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- [00:02]
Hasan Minhaj
Lemonade.
- [00:06]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Picture this. You're finally taking time to clean out your gutters. Not fun, but hey, good for you. Your elbows deep in soggy leaves. And then suddenly the smoke alarm starts blaring from inside. Smoke pours out the window. What do you do? ADTs do it yourself systems are built for those moments in your life when everything turns on a dime. They're affordable, easy, easy to set up, and the ADT app keeps you in control 24. 7 from virtually anywhere. Tackle your to do list knowing that your home is protected. When every second Counts, count on ADT. Visit ADT.com or call 1-800-ADTASAP thanks for listening to Hasa Minhaj Doesn't Know Listen to and follow Hasa Minhaj Doesn't Know ad free on Amazon Music or just ask Alexa. Alexa, play the podcast Hasan Minhaj Doesn't Know on Amazon Music. Also, with Amazon Music Unlimited, you can now listen to your favorite music podcasts and audiobooks all in the Amazon Music app. Listen to Hasan Minhaj Doesn't Know on Amazon Music if you're in America, you're probably feeling broke, angry and exhausted. The vibes are cooked. The hottest 2026 accessories are third jobs, fourth roommates, and cortisol. All we have is the Knicks and the World Cup. Everything else is going to hell.
- [01:18]
Hasan Minhaj
Budgeting in America in 2026 is is
- [01:21]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
basically survival at this point. Six hours to make $50.
- [01:25]
Hasan Minhaj
$50, bruh. How hard do I have to work in order to survive, bro? Why isn't anyone having children? Gee, I wonder.
- [01:32]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
I think what older generations are having a really hard time conceptualizing is that we're we're all gonna get priced out. I did everything right. Can't get ahead. They just think they can squeeze more
- [01:41]
Hasan Minhaj
and more and more. It's gonna collapse.
- [01:44]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Today only 21% of Americans say that that the economy is doing well. That number tanked after the pandemic and has not recovered. Obviously there are a lot of reasons to feel about the economy, but the one thing that may connect them all
- [01:58]
Kyla Scanlon
housing Homeownership feels increasingly out of reach for many American families.
- [02:02]
Hasan Minhaj
More than 75% of homes across the US are unaffordable for the average household.
- [02:07]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Since the start of the pandemic, home
- [02:09]
Kyla Scanlon
prices across the country have soared nearly 50 50%. Today's median price $416,000.
- [02:17]
Hasan Minhaj
The median age of first time home buyer 40 years old.
- [02:21]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
It's rough out here folks. Every millennial I know is doom scrolling Zillow like it's Al Jazeera when housing is too expensive, it doesn't just make it harder to buy a house. It acts as a kind of bottleneck that makes a bunch of other problems worse. There was an economic article in 2021 called the Housing Theory of Everything which laid this out beautifully. For example, when an extra bedroom costs an arm and a leg, people have fewer kids than they actually want to have. Lowering the birth rate. When housing is hard to find, people can't move to where the best jobs are, which drags down productivity for the entire economy. And when housing is really expensive, people are more stressed out, which leads to homelessness, which could lead to addiction and other mental health issues. But maybe the most visible and obvious problem caused by the housing crisis is that it's made the traditional idea of being an adult, having a family and having a house to put them in unaffordable. So now we have massive wealth inequality between the older generation, the housing haves, and the younger generation, the housing have nots. Today, baby boomers are just 18% of the population, but they hold 34% of the housing supply and they don't even need the space. By the way, you got two boomers and five bedrooms. What are you doing with those four extra bedrooms? They're just filled up with goddamn VHS tapes. Not only do the boomers have all the assets, younger people got to put up with their older relatives, shaming them for not working hard enough.
- [03:43]
Hasan Minhaj
My grandpa and I had a conversation the other day that our generation does not work as hard.
- [03:47]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
We don't save properly.
- [03:48]
Hasan Minhaj
And that's why we're complaining about money all the time.
- [03:51]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
You can look them dead in the face, be like, hey, I graduated college and I'm making 50k a year at a mediocre job. I cannot afford a $700,000 house. And they'll just tell you to work harder and that you're lazy.
- [04:03]
Hasan Minhaj
Boomers will say, just work hard and
- [04:05]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
you'll be able to buy a house.
- [04:06]
Hasan Minhaj
When?
- [04:06]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
When they bought a house, it was $40,000.
- [04:08]
Hasan Minhaj
The economy is not the same.
- [04:11]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Genuinely. Like, they can all die. I cannot wait for them all to die. Whoa, chill. Not all of them need to die for you to get a house. You just need two. Your parents. Now, to be clear, I condemn violence, but the math here is basically correct. The economy isn't the same. You could graduate from high school in 1975, walk directly into a union job, and plunk down a down payment on a house with when the average price was only $39,000. Today, that same house would probably be worth 10 times that amount. Way outpacing income growth over the same period. There's actually a single number that shows home affordability across time. The ratio of home prices over median household income. That's right, folks. Learning fractions wasn't a waste of time. This is what you came to YouTube for, to do math problems that make you angry. So basically, this ratio equals how many years it would take to earn what a house costs. In 1985, it was 3.1. By 2025, it was 4.9. But that's just the average for the country. Here in New York City, that number is 9.5. In San Francisco, it's over 12. At this point, if you can afford a home in San Francisco, you either have rich parents or at some point you sign an NDA from Peter Thiel. As boomers had careers and raised families, their net worth kept rising as their homes got more and more valuable. But while the boomers thrive, people in their 20s struggle just to get by. I'm so tired of life.
- [05:38]
Hasan Minhaj
I can't afford to live here anymore. Why is gas $5 a gallon?
- [05:43]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
I'm stressed out.
- [05:45]
Hasan Minhaj
Job market's a joke. I have no choice but to keep the job I have now, the one that's barely paying my bills.
- [05:52]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
You may have noticed that montage was all women. That's because most men don't vent their frustrations on TikTok. They vent it in LeBron James comments. Young Americans feel locked out. They feel like the whole system is rigged against them. And understandably, it makes them cynical. When it feels like you can't get ahead playing by the rules, you give up. There was actually an economic paper last year on this titled Giving Up. No, I didn't read the whole thing. I was like size 8 font it close tab. But my researcher told me that it found that as households perceived probability of attaining home ownership falls, they consume more relative to their wealth and reduce work effort and take on riskier investments. So basically, we have three ways to cope. Little treats, quiet quitting and gambling. Let's take the first phenomenon, which some economists call the little treat economy or treatonomics, which describes how when people can't afford a home or actual therapy, they do retail therapy. It's a TikTok meme. It's called sweet little treat. After all, what difference does it make? There is no future. Daddy wants to feel good today. So get that gourmet cookie, buy yourself a $50 labubu or splurge on that Kolkata chai mix. A bold warming blend crafted with 100% organic Assam black tea, whole cardamom, cinnamon and premium spices. Use code HUSN10 at checkout for 10% off everything on the website. Then we've got quiet quitting the idea of doing just enough at work and never going above and beyond. Now there is a question of how wide the quiet quitting phenomenon really is and what its impacts are, but the feeling behind it is real. I am not going to put in a 60 hour work week and pull myself up by my bootstraps for a job that does not care about me as a person. So many people my age are coming to the realization that we're just the idea and the notion that we're just able to buy a home in this climate just by putting in some extra hours is outrageous and honestly just so ignorant. This feeling that simply working hard isn't a viable way to build wealth and own a home has led directly to Gen Z Cope number three gambling, where at least there's a chance at a big score you might just hit a lick, even if it's a small chance. So yeah, you may never save up for a down payment with your shitty job. But maybe, just maybe, if you put $100 on a poly market bet about whether President Trump will mention tampons in a conversation with Elon Musk, it will get you over the line. I'm not making this up by the way. That was a literal bet people made on Polymarket over what Trump would say during his X chat with elon Musk in 2024 and this paid off. The odds were 7%. So anyone making that bet on this crazy ass conversation made a 14x payout which caused one user to comment. Congrats to my tampon bros. We're just this is the only bet in history where you should get your legs broke if you win. Now some people might say this is a degenerate behavior, gambling is haram or my dad is dead because he owed money to the mob. But you're missing the bigger picture here. Gen Z is so desperate to get ahead that they now see gambling as a legitimate wealth building tool. The system is broken, is clearly not working. In fact, a recent poll found that nearly two thirds of Gen Z and millennials think that that the only way to build wealth today is through alternative methods like gambling and crypto. Which might be why Gen Z now spends more on gambling than boomers. Although gamblers of all ages are still spending the same amount on therapy. 0 so what's the solution here? Sure, we could expropriate the ruling class, nationalize all land and euthanize everyone over 75. Or we could just build more houses which would lower their price. Unfortunately, it's not as simple as it sounds. Part of the problem is you need to build the right housing, affordable housing, in the right places. And the right places have spent decades passing laws to make sure that never happens. A lot of neighborhoods have basically banned apartments, townhomes and duplexes. This is an issue often called NIMBYism or not in my backyard. Now it's important to remember that NIMBYs aren't all the same. Lower middle class NIMBYs have most of their wealth tied up in their home, so they don't want more homes to get built because that would lower the value of their home. Remember, they have one primary asset working for them, their house. Getting lower in value would shrink their wealth. More wealthy NIMBYs are the kind who will lose their mind if you try to build a duplex next door because they would prefer that you die with roommates than have an afternoon shadow on their begonias. But at the end of the day, homeowners of all types have most of the political power and they're using that power to prevent more homes from being built. So how do we break out of this cycle? How do we get more people who don't have homes into homes? To answer that question, I sat down with Kyla Scanlon. She's a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times and the author of in this Economy How Money and Markets Really Work. I'm telling you, man, this is essential reading. We talked about Gen Z's 5 financial nihilism with the help of a visual aid drawn by one of my Gen Z producers. Looks like she's crying.
