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Trump Fires Fed Governor Cook, Eli Lilly’s Weight Loss Pill & How to Not Get Replaced by AI
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- [00:01]
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- [01:28]
Ed Elson
Today's number 400 million. That's how many tons of plastic are produced worldwide every year. Roughly 40% of that is used up for packaging, 20% for construction, and roughly 2% for Kristi Noem.
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Sarah Binder
Money Market Matters.
- [01:49]
Ed Elson
If money is evil, then that building is hell. The show goes on. Welcome to Prof. G Markets. I'm Ed elson. It is August 27th. Let's check in on yesterday's market vitals. All three major indices rose slightly as investors awaited Nvidia's earnings, which will come out later today. Meanwhile, long term treasury yields rose and short term yields declined after Trump said he was firing the Fed governor, Lisa Cook. More on that in a moment. Following the news, the gap between those yields reached its widest level in three years. That indicates the market is betting on rate cuts in the short term and inflation later on. We'd also add that as of yesterday following this Cook news, the chance of a rate cut in September rose to 89%. Okay, what's happening? As I said, Trump is trying to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook over allegations of mortgage fraud. In a letter posted to social media, Trump claimed authority to remove Fed governor's quote for cause, including malfeasance or dereliction of Duty. But Cook rejected the claim, saying he has no power to remove her and that she intends to stay in her post. For context, no US President has ever tried to oust a sitting Fed governor. Okay, the first question we have to answer, if Trump is firing Lisa Cook, member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. First question, is this even legal? Is this even allowed? Can Trump simply fire a. A governor of the Federal Reserve? And the answer is, actually, yes, he can. The president can fire Fed governors. That is within the president's power. But only, and this is important only, if the firing is, according to the Federal Reserve act, for cause. Now, what does for cause actually mean? Well, the Federal Reserve act actually doesn't define it, which isn't very helpful, but, you know, it's a pretty common term in business and in employment. The way we generally understand four cause is that there is a real and indisputable justification for the firing. That's a little bit vague, but sort of generally speaking, it means it's not just that they're not very good at their job. There's something like misconduct or a breach of policy or some sort of criminal activity. It is a distinctly serious reason as to why the employee had to be fired. Now, is there a serious reason here as to why Lisa Cook must be fired? Well, according to Trump, Lisa Cook engaged in mortgage fraud. She committed a crime, and that does sound like a serious reason. The problem is, though, nothing's been proven, nothing's been brought to the court, nothing's been reviewed by a judge or a jury. In fact, she hasn't even been formally charged yet. So, as of today, these are purely allegations. This is Trump and his allies saying that she's a criminal and then using that claim as the cause to fire her without having even brought her to court. So that's what is apparently for cause here. The next step, of course, is she's gonna contest this. And in fact, that is exactly what she said she's going to do. Put another way, this dismissal, this firing is far from over. I mean, it's gonna go to the courts now. It might even go to the Supreme Court. It's a very big deal. And it will be up to the courts, it will be up to the justice system to decide whether. Whether an allegation of fraud meets the definition of cause. That's where we are in terms of the legal proceedings. My prediction? No. No court's gonna say that just a claim meets the definition of firing for cause. But then there are all of these other questions beyond the legality of this, you know, what does this mean for Jerome Powell? What does this mean for the independence of the Fed, which has been a massive question recently. What does this mean for markets? What does this mean for Treasuries, for interest rates? Lots more questions here to be addressed. So let's bring in our first guest of the day. Let's bring in Sarah Binder. She is a senior fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings and a professor of political science at George Washington University. Professor Binder, thank you very much for joining us on Profit. Marcus, it's great to have you.
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Sarah Binder
Sure. Thanks for having me.
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Ed Elson
So we wanted to get your reactions to what's happened with Trump, the president, and Lisa Cook, one of the governors of the Federal Reserve. He has fired her, threatened to fire her. Maybe she's gone. She says she's not gone. Your initial reactions to what's happened, and then we'll get into some of the specifics.
