May 29, 2024 • 53 mins
Stimmy checks, the productivity paradox, the housing theory of everything – these are just a few of the topics covered with our guest, Kyla Scanlon. It’s tricky to describe who Kyla is and what exactly she does because, yes, she has a massive following on TikTok… but she’s not simply an influencer. She also has an incredible newsletter, but she isn’t simply a writer, even though she has written for the Times, NY Magazine, and Bloomberg. AND, her brand-new book, “In This Economy?: How Money and Markets Really Work,” was just released yesterday. But we think that ultimately Kyla is an educator because she excels at bridging the gap between the complexities of our modern economy and everyday living. It’s clear that she is passionate about empowering individuals with the knowledge they need to make informed financial decisions. Plus, she does all of this with a touch of humor while not ignoring the philosophical angle as well… happy listening!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt.
Today we're talking in This Economy with Kyla Scanlon. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
So it is tricky to describe who Kyla Scanlin is
and what exactly it is that she does, because, yes,
she has a massive following on TikTok, but she's not
simply an influencer. Yes she has an incredible newsletter, but
she isn't simply a writer either, though she has written.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
For the time.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
She's written for New York Magazine and Bloomberg and her
brand new book, In This Economy, How Money and Markets
Really Work that was just released yesterday. And so ultimately
I would say that Kyla is an educator because where
she really excels is bridging the gap between the complexities
of our modern economy to simple every day living. It
(01:05):
is so clear that she is passionate about empowering individuals
with the knowledge that they need to make informed financial decisions.
And plus she does all this with a touch of
humor while simultaneously not ignoring the philosophical angle as well.
And so we're excited to talk about all things money
and markets and economy related. Kyla, thank you so much
(01:25):
for talking with us today.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Oh, yes, thank you so much for having.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Me of course. Oh okay, the question that we ask
everyone who comes on the show. The first thing we
need to know, Kyla, is what your craft beer equivalent is.
What is it that you spend in a lot of
money on that some people might think is crazy, just
like Matt and I do with beer, but you think
it's perfectly normal, and simultaneously you're saving and investing at
the same time for your future.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
I have five bikes, so yeah, I know, I know,
I know.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah, so I've got your beat.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
What but I also have I'm a family of six,
so you can't count your kids. We have seven bikes
at our house, but there's one of you and there
are six per capita.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
And you have the space for all these bikes.
Speaker 5 (02:09):
Oh.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
I have a special little bike hangar that I have
in my apartment where I like hang the bikes from
and then two of them don't hang, so I have
three hanging, and then I have one up against like
my dining room table, and then one up against my couch.
So there really isn't a lot of room for living
in the living room.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Yeah, just bikes.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
They're literally all over the place.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
And I mean, we know we've been to your site
and know something about you, but you're really in mountain
biking as well, right, you're out in Colorado.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
Yeah, yeah, mountain biking, gravel biking, road biking, adventure biking.
I also bike commute, so I don't really drive, so
I have a bike for each you know, hobby. But yeah,
so like that's what I do on the weekends is
going bike big miles.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Do you have a cargo bike for when you go
to the grocery store?
Speaker 3 (02:57):
I use a backpack. Yeah, so I put it okay.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Back I guess you don't need a whole you don't
need multiple pioneers.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
If it's just you again, it's just just.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Seating a bunch of Joel made a note, he said,
to highlight the fact that Kyla.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Is all by herself.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
So it's my dog.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Check that box with somebody friends, is what I said.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
Somebody friends, many friends and likes you.
Speaker 5 (03:26):
Hat another reason we're excited to talk with you, because
so much better than having like a dozen cats, I think.
So you could be a bike lady. Lady, Well, oh,
I wanted to ask you.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Have you so you do a lot of biking out
out west, you've done much out east? Specifically, one of
my favorite trails was Katsuma. It's a nice downhill single track,
real close to Mount Mitchell.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
No, I haven't.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
I've done most of my mountain biking out west, so
I haven't really actually done nothing out east.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
He keep that in mind if you want to, if
you want to do like an Ashville mountain biking style trip,
there's a lot of It's not Colorado, but there's a
there's some decent.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Stuff that'll your itinerary for you. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
I used to teach mountain biking for at a boys
summer camp when I.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Was in age, So yeah, that's awesome. No, I'll definitely
check it out.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
We can loop back to that later after we're done
talking about your book, because let's let's talk about that.
