← Animal Spirits Podcast
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- [00:00]
Derek Thompson
Today's show is brought to you by our sponsors. At Betterment Advisor Solutions, imagining a better future is the first step.
- [00:07]
Ben Carlson
Investing in that future with Betterment Advisor Solutions is the next. Whether you're launching your own practice, looking to streamline client onboarding, or just searching for efficient ways to scale your firm, Betterment Advisor Solutions is here to help.
- [00:18]
Derek Thompson
They automate to make tax optimization simpler. They provide support to make administrative tasks easier.
- [00:25]
Ben Carlson
At Betterment Advisor Solutions, they are building innovative technology all for anyone who's ever said, I think I can do better. So grow your RIA your way with Betterment Advisor Solutions.
- [00:35]
Derek Thompson
Learn more@betterment.com advisors. Investing involves risk performance, not guaranteed.
- [00:45]
Michael Batnik
Welcome.
- [00:45]
Ezra Klein
To Animal Spirits, a show about markets, life and investing. Join Michael Batnik and Ben Carlson as they talk about what they're reading, writing and watching. All opinions expressed by Michael and Ben are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only, should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. Clients of Ritholtz Wealth Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.
- [01:14]
Derek Thompson
Derek Thompson welcome to Animal Spirits.
- [01:16]
Michael Batnik
Hey, great to be here.
- [01:18]
Derek Thompson
All right, for our audience who might not be as online as the average citizen and doesn't know Abundance, the book that you wrote with Ezra Klein, what is abundance? But hold on, there's a second part of the question. Is this book now completely useless given the change in the administrative policies, or is it more important than ever?
- [01:38]
Michael Batnik
So Abundance is a book that I wrote with Ezra Klein. It's a book that we wrote between 2023 and 2024, before we knew the outcome of the 2024 election. So that begins to answer the second part of your question. But to fill out the first part, you know, I wrote this article a few years ago about what I call the Abundance Agenda, saying that one of the biggest problems of American politics and economics is that we weren't building enough of what we need, whether it was vaccines and masks and Covid tests during the pandemic, or houses and clean energy after the pandemic, or infrastructure, transit even, not even finding ways to add enough doctors to the medical system. And I said in order to solve all of these scarcities across housing and energy and medicine, we need an abundance agenda. So that was sort of my tributary leading into the Delta. And then on Ezra's part, he had written really beautifully about this concept that he called supply side progressivism, basically saying that for the last 50 years the Democratic Party liberals in America have Been very good at focusing on the demand side of the ledger, at raising taxes and spending that money to reduce poverty or to help people afford, you know, get vouchers for housing or for food. And that's wonderful. But demand side progressivism needed a component that he called supply side progressivism. We can't just give people vouchers to buy housing. We need to actually build housing. Because if we don't, if we just get people to buy a house and the stock of housing remains static, well, prices are just going to shoot through the roof. And in fact, not just because of housing vouchers, but for a lot of reasons. Housing prices have absolutely soared in New York and Los Angeles and San Francisco and Seattle and many, many places that are governed by Democrats, in part because I think liberals have fallen out of touch with the need to build. To build, whether it's housing, energy, or other pieces of infrastructure. And so when we pulled these ideas together, Ezra's supply side progressivism and my concept of an abundance agenda, the outcome was this book, Abundance. And I would say, you know, Ezra and I had this, like, debate maybe going back into the fall or summer of last year, where we were wondering, like, was there outside of the fact that we were, in our own way, rooting for Kamala Harris to win, in what world did this book most make sense? And I thought that this book most made sense for a world where Kamala Harris was the president, which is not a world, obviously, that we live in. I thought that this book was attempting to be agenda shaping. We're trying to take the soft clay of a new Democratic administration and mold it to our purposes. And, you know, Ezra was leaving space with a possibility that, no, actually that might be totally wrong, that if Donald Trump wins, the Democratic Party will find itself totally in the wilderness. And in fact, where are we right now? 27% of Americans have a positive approval rating for the Democratic Party. That is a brand that polls 33% worse than the Trump tariffs. Right. I think according to the Harvard Youth Poll that came out just this week, Donald Trump's approval rating Among Americans under 30 is 33%. Democrats in Congress have an approval rating of 23%. Like, literally nothing in the world that you can poll polls worse than Democratic Party, which is.