- [06:49]
Sarah Binder
Sure. So the president has the authority under the Federal Reserve act to fire governors if there is what we call cause.
- [06:58]
Ed Elson
Yeah.
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Sarah Binder
What's unusual here? First of all, it's never happened. But second, what's unusual is that there's really been no demonstration of cause and no opportunity for Governor Cook to make her case about whether or not she's guilty for what they charge her. There's been no formal charges at all. And that's then quite unusual and leaves this in a bit of legal limbo over precisely whether or not she's actually, actually been fired.
- [07:27]
Ed Elson
Right. Yeah. This is just an allegation, as you say. There has been no formal charge that has been brought. Is it possible for an allegation to qualify as cause? Is that enough? Is there a world where a court would say, you know, they have a little bit of evidence here to suggest that this is mortgage fraud or that she engaged in some criminal activity? It hasn't gone to court. They haven't proven it. But whatever, that's enough.
- [07:57]
Sarah Binder
That's not typically how cause is litigated politically. It could work that way. The president says, you're fired. I have this allegation. And a governor could say, I'm out of here. I don't want to deal with it, even if I didn't do anything wrong. But Lisa Cook has said, I'm going to file a suit and I didn't do anything wrong. And how cause is typically then decided, it's litigated in the courts. It's a legal process. It's not a political process. It's not up to the President of.
- [08:26]
Ed Elson
The United States So we've seen some reaction in the market, but it's been a little tepid, I would say. I would assume maybe the market's reacting basically in response to what you just said, which is that the grounds here to actually fire her are not very strong. And perhaps the markets are saying, we don't think that, that she will actually be fired, and perhaps the independence of the Fed is preserved. I am just trying to speak on behalf of Mr. Market. I have no idea. But any thoughts on the reaction from the market, your reaction to what we've seen from the market so far?
- [09:04]
Sarah Binder
It does seem that markets have just sort of shrugged. Right. And the danger here, the danger is that we are underestimating, or Mr. Markets are underestimating, the enormous political power of President Trump. Right. Backed up potentially by the Supreme Court eventually. Right? Yes, for sure. A lot of legal uncertainty here. But think about what the President has been doing, Right. He has one vacancy already. He's been bullying Chair Powell to step down. When that wasn't working, he came up with a new one. Oh, look, spending a lot of money on reconstructing the Fed, and that didn't seem to work. He's looking for openings everywhere and he's pushing and pushing, and he's made it quite clear that what he wants is a Fed, a board that's responsive to his demands for interest rates to be lower, regardless of what the economy demands. And the risk is that the markets are losing sight of what the president potentially can do as he gets his footprints and his toeholds into the Fed, if not his claws on the board. On the board of Governors.
- [10:18]
Ed Elson
Right. Yeah. It's almost. If, even if he doesn't fire her successfully, he certainly sent a message to the existing governors and certainly any future governor, if you don't agree with me, you're going to be in trouble.
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Sarah Binder
Absolutely. And yes, absolutely. And there is a risk, as people are beginning to realize, there's a risk to the presidents of the 12 Reserve Banks, who by chance, calendar wise, they are up for renewal. All 12 of them come early, early winter here, and their jobs depend on consent and agreement by the Board of Governors. That's a risk if President Trump holds a majority of the Fed.
- [10:58]
Ed Elson
Yeah. So break down for us a little bit how these boards of the Federal Reserve and then you have these regional boards as well. How does all of that really work? I mean, we know that there are these governors and we know that there's this guy, Jerome Powell, who's the main guy, but what is the complexion of the Board. What happens? Say he does get rid of her. How does that affect the board itself?
