The Big Beautiful Bill & The U.S. Enters Its Middle Aged Man Era

Summary

Everybody's Business – Episode Summary

Episode: The Big Beautiful Bill & The U.S. Enters Its Middle Aged Man Era
Date: July 4, 2025
Hosts: Stacey Vanek Smith & Brad Stone

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Overview

This week, Stacey Vanek Smith and Brad Stone (filling in for Max Chafkin) break down the imminent passage of the so-called "Big Beautiful Bill" in Congress—a sweeping and controversial extension of Trump-era tax cuts. The episode explores the bill’s expected impact on business, why the U.S. deficit matters for everyone, and what today’s surprising jobs numbers say about the economy as the nation nears its 249th birthday. They are joined by economist Allison Schrager and also touch on a disturbing trend regarding media freedom, rounding things out with business haikus from listeners.

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Main Discussion Points

1. Canada Day and Cross-Border Relations

Segment starts: 02:12

• Stacey recently visited Canada for Canada Day (July 1), reflecting on comparisons to U.S. Independence Day and ongoing U.S.-Canada tensions around trade and Trump’s remark about making Canada the 51st state.
• Canadians she spoke with expressed warmth toward the U.S. but were clear about retaining their independence.
  • Notable moment:
    "People could not have been nicer. They just kept wishing me a happy fourth of July and saying that they liked the US and it was, it was very moving. I love Canada." (04:01 - Stacey Vanek Smith)

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2. The "Big Beautiful Bill": Business Impact

Segment starts: 07:20

Key Provisions and Impacts:

• Tax Cuts for Businesses

  • The bill is largely an extension of Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which reduced the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%.
    • Example: "Apple... lowered its tax bill from about $16 billion in 2016... all the way down to $10.4 billion in fiscal 2019." (08:16 - Brad Stone)
    • Includes a revived 20% income deduction for small business owners.
  • History points to strong corporate earnings following the last tax cuts—but also inflation and a ballooning deficit.

• Deficit Concerns

  • The bill is expected to add almost $3.5 trillion to the deficit over a decade (09:48).
  • U.S. debt stands at $36 trillion, with nearly $1 trillion a year going to interest payments.
    • "That's the size of the defense budget. And within the next 10 years, it's estimated that our debt, servicing our debt will be the biggest item in our budget." (10:49 - Stacey Vanek Smith)
  • Rising debt may destabilize the economy, increase interest rates, and make borrowing costlier for everyone—ultimately "hamstrings businesses." (11:50)

• Cuts to Social Programs

  • Major cuts and new work requirements for Medicaid, SNAP, and student loans could push more costs onto businesses whose workers depend on those services.
    • "The companies might be forced to either shrink their payrolls or take on some of those costs themselves, which will be... even less money for them to use for expanding and hiring." (13:31 - Brad Stone & Stacey Vanek Smith)
  • Discussion about the credibility of deficit concerns across both political parties; recognition that neither Republicans nor Democrats seem focused on true fiscal restraint anymore.

• Political Dynamics

  • Trump and Republican leaders have managed to control internal opposition to the bill by offering local carve-outs and strong-arming dissenters.
    • "It's almost, you know, Johnsonian a little bit. And the way he has been able to wield, you know, threats and personality to bring members of his into line." (14:16 - Brad Stone)

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3. Economy Checkup: The U.S. in Its "Middle Aged Man Era"

Segment starts: 16:53

Current Jobs Report

• The unemployment rate is at 4.1%, with 147,000 jobs added in June—a "clean bill of health" for the economy. (17:30)
  • "The patient Stacy looks healthy." (17:17 - Brad Stone)
• Most job gains are in local government; private sector gains are less robust but steady.