- [10:57]
Hasan Minhaj
And she works for you.
- [10:58]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
And she works for me. Now it says paycheck $1. That's not true. We talked about how the housing crisis is impacting birth rates and if replacing dying Americans with more immigration might be the answer.
- [11:08]
Hasan Minhaj
The Economic Innovation Group had a great paper about high skilled immigration and like how it can grow the economy and that'd be great. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it would be.
- [11:16]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
I think it'd be a great replacement. And our discussion of sewer infrastructure went way off the rails when I went on one of my classic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle tangents. They're just teenagers, they're underage. But they do have a guardian, Splinter. Splinter is their master. He's a rat. He is technically their legal guardian. And the irony of it, Kyla, is that the whole movie is about brotherhood. Now, the Foot Clan do follow them into the sewers, but the Foot Clan are human beings. Shredder in Splinter one point were actually training together in ancient Japan. None of the mayors or the political establishment had the guts to stand up to him. Splinter was trying to protect Shredder, his master. The problem is is that everybody thinks they're a Michelangelo, but I'm more neurotic. I'm more of a Leo. Sorry, how was the sewer related to our conversation? Hey, I'm just saying we talk about elite power and worker power on this show. Let's not forget about turtle power. Heroes in a half shell.
- [12:11]
Kyla Scanlon
Turtle power.
- [12:21]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Kyla, thank you for joining us on the show.
- [12:23]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah, thanks for having me.
- [12:24]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Look, I'm not here to brag, but I'm going to talk your for you. You are famous in the economics world for coming up with a term in 2022 called vibe session. Now when I first heard that, I thought it was just a Spotify playlist that you would like queue up at a coffee shop. Okay, what is a vibe session?
- [12:45]
Hasan Minhaj
It's a disconnect between data and sentiment. So it's the idea that the economic data is saying one thing and then consumer sentiment is saying another. So that word came about in 2022 during the Biden economy when we were recovering from inflation from the pandemic. The labor market was strong, the economy was growing, but people felt really, really bad. And so I wanted to understand that disconnect. So I wrote this piece in July 2022 and it's like really, it's beyond me at this point. Like Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant talks about it. Whoa.
- [13:16]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
For the past year and a half and during the campaign, most of the media said, oh, the economy is great. It's just a vibe session.
- [13:23]
Hasan Minhaj
I, I don't think he knows that I was the one who coined it. You know, Jared Bernstein, who is the chair of Biden's Council of Economic Advisors, has done a lot of really great work on the word. He just did a big interview with Paul Krugman on Krugman substack about the term. So it's, it's has a life beyond it because, you know, sentime, it's just, it's, it just hit a record low very recently and it doesn't quite make sense because economic data is still relatively strong. And so the word now people will co opt it and take it to mean that, you know, people shouldn't feel bad about their economic circumstances, but it's really that disconnect like, it's not saying that anybody should feel one way or another. It's like, why is this happening? Like, what is economic data not capturing that people are feeling?
- [14:07]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
So you drew this diagram in 2022 to explain what a vibe session is. I have ADHD, so this hit me on a primal level. Talk to me about what's happening because I see two force fields me, and then a bunch of concepts I don't understand.
- [14:19]
Hasan Minhaj
So essentially it's trying to describe the disconnect between the reality described by the economic data and then the sentiment. So the vibes is the short term for sentiment. And so what ends up influencing reality is all of these policy decisions. So the decisions that the Federal Reserve makes, the monetary policy body, the central bank, the decision that the US Government makes, as well as what's happening in manufacturing, as well as what's happening in raw materials, what's happening to gasoline prices, housing, the labor market, and all of that ends up influencing the reality. But one quick channel to get to the Vibes is discourse. So a lot of sentiment is shaped by what people are reading in the news. You know, during the Biden economy, the news was quite negative around, you know, prices. Everything was expensive. And so you saw a lot of news stories saying that the economy was bad despite this economic data being relatively strong. So that's the discourse channel. And then of course, it all feeds into your narrative that you have for how you experience the world. And so your experience of the world and the evidence that you have from your lived life ends up influencing the expectations that you have around the world. And that influences your perception and then your interpretation of your experience.
- [15:32]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
So as someone who lives and breeds the economy and economics, how do you make sense of what this, this idea of the narrative is? For example, when you wrote this piece, a big part of the narrative was eggs and gas.
- [15:47]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [15:48]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
I'll be honest with you. I don't even eat eggs in the morning. But I had to, I had to be like, no, this eggs discourse is really, really super important because I'm just reading so much about eggs.
- [15:58]
Hasan Minhaj
I mean, the egg story was really interesting because that ended up being a sort of price gouging story where the egg sellers were raising their prices.
- [16:06]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Yeah, it was insane. Eggs were like the new supreme drop where it's just like, hey, these resellers are really, really price gouging the fans of people who want eggs and they're die hard egg fans. I don't want to put you on the spot here, but people ask you for your Expertise all the time. Kyla, how would you say things are right now for the American public? Because you have both the information and you're acutely aware of the vibes.
- [16:29]
Hasan Minhaj
I mean, I think right now is really hard because as I said, you know, sentiment hit a record low. And another puzzle is like, why are people, you know, what's going on? And a lot of it comes down to structural affordability problems. So housing is really expensive, childcare is really expensive. Elder care is really expensive. So some of that doesn't quite show up in the economic data. So we have like this affordability issue and that is really making people feel not great about the economy.
- [16:58]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
I have to listen to the fake news talking about affordability. Affordability. I've won. I've won affordability.
- [17:07]
Kyla Scanlon
A new Reuters Ipsos poll finds 56% disapprove of how the President is handling
- [17:12]
Hasan Minhaj
the cost of living. I hear so much about the word groceries. It's like sort of an old fashioned word, groceries.
- [17:17]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
But groceries is the word that's the most accurate word.
- [17:21]
Hasan Minhaj
And then we also have this technology aspect where AI is creating a lot of confusion around the labor market, around, you know, are people going to have jobs in five to 10 years or even one year? Nobody really knows. There's also a lot of political uncertainty. The geopolitics of it all, the decisions that the Trump administration is making. To what extent are American financial situation motivating you to make a deal?
- [17:44]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Not even a little bit.
- [17:45]
Hasan Minhaj
And then there's the broader issue of financialization. So you have things like private credit creating a lot of problems in the economy, a lot of question marks around the stability of the financial system. And so I think you have these, like, core components, the affordability problem, the tech problem, the politics problem, and the financialization problem that are really contributing to how people are worried about their economic circumstances.
- [18:07]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
I mean, you wrote another banger on the Wall Street Journal titled why My Generation Is Turning to Financial Nihilism. Yeah, now I hit the WSJ paywall. So I don't know what you wrote in that piece. What is financial nihilism?
