. They would portray it as 40 years of devoted government service. Right? Here's a guy who never actually contributed to the US economy in any way and was always just a a ne negative. And we have to do this a lot with vice presidents, too. And that's what we're living through right now with the whole Cheney thing is they're they're trying to come up with something nice to say about him which he was the the funniest thing about the left was that toward this happens over and over but Cheney was one of the most recent people to pull it off was he he started criticizing Donald Trump. So then the media initi immediately starts calling him a member of the resistance and starts saying that Dick Cheney is part of uh the anti- athoritarian forces within within America and you're just like was there ever a bigger supporter of the Patriot Act? Was there ever a bigger supporter of the surveillance state of extrajudicial killings of endless wars that killed thousands of Americans for no purpose whatsoever? Uh Dick Cheney has been a a lifelong proponent of wars that ended up being lost and went nowhere, but they did end up making him a lot of money through his connections to various defense contractors and that sort of thing. And so it's just astounding to me that anybody has anything nice to say about this quintessential member of the deep state who spent his entire career basically trying to destroy the Bill of Rights. And he wasn't bad just on foreign policy and civil rights. He was bad on just regular old fiscal policy. That his one of his most famous economic quotes is deficits don't matter. Y >> and so our current state of affairs in terms of fiscal and monetary policy. Thanks, Dick Cheney. And so, I don't know. I hopefully you guys have nasty things to say. I mean, I just it's just really disconcerting that we're we go through this panime that this a polit an old politician dies who spent decades destroying America and we're supposed to act like they're some sort of hero. It's idiotic. >> What gets me is like how long the flags are at half mass. It's like the dude like died like no November 4th and it was still d like I I like oh so they don't they don't they don't raise it until like you know he's he's in the ground or something like I I not realize that. So hey Dick Cheney did teach me something there today. So good good props to him for that. Um yeah the whole puppet circumstance is is so interesting. I mean you did have the whole rev I mean again like you know never forget Kla Harris uh campaigning with uh with with Liz um there. So I mean it's it's you know, the the the archetype like the the caricature of the villainous politician of uh you know, the 21st century, you know, someone who, you know, Democrats and young Republicans alike all kind of hated. Um you even even he could be resurrected if if you have the right enemies. I can't wait to see how how Trump is treated after he, you know, after he's off the stage. Like even even Donald Trump had his virtues rather than so and so, you know, in in in place right now. It's it's inevitable there. The one good thing I can say about Dick Cheney is that uh the the performance he inspired from Christian Bale and Vice, it's magnificent. So, uh yeah, that's that's the one positive thing is that Vice is an entertaining movie. Um and I I I will appreciate his legacy for at least providing >> providing that. >> Well, he's been a fixer basically your guys' whole lives, right? >> Yeah. I mean, it's just because it goes back, I don't know, 25 years he's been on the front pages more than that. So, >> and he provided so many great memes, right? Like, you know, the heartless politician, right? You know, Darth Vader, uh, shooting his hunting buddy, >> right? Like, you know, resembling the penguin from Batman, right? Like, I mean, he just fits so many different iconic roles in, you know, from political satire um, at any given time. So he he was a again that was his greatest contribution to [laughter] to political thought for my opinion. >> He was a little bit before my time. I mean I was alive. I just I really didn't pay attention to politics until I was basically out of high school. Um >> so you were well adjusted growing up. [laughter] >> Yeah. Um but I I I did actually watch uh George W. Bush's eulogy of him and Liz Cheney spoke to. I was just kind of interested to see what they would say. And I I really feel like this would have been a much bigger thing if he had died in Trump's first term. Um because the media really went out of their way to draw parallels back to George W. Bush, the George W. Bush years, and framing that as like this amazing time of civility of having civility in the White House and a Republican uh party that was at least nice um to to their opponents. And I've talked, I think, on this show before about how really the dynamic was they they wanted to the left wanted to trash the right and have the right say nice things back to them. Um, and it just feels like this time around the the establishment is just not quite as worried that Trump is going to meaningfully come in and drain the swamp and um, you know, uh, completely cut the Pentagon and like all these things that it seemed like they were at least a little bit apprehensive about the first time around. So, I don't know. Like, it just sort of felt like a a little bit of a a smaller event than it would have the first time around. But as you said, Ryan, there's there are few things that boil my blood more than the term public service and calling themselves public servants. As if like like all like these these horrific wars that they launched completely by choice that were I mean the the level of death and destruction is impossible to truly fathom. but also like the economic cost to the country. It's just absolutely horrific what they did just for the benefits of a few government officials in our country, other countries and well-connected businesses. And then just to have the gall to call that service that this was all for our benefit. It reminds me of that um that Spooner Lzander Spooner quote that Rothbart would always bring up where he talked about how like calling the government nothing more than a criminal or like a a a petty thief like a highway man um is a disservice to these thiefs because at least they don't follow you down the road telling you that when they were robbing you blind that it was for your own good and that you should be thanking them for the the service that they did that they did to you. And that's just um there was a lot of uh calling him you know celebrating public service in this announcement. Well, think of the counter example like imagine if Kla Harris was president for this then his funeral would be c would be I mean you want to talk about you know being sold as a as a beacon of public service they will say oh well see this man this this career Republican he he went across the aisle and he saved democracy from Donald Trump him and his heroic his heroic daughter and and like that that then that would have been a whole major you know ticker I mean the flag would be down for another week right like if if if that had been the alternative timeline there because like that would have been the narrative sold but like you know he got vanquished like everyone else and so like that's I think also kind of plays a role in terms of uh >> that's a good point >> in terms of this as well. Well, that's a good point, too. And that just shows the importance of revisionist history in in the sense of we're fighting right now to determine what is the historical view of the Bush years, what is the historical view of the last 25 years, because you can see how the press is trying to >> portray it right now, right? In the olden days when the regime was untrabled, unquestioned, could have whatever wars they want, pass whatever spy legislation they wanted, eviscerating whatever American rights they liked. That was a time of civility. That was a time where people got along. And now that pe the victims of all that quote unquote civility are actually starting to get upset about it to maybe push back against the regime. Well, now we're in a period of incivility and we're in a period where where people are just off the rails and barbarians and all that stuff, not civilized like when we in the media and the people in Washington ran roughshod over all the people who paid all the bills. That's that's their fantasy version of the past was when things were highly civilized, when things were were going the way they should. And now that there's an actual contest where the outcome is dubious and unknown, this is intolerable levels of incivility. And uh it's just a horrible state of affairs that we should not tolerate. We should just go back to taking our orders from Washington. And you can see this this in the nostalgia of the way the media works now. Oh, if we could only go back to when George W. Bush and Obama would