Interview: Dr. Allison Schrager, Economist

Segment starts: 18:18

• While the economy looks strong on paper, young workers—especially college grads—are facing tough prospects (21:13).
  • "Their employment rates are like recession levels...that might suggest that there are these structural changes that will change the labor market and particularly be hard for young workers." (21:15 - Allison Schrager)
• AI may be eating up entry-level jobs, though evidence is still emerging.
• Discussion of immigration’s impact: the labor force remains flush for now, but hiring may dwindle in the fall as the Biden-era immigration cohort filters into jobs (22:31).
• The apparent "vibe session": high-visibility layoffs in tech/media versus steady but less visible growth in government/healthcare.

Is Stimulus Needed?

• With the Big Beautiful Bill set to deliver fiscal stimulus, Schrager says extending tax cuts is politically inevitable, but that both parties must face "hard truths" for debt reduction: higher taxes and program cuts (25:10).
  • "We're going to have higher taxes and less services if we're really going to get the debt down." (26:49 - Allison Schrager)
• Schrager:
  • "The economy is like a middle aged man who's really smart and well earning... but maybe could lose 10 pounds or maybe even 15 or 20 pounds." (27:04)
  • The U.S. economic patient has lots of potential but needs to "trim some fat"—i.e., manage debt and policy excess.

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4. Underrated Story of the Week: The Chilling Effect on U.S. Media

Segment starts: 28:34

• Paramount Global settled a Trump lawsuit over alleged "election interference" by CBS News—paying $16 million as part of a larger deal required for completing its sale to Skydance Media.
  • "This is 60 Minutes. This is the gold standard for news...bending the knee and paying a bounty to a sitting president. And it's appalling." (29:42 - Brad Stone)
• Brad and Stacey debate whether settling is prudent for business survival, given regulatory pressures, versus its implications for democracy.
  • "The individual incentive is to settle... But the collective impact is disastrous." (31:08 - Brad Stone)
  • "The soul of journalism and like the economics of journalism come in clash all the time." (32:02 - Stacey Vanek Smith)

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5. Business Haiku & Listener Engagement

Segment starts: 32:10

• Celebrates the growing tradition of listener-submitted haikus about business news.
• Listener Bill Lapp’s haiku:
  "Four trillion debt.
  Wow. How can we afford this much?
  Just ask Musk or Swift." (32:54)
• Hosts encourage more business poetry submissions from listeners for future episodes.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Stacey Vanek Smith (on debt):
  "Our debt is just, it's huge. It's mind blowingly huge. It's $36 trillion. Sometimes these numbers, they get so big you can't even process them." (09:48)

• Brad Stone (on political shift in party priorities):
  "Traditionally, you're so right. The conservatives, at least the old school conservatives, have been the party of financial responsibility... I think the issue we're looking at now is that nobody wants that." (14:42)

• Allison Schrager (on US economic health):
  "The economy is like a middle aged man who's really smart and well earning and has a lot of good years ahead of him, but maybe could lose 10 pounds or maybe even 15 or 20 pounds." (27:04)

• Brad Stone (on media settlement):
  "It's a tragedy...60 Minutes...bending the knee and paying a bounty to a sitting president. And it's appalling, and it sets a terrible precedent." (29:42)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Canada Day & US-Canada Relations: 02:12–04:18
• Big Beautiful Bill—Taxes & Deficit: 07:20–15:51
• Jobs Report & Economic Health (with Allison Schrager): 16:53–28:13
• Underrated Story—Media Freedom & Paramount Settlement: 28:34–32:02
• Listener Haiku Segment: 32:10–33:09

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Tone

The episode maintains an approachable, witty tone even as it handles sobering economic and political trends. The hosts balance expertise, skepticism, and a touch of humor, particularly in their analogies and poetry.

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Conclusion

This episode of Everybody’s Business provides a detailed, conversational walk-through of the Big Beautiful Bill’s impact on U.S. business, the structural risks posed by skyrocketing deficits, and the surprises in current employment data. The show contextualizes these stories within larger themes of American politics entering its "middle aged era," both economically and democratically, and invites listeners to reflect creatively—with haiku—on these challenges.

Listeners come away with both concrete takeaways and a sense of the underlying tensions shaping American business and society in 2025.

Transcript

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[A]

Bloomberg Audio Studios podcasts Radio.

