WEBVTT 00:15.104 --> 00:35.516 Hello and welcome to Live Like the World Is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm Miriam, and I am your host for this episode, which will be another This Week in the Apocalypse. But before we get to that, uh, here is a jingle for for another podcast on the Channel Zero Network of Anarchist Podcasts. 00:35.516 --> 01:20.634 Welcome to Propaganda by the Seed, a podcast about plants and the nerds that love them. We alternate between hour-long interview episodes that usually focus on a single species or crop, and shorter episodes that focus on topics related to plants like grafting, composting, and the rest. You can find Propaganda by the Seed on the Channel Zero Network of Anarchist Podcasts at propagandabytheseed.com. Yay! 01:21.266 --> 01:57.104 Okay, so now that we are weekly rather than monthly, we have all been paying more attention to the news except me because I have been visiting with my family. So instead of looking at the news today, I picked blackberry berries with my 4-year-old nephew. And I can strongly recommend picking blackberries with a 4-year-old over looking at the news if you want to feel good in yourself and, uh, just with the world. Gets my recommendation— picking blackberries with a child. How about you, Brooke? What have you been up to? 01:57.104 --> 02:30.119 I have been enjoying this lovely, wacky summer weather that we have, and unfortunately I have been paying attention to the news. Which is pretty funny because the first couple of months of summer break, I like didn't really. And then we started talking about, well, we talked all summer about bringing on this new weekly news podcast. And I was like, shoot, I'm going to have to pay attention to the news again if we're going to be doing a weekly news podcast. And so sadly, in the last 3 and 4 weeks, I have been inundating myself with news and catching up on it because I get to be here every week doing this. 02:30.119 --> 02:33.389 I'm so sorry to hear that. Do you want to tell me about it? 02:35.999 --> 03:08.668 Well, this is gonna be Second Tuesday of— for our This Week in the Apocalypse, which we're generally gonna try and use that to cover what's going on in the economy. But one headline thing to note about is that President Trump had offered a peace deal to Iran, and they of course rejected it. That was just in the last, I think, couple of days here as we're recording. It was specifically a— Sorry, it wasn't Iran. Iran set out demands for opening Hormuz that haven't been decided on. 03:08.668 --> 03:19.200 That's weird because that feels like the same news I've heard in past weeks. Are you sure that this wasn't intended for a previous This Week in the Apocalypse? 03:19.200 --> 03:48.814 I think that's like right now, that's just sort of every This Week in the Apocalypse is going to be that's what's going on with Iran. With Iran. The thing I was starting to talk about, and I got my countries wrong, is Trump had put out a proposal to Israel, a 15-point plan to disarm Hamas. And Israel rejected that. So 2 different, 2 different things going on. Plan coming from Iran that we are, we being the United States, are considering, and a proposal we sent to Israel, which they rejected. 03:48.814 --> 03:52.762 Okay. Sounds like it is just too complicated to stop bombing people. 03:52.762 --> 03:53.439 Apparently. 03:53.439 --> 03:54.389 Makes sense. 03:54.389 --> 04:00.801 Yeah. This is great. This is great. World's great. Everything's fine. 04:01.706 --> 04:04.575 I can't hear you. I'm still picking blackberries. 04:04.575 --> 04:19.049 Okay. You know what? I think you should go right back to doing that. It is the season. Eat them off the vine. This episode sponsored by the concept of picking blackberries and hanging out with nephews. It's really good. Yeah. 04:19.578 --> 04:19.690 Yeah. 04:19.754 --> 04:29.179 I've got a toddler nephew as well. One of my favorite humans. All right. So that's a couple headline things, but we're going to talk about the economy. Miriam, what do you know about the economy? 04:29.676 --> 04:44.428 I know that like an ancient god, it is unknowable, but ruins people's lives every day and must be appeased through arcane sacrifices. 04:44.428 --> 05:25.745 That is 100% correct. That's going to be my new definition of the economy from now on. I'm never going to refer to it in any way other than that. The economy is an arcane god. Oh boy, that's a good one. Okay. So basic question of what is the economy though? What is the thing that we're talking about when we're talking about the economy? And sometimes as anarchists, we're like, it's not even a real thing. And I sort of struggle with that because, I mean, yes, a bunch of it's all made up stuff. We made up these rules, we made up how this thing was going to work and we do this thing, but there is a system out there that is operating that is this, even if it's based on a bunch of shit that we just sort of made up. 05:25.745 --> 05:29.234 Right. Like stuff that we just made up can still get you killed. 