← The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
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- [00:01]
Ryan Reynolds
Ryan Reynolds here for I guess my hundredth mint commercial.
- [00:04]
Jon Stewart
No, no, no, no, no, no, don't.
- [00:05]
Ryan Reynolds
No, no, no. I mean, honestly, when I started this, I thought I'd only have to do.
- [00:09]
Jon Stewart
Like four of these.
- [00:10]
Ryan Reynolds
I mean, it's unlimited to Premium Wireless.
- [00:12]
Jon Stewart
For $15 a month.
- [00:13]
Ryan Reynolds
How are there still people paying two.
- [00:15]
Zachary Carter
Or three times that much? I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming.
- [00:18]
Jon Stewart
Here, give it a try@mintmobile.com save whenever you're ready. $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month.
- [00:26]
Zachary Carter
New customers on first three month plan only. Taxes and fees, extra speed slower above.
- [00:29]
Jon Stewart
40 gigabyte CD tails. So you're getting hungry, really hungry. Head to Jack in the Box and pick up a Smash Jack. It's a juicy, delicious smashed burger topped with cheese, pickles, grilled onions and boss sauce. And it's now available on Sourdough. The Smash Jack. Only a Jack in the Box. Order one on the Jack app today. Hey, everybody. Welcome once again to the weekly show podcast. My name is Jon Stewart and we have. Today's show is another follow up of our continuing series entitled Jon Stewart Doesn't Know what the Fuck He's Talking About When It Comes to Economics. We've got a fabulous panel today that is going to delve into sort of this idea of the rights new populism and how they're doing that. But as we know, we're only, I think now we're, we're down to hours to the election. I think I saw somewhere it's 400 and some hours, which, you know, obviously if my calculations are correct are, I think that's three days. It's gotta be more than that. It's, it's, I don't, the math thing is obviously a little bit of a problem for me. But the election is coming up. People are wildly stressed out. There is an awful lot that's going on I thought of for the podcast today. We could have this discussion about economics, which I always find fascinating or and this is for something at home. And you can send in your comments. We'll talk about that at the end of the show when we're back with our incredible producers, Brittany Loren. And we'll be introducing our associate producer, Gillian. Or for the next 40 to 50 minutes, I will play Ave Maria and just sway slowly. Now, it's a podcast, obviously you're probably just listening to this. You won't be able to see me, but occasionally I will just mention. And the hands are moving right. And the hands are moving left. Is anybody Fainting. And we're doing it and it's the ymca and it's back to Ave Maria. What a fucking Fellini film this guy's campaign has turned into. And the idea that this is in any way close is the most baffling. You know, there were. Howard Dean was not allowed to run for president anymore because he screamed a little bit too loud once. And this guy is raising money with like a dance marathon in front of a bunch of people in 95 degree weather who are having like diabetic coma issues and passing out and then having to get taken out by EMTs while Kristi Noem stands there scanning the crowd for a dog to shoot. Like this whole thing is falling apart and becoming maniacal. And then you go online and they're like, Trump, he killed that rally. That was awesome. He stood up the whole time and didn't fall once. Like, this is bonkers. So we are going to recenter this utterly surreal avant garde performance art of a fucking election that we're having on that one side and recenter it with some lovely people who are going to talk about economics and are very, very smart in doing so. So let, let me, let me get to them first. But before I. No, let's just get to it. Let's get to it. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, the main event is here. We are so excited today. We've got Oren Cassette, chief economist for American Compass, a think tank on economic policy and those things. And Zachary Carter, author of the Price of Peace, Money, Democracy and the Life of John Maynard Keynes. Oh, Keynes. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the economic throwdown we've all been waiting for. Three men enter and also we'll leave. Listen, let's be fair. They're really. The stakes of this are quite low. But we will actually not even leave, really. We'll just log out. But the point is, gentlemen, I'm delighted to see you guys today. Thank you so much for joining us.
- [04:53]
Ryan Reynolds
Thanks for having us.
- [04:54]
Zachary Carter
Oh, really looking forward to it.
- [04:56]
Jon Stewart
What we want to talk about is there has been a, to my mind, an incredible shift in the Republican Party rhetoric about the economy. There's sort of this idea of the mantle of populism that is being grasped by not the entirety of the Republican Party, but certainly, Orin, I think your organization is kind of helping to lead this charge of a more populist, worker friendly Republican Party. So I guess my question to you would be, how did this come about and how receptive have they been on it?
- [05:41]
Zachary Carter
Well, I think the Republican Party sort of had to undergo a change. I mean, we've been doing the 1980 Ronald Reagan playbook for 40 plus years now. And I think there were a lot of good things in the Ronald Reagan playbook that were good in 1980. You know, Reagan, I think, did a great job winning the Cold War. So, you know, Cold War ends. 89, 91, depending on how you want to look at it.
- [06:04]
Jon Stewart
Right.
- [06:05]
Zachary Carter
And then the Republican Party just sort of keeps doing the same thing anyway, and we kind of go find other wars to start, even if there are no communists to fight, and we find more taxes to cut, even though we maybe don't need lower tax rates. And we go and do free trade with China because we've already done free trade with everybody else. And all of those things, having a strong foreign policy, cutting taxes, expanding free trade. There are times when those are great policies, but they got just kind of locked in as this orthodoxy that you always do no matter what, and that passed its expiration date. And I think if you look at the problems in the country over the last 10, 20 years, that set of policies just isn't responsive. You don't fix the deindustrialization of this country with yet more free trade with China. You don't fix the kind of hollowing out of the middle class and stagnating wages with yet more tax cuts. And so I think there are still people in the Republican Party who are committed to that playbook and are going to go down with that ship. But particularly younger conservatives, older conservatives who really want to address today's problems and frankly, be successful politically, are going back and doing the same thing Reagan did. They're saying, how do we apply our principles to the actual problems of today? And that requires different thinking and a different agenda. And so I think that's what's happening.
- [07:31]
Jon Stewart
Yeah, no, it's interesting. And Zach, I'm going to ask you, because to my mind, I think what Oren is saying, a lot of it anyway, aligns with what people on the left might think is better. The only way I would question it, maybe you can answer to this, is when we talk about the tax cutting policy or the free trade policy, the only one that seems to have taken root to a large extent is that idea of global free trade not being, you know, there's the new tariff plans and all that, but the tax cutting, I mean, the last Republican president, his name escapes me. I'll. It'll, it'll come. But his policy was, I'm going to do a giant tax cut. I'm going to Cut corporate tax rates. I'm going to do all that. The only thing different is, was the tariffs to some extent with global free trade. How do you feel about that?
- [08:23]
Ryan Reynolds
Well, to give Donald Trump his due, he also deregulated large banks. So there was the bank deregulation piece as well. Yes, that is true, but broadly, you're right, John. I mean, I have both a great deal of respect for Oren personally and a lot of admiration for the project he is trying to pull off. I think it would be really good for the Democratic Party in particular and the country as a whole if we had two political parties that were genuinely competing for the economic interests of working people. I think, you know, in general, competition that way is an economic good. But I also think, for whatever reason, the psychology of Democratic Party leaders, they kind of don't give themselves permission to do things until Republicans say it's okay. They copy the Republican Party all the time.
- [09:10]
Jon Stewart
Yes.