- [04:43]
Derek Thompson
Even Nico Harris is more popular.
- [04:44]
Michael Batnik
Nico Harrison polls at 24%. So even if the margin of error is a little bit fuzzy, yet, they did not pull Nico Harrison. But he, of course, deserves to be as underwater as anybody. The point is, there's a moment right now where there's A clearing in the forest. And people are trying to define the Democratic Party, trying to define the non Trump movement. And there's an anti oligarchy world and there's a antitrust world, and there are other questions and other axes along which liberals are trying to define the future of their movement. But abundance is one of them. And it's been really, it's honestly been nothing less than a beautiful honor to see how many people have read the book and argued with it and taken it seriously and thought about how a new liberal movement could be defined around this concept of building and inventing more of what we need.
- [05:35]
Ben Carlson
So I've never been a political person. I've never had a political party or affiliation. And I feel like every time I bring up, why don't we have a third party? Someone in the political sphere looks at me like I'm an idiot, saying, it's impossible. You can't have that. Like, would you be, would you care if someone in a say I'm not a Republican, I'm not a Democrat, I'm taking the abundance agenda. This one party is inept and they wrap you in red tape like a mummy. And this other party is ignorant and just wants to beat the other team and destroy stuff. I don't like either of those parties. I want this other thing that takes a little from here and a little from here and maybe some more common sense. Is it just impossible? Why can't we get to that? Isn't this the perfect time for something like that to happen?
- [06:12]
Michael Batnik
It certainly seems like this is the perfect time. You look at how far the institutional trust has fallen in this country in the last decade, how much people hate the establishment, how much they hate the status quo, how much even people who follow politics closely are often loathed to define themselves as belonging to either of the named brands. If you look at a graph over the last 10 years, the number of people who say they're independents, it's just grown and grown and grown. Even if many of those independents are, I will never vote for Republicans independent or I will never vote for Democrats independent. Which means in the de facto two party state, you are a Republican or you are a Democrat, right? So clearly I would say there's all sorts of reasons to suggest that you're absolutely right, that we've never had a better time to start a successful third party in America. That said, I do not believe that a third party has a good chance of winning the 2028 election at all. This is in part because of party infrastructure. And it's in part because. Because recent American history, or even long American history demonstrates that it's unbelievably difficult to win 30, 40% of the vote as an independent candidate. There's simply too much party infrastructure and too many people who identify as always voting for the Democratic Republican parties for a third party to nudge in there and say, I am so different from both parties that you have to vote for me, even considering the fact that. That it is so unlikely that your vote actually counts because no one running in my position has ever won before.
- [07:48]
Ben Carlson
Ross Perot is underrated. Just the fact that he for how much vote he got, it's kind of unbelievable that it actually happened.
- [07:54]
Michael Batnik
It is going back to like 1991. It's like I can't 1992. It's unbelievable how well Ross Perot did. And to be honest, I'm not even sure I properly understand the Ross Perot phenomenon well enough to explain how Perot ism would thrive in 2028.
- [08:11]
Derek Thompson
But let me just say you need Danny Carvey.
- [08:14]
Ben Carlson
It's true.
- [08:16]
Michael Batnik
You need to brush him off. I will say this though. There's a way in which we do have a third party in this country. It's maga and it killed and ate the Republican Party, which no longer exists. One potted history that I sometimes tell is that in 2015 there were not two parties in America, there were four. MAGA was one party. The Romney Republican wing was another party. The Obama, Biden, Clinton wing of the Democratic Party was its own party and the Bernie wing was its own party. There were four parties. And what happened is neither party took over successfully took over the Democratic Party. There's still a war between left and center left. War is too strong. But there's still a tug of war between left and center left. But on the right, the war is over. Right. Trump killed skinned the Romney Republican Party and is wearing it as a hat right now. It doesn't exist. And if you're a Romney Republican, you don't really have a home in many cases. And there's a way in which I've been really surprised by how many people who I would absolutely identify as center right who have kind of thrilled to the idea of abundance. Not because we pitched it toward the center right, we didn't. We're two liberals writing for liberals, but because I think they recognize that, oh, this is like a pro growth agenda that believes in economic growth, that believes in science and technology and doesn't have certifiably insane ideas about global trade. Yeah, I could get down with that. And so maybe the future of the Democratic Party is to grow in that direction while trying to keep hold, I think, of the left, which is a very important part of that coalition. But maybe the answer to the question is that Donald Trump is the first third party candidate to win in American history. He just flies under the banner of the Republican Party.