- [18:23]
Hasan Minhaj
So financial nihilism is a term that was coined by Dimitri Kofinas, who runs the podcast Hidden forces back in 2021. And so he was theorizing that people were turning to risky investments as a way to just show distrust in the economy, to show distrust in financial markets. And so the theory behind that, which a research paper came out in November 2025, providing some credibility to the theory, is that if people feel like they don't have the chance to participate in the economy. They're going to turn to risky investments to predict sports betting, whatever it may be, to try and hit some moonshot because they feel like they don't have a stable path forward. So the financial nihilism aspect is people sort of dipping out of the economy and saying, this is not working for me. I'm going to go down a different path, a more riskier path.
- [19:13]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Now, unfortunately, you didn't draw a diagram for this concept, but my producer Annie did draw one. Summarizing your article, paying homage to your vibe session. Graphic. Let's take a look.
- [19:22]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah.
- [19:23]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
So this is Annie. She's a producer here on the show. So here she is. She's sitting in front of a laptop, just paying my dues. Looks like she's crying her paycheck.
- [19:34]
Hasan Minhaj
She works for you and she works.
- [19:35]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
She works for me. That may be because of the news, not because of me. Something is happening on the screen now. It says, Paycheck $1. That's not true, Annie. You make a lot more than a dollar. And then what's happening is all this money that's coming her way, it's going into this, into this feeding tube. Rent, health insurance, student loans, groceries, transportation, savings, question mark deodorant, and then toothpaste. This is the vacuum of responsibility. It's just getting sucked into that.
- [20:05]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah.
- [20:06]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Her reality is 100 square foot apartment, barren wallet.
- [20:11]
Hasan Minhaj
Jesus, that's small.
- [20:12]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
She figures she's gonna retire at 87.
- [20:14]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah.
- [20:15]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
And then the vibes are in terms of dreams and plans. No home, no baby, no wedding, no retirement fund.
- [20:22]
Hasan Minhaj
Oh, my goodness.
- [20:23]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
So this is pretty bad. I mean, I know it looks very Dr. Seuss and it's colorful, but it's pretty bad. What do you have to say about this?
- [20:33]
Hasan Minhaj
I think the reality is what a lot of people, you know, here in New York are facing, especially with the really small apartment. So my first apartment in Los Angeles was about 300 square feet. And it was so expensive, way more than what I was making. And so a lot of people are dealing with that where your salary is not covering what you need from a house. And there's studies that show if people are not able to buy a big enough house, you know, they're going to have dash streams, not be able to have a family, not be able to build out the life that they want. And part of that is sort of the generational handoff being quite stalled. So boomers own Most of the three to fed four bedroom homes in the U.S. you know, they're 18% of the population and they own like 30% of the housing stock. So like that's one part I think of the dashed dreams is we do have this generational freezing that's going on, but in terms of where the paycheck goes, you know, rent is eating up more and more of people's housing costs. A lot of that is the housing supply problem not building enough, especially since the Great Recession. Health insurance is, keeps on going up as well. Student loans is a big, big issue. The US savings rate just hit a, I think all time low. You know, people were saving a lot of money post pandemic and they haven't been able to sense deodorant and toothpaste. I guess nature, yeah, a big part
- [21:52]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
of, I mean, they're locked up behind bars at cvs. Yeah, you try to go into cvs, you got to get toothpaste. It's like it committed vehicular manslaughter.
- [22:00]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah, yeah.
- [22:02]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
So there's two ways that financial nihilism is presenting itself right now. You got gambling and you got little treats. Let's start with gambling. Nearly two thirds of Gen Z and millennials think that the only way to build wealth today is through alternative methods like gambling and crypto. Jesus.
- [22:19]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah.
- [22:21]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Why?
- [22:22]
Hasan Minhaj
Well, I mean, I think that it's sort of the lack of long term trust. Like the Harvard youth opinion poll came out in April 2026. And you know, young people just don't trust institutions. And so if you think about what trusting an institution requires, it requires long term thinking. It requires believing in a 401k or believing in the stock market for a long period of time. And so people are turning to these moonshot bets as a way to circumnavigate that because they don't necessarily believe in their long term future.
- [22:51]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
I mean, is it about building wealth? That was the term that you used, or is it really about hey, I need to get rich yesterday?
- [22:58]
Hasan Minhaj
I mean, I guess, like what do you think the difference between building wealth and getting rich is?
- [23:02]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
I think, I think what you had alluded to earlier, which is building wealth requires a longer term frame of thinking. 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years. I mean, they even talk about 30 years crypto, the boo boos flipping things on StockX. That window is much shorter.
- [23:20]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah, no, I think it's like, are you saying the short term versus long term?
- [23:24]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Yeah. Short term versus long term.
- [23:25]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think a lot of people don't believe that there's a long term available for them.
- [23:30]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
You know, here's a fun fact which is actually kind of depressing. Americans spend over 100 billion doll per year on lottery tickets, which calculates out to roughly $300 per person per year. When you hear a stat like that, what do you think?
- [23:46]
Hasan Minhaj
I think people are trying to strike it rich. I mean, my, my dad plays the lottery and his idea is that, you know, you have to try or else you'll never do it. So I think for a lot of people, they'll participate in the lottery, put aside a little bit of, of money just in the hopes that they'll have the moonshot.
- [24:04]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Do you think there's an element of desperation to it as well? In the sense that, hey, the entire economy feels like a casino.
- [24:14]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah.
- [24:14]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
So I might as well take my shot. Or like you were saying with your dad of like, hey, you can't win if you don't play.
- [24:20]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah.
- [24:20]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
So I guess I'll get the scratcher.
- [24:22]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah. I mean, right now it's such a hands off approach to the casino side of the economy. Like the Trump administration themselves kind of gamble and foreign policy and so how they're approaching regulation for prediction markets, all of this stuff. Like, it does feel like you might as well play the game. And so a lot of people are doing that, I think sometimes to their detriment.
- [24:45]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Here's another way that nihilism is expressing itself. You described this thing called the little treat economy. What is that?
- [24:53]
Hasan Minhaj
Well, it goes back to what you were saying about the boo boos people. If people feel like they can't afford a house or afford an economic life, they're going to return to risky investments. But they're also going to return to kind of buying little things for themselves. Because it's like, well, I'm not saving for a long term plan, so I'm going to buy Labubus or I'm going to buy like a pistachio Dubai chocolate latte. And it's, all of this is very rational. Like, I'm not saying that people are making the wrong decision. I think all of it makes a lot of sense. But that's a little treat economy, is that people will, you know, get them, get themselves nice little things. Which I think makes sense.
- [25:27]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
So is it essentially, if I'm hearing this right, hey, tomorrow's gonna suck, but I can make today a little bit more yummy.
- [25:32]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah, like your producer kind of drew out, you know, like sort of the little treats are nice.
- [25:37]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Well, there was no little treat.
- [25:38]
Hasan Minhaj
There was no treats. Actually.
- [25:39]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
You have a little treat. Do I Are there little treats that you like?
- [25:43]
Hasan Minhaj
I like buying pens.
- [25:45]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
What kind?
- [25:46]
Hasan Minhaj
Well, I like my pilot pin.
- [25:48]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Is that the.
- [25:49]
Hasan Minhaj
The Pilot G Vision.
- [25:51]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Unique.
- [25:51]
Hasan Minhaj
Oh, yeah. Okay.
- [25:52]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
So yeah, Uniball Vision is one of my favorites. But Pilot G?
- [25:56]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah, the Pilot G2. I like how it has the hook.
- [25:58]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Yeah, yeah. There's also one. There's a pen store. Nolita. I mean, you want to talk about little treats, they have like, like pens from Germany, Japan. It gets pretty pricey.
- [26:06]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah. There's this one store called Muju, or
- [26:09]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
do you know it you're talking about? I think I. Muji. Muji Ji.
- [26:13]
Hasan Minhaj
Right. Yeah, yeah. They have a bunch of pens. Yeah, yeah. They have a nice set of pens.
- [26:17]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Yeah, they have a pretty. Pretty solid.
- [26:19]
Hasan Minhaj
Pretty solid collection. So that's. Yeah, that's what I like to do.