- [09:11]
Ryan Reynolds
And so I think, you know, trade is a really great example. You've had labor unions saying things that Orrin says about trade for a long time. And I think the way Oren talks about trade is basically right. I'm sure there are some policy specifics we'll differ on at some point. Maybe we'll get to that in this conversation. But, you know, tariffs have their time and place. And I think the tariffs that Donald Trump put in place in 2018 and 2019 are largely successful project. I think that's why Joe Biden continued them. And I think that's why Joe Biden also expanded the program in certain respects by applying tariffs on electric vehicles and clean technology, emerging clean technology, which I think is a good. A good policy. I don't think tariffs alone can constitute a pro worker policy. I think you have to combine them with a much broader agenda. But I think for the most part, that's genuinely indicative of progress. Where I differ with Oren, I think, is in how successful the broader project has been to date. I mean, I think the elite wing of the Republican.
- [10:14]
Jon Stewart
Successful in the way of getting the Republican Party to shift more towards a pro worker.
- [10:20]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah, yeah. I think you still have the elite wing of the party that cares about tax cuts and nothing else, I think.
- [10:26]
Jon Stewart
And shareholders and nothing else.
- [10:28]
Ryan Reynolds
And if you look at most other think tanks, they disagree with Donald Trump on his trade agenda and they disagree with Oren. You know, the Tax foundation, all of these conservative think tanks that I've disagreed with for years, they're still saying the same things they were always saying. And I think, you know, one of the particular troubles for me, from my political perspective is looking at the senators who agree with Oren on a lot of these issues. They don't.
- [10:52]
Jon Stewart
That would be Hawley, Vance, Rubio, that kind of thing.
- [10:57]
Ryan Reynolds
Charlatans. I mean, Holly is a.
- [10:59]
Jon Stewart
Wait, hey, what?
- [11:02]
Ryan Reynolds
Holly's a fist pumping insurrectionist. I mean, he just is.
- [11:04]
Jon Stewart
Yeah, fair enough.
- [11:05]
Ryan Reynolds
He has a great. He has a great bill about ending child labor in the products that we buy in the United States. But that bill has not gotten any serious movement. And he's the January 6th guy.
- [11:19]
Jon Stewart
January 6th guy does have a tendency to undercut a lot of the policy initiatives that they might throw in there. But you're talking about. So let's start with that specifics. You said, I believe the word tariffs, which from what I understand is the most beautiful word in the English language, which I did not realize that's kind of a new concept, but apparently tariff. So let's talk about tariffs. Biden kept some of the tariffs that are on there. Orin, the plan right now in the Republican Party is to levy those tariffs on almost all of our products. Would that be correct? That are coming in as imports to 10% to 20%. Is that what's being proposed?
- [11:59]
Zachary Carter
Yeah, that's right. I think the tariffs that we saw last time around were almost entirely focused on China. And there's kind of a specific problem with dependence on China as an adversary. But that's different from the broader problem of just our trade deficit, our deindustrialization, not making things in America, because you can make them cheaper in whether it's China or Vietnam.
- [12:21]
Jon Stewart
And what is the trade deficit currently?
- [12:24]
Zachary Carter
It's about a trillion dollars a year.
- [12:26]
Jon Stewart
Okay.
- [12:27]
Zachary Carter
And so, you know, look, one funny thing about economists is many of them look at that and say that's fine. If anything, a trade deficit is good. It means other countries are doing work to make stuff for us and we don't even have to do any work to make anything for them. Jason Furman, who's one of Obama's chief economic advisors, recently gave a speech. It's important to say this is what across the political spectrum economists have been selling for a long time. The idea is that imports are the good thing and exports are just the unfortunate work you have to do to get all the great imports. Look, I like stuff, too. I'm not saying we should go live in log cabins in the woods or whatever else. But we have to recognize that a healthy economy, flourishing individuals and families, a strong nation, it's not just about consuming cheap stuff. You Also need to have good jobs. You need to be able to make stuff for the rest of the world, and we have abandoned that. And worse still, when you don't make that stuff, it's not like the rest of the world sends you stuff for free. What you send back instead is assets. We send back ownership of our companies. We send back IOUs, treasury bonds, saying, we will pay you some other day. We're basically just running up the national credit card to get all this cheap stuff. And so the idea behind broader tariffs is to say, look, it actually matters whether things get made here or not. And our economy has to basically put a finger on the scale to say, all things equal, we would rather have stuff made here.
- [13:59]
Jon Stewart
Which I think is. Exactly. I think the question is going to be, what's the best way to get to making stuff here? Because I think you're right. Making stuff here means that we have jobs and there's a relevance to what we do and that we're getting wages. The question that I would have, and Zach, maybe you can help answer this, is when I look at tariffs, rather than the United States, maybe government running up the credit card, it's basically a tax on working people that, you know, if, let's say you. A tariff is. Increases, you know, $1,000 on whatever product it is, you know, and that's money's going to go to the United States treasury and it's going to help us pay down the deficit and all that. But that money is actually going to be a tax on the goods for the consumer, is it not? So isn't it? You know, we talk about redistribution of wealth all the time. Isn't a tariff just another sort of regressive tax on working people who are going to be paying that extra money for that product directly into the treasury of the United States? So isn't that just a tax?
- [15:05]
Ryan Reynolds
The answer is sort of, oh, all right. Well, that tariffs do have costs. They do have costs. And you're right, they are a tax. They are paid by, at least in the short term, consumers. How much of the tax is paid by consumers? Depends. I mean, I think you often hear people discuss tariffs as if you have a 10% tariff that automatically raises prices by 10%. That's just not true. It depends on the industry. It depends on all sorts of other variables that are involved. As we saw with the 2018 and 2019 Trump tariffs, there were costs to those. But if you looked at the economic discourse when Trump was calling for them, there was all of this apocalyptic rhetoric about how we were going to have a recession and inflation was going to soar, and it just didn't, you know, there were the prices of some goods.
- [15:53]
Jon Stewart
Well, but he did, though, he had to subsidize our farm workers with billions of dollars. Like, it's not, it's not as though there aren't other factors that go into the tariffs that the government ends up paying out. I would say it also doesn't directly just go into our coffers and help bring down our deficit.
- [16:09]
Ryan Reynolds
That's exactly right. There are costs, but they are not necessarily determinative costs or insurmountable costs. And the question is whether the costs are worth it as they are for any other tax or any other policy. I mean, we don't, at least on the progressive side of the economic spectrum, we don't say that an income tax is illegitimate because it's a tax on labor. Right. We say that there are things that are valuable that can come from an income tax that we want the public to provide. So it really depends on the industry, the sector where within the supply chain that the tariff is being applied and then what, what you're trying to get out of it. I think in particular, tariffs on steel and aluminum make a lot of sense because you do need some basic industrial parts in order to make other, other.
- [17:01]
Jon Stewart
Things that could be a national security issue.
- [17:03]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah, I mean, that's, that's true. I mean, I think, I think some of the rhetoric around this with China specifically is too hawkish and sounds too aggressive. I don't think there's any reason why the United States, for instance, has to be the only player in a lot of these, these industrial sectors. But I think it would be healthy for the world economy for the United States and China to both have industrial sectors.
- [17:22]
Jon Stewart
And we got to get in a war with somebody. I mean, if we're good, we're going to run out of people to get in a war with. We might as well. We might as well start moving there.
- [17:28]
Ryan Reynolds
But you also have problems if you tax intermediate goods. I mean, you can make it harder and more expensive to produce things in the United States. So it depends on how the tariffs are applied.