- [10:01]
Derek Thompson
So I, like Ben, I'm not a political person in the sense that I don't know any Congress people. Like, I don't know. Oh, that person in Pennsylvania. I don't know. I don't know you're talking about. I don't follow politics like that. But I think, and I understand that there are challenges with the Electoral College and how our voting system works, but for a lot of people that had traditionally voted Democrat, they would say, my God, I'd vote for Mitt Romney in a second. And the point that you just made about people in the moderate right, which is the majority of the country, the moderates, like, most people are normal. Most people are, like, closer to the center. I was going to ask, would the abundance mindset, and I know you just answered it, resonate with a lot of the moderate right. And it sounds like the answer is yes. Why wouldn't it?
- [10:39]
Michael Batnik
Well, I think it would, and I think it does. The open question is, how many of those folks are there? And I'm not sure I really know the answer. You look at Donald Trump's approval rating within the Republican Party, if there were a huge number of people voting for Donald Trump that considered themselves fundamentally Romney conservatives, you would have a very relatively low approval rating for Trump within his own party.
- [11:02]
Derek Thompson
It's not crashing at all.
- [11:04]
Michael Batnik
Instead, it's like, what? I don't know what it is.
- [11:06]
Derek Thompson
I saw 44% last night.
- [11:08]
Michael Batnik
Well, sorry, that's Trump's overall approval rating. I'm saying his approval rating within the Republican Party among people who voted for him, and I'll bet you it's something between 90% and 100% right now, but it's overwhelmingly positive. Trump has succeeded in monopolizing Republican vote in this country and not, not just the vote share, but also power, right?
- [11:29]
Derek Thompson
Identity, Derek. It's more than that. It's identity. Like, there are a lot of comments and emails for people that are defending indefensible policies and antics. And I don't care to engage, but it's like, I'm not mad at you for voting for Trump. I understand why you felt betrayed and allergic to the Democratic Party. You don't need to defend these actions that are indefensible, but it's become. He's overtaken people's entire identities, which is.
- [11:55]
Michael Batnik
W. I totally agree with that. And I've been trying to figure out an interesting way of framing this idea that some ideologies give people a new set of thoughts and some ideologies give people an entire personality. Right. Isn't it interesting how when people become maga, when they become Trump fans, how it somehow, like, it sometimes even seems to, like, change, like how they deal with certain economic realities or how they deal with news or how they deal with information that they don't agree with. They become more strident. They become more likely to call things entirely fake if they don't, like, fit their priorities. Interesting. It's almost as if, like, when you put on a Halloween costume, like, when it's Halloween, like, you dress up like a werewolf or, you know, a vampire or something, you know, you start to, like, act more like a werewolf or a vampire. You begin to allow that costume to infect your Persona and the way that you behave. It is so interesting to me how successful Trumpism has become at being a Persona changing ideology, because not all ideologies are like that. I think he's an absolutely sensationally interesting figure because of the effect that he has, as you said, on people's identities and even people's personalities. It's just so interesting. And you see this, really. I'd love to throw this question back at you. Don't you see this in the finance realm? Like, folks who, like, three, four years ago were, like, dealing with economic reports from, like, the Philly or Texas manufacturing survey in a totally reasonable way? They'd be like, yeah, wow, it sounds like this policy really drove down manufacturing activity. Maybe the policy is bad for manufacturing and they don't have the ability to see that anymore. Like, what?
- [13:43]
Derek Thompson
Derek, you were on cnbc and you. This is a great segue. You were, like, apoplectic from the Republican voters. You're like, what are you saying? What am I hearing? When did this party turn into protectionists? The tariffs are good. Like, what world are we living in?
- [13:59]
Ben Carlson
That was your crazy appeals moment too, by the way. We all watched. I think I watched it live. And someone, one of the hedge fund managers was saying, maybe if the economy crashed and housing prices went down and stock prices went down, this would be a good thing. And you came out and you said, I can't believe what I'm hearing right now. I am curious, just what was the fallout from that? Or how much support did you get? Cause I Watched it too. And I thought the same thing. What are we doing here?