It was published, It was released yesterday, and it's got
some serious econ one oh one vibes that kind of
took us back to high school, but way more interesting
than high school. And of course it was updated for
modern times, helping for folks to connect the dots in
(04:35):
a digestible way. What is it that kind of caused
you to want to write this book?
Speaker 4 (04:40):
Yeah, so I've been making content about the economy for
over two and a half years now, had worked in
the industry for a little bit, you know, studied it
in school. And I think the big takeaway throughout that
entire experience was that, you know, people are in the economy,
but they don't know a lot about the economy or
they don't have acce to the tools that they need
(05:01):
to understand the world around them. And so I wrote
the book just to give people a toolbox. Like it
talks about inflation, it talks about GDP, it talks about
the labor market, it talks about the Federal Reserve, fiscal policy,
what money is, and it's just meant to be like
a guide for people who want to just have a
general overview of what the economy is. And there's sixty illustrations,
(05:22):
so it's meant to be fun, which sometimes economics can't
be that fun. But yeah, that's why I wrote the book,
is to help people through the more fuzzy parts of
being in the economy.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
It feels like we need that more than ever too write.
I mean, think about what's happened over the past few years,
and before that, the economy felt a lot more straightforward.
It feels a lot more discombobulated these days. And I mean,
do you think that we need in an economic education
even more in twenty twenty four than we maybe did
in I don't know, twenty fifteen.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Yeah, I would say so.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
I mean, I think, you know, the pandemic really did
or on the economy, just in terms of the jobs
that were lost, but also because of what the Federal
Reserve did with raising rates, right like, we entered this
whole new economic regime that we'd never really been in before,
at least in recent history. And now we have this
selection coming up at the end of the year where
(06:18):
the economy is going to be a hot topic. And
so I think, now, as you said, more than ever,
it is important that people understand what's going on so
they can make the right decisions that they need to
about their own economic circumstances. And I think also, like,
if you live in a world that's big and confusing
to you, it's hard to make good decisions. And so
if you have just sort of a general understanding but
(06:40):
interest rates are like why they're going up, how that
could impact mortgage rates and auto insurance all of that stuff,
I think that helps a lot. I think that things
can be painted to be rather confusing when most of
the time they can be simplified to be rather simple.
And that's also a goal of the book. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah, it's more than just you can take like an
overlease simplified view of things, and so like, for instance,
if you're a home buyer, it's like, okay, interest rates
go down, good, frisk go up bad, But there are
other factors to consider. And like you talk about you
mentioned fiscal and monetary policy. Like on the fiscal policy front,
you highlight the incredibly short tenure of Liz Trust as
(07:20):
the Prime Minister of Great Britain and.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
She lasts like thirty days on it.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
I think there's a lot that we can learn there.