05:29.234 --> 06:18.346 100%. Yes. And can still dominate your life and life choices and affect you significantly. So when we're talking about the economy, we're talking about the buying and selling of goods and services and generally the stuff that's like tracked by the government. Like you go into the store and buy stuff and the store has to report that it made money on things or lost money or whatever the store is doing. Kind of thing. I mean, there is obviously the whole underground economy that's not really tracked as much. So a lot of sex work falls in that category, illegal drug buying and selling, lots of other global, international, illegal, untracked activities. Technically, that's all economic activity too. But from our perspective, we're kind of talking about the stuff that can be measured and tracked for the purposes of the news and what's going on. 06:18.346 --> 06:37.789 That makes sense, right? Yeah. I mean, I'm assuming that underground economies function pretty similarly to legal economies, just with more government involvement or more direct government involvement since government does get involved in underground economies, but just usually by putting everyone in jail. 06:37.789 --> 06:53.449 Yeah, exactly. Okay, cool. So that's kind of what we're talking about. It's just like the general buying and selling of goods and services that are going on in the economy. Now there's a whole bunch of other shit that comes up when we talk about the economy that people are like, is this the economy? Like the stock market, for instance. 06:53.449 --> 07:19.869 Yeah. See, now we're getting into the thing that I'm pretty sure is like just 100% fake. I, I understand that the stock market exists. I understand that it is like ceremonially opened by a celebrity ringing a bell every day, like a totally normal thing that's real and should define whether people get to eat food or not. But I sort of refuse to believe in it. What, what is the stock market and why is it ruining my life? 07:20.607 --> 07:58.699 Ah, okay. Great question. You're not wrong that like the stock market is largely conceptual and a thing that we like made up as an idea and sort of agree exists and have rules about and, and can make money off of and stuff. What it is initially, originally at its core is that if a company wants to raise money, a way that they could do that historically was by dividing the ownership of the company into shares. So, like, let's say, Miriam, you and I had an ice cream truck. 07:58.699 --> 07:59.196 Mm-hmm. 07:59.196 --> 08:38.698 And we're like, we want to expand and have 5 ice cream trucks, but we need money. One of the ways that we could raise money is saying, like, okay, we're going to let the community become part owners of our ice cream truck. And we're going to sell 10, we're gonna, we're gonna say there's 10 owners of the ice cream truck. You and I are each gonna be one owner, and then we're gonna like sell the rights to be an owner to 8 other people kind of a thing. And we decide how much we think that's worth. And then we go out in the world and we say, hey, do you wanna own 10% of our ice cream truck? It'll cost you this much money. And people can say, well, yes, I do want that. And then give us money and then they become part owners. 08:38.698 --> 09:12.838 And then this is the part that confuses me, because if it was just that, and then those 8 other people were like, great, I am going to enjoy getting 10% of the money from your ice cream truck, having contributed to getting the ice cream trucks, that would sort of make sense. But that doesn't happen. People then just trade them forever and sell them. And the point is to sell them for more than you bought them for and not to hold onto them and make money off of them. Is that correct? Because that is what it looks like from the outside. 09:12.838 --> 10:04.581 That is largely correct. There are some companies that are worth holding onto because their value will increase over time. And the longer you can hold it and wait to sell it, the more you're going to get when you finally do sell it. Companies also do— they pay what's called a dividend. So you're not necessarily actually going to get 10% of the profits from the company just by owning 10% of the company. They still have the rights of what to do with those profits. And generally they will reinvest them in the company to make it grow bigger. So what you own, your 10%, is becoming a bigger entity so that when you do go along and sell it, you're like, oh, I bought into this ice cream truck for $100, but now the franchise is worth 3 times that. And I could sell my ownership share for $300 because they've been reinvesting all the profits to keep growing and growing and growing. 10:04.581 --> 10:09.319 And so at what point, just by having the stock, do you have anything? 10:10.714 --> 10:23.022 I mean, technically, you are an owner if you actually have the original stock for a company. You have an ownership share, you have a vote. And big companies, they tend to do thousands or millions of shares. 10:23.022 --> 10:23.311 Sure. 10:23.311 --> 10:50.093 So, they have to have legally, because it's highly regulated in the US, an annual shareholders meeting, which everyone who owns an actual stock can vote on whatever the issues are, like who the CEO is or what kind of policy they want to If they want to change the way they're reinvesting things and say, hey, we want to give more back to the people who own the stock instead of reinvesting in the company, kind of change the policies of the company, you get to vote on that. 10:50.093 --> 10:50.367 Okay. 10:50.367 --> 10:52.642 Does that kind of make sense? 