- [17:37]
Jon Stewart
But, but we're talking about trying to reinvigorate the manufacturing base and to create a broader, more resilient supply chain, as we saw in the pandemic, you know, all those things. So my question would be, why tariffs? Why not either subsidies or investment? Like tariffs aren't the only way. And rather than set off some sort of global trade war that might even put the use of the dollar as the world's standard currency at risk. Aren't there ways to do this like we did with chips and other things? Isn't there a way to do this that's sort of less confrontational, provocative, and still provides the benefits? Oren, Come on, Oren, just admit it. Okay, we've got to take a quick break. We will be right back. All right, folks, we got people that are going to help pay for the podcast through the art of advertising. And this one is a necessity. Like, for instance, do you have a sandwich business? And you're like, this is a ciabatta business. And then you hire people and they're like, I only make wraps, man. And it's just, it's a. It's a poor fit. But thankfully, there's a place you can go to help you for this. Zip recruiter can make hiring fast and easy. You can try it for free, which is a Rare treat@ziprecruiter.com ZipWeekly their smart technology identifies the top talent, not the people that only want to make wraps. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Try it for free at this exclusive web address. Ziprecruiter.com ZipWeekly I'll say it again because I was a poor hire. Ziprecruiter.com ZipWeekly do it now.
- [19:30]
Zachary Carter
Way to eat a tea.
- [19:31]
Jon Stewart
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- [20:05]
Zachary Carter
Well, let me say three things about it. One, just to go back to the point about kind of is this regressive to, you know, who pays the tax? I think it's actually a great point and a very fair concern. I do think it raises a broader issue though, which is that the model we've been pursuing economically in this country is basically, let's have an economy that generates ever worse and less equal outcomes. And then let's make up for that with an ever more progressive tax base and ever more sort of transfers to, quote, compensate the losers.
- [20:37]
Jon Stewart
Oh, man, are you speaking my. I can't Even believe this, but boy, are you speaking my language. If you wanted to reverse the idea of supply side economics and take out corporate subsidies, which are somehow the American way, and yet any money that goes to workers and get workers, you know, look, we've become an investment economy since supply side rather than a labor economy. If you want to change that, I'm so with you.
- [21:05]
Zachary Carter
And I do, and I do want to change that for purposes of the tariff discussion. My point is just rather than evaluate the tax code and say, wait a minute, we need this to be more progressive. The thing about a tariff is, and refocusing on the manufacturing economy is what if we actually had an economy that generated better outcomes? That if it happens to be, that a tariff isn't the most progressive tax, but the end result of it is actually better jobs and higher wages and more productivity growth for your typical household. That's the goal. And so I think we have to focus on it in those terms. The other thing I just wanted to throw out there quickly, the dollar as a reserve currency, I think is actually, you're sounding a little bit like Larry Summers there with your whoa, how dare you, sir.
- [21:53]
Jon Stewart
At long last. Have you no decency?
- [21:55]
Zachary Carter
I would ask you, why do you want the dollar to be the reserve currency? The dollar of the reserve currency is great for Wall street and terrible for typical workers in the manufacturing sector.
- [22:04]
Jon Stewart
I meant that more as a tool for the United States. As far as the rules based order, it's a different conversation really. The one I want to have though is we talk about those externalities about why shouldn't we just have a better manufacturing base in America? Well, the problem with that is capital travels and labor doesn't most of the rules that we've put in place empower corporations to find the lowest watermark as far as labor and goods. And so to suggest that, well, if we just make that a little bit more painful for them, they'll come back. But it doesn't change the general rules that capital is able to travel. And so it's always going to try and find that. And by the way, even within the United States, we may be upset with Vietnam and India and Mexico for undercutting American workers, but South Carolina does the same thing. You know what I mean? Like, if you're a right to work state, you're undercutting states that have unions. So Zach, can you, can you speak to that a little bit about, you know, isn't this still not addressing the core issue?
- [23:14]
Ryan Reynolds
I think you have the point about capital flight there that I Think you need both carrots and sticks. Part of the problem is that the rules are just not very good. I mean, one way to keep capital from leaving is to ban capital from leaving. I mean you can have laws and regulations that keep investment in the country. Another way is to make it more worthwhile for capital to stay in the country. And that is to a very great extent what Joe Biden's economic program has been about. I mean the Inflation Reduction act is a bit mistitled because it's basically a domestic industry bill infrastructure. The basic idea is that we're spending a lot of money on green infrastructure and essentially paying industries to start factories here and also protecting them through tariffs from foreign competition to some extent. So there's, I mean, I think the bill changes, but it looks like there's going to be about $2 trillion in domestic green tech investment under the Inflation Reduction act that it will eventually support about 4 million jobs. And the jobs so far look like they're pretty good jobs. I mean they're high end manufacturing jobs are called high end manufacturing jobs because they pay better. But also we're seeing unionization rates going up. More workers have organized in the last couple years than they have in decades.
- [24:30]
Jon Stewart
In comparable numbers but still quite low compared historically.
- [24:34]
Ryan Reynolds
Well, but. Well, the overall unionization rate is low historically but for the first time in a long time those numbers are turning around and turning around significantly. Part of that's having a national Labor Relations Board that actually does its job. I mean under Democrats and Republicans for decades. They just haven't. Biden's got a very good norb. Part of that is also because when you make things in the United States there are knock on effects with regard to development and innovation that economists generally don't like to talk about. For whatever reason, when we talk about innovation in the United States, it's sort of like that can only happen with more education. That if the only way to get better ideas and to create new things is to have more people going to school, I'm in favor of having more people going to school. I think a college degree should be free for everybody who wants one. But a lot of innovation comes from just making stuff and learning how to make stuff and having corporate leaders and engineers and people like that get ideas because they see something being made and secondary and tertiary products that become useful and become useful to make here because other things are being made in the same area. So I think, and that is, that is something that corporations do because it is profitable once you have the manufacturing center established. So I think one way to keep capital in the United States is in fact to expand manufacturing. I don't see how you do that without some form of trade protection. But you know, I don't necessarily think a universal 10% across the board tariff is, is the right tool. It might be a little too blunt. I think you have to look sector by sector, industry by industry to look at how you do that. But the way that we're working with green tech in green energy, where we know that's the next, that's the next big thing, I think in the United States we tend to, because we're so stuck in the 90s, we tend to think that like computers and the Internet is the technological frontier. That's the technological frontier from 2000 technological.
- [26:31]
Jon Stewart
Frontiers right now catching rockets that are falling from space with little pincers. That seems to be we're all going to go to Mars. But we're still talking. You know, one of the things, Ornan Zach, that we're still putting band aids on, you know, well, maybe 10% tariffs will help get a manufacturing base and help the workers, or maybe an infrastructure program will help get the workers. But these are still knocking around. I think what is the core issue, which is we don't have a labor valued economy. We have a capital valued economy and we can make those little pinches here and there, but it has to work in concert with how do we get workers to have more agency within this, because it's still at the stick and carrot level, as though we are at the mercy of the type of economy that we want to have. And so how do we empower a more labor friendly one?
- [27:35]
Zachary Carter
Oren, I think you've sort of put your finger on the issue very well. And it's the way that we think about it. At American Compass, we describe what we're trying to do as rebuilding American capitalism. Because the initial question is like, do you like capitalism or not? Right. You could say, screw capitalism, I've got some better idea. Or frankly, I'd be a little skeptical.
- [27:57]
Jon Stewart
But even capitalism is a little too broad because I agree we tend to think, oh, free market capitalism, but we haven't had that ever in this country ever. You know, the government picks winners and losers all the time.