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Sarah Binder
Well, when the Congress created the Fed in 1913, then it was remade a bit in 1935, for lack of a better word. This is the craziest, weirdest federal institution on the books, right? As you said, look, there's a board in Washington. There's spread out across Main Street, 12 other Reserve Banks in really today kind of crazy places, Right? Two in Missouri. So look, and then at the same time, they have different appointment powers. And certainly the Reserve Banks who are generated and selected first by the board of directors, who are themselves elected by various constituencies and appointed, then approved by the board in Washington. The bigger point here, like when they make the Fed, they didn't want any single interest to dominate the price of money, right? So they ended up with all these conflicting groups working against each other and making it harder to work in concert. And so, look, it means that at the end of the day, the President has enormous power here, but not unlimited power, although he's certainly trying to muscle and bully his way into getting more power than the framers of the Fed certainly ever envisioned.
- [12:42]
Ed Elson
Yeah, we wanted to get you on to talk about this because the topic everyone's talking about is the independence of the Federal Reserve, which is new to me as a concept. I've had to sort of study up on this myself. But you've been talking about this for a while, and you actually wrote a book, and I'll just read the title, which sort of tells you what you said. It's called the Myth of How Congress Governs the Federal Reserve. So it sounds like the independence of the Federal Reserve, in your view, has always been kind of a question. And it sounds like perhaps this is calling it into question even more.
- [13:22]
Sarah Binder
For sure. So I co wrote a book with a buddy, Mark Spindel, who's a finance person, and what we did is to go back into the history of the Fed and to ask this question, is the Fed really independent? And the short answer here is that the Fed needs political support in order to meet its goals and its mission that it's given to it by Congress. Right? Low inflation, booming jobs market. It needs political support. And we can see that today, right? If Cook wants to keep her position, she needs the Supreme Court to back her up. And Powell, like, diffused all the pressure from the Trump administration, really, because the Supreme Court gave a nod to the Fed and said, whoa, Fed, you're a little special here. Right? Same thing with the bond markets. Like, think about Liberation Day over The terrorists, when the bond markets really sort of sent a message and the administration walked back, the initial tariffs. Right. That's really what the Fed needs. It needs this strong expression of support for the Fed. And if the Fed is dependent on courts, on Congress, on the markets, and a less aggressive president, then that's not independence. Right. Their ability to do their job is kind of conditional on basically having respect from all these different audiences. And if it's conditional, it's not independent.
- [14:43]
Ed Elson
And in what sense does this action now from the President change things? If it was always the case that there was at least some level of dependence in the Federal Reserve, in what sense does this change things? Or maybe it doesn't.
- [14:58]
Sarah Binder
Well, to the degree it's changing things is that the President is kind of exploiting that one provision in the act that says you can remove governors for cause, but cause means malfeasance, neglected duty, like failure to faithfully do the duties of your office. And I don't think anybody has said that. That's the. That Governor Cook is guilty of that. And so he's reaching into the law, he's stretching it to meet his demands here. And it may be that he gets his way. Granted, we don't know. But again, the fact that he's pushing and pushing the Fed and Congress doesn't seem to be standing up for the Fed, markets aren't standing up. So it does seem that this is yet another episode that's kind of like directly going after the authority of the Fed board.
- [15:48]
Ed Elson
Well, a lot of concerning stuff there. We appreciate your time. Professor Binder is a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings and professor of Political Science at George Washington University. I'm sure this is going to be an ongoing issue, Professor Binder, and so my guess is we're going to have you on again in the future. Thank you very much for joining us.
- [16:08]
Sarah Binder
Excellent. Thanks for having me.
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Ed Elson
Well, you heard it from the professor. This is not very good. And this is sort of the culmination of the politicization of the Fed, which just isn't going to work if it isn't independent. I mean, by the way, this is very similar to what we've seen happening with the Supreme Court, which has itself become a highly political entity. I mean, perhaps the most consequential action you can take as a president today is, is to install someone into the Supreme Court whose views align with your own. And we've seen what that has done in terms of the politicization of the justice system. It's less and less about your qualifications and your sense of justice and your sensibilities more and more about where you land politically. Do you agree with me? And now the Federal Reserve is basically in the same position. I mean it's are you pro Trump or are you not? Are you MAGA or are you woke? I mean, those are the questions that are beginning to determine interest rates in America and therefore the price of money in America. It is increasingly moving away from an objective question about economics and it's now becoming a political question, Are you with me or are you not? And that is very dangerous territory that we are walking into. After the break, a look at Eli Lilly's new obesity drug and if you're enjoying the show, hit follow and please leave us a review on Profgy Markets.