- [14:23]
Michael Batnik
So let me tell you. Let me walk you back and tell you how that whole thing happened and then tell you about the fallout. Right? So I came back from book tour about two hours before that segment, and I was sitting right here. I mean, I barely dropped my suitcase off upstairs, my backpack off upstairs. I ran a comb through my hair, I changed my suit, and then I came down here and I sat. And as you guys know, because you guys do tv, sometimes you're sitting in this green room and the producer is like this virtual green room. And his producer's like, hey, move your camera a little bit to the left. Move it to the right. Can you, like, tilt down your camera lens? And as they're telling you this, you can hear the segment that's ongoing before your segment. Right? So I believe. I don't wanna slander anybody. I think it was Kyle Bass.
- [15:04]
Derek Thompson
It was.
- [15:05]
Michael Batnik
As the producer is talking in my ear about how to set up my shot perfectly, I'm listening to this interview that Kelly and Sully are doing with Kyle Bass, and this dude is like, yeah, the stock market's gonna fall, but, like, is that so bad? Some folks really wanna buy in at lower prices. And, yeah, we're gonna see a little bit of a housing correction. And maybe housing prices will go down a lot, but that'll just make it easier for people to buy homes. And, yeah, it looks like the economic activity might fall off a bit, but we could use a reset in this country. There's all sorts of things that people understand aren't working well in the economy. And it all sounded. He had sort of a beautiful, low, mellifluous voice, and he was talking very calmly. And I'm not a particularly calm talker. And so I respect people who have that effect on others that the mere sound of their voice can sort of lull them into a sense that all of this makes sense. And as the producer's talking to me, I'm like, this makes no sense. Like, how are Kelly and Sully not losing their minds? This guy is saying, the stock market's crashing and that's good. The housing market's going down and that's good. We're going to have a recession and that's good. All this is working out for 24 year olds. And I literally was. I was having, like a slow aneurysm. And maybe I was just really cranky from coming back from, you know, a bunch of flights that were canceled and then a long afternoon.
- [16:15]
Derek Thompson
No you were magato. You were magato. You're like, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
- [16:19]
Michael Batnik
I literally, I was typing a note onto my computer right here. I was typing a little note and the first sentence was I cannot believe what I'm hearing. And then I deleted. Cause I was like, I don't think I can say that on cnbc. And I'm not trying to go viral for sure for all the wrong reasons, but. But the other opening sentence that occurred to me to write down the note that I wanted to deliver and sort of like an opening response was I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here. I feel like I'm being punked. And this is an attempt to get me to agree to the idea that a crashing stocking market and crashing housing market and a crashing economy are all good. Because what we really care about are 25 year olds who need to buy a house in three years. And we just have to organize the economy around this very particular niche that isn't actually well organized for. So anyway, I lost my mind. I had a blackout moment. I was really upset. I was also like, I really like Kelly. I think we've always had a perfectly fine. I don't know her that well, but I have nothing against her. But her follow up question to me I just thought was also a little strange. It was like, Derek, isn't Kyle Bass point that we need the market to crash to reset housing values. Isn't this your argument that homes are too expensive in America, we need to make them cheaper? And it was just like there's a huge difference between one strategy of crashing the economy to make houses in Los Angeles cheaper and saying we need more houses in Los Angeles so let's build more houses in Los Angeles. I really felt pained by how the possible message of this book could be misinterpreted through the lens of wishing for a recession. So yeah, I had a mental breakdown right here sitting in this seat. And it turns out that there were enough people who were all also having mental breakdowns that they could sort of like get on my breakdown wavelength and we all broke down together. So that's the story of what happened.
- [18:08]
Ben Carlson
So the one big overarching question I wanna ask you is. And Michael has been getting after me lately because I've never been negative before. Really. I've always been a glass is that full, optimistic, positive person. I always look for the silver lining and Michael keeps roasting me. Cause he says I've never been so negative. I have in the past like month because I Don't know. I don't want to.
- [18:25]
Derek Thompson
You say that.
- [18:25]
Michael Batnik
You say that.