- [28:09]
Zachary Carter
That's the point I was going to make, is that capitalism, if you go all the way back to Adam Smith, for instance, people think the invisible hand is like this magical force he was describing, that just people pursue profit and everything works out. And that's never been the case. And that's not what people like Adam Smith thought. What Adam Smith said was actually literally in the paragraph where he describes the invisible hand, he says, first of all, you have to assume that people are going to prefer investing domestically to investing in foreign countries. Then you have to assume that the things they're going to do are going to be the things that employ the most people and produce the most output. And if that's the case. Right. If you have that alignment, then their pursuit of profit will also advance the public good. And so that's sort of capitalism working if you have an alignment where the things that earn the most money for businesses are also things that work out well for workers and for the country.
- [29:08]
Jon Stewart
But wouldn't you say, I mean, as far as conservative economic thought, wouldn't you say Milton Friedman is the one who kind of took that invisible hand and then perverted it to this idea that because you said something very interesting there, which was the public good, we have entirely lost that as part of our empowering of corporatism. And so how do we pull that back into. If the party that you're trying to convince is the one that really their economic king, Friedman, is the one who kind of perverted that into saying corporations really don't have public good has nothing to do with it, right?
- [29:46]
Zachary Carter
No, it's exactly the right question. The fascinating thing about people like Friedman and Friedrich Hayek is the other great example is they were not conservatives. Friedman would have told you he's a liberal. Hayek, in fact, has a very famous essay called why I Am Not a Conservative.
- [30:04]
Jon Stewart
That one I haven't seen.
- [30:05]
Zachary Carter
Yeah, that one doesn't get as much play. It's a wonderful essay. But this is the point, is that the Reagan coalition took these guys who today we would call libertarians and took that free market ideology in the context of fighting the Cold War and said, this is going to be what conservative economics stands for. But it's not actually very conservative in all sorts of ways. And so the fight that's going on within the right right now, and where I'm quite optimistic is actually, wait a minute, let's go relearn what it would mean to have conservative economics. And so that's where someone like Marco Rubio gave a wonderful speech on common good capitalism. The question of how do you reorient capitalism toward the common good? It's obviously something that Senator Vance has talked about a lot.
- [30:53]
Jon Stewart
See, this blows my mind because have the conservatives in any way talked to their judges or talked to the people that excoriate capitalism for public good? Because that would be those. What are they? ESG funds, the things that people invest in that might create public good. So, Zach, when you hear the rhetoric of using capitalism as not just necessarily a tool for public good, but including public good as part of the mandate of capitalism, boy, if you bring that up in a debate, most people on the right would accuse you of socialism.
- [31:27]
Ryan Reynolds
I love the rhetoric and the narrative that Oren has, I think, successfully injected into this sector of the Republican Party. I think it's a really difficult thing to have achieved, and I think it's really quite impressive.
- [31:43]
Jon Stewart
Two points, Cass.
- [31:45]
Ryan Reynolds
I mean, the way Orrin conceives of the economy is very similar, I think, at this level to the way that I conceive of the economy. You know, Adam Smith, he was very explicit saying the economy has to work for the largest class. He was a class based thinker of people in society, and that class is the working class. That's not the way that Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hyatt conceived of free markets operating. Jennifer Burns just did a very fawning biography of Milton Friedman where she called him a conservative. The whole premise of the book is that he's a conservative. And the idea is because free markets can be used to create essentially inequality in an elite dominated economy. Friedman is a conservative, and Jennifer Burns likes that. So she says that's good. So I think this, even at the intellectual level among conservatives, this idea is still being disputed, and it's very hard to move that ship around.
- [32:40]
Jon Stewart
But this is theory in practice, Zach. In practice, if you look at the majority of the court decisions that have come down from the judges that have been appointed by Trump and other conservatives, it makes it harder to form unions. It makes it harder to form class action lawsuits. It makes it harder to get industrial protections for workers. At almost every turn, the theory of capitalism working for workers and the practice of what we are instituting are utterly at odds.
- [33:12]
Ryan Reynolds
And even among the people, you know, the practitioners in the Senate who use this rhetoric, they are often at war with themselves. And the rhetoric is linked up to, I think, just frankly, racist demagoguery. I think if you look at J.D. vance's performance in the debate a couple of weeks ago, you know, he tried to pin the 50% or so rise in housing prices since the pandemic on immigration. Economists can disagree about the economics of immigration. I think to some extent. The studies there are pretty inconclusive. But there's been an increase in the total US population since the pandemic of less than 1%. The idea that immigrants are somehow responsible for a 50% rise in home prices over that period is just transparently ridiculous. And I think it's obviously ridiculous to people who aren't already predisposed to having a great deal of vitriol towards immigrants. And so I worry that when push comes to shove with some of these characters that the thing that matters for them is not going to actually be the interests of working people economically, but an attempt to pin problems on immigrants in the service of elite interests. Elite economic interests.
- [34:27]
Jon Stewart
Okay, we've got to take a quick break. We'll be right back.
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Zachary Carter
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Ryan Reynolds
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Jon Stewart
With Mucinex 12 Hour DM for long lasting cough and chest congestion relief, buy Mucinex 12 Hour DM at your local retailer. Use as directed. Okay, we're back. Or it brings up an interesting point. You know, when we talk about immigration, so what you're talking about is kind of this larger project. It's you're looking at a larger time horizon. These tariffs can help to recenter an American manufacturing base which can reinvigorate kind of the American working class base. It can raise wages as we go along. We will shrink that trade deficit and all those things. It's kind of looking at it on a time horizon. There may be some short term pain on tariffs. Right. Which may bring costs up or may be a little bit of a regressive tax. And then when we talk about immigration, though we don't have that time horizon. And I think most people that think about immigration is maybe there's going to be a little short term pain. We get a rush of people and we're not quite sure resources and allocations and all those things. But ultimately it will be a net positive because not only are they workers, but they're also consumers. They're also going to be creating new businesses as they get settled. I think it's shown that the second generation of immigration is very much a net positive for the American economy. So why don't we view immigration with that same time horizon? Why so much vitriol on that side, especially from the right when you're trying to also show that reinvigorating our working class labor base is a time horizon project.
- [37:08]
Zachary Carter
It's an interesting question. I guess it seems to me to get the issue a little bit backward.
- [37:13]
Jon Stewart
Probably I do that a lot.
- [37:16]
Zachary Carter
Well, let me tell you what I think about it is that I think if you were to look at the immigration issue as a static moment in time and say, okay, somebody enters the country today and here are these follow on effects down the road, like you said, I think there are a lot of positive things you can say about it. The problem as an ongoing policy is that what we've been doing in this country for 40 or 50 years now is essentially kowtowing to a corporate lobby that every time the labor market gets tight screams, oh, we need more immigrants. I mean, my favorite moment from the vice presidential debate was when Tim Waltz tried to CITE what the U.S. chamber of Commerce had written in the Wall Street Journal as support for his stance on immigration. And so what frustrates me is that all of this rhetoric about focusing on the interests of workers, not what corporations want, goes out the window as soon as we actually focus on the reality of what it takes for a tight labor market. My favorite example of this is the Roosevelt Institute, a progressive think tank, put out a very interesting paper on what they called the whole of government approach to worker power. And it didn't mention immigration. It had one footnote saying, oh, immigration's really complicated. We're not gonna get to that.
- [38:33]
Jon Stewart
We don't wanna get into that.