Can you just kind of talk about that, elaborate for
a minute, Yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Mean I think that like the way that fiscal policy
can come about most of the time is because of
short termism. Like what happened with Liz Trust is she
had this whole mini budget plan that ended up being
largely inflationary and sort of did the opposite of what
she wanted it to do.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
And you know, the.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
UK was experiencing a bunch of inflation during that time,
and so everyone was like, what are you doing, and
it seemed like she didn't really know, and that's why
she didn't last very long. Actually, like this head of
Lettuce ended up lasting longer than she did. But I
think that's like just something that you will need to
understand is like how fiscal policy will interact with the
broader economy and like why it can be inflationary, why
(08:06):
government doesn't have unlimited money to spend, but then also
like policies that the government could put toward, Like I
think a lot of anger that we're experiencing right now
is because of the fiscal response that we saw during
the pandemic, and then the pullback of that fiscal response,
Like people saw that the government was able to provide,
you know, an element of unemployment that is more than
(08:29):
they provide now, rent forbearance, student loan forgiveness, all this stuff,
and so I think it's important that people understand like
why that stuff would start and stop.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
And then also to the less TRUSTe example.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
Just show an example of how fiscal policy can impact
the broad economy in a bad way.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Okay, so you talked about kind of the starting and
stopping of certain government interventions into our economy. There were
certainly a lot of different things. I feel like it
was like a kitchen sink approach, especially from the federal
government during the heart of the pandemic, and understandably so
given kind of what we were facing. But then there
were long lasting implications of that, especially when we're talking
about let's say, the stimmy checks. It seems like there
(09:09):
was some necessity for those, but then maybe we over
overdid it to a certain extent too, and that's caused
this long lasting inflation. So but then I think sometimes
people get used to a certain kind of government policy
and then it goes away and they're like, wait, what,
why isn't that there anymore? So I don't know, how
do you think about when governments get involved, how to
(09:29):
what extent they get involved, and then the kind of
secondary the domino effect of some of their actions.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
Yeah, I mean, I think number one, and this is
a view that I have to check myself on sometimes,
but I think governments exist to serve the people, and
they should spend money on their people. Like that's kind
of like why we pay taxes, and so I think
that's just like one opinion that I have, and I
think it's important that governments do invest in the populist
(09:54):
for the long term. But I think to the example
about stimulus checks, like that was so supportive to people,
like it got the United States through the pandemic way
better than any other developed country. Like the US right
now is doing much better than anybody thought we would
be doing in twenty nineteen, like before we even knew
(10:16):
the pandemic would be happening, Like the stimulus checks sort
of save the American consumer. But now it's kind of
like this battle with inflation, and so I think the
government has a responsibility to spend money. But now because
of the Federal Reserve raising rates in order to battle
the inflation that you know, could have potentially been caused
a little bit by these stimulus checks and outsized fiscal
(10:38):
spending during the pandemic, the Federal Reserve has been raising
rates in order to battle inflation because of that, but
because rates are high, like interest servicing costs on government
debt is really high, and so it's kind of like
all of these big things that loop back into one another,
and it's kind of like whoa, you know, the Federal
Reserve impacts the US government. The US government impacts the
federal reserve, and that impacts me as a consumer, And
(11:00):
so it is trying to tie a thread between all
of these disparate, seemingly disparate things. Yeah, I think governments
have a responsibility to spend, but they also have a
responsibility to not have you know, servicing costs be so high,
the debt costs be so high, and I think that's
going to be the big struggle over the next decade.
Is we spend all this money, how do we pay
(11:21):
it off?
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Sure? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
On the spending front, Jerome Powell in sixty Minutes mentioned
that our current gap between spending and current tax levels
it's just unsustainable. And so like, how do you think
the ballooning national debt and deficits are going to impact
the future? Is it as simple as okay, there are
going to be higher levels of taxes that are going
to be levied upon American citizens Or does it come
(11:45):
down to measures of austerity when it comes to what
folks are going to be willing to stomach.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
I don't.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
Yeah, I mean I think that, like one of the
big lessons during the pandemic was that austerity doesn't have
to be the case. And you can sort of have
an economy outside of not spending money. But I think
now like we swung the pendulum so far on the
other side that it's like, Okay, we need to find
the middle ground between austerity and whatever, like we're doing
right now, and we are kind of finding that middle ground.
(12:15):
Like you know, the Biden administration passed the CHIPSAC, the IRA,
the IJA and all of those things were a lot
of money, and they are going to be a lot
of money, but they're not going to cost a bunch
of money into the future because.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
They're creating jobs and stimulating the economy and creating growth exactly.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
Yeah, yeah, that's the goal of them, and I do
think it'll work out that way. But yeah, I mean,
I it's like, because you can't raise taxes, especially in
an election year, but you're gonna have to figure out
something else to do to get money. And like the
government has been doing more bond issue wanes, because like
the way that a government makes money is through issuing
bonds or raising taxes on people. To sort of reduce
(12:52):
it to the simplest form, but I think that they're
going to need to really think about it. But it's
so I mean This is the really tough part about
economics is it does wade into the political so often.