- [18:27]
Ben Carlson
I'm sorry. I don't wanna burn down the system. That's. Call me crazy, but I. The thing I like about your book is that it's. It's an optimistic message, right? It's not one of doom and gloom. And do you think that America is ready for an optimistic message? Because I, I'm. My concern is that the negativity thing sells so well to people these days, especially in the social media era, that I'm concerned that an optimistic message is going to have a hard time breaking through. Do you think I'm wrong?
- [18:55]
Michael Batnik
There were a lot of things in that question that I want to tease out because I totally understand where you're coming from. Let me start by questioning this aspect of the premise. I honestly was worried as the book was coming out that one thing people were going to say was your book is too critical. It's not optimistic enough. We open with a kind of sci fi vignette of what the world might look like in 2050 if we get everything right. And we close the book with a conclusion that I'll speak personally. Ezra and I absolutely co wrote this conclusion. So these are not all my words, but I was very pleased by how sort of rousing aspects of the conclusion were. How we were talking about this idea that there are these waves in American history called political orders. And once every 50 years or so there's a time for new political order and the time might be ripe for something like the order of abundance to define the next half century of American life. So it was bookended with optimism. But I was worried that the chapters themselves were going to be too much of a bummer. Like our housing chapter is all about the ways that rules and regulations and sometimes really nitty gritty technocratic stuff, you know, zoning laws and permitting and environmental assessments get in the way of adding the housing supply in the places where there's the most demand. And then the environmental chapter, I think there's like a bit of mourning about the fact that Ezra and I believe very deeply in climate change and think that we're utterly failing in our ability to build commensurate to the challenge. And then the governance chapter, which is the next chapter, is all about how governance fails. And the science chapter is about how so much scientific funding we think is. Or scientific bureaucracy we think is wasted. And the technology chapter is then about all the ways that America sometimes invents, but fails to build what we invent. I was worried that we were being too critical. So that's one way of saying that abundance wears two faces or wears two masks.
- [20:45]
Ben Carlson
That's my glass half full thing. I chose to look at it hopefully.
- [20:48]
Michael Batnik
And I love that. And you're not alone. I've honestly been deeply, as a pathologically agreeable person myself, I've been really gratified how many people have read the book and said, it's optimistic, it's inspiring. I don't want to write books that aren't optimistic or inspiring. Why spend years of your life working on a project that makes people feel like shit? That doesn't seem like there's enough reasons to feel like shit? I don't want to add a cultural product. It's just like, hey, feel like more shit. That said, when you say, is abundance too optimistic to thrive in a cultural and political climate that is too demanding of negativity, I would say we wrote a book that's plenty negative. We wrote a book that's incredibly mean and negative about the state of California and the state of liberal governance and the fact that liberals can't build the places they have the most power. And the fact that in California, when the progressive share of a city rises by 10%, the number of houses they permit declined by 30%. Like on the left, a lot of people have read this book and said, you're way too mean to liberals, right? So one way I take your question is like, what role does this book serve politically in 2026 or 2028? And let me submit this theory. Like I said before, we live in a world that hates the establishment and hates the status quo, and every institution is losing popularity. The left has always been able to run against the Democratic Party and the maga. Right was very successful by running against the Republican Party. Trump did this beautifully, right? He literally ran against John McCain and the Bush administrations. One challenge for the center left is that sometimes we think of ourselves as the establishment. We've got all the college degrees, we're all the lawyers, we are the institution. And so we're sometimes loathe to criticize institutions. And one thing I think abundance does is it gives moderates a permission structure to run against the system. This is our way of allowing moderates who don't want to destroy the system to run as reformers with a clearly. With a message that is clearly antagonistic to the status quo. Shit isn't working. Right. And that, I think, is a message that could absolutely be taken up by the right politician in 2026 and 2028.
- [23:09]
Derek Thompson
Derek on your plain English podcast by the Ringer Network, which occupies probably 97% of my podcast listening. You did four episodes on the trade war and the history of the smoot hauly tariff and what's up with China and all of this good stuff. And you've got one today that a little bit different. An astrophysicist explains the strongest evidence yet of alien life. I don't need to comment on that. I just thought it was hilarious. I wanted to just drop that in there. But getting back to what we talk about, which is the market and the economy, corporate America has an index that we can measure. It's the stock market. The s and P500 fell 20%. It has since rebounded pretty strongly. It's now only down 11% off its highs. I would posit to you that if there was an index for Main Street America, for small businesses, for people that don't have access to now 6%, you know, funding or whatever it is, that index would be down 40% and it would not be bouncing at all. There is a tidal wave that is 17,000 miles away that will crash on our shores and he might reverse and he might negotiate, but the damage that is coming is coming.