[C]

News.

[D]

This is everybody's business from Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Stacey Vanek Smith.

[E]

And I'm Brad Stone. Stacey, Happy Independence Day.

[D]

Thank you, Brad. Happy Independence Day to you. It has been a short week for business, but action packed.

[E]

Yes. As we speak here on Thursday, the big beautiful bill is on the verge of passing the House and we're going to talk about the impact that this monumental bill could have on business.

[D]

We also got some unemployment numbers and in spite of feeling like maybe the economy's starting to soften a little bit, the numbers looked really good.

[E]

And our underrated story this week, a big payout to President Trump from CBS over what he called a biased presidential interview might become a little less independent.

[D]

Brad Stone, it is great to have you in this week. You were filling in for me last week and this week you're back filling in for Max Chavkin, who is out on vacation.

[E]

Hi Stacy. Great to be here. Now you've just gotten back from some world tours, right? You were in China, you were in Canada.

[D]

It's true, it was kind of a world tour. But this week I was lucky enough to be in Canada for Canada Day. That is on July 1. It's Canada's version of the Fourth of July, Independence Day. It was interesting to be there now because of course, Canada has been in the news a lot lately. You know, between the sort of drama with the trade deals and the tariffs and then of course the kind of ongoing Trump talk about making Canada into the 51st state. So I thought this would be a golden opportunity to ask our fellow Canadians how they felt about Canada Day and about Trump's dreams of 51st statehood. What does Canada Day mean to you?

[C]

It means another year of this great country.

[D]

What do you like about Canada? I love everything. I mean, some people don't like the weather, but I'm okay with it.

[C]

I love the diversity and I don't know, I just love the freedom.

[D]

They really welcome everyone. Like, you're here means that you are Canadian.

[A]

We're newcomers to Canada.

[D]

We just moved here first ever candidate. So we're just seeing what's like happening.

[A]

In the streets, the culture, the people.

[D]

You're Canadian and American.

[B]

I am both.

[E]

I love both countries.

[C]

Canadians are more patient.

[E]

Yeah.

[B]

More flexible and more open minded.

[D]

How do Canadians feel about the US right now? I have nothing against you guys.

[B]

Very unfortunate, the whole situation.

[D]

I just hope the situation goes away.

[C]

I mean, we're definitely going to be independent for a while. I hope.

[D]

I mean, hope. No 51st state.

[E]

No, no. Stacey. Canadians are so good natured.

[D]

I know, I know. I mean, I was a little worried about bringing up the 51st state thing on Canada Day in Canada, for obvious reasons. People could not have been nicer. They just kept wishing me a happy fourth of July and saying that they liked the US and it was, it was very moving. I love Canada.

[E]

Well, here in San Francisco, we remember when Trump threatened to turn Alcatraz back into a J. And so maybe, like us Canadians are just waiting to see whether Trump was serious about his threats.

[D]

So Alcatraz might be the canary in the Canadian 51st State Coal Mine.

[E]

Exactly.

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[E]

Stacey, is it me or is every major piece of legislation these days three words all starting with the letter B.

[D]

Like build back better? And you're talking about the big beautiful bill, which is right now, as we speak, on the very cusp of passing in the House. It looks like it is largely an extension of President Trump's 2017 tax cuts with some other things added on there.

[E]

The bill is massive, very controversial, more than a thousand pages with a lot packed in and a lot to talk about. But we wanted to focus on how the bill is likely to affect businesses. And it's kind of a mixed bag.

[D]

Yeah, we picked out a few kind of key things we thought would be the most impactful on businesses of all sizes, small businesses, medium businesses, giant corporations, to take a look at kind of what the fallout would be. Brad, you took the, you took the first thing, right?

[E]

Tax cuts.

[D]

Yeah, the big one.

[E]

And this was the kind of underlying rationale for Trump's signature bill in 2017, the tax cut and Jobs Act. It lowered the corporate tax rate in the US from 35% to 21%. This was just a massive boon for large companies. Stacy, just as an example, I looked into Apple. It lowered its tax bill from about 16 billion in 2016 or all the way down to 10.4 billion in fiscal 2019, according to its 10K.