- [18:01]
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- [20:26]
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Ed Elson
We'Re back with Profg Markets. Eli Lilly announced the results of a late stage trial for its new obesity drug. The drug is called Orphaglipron. Crazy name. It's designed for people with type 2 diabetes who are also overweight and in the most recent trial, it helped participants with diabetes lose an average of 11% of their body weight over 72 weeks. However, the more impressive news here isn't the number, it isn't that 11%. It is the delivery format. Because you don't inject this drug like you do Ozempic or Wegovy. You swallow this drug. That's right. This drug is a pill. No needles, no injections, and also no keeping your drugs cold in the fridge. That's what you have to do with Ozempic. So you literally just take this like you would take a vitamin or you would take an Advil. Huge news for providers, huge news for distributors, and also huge news of course for patients. Now to be clear, this isn't the first update that we have gotten on this new drug. We have seen several other trials of this drug in the past several months, but none of them elicited this level of positivity from the markets. Shares in Eli Lilly immediately jumped and closed up. 6%. 6% rise in one day. Huge jump. Especially when you consider this year they've been having, which so far has been a little bit tough. So for more on what makes this trial so important, our producer Claire spoke with Jeff Meacham. He is the head of Healthcare Equity Research at Citibank.
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Jeff Meacham
The very first data set in diabetes, there were fears of you know, theoretical liver toxicities. And there were worries, you know, that the weight loss may be as low as, you know, maybe 5%. It came, when it came out, there was no liver tox whatsoever. The discontinuation rates, which is a marker of kind of overall tolerability, look very compelling. They're sub 10%. And the weight loss was a little bit higher than kind of the kind of the Wall street bogey. Fast forward to the next trial, the obesity trial. It was a really, really kind of a bad setup. Investors were expecting, you know, 12 or 15% weight loss, you know, good tolerability, no liver toxicity. They got all of that, but it just happened to be that, you know, the weight loss was 11 and change versus 12% as the bottom end. So you're seeing today, with the third trial, I think you're seeing a little bit of a makeup of that, you know, that trade, you know, half a point, for example, of, of under expectations weight loss. It was not worth a hundred plus billion in market cap. Right. That was a really kind of a silly move. So I think today you're seeing with the third trial, you're making up some of that, you know, discount right in, in valuation. It essentially de risks the whole program because now they can file with these three trials.
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Interviewer
How does Eli Lilly's oral GLP1 pipeline stack up against Novo Nordisk?
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Jeff Meacham
Yeah, so it's interesting for Novo, if you look at their oral Rybelsis, it was, you know, high dose Rybelsis. The data look very good. The drug has been available for a while as an obesity drug, but it's just capacity constrained. Novo can't make enough of it. But even if they could, one of the kind of drags on the profile is there's a food effect and so a patient has to fast the night before. It just doesn't really, it's not seamless, let's put it that way. And that is one of the differentiation points of Orphaglipron. I think the weight loss is at 10 ish percent with a 10 ish percent discontinuation rate. The efficacy looks very solid, the tolerability looks very good. And there's no food effect whatsoever. And so there's no sort of random safety events. And so I think Lilly is much better positioned when you think of the oral, you know, what's, what's up, you know, coming up next. And they obviously have the capacity to make a lot of the drug when you look at the investments that they've made, you know, over the past couple years. So, I mean, I would, you know, put Lily at definitely an advantage over Novo among the orals. I'd also say the same thing, really, among the injectables as well. If you compare tirzepatide to semaglutide.
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Sarah Binder
Right.