10:52.642 --> 10:56.015 It makes sense, but still seems fake and dumb, but go ahead. 10:56.015 --> 11:26.319 I mean, it becomes fake and dumb really, really quickly because so much of the rest of the stock market is then built on performance of stocks and companies. So you can own what's called— oh God, how do I even explain how dumb this is? It's like a form of legalized betting. People say that a lot. And if you're a trader or an investor, you get real mad at that phrasing, but it's really accurate. 11:26.319 --> 11:37.847 I mean, I think people also maybe used to say that before the entire economy ended up being based on sports betting and also Calshi, which I think is just betting on things happening in real life. 11:37.847 --> 12:31.444 This, yeah, this is very true. The whole growth of betting that we've seen in the last couple of years has kind of changed that narrative a little bit. But like, basically they build like an index of stocks and they say, God, again, how do I explain this? You don't even own the stocks. You're buying into Like stocks on stocks or bets on how the performance of a bundle of stocks is going to do. And so, if these 5 stocks, the companies increase in value, then your sort of stock on stock that you've purchased increases in value. But it's not actually an ownership stock in the company. It's like an ownership on a Bet on the value of the company. Okay. 12:32.056 --> 12:49.344 I understand. Again, I understand and believe you. It just, the extent to which this all feels like, well, dumb and fake is not actually decreasing. But again, it doesn't need to be real to affect people. So how does this actually end up affecting people? 12:49.344 --> 13:22.638 Yeah. So the stock market has increasingly become the place where people have their investments, like they put, you know, savings into it and retirement accounts are based on the performance of the stock market. So it's become this really important indicator of whether you're not going, you're going to be able to retire and how much money you will have in retirement based on the performance of the stock market. Because instead of, you know, in better days, companies would offer a pension. 13:22.638 --> 13:23.095 Mm-hmm. 13:23.268 --> 14:10.626 to former employees and you'd have guaranteed retirement income via that. Now they're like, well, we'll invest in a stock portfolio for you. And then it's whether or not those numbers go up. Make number go up, good. And it's increasingly, increasingly, increasingly divorced from the reality of the economy and the economic performance in the nation, as has been seen in evidence, especially since COVID Because all the predictions that you would've made about what the stock market would do and money markets would do based on classic economic theory were all gone to shit. None of them followed what you would've thought would've happened when COVID came along. So, we're seeing how made up a lot of it is at the moment. 14:10.626 --> 14:11.892 Gotcha. 14:11.892 --> 14:15.241 Because do you feel like the economy is doing well right now? 14:15.449 --> 14:26.272 Like, you look around the world and No, I feel like nobody can afford anything and everything costs a stupid amount of money and everybody is miserable. 14:26.272 --> 14:48.483 Yeah. And I would tend to agree with you. That's how most of us feel on the ground. But if you were to pretend the stock market was a measure of the performance of the economy, which it's not, but if you pretended it was, the stock market has continued to go for the most part up and up and up. and up and up in recent years and is continually hitting like highest values ever. 14:48.483 --> 14:52.191 Yeah, I keep hearing that the numbers are very happy. 14:52.769 --> 14:52.946 Yeah. 14:53.411 --> 15:06.719 And, you know, I'm happy for them, I suppose, but it does not— that does not seem to be translating into quality of life for any of us poor schmucks who have to deal with the outcome of the numbers. 15:06.719 --> 15:35.561 Right. So it's great for people who are retired and whose retirement is in the stock market investments largely and are relying on that to have enough money to live and survive. The fact the stock market is doing well is good for those people who are in retirement or about to retire or whatnot, because they can— that's the point when you actually, if you actually have stock shares or stocks on stocks, you actually start selling them, not holding them forever, and then taking the money to live off of. 15:35.561 --> 15:43.107 But then are you not also dealing with the fact that everything costs Yes, that is a problem. 