[D]

Oh my gosh.

[C]

Yeah.

[E]

And if you remember, Trump also gave companies a tax holiday to repatriate the cash held overseas. And Apple saved about $50 billion there. So just a huge windfall for large companies. And then I should add, the Senate in its negotiations reinstated a provision from the original bill that allows small companies, like sole proprietorships, to deduct 20% of their business income from their taxable income. So, you know, again, this bill is really favoring businesses and large companies. And we can look back to 2018, by the way, to see what the impact was of the original bill. Not surprisingly, it was a, it was a good earnings year for corporations, but it also contributed to inflation. The Fed raised interest rates four times that year. It was a terrible year for the s and P500. And finally, and here we can get into our second factor. The deficit boomed 779 billion in 2018, about a 17% increase compared to the previous year's deficit.

[D]

Yes, this has been one of the big Democratic talking points about the tax cut extension, saying it's going to add to the deficit an estimated almost 3 1/2 trillion dollars over 10 years. It's a lot to add to the deficit. And I actually think this will affect businesses as well. Even though it's not quite as obvious an impact. I think it could be one of the biggest impacts that this bill has on businesses. So right now our debt is just, it's huge. It's mind blowingly huge. It's $36 trillion. Sometimes these numbers, they get so big you can't even process them. But one thing you can process is just how much of our budget it's taking up. So we are spending money, almost a trillion dollars a year just servicing our debt. That's interest payments and things like that. That is the size of the defense budget. And within the next 10 years, it's estimated that our debt, servicing our debt will be the biggest item in our budget. I mean, that is a real possibility.

[E]

So how does increased borrowing and increased borrowing costs, how is that likely to kind of boomerang back on companies and on, on individuals?

[D]

Well, a few reasons. So first of all, when the debt gets that big, it kind of can destabilize a country Just like if you were a person and you were in a ton of debt, you're in a pretty precarious situation. If an emergency comes up, you can't really cover your bills. And if there's an economic shock that's going to affect all the companies in the country. Right. I mean, the economy is an ecosystem. And so if the ecosystem starts to get unhealthy, it affects all of the companies in the ecosystems. And we've already seen this happen a little bit with the US debt getting downgraded largely because of the sort of the growing debt and all the instability that it could create. It also just makes the US and US companies by proxy a less attractive investment for international investors, just like a less safe place to put money that can have an impact on businesses. But I think one of the big things here is interest rates because the US Government is going to have to be issuing lots of debt, basically government bonds, which are essentially little loans that the government is taking out from anyone who will buy the bonds. The more debt it puts out, generally speaking, it has to offer higher interest rates on, on that debt to make it attractive for investors. Well, that basically means raising interest rates and that trickles out through the whole economy. That makes interest rates higher on almost all loans across the economy. That just makes it more expensive for businesses to borrow money, which means they can't expand as quickly, they can't hire as quickly, and you know, businesses expanding and hiring, that's how the economy grows. So it shrinks the economy, it hamstrings businesses. I think that's like one of the biggest impacts that we can expect the bill to have.

[E]

Okay, so we've talked about tax cut extensions, we've talked about an increase in the deficit. And then the third factor of this bill impacting businesses is going to be the cuts to major social programs like Medicaid, food assistance, the so called SNAP program and student loans. And the new work requirements and funding changes could result in millions potentially losing health insurance and food aid, which may in turn increase costs and instability for companies whose employees and customers rely on these programs. And by the way, the historic charge against companies like Walmart and Amazon is that they put their workers in precarious situations where they are forced to rely on government benefits. So as those government benefits go away, the companies might be forced to either shrink their payrolls or take on some of those costs themselves, which will be.

[D]

Even less money for them to use for expanding and hiring.