- [24:17]
Michael Batnik
Yeah, I have no edits. Dude, I think you're exactly right. One way that I think about the situation now is that Trump was elected to make America 2019 again, and Trump made America 2020 again. Except this time, the crisis and the chaos that we've invited on ourselves, we actually invited on ourselves. It's not a biological act of God. It's an act of one person. And that's so tragic. I mean, we're in a situation right now where Scott Besant, that guy can say literally anything that sounds mildly logical on television and stocks immediately go up 200 points. I think what's coming is absolute madness. And I think we're gonna see something like the following in the next three months. I think you're going to see more reports of shipping containers and freights and trucking statistics being significantly down, down maybe not to levels since 2020 when you essentially had a forceful shutdown of the economy forced by a pandemic, I should say, and not by White House policy explicitly. I think you're going to start to see more manufacturers respond to either a shortage of input goods or rising prices to input goods by either screaming to their local Fed offices. And you're going to see all sorts of numbers decline when it comes to orders and forward looking orders. You're also going to see more layoffs. You're going to see more factories being shut down, maybe starting in auto and spreading throughout manufacturing. I think you're going to see just absolute mayhem in the next maybe six months in retail shortages. You know, family saying, I needed to buy this child's car seat for my kid and it's no longer available. Or the price increased by 40%. Or I need to buy these toys for my kid and they're no longer available. Or the price increased by 40% for.
- [26:18]
Derek Thompson
People that think like, what are you talking about? Dude, relax, you're being hysterical. Remind people or let people know the conversation that you had on the statistics around the child care seats and things that we import from China.
- [26:31]
Ben Carlson
Yeah, that was crazy to me. I didn't realize it was that hot.
- [26:33]
Michael Batnik
So I did a podcast episode with Jason Miller, who's a supply chain expert at Michigan State. And I actually found him by reading Michael Sembelis research note, which I know you guys worship at the altar of Michael. I am the lead priest at the altar of Michael. I think he's absolutely brilliant. And in one of his little footnotes, he mentioned that Jason Miller is a supply chain expert that he follows on LinkedIn. So I talked to Jason and Jason gave me all of his data. And Jason's data is a frigging treasure trove. And I can send it to you guys after with Jason's permission, I guess. He has ranked all of the stuff that we send to China and that China sends to us based on its share of total exports and imports. Right. So you take something like soybeans, right? America exports billions and billions of dollars of soybeans. I think about 30% of our exports go to China. So if China's like, guess what, America, we're not going to buy your soybeans anymore. That's not like a minor thing. That's billions and billions of dollars of soybeans that the farmers suddenly don't have the same export partner. And then on imports, you take a look at, where are we most reliant on China? Well, it turns out China's responsible not just for a ton of stuff in smartphone manufacturing, electronics, which everybody knows. It's responsible for 99% of our child safety seats with hardback shells. It's responsible for like 94, 93% of children's coloring books, 70 to 80% of toys, not for just ages three and below, but for ages, I believe 12 and below come from China as a share of total imports. So we're talking about a situation where if you just have a wall erected between America And China. Yes, the semiconductor fabs are going to feel it, depending on the exemptions that we see. Yes, a lot of manufacturing firms are going to feel it. But you don't just have to look at little manufacturing surveys to see how it's going to affect Americans. People won't be able to buy toasters and child safety seats and toys and coloring books for their children. Like, the most important lobbying group that's gonna be screaming at Donald Trump isn't gonna be some, like, niche manufacturing lobby group. It's gonna be like, whoever the lobbying group of America's pissed off moms is, they're gonna say the shit isn't available at Target. You did this to us. You have to stop.