And I think that's the big issue, is that, you know,
the polarization has made it hard to sort of accomplish
(13:13):
anything on either side.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
They call it the dismal science for a reason. It
can't be a bummer sometimes for sure, especially when everything
is politicized and you're like, man, we just like let
some of this stuff be more math related and less emotional.
But speaking of that, like, one of the things I
love about a lot of the content you create, Kayla,
is you give a real human element and you view
(13:37):
things through a human lens. And I think that is
why people gravitate towards your work because sometimes a lot
of people in the economics profession it's like units, it's
the way we talk about people are there like plug
and play inside of an economic system. And you talk
about it from a very personal perspective, and you talk
about measurements of growth and economic health, and then you
(13:59):
discuss what you call the productivity paradox. You say consumption
is key to a healthy economy, but too much seems
to create an unhealthy society. And I feel like that's
like spot on. We're very much living through that. So
how do you think about the economy of a healthy
economy and healthy people.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
Yeah, that's been like kind of a funny thing about
the economy over the past year, as you all know,
is like, oh, the American consumer is still spending, like
things are fine, but it's kind of like whoa, Like,
you know, the consumer spending is such a big part
of the economy and there's so many different ways to
measure that, and like so many different things go into it.
But like the general ideas that people spend money economy
(14:38):
go big. And I think that like when you sort
of pull back and think about that, it's like, well,
what are people spending money on? And now we're getting
all these reports about like credit card debt, the delinquency
rates going up a little bit. And I think too,
like as Americans, we struggle with consumerism. We really like
new stuff, and you know, for the long term that's
(15:00):
tough because we have these huge landfills that are going
to have to be taken care of one way or
the other. And consumption is great until you have to
deal with the trash part of it. And like we
did see a shift from goods to services to people
were engaging in like Taylor Swift concerts, for example, are
getting more haircuts or whatever. There's this piece called Life
(15:22):
after Lifestyle by Toby Shoren where he talks about how
a lot of people end up identifying through consumption, like
they identify themselves through the brands, and so then brands
end up setting culture and that's kind of weird world
to exist in.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Like a Stanley water bottle kind of person, that sort
of thing exactly.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, which is interesting. That's a good
example of the Veblin good where the price can increase
but people still buy it because it's kind of like
a luxury item. But yeah, I would say that's what
I have noticed is people spend a lot of money,
but there's still like this sense of anger and sadness
(16:01):
that money can't really fix, you know.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Yeah, well, especially this is something we've talked about on
the show before too, but especially when everything that you do,
whether it's your identity and even how it is that
you give to charities, when that is looked at or
sort of interpreted through this lens of consumption, something.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Just feels really off about that.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
And it's just not our ability as individuals to consume,
but to like actually contribute to society in a way
that doesn't just boost profits of companies.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Building healthy communities and like raising families and like, yeah,
enjoying the nature around you. I mean, those are like
the things that make us human. But we've i think,
like identified being human in other ways through a more
consumptive lens, and that's like largely what leads to a
lot of this un happiness. It's like, yeah, marketing everything,
big business everything.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
Yeah, No, I mean I think that's a really good point,
like sort of the your eyeballs are expensive commodities, Like
people will pay a lot of money for your attention,
and so I think that's created this sense of distrust
in people because it's like, well, what is an advertisement?
Like how can I trust anything if people are selling
to me all of the time and I'm tired? And
then I think to the point of like community too.
(17:09):
You know, a lot of people have talked about the
decline of third places, the loneliness crisis. You know, the
fertility rate is super low, and so we it's interesting
because like we have all of these kind of big
societal problems that we're sort of brushing under the rug
because they are really big, and I don't think anybody
knows how to fix them because they're so systemic.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
But then we like.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
Have companies like open Ai who are doing good work
and like you know, innovating on this really cool technology.
But the end state of that is concerning for all
of the big issues that we're facing already, and I
don't think we have a solution for it, and so
I don't I was talking to somebody earlier today about
Nintendo because Nintendo is going to release a new version
(17:52):
of the Switch and.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Twenty twenty five, right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
And so like investors are mad about that, but like
as a person, I'm kind of concerned, well not concerned,
but it's like, you know, they're a hardware company, but
are they going to build a Nintendo world like what
we see sort of a metaverse emerge out of the
video game companies sooner rather than later, so they you know,
these are questions that people have been tossing around for
the past couple of years, but like.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
How far removed are we from a Wally esque future?