[E]

Right. So Stacey, these are the factors that we think are gonna impact companies and can we just acknowledge, you know, Donald Trump here has been dealt a pretty strong hand in terms of Republican majorities in both houses of Congress. But the way that he has been able to strong arm the fiscal hawks, the members of his own party who otherwise you would imagine would have allergic reactions to this, this tax cut and spending bill, bring them into line, you know, offer carve outs to senators like Murkowski in Alaska. Some pretty.

[D]

Isn't there a whaling tax cut or something for, for whalers?

[E]

I was thinking of getting into whaling considering and like it's almost, you know, Johnsonian a little bit. And the way he has been able to wield, you know, threats and personality to bring members of his into line. I mean, look, he's passing this massive bill, a lot of promises like no tax on tips that he made during the campaign. You have to just sort of watch in awe as Republicans push this through.

[D]

Traditionally, you're so right. Like the conservatives, at least the old school conservatives have been the party of financial responsibility. Right? They always want, you know, small deficits, small government, less spending. I think the issue we're looking at now is that nobody wants that, which kind of makes any kind of trying to tackle the deficit seem really difficult. You know, we've got Republicans wanting to, to spend in the form of like stimulus and tax cuts and you've got Democrats wanting to spend in the form of social programs. And our debt keeps getting bigger and bigger and I don't know, I think.

[E]

We'Ve all known since the age of Ronald Reagan that deficits are just not a political winner. Americans don't understand it. They don't care about it. We're a one it now society. And by the way, there is an interest group that should be very concerned about deficits and that is kids and unborn children who will have to pay this bill in decades and in generations. And of course, that is not a very strong political interest group.

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[D]

So, Brad, the U.S. economy is turning 249 years old. It's pretty solid run so far. And it is a strange time to be covering the economy. I know that you've covered this a lot at Business Week and I've covered this a lot, but there is this kind of dissonance between how the economy feels and the numbers that come out every month.

[E]

And this is why when you have this dissonance, you go to the doctor for your checkup. And we got one today from the Labor Department in the form of the jobs report. And the patient Stacy looks healthy.

[D]

I know.

[E]

The unemployment report for June, the economy added 147,000 jobs. The unemployment rate clocked in at 4.1%, near historic lows. This is what amounts to a clean bill of health if you're a country.

[D]

It really is. I was very surprised by this report. I was expecting between DOGE and tariffs and everything to see some softness, I guess maybe a kind of a negative jobs report. But of course, this data is what the government uses to set policies. And this data looks good, but we thought we would bring in an expert to help us kind of parse through this particular patient's bill of rights.

[E]

A real doctor?

[D]

A real. A real doctor, actually, yes. Dr. Alison Schrager. She's an economist with the Manhattan Institute and an opinion columnist here at Bloomberg. Welcome, Allison.

[C]

Thanks for having me.

[D]

What do you see when you look at this report? I mean, it looks like really good news.

[C]

It's a good report. You can throw some water on it if you see that most of the job gains were in the government, particularly local government. We're not quite sure why. Less job gains in the private sector, although also not terrible in the private sector. But you know what? The unemployment rate still low. I think we keep expecting this shoe to drop because there's so much uncertainty with the tariffs and everything.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

But you know, it's a good economy.

[E]

What can I say, Allison, one aspect of this report, wages rose 3.7% in the past year. That's well above the inflation rate. How do you think it factors into the decision making at the Fed? How is Jerome Powell looking at this report?

[C]

I think it's really hard to justify a rate cut. Not only that, the justification for a rate cut is that we increased rates a lot when inflation went up and they're still well above where they were pre inflation. So there's this idea that the UAE increased interest rates and it's contractionary and when things go back to normal, rates go back down.

[D]

Contractionary, like you increase interest rates, the economy shrinks and then inflation goes away.

[C]

Then you go back to normal. We call normalization. But the thing is, this is a pretty good economy. It might not be like outrageously booming, but it certainly doesn't seem to be shrinking. And the fact that interest rates are relatively high relative what we're used to, and it doesn't seem to be having a dampening effect on the economy really isn't just, gee, we're not going to cut rates this summer. I think it really forces the Fed to think maybe what we consider neutral, the interest rates, where it doesn't harm the economy maybe are higher than they used to be. And even if we think about cutting rates once or twice later in the year, we don't have that many rate cuts to go.