15:43.719 --> 16:30.986 If you have a good enough stock portfolio that it's doing better than the— like if you're getting more return on your stock than the cost of goods is increasing, then you're still making out better. So like inflation right now, that's the measure of the increase in prices of goods and services, like a general broad measure is running between like 3% and 4% annual average. That's how much we're seeing the prices increase on things. And that varies a lot depending on what specific goods. So we're I'm just talking about the average across the entire economy here. But if you're doing the stock market and your stocks are giving you back 5% and your cost of goods is only increasing 3%, then that increase in cost is covered basically by the fact that your asset that you're using to live off of is increasing in value. 16:30.986 --> 16:33.701 But that's not most people. 16:33.701 --> 17:02.708 Right. And it's not to say that doesn't suck even for them, but there's a buffer there. there's an insulation that makes it less of a harsh blow. Yeah, but that's not most people. Most of us are out here working our day jobs or our gig economy jobs or whatever it is that we're doing. And our wages are generally not increasing at the same rate as the cost of goods are increasing and haven't been for 40 years, give or take. 17:02.708 --> 17:11.801 Yeah, certainly in my working life, I have not found it to be the case that my wages go up in a reliable manner. 17:11.801 --> 19:03.048 Some types of workers get what's called a COLA, a cost of living increase every year. And they'll do this in usually the January or the spring. And the company or the government agency more likely will look at whatever inflation was over the last year and go, okay, the cost of goods increased 3%. So we need to increase wages across the board by 3% because otherwise you're making less than you were a year ago because everything you're buying costs more. So that's a COLA. So if you work for a great place that does that, or unions have often traditionally have negotiated for COLAs for workers, you're at least keeping pace with the increase in the cost of goods, but not actually making any more money. But that's less and less common. You know, it's harder to find if you're not in either a union shop or working for the government. Places just don't do that like they used to. And also inflation's so much higher that it's such a big impact. So a healthy inflation would be like 3% or less. You know, we're just always gonna have some pressure on the increase in, in cost of goods. That's just kind of the way the economy works. And there's a long explanation for that. We don't have to do that today and right now. But you know, so there's always gonna be some pressure of price increase. That's normal. But you want it to be kept at a, at a fairly minimal, fairly low rate in order to be reasonable and for people to be able to keep pace with it. And that's in the like 2, 2 to 3% kind of range. But we are currently, as I mentioned, in the more like 3 to 4% range. I think 3.5% annual average increase was the last measure. And that's the broad economy. Again, all the stuff that we get, it's— so we know that oil prices are up a whole bunch and we know that food prices are up a whole bunch, but maybe electronic prices have stayed flat or even gone down or something like that. And so those are all being averaged into this measure. 19:03.048 --> 19:04.145 Right. 19:04.852 --> 19:05.012 Yeah. 19:05.253 --> 19:18.311 And the, and the thing about that is that electronics are not typically a daily need for, like, new electronics are not really a daily need for most people, whereas food, most people need that every day. 19:18.311 --> 19:18.970 Exactly. 19:18.970 --> 19:29.249 Sometimes multiple times a day. And gas is how things get places, including people to work in, in many places. 19:30.212 --> 20:14.885 Right. And generally, if you're, if you're, you know, a lower income person, the biggest portion of your money is going to like those things that are much more volatile in their, in their pricing and, and are, are experiencing much higher inflation rates right now, like food and gas. You're not out there like buying a luxury yacht or a new iPad or, you know, the cost of your, your child's private school tuition or what have you. Like those things that aren't experiencing inflationary pressures, most of us don't give a fuck because it's not part of our daily lives. But we do care about these other things that are having much higher inflation. So wheat prices, for instance, are the highest they've ever been on record right now. 20:14.885 --> 20:15.257 Cool. 20:15.257 --> 20:32.218 Yeah, because of drought and fire and shipping disruptions. And we kind of use wheat for, you know, food, like all of it. So wheat prices being high is particularly harsh on budgets. 20:32.218 --> 20:35.607 Makes sense. What can we do about this? 20:35.607 --> 20:40.989 Blow some shit up? No, I don't know. 20:40.989 --> 20:48.202 Does any of this have anything to do with the fact that the world just got its first trillionaire? And is there a relationship there? 