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Right?
Speaker 4 (18:23):
And that's important to consider with the lens of the
economy too, Like I think what I tried to really
accomplish in the book, And what I try to do
with my work all the time is tie the economy
back to like these big societal problems and also these
exciting societal things like AI could be really cool depending
on how we use it, and all of that's kind
of like a component of the economy. And so I
(18:45):
think it's helpful to see the world around you as
like a web and see all of how how all
the pieces sort of connect, because then it doesn't feel
so big and confusing. But yeah, I mean, I think
all of these things are important to consider because we
are a capitalist society and so everything we do ultimately
does have a dollar signed attached to it. Yeah, and
it's important to recognize that as well.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
One of the like criticisms it's always been levied against
the fire community is like financial independence retire early is
like if everyone did this, the economy would go to pot.
We'd all like we'd be like living in a third
world hell hole overnight or something like that. Right, So,
I don't know, I guess big growth kind of seems
to be the what our economy is based on. And
(19:24):
how do you like still have a thriving economy if
like growth over every single other metric begins to kind
of wane, and we like, how's that going to impact individuals, markets,
and investors.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
That's the question that a lot of people are trying
to grapple with too, is like, you know, there's a
degrowth movement. It's kind of like, oh, we don't need
to grow as quickly as possible, but you know, we
have a very hungry machine on our hands, and the
machine demands growth at every cost. And I think that's
the concerning thing that we're going to have to figure out.
It's like, you know, you're right, like, how do you
keep the stock market moving if like companies aren't going
(20:01):
to be growing so much year over year? How do
you avoid an element of stagflation or even just stagnancy
in general? I think that like everything has been so
cheap and easy. This is a blanket statement, but like
things have been cheap and easy for the past twenty
or so years. Like energy is pretty cheap and easy.
We were able to frack find a bunch more energy.
But now we're like, oh, geez, this is probably gonna
(20:24):
you know, explode the earth, Like we should find alternatives,
but that's going to cost money and cost time, and
it's maybe won't be growth right away, but you can
already see people returning to oil and coal because it's like, oh,
green energy is too expensive, Like it's taking too much time.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
We have to grow right now.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
And so I think another thing not to like point
out all society's problems because everybody already knows, but like
we have this very short term mindset around a very
long term life. And I think that's like something that
is just going to have to be taken into consideration
is things aren't cheap anymore. Everything is more expensive, people
are more tired, and every generation has had problems, right,
(21:02):
But like I do think people now more than ever
are struggling with something real big, and how do we
navigate that in the economy that's so reliant on growth.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Yeah, yeah, I think we totally agree. And you even
mentioned earlier short termism, which is what it seems like
is going through everybody's mind, especially those who are in
charge of policy, those who are in elected office. It
seems like all the low hanging fruit has all been
snatched and we're kind of looking up and just being like, oh,
it's gonna be a lot more it's gonna be a
lot harder to apples at the top of the tree. Yeah,
(21:34):
and for this to be sustainable. But Kyla, we've got
much more to talk about. We might get to housing,
maybe even crypto, but we get to all that more.
Right after the break.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
We're back from the break, We're still talking with Kyla Scanlon.
We're talking about her new book, In This Economy, which
is just a great name for a book these days.
And I still remember, I'm sure this was like an
inflection point for you. You read your newsletter every time it
comes out, and you had one about the Vibe Session
and that was like your most popular one ever or something,
(22:13):
and I think you got like an article in the
New York Times because of it. And then in your
book you say that vibes hold a surprising amount of
power over outcomes. So, okay, vibes feels like this kind
of hard to touch sort of thing. What do vibes
even mean? And then how does that shake out? What
do how do vibes and the way people I guess
feel despite maybe the economic numbers and stuff that come out,
(22:35):
how do those feelings impact outcomes?