- [26:21]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
That's what you do when you're like, I'm just gonna go crazy. I'm gonna drop, you know, 68 on pens right now.
- [26:26]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah.
- [26:27]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Okay.
- [26:27]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah. Notebooks.
- [26:29]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Yeah. I also have little treats too. Sometimes when I get depressed or. Or somebody write something mean in the comment section. What I like to do is I'll just doordash ice cream at 2 o' clock in the morning and I'll get a couple pints. Ben and Jerry's American Dream. And then what I'll do is I'll eat three quarters of it. My wife finds out in the morning and then what I'll do is I'll just blame the children and throw them under the bus.
- [26:52]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah. And then that's what kids are good for, you know?
- [26:55]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
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- [28:12]
Kyla Scanlon
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- [29:58]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
one of the things I think about when I read contemporary works that talk about the economy is, is that the way this is right now, or is this the way it's always been? Here's a quote from George Orwell in 1937 from his book the Road to Wigan Pier, describing the British economy at the time. Did you read this book?
- [30:16]
Hasan Minhaj
No?
- [30:16]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Okay, let's take a look at it. All right. Trade since the war, has had to adjust Itself to meet the demands of the underpaid, the underfed people, with the result that a luxury is nowadays almost always cheaper than a necessity. And above all, there is gambling. The cheapest of all luxuries. 20 million people are underfed, but literally everyone in England has access to a radio. Whole sections of the working class who have been plundered of all they really need are being compensated in part by cheap luxuries which mitigate the surface of life. Kyla, when I read this, I mean, George Orwell is basically talking about Bravo TV and Labubus and Dubai chocolate lattes. So is this 1937 or is he describing 2026?
- [30:59]
Hasan Minhaj
I mean, there's something called Bomo's cost disease, which John Byrne Murdoch just wrote about for the ft. Well, he wrote about it a couple of months ago. Which is the idea that goods like these cheap luxuries get cheaper while services get more expensive. So healthcare costs will go up, but your radio will be cheaper. So like even a TV, right? Like this TV is way cheaper than it would have been 10 years ago. So goods get cheaper over time because we get better at producing them. We get more efficient, but services are a bit harder to make more efficient, so they get more expensive over time. And so I think Orwell was kind of writing about that. Like everyone can have access to a radio, but these services are still hard to access. Yeah.
- [31:38]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
What's an example of services?
- [31:40]
Hasan Minhaj
Health care.
- [31:40]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Okay. Would education be a service as well?
- [31:43]
Hasan Minhaj
Okay, yeah, anything that requires like people, like human capital. Right. So like a podcast producer, Even as a service that might get more expensive
- [31:51]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
over time, I. Kyla, I don't pay Annie a dollar. I just want to let you know that that was just a drawing for comedic effect.
- [31:57]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah, no, no, I.
- [31:59]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
No, no, because I was like, I'm gonna bring Kyla on the show, she's gonna explain what's happening. But I also thought I may need to get a lawyer.
- [32:05]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's just.
- [32:07]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
So these were two different colors.
- [32:08]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah.
- [32:08]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Two very different vibes.
- [32:09]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah, for sure, for sure.
- [32:11]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Quick follow up. Did anything bad happen after 1937?
- [32:15]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah, the war.
- [32:16]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
You got that right.
- [32:17]
Hasan Minhaj
Oh, is. Are there quizzes throughout it too?
- [32:20]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Sometimes I try to remind myself to just have follow ups. Generally, comedy podcasts don't do follow up questions. So if I do that, I think I'm just top doing a good job. Yeah. Now some of the little treats in this economy don't seem that little. I want to show you a 100% real ad for a new service that I'm pretty sure is targeted at millennials. I think you've talked about this in one of your articles. Let's take a look. The future of travel is here. World class dining, critically acclaimed in flight entertainment. Custom lay flat beds with four times the legroom. And coming soon, tailwinds, the first ever in air dog park. Introducing Bark Air. Finally, dogs will fly the way they've always deserved to. First,
- [33:25]
Hasan Minhaj
if you think this is a
- [33:26]
Kyla Scanlon
joke, you're not a dog person.
- [33:30]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Bark is a 100% totally real airline for dogs. Okay. So I have famously gone on the record and said that I am not particularly cool with dogs.
- [33:46]
Hasan Minhaj
Oh.
- [33:47]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
But is this really a little treat?
- [33:49]
Hasan Minhaj
That's something a little different.
- [33:51]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Yeah, I think we looked this up. A flight on Bark Air from New York to la. Guess how much it is?
- [33:59]
Hasan Minhaj
A thousand dollars.
- [33:59]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Right now it's $7,000.
- [34:01]
Hasan Minhaj
$7,000.
- [34:02]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
That's what I'm saying.
- [34:03]
Hasan Minhaj
Wow.
- [34:04]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Kyla, you can totally go off on dog owners. By the way, like, unload the clip.
- [34:07]
Hasan Minhaj
I have a dog.
- [34:08]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Okay.
- [34:09]
Hasan Minhaj
Her name's Piglet.
- [34:10]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
All right.
- [34:11]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah.
- [34:12]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Also it doesn't make sense because.
- [34:15]
Hasan Minhaj
Well, no, no, because she's, she snorts like a pig, so she's great. I would never put her on a flight though. Like she. Yeah, we don't, we don't do that.
- [34:25]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
So as an economist, how do you make sense of this? Because like, to me this seems very luxurious of dogs get full flat back, first class humans will put them in crates, they will fly underneath.
- [34:36]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah, I mean part of that's going on here. There's a lot of rich millennials. And so that's kind of part of the situation is that a lot of millennials have, and it's not a bad thing, but like a lot of millennials have invested in their dogs like you would a child. And so they have this again, this sort of excess money. Maybe they're not, not buying a house. Instead they're buying their dog a first class belly rub flight. And so it's just like there's something called aspirational displacement where people have enough money and this is a very, you know, certain segment of the population, but they have enough money, but again, not enough money to, to buy a house. Or maybe they choose not to do that and they have this excess capital that they'll spend on, on things like this. It's sort of similar to what we see in the beauty industry too. Like people will spend a lot of money on the self care products because they have just, just enough to spend a Little bit more on these things. Yeah.
- [35:38]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
I want to sort of follow up on one of the ideas that you've presented, which is this idea that, hey, no matter how hard I work, I will never be able to own a home. A 2024 poll found that 42% of Americans and 46% of Gen Zers agreed to with the statement that no matter how hard I work, I will never be able to afford a home I really love. Do you find that the lack of a pathway to own a house leads to despair, which ultimately leads to bad vibes?
- [36:08]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah. Yeah. This problem of perceived housing affordability leads to the displacement of, you know, people gambling on the economy or, you know, making these other decisions around little treats or I guess, you know, big treats and sending their dog around the world. Yeah.
- [36:23]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Can you help explain a concept to me real quick? Back in 2021, there was this article in the online magazine Works in Progress called the Housing Theory of Everything. Now, I didn't read it because the font was too small and I was driving, but can you explain it to me?
- [36:36]
Hasan Minhaj
It's essentially that housing is every like, you know, the title gives itself away, but it's the fertility situation that we have in the United States where the fertility rate is below the replacement rate, meaning that we're not having enough kids to continue to grow. The pop part of that is a housing problem. The health of the general public is a housing problem, too. So people are, like, really far from their workplace, and so they're driving for long periods of times or have extraordinarily long commutes. And so they kind of lay out that all of these elements within American society, or even, honestly, this is sort of in most Western countries, all of these elements that are happening in these countries is driven by a lack of affordable housing.
- [37:20]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Lack of affordable what?
- [37:21]
Hasan Minhaj
Housing.
- [37:22]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
You say housing. Can you say Boise?
- [37:25]
Hasan Minhaj
Boise, Idaho?
- [37:26]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Yeah. You didn't say Boise. You just said Boise.
- [37:29]
Hasan Minhaj
So how do you say housing?
- [37:31]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Housing with a Z.
- [37:32]
Hasan Minhaj
Housing.
- [37:33]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Housing.
- [37:33]
Hasan Minhaj
But it's an S. Housing. Housing. Housing.
- [37:38]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Da boys.
- [37:39]
Hasan Minhaj
Du Bois.