all go to each other's parties and hang out together and the ruling class all got along and everybody else just got in line. And I I think Cheney, building on what you say though, right, maybe there's a slight victory there, right, in that this isn't as big a deal as it might have been and that maybe Chinese uh exaltedness isn't at the level it might have been if Trump had not won again. Um and uh so maybe some progress is being made there, but we'll see beyond uh 2028 if there's anything to be happy about. >> Yeah. I don't I don't want to say that there's going to be lasting progress. I just think like like [laughter] but you know I'll take the small wins we can the fact that you you don't have the president or vice president at Dick Cheney's funeral. [laughter] I take a small symbolic victory and I'm to fire up some Christian bail later to celebrate. >> All right. Well, with that we'll go ahead and wrap up this episode of the Power Market podcast. Thank you though. Thank you Connor for joining me today. I we will not have an episode for Thanksgiving week. Uh cuz we'll all just be flying around doing stuff and I suspect many of you out there will have a lot going on as well. >> Yeah. Ryan, what's your favorite Thanksgiving dish? >> Uh well, I'm very partial to pumpkin pie, I suppose, because I don't eat it the rest of the year, right? I mean, how how often do you eat pumpkin pie? So, that's pretty great. I even grow my own pumpkins, I should note. You know, >> that does not surprise me. Not to brag, [laughter] this year I would have had two. I had two beautiful pumpkins and then a squirrel like destroyed one of them. I was very much enraged. Uh but there's one left so I'll make it into a pie. >> How big do your pumpkins get? >> Uh not that big cuz right the super big ones aren't as good for pie. I do grow them for eating. >> I didn't realize pumpkins could get like thousands of pounds large until this year. So that was a that was one of my you know paths of self-discovery. I've not grown one. I don't want to don't want to do that. But I learned that fact this week. I do have a friend here in town who uh he's probably listening he listens to this podcast where he does every year he grows these humongous >> pumpkins and there's contests and all sorts of stuff, right? You could always end up local news. [laughter] >> Yeah, that's a public servant right there. How about you, Connor? >> Here. >> I don't really have a favorite single dish. My I just what I love about Thanksgiving is just combining everything. So, the turkey, the stuff, >> there you go. >> The the gravy. >> Yeah. With some cranberry on top. I'm all about the combinations. Yeah, I did the uh I'm I'm a big uh uh green be green bean casserole. Okay. >> Big green bean casserole guy, but anything pairs well with football. So, >> Connor, answer me this right. I Isn't there a thing in like New Jersey, New York, all this where there's like some sort of oyster dish that gets served at Thanksgiving? Or is this specific to >> But okay. >> I don't know. I'm in like a transplant family. We came from California, so Okay. I I don't know all of the local customs, but that does sound a little familiar. I'll ask around and uh and let you know. >> Your New Jersey roots aren't deep enough to know about the oyster Thanksgiving thing. Yeah, I never even heard of that out west, but apparently this is a thing. So, >> does New Jersey count as New England? >> No. >> That kind of borderline? No, it's >> I feel I feel like it just feels very New England to me. >> No, there's Massachusetts. >> There's a lot of different types of analysis you can do on that. I There's a a great book >> break this down [laughter] now. There's a great book I recommend everybody read called American Nations which tries to actually break up the or define the actual nations that make up North America. And they argue that it's essentially part of two nations. So northern New Jersey is what they call it New Netherlands. It's essentially a big suburb of New York City. Southern New Jersey is a suburb of Philadelphia. And so there's a big divide between North and South Jersey. And they're two pretty culturally different places despite being the uh in the same state. So, yeah, that there's a bit of a nuanced answer. >> You were north or south when you lived there. >> Ah, okay. Right. Well, that's tri-state area, right? That's like New York orientation, right? Yes. >> Down south is like a Philadelphia orientation, I guess. >> Yeah. >> I don't know. >> So, so you're not in a blood feud with Joe Serno then. >> No. No. >> There you go. >> Right. Cuz he's North New Jersey, too, right? Yeah. >> Yes. Very unfortunately. [laughter] >> You don't have an accent, though. So, I don't know. I don't know what to do with you, Connor. >> No. Moved there when I was nine. And I guess I didn't really pick it up. >> The Well, we used to have these uh issues, right? Was uh should you have um Virginia ham or should you have turkey, which I guess was the pilgrim's preferred meal? I don't know. The question is, do we side with the earlier settlement in Virginia or with the slightly later settlement in Massachusetts? Who really has a claim to uh the original founders of America? So, uh I guess you can just come down wherever you want on that one. Uh, but I I don't know. We all just end up eating turkey. So I I Was that some sort of like propaganda victory? I >> I think so. >> Okay. >> Big turkey. [laughter] >> Big turkey. Well, Cranberry, right? That's a New England thing. >> Yeah. >> So, you're right. Oh, man. New England really does dominate the uh uh Harvard all these years later. We're just We just do what we're told >> by those people. Awful. All right. Well, I'll leave everybody all of our listeners to uh your Thanksgiving meals and uh thank you for listening to this episode of Power Market Podcast. We'll see you next time. [music] There you go.
Jobs Numbers, Dick Cheney, and Thanksgiving Turkey
Summary
Transcript
[music] Welcome back to the Power and Market podcast. I'm Ryan McMaken, editor and chief at the Mises Institute. And with me today are two of our contributing editors. We've got th Bishop and we have Connor O'Keefe and we're going to talk about a variety of different issues today. I think maybe just uh I feel like we we got to mention the jobs numbers. It's been a while since we had any jobs numbers. Why? Well, because the government was shut down. The federal government was shut down. And of course, we've had plenty of nasty things to say about jobs numbers, about official government data. But since this this data is used to make Fed policy and is used in predicting Fed policy, we might as well have a look. And uh the So now we've just got September's numbers. We got caught up to September's numbers, which should have been released many weeks ago in early October. So, they're now putting these numbers out. And a lot of the theorizing was that the the jobs numbers were going to look very very bad. Uh why? Because why why were they so unenthusiastic about doing anything to get the jobs numbers uh out to the public again? And uh it turns out that uh they they have they have uh put out an estimation of 119,000 jobs gained. Now this is nothing like the sort of jobs numbers that we frequently saw during the Biden years as they that they were pumping out which were boy 200 190,000 200,000 that sort of stuff 220 uh this is 119 so still substantial but we've been down this road before. We know how this this works. you put out a big number with your initial release on the jobs numbers and then you revise it down substantially afterward. So, this isn't even really a big number being down around 100,000. But if the last several months is any sort of indication, it's going to be revised out substantially. And we can see this in the recent numbers because if we look at what happened throughout the summer, we already knew that we had negative job growth in June and uh July showed a bit of an increase. Uh and May had very very weak numbers as well. So they've done some additional revisions uh releasing these new jobs numbers today. And so August actually turned negative again on that and down to -4,000 jobs. Uh and that have been revised down from plus 22,000. And so here we are now with over the summer two different months with negative jobs numbers, very weak jobs numbers in July and in May. So what what are we to make of that? Well, if you if you were to listen to uh Jerome Powell on this in recent months during his FOMC press conferences, he really started emphasizing uh the unemployment number. Started saying, well, the payroll numbers uh they're okay, but really we're looking at at the unemployment rate now. And part of that part of the rationale behind that was was that even though there was very very little new job growth, he was pointing to the fact that there was also a substantial decline in total uh of number of