- [28:48]
Ben Carlson
I've been playing around this idea that this could be the first ever financial crisis or recession started by social media, because it seems like everything kind of comes back to that. And it seems like the social media memes are meeting the physical world. Because to me, it sounds like from the stories that the CEOs of Target and Walmart went to the White House this week and said, listen, this is what's going to happen. And it seems like that is part of the reason for the tonal shift. Like, it finally dawned on them, like, oh my gosh, we could really have empty shelves and the stuff that people want. So not only will they be paying higher prices, but they're not going to have as much selection. And this is actually going to happen maybe in the next six, eight weeks or something, and people are going to actually realize this. And it's almost like I keep telling Michael, the analogy is when you see someone in a climate change movie that's going around and yelling and everyone listen, the. The waves are going to come or the ice caps are going to melt or whatever, they're yelling at everyone and no one's listening. You can almost see it coming. And I feel like the stock market is the wrong scoreboard here. It's going to be the economy and. But that's going to take longer for people to see, so they don't know what's coming yet. So how far down the road are we to actually, what do we have to do to reverse this? And is it even possible at this point to stop any pain?
- [29:56]
Michael Batnik
So the point I want to make in response to that question, which I love, is a point about this idea of oligarchy, right. There's a lot of talk right now, especially in political circles, about to what extent is America's biggest problem oligarchy? And the reason that I Don't love this line of critique, is that if the oligarchy were in charge, if the presidency was like a triumvirate between Jamie Dimon and whatever, someone at bank of America and sure, throwing Warren Buffett, would we have reciprocal tariffs of 50% on Lesotho? Would we have 30% tariffs on Indonesia and Vietnam? None of this would have happened if the oligarchy was actually in charge. And in a weird way, and I said this on, I think CNN a couple weeks ago and it got me in trouble in some circles, but whatever. What I said was, ironically, what America needs right now, and this is a moment where Donald Trump simply was not listening and he was digging his feet in on the reciprocal tariffs. I was like, ironically, what we need right now is like a touch of oligarchy. Like we need the folks who actually believe that free trade is not the sole cause of all of America's ills to get the President's ear and say you have to backtrack from this. And instead tariffs just went up on China, which I think is in some ways the worst possible outcome because I don't think that an all out trade war with China is something that the US can easily win. What we're getting now, though, is complicated. What we're getting now is like the revenge of the oligarchy, right? You're starting to see corporate executives get the President's here and they're coming to the White House, right? The big bankers are talking to Bessant and saying, you've got to talk this guy off the ledge. And the CEOs are coming to the White House and they're saying we need exemptions for, or we need consideration for the stuff that I target sell. That's all well and good to a certain extent, right? To the extent that I don't think we should be enacting policies that raise the price of toys at target by 50% for no good reason. That said, what I'm really concerned about are small businesses. Small businesses are getting here in two different ways. Number one, Trump's going to just keep doing this. There's not going to be a moment in the next few days or weeks where Trump just decides the whole tariff thing was a terrible idea. And we're just going back to the trade regime that we had on January 1st. That's not happening. We're going to get a lot of back and forth and back and forth. If you're a small business, how do you have enough people on staff to calculate the prevailing effective tariff rate of, of your final and input goods in any given week. You simply don't. So you're completely screwed when it comes to actually figuring out, like, purchase orders and how to do business if you have an international supply chain that passes through China. But maybe just as importantly, you don't have the ability to directly lobby the president for your shit. So if, like, you're selling Toy A and Toy A only sells on Amazon, it doesn't sell at Target, and Toy B does sell at Target and the CEO of Target gets the president's ear and maybe even like, finds a way to, like, you know, have some money in escrow by $10 million of Trump coin in order to ensure that the president, you know, cuts the tariff on certain goods that are coming in through Target. Well, then the folks who make Toy B through the large provider are saved and the little guy who's making Toy A is screwed. But clearly we can all agree the economic statistic that is most keeping up with all of the other incoming statistics is the stock market. And that's why I think it is the best real time statistic to look at. Even if right now I don't necessarily agree that it should be going up as much as it's going up.
- [33:34]
Derek Thompson
All right, well, at least it's almost summer and the weather's getting warm and we've got that to look forward to. So, Derek, I want to thank you for coming on. Your podcast is incredible. Your writing, as always, is wonderful. Abundance is the book that you wrote with Ezra Klein. Thank you so much for coming on today.
- [33:47]
Michael Batnik
Thanks, Michael. Thanks, Ben.