- [37:40]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Da fellas. Du Bois are a group of. Just rambunctious.
- [37:44]
Hasan Minhaj
Oh, I see.
- [37:45]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Like a group of kind of, you know, knucklehead and air dwellers just getting after it in the basement, giggling, rough housing. Rough housing.
- [37:54]
Hasan Minhaj
Housing. Zing. Housing.
- [37:56]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Housing. Busy Phillips.
- [37:57]
Hasan Minhaj
Yes, Busy Phillips.
- [37:59]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
You got it. Busy Phillips is doing a monologue about housing.
- [38:04]
Hasan Minhaj
Housing.
- [38:06]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Yeah. You talked about the low birth rate. This is a big issue with aspiring grandparents and aspiring Nazis on YouTube. How is home ownership exacerbating this problem?
- [38:20]
Hasan Minhaj
Well, if People feel like they don't have enough space to have a family, they'll be less likely to have a family. And then also it goes back to the affordability issue where if housing costs are house housing, housing costs are too high, then people will be like, it doesn't make sense for me to deal with this. Childcare is really expensive. So we have these structural forces that are making it really difficult for people to make the decision to have kids. I think that the, the natalist narrative is kind of harmful. Like, you know, they're, I don't have kids and you know, they're like, all women should have kids by the age of 20. And I don't agree with that. Yeah, because like, there's two ways to grow a population. You have immigration or you have more children. And we can pull the immigration lever. We just don't want to.
- [39:04]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Right. I mean, yeah, if there's a bunch of older Americans that may die, you can always bring in more people.
- [39:11]
Kyla Scanlon
Yeah.
- [39:11]
Hasan Minhaj
And we, like one in five Americans are going to be over the age of 65 by 2030. It's just, it's going to be a very different economy. But I think the fertility narrative can be quite. Yeah, like what you said Nazis on YouTube get really weird about it.
- [39:24]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Yeah, but you can pull that. You just said the immigration law.
- [39:27]
Kyla Scanlon
You could.
- [39:27]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Yeah, that'd be great.
- [39:28]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it would be. The Economic Innovation Group had a great paper about high skilled immigration and like how it can grow the economy. Like all of these ways that we can, you know, have a more dynamic
- [39:40]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
economy and immigrants love to take care of older people.
- [39:43]
Hasan Minhaj
That, I mean, that's one familial values. But. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, so it'd be great. Yeah, there's, it's just like if people want to come to the United States, we should make it so they can. Like that is sort of the whole thing with the United States.
- [39:56]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
I think you'd be a great replacement,
- [40:02]
Hasan Minhaj
but it's not very popular right now.
- [40:05]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Devil's advocate. Should home ownership still be a part of the American dream?
- [40:11]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah, I get asked this a lot. I mean, I think that when we think about the economic ladder. So the American dream ever since the GI Bill came out post World War II, is you go to college, you get this career, and then the career enables you to buy a house and then you have a family and then you retire. Like, that's been the path that we've told people to go down. And that's been the path that a lot of people aspire to because it's a great path. But as home ownership becomes more out of reach, we do see people deciding to spend more money on their dogs or deciding to buy these little treats or deciding to gamble in prediction markets. And it is a different version of the American dream. I think home ownership is interesting because what home ownership allows and renting allows it to, to a certain extent is home ownership allows you to build a community. The 30 year mortgage is this innovation that you know you're going to be there for probably 30 years if, if everything works out. And that allows people to build roots. It allows them to invest in their surroundings. You know, they care about the school that their kids go to. They want things to be nice because they are quite literally invested in where they're.
- [41:23]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
They have a converging interest with everybody in that neighborhood or community. Yeah, a multi decade commitment to that community.
- [41:29]
Hasan Minhaj
30 years is a long time.
- [41:31]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Well, how do you explain that to a generation that's growing up now where hey, do we even own things? I subscribe to Apple TV and I also subscribe to pay my rent. It's all just in the cloud.
- [41:42]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah, I mean I think that it's very transient. Like I'm a renter, I certainly don't own a home. And yeah, you do kind of have this feeling of fleeting, especially when rent increases and you know, you're always thinking about it's not permanent in any real way.
- [42:01]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Why are homes so expensive? Do you have a drawing that can explain this?
- [42:06]
Hasan Minhaj
Off the top of my head, I don't know if I have a drawing that explains it. But the reason that they're so expensive and this has been like very well documented is it's a supply problem. So Wally Edeymo, who is the former Deputy Secretary of the treasury in the Biden administration, he was doing a ton of work around housing and that's one thing that he really hammered home is housing is really a supply problem. It's a zoning issue. Right. Like we in Los Angeles, like I think it's 95% of LA is zoned single family. So if you think about the constraints that that has on building new housing in the apartments, the transitory aspect there, it creates a lot of issues. So you have to have zoning that is per. Like that allows for people to build out more housing opportunities so everybody can live in a place that's not as exp. Because it's just basic supply and demand. Like if you don't have enough housing and places where people want to live, it's going to get More expensive. Like, it's just supply and demand.
- [43:02]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
So speaking of supply, how many more houses do we need to build per year? Just to keep the prices level?
- [43:08]
Hasan Minhaj
Is somewhere between like one and a half to three million. It shifts because housing gets more expensive and stuff. So we have to build even more.
- [43:15]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
You know, one of the things we love here in America is a villain. Villain. Someone to be mad at. We can't control what's happening in the world, but you can get mad. Now. Both Zoran and Donald Trump and everyone in between agrees that we need to build more houses. I'm in agreement on that. But I've heard so many different villains to blame for this problem. You got house flippers, hedge funds, private equity, foreign investors. That gets crazy. Talk about that here in New York City.
- [43:40]
Kyla Scanlon
Whoa.
- [43:41]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
The countries that people scream out. I'm like, I don't know if this is about private investors or you just have a big problem with Russia. Airbnb and I think Ezra Klein once blamed Ralph Nader, who's the villain here.
- [43:55]
Hasan Minhaj
It's just policy, man. It's just like. It's really. We have.
- [44:00]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
But you gotta name names.
- [44:01]
Hasan Minhaj
Nimbyism is a big issue.
- [44:03]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Who's nimby? He's in Congress.
- [44:05]
Hasan Minhaj
Not in my backyard. So it. It is people who say, don't build houses near me because I'm worried that my home is going to depreciate in value, because a home in the United States is both a speculative asset and a place to live. So a lot of people are like, like, my home is my retirement plan. If you start building a bunch more homes near me, like, my $2 million house is only going to be worth 1 million, so you cannot build this in my backyard.
- [44:30]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Wait, so just to be clear, are NIMBY's those people that are like, turn the volume down or I'll call the cops. Are those Nimbus?
- [44:35]
Hasan Minhaj
They. They might be a version of it.
- [44:36]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Yeah, those people are the worst. It's like, dude, you didn't get invited to the party. Now stop being a hater.
- [44:40]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [44:41]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Or just be a cooler neighbor and you'd get invited.
- [44:43]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah, but they don't want neighbors. That's the whole NIMBY thing.
- [44:47]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
So what is their core issue? They want to kind of live in a bunker by themselves. What. What is it about for them?
- [44:53]
Hasan Minhaj
What's the home value? Okay, so they're worried that if people build a bunch of homes near them that their house will depreciate in value. And, like, there are studies that show that homes don't depreciate that much. As more gets built around them, especially if they're like higher quality homes, it tends to raise property values in some instances. But yeah, a lot of people are just like, I'm not. I don't want that. Like, don't build near me. And so they'll go to the city council meetings, which tend to happen at 10am on a Tuesday that people who are desperately needing new housing can't, you know, take off work to go to. Yeah, yeah.
- [45:29]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
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- [46:07]
Kyla Scanlon
Tomorrow morning is knocking. Stock your fridge now. How about a creamy mocha Frappuccino drink? Or a sweet vanilla smooth caramel maybe? Or a white chocolate mocha? Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits. Find Starbucks Frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries.
- [46:23]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block. Or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it, ready to make anything online make sense. There's no place like Chrome. Check responses Setup required. Compatibility and availability various 18. You know what, I want to apologize, Kyla. I need to stop being a hater. That is something that I just wrote down in my journal. Stop being a hater Today. Just in general. Sometimes I'll be like, like why is so and so in every move? You know, And I'm like, stop being a hater.