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Yeah, so the.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
Vibe Session was written back in twenty twenty two when
we saw this like really big disconnection between consumers and
and economic data.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
So people were.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
Feeling tremendously bad despite the economy doing relatively okay. And
so when I wrote that piece, it was kind of
a reflection of the comments that I was getting on
the videos that I was producing on social media, so
like TikTok, Instagram, et cetera. I would be like, inflation
is going down, and people would be like, I hate
(23:08):
everything and I'm sad, and I was kind of like,
what's like, why what's happening here? And so, yeah, exactly,
or take out a loan to egg your house. But yeah,
I think that was that was kind of like the
impetus of that piece. And then the reason that I
said that vibes were so important and I still believe
(23:29):
that they are, is inflation expectations are really important, right,
Like what people think is going to happen with inflation
like sort of influences how inflation shows up in the world.
There's been a lot of research on this. It's kind
of like a self fulfilling prophecy of sorts, And that's
sort of the idea of the vibe session is that
it is a self fulfilling prophecy, like if people feel
really bad about the economy, is the economy even good?
(23:53):
Like do the metrics actually matter? And the research has
sort of evolved since then to take into account like
structural affordability problems like housing. Right, we have a housing
crisis that's super hard to navigate and it's going to
create you know, so called bad vibes, So the vibes themselves,
there is an element of reality to them. Media headlines
are another good example, like if you have a negative
(24:14):
word in a media headline, your click through rate increases
by two point three percent. A positive word it decreases
by one point nine percent, So that can influence vibes.
It's just like I think in economics oftentimes a lot
of researchers do a great job at incorporating like how
people feel, but I think more so now than ever,
(24:34):
it's really important to consider how people feel about their
economic circumstances because that's ultimately more informative of how they'll
end up feeling about the economy at large, their job prospects,
what they end up doing, how they choose to innovate.
So that that was kind of how that research came about.
And why I think the vibes are important. It's because
(24:56):
you know, how people feel matters. As like silly as
that sound, it's like it really is true.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it does have a massive impact
and actual you know, like we're kind of specifically talking
about the vibe session that over the past couple of years,
but just general like what we're talking about here are
just general perceptions and attitudes towards what is actually going on.
But that being said, like actual recessions, they do occur,
and so talk about I guess booms and busts, talk
(25:22):
about bubbles and how it is that vibes or attitudes,
how it impacts those cycles and maybe even what lies
ahead for us if you're so willing to make a
prediction a forecast.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
Yeah, I mean, I think speculative nature. It is just
human nature. Like you know, some people say the toolip
bubble was a siop, but like there was something happening
with the tulips, and like you know, back in the
sixteen hundreds and people buying a bunch of them and
you know, not enough toolips. All of a sudden the
price skyrockets and then the same thing happened during the
tech bubble of the late nineteen nineties. It's all speculation.
(25:55):
It's a lot of it's human nature. The two thousand
and eight Great Financial Crisis was of course bad behavior
by banks that wasn't necessarily people driven. But you know,
people were getting into mortgages that they had no business
getting into, but they didn't necessarily know that.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Right, And then it was almost like the opposite at
that point, right right, Like you look back to the
Great Recession. Basically folks, everything looked rosier than it actually
was because the banks at that point in time were saying, oh, yeah, oh,
you totally qualify.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Actually you qualify for multiple you have a pulse, Okay,
let's give me this loan.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
Even if you didn't have a pulse, they were like,
well sign it to your gravestone.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Right, then the vibes are good and like there was
exuberance and all that stuff. And so I think that's
super important to considers because like how people feel like
ends up dictating how they spend money, right, And I
think a lot of the consumer spending that we've seen
over the past few years has been if they call
it post COVID yellow spending, Like people were like we
(26:53):
almost died. Like sure, let's go to ce Taylor Swift
for thirteen hundred dollars. But that's driven bye bye in
credit card debt most of the time, even though consumers
do have a decent amount of savings. But I would say, like, yeah,
vibes are really important, and like maintenance of vibes is
really important. Like the Federal Reserve, one of their tools
(27:14):
and their toolkit is forward guidance. So they have rates,
they have their balance sheet, and then they have forward guidance,
which is them just like talking and so like how
they talk ends up dictating how the market responds, like
what traders end up doing, what the high frequency trades
end up doing, And that's all vibe space. Like it's
like based on the color of Jerome Pal's tie, you know,
so it's.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Like the specific words to use.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Yeah, get me really'd be crazy?