available workers because thanks to deportations, even though he didn't put this away, uh deportations were driving down total hires but also of course driving down demand for jobs. So he said, "So we're going to look at the unemployment rate and that's what really matters now." He emphasizes both in the last FOMC meeting and the one before that. So what are those numbers now? Well, it's up to 4.4% in September was the unemployment rate. That's a that's a cycle high. It's the highest in four years. So we're seeing then continued increases in uh unemployment there as well. And remember this is coming at a time where you're having substantial people leaving the workforce both due to less immigration due to self-deportations and also just due to the fact that uh among other groups as well you're having declining labor force participation. So considering all of that and still having an increase in the unemployment rate uh that's that's not a sign of a great labor market. And remember these are the government numbers. These are the best that they can come up with. Uh and it's probably going to be revised down then the next time we see these numbers. Now you remember a couple of months ago the revisions were so huge that became embarrassing uh because they would put out these big job gains numbers uh throughout the early summer and then they would come back and do big downward revisions. And then Trump threw this little temper tantrum where he's like, "Oh, this is ridiculous to have all these numbers that end up being revised down so much, so I'm going to fire the head of the BLS." Uh, so he did that. It apparently hasn't made any change. I mean, obviously Trump was like too dumb, I guess, to figure out that the the revision scam that they run made him look good just as much as it made Biden look good when Biden was president. Uh so you don't actually want to get rid of that because the way it works is you put out the big positive number, it gets reported in the press and then you get much less coverage for the revision numbers later. So maybe he just decided after the fact that okay, I don't really want to stop that situation. So now here we're just living through uh big initial numbers followed by downward revisions. But then on top of that, we're looking at a rising unemployment rate. That's the highest we've seen in years. Uh also, uh seeing increases in initial claims and just a lot of weakness in general in the job markets. So I as far as other issues go, what'll this mean? I think that's bad for if you wanted another cut to the federal funds rate. Um because if if Powell can point to these numbers and say, "Well, uh look, we gained a bunch of payroll jobs and I I don't know what he'll say about the unemployment rate number made that it's not that high." I guess if he's going to draw all this attention to the unemployment number and then say, "Well, okay, it went up to a four-year high, but uh that's not enough for us to cut rates." We get mixed messages every month from the Fed on these numbers. And so maybe he'll just have a completely different criteria for for what matters next time. But at least this report gives him something he can point to and say, "Hey, look, payroll numbers were up, so therefore we don't need another cut to the federal funds rate," which I'm sure would just enrage Trump even more. And that sort of thing, cuz Trump's on this big easy money kick right now. Uh nevertheless though, it's hardly then I think baked into what the policy is going to be in December at the next FOMC meeting which the FOMC press conference will be on the 10th. Uh so what's going to happen then? I don't know. Uh this if the jobs numbers had been terrible, I think we could have just easily said, "Oh yeah, they're clearly going to cut in December." But now I don't think it's nearly as clear in this case. So we shall see. Um, and the one one wrinkle to that though is the fact that the next job numbers aren't going to come out before that meeting. They've announced that there's that the November numbers which will come out which normally would come out in um December are going to be delayed. And so it looks like right now, if I'm reading that correctly, that they're going to meet on the 9th and 10th and not have the most recent jobs number. So, as has been happening the last 6 weeks or so, the Fed is just kind of flying blind on this and that may continue then into December. So, we're just expecting them to make policy based on all this partial data and everything after being told, of course, for the last 50 years that they have the best economist, the best data and it's all data dependent and everything. Yet again, it looks like they're just making stuff up because they have even worse data than the private sector has in many cases. So job situation uh nothing to write home about. If you are unemployed, you're probably in deep trouble because uh these payroll numbers aren't really doing much to assuage the the current situation of what Powell himself calls the no hire, no fire economy where, yeah, there's overall not a ton of net layoffs, but there's not much hiring either. So, uh I'm [laughter] if you got something good going on, I'd say stick to it. Don't uh don't quit. capricciously unless you really really hate your job. >> Yeah, absolutely. And and this that's an interesting jobs report one in the October numbers, right? We're just we're washing those away, right? That's not coming out at all, right? Because the government shutdown and so that's why we have that that that continued delay there. Um it will be interesting to see there there is something I think in terms of the the the political angle which is all you know the big driving point of all this right now is that if you're trying to make a a very rosy um selling point some of the subsections um you looking at our analysis from our good friends at Zero Hedge um does help highlight that you know perhaps the best selling point that if you were um looking to sell uh the administ frustration right now is that uh nativeborn uh uh employment has gone up by a million something jobs while foreign um labor is driving a lot of the downward pressure there which obviously is going to going to play to a particular audience there. What I I think is most interesting though is that within the broader uh spectre of tariffs as the top policy, some of the weakest areas from the report are in sectors such as warehouses and you know uh courier jobs and kind of the whole sort of the logistics aspect of the economy is where some of the the worst data came from all of this. Um but again but this is the problem though is that you know the underlying issues that we know existed right that sparked as you mentioned the firing of the BLS head right the issues in terms of the way they um the formulas they use for these numbers have not been revamped um you know we're still we haven't dealt with any sort of radical change in that position you know the revisionist aspect of it isn't going away anytime soon um so again like you know these these numbers are a press release they are you Twitter fodder for 24 to 48 hours. It is scary to the extent that it will directly impact monetary policy or at least be used as a rationalization for monetary policy in December. And it is interesting that uh you going back to our friends at Zero Hedge that despite some of the you know mixed um narrative from the underlying reports odds for a December rate cut um did go up from their own measurements. Take that for what it's worth. Again, you know, this is all all a guessing game at this point. Um but but even that even even the the more positive silver lining from the original estimates from, you know, various indust industry figures, it is certainly not um you know, setting the stage for uh you know, hawkish, you know, pal to return by any means. >> Yeah, Connor, I mean, what was your general impression of this? >> What just stands out to me is how familiar this all feels. It feels like the same thing that we were going through under Biden. And yeah, you're right to point out the fact that this is probably going to get revised away um if the past couple years is any indication. Um and I don't know if like the Fed will factor that into their decisions at all, but it's just I I guess like to me the vibes just sort of feel like um the same as they were under Biden. I think that's backed up by the polling. I I read some there was a Fox News poll that came out last night that said it was 76% of voters are uh not happy about the economy and that's up from 70% under Biden and it it got down to like I think like 67% or so over the summer. So it feels like people were you know not feeling good under Biden you know in the Biden years. um we had, you know, these jobs reports coming all out all the time and then getting revised away. That was sort of the chief dynamic. It's what we talked about last week that