20:48.202 --> 23:12.810 I mean, capitalism is not an economic system designed to fairly distribute wealth, right? Nothing about capitalism is built for that. It's a system designed to create as much wealth as possible, and it does that very effectively, but has no bearing on how that wealth or income gets distributed. And the pressures of capitalism are, you know, to squeeze the most value out of things as possible and to always be in competition, which is gonna lead to overproduction of things and isn't gonna necessarily value the sustainability of things or the, even to some degree, the affordability of things. You know, there's pressure to keep prices down because you stay more competitive. But also if you can work in collaboration with other businesses or entities and collectively raise prices to, you know, screw the bottom line consumer, you'll do that too. That's not necessarily part of capitalism. That's just an evil thing that, that companies can do. Yeah, that happens. Anyway, so there's, there's a couple of different ways. Like, again, the stock market is not the economy, but is a way that people often measure how the economy is doing. Inflation is not the whole economy, but is also a measure of wellbeing and how we're doing and how we're feeling about things. There's a couple other things that we can look at to kind of measure how the economy is doing. One of them is the unemployment rate. And I think that's one we'll probably talk about most months here. The federal government does a fairly large and comprehensive survey of businesses to every month try and measure their employment changes. So there's always like a lot of churn going on in employment. You know, you've got companies that are hiring people, firing people, replacing workers. You've got companies that are closing and everyone loses their job. And you've got new companies that are opening or expanding and adding new positions. So there's all that churn. going on constantly. And so, they want to look at the measure of like, what's the net total? Like, did we gain jobs or lose jobs in the end of the day after you measure all that churn? And so, that tends to be a more accurate indicator or a more common indicator of how the economy's doing in terms of like, because to some degree it measures like business sentiment, right? 23:12.810 --> 23:14.130 Yeah. 23:14.130 --> 24:13.300 Like, you know, we feel like we're growing or we feel like we can grow, so we're going to add more workers or, you know, we can't afford to have this many employees, or, you know, so we're gonna, we're gonna close and, and, or lay off workers, and then you're losing jobs. So that, they do a report on that once a month. Again, big national survey. It's, you know, from an analyst standpoint, like it's really good data and they're doing the best they can to collect it. They have really good methodologies for survey and they do have to go back and, and kind of revise the numbers of the previous month every month as they're doing this. So there's always some amount of revision and adjustments as they get more comprehensive data comes in. But right now, so they just did the one for July that came out last week or so. And they were expecting there to be net job gains in the economy, not a huge number, but a little bit of growth, something like 100,000 jobs on net, which is again, not a lot of jobs in an economy of, you know, 350 million people, but not nothing. 24:13.300 --> 24:28.057 My understanding is that jobs added means less than it used to because so many jobs are no longer full-time and no longer meeting all of a person's financial needs. Is that accurate? 24:28.057 --> 25:37.694 Yeah, there's definitely some truth to that. And I haven't checked in on the methodology in a little while to see if they've done anything to sort of update the way that's measured, because obviously we've seen the gig economy grow so much and people having multiple jobs, and those aren't traditionally the things that are the most measured. So that does definitely affect things and how we're tracking it and what it all means. And the survey data is not always great at responding to what's happening in real time because it is using some amount of historical trends and averages in its kind of modeling and predictions about job gains. So when COVID hit and everything shut down, it had There was no way for it to get enough accurate current data, and the historical data had no way of measuring for that kind of thing. So, you know, obviously those estimates that came out, whatever they were, were the best that they could do. And they did have to go back and kind of do revisions as they got more data on it. But one month after COVID and yeah, it's not going to be the greatest data. 25:37.694 --> 25:37.855 Right. 25:37.855 --> 25:59.232 It's not a perfect system anyway. So they were expecting some job gains in the economy. But there were actually losses about 23,000. Yeah, thousand on net. So not quite doing as well as they had. And this is especially a critical time of year because we usually see job gains starting to head into the Christmas season, actually. 25:59.232 --> 25:59.970 Right. 26:00.130 --> 26:01.831 Retail picks up a lot. 26:01.912 --> 26:08.283 And so does shipping, which retail and shipping being the 2 big employers in this stupid country right now. 26:08.970 --> 26:48.982 Right. And in agriculture too, this time of year, because harvests are starting to come in. And they account for some of that, like normal seasonal changes, but still they were expecting a bigger net gain than we have. We actually had a net loss. So that's got people worried a little bit. But, and then here's why the measures of the economy aren't working. Usually something like that would then, the stock market would kind of drop and feel a little more depressed. And I didn't look at Friday's numbers to see if it did drop a little bit. It probably did, but also it's going to rebound and probably next week we'll have another new highest measure ever, whatever. Because again, the stock market has become so divorced from the realities of the economy. 