[D]

It doesn't feel like the economy is doing as well as the data seems to indicate that it is. It feels like the job market is in kind of rough shape. There are headlines about layoffs all the time. There was just a big one from Microsoft. I mean, as someone who looks at data but also lives in the world, how do you reconcile these two things? I know it's like the Vibe session. Everybody's been talking about it for a while, but this report really kind of surprised me.

[C]

I think there's the jobs report, which is right now in the longer term outlook for employment, which is more say state structural, what we call like the economy's natural rate of employment. That is more worrying and we're starting to see signs that might be changing. So one thing that concerns me is employment rates for recent college grads. Okay, not very good. And in fact, usually recent college grads tend to find jobs fairly quickly because they're cheap. Yeah, they're cheap. They fill all these entry level jobs that you need. And also they're well educated and learn things quickly.

[D]

So they know how to use AI.

[C]

Yeah, maybe too well, but yeah, they do. And they are not finding jobs like they used to. In fact, their employment rates are like recession levels. So I think this is really concerning because it might point to the idea that entry level jobs are the ones AI can do. There's no hard evidence. This is why factoring into employment decisions. Employers insist it's not. But it is very worrying that this segment is not doing that well. And that might suggest that there are these structural changes that will change the labor market and particularly be hard for young workers. Your first job out of college is actually important. There's evidence. Certainly we revisited this in the Great Recession and a lot of millennials are still feeling this. If you graduate during a recession, it can impact your earnings for decades. So we might be seeing this big shift, which is actually in a lot of ways more important than one jobs report.

[E]

It's interesting how we can see these trends in something like the jobs report. So AI is one, but another one, I'm curious, is immigration. I mean, Alison, when you look at this report, do you see the impact of high levels of deportation by the Trump administration or declining immigration numbers, particularly at the southern border? Is it contributing to what seems to be a kind of robust hiring environment?

[C]

Not yet. I mean, I just read a report from AEI in Brookings that anticipates we'll be seeing very low hiring numbers in the fall. But this is quite high. Some people are speculating that a lot of the people who came in the Biden wave of immigration are still just finding their way into the labor force. So it looks quite high now, but they estimate it could fall a lot in the fall. But the thing to keep in mind with that is it represents growth of the labor force. So even if we end up with very sort of small hiring numbers in the fall, the unemployment rate would actually still be quite low because it wouldn't represent more people looking for jobs. And in which case that still wouldn't cause the Fed to cut rates because they're actually concerned about the unemployment rate.

[D]

One of the things that I've read about the reason for the Vibe session is that the jobs that are lost tend to be in industries that are quite high visibility, like the service sector, like tech, like media, whereas the jobs being added are in sectors like government and healthcare that are less visible. Is there truth to that? Is that possibly why there's this discrepancy or feels like there is.

[C]

I mean, not only is it in the data for this report that is a long running trend in the economy, that job growth for the last decade has largely been in government, healthcare and education. And even still with AI, these sorts of service jobs largely can't be automated. So I think we can expect a lot more of that.

[D]

How are we adding government jobs? What about doge? I thought those jobs were supposed to.

[C]

Be going away It's a bit of a mystery. It's largely in local government now. It could be that Doge fired a bunch of people and then they're like, no, we actually need those people. So maybe they're coming back. I'm not sure. I mean, that's a possibility. Or maybe instead of working the federal government, people are now working for local government. It is a bit of a mystery. At the very least, we kept expecting from Doge this huge drop in employment and that hundreds of thousands of jobs at the very least, that never seemed to show up in the data. And I'm not sure if it's because these people found other jobs quickly. They tend to be fairly well educated and highly skilled, and people like that tend to have shorter spells of unemployment. So it could be people who had other options, or maybe they're working for the local government now. But it is a bit of a mystery.