people weren't feeling good about the economy. The um the White House and the media were saying, you know, you're stupid if you if you're feeling bad about the economy. Um and then Trump comes in and I guess people thought that there would be some changes happening but it's just kind of continued on and it seems like now um the uh according to that poll um more people [clears throat] are feeling um unhappy with the with the state of the economy and I I imagine some of that is probably just some frustration with the fact that nothing's really changed and it kind of to me it feels like we've sort of settled into this like a minor stagflation kind of situation where the economies You know, it's not terrible. We're not in the middle of a recession for sure, but it's not great. And inflation is high enough that the the Fed is at least a little bit worried about just cutting rates dramatically. And it doesn't really feel like there's an end date to this, like we're just going to kind of keep floating along. Um, you know, there there could be some dramatic crisis, you know, a few weeks down the road. like for all we know there there's no telling but it's just um it just kind of feels like we're floating and this jobs report just it just felt like the same thing that we've been seeing. Well, I'm curious to see what the tax revenue data is going to show in the next few months. I think that'll tell us a lot about earnings uh at the individual level significantly and then then we'll know more. I mean, the the Treasury has gone really into a full speed ahead in terms of trying to deal with all of this maturing debt that's happening right now and they've got uh ongoing deficit issues and if that's just going to become all the more acute if u revenues go down at all. The assumption in all the models is always that revenue will there won't be a recession. Right? You look at any of these uh congressional reports that come out talking about what are interest rates going to be 5 years from now, it's always stable, more or less, maybe a very slight drift upward, but always very stable. And tax revenue is always stable and there's never any real uh recession on the horizon. That's just like standard operating procedure for these government uh forecasters. So that's that's when we know we'll be in a different situation, I think, is when tax revenue starts to really go down. then you won't even really be able to say anymore that oh things are holding steady it's just sort of a general malaise. uh then government starts getting into real trouble when that happens. And then people rarely talk about this, but when that happens, you also have parallel big-time cuts at in state and local government when that happens. And they can't just keep printing money. They actually have to start cutting jobs and cutting programs. That occurred in the early days under COVID, you may remember, where local and state governments were just laying people off, their employees. And this this persisted for a short period until the feds p uh printed so much money and handed out so much money to state and local governments that they didn't have to do that uh anymore. But that's one aspect of recessionary economics that people generally don't talk about is just uh there's so much focus on the federal government. But man, state and local spending that gets eviscerated during any sort of real recessionary period. So, I think that's when we'll really know uh for sure because that comes across as real dollars in terms of state and local revenues. So, >> well, and one thing too to go to Connor's point about Vibes, um you know, uh University of Michigan has their consumer sentiment um data that comes in and um I just pulled it up. They have their numbers for November already out and significant decrease from October and it's it's the the second lowest um of this particular measure. I think they've started like 2016 so it's the second you know lowest number in in a decade. Um and the only time that was worse than what it is right now was uh June of 2022 which is where you had inflation reaching you know 40 40 year highs. That was that was a very bad time. Um and that was that was you know not that far off from from where this number is. And so I think that is part of you know I think that is one measure you know as as inadequate as as you know we can we can we can critique those p those specific sort of survey sort of data all we want but if trying to to take into account you know that sort of vibes that sort of just just feeling sort of component out there. Um you know this is one measure that kind of very well illustrates exactly what Connor is pointing to. Well, and the default data just isn't looking any better either. If you start looking around at what's available for that, you continue to see, we've talked about this before, but 30-day credit card late payments, highest in 11 years. 90-day auto loan delinquencies, highest in 15 years. Student loan delinquencies, of course, at record highs, right? That's been dysfunctional for years. And mortgage delinquencies highest in eight years. uh some other stats I I showed I saw from Bloomberg said that uh mortgage delinquencies you know foreclosures which is an advanced very advanced stage of delinquencies up 20%. Now, that's starting from a very low number. Um, but you only need to do that so many times before you end up with significant uh foreclosure numbers. And remember, a whole lot of that we're still coming out of all of these moratoria and all these other efforts to prevent foreclosures uh during the COVID years. And it seems that in a lot of the trends there, everything's reverting back to what we saw say in about 2018 2019. Uh so it's at that stage now and that was all gearing up. 2019 was gearing up toward a recession because there was clearly looking at the data and the repo crisis and everything that was going on in 2019. Things weren't looking good for 2020 in a normal economy. But then COVID hit and they printed so much money that that ended up not being a problem. But uh whatever gains had occurred during COVID, it was just all money printed bubble economy is what was going on during that period. and that as that seems to be working its way out. Although it was so much money, it's taking a long time. And I think you're going to continue to see a lot of up and down numbers and things like jobs and delinquencies and all of that for a period until it's clear what the trend is. Um, but it's impossible to see where any great economic growth at this point is going to come from. Uh, with tariffs up, regulation hasn't substantially decreased. Uh, there's just really not any gas in the tank to, uh, make any substantial gains at this point. So, um I think if you were one of these young people looking for a job and we we've got these disastrous numbers in terms of right even a year later uh only about half of uh college grads are finding work uh in anything other than right waitressing or something like that. I it's if on the lower end it's it's very bad. And really I think it's a three- layered cake really you're looking at right now. There's right there's this top elite that is doing fabulous right now in terms of the economy. Asset prices are going through the roof still and they're doing great. Uh then you get the middle class which is which is struggling and not really keeping up. And then you got the lower classes which are just more and more on welfare and that seems to be the economy right now. And as long as you can keep those top that top slice numbers looking real good in the aggregate, that ends up working out to something that makes the economy look pretty decent. But for people on the inside, it doesn't look uh nearly as good. But but we're still relying on a lot of uh uh anecdotal information right now because the numbers themselves are are quite mediocre. But if you're looking for real dramatic stories, you got to you got to really just kind of look out on the street. Um, and then it's hard to say how how pervasive those examples are or how representative they are. I mean, you see a lot of it in social media. I mean, one guy one guy I follow yesterday, I assume it's a guy uh because it's it's Twitter. Um, where uh he said that his his Uber Eats people in recent days have been young and good-looking. So, this is this is proof that it's all over that the economy is toast. Even these people are reduced to now uh delivering food and so just give up everybody uh batten down the hatches. I don't know. That's anecdotal evidence. Does it really reflect uh the reality? I don't know. Right on par with, you know, Greenspan's underwear index, right? When when people start if if people are buying fresh underwear, then that's usually a sign that the economy is good. And when your underwear has holes in it, it's a sign the recession is ahead. So, love how >> I mean, that's not wrong, right? Hey, you know, like