- [38:33]
Zachary Carter
Yeah, so like, fair point, there's only so much room in the PDF, you wouldn't wanna go on too long there. And so immigration is obviously a very complicated issue, but from the perspective that we're talking about it here, what it means for capitalism to work well, what it means to have an economy focused on serving workers well, telling corporations, sorry, no, there is no kind of cavalry of incoming cheap labor to meet your needs. You actually have to make things work with the people here. I think has to be part of that picture. And it endlessly perplexes me. I mean, in political terms, I understand it, but as a conceptual matter, I think it's very hard to defend this idea that, well, we're just going to forget everything we care about about how we think the economy works, what would be good for workers, because heaven forbid we enforce our immigration laws.
- [39:30]
Jon Stewart
But is that because you think it depresses the wages of workers to have the immigrants? Because I think that's the thing Zach was saying, and Zach, correct me if I'm wrong, you were saying that It's a little muddled as to whether that happens.
- [39:42]
Ryan Reynolds
Yes, it's. Well, it's unclear. This is a 19th century idea. It goes back to particularly John Stuart Mill and like a lot of.
- [39:50]
Jon Stewart
Thank God you added Mill there.
- [39:51]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah, right. And like a lot of 19th century ideas, I mean, I think a lot of the intuitions persist and the evidence is really not, not terribly clear.
- [40:00]
Jon Stewart
But even Orin's. Orin's talking about something that's a little bit more complex about where that, that immigration is a give to corporate America in the same way that cutting corporate taxes might be, you know, goes along with the same plan that we're capitulating to that. I'm not sure where Trump's deportation plan fits into that.
- [40:19]
Ryan Reynolds
I want to agree and disagree with Oren on this one because I think it is a complex issue. I don't think it's impossible that immigration could be a, you know, put downward pressure on wages for various reasons. There isn't a whole lot of empirical evidence to back that up. I don't think it's totally ridiculous, though. But I will say, if you look at the last couple of years, for instance, where last year we had the highest foreign born population in the United States in history, we did not see wages plummet for American workers, and we did not see wages plummet for American workers at the bottom of the income ladder since the pandemic, real wages are up. That's even accounting for inflation, even accounting for the cost of living. People are taking home more than they were before the pandemic. And in particular, the biggest gains have been made at the bottom of the income distribution. So it may be the case that immigration does put downward pressure on wages. But whatever it is, it's. I just don't think it's so much that it can't be overcome with other policies. And if there are benefits from immigration that we see for our society, like, I mean, I would, I would give the example of New York City being the greatest cultural center the world has ever known. I think largely because it is a home to so many people from so, so many parts of the world, then there, there isn't an obvious reason to me why immigration should be the first thing you turn to when you're trying to improve the livelihoods of workers. Even in an era of high immigration, as we've seen in the last few years, we have seen workers benefit.
- [41:49]
Zachary Carter
Respectfully, when I hear Zach say that, all I can think of is the folks I hear saying, well, gosh, in the year after Donald Trump's tax cut, median household incomes rose especially sharply. And that proves how good tax cuts are. I mean, you can do this sort of quite arbitrary cherry picked argument as much as you want on each side and there's no share of partisans who do. One of the things I think is so great about this conversation we're having, at least until you get to the immigration question, is we're actually stepping back and thinking structurally about how does capitalism work, what does it take to make it work? And the reality is that people's wages will go up under one and only one condition. And that's if employers have to offer a higher wage to get the workers that they want, that is the only. That is how raises happen. And so we have to focus on that.
- [42:40]
Jon Stewart
But let's talk about that because I think that's a great point. When we talk about the structural thing and immigration and all those things do play into it. It's a very complex thing. There's no question in my mind though that the field is tilted to corporate profit. We talk about, well, the only way that we can help American workers is if we get their wages up. But maybe that's not the only way because when you look at how to corp. How does a shareholder economy protect money for management? Well, it is wages, but it's also bonuses, it's also stock buybacks. It's a seat at the table, it's making those people the shareholders. So in a capital based economy where clearly, if you look at Wall street and the stock market, capital is through the roof and has tremendous gains and labor has not had any of those kinds of gains. So maybe aren't we looking at how to remunerate labor in a really narrow way, which is you've got to find a way to unionize, to become your own lobbyists and force companies to give you a better hourly or yearly wage, when what we should be looking at are ways to elevate labor to the table so that they can partake in not just the labor economy, but the investment economy. Wouldn't that be another way to change the dynamic of our capitalist system?
- [44:15]
Ryan Reynolds
Elizabeth Warren has talked about this, I think quite eloquently the idea that you want to have some sort of participation for labor at the corporate oversight level. So giving labor a seat at the table in on corporate boards, also having corporate boards do something, I mean corporate.
- [44:35]
Jon Stewart
Boards, stock buybacks, that's something.
- [44:40]
Ryan Reynolds
Well, and that's basically what they do. They, I mean good management in the United States, the culture of management is basically find ways to fire people, find ways to cut costs and leave innovation to somebody else. Someone else will figure that out. And so corporate boards just rubber stamp CEO paychecks and stock buybacks, cash out to shareholders essentially. So I think having a serious set, having a serious securities and Exchange Commission that cares about corporate oversight and have, and having some, some labor representation on corporate boards is a good idea.
- [45:15]
Jon Stewart
Not just as observers. That's what's been offered. Right. You can sit there, just don't say anything.
- [45:19]
Ryan Reynolds
Right. But I, you know, I also think part of the problem, I don't think antitrust can explain all of the world's problems, but I do think the problem of bigness has become and of concentration has become a pretty serious problem in particularly in sort of cutting edge sectors of the economy like the tech sector. And I think when these companies are insulated from competitive pressures, as Google, Apple, et cetera, are, Amazon, Microsoft, it creates an environment where it's quite easy to stop worrying about making new things and coming up with new and better ideas. If you look at what Google has been doing with AI, for instance, the quality of Google's search engine has declined significantly over the past year with these nonsense AI responses. The type of innovation they're coming up with just isn't very valuable. I mean Facebook is trying to come up with new ideas to put computer screens on your face. I mean these are just not great ideas.
- [46:19]
Jon Stewart
That's not the only thing.
- [46:21]
Ryan Reynolds
So I think you do need some competitive pressure at, particularly in cutting edge sectors of the economy.
- [46:27]
Jon Stewart
Well, disruption is clearly harder and harder the larger companies get, but that gets away a little bit. Orn. And I want to get back to that, that larger idea of how do you think about an economy that is incentivized to allow workers to benefit at the same rate as capital? Because when you think about it, so many decisions have been made in America over the last 40 years. As you say, that reduces the power of workers. Basically the government saying, I wish you guys had better lobbyists because corporations are killing it. We got Citizens United. Money is speech. They can throw all the money they want into all these different things they can control. Congress is too dysfunctional and inept to in any way counter corporate power. Workers though, hey man, you just gotta get better unions. Oh, and by the way, we're gonna make that a lot harder for you. And even within the United States there's gonna be right to work states and you can't do it. So how do you, as someone who is influential with the right, get them to consider those Dynamics, tell their judges, tell their legislators, and reconfigure this in a more labor positive manner.
- [47:48]
Zachary Carter
Well, I think it's happening and that's something I wanted to come back to because it's come up a few times discussion, you know, how much change is really going on on the right. Look at the judges, look at Donald Trump, etc. I think it's really important to say that these things happen slowly, that the institutional change that we're talking about, especially in a political system, isn't like, oh, okay, we like that idea. Now we're all going to do that. Whether it's. If you think about the Reagan revolution, it started with Barry Goldwater in 1964. It took 16 years. If you think about the New Democrats, Democratic Leadership Council, Bill Clinton's project started in the early 80s, takes about a decade to get to Clinton Gore in 92. And so I think what you're seeing now is this shift on the right of center that started in the middle of the last decade. You know, sorry, judges have lifetime appointments, so there are going to be an awful lot of judges that were appointed.