- [47:05]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah, yeah.
- [47:06]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Focus on solutions.
- [47:08]
Hasan Minhaj
Right?
- [47:09]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Let's talk about one of the solutions that you've talked about before. Upzoning. What is upzoning?
- [47:13]
Hasan Minhaj
It's essentially you can zone to build more, build higher, build out, not have sidewalk restrictions where you can't build past a certain point. So it's just allowing people to build even more. But the problem with zoning is we you Know, you can talk all you want about building more housing, but you run into other constraints, too. So I was at a new New Hampshire housing conference last year, and I had this man come up to me, and he was like, listen, I work on sewers, and if you want to build more housing, you're gonna have to tap into the sewer system, which is old.
- [47:42]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Like the Ninja Turtles.
- [47:44]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah.
- [47:44]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Where they used to live, like Ninja Turtles.
- [47:45]
Hasan Minhaj
Well, that'd be funny if every. We can't make people live in sewers. But, like, yeah, like where they live in the sewer, Right?
- [47:51]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
The Ninja Turtles. Yeah. They live in sewers here in New York City?
- [47:55]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah, yeah.
- [47:55]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
They're just teenagers. They're underage. But they do have. They do have a guardian.
- [47:59]
Hasan Minhaj
Splinter.
- [48:00]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Splinter is their master. He's a rat. He's much older, but he is technically their legal guardian.
- [48:04]
Hasan Minhaj
Donatello.
- [48:05]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Donatello, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo live in the sewers.
- [48:09]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah.
- [48:10]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Now, the Foot Clan do follow them down there into the sewers. But the Foot Clan are human beings. They're part of a street gang, but they, too, are a byproduct of a society that's forgotten them. Shredder is their guardian.
- [48:22]
Hasan Minhaj
Shredder?
- [48:22]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Shredder in Splinter, at one point, were actually training together in ancient Japan. Splinter was trying to protect Shredder, his master.
- [48:32]
Kyla Scanlon
Oh.
- [48:32]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
When Shredder was doing some. And so he scratched Shredder, which is why he has scratches on his face. This is all established in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. One the ooze actually goes through the sewage grates. The turtles start growing, and then Splinter looks after them as a father figure and philosopher. Shredder then comes to New York, and it starts wreaking havoc within the city. Now they start to get their ass handed to them by these vigilantes in the shadows. He comes to find out, oh, these vigilantes are very good at kung fu.
- [49:06]
Hasan Minhaj
And the vigilantes are the turtles.
- [49:08]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
The turtles. You piece it together, you're totally getting the twist.
- [49:11]
Hasan Minhaj
Okay.
- [49:11]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
The turtles, in their hero's journey, team up together as brothers to fight and defeat Shredder.
- [49:17]
Hasan Minhaj
Oh, so are they not related?
- [49:19]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
I don't know the 23andMe on the four turtles, but they are brothers, and they are the family that they choose in heart.
- [49:27]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah, for sure.
- [49:28]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Biologically, we don't know. Sorry, how was the sewer related to our conversation?
- [49:33]
Hasan Minhaj
So, well, it's where the turtles live, but it's also a big constraint on housing supply.
- [49:40]
Kyla Scanlon
Right.
- [49:40]
Hasan Minhaj
So you have to expand out the sewers. You know, there's some element of. Of Pressure there where a lot of the infrastructure in the United States is old. And so you have all these underground things that have to expand as housing supply expands. So it's not as simple as just like building more homes. There's all of these other things that you have to consider too that can make it very complicated.
- [50:02]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
There's been this huge discussion in New York City around converting unused commercial real estate into residential buildings. Now, I've heard that's hard. Why?
- [50:12]
Hasan Minhaj
It requires a lot of work. You essentially have to take the inside of the building and add a bunch more bathrooms as well. And so sometimes it can just be more expensive to gut out a commercial building and take it residential than it would be to just build up residential.
- [50:30]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
It's really a bathroom problem from what
- [50:33]
Hasan Minhaj
I remember about this conversation. Yeah.
- [50:35]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
So do you remember how Toys R Us went out of business?
- [50:38]
Hasan Minhaj
They went bankrupt. Yeah, yeah.
- [50:41]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Toys R Us, Blockbuster, Radio Shack.
- [50:44]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah.
- [50:46]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Turn them into homes.
- [50:47]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah. People argue that you should turn the bank branches into housing too.
- [50:51]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Sure. Wells Fargo.
- [50:52]
Hasan Minhaj
Right.
- [50:52]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
They're giant. They're pretty big in there.
- [50:54]
Hasan Minhaj
It's very fancy.
- [50:56]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
But yeah, the bathrooms are pretty nice in there.
- [50:58]
Hasan Minhaj
But like, you have to have so many more bathrooms in a home.
- [51:02]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Well, former mayor Eric Adams had a solution to this problem as well. Let's take a look. And I believe in this concept. Something I saw in other countries call instead of we work, we live.
- [51:12]
Hasan Minhaj
My son lived differently.
- [51:14]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
He has a stove in his apartment. I don't think he knows how to turn it on. You know, he eats out. He loves this shared living.
- [51:22]
Hasan Minhaj
So why can't we do a real
- [51:24]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
examination of the rules that state every bedroom must have a window? You don't need no window when you're sleeping.
- [51:30]
Kyla Scanlon
It should be dark. You know,
- [51:34]
Hasan Minhaj
he says a lot of stuff that I don't agree with. Former Mayor Eric Adams. I wouldn't.
- [51:41]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Do you want to unpack this?
- [51:42]
Hasan Minhaj
I wouldn't take him as a. As a expert on this subject. That was a thing that I think Charlie Munger was working on, who was Warren Buffett's partner.
- [51:52]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Sure.
- [51:53]
Hasan Minhaj
Was this dormitory for a college where many of the rooms did not have.
- [51:57]
Kyla Scanlon
Have.
- [51:57]
Hasan Minhaj
Have windows. And it became a huge issue because, you know, humans need light. It's a big part of our.
- [52:04]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
So Munger was. Was anti window as well. He was like, look, we can just put cement all around it.
- [52:08]
Hasan Minhaj
There is.
- [52:09]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Go full Guantanamo Bay.
- [52:10]
Hasan Minhaj
Right. There is this idea that people don't need things, that they just need like a bed and a place to sit. But that's not how we should treat people.
- [52:23]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Yeah. Mayor Adams was formerly a police officer, and I think what he was describing was a prison cell. Is he describing a prison cell?
- [52:32]
Hasan Minhaj
I think even those have windows. In some cases.
- [52:35]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
You're right.
- [52:35]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah. So. But it did sound similar, sort of the bare necessities. And then people like. It's very much like people just should work and they should go home only to sleep. And that's not how most people want to live their lives, at least in the United States. Right.
- [52:52]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
How do you feel about this? As someone who, again, you're an economist, you think about this stuff deeply. When he says crazy stuff like this, what's your reaction to it?
- [53:01]
Hasan Minhaj
I mean, it makes me really sad because I think there is this idea, and you even saw it in the drafts that Charlie Munger had where people don't, like, need a lot of stuff. They don't need nice things. So why would we design them nice homes? Why would we allow them this level of luxury? And the standard of living in the United States has risen quite a bit. And so, like, you know, 100 years ago, windowless rooms were not that uncommon. But now the United States is so rich that it should be expected that we allow people a better quality of life than a hundred years ago. And I. I feel like former Mayor Eric Adams is describing an America that should no longer exist. Yeah, I agree.
- [53:39]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Hot take. Humans deserve sunlight.
- [53:42]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah. Circadian rhythms. Just even from sleeping. Yeah.
- [53:46]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Unless you're a ninja turtle.
- [53:47]
Hasan Minhaj
That's right. But they're not humans.
- [53:49]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
They're turtles.
- [53:49]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah. And even they have the heat lamps. Right, Right.
- [53:52]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Not in the sewer, but, you know,
- [53:54]
Hasan Minhaj
they still do go upstairs.
- [53:57]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
They go upstairs, they get out. They get out, they get pizza.
- [53:59]
Hasan Minhaj
The sewers are spacious as well.
- [54:01]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
They're spacious. I mean, I would say they. They kind of smell and they're wet, but it works for them if you're a turtle. Yeah. Hey, what's the name of your newsletter?