there's a priority true. >> It's essentially deferred maintenance, right? How many holes are in your underwear? How long can you defer that purchase? Um, eventually you just run out of cloth and [laughter] and you got to make the purchase, but maybe you don't have the money. I mean, this could be applied to so many things. I mean, real estate, of course, uh, famously with all the deferred maintenance that goes on there, and that's how how conditions start to get worse. Um, but I where is this this money for uh capital investment going to come from? There's no savings. Savings rate are near all-time lows. Um, productivity. I mean, >> yeah. Like some of the biggest innovations we have right now, and I know we've got an article um, you know, touching on on this a bit, and this has been kind of a one of those topics that's been bubbling in the headlines for for quite some time. Um but it's you know the biggest innovation has been pay now buy later stuff like how how many how many different ways can we split up financial obligations for the future you know how how how far can we bottle down uh you know these these debt finance uh instruments you down to the burrito level you that's some of the the real innovation going on the modern American economy and I think that kind of speaks to very larger trends going on >> well that that speaks to the affordability issue um which let's go ahead and talk about that a a little bit. Connor, you had a column on this uh at mises.org this week on how to really address some of those issues and you take a pretty broad look at a lot of the things that have uh have experienced enormous uh increases in prices and that of course we're not talking about any of the real ways to address some of these these issues. So, I don't know. Can you just tell us a little bit about the article and kind of what just just the overall overall situation is if if we really want to do something about affordability? >> Yeah, I was motivated to write this after I think it was last week we were just talking about how the Republicans have no ideas for this stuff. So, yeah, they're sort of scrambling now after the off-year elections to be like, "Oh, we care about affordability, too." But they just don't really have anything to offer. And I thought that I would just try to lay out um a n what needs to happen on a number of fronts. Um I I think I looked at um education, housing, um energy and healthcare were the ones I focused on just because I'll have a similar u there's a similar dynamic at work with um in all those uh areas where you essentially have uh decades if not centuries of government intervention that very predictably cause these dynamics. Usually the government comes in, they restrict supply in some capacity and then that forces out prices and then they come in later with these demand side subsidies and flood the market with demand by pouring tax dollars in and then the price just explodes and it of course happens to be for a lot of these areas that people consider important. You know, like healthcare is a very important service and so people are usually more willing to let the government come in and help. the way that the government does that um has just led to this. It's just a complete disaster and it's true for a lot of these fronts. And when people are talking about the affordability crisis, it's usually those big things, medical bills, housing, things like that. And so I just wanted to go through and just point out that like okay there are specific policies we have to go back and eliminate um if we actually want to you know stop uh like constraining supply and like if we actually want to bring supply and demand back in you know uh to have it start like reflecting reality so that prices can kind of reflect reality like what do we actually have to go target? I just wanted to lay all that out because it's just not been a part of the conversation at all. And then of course at the end I I touch on money too. That's like the big one that always gets left out. Of course that's kind of the thing that we're always talking about um in our little corner of this world. But like the fact that the government aims to destroy the value of the dollar um every single year, you know, by by 2% but like there was um Alex Pollock gave a talk. We had an event at Cornerstone University a few uh at the beginning of the month and he was just pointing out that the fact that this is these are there's a compounding effect 2% every single year is substantial over the length of a lifetime and then if you just increase that a little bit he uh gave us the numbers for 3% too which is sort of where we've been hovering for a while like that that is not an in an insignificant um like destruction of value of the currency and like that of course is leading to higher prices and I I guess I was just I was fed up with everybody talking about how they want to talk about affordability and not having anything to uh to actually say about it and I think it's important if you know to to the extent that the public can pressure politicians at all if the public can have a better understanding what actually has to happen then it would be you know a lot easier to dismiss politicians that like Amam Donnie who claims to want to you know make life more affordable but isn't actually interested or knowledgeable about the actual causes of um our affordability crisis. >> Well, I noticed that historically there was a there was a switch uh toward the late uh 19th century where early on when you got big gains in productivity and economic growth and all that uh a lot of the focus on making life better was on increasing supply and in bringing down the prices of things by increasing supply. So there was a lot of evidence or a lot of emphasis on reducing regulatory barriers. They didn't really use this language back then, but reducing regulatory barriers and really uh increasing competition and more entry into the workplace. Uh this was right at this was in the 70s, ' 80s and 90s of the of the 19th century. And that was really sort of your neocclassical gospel back then was, oh, if we want more stuff, if we want more people to buy things, we have to somehow bring down the cost of making those things. But that ceased to be the popular economic um leaning bent um uh idea. And that was replaced by all of this, hey, we have to just uh subsidize and supplement demand. And uh that started to gain currency in the early 20th century with the progressives. But really then by the 30s, right, that just became established policy with the New Deal was we just start funneling money, whether it's printed money uh or whether it's just a tax transfer to get people buying more things. But as keeps coming up again and again, when you're just funneling more money into specific types of goods and services, this just makes the price go up without any gains in productivity, without any gains in efficiency in terms of uh how many of these units can we make? Uh and there certainly doesn't produce necessarily more competition because actually subsidies tend to help already your big incumbent firms that can take advantage of these government uh programs best. uh because there's so much paperwork is all highly bureaucratic and everything and small startup firms that just presents more of a barrier for them to overcome to to get their hands on that sweet government money and so it's just a to the whole thing's been inverted and turned on its head where the idea was we need to produce more and make things more cheap. Uh, and now it's, oh, we need to just give people more money so so that they buy more stuff. But all that does then is bring up demand and raise prices because at that point there's no motivation to be more productive to produce more goods at a lower cost because you now have built-in customer which is the federal government that's just going to keep funneling money toward you. And you see this clearly in health care and in higher education. And has there been any improvements in quality whatsoever? Um, thanks to medical science, because there's a side of of medicine that is just actual research and science and separate from the uh the the the services provided at the consumer level. Uh that's where you see all those price increases at the consumer level in healthcare. And it's really quite remarkable at how much those price go up and they just always outnumber actual gains in income. Why? Because it's based on government subsidy, not based on actual ability to pay in the private market. So, you just see those prices are out of control. Prices in um higher ed. I mean, it's just really amazing. And you don't get any of the benefits of a more streamlined and productive economy. And that's been the gospel now for over a hundred years. And unless we can get start people thinking in terms of reducing prices instead of increasing spendable income then I I just it's hard to imagine