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Interviewer
So earlier this year, Eli Lilly surpassed Novo in the lead for GLP1 prescriptions. And I've heard that that is basically because doctors just like it more, there are fewer side effects and they prescribe it more. So it sounds like the same may be true for Eli Lilly's oral drug if approved. If Eli gets to market with this option, do you think that they'll just run away with this lead?
- [26:25]
Jeff Meacham
I think when you step back, say two years ago, as these drugs were just, you know, being, you know, kind of launching and, and reimbursement was becoming, you know, a little bit more seamless. I mean, it was 50, 50 in terms of share, maybe 55, you know, 45 and slightly in favor of Lilly. Just how aggressive Manjaro launched in diabetes. But now I think that number is, you know, it's sort of moved to, you know, to 60, 40. And even in the future, it could be 65, 35. I don't know if it's going to be, you know, a full 70 plus percent of the market in terms of share for Lilly. But I would say, though, that, you know, Lilly's done a better job. The oral looks more competitive. So I think that the edge will continue to, you know, will have, continue to have an edge in market share in both diabetes and obesity.
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Ed Elson
That was Jeff Meacham, head of healthcare Equity research at Citibank. So clearly this is big news for Eli Lilly, especially against the backdrop of what's been a pretty meteoric rise for the company. I mean, the stock is down. So far this year. We've had this big pot, but it's down around 5% year to date. But you just consider their most recent earnings, their Q2 earnings report, $15 billion in revenue, up 40% from the year before. You've got Manjaro sales up 68% to $5 billion. And you've got Zepbound sales nearly tripling year over year to $3 billion. The world just loves GLP1 drugs. And Eli Lilly is positioning itself as pretty much the best in class. But this could be a new chapter in the GLP1 story. I mean, I can't put a number on it, but I would bet you that there is a significant percentage of the population who wants to lose weight, but who also wants doesn't want to stick a needle in their leg every week. And Eli Lilly just solved that problem. They're now going to go towards the regulatory approval they need to file with the fda. But as soon as this hits the commercial market, it is worth asking this simple question. How many of us would take that pill? How many of us would take a pill that reduced our weight by more than a tenth in 16 months? I don't know the answer. But is it 20%? Is it 30%? Is it more than half of us? I don't know. But what I can tell you is that whatever that number is, it's going to be huge. That's the only thing I know about this. Taking it as a pill versus injecting it with a needle. That is a huge difference. And that will define the next chapter of the glp. One Story Researchers at Stanford released a study that used detailed payroll data from the ADP to see how generative AI is reshaping the job market. The data they used covered millions of workers and included details like age and occupation. They focused on jobs where AI can automate tasks like software developers, translators, receptionists. And what they found is that entry level workers aged 22 to 25 in occupations most exposed to AI, those workers have seen a 13% decline in employment since 2022. The report also states that employment levels have remained stable or even increased for more experienced workers in the same fields. In other words, AI is taking your job. Or to be more specific, it's not just taking anyone's job, it's taking young people's jobs. That is what the report told us. It is our clearest evidence so far that young people are losing out to AI. This is probably the most important trend for young people to keep track of right now. I really think this is kind of gonna define the next several years for us young people. The ultimate question that every young person has to be asking themselves today is how do you not get replaced by AI? If we are living in a world where AI is replacing us, and that is literally what this report has told us, then how do you make yourself AI proof? Now, to be clear, this is a huge question and we're probably going to have to do a full hour long episode that breaks down this topic because we can't answer this in just a few minutes. But while we're here, now that this report has just come out, I do want to point you to some research that our team put together in our Property Markets newsletter last month because they did answer precisely this question. How do you not get replaced by AI. By the way, shout out to Mia Silverio and Bella Kinsel, who put this report together. So basically, to summarize the report, they came up with three skills. Our team came up with three skills that you can employ to make yourself AI proof. And the skills that they came up with are curation, curiosity and connectivity. Now, I'm just summarizing the newsletter for now, but I do encourage you to go read the full thing. You can