26:48.982 --> 27:12.699 I mean, if I were to try and make it, do a very crude breakdown of this, it seems like the stock market represents how the economy is doing for rich people and indicators like how much traffic are food pantries getting Is a good economic indicator for everyone else. And it feels like those 2 indicators do not track with each other. 27:12.699 --> 27:48.608 Right. Yep. Yep. And again, it used to be different, but now the stock market's really divorced from the realities of the economy. And that's especially difficult for the baby boomer generation, which is still such a huge portion of the population. They've grown up with that as being somewhat of an indicator of how things are doing. And then also they're relying on that now as they enter retirement or are retired for their financial well-being. So, they're heavily focused on that number and what it's doing and not necessarily— and I'm talking en masse, not like individual human beings here, obviously. 27:48.608 --> 27:49.571 Right. 27:49.571 --> 28:01.060 That, you know, they're not as like, oh, food pantry use has spiked? Well, that seems too bad. But the stock market's hit a new record high today. So— 28:01.060 --> 28:02.729 That should make you feel much better. 28:03.227 --> 28:25.608 Yeah, there's this real disconnect in it. And, and I have a lot of sympathy for, for the baby boomers in that, again, because like it used to be a decent indicator of what the economy was doing and wasn't divorced from reality. And so there's some, maybe some reeducation that, that could happen there to help people out. You know, if you've got someone in your life who thinks the stock market is the measure of the economy. Right. 28:25.704 --> 28:28.271 Maybe explain to them that the stock market is dumb and fake. 28:28.913 --> 28:48.345 And they'll be like, you just don't understand. And sometimes I'm like, do you really understand how the stock market works? Because the stock— the value of the stock market is 3 times larger than the value of the actual economy because of the way they have sort of stocks on stocks. 28:48.345 --> 29:06.223 Every new thing you tell me about the stock market makes it sound more dumb and more fake. And yeah, I think that that would be a healthy thing for people who are trying to base their, their understanding of how they're going to live their life on, on it would be healthy for them to realize how unreliable that is. 29:06.223 --> 29:09.838 Yep. Just a form of legalized gambling for the most part. 29:09.838 --> 29:11.123 One of many. 29:11.123 --> 29:30.713 Yeah. Last thing I'll mention, because this will probably be a thing we talk about most months as well, is the federal funds rate. So we have a national banking system here in the US and there's a series of regional federal banks. that all collectivize and report up together to the Federal Reserve, which you may have heard of. 29:30.713 --> 29:32.012 I have heard of it. 29:32.012 --> 30:41.761 Okay. The leaders of the banks, they've got a, it's very complicated, but it's a good system for rotating amongst which bank heads and also industry leaders kind of sit on a committee every 6 weeks or so to review economic news and make a decision about interest rates. rates. And I'll get into the interest rates in a second. But their task, their target, their mission is to try and keep inflation low and keep hiring and the overall economy moving forward. And they have only a couple of levers at their disposal of things that they can change in the economy to make those things happen. But they historically have done a very good job of being apolitical. They're not perfect, but staying outside of politics more than anything and really being focused on just trying to affect those 2 targets of keeping inflation low and keeping the economy growing and making decisions based on that. So, they've been in the news a lot. You've probably heard Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, of course, was under fire from Trump for a long time. His term has ended. He's been replaced because Trump— 30:41.761 --> 30:46.833 I think he broke the reflector. pool, maybe. I wasn't paying attention. I was picking blackberries. 30:46.833 --> 30:56.181 Ah, that's how that happened? Okay. I heard it was Antifa with secret razor blades, or maybe— 30:56.181 --> 30:56.984 Might have been that. 30:56.984 --> 31:42.035 Steel-toed boots with blades, and they— I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what happened. Couldn't have been incompetent contractors using the wrong materials in order to make money off of the federal government or anything like that. That never happens. Okay, so the Federal Reserve. Federal Reserve is what we're talking about. So they get together and they have to decide on this interest rate. It's called the federal funds rate. And we don't need to get deeply into what it is, only to understand that it's sort of this real baseline interest rate that banks use for loaning to each other. And then that rate kind of ultimately affects and determines other interest rates that happen in the market, like mortgage rates and credit card rates and stuff like that. 31:42.035 --> 31:45.889 So these are things that sound much more related to actual human people. 