how they're going to be able to change uh the way they're doing things. >> Of course, one of the areas where we've seen that um seen growth in making you revolutionary changes on the supply side is like direct primary care and of course in I'm going to make my pitch now. February 21st, Oklahoma City uh first event for the Mises Institute. Uh we've got uh Dr. Keith Smith who with Oklahoma Surgery Center, one of the the great uh success stories out there, um of of working that model and expanding it elsewhere. We'll have other great entrepreneurial study uh uh leaders hitting this very topic of actually solving these problems that that politics creates. Uh so mises.org/events book up now. Um, but one thing though I think is interesting, Ryan, and I know this is a topic that Connor uh looks at a lot as well is that if you think about because imagine now, right, imagine today if you were to have a massive austerity push and I mean like a real austerity push, right? Like not like a a decline of projected growth where it's, you know, we're now we're now spending 2% more rather than 5% more, right? But in an actual massive austerity uh pitch, you you'd be inundated with non-stop cable news media about how you're being deprived, you know, of of all the the good things in the world, right? It's this non-stop propaganda apparatus that the modern political media system has where you know there there everything is filtered through a political policy lens which is a gimme lens rather than being able to see sort of entrepreneurial you ventures pop up and things like that right the entire story is told from pol politics downward I mean that's where like right now right like if if you look at the most most radical reforms out there It's not about reducing government spending in these sectors. Like take take health care, right? We we finally have something that resembles um a healthcare reform uh uh plan out there. I know Rick Scott's been been working on something and and the big change um you the one of the biggest changes of this is rather than having government spending funnel through Obamacare subsidies, it'd be federal spending funneled through individual health savings accounts. And so like that that would that would probably be a massive improvement in the right direction based on what exists now, right? You have a lot more control there. It's similar to what we've seen kind of the state level uh education uh reforms, right? Where you you have parent driven uh vouchers rather than the top down model and a lot more flexibility within those things. But but all the the entire focus though is not should government be financing this, should government be spending this, right? Block grants would be like another example of like welfare reform. The question is not should we be spending this money. It is simply focusing on you know what are the best pipes to to funnel this through. And that's as radical as you can get. Saying that we shouldn't directly subsidize you know government insurance plans but instead give a little bit more consumer sovereignty on the issue. That's the closest thing you can get to a radical reform because everything is filtered through this political lens in the way that we you know your average person not us but your average person considers the the the individual relationship with broad economic sectors and so until there's a massive change you didn't have that problem right back in the you know the jonian era right your your your your whole thing is coming from like you know partisan uh penny newspapers and things like that right you're getting ideological you're being told you every single day like oh you know you're you're you're having your your bread taken from you because the politicians have cut this this spending program. It's entirely different framework and and a lot of that's driven through media persuasion on how your average person negotiates and and and sees themselves within this hyperpoliticized economy. >> Yeah, I think there's I wouldn't say there's like growing skepticism, but it feels like we're in a moment of confusion um on on this front. And I think kind of to what you're saying, Ryan, like we've had hundreds of or not hundreds, about a hundred years now of the government coming in and saying, "Okay, to fix this problem, we're just going to spend more money on we're going to help people pay for it." And you can only do that so many times, the same thing over and over again without it working before some people like just it's it becomes harder and harder to ignore. And like you just look back at all the big like progressive successes like Medicare all the way through like Obamacare and they were just acting like the problem had been solved that you know once Obamacare was passed like we we did it guys healthcare is fixed now and it clearly wasn't. Now, of course, they like shut down the government over these extra subsidies. And so, I think like that hasn't manifested, like I said, in skepticism about this, but I think people are confused. And I think there's an understanding that more uh production needs to happen. And I think that's fallen into two main camps. I think one is the protectionist side where people kind of yearn for that old like factory town um golden age. And you know, the the protectionists are people that talk about that a lot. So I think some people have been convinced um that tariffs are the way to go about that. But I think on the left more you see this with this whole abundance movement too where um and to their credit they've been I mean better than most progressives in the past past have been about admitting that like yeah especially in places like California the amount of regulations are hampering production but they still come at it from this very like central planning oriented the government needs to come in and coordinate all this stuff where what I was pointing out in this article is like the the good news with all this is that we don't need new government programs. We don't need new tax dollars. All we need the government to do is step back and allow more housing to be built, allow more health care services um to be offered. It's not like we actually like we don't need more bureaucrats figuring this problem out. We just need an absence of them. So I I think it's interesting that both of those movements are kind of having a resurgence right now. And I think in part that's because you can only tell people that, you know, oh, we just passed a new more spending and the problems are going to be a thing of the past. have the opposite happen uh so many times before people just stop believing you. >> Well, and I think we're approaching the final phase of uh this current scheme in some ways because as as you mentioned though, right, we've got the proliferation of these buy now pay later uh programs. It seems that you keep driving prices up, there's not a clear way to actually bring down the final cost of anything. They've got no ideas there. So, how do we get people to afford things? Well, you can just make multiple payments on your sandwich then and you just string out everything, finance everything. So, you can get the uh the one-time payment is lower, but then you have to make that payment multiple times. So, that's of course been the strategy for mortgages. And uh when it's when it's fixed rate and it's backed up by government insurance and that sort of thing, it's worked out pretty well. But we've got an article here by Hunter Smathers today at mises.org. The hidden cost of buy now pay later culture. And it just really looks at how our inflationbased economy and just the fact that prices of so many goods and services have gotten so high that the to accommodate this we've just now got buy now pay later for everything. >> Yeah. And that's I mean you can see how essentially that is the natural response to prices just being so high. And I think it then manages to uh to to string out longer your your inflation-based economy because even though yeah, I can't afford that car anymore. That's okay. I'll just have a very very long uh car payment schedule now. And of course, it it it used to be, right, you might have a year-long uh payment schedule, maybe 18 months, but now it just keeps getting longer and longer in terms of the amount of time you're paying off these cars. And you you almost by the time you pay it off, you want your next car. And that's that's I think a large part of the issue behind buy now pay later is you've even forgotten what this thing was you bought and you're still making payments on it. uh like your Subway sandwich or whatever like a month later you're still paying this stuff. It's really quite quite remarkable and I think it's a sign of economic weakness, not a sign of like financial innovation or anything. This is just a way to get people to buy more. >> Yeah. Yeah. Know using financial innovation very uh my tongue firmly through my [laughter] cheek there. Um but but yeah, I mean it's it's you know the growth of these things. I want to shout out uh the author uh Mr. Matters are a a student of tape FG at Montre College. So, always good to see that. >> Um but but again, like this has been, you know, and it's it's it's interesting because I think part of what is driving some of this is also this is a very dangerous thing, right? But it's also kind of an internalized understanding of of like just the inflationary culture that we have as well. It's not only the fact that they can't afford right now, but they also got to recognize, okay, well, you know, inflation is going to be bad, so might as well kick this can down the road as much as possible. Um but it's it's absolutely a topsyturvy world and and once uh u it's a sign of a severe moral decay and severe moral decline um when when this is what the consumer economy is larg is is you know being propped up by in in a significant way and there's definitely a generational component to this as well and I think this is why you see a lot of cynicism a lot of of anger a lot of frustration um and and you know where I think some of the most important work to be done is trying to educate you know, these sort of components to the youngest generations out there because like they're the ones that are coming into this world. Um, and and the ones most using these sort of products. And so this is a a very real problem and it all goes down to again this this massive affordability bubble that uh a crisis that's again has no real political solution at this point. >> Well, for our last few minutes, I wanted to bring up an important issue. I don't know if you've been uh watching the news, but apparently today was the funeral for former Vice President Dick Cheney. And uh I thought of this because Lou Rockwell has an article at visa.org uh I think we posted yesterday called I Why I Won't Be Mourning Dick Cheney. And Lou has to do this a lot where he has to start out the article by pointing out that this whole don't uh don't speak poorly of the dead is actually a mistransation of an earlier um Greek phrase which was actually more accurately do not malign the dead. Maligning of course would imply some sort of mistruth in what you're stating. However, by pointing out that Dick Cheney is one of the worst people who ever lived in America, where's the lie on that? I don't think uh that's [laughter] that seems like that's hard to uh to dispute. I mean, you look at Lou's article here and it's really just remarkable the damage a single human being had managed to do over the years. And it's just so irritating to see the way that the media still responds to um to politician deaths, right? You know that when Biden dies, we're going to have to sustain we're going to have to listen to days of the media talking about what an amazing human being he was, how great he was, what a hero he was for America, devoted all those. They they would never portray his 40 years of not having a real job as a bad thing. They would portray it as 40 years of devoted government service. Right? Here's a guy who never actually contributed to the US economy in any way and was always just a a ne negative. And we have to do this a lot with vice presidents, too. And that's what we're living through right now with the whole Cheney thing is they're they're trying to come up with something nice to say about him which he was the the funniest thing about the left was that toward this happens over and over but Cheney was one of the most recent people to pull it off was he he started criticizing Donald Trump. So then the media initi immediately starts calling him a member of the resistance and starts saying that Dick Cheney is part of uh the anti- athoritarian forces within within America and you're just like was there ever a bigger supporter of the Patriot Act? Was there ever a bigger supporter of the surveillance state of extrajudicial killings of endless wars that killed thousands of Americans for no purpose whatsoever? Uh Dick Cheney has been a a lifelong proponent of wars that ended up being lost and went nowhere, but they did end up making him a lot of money through his connections to various defense contractors and that sort of thing. And so it's just astounding to me that anybody has anything nice to say about this quintessential member of the deep state who spent his entire career basically trying to destroy the Bill of Rights. And he wasn't bad just on foreign policy and civil rights. He was bad on just regular old fiscal policy. That his one of his most famous economic quotes is deficits don't matter. Y >> and so our current state of affairs in terms of fiscal and monetary policy. Thanks, Dick Cheney. And so, I don't know. I hopefully you guys have nasty things to say. I mean, I just it's just really disconcerting that we're we go through this panime that this a polit an old politician dies who spent decades destroying America and we're supposed to act like they're some sort of hero. It's idiotic. >> What gets me is like how long the flags are at half mass. It's like the dude like died like no November 4th and it was still d like I I like oh so they don't they don't they don't raise it until like you know he's he's in the ground or something like I I not realize that. So hey Dick Cheney did teach me something there today. So good good props to him for that. Um yeah the whole puppet circumstance is is so interesting. I mean you did have the whole rev I mean again like you know never forget Kla Harris uh campaigning with uh with with Liz um there. So I mean it's it's you know, the the the archetype like the the caricature of the villainous politician of uh you know, the 21st century, you know, someone who, you know, Democrats and young Republicans alike all kind of hated. Um you even even he could be resurrected if if you have the right enemies. I can't wait to see how how Trump is treated after he, you know, after he's off the stage. Like even even Donald Trump had his virtues rather than so and so, you know, in in in place right now. It's it's inevitable there. The one good thing I can say about Dick Cheney is that uh the the performance he inspired from Christian Bale and Vice, it's magnificent. So, uh yeah, that's that's the one positive thing is that Vice is an entertaining movie. Um and I I I will appreciate his legacy for at least providing >> providing that. >> Well, he's been a fixer basically your guys' whole lives, right? >> Yeah. I mean, it's just because it goes back, I don't know, 25 years he's been on the front pages more than that. So, >> and he provided so many great memes, right? Like, you know, the heartless politician, right? You know, Darth Vader, uh, shooting his hunting buddy, >> right? Like, you know, resembling the penguin from Batman, right? Like, I mean, he just fits so many different iconic roles in, you know, from political satire um, at any given time. So he he was a again that was his greatest contribution to [laughter] to political thought for my opinion. >> He was a little bit before my time. I mean I was alive. I just I really didn't pay attention to politics until I was basically out of high school. Um >> so you were well adjusted growing up. [laughter] >> Yeah. Um but I I I did actually watch uh George W. Bush's eulogy of him and Liz Cheney spoke to. I was just kind of interested to see what they would say. And I I really feel like this would have been a much bigger thing if he had died in Trump's first term. Um because the media really went out of their way to draw parallels back to George W. Bush, the George W. Bush years, and framing that as like this amazing time of civility of having civility in the White House and a Republican uh party that was at least nice um to to their opponents. And I've talked, I think, on this show before about how really the dynamic was they they wanted to the left wanted to trash the right and have the right say nice things back to them. Um, and it just feels like this time around the the establishment is just not quite as worried that Trump is going to meaningfully come in and drain the swamp and um, you know, uh, completely cut the Pentagon and like all these things that it seemed like they were at least a little bit apprehensive about the first time around. So, I don't know. Like, it just sort of felt like a a little bit of a a smaller event than it would have the first time around. But as you said, Ryan, there's there are few things that boil my blood more than the term public service and calling themselves public servants. As if like like all like these these horrific wars that they launched completely by choice that were I mean the the level of death and destruction is impossible to truly fathom. but also like the economic cost to the country. It's just absolutely horrific what they did just for the benefits of a few government officials in our country, other countries and