read it@profgmarkets.com subscribe but I just want to go through those skills now because I think they are helpful and important for young people. So let's start with curation. The great thing about AI is it basically means that anyone can create stuff, whether it's art or videos or writing or even code, as we've been seeing. Now, the bad thing about AI is that anyone can create stuff because if you've spent years learning how to write or to code or to make a video, well, you're less valuable now. Because with AI, the marginal cost of creating is basically now zero. And we're already seeing this play out 75% of new web pages in 2025. They now contain a AI generated content. Everyone is using AI to create stuff. So in a world of infinite content, then you need to find an edge, you need to find a new skill. And the best skill that we could come up with is curation. That means developing an opinion, developing a level of taste such that people will go to you not because of how much you can create, but because of your ability to discern what makes a great product versus an okay product. We really try to do this at Prof. G Media, trying to figure out what are the great stories, what are the things that really capture people's attention and really engage people? What are the things that really matter? Those are the questions that we are asking ourselves. Yes, we are content creators, but we are also curators. And that can apply to many different fields. It expands far beyond just media. Now the second important skill that we highlighted is curiosity. Because to curate, you need to be curious. You need to have a large diverse base of knowledge to pull from. And you need to kind of get into the weirder stuff. You know, some of the greatest inventions, some of the greatest companies have come from chasing strange ideas. Just a few hilarious examples. Studying snails was what led to the discovery of non opioid pain medication. Nvidia was created because Jensen Huang was super into video games in the video game market. So in a world of constant distractions, this skill is only going to become more important. The share of people who read for pleasure has dropped 40% in the past 20 years. But if you're the person at work who is down to read for pleasure, who is down to be curious, to ask questions, to learn to use that knowledge, to come up with unique ideas that gives you an edge, you are probably the one who won't get replaced by ChatGPT. Now, the final skill we highlighted, and this might be the most important one, is connectivity. If there is any one skill that will absolutely make you more employable, it is this one. And this is especially important for people who are entering into the job market. Your ability to connect with other people and create relationships, that trumps everything else. As I said earlier, AI brings with it the ability to mass produce content. And that includes, by the way, job applications and reportedly hiring managers are completely inundated right now with AI generated resumes and AI cover letters. Just last year, the amount of applications submitted on LinkedIn surged nearly 50%. So if you want to get a job, you need to be able to connect with the people who can make it happen for you. And it doesn't mean spraying applications all over LinkedIn. It means establishing relationships, real relationships, meeting people. Just look at how I got a job at Prof. G. Yes, I had a nice degree from a nice university, but there are plenty of people like me. What made me stand out was who I knew. It was the fact that my roommate's mum was friends with Scott. And so when I asked her to go put in a good word, and thankfully she did. Thank you, Joanna Coles. Scott said yes because he respected her opinion. We had a degree of connection. Look at how Claire, our producer, ended up here. She went to college with our former producer who liked her a lot, and so she hired her. Knowing people is everything and AI cannot know people for you. And this goes beyond just getting a job. Emails can be mass produced, Slack messages can be automated. Even calls can be taken. With AI, if you want to stand out, you need to create relationships. You need to show up face to face, you need to be human. And that's something AI certainly cannot do. So there you have it. The Prof. G Guide on how not to be replaced by AI. That was just a quick summary, but again, I encourage you, go read the full thing and subscribe to the newsletter. It's Prof. Gmarkets.com/subscribe. This is a huge topic. We're definitely going to be discussing it a lot more. We will be revisiting it, but for now, that would be my recommendation. Curation. Curiosity. Connectivity. Okay, that's it for today. This episode was produced by Claire Miller, edited by Joel Patterson, engineered by Benjamin Spencer. Our associate producer is Alison Weiss. Our research team is Dan Shalon, Laura Janer, Isabella Kinsel and Mia Silverio. And our technical director is Drew Burrows. Thanks for listening to Prof. G. Markets from the Vox Media Podcast Network. If you liked what you heard, give us a follow. I'm Ed Elson. I'll see you tomorrow.