31:45.889 --> 32:35.612 Yes. Yes. So they can, if inflation's really hot or if there's really high inflation, like we're a little bit higher inflation right now, they could lower the federal funds rate, that interest rate, and that would, that would help slow and soften inflation, but also potentially going to soften employment. So they're doing this balancing act and they have been pretty steady about not wanting to lower that interest rate despite immense pressure for like his entire term from the president to do that, because he really wants to eradicate the inflationary issues that are going on. have them get that interest rate as low as possible to make that happen. But you can only lower it so far and then you can't lower it anymore. 32:35.612 --> 32:38.532 Right. Like presumably it does not go into negative numbers. 32:38.532 --> 33:17.356 Exactly. So if you're trying to use it to offset the fact that you, I don't know, maybe started a war in the Middle East that has caused a spike in global oil prices and you're trying to hide that fact by lowering this interest rate, That's bad. That's a political use of the tool that is really not dealing with the bigger picture. And thankfully he doesn't get to decide that or influence it. I mean, he's putting a lot of pressure on it, but again, this committee has historically been very good at being more apolitical and really caring about what's happening with the economy and people and not about what's happening with politics. 33:17.356 --> 33:18.224 So. 33:18.822 --> 33:28.993 They can look at the fact that oil prices are up because of a stupid outside reason that, you know, ultimately lowering the interest rate is not going to be the right way to deal with that problem. 33:28.993 --> 33:39.034 Right. You can't, you can't fix a problem, the problem that was created by, by something else, by messing with the interest rate. 33:39.034 --> 34:05.479 Yeah. You can, you can, you can put a bunch of makeup over that really bad zit that you got, but the zit's still under there. It's just hiding. And really, maybe washing your face, putting on some acne cream if you have it. I get bad acne, so this is me talking about my own self. I can hide it or I could treat it and try and get my acne to go away as opposed to just covering it up. 34:05.479 --> 34:12.727 Whereas I am constantly starting unwinnable wars in the Middle East, so that's actually a really useful analogy for me. 34:15.870 --> 34:21.291 Oh, Miriam, I knew it was you. It was you. There was a space laser involved, wasn't there, my friend? 34:21.291 --> 34:25.685 100%. It was— listen, it was my turn with the space laser. 34:25.685 --> 34:53.130 Oh, you heard it here first, folks. Okay, so those are kind of the economic things that I wanted to talk about, and those are kind of things that we're going to talk about, although not in as thorough of detail of what it is. every week, but we will kind of be like, what's the stock market doing and why is it bullshit? And, and we'll probably talk about what inflation's looking like and we'll talk about what employment's looking like and then any other interesting economic news that might be going on. 34:53.130 --> 35:06.736 Fabulous. I appreciate this because I feel like most explanations of economic things come from people who are talking as though their audience is a bunch of people who are trying to invest in the stock market. 35:06.736 --> 35:08.125 Right. Yeah. 35:08.616 --> 35:18.143 That is not useful to me and also makes me feel insane. So I prefer this way of having things explained to me, and I appreciate you for breaking that down. 35:18.143 --> 35:33.203 Yeah, absolutely. Happy to do it. I like talking about it, especially with my anarchist friends, because it seems like everyone, like, wants to understand it, but knows that it's weird and complicated and maybe, like, doesn't feel as comfortable asking. So I'm really glad that, like, we can do that. 35:33.203 --> 35:39.279 Yeah, no, because I think we all suspect that it's bullshit, but we know that it's also ruining our lives. So, it's— 35:39.279 --> 35:42.943 How is this fake thing ruining everything? Yeah. 35:43.103 --> 35:50.956 I mean, see also gender and race and borders. Um, just some shit people made up, and now it's just ruining your life. 35:50.956 --> 35:54.534 Yes. Amen. We do do that a lot. 35:55.133 --> 35:59.352 Um, so I appreciate you. And you know who else I appreciate? 35:59.352 --> 36:00.325 Who could it be? 36:00.325 --> 36:03.214 It's our Patreon patrons! 36:03.214 --> 36:03.425 Woo! 36:08.695 --> 37:55.265 We appreciate everybody who supports us on Patreon, but we especially appreciate the people who support us at the level at which we thank them on our episodes, which is the, I believe, $20 a month level. So I will now thank them. 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