- [54:10]
Hasan Minhaj
Kyla's Substack or Kyla's Newsletter. It's on Substack. Yeah.
- [54:14]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
So in your newsletter, you wrote that $10,000 invested in equities in 1974 would be worth $2.4 million today. If you invested the same money in housing, it'd only be worth $139,000.
- [54:26]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah.
- [54:26]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
So my question, Kyla, is that should people just forget about housing and just invest in the stock market?
- [54:33]
Hasan Minhaj
This is what a lot of people are doing. Like, a lot of young people are. You know, they're investing also in the prediction or gambling on the Prediction markets. But you know, they're investing in the stock market as well. United States has an interesting relationship with the stock market because we retire people via 401k. Right. And so we have this expectation that the stock market is going to solve all of the problem problems that we don't really address with public policy. Like we just assume that everybody's going to be able to retire based on their s and P500 earnings. And for the boomers, that does seem to be quite likely. You know, they're going to. For the 57% of boomers that are invested in 401k, they're going to be able to retire quite substantially. But yeah, I think that we do treat the stock market rightly so because it has gone up so much as this thing that people can just fall back on. But the stock market doesn't go up all of the time. That's the concern is that people have this expectation that equity should continue to go up and up and up and up. And we have policy designed to make it so. But sometimes it goes down. And I don't think people prepare themselves mentally for that.
- [55:35]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Can you explain something to me? Because I want our audience to get their money up. Again, I'm not a financial expert and I'm not claiming to be, but I do want you to get that bag. Explain this to me. If you look at the past hundred years of the s and P500, it is a rocket ship to the top. Let's take a look. Now, I'm not a history expert, but I'm just going to give you a quick rundown of what happened here. It goes back about 100 years. We have World War II, the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Nixon did some really bad stuff. Then we have Grand Theft Auto 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. We also have right year round, 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1. Then in 1992, you have.
- [56:14]
Hasan Minhaj
Is that old?
- [56:15]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
It's that old.
- [56:16]
Hasan Minhaj
Wow.
- [56:16]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Yeah, yeah. And I did go to the anniversary screening of it here at the local AMC Support your local movie theater. It was all just men that were by themselves. It was pretty sad. And I did put my hood up. That way no one recognized.
- [56:28]
Hasan Minhaj
You all can celebrate each other like in community.
- [56:30]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
That was the sad part is everybody just looked forward at the screen and we did not look forward. And that was a missed opportunity to actually stand hand in hand with my
- [56:38]
Hasan Minhaj
fellow turtles because you have this huge thing in common, which is the turtles.
- [56:41]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
It was really sad. And what's crazy and the irony of it, Kyla, is That the whole movie is about brother.
- [56:47]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah.
- [56:47]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
And we could not look to our left and right, respectively, and say that you're Donnie, Mike, Raph, Leo. We're all here. By the way, that was the original Sex and the City, if I'm gonna be honest.
- [56:58]
Hasan Minhaj
Really?
- [56:59]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Yeah. Like, the reality is I see myself as a Michelangelo, but I'm not.
- [57:03]
Hasan Minhaj
Oh, what's his dynamic?
- [57:05]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Mikey's supposed to be fun.
- [57:06]
Hasan Minhaj
He's supposed to be fun.
- [57:07]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Fun and cool. Right?
- [57:08]
Hasan Minhaj
And that's you.
- [57:09]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
No, the problem is, is that everybody thinks they're a Michelangelo, but I'm more neurotic. I'm more of a Leo. Basically, the Karen of the group. He's always like, boy, Boyce. That's him. He's actually saying boys with a S. He's like, boyce, focus. And everyone's like, Leo, kind of hall monitor. Turn the volume down very much.
- [57:27]
Hasan Minhaj
NIMBY.
- [57:27]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
He's a NIMBY a little bit. So anyways, 1990, that's TMNT one. Then 1992, you have secret of the ooze. And then later you also have turtles in time. Don't watch it. So I don't know. This looks like this is the only move. Why wouldn't you invest in the S&P 500?
- [57:41]
Hasan Minhaj
I mean, yeah, I'm not telling anybody not to. I don't give investment advice. And none of this has been investment advice advice. But I think that it's good to get exposure. And so what I tell people when the stock market comes up is that I invest in it. You know, I. I put in a certain percentage of my income every month. And when I first was starting my career, that was like $10. And you just try to take advantage of compound interest when you think about the S&P 500, because it goes up 53% of the time. So most of the time, it does march to the top. And if you believe in the American experiment and if you believe in these companies that are. Are building here, you should want some exposure to it. But the thing is, it does have drawdowns. They look very, very small. But like the dot com bubble, that was a huge drawdown. Like, a lot of people were freaking out. 2008, a huge drawdown in the market.
- [58:29]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Totally.
- [58:30]
Hasan Minhaj
And so you do have these dips that, you know, it's kind of helpful in this big chart. You do have these dips that are very meaningful during that time. And you can see it continues to march back up. But I think one thing also for people to keep in mind is that that we have a very different economy coming toward us with the demographic changes that are happening. One in five Americans being over the age of 65 is a very different world. In 2020, it was one in six.
- [58:53]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Yeah.
- [58:54]
Hasan Minhaj
In 1920, it was like one in 20. So we have this very different economy that maybe won't be as focused on growth because it'll be more focused on maintenance, taking care of the older population. The healthcare jobs are very important there. And so that's just one thing to keep in mind. But you know, the United States has always number one. And if you believe it will continue to be number one, you should, you know, not investment advice, but it's probably smart to have some exposure there.
- [59:21]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
I mean, you wrote a recent article in the New York Times that's titled why the Stock Market Makes no Sense Right Now. Why doesn't the stock market make any Sense right Now?
- [59:29]
Hasan Minhaj
People did that. I got a lot of emails about that article.
- [59:33]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
You got heat, huh?
- [59:34]
Hasan Minhaj
I got some heat, yeah. Yeah. Because like a lot of people are like, the stock market's like way smarter than you. And. And it is, it is. But the idea behind that was that the stock market has always been rescued. So all the dips that we saw in that chart, the stock market always had the Federal Reserve coming along and saving it. And so right now the stock market, rationally, there should be some downward pressure. If you think about the war, if you think about the higher gasoline costs, if you think about what's happening to consumers in the labor market and higher inflation with the Federal Reserve independence threats, like there should be some element of the stock market going down.
- [60:10]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
It doesn't make any sense, Kyla. I mean, the stock market isn't an all time high. I know, but every single one of my friends in the dubois Group thread wants to put a gun in his mouth.
- [60:18]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah.
- [60:18]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
What was the type of heat that you were getting when you said the stock market makes no sense? Who are these people in the comments?
- [60:23]
Hasan Minhaj
Well, I mean, it's a, it's people who. And rightly so, they're like, the stock market always goes up, it should continue to go up. You don't understand the profitability in the stock. Like I said earlier, the stock market is extraordinarily profitable for some of these companies. And so they were just like, of course it doesn't make sense. It never makes sense. But that's why it continues to go up.
- [60:43]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Okay. You know, I want to give you just kind of full disclosure and kind of peel back some layers here. I spent a lot of time on Reddit and on Reddit.com r wallstreetbets and I don't know if you've seen the meme everything is priced in, but I think you were getting a lot of everything is priced in energy. Let's take a look at that. ZSD99 came in with don't even ask the question. The answer is yes, it's priced in. You think Amazon will beat the next earnings that's already priced in? You work at the drive thru from Mickey D's and found out that the burgers are made of human me priced in. You think insiders don't already know that the market is an all powerful, all encompassing being that knows the very inner workings of your subconscious before you were even born? It continues. Know that it has already been priced in and don't ask such a dumb fucking question again. Now what do you say to the 21 year old who wrote this on an air mattress in his apartment?
- [61:36]
Hasan Minhaj
So I, I made a meme about that a couple years ago too. I, I agree with it.
- [61:41]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Really?
- [61:42]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean it was like a bunch of ra raccoons worshiping the sun. Like that was my, my take on it. But I, I think.
- [61:48]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Wait, that was your everything's priced in meme. So the raccoons are looking at the sun and they just like everything's priced in?