[E]

So Alison Stacey and I were just discussing the big beautiful bill. You know, the US Government seems poised to deliver a massive stimulus in the form of tax cuts, increased military spending, adding $3.5 trillion to the federal deficit. If legislators were working with perfect information and they saw the state and the health of this economy, like, how should they rethink or red in this bill considering these job numbers?

[C]

You know, it's a tricky one because, you know, we say three and a half trillion dollars from tax cuts, but most of that is just extending the TGCA, the tax cuts people got in 2017. So it would be a four and a half trillion dollar tax increase if we didn't do that. So I don't think either party is really prepared to do that. There are things that are unnecessarily stimulative or not great tax policy in there, like no tax on tips and tax on overtimes, the writing off auto loans, increasing the SALT deduction. There is some stuff in there that certainly doesn't add anything to the party and just adds to the debt. But a bulk of this is just really extending the existing tax levels that we have. And, you know, I'm not sure either party is really prepared to do that. And to be honest, with the uncertainty and sort of precariousness the economy feels, I'm not sure it's even wise to get rid of that. But if we really did want to think about reducing the debt, which we're going to have to, I think both parties really have to face some really hard truths here, which is Republicans have to get used to the idea that, you know, we're all going to pay higher taxes. We might need a consumption tax or just increase corporate tax.

[D]

Consumption tax is like a sales tax or a value added tax or just.

[C]

Increase income taxes and take that economic hit. But Democrats too, you know, they're very incensed about the debt and I welcome that. I want everyone to be upset about the debt, but they're also completely freaked out by Medicaid cuts. Now, there's certainly a case to be made that Medicaid is not the place to cut services. But the fact is we are going to have to cut services somewhere. Both parties are going have to come to terms with the fact that we're going to have higher taxes and less services if we're really going to get the debt down.

[D]

So if the US Economy came to you as a patient and you were looking over all the data, the jobs, inflation, all of it, what, like, what would you tell this economy? What kind of checkup does it get?

[C]

The economy is like a middle aged man who's really smart and well earning and has a lot of good years ahead of him, but maybe could lose 10 pounds or maybe even 15 or 20 pounds.

[E]

This is hitting very close to home, Alison.

[C]

Jeez, I'm sorry. You don't need to lose any weight, though.

[E]

Thank you.

[C]

You know, it's like you got a lot of potential. There's still a lot of great things you're going to do. You're pretty much like running the world, but you got some fat you need to trim.

[D]

What specifically would you be looking at or keeping your eye on for this particular middle aged patient?

[C]

Well, obviously debt levels, there's some policy things undermining Fed independence, which could increase inflation, as could the high debt levels. You know, the fact that we're doing more policy that's less focused on growing the economy and more focused on our political objectives. Things like the tariffs and immigration, all of that, you know, is sort of causing us to have a bit of a belly. And, you know, we don't need to do that. It's not good for your heart, but it probably also won't kill you anytime soon.

[D]

Allison Schrager is an economist with the Manhattan Institute. She's also an opinion columnist here at Bloomberg. All right, we are to the segment of the show where we talk about our underrated story of the week. And Brad, this, this was yours. You brought the underrated story. What did you find? What should we be paying more attention to?

[E]

Well, Stacy, summarizing reporting from Bloomberg's own Hannah Miller, you may have heard Paramount Global reached a settlement with President Donald Trump over his lawsuit that alleged election interference by the company that owned CBS News. When it showed two different versions of a 60 Minutes interview with then Vice President Kamala Harris. Paramount agreed to pay $16 million, including plaintiff fees. What's left will go to a future presidential library. Trump's legal team called the settlement a victory and said it reflected the strength of the case, but in fact says it was precisely the opposite. Most legal experts thought the case was ridiculous, frivolous. But Paramount is being sold to a company called Skydance Media. It needs approval from federal regulators. And most insiders, including, apparently, Sherry Redstone, who owns a controlling interest in Paramount, believed the FCC was withholding approval pending the outcome of this case.