Speaker 4 (27:40):
Yeah, markets tank, But yeah, I mean I think that's
kind of like the thesis of vibes is we have
to pay attention to consumer sentiment, especially now with information being.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
So fast moving.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
Is that like you look at the stock market, and
of course the stock market is not the economy, but
like you look at the stock market that is not
trading on fundamentals at all, Like there is no sense
of reality to a lot of the stocks in the
stock market. It's just based on expectations and like what
people think that could happen to the various companies. One
of my jobs before I started this job was to
(28:14):
build financial models for various firms and like various companies
and predict what stock price they would be.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
And it didn't matter. It never mattered what the model said.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
And I think that can be true in the economy
as well, is that you can have all the predictions
in the world and like how people feel will dictate
a large portion of what actually ends up happening.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
All right, So this one of the things you mentioned
in your book and has been historically true, is that
if when we go through an actual recession, there's a
lot of opportunity in a recession, which seems kind of counterintuitive.
It seems like recession bad, I should be sad, I'd
live under a rock sort of thing. But even during
COVID we saw like small business formation skyrocket. So I
guess bad circumstances can lead to good outcomes for or
(29:00):
a segment of the population who is willing to take
on some risk. So can you talk about maybe the
opportunities that a recession can provide.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Oh yeah, I mean.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
I think like there were a lot of people cheering
through recession in my comments section during the twenty twenty
era because a lot of people wanted to buy a
house for cheap, and so, like that's just one example
of what could happen. Is the home prices can go
down during a recession. Stock prices end up going down,
so you can kind of get things on an economic discount,
(29:29):
of course, at the cost of the broad economy. But
there are positives to a recession because it's a business cycle.
Like we're not going to necessarily be in a recession forever.
And I'm not saying it's a good thing by any means,
but a lot of people do think it's a good
thing because it's like a reset for the economy. Like
it shakes out a lot of companies that maybe shouldn't exist,
(29:50):
like a lot of zombie companies that have you know,
investor money, but really don't have any products.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
It shakes out for some.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Of the riskiest investors too, maybe who have made bad bets.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
It's something like Game Stop probably wouldn't happen during a recession,
and so like there's just a lot more of a
sense of reality during a recession. And of course, like
you know, jobs are lost. It's it's extremely hard, Like
two thousand and eight was devastating for like my family specifically,
and I know many others. So it's not a good thing.
(30:21):
But like, there are opportunities because it is a cycle,
because there is an other side to them most of
the time.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
I mean, I want to touch on housing because you
mentioned how a lot of folks were rooting for a
recession because for them it would have presented that opportunity.
You would devote a whole chapter to the to the
messed up housing market. And I really like the section
on reflexivity. Talk to us about how feedback loops, how
they influence our decision making and lead to market movements
if you don't mind.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
Yeah, yeah, I know, housing I think is super important,
but yeah, reflexivity is kind of like the same idea,
Like people will go into a market and they'll be like, oh,
the price is cheap, and the market the price will
get bit up, and then it's sort of like this
few of the price getting bid up and then people
you know, enter and exit. And I think you can
see that model like animal spirits, reflexivity, those sorts of
(31:09):
things show up across all aspects of the economy, and
they're very, very similar to vibes, like how people feel
about certain price movements, what they end up doing in
response to those price movements ends up influencing how things
ultimately move.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
And it seems like, tell me if I'm wrong. But
in cities where we're seeing zoning laws change, we're seeing
more housing being built. Austin, let's say, we're starting to
see prices decline. It also could be partly that Austin
went haywire for a while too, more so than some
other cities. But how do you think about maybe the
lack of housing supply and the strict zoning rules in
(31:49):
parts of the countries where people want to live and
there's just not enough units being built because of maybe
some of the red tape that's blocking their way.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
Yeah, So I actually did an interview with the Deputy
Secretary of the Treasury, Whalley Daamo about how the US
government was thinking about housing, specifically the US Treasury, And yeah,
like the whole takeaway from the interview was like, we
don't have enough homes anywhere and in places that people
want to live, and so I think housing supply is
like really the big issue in zoning specifically is such
(32:21):
a headache because we don't allow for a lot of
mixed use zoning and a lot of places so you
can't mix commercial and residential. And then in cities like
Los Angeles, for example, like la is seventy percent zoned
for single family, so you can't build a lot of
apartment complexes or duplexes or triplexes or town homes.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
It's like ADUs are the only thing that people have
been able to build there, And yeah, last couple of years,
it seems like.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
Yeah, and like the part of the reason for that
is nimbiism, like not in my backyard, where people are
wanting to protect the value of their home. And what's
interesting about housing And I didn't cover this in the
book because I didn't, but I wish I had, because house,
I'm saying, was never meant to be this like speculative asset.