well-connected businesses. And then just to have the gall to call that service that this was all for our benefit. It reminds me of that um that Spooner Lzander Spooner quote that Rothbart would always bring up where he talked about how like calling the government nothing more than a criminal or like a a a petty thief like a highway man um is a disservice to these thiefs because at least they don't follow you down the road telling you that when they were robbing you blind that it was for your own good and that you should be thanking them for the the service that they did that they did to you. And that's just um there was a lot of uh calling him you know celebrating public service in this announcement. Well, think of the counter example like imagine if Kla Harris was president for this then his funeral would be c would be I mean you want to talk about you know being sold as a as a beacon of public service they will say oh well see this man this this career Republican he he went across the aisle and he saved democracy from Donald Trump him and his heroic his heroic daughter and and like that that then that would have been a whole major you know ticker I mean the flag would be down for another week right like if if if that had been the alternative timeline there because like that would have been the narrative sold but like you know he got vanquished like everyone else and so like that's I think also kind of plays a role in terms of uh >> that's a good point >> in terms of this as well. Well, that's a good point, too. And that just shows the importance of revisionist history in in the sense of we're fighting right now to determine what is the historical view of the Bush years, what is the historical view of the last 25 years, because you can see how the press is trying to >> portray it right now, right? In the olden days when the regime was untrabled, unquestioned, could have whatever wars they want, pass whatever spy legislation they wanted, eviscerating whatever American rights they liked. That was a time of civility. That was a time where people got along. And now that pe the victims of all that quote unquote civility are actually starting to get upset about it to maybe push back against the regime. Well, now we're in a period of incivility and we're in a period where where people are just off the rails and barbarians and all that stuff, not civilized like when we in the media and the people in Washington ran roughshod over all the people who paid all the bills. That's that's their fantasy version of the past was when things were highly civilized, when things were were going the way they should. And now that there's an actual contest where the outcome is dubious and unknown, this is intolerable levels of incivility. And uh it's just a horrible state of affairs that we should not tolerate. We should just go back to taking our orders from Washington. And you can see this this in the nostalgia of the way the media works now. Oh, if we could only go back to when George W. Bush and Obama would all go to each other's parties and hang out together and the ruling class all got along and everybody else just got in line. And I I think Cheney, building on what you say though, right, maybe there's a slight victory there, right, in that this isn't as big a deal as it might have been and that maybe Chinese uh exaltedness isn't at the level it might have been if Trump had not won again. Um and uh so maybe some progress is being made there, but we'll see beyond uh 2028 if there's anything to be happy about. >> Yeah. I don't I don't want to say that there's going to be lasting progress. I just think like like [laughter] but you know I'll take the small wins we can the fact that you you don't have the president or vice president at Dick Cheney's funeral. [laughter] I take a small symbolic victory and I'm to fire up some Christian bail later to celebrate. >> All right. Well, with that we'll go ahead and wrap up this episode of the Power Market podcast. Thank you though. Thank you Connor for joining me today. I we will not have an episode for Thanksgiving week. Uh cuz we'll all just be flying around doing stuff and I suspect many of you out there will have a lot going on as well. >> Yeah. Ryan, what's your favorite Thanksgiving dish? >> Uh well, I'm very partial to pumpkin pie, I suppose, because I don't eat it the rest of the year, right? I mean, how how often do you eat pumpkin pie? So, that's pretty great. I even grow my own pumpkins, I should note. You know, >> that does not surprise me. Not to brag, [laughter] this year I would have had two. I had two beautiful pumpkins and then a squirrel like destroyed one of them. I was very much enraged. Uh but there's one left so I'll make it into a pie. >> How big do your pumpkins get? >> Uh not that big cuz right the super big ones aren't as good for pie. I do grow them for eating. >> I didn't realize pumpkins could get like thousands of pounds large until this year. So that was a that was one of my you know paths of self-discovery. I've not grown one. I don't want to don't want to do that. But I learned that fact this week. I do have a friend here in town who uh he's probably listening he listens to this podcast where he does every year he grows these humongous >> pumpkins and there's contests and all sorts of stuff, right? You could always end up local news. [laughter] >> Yeah, that's a public servant right there. How about you, Connor? >> Here. >> I don't really have a favorite single dish. My I just what I love about Thanksgiving is just combining everything. So, the turkey, the stuff, >> there you go. >> The the gravy. >> Yeah. With some cranberry on top. I'm all about the combinations. Yeah, I did the uh I'm I'm a big uh uh green be green bean casserole. Okay. >> Big green bean casserole guy, but anything pairs well with football. So, >> Connor, answer me this right. I Isn't there a thing in like New Jersey, New York, all this where there's like some sort of oyster dish that gets served at Thanksgiving? Or is this specific to >> But okay. >> I don't know. I'm in like a transplant family. We came from California, so Okay. I I don't know all of the local customs, but that does sound a little familiar. I'll ask around and uh and let you know. >> Your New Jersey roots aren't deep enough to know about the oyster Thanksgiving thing. Yeah, I never even heard of that out west, but apparently this is a thing. So, >> does New Jersey count as New England? >> No. >> That kind of borderline? No, it's >> I feel I feel like it just feels very New England to me. >> No, there's Massachusetts. >> There's a lot of different types of analysis you can do on that. I There's a a great book >> break this down [laughter] now. There's a great book I recommend everybody read called American Nations which tries to actually break up the or define the actual nations that make up North America. And they argue that it's essentially part of two nations. So northern New Jersey is what they call it New Netherlands. It's essentially a big suburb of New York City. Southern New Jersey is a suburb of Philadelphia. And so there's a big divide between North and South Jersey. And they're two pretty culturally different places despite being the uh in the same state. So, yeah, that there's a bit of a nuanced answer. >> You were north or south when you lived there. >> Ah, okay. Right. Well, that's tri-state area, right? That's like New York orientation, right? Yes. >> Down south is like a Philadelphia orientation, I guess. >> Yeah. >> I don't know. >> So, so you're not in a blood feud with Joe Serno then. >> No. No. >> There you go. >> Right. Cuz he's North New Jersey, too, right? Yeah. >> Yes. Very unfortunately. [laughter] >> You don't have an accent, though. So, I don't know. I don't know what to do with you, Connor. >> No. Moved there when I was nine. And I guess I didn't really pick it up. >> The Well, we used to have these uh issues, right? Was uh should you have um Virginia ham or should you have turkey, which I guess was the pilgrim's preferred meal? I don't know. The question is, do we side with the earlier settlement in Virginia or with the slightly later settlement in Massachusetts? Who really has a claim to uh the original founders of America? So, uh I guess you can just come down wherever you want on that one. Uh, but I I don't know. We all just end up eating turkey. So I I Was that some sort of like propaganda victory? I >> I think so. >> Okay. >> Big turkey. [laughter] >> Big turkey. Well, Cranberry, right? That's a New England thing. >> Yeah. >> So, you're right. Oh, man. New England really does dominate the uh uh Harvard all these years later. We're just We just do what we're told >> by those people. Awful. All right. Well, I'll leave everybody all of our listeners to uh your Thanksgiving meals and uh thank you for listening to this episode of Power Market Podcast. We'll see you next time. [music] There you go.