- [48:45]
Jon Stewart
But a lot of them were appointed by Trump, to be fair. I mean, it wasn't that long ago, certainly.
- [48:49]
Zachary Carter
But Trump himself is a great illustration of this. Trump is not a new right figure. Trump is a sort of fascinating transitional figure or disruptor.
- [48:58]
Jon Stewart
Fascinating is probably disruptive, fast, something fascinating.
- [49:05]
Zachary Carter
As a neutral term. I don't think there's any question that Trump is a fascinating political figure and he obviously created a lot of space for a lot of people to think differently about things. But Trump is. To your point, what did Trump do? He tried to repeal Obamacare and he did a big tax cut. I think he did some very good things on trade that we've discussed. But one interesting difference is when Trump came into office in 2016, he looks down Pennsylvania Avenue to Capitol Hill. Who's there? It's Speaker Paul Ryan with a big corporate tax cut and an Obamacare repeal. Let's say Trump were to win and come into office this year.
- [49:45]
Jon Stewart
Oh, did you guys feel that? I just got like a real. Did you feel that the hair come up? Did anybody.
- [49:50]
Ryan Reynolds
Did it get dark outside?
- [49:52]
Zachary Carter
I think it's worth thinking about, John.
- [49:54]
Jon Stewart
Believe me, it's all I've been thinking about.
- [49:57]
Zachary Carter
Orrin, if you look down, okay, where is the energy? What are the ideas on Capitol Hill today? It is very different. It is, obviously. I mean, look at the distance from Mike Pence to JD Vance. You can like or dislike.
- [50:11]
Jon Stewart
Yeah, but Oren to the point that it's different. I mean, Trump was on Elon Musk's podcast or wherever they were, and the first thing they did was laugh about how Musk cut thousands of workers and what a great thing that he did. And. Ha, ha, ha. You couldn't. You know, Tesla's the only company that doesn't have a union. Ha ha, ha. And then he talks about how he hates paint over time. Like, I don't know where this shift is. Trump is by far the, you know, the biggest.
- [50:42]
Zachary Carter
Oh, absolutely. But you just did the same thing again, which is go back to, well, what does Donald Trump think?
- [50:47]
Jon Stewart
But what he thinks is the most. He is the black hole of the conservative or Republican movement right now. What he thinks is what they think. For God sakes, Orrin, the Republican Party was the most anti communist. Putin is the enemy, and Trump is the guy who came in there and were like, actually, Ukraine's the problem and Russia's the good guy.
- [51:10]
Zachary Carter
Like, I mean, I'm pretty sure Putin's not communist, so that's a little bit confusing.
- [51:14]
Jon Stewart
He's definitely not communist, but he's certainly not a friend to the United States.
- [51:18]
Ryan Reynolds
There's a war between Orrin and the Silicon Valley billionaires. There just is within the party. And I want Orrin to win that war. I think that would be good for America if Oren won. But it is really not obvious to me that he's going to win.
- [51:29]
Zachary Carter
But let me say one more thing about it. I agree it's very possible that the work we're doing is not ultimately going to prevail. But I think the question is, what should it be evaluated against? And when you look out and you say, well, Donald Trump in 2024 isn't.
- [51:43]
Jon Stewart
Some pro worker, but he's taken on that mantle. Or I think I'm. I'm talking about the difference between the rhetoric of I'm a friend of the working man and a guy who the next week goes on a podcast and talks about how great it was that they all lost their jobs. Like, to me, that's just cognitive dissonance. I don't know how you square that circle. And so other than tariffs, what of this new pro worker policy seems not dead on arrival for these guys.
- [52:17]
Zachary Carter
But again, you're still going back over and over again. I agree that Donald Trump is the head of the party today. I think the question is, what is post Trump conservatism going to look like? If you look beyond Donald Trump and you ask, okay, who is the generation of leaders who's going to come after him. One interesting thing about it is it's not a bunch of mini Trumps. I mean, there are many Trumps out there, but they haven't been especially successful.
- [52:41]
Jon Stewart
I mean, if I look at Congress today, there's not one person in there on the Republican side that I can see that has a viable path to in any way criticizing Donald Trump or coming out in a variety of ways.
- [52:54]
Zachary Carter
Oh, of course. Which goes exactly for the number of people who were willing to say how Joe Biden looked until he actually announced he was dropping out.
- [53:02]
Jon Stewart
That's a good point. Point. Touche.
- [53:04]
Zachary Carter
No one in either party is going to question the leader of their party. That's how party politics works. And we can call it out or ignore it as much as we see fit. It doesn't tell you anything about what people are actually doing and working on and what direction things are going.
- [53:20]
Ryan Reynolds
Oren, it just pains me to keep having to disagree with you on this, because as I've said, I want you to win. But young Republicans. There are young Republicans who are decent people who agree with Orrin Kass. Yes, they exist. Okay, they do. But there are also young Republicans. I mean, look what happened to the Ron DeSantis campaign. I mean, he had to keep firing staffers because they were saying Nazi stuff. I mean, they were putting fat. And these were young staffers who were putting Nazi imagery in videos published to the Internet. I mean, there is intellectual energy for Oren's project that's real and it's true. And I think it's a. It's a totally silly mistake to ignore it. There's also a lot of pseudo. I hate to call it intellectual energy, but there is a lot of energy for this outright racism and sort of romanticization of 19th century authoritarianism and 20th century fascism. It's just there. The online right is. Is a really ugly place. And it's not clear to me that that isn't. That that isn't the stronger sort of rising tide or current within the next generation of Republican politics.
- [54:30]
Zachary Carter
Yeah, I mean, I think. Look, obviously I have my own biases here, but for me, when I. When I listen to these conversations, I'm always struck by the sort of strange way. And there's obviously a problem on both sides. It's very easy to focus on and elevate the kind of fringe figures. I mean, I could go on a long rant about the online left and how they've conducted themselves vis a vis antisemitism over the last year. Frankly, up to and including certain members of Congress. But I don't think either of us, any of us would actually think in good faith that's a way of understanding the likely direction of the Democratic Party. And so to Zach's point, I think you're absolutely right. There are huge challenges within the right of center on these issues, and it's something we work at American Compass very actively on, is how do you craft a responsible and ultimately inclusive conservatism, because you're going to need it if you're going to build a durable governing majority.
- [55:28]
Jon Stewart
Right? And I think it also, listen, to be fair, I think the fascist right or the racist right or the, you know, anti Semitic left or the anti Semitic right, or, you know, both parties unfortunately share that, you know, as well, confuses the issue, I think, of what we're really discussing today, which is, you know, Donald Trump once said, I'm the only thing standing, you know, in between us becoming a socialist country. Right? And I think the only thing standing in between us becoming a socialist country is meaningful reform to capitalism. Because if capitalism continues along the way of wealth inequality and an economy that doesn't work for working people, then it's upside down and that's a recipe for disruption. I would say the reason we didn't fall prey to socialism and Communism in the 20s and 30s is because of the New Deal. And I believe in the government's ability to temper some of those inequalities with positive programs. And I think we still see some of those programs today. So ultimately that's what it comes down to in my mind. And so I would just say as a final question, and I've so appreciated the conversation, and boy, having Zach and Oren, you two guys, so smart, but also so thoughtful and respectful of each other's positions has been amazing. What I would say is, what is that meaningful reform to a capitalist system that's further and further away from that stability that we talk about? And how likely do you think it is? And I'll start with Zach and then, Oren, you can finish.