[D]

I mean, as the editor of a news magazine, how do you feel about that?

[E]

It's a tragedy. And this is 60 Minutes. This is the gold standard for news, a show I grew up watching with my parents bending the knee and paying a bounty to a sitting president. And it's appalling. And as part of this larger trend of the president attempting to intimidate the media, the campaign includes threatening the New York Times and CNN for reporting on the Iran bombing, defunding NPR and pbs, removing news wires like AP from the White House press pool, and on and on. It's appalling, and it sets a terrible precedent.

[D]

You know, I mean, I obviously have a lot of emotion for the media. I spent most of my career in public media, which is, as you said, in a big existential crisis over. Over this moment. I have a lot of sympathy, I guess, for Paramount in this situation. I'm just, like, not sure what you do if you are running a media organization, because I'm thinking of, like, the universities dealing with the Trump administration right now. I mean, Harvard just announced that they have a billion dollar budget deficit because of taking on Trump. And that has not gone well for it. You know, if you're running one of these big organizations, you have all these jobs on the line, you're supposed to be protecting your people. I'm honestly not sure what I would do if I were running this company. But I deeply believe in media, too.

[E]

The individual incentive is to settle, right, is to bend the knee and move on. But then the collective impact is disastrous. So it's really incumbent upon the large, wealthy institutions like Harvard, like big media companies and, yes, like Paramount and the Redstone family, to stand up and act. Maybe not in their own short term, narrow self interest, but for the long term, for the health of democracy and independent institutions. And that's why I thought this story was underrated and kind of a tragedy.

[D]

I mean, I think one of the things that that is so interesting to me about media, which I work in, but also cover, is that I feel like the soul of journalism and like the economics of journalism come in clash all the time. And I feel like sometimes the best journalism is not great business and the best business is not great journalism.

[E]

Stacey, couldn't agree with you more. You know what we need right now? You know what would help? A poem.

[D]

Yeah, maybe it's time to pivot to poetry, which is always a good idea. In fact, we have some poetry news here at Everybody's Business for people who've listened to the show. You might remember that I challenged Max at one point to write haikus for people who reviewed the show. Because we're a new show, we're trying to get reviews. And so this was our incentive. And Max has been writing haikus. But now we've started getting haikus from listeners about other things, which has been such a delightful surprise. We got one from listener Bill Lapp. He wrote in a haiku about one of our shows that involved Elon Musk, Taylor Swift and the deficit. Here is what he wrote. Four trillion debt.

[B]

Wow. How can we afford this much?

[C]

Just ask Musk or Swift.

[D]

Is that. I feel like that is a beautiful. That's a beautiful.

[E]

I hope this starts a trend. I want to hear more listener submitted haikus.

[D]

Business poetry. I feel like business poetry is an underrated category of poetry and maybe the best thing to deal with this moment that we're in. Maybe we should all write poems to the US economy for its 249th birthday. In fact, if you do feel inspired or moved to write a poem for the US Economy on its birthday, send it to us in an email. We would love to hear from you@everybody's bloomberg.net that is is everybody's with an sloomberg.net we would love to read your poetry. This show is produced by Stacy Wong. Magnus Henriksen is our supervising producer. Amy Keen is our editor, and Brendan Francis Newnham is our executive producer. We get engineering support from Blake Maples and Dave Purcell. Fact checks. Sage Bauman heads Bloomberg Podcasts. And a very special thanks to Jeff Muskus. If you have a minute, please rate and review the show. It means a lot to us. And Brad Stone has agreed to come in with his own haiku. If you write a review and if you have a story that should be our business, send us an [e-mail] that is everybody's with an sloomberg.net thank you for listening and we'll see you next week.

[C]

On September 25, Bloomberg Green returns to New York to bring together leaders from business, finance and government during Climate Week nyc. Join us for a half day of timely insights and high impact networking backed by Bloomberg's global journalism and data expertise. Together we'll explore strategies for future proofing business and communities from the planet's most pressing climate challenges.

[A]

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