- [61:52]
Hasan Minhaj
Well yeah, there's a raccoon who is in the sun and the other raccoons are kind of like bowing down to the sun raccoon. But yeah, I mean I think what that person is capturing is that the market, it will sort of continue marching up everything bad that could possibly happen. It is sort of te like the market's Teflon to these, to these things. And historically that's that's been the case. I don't think it's entirely true, but I think there's some substance.
- [62:18]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
How is that possible though? Like I just don't get it. Kyla.
- [62:21]
Hasan Minhaj
It's not entirely true.
- [62:22]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Help this make sense for me, which is just like Trump will say the most insane shit on truth social which can allegedly quote unquote move markets. Something is happening with the Strait of Hormuz. The United States is involved in an illegal war. People are, are not able to afford groceries or rent and somehow it's a rip roaring ride.
- [62:42]
Hasan Minhaj
Stock market's not the economy. So. And I think also the Trump administration has made it very clear that he will do whatever it takes to rescue the stock market. Historically, the Federal Reserve has had to come in and rescue the stock market. That's their job. Well, it's not entirely their job, but like that is part of their mechanism is making sure the economy and the stock market is stable. TABLE and so, you know, the stock market doesn't have to price risk properly all of the time because there is this idea that, you know, policy will come in and save them.
- [63:14]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
People say that the stock market right now is being held up by this AI bubble. What risk is the market and investors currently ignoring in regards to AI?
- [63:25]
Hasan Minhaj
I mean AI is like really challenging because there is a physical component to it, it as well as this sort of like digital impact that it could have on the labor market, which is a very real component. But the physical component is the data center build out. So AI requires an enormous amount of electricity. And so the data centers are already causing higher electricity costs in places like Virginia. And there is also the circular financing aspect where the companies.
- [63:51]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Are you really talking about this?
- [63:55]
Hasan Minhaj
Do you not like the.
- [63:57]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
I mean it's just triggering. Kyla, Austin, can you put up the graphic of the circular financing theory? Look, I tried to read about it, but then this came up and this just reminds me of the inside of a cell. Like I don't know what in the mitochondria Krebs cycle is happening right now. Kyla, what in the endoplasmic reticulum is happening here? I tried to make sense of this. Please walk me through this.
- [64:22]
Hasan Minhaj
This. Everybody is buying everybody else's stuff. So everyone is everyone's customer. Yeah, that's kind of what's going on. So what? Everyone is everyone's customer. So Nvidia, you know, we'll buy up. I think it's so open. AI will buy up.
- [64:40]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Okay, just, just zoom out. So everyone, these are tech companies.
- [64:43]
Hasan Minhaj
Sorry.
- [64:44]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Yeah, like I really, for real, I saw this graphic and I was like, I can't, it's really, I really can't right now.
- [64:49]
Hasan Minhaj
It's, it's, it's a lot. So the concern is that everybody's kind of the tech companies, I shouldn't say everybody. They're all pushing money around and so there isn't really any quote, unquote, real revenue because you know, OpenAI will buy Nvidia chips and then Nvidia has a partnership where they'll take some stuff from OpenAI. And so it's just kind of like moving money back and forth rather than it actually being substantially impactful to the, the actual economy. So it's just these companies kind of papering their numbers up.
- [65:22]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Yeah, sorry, I'M just trying to digest everything. So it sounds like you're describing a pyramid scheme, but this is in a circle.
- [65:32]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah.
- [65:33]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
So is this a circle scheme?
- [65:36]
Hasan Minhaj
Right. Yeah, it's, I guess an Ouroboros might be kind of a. It's a closed loop that keeps feeding in upon itself. They're just sort of pushing money back and forth as the.
- [65:46]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Does this collapse at some point or does it. As long as you just keep passing the hot potato of AI bucks, it'll keep itself afloat.
- [65:56]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah, I mean, there's a paper called after the AI Crash that came out also from the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator that talks about the circular financing component and the worries that all of this money being tied, tied up in ways that are quite entangled can create the domino effect where if one of those companies goes down, the whole thing goes down. Very similar to. It's not a pyramid scheme, but similar in theory.
- [66:19]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
If you could give any financial advice to people looking for financial advice on Reddit, what would it be?
- [66:24]
Hasan Minhaj
I don't give financial advice, but I think it's just to keep it simple. Right. Like, I think a lot of people are losing a lot of money on things like prediction markets. Both the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg had had some pieces come out about like, I think it's 70% of users of prediction markets lose money. They're most useful for the Sharps on the platform, the bots on the platform. You're just kind of being taken for a ride if you decide to go for the moonshot route, which is really sad. So the best thing to do is take advantage of compound interest. Albert Einstein called it the eighth wonder of the world. You know, just more time in the market. Beats timing the market.
- [67:01]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Wait a second, I thought Hulk Hogan was the eighth wonder of the world.
- [67:04]
Hasan Minhaj
The documentary on him is really good on Netflix.
- [67:06]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Super fascinating. I think it's an inside look into the whole American psyche at large. I know, and I appreciate you backing me up here because I've tried to bring it up multiple times in our, like, pitch meetings and everyone's like, you're insane.
- [67:16]
Hasan Minhaj
And I'm like, no, WWE is so important. Yeah.
- [67:18]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Thank you, Kyla.
- [67:19]
Hasan Minhaj
I'm so serious.
- [67:20]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
And I. I truly believe both the Hogan documentary. Now, look, there is a lot of omission, but in episode five, I think they gave important critical context to some of his political positions, which I think think is important. But I also think the McMahon documentary is also an incredible. Yeah. An incredible analysis of America.
- [67:39]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah.
- [67:40]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Geopolitics, Trump, Donald Trump and where we
- [67:43]
Hasan Minhaj
Are in this moment the great entertainment. Yeah, totally. Everything is this sort of fabricated version of reality. Right. Like, we rely so much on narrative in the United States and WWE is a perfect example of that. Yeah.
- [67:56]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
I have one last documentary that was my holy trinity of the American experience. Do you know which documentary it was? Little America, the Jerry Springer documentary. Oh, I have seen that too. Oh, my God.
- [68:06]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah.
- [68:06]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Strap in.
- [68:07]
Hasan Minhaj
Okay.
- [68:07]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
It's fantastic.
- [68:08]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah, yeah. Jerry Springer.
- [68:10]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Yep. Last question. Who's your favorite Ninja Turtle?
- [68:15]
Hasan Minhaj
Well, you know, I know Splinter isn't a ninja turtle, but I feel like somebody who can provide that guidance to these people who have untapped powers is really cool. Cool. So he's my. My favorite. Probably.
- [68:28]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
That is the right answer.
- [68:30]
Hasan Minhaj
Is he a turtle?
- [68:31]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
He's not a turtle.
- [68:32]
Hasan Minhaj
Okay. But he's a rat. I know, but like, he's a rat.
- [68:34]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
But he's so not a rat.
- [68:36]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah. Right.
- [68:36]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Yeah. You pass the test.
- [68:40]
Hasan Minhaj
Okay.
- [68:41]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Because it's not about the turtles. Right. Really what that question was about was. It was about having a positive male role model in your life.
- [68:47]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah.
- [68:48]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Someone that teaches you through wisdom. Splinters. Also anti agist in the sense that the older you get, you actually have more experience. And you do have an important place in society because not only can you practice kung fu. Sure. For your own heart, health, you can teach it to others. Which he does for the turtles.
- [69:04]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah. I think it's important. Like, I feel like we kind of have this sort of isolated approach to everything where people don't want to invest in those that come after them. And I think if you can pass the knowledge on, we all get a lot better. Better. Yeah.
- [69:18]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Yeah. Shout out to Splinter.
- [69:20]
Hasan Minhaj
Yeah. Shout out to Splinter.
- [69:22]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Thank you. Thank you, Kyla.
- [69:23]
Hasan Minhaj
Thanks. Thank you.
- [69:24]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
Kyla Scanlan, ladies and gentlemen.
- [69:25]
Hasan Minhaj
Yay. Awesome. Yeah. Did you hear my stomach growling?
- [69:32]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
That was my stomach. That was my. You've never seen TMNT1?
- [69:37]
Hasan Minhaj
No, I never.
- [69:44]
Host/Interviewer (possibly a co-host or producer)
In fact, it was one of Jim Henson's final films before he passed. Jim Henson did the animatronics.