- [57:12]
Ryan Reynolds
What's the one trick to save capitalism?
- [57:14]
Jon Stewart
The one trick to save us all?
- [57:17]
Ryan Reynolds
In the 1930s, 1920s and 1930s, the economics profession kept insisting on balanced budgets and free trade to solve problems that I think were largely created in retrospect, by balanced budgets and free trade. And it took, it took a new thinker, it took John Maynard Keynes coming along and giving kind of intellectual permission, right, to the Roosevelt administration first, and then later to the British welfare state, to change the way that governments interacted with their economies. I think we have to have a lot of state led investment in order to have the economic growth and innovation that enables the pie to grow the way that everybody who loves capitalism says that capitalism works. So I think in the short term we have to keep spending trillions of dollars on domestic investment. And I think you have to do that with a very strong National Labor Relations Board and I think the results of that will be quite robust. I think you're already seeing it under the Biden administration. You know, people still say they hate the economy. I think that's largely due to housing prices. But we've seen record growth over the last few years. We've seen rising wages, even accounting for inflation. And we haven't had a labor market this good in 50 years. I mean, the unemployment rate was at or below 4% for like 15 straight months. It's now just slightly over 4%. That's largely because the labor force keeps expanding. I mean, this basically works and if we keep doing it, I think we'll have better results.
- [59:06]
Zachary Carter
I love that answer from Zach because I think it highlights where we agree and disagree in a lot of ways. And just to say, if you're Interested in the 20s and 30s, Zach's biography of Keynes is amazing.
- [59:17]
Jon Stewart
I'm waiting for the movie.
- [59:18]
Zachary Carter
Do go pick it up listeners. But look, I think we agree obviously a lot on the diagnosis. We agree a lot on these kind of this structural way of thinking. Where I think you'll see conservatives and progressives who both really care about this stuff still disagree is when Zach says trillions of dollars in public investment are going to get it done. I have a whole list of reasons that makes me nervous and I'm skeptical we can do it that way. I think where you see conservatives starting to think about things like the global tariff, which as Zach said, look, that's blunt. Maybe it's too blunt. That's what I like most about it because I. Right. Like it's in a funny way it's.
- [60:02]
Jon Stewart
The trade equivalent of raising interest rates.
- [60:05]
Zachary Carter
Well, look, it's the thing that I could see Congress actually doing and not completely screwing up. And if you did that, when we think about restricting immigration, is there some set of much more tailored policies that hypothetically would be better? Maybe, but I don't think we're likely to get that right either. And so I think the way a lot of conservatives are thinking about it is to say, look, what is the fairly set of blunt rules and constraints that we need that are going to bring that pursuit of Profit back into alignment with the common good. Because ultimately, speaking for myself, I might not sound like it sometimes. I love free markets. I would much rather have a freer market in the U.S. even if that means insulating it in some ways from the rest of the world. And then figure out what are the things. The point earlier that Zach was bringing up about competition in the tech space is another great example. We've said the way to make the most money in this country is to go monopolize some tech industry. And that's all venture capitalists want to go spend on. And so you have to have a rule that says, actually, no, if you try to do that, we're just going to break it up. Right. And so I think we'll have different solutions on this stuff. But thinking in these terms, and for me, the punchline at the end of the day is productivity. Because I think you asked a good question. Can we have workers own more capital, participate as owners? There are some ways to do some of that. Something it always runs into is, at the end of the day, the economic reality for your typical working family is the question of, okay, what am I earning in my paycheck? And if we want paychecks to go up, the way in the long run they go up is when people become more productive. And one thing capitalism actually does do pretty well is when people do become more productive, they actually typically do get to benefit from a lot of the gain of that.
- [61:59]
Jon Stewart
But see, and let me ask you a question because that we've become far more productive over the last 50 years. I mean, productivity is up incredibly, but wages have not increased. No.
- [62:12]
Zachary Carter
So this is the interesting point. Per capita, it has gone up a lot. But when we look at per capita.
- [62:18]
Jon Stewart
What'S the only other way to look at it?
- [62:21]
Zachary Carter
Because per capita is just the average. It's like how me and Bill Gates per capita have $50 billion. And so what we have as an economy, GDP per capita, has gone up exactly as fast as those productivity gains. But what's happened? Construction is a fascinating example. We don't have to go back to the immigration debate, but it's related. I think productivity has been falling in the construction sector for 50 years. Productivity has been falling in manufacturing for the last decade.
- [62:49]
Jon Stewart
You're saying it's a mislead. To talk about productivity is misleading in that regard.
- [62:52]
Zachary Carter
Yeah, yeah. Just to talk about economy. Why? This is exactly the point. What are we doing to ensure that the way to generate profit is by increasing the productivity and creating better job opportunities for your typical American Worker.
- [63:04]
Jon Stewart
Right. Well, if I can sum up, because I know you guys got to go and all that, what it seems to me is we all agree that we have to figure out a way to get our invisible hands to intervene in the economy so that we can create a free market through different interventions. And I think that's how we've settled it.
- [63:26]
Zachary Carter
I know we have to go, but I would like to not associate myself with that summary of the conversation.
- [63:33]
Jon Stewart
Yeah, he agrees.
- [63:35]
Ryan Reynolds
I'll pass.
- [63:36]
Jon Stewart
Yeah. Thank you guys both so much. It's been. And I know I've loved it. You guys are fantastic. Oren Kass, chief economist, American Compass. Zack Carter, author of the Price of Peace, Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes. Thank you guys both for being here.
- [63:56]
Zachary Carter
Thank you. Good to see you, Zach.
- [63:57]
Ryan Reynolds
Thank you, John. Good to see you, Warren.
- [64:02]
Jon Stewart
Man. All right, if you're listening at home, I know you're fired up, because that was, I don't know, what, 50 minutes of just fucking economic opiate just injected right into the vein that. Just nothing. But we're not opiate. That's probably the wrong word to use. Just nutrition. That's what I. We're joined by our great producer, Brittany Mometovic, Lauren Walker, and introducing the Youngin associate producer and researcher, Gillian Spear. Jillian, let me. I'm going to start with you, Gillian. The reason I wanted you to be on with this one, for those of you who don't know at home, I don't know anything about any of this stuff. Gillian, on the other hand, knows everything about all this stuff and then researches it and sends me documents spelled out phonetically sometimes that I am able to not necessarily understand, but at least pronounce. Jillian, you were the driving force behind the foundations of understanding this conversation between Zach and Orrin. Did it in any way clarify things for you? Did it meet any expectations? Did you want to strangle me at any point during the conversation to say that's not right?
- [65:15]
D
Never. Never. No. I thought it was great. I mean, I think what's so striking is the areas in which they agree and disagree. But I think Zach, he sort of repeatedly kept saying that he wants Orrin to win this, like, battle within the Conservative Party. And I think that's because he thinks that Orrin winning will mean that this will be the starting point for compromise with the left. And I just don't think that that's the case. When you think, see that, like, these Republican senators that are most in line with Orrin's ideology are the same senators that are so fundamentally Obsessed. Obsessed with, you know, owning the libs, for lack of a better word.
- [65:55]
Jon Stewart
Jan6. Immigration. Yeah, it's. He's got a cadre of very hardline guys that are supposedly the populist movement. I'll tell. The one thing, though, that I thought derailed us a little bit from the left was the talk about racism and immigration and those. Because while it is obviously a strain that is infecting a lot of these different things, I do think it's a bit of a conversation stopper.
- [66:21]
D
Well, I think it's like, one thing that always kind of sticks out to me is that with, especially around the conversation with immigration, it's like purely by coincidence, our economic policy aligns with the idea that we want to deport 11 million immigrants. And that's just because that's the way the math works out.
- [66:38]
Jon Stewart
And we're tired of giving into corporations.
- [66:40]
D
Yes, the math is mathing.
- [66:43]
Jon Stewart
Yes. But I'd never heard it framed that way before. Like, we've got to deport 11 million evil or Exxon wins. Like, it's. That was the one where I was.
- [66:52]
D
Like, we can't just raise the minimum wage.
- [66:55]
Jon Stewart
But that's. That's a great point, Julia. And I also thought it was interesting that, you know, when he talks about all those things of realigning this capitalist economy, the only one that seems to be under consideration are tariffs. And that to me is just, you can pick that or invest in infrastructure in the United States.
- [67:14]
D
No, that'd be too hard.
- [67:15]
Jon Stewart
Right? Like, that's the thing that did that.
- [67:18]
D
Something that stood out to me was at the end where he said that pay would go up once we all started being more productive. I can't wait for that.
- [67:27]
Jon Stewart
That I got to say, like, and I understand the per capita thing, but the idea that, like, we're just not productive enough. And that's why. And by the way, when AI comes in, that's the whole point. You know, there was a quote, we ran it on the show. You know, AI is this idea that, oh, it's going to take over and we'll have time to paint. And that's what they're saying to us, but what they're saying to corporate leaders is, AI will give you the opportunity to increase productivity without the tax of labor, which is mind blowing. That's basically like saying, like, your workers are dragging you down.
- [68:06]
D
And of course, GDP has gone up and wages have gone up, but wages as a percentage of GDP has fallen.
- [68:13]
Jon Stewart
Right. And hasn't gone up nearly as much as investment capital. And all that. So that's, that's the whole point of it.
- [68:19]
D
And productivity has been uncoupled from wages for decades, for 50 years.
- [68:23]
Jon Stewart
Jillian, why didn't you jump in? All right, what do we got? Anything else going on there?
- [68:29]
D
Yeah, we have some listener questions for you. Two listener questions.
- [68:32]
Jon Stewart
Come on, let me hear.
- [68:33]
D
Start with the first.
- [68:34]
Zachary Carter
So.
- [68:34]
Jon Stewart
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [68:35]
D
This person says, I live in Virginia, not far from the College of William and Mary. John, what was your favorite memory attending there?
- [68:43]
Ryan Reynolds
Also.
- [68:44]
Jon Stewart
That's a great. It's a great question.
- [68:46]
D
Also, is college really as necessary to make it to the middle class in America as the cost of tuition would make it seem?
- [68:52]
Jon Stewart
Oh, wow. That's.
- [68:53]
D
Okay.
- [68:54]
Jon Stewart
Let me start with the first one. My favorite memory of William and Mary is there was this day where I drove away. And as far as education being necessary for a middle class life, I don't. I don't think that's true at all. And now as education, like the buy in to the American dream, is now like $125,000 or $150,000 to get yourself a degree. It's so out of whack. And they force kids into this idea. It's got. We have to find a way to. Again, it's all part of what we're talking about on there. The society is completely upside down right now, and we have to find a way to empower people to get themselves to a sustainable life without this idea that the buy in is going to put them in debt for 20 years. I mean, the whole thing is fucking crazy.
- [69:43]
D
Yeah. I mean, can I just say, I didn't graduate college. Like, I went, but then didn't graduate. Spoiler. And I seem to think I'm doing just fine.
- [69:55]
Jon Stewart
You're doing great. But you're also, like, if I may, and I don't say this to embarrass you, but, like, you're exceptionally talented.
- [70:02]
D
It's very sweet. Thank you.
- [70:03]
Jon Stewart
Like, that you shouldn't have to be. In the same way that, like, you shouldn't have to be LeBron James to get out of Ohio.
- [70:09]
D
Right.
- [70:09]
Jon Stewart
People are blamed for not achieving that middle class dream as like a function of their own laziness or their own vice.
- [70:19]
D
Absolutely.
- [70:20]
Jon Stewart
And I just think. I just think it's systemically. We are in real trouble.
- [70:24]
D
Just because you don't have a college degree doesn't mean that you're less than anybody else in this room.
- [70:29]
Jon Stewart
We're lucky to have you wherever you came from. What else do we have? Another.
- [70:35]
D
I partially brought Jillian here because I think we can all contribute to a pressure campaign to get her on Jeopardy.
- [70:42]
Jon Stewart
So Jillian is, like, brilliant. And you. You took. What did you do? You took the Jeopardy. Online test?
- [70:49]
D
I did. And then I had an audition.
- [70:51]
Jon Stewart
Wait, with. With. With buzzers like. No.
- [70:54]
D
So that's the next round.
- [70:55]
Jon Stewart
I hate to threaten a venerable syndicated television institution. You are making a terrible mistake by not having Jillian Spear be on your program to light that shit up. She will. She will light that shit up. I'm going to say this. The answer is a show that is a venerable institution that challenges the mind and the state of knowledge that people have, but is somehow missing out on having Jillian Spear on it for no apparent reason. What is a chicken shit television program?
- [71:36]
D
Cowards. Come at me. Come at me. Jeopardy. There you go.
- [71:39]
Jon Stewart
You got Jeopardy. You want a piece at me? Is that a thing to say?
- [71:46]
D
Gosh, I hope this works.
- [71:48]
Jon Stewart
Hit me up on all our socials.
- [71:52]
D
Oh, great segue. We are weekly show pod on Twitter, Instagram threads and TikTok. We are weekly show podcast and please like and subscribe our YouTube channel, the weekly show with Jon Stewart.
- [72:05]
Jon Stewart
Thanks very much as always. Come back and join us again next week. We'll have another program for you. Lead producer Lauren Walker. Producer Brittany Memetovic. Video editor and engineer Sam Reed. Now, for those of you regular listeners, you know that Rob Vitolo is our normal engineer, but he just had a baby.
- [72:21]
Zachary Carter
Yeah, you're a baby.
- [72:23]
Jon Stewart
Congratulations to Rob and his family. Audio editor and engineer Nicole Boyce, researcher and associate producer Julian Speer. And our executive producers Chris McShane and Katie Gray. Thanks again and we'll see you all next week. The weekly show with Jon Stewart is a Comedy Central podcast. It's produced by Paramount Audio and Busboy Productions. This mountain has its own way of sorting out who is worthy. Now streaming on Paramount plus. Your challenge is to reach the summit. It's a high altitude game. What will it take? Do you want to get the knife.
- [73:08]
D
Out of my back?
- [73:09]
Jon Stewart
To reach the top?
- [73:10]
Zachary Carter
There is a strategy going on. We can steal someone's money by voting someone out. No one said it's going to be easy.
- [73:17]
Jon Stewart
The summit new series now Streaming on Paramount plus all new episodes CBS Wednesday, 9:30 8:30 Central. This Friday. Did you hear that crowd? Gladiator is a single greatest movie of the year and demands to be seen on the biggest screen possible. Bring to us Gladiator 2 in theaters Friday. Rated R. Paramount podcasts.