Like over the past up until like the nineties, I
(33:05):
think housing had only returned zero point zero six percent
over the past hundred years up into the nineties versus
the last however many years has returned like sixty percent,
and I'm just ballparking that number.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
But now we view.
Speaker 4 (33:18):
Homes as something to live in, but then also something
that's meant to be this huge part of our investment portfolio.
And if you look at this chart that the Federal
Reserve releases called the Distribution of Financial Assets, you can
see the bottom fifty percent, all of their wealth is
tied up into their home, like that is their asset.
And then if you look at the top ten percent,
they have business ownership and they have stocks, and that's
(33:39):
where all of their money is coming from. And so
in the United States, we've created this world where people
feel like they have to get a home in order
to make any money or to have any sort of
nest egg for their kids. When really, if you look
at like the example of the really rich, its equities
and it's business ownership as much as possible, which is
harder to achieve, but like it's probably an important path
(34:02):
to set people on. And so like the US housing
market is a nightmare because of that, Like we have
this thing that we're saying, like, Okay, go live in that,
but then also expect to make a million dollars from it,
and you don't want anybody to build around you because
you want to preserve the value of your home so
that you can die a millionaire.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
And it's like we.
Speaker 4 (34:17):
Have just this huge, like warped mindset around it, and
it's like very prevalent. I think it contributed the housing
theory of everything. I sorry, I could like talk for
an hour straight about housing, but yeah, the housing theory
of everything I think really applies. Like you know, we
don't have walk couple cities, so people like see their
homes as this place to inhabit, this place don't really live,
(34:41):
and we expect it to be something that will make
us really rich and safe.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
So how do you help people like think about that
when or your followers and stuff. When you look at
the numbers and hey, buying at these rates and at
these prices and renting is going to cost me half
as much, But then I don't feel like I'm living
the American dream that I want to live. That can
be like deflating, but from an economic reality, it means
(35:08):
you've got a lot more money to funnel into investments
or into business building. So that's something we've talked about
is like that cult of home ownership is over sold
and for a lot of our listeners, hey, maybe it's
a later thing or maybe it's a never thing, because
you can build wealth in so many other ways. I
don't know, how do you help people think through that conundrum.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Yeah, I think it's tough.
Speaker 4 (35:26):
I think there's this expectation that's kind of built in
to like getting a home, like the quote unquote American dream, right,
like you feel like you should have the white picket fence.
But I think you all are right, Like there is
other ways to build wealth. And so the way that
I try to talk about it is like you're not
crazy for feeling like you can't afford a home, like
there is a structural affordability problem crisis year, like there
(35:47):
aren't enough homes, And there is really interesting theories around
you know, renters and what they're able to do outside
of buying a home, like they'll go. And it seems
like sports gambling is popular, but investing is popular too,
So there are alternatives to building wealth or spending your
money in general. But it's it's a tough thing to
(36:09):
talk about. I try to talk about the policies a
lot people are building, they are passing laws to like
fix this stuff. It's just going to take time.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Yeah, and of all markets that one moves slowly. It
just we don't have those like those little concrete pouring
things that kind of look like they're spinning out toothpaste,
but it's concrete to make houses. Like I'd realize that
they've made a couple communities out of that sort of stuff.
But housing is so individual, I mean, and it's such
(36:38):
a such a hairy concept though too, because it's not
just so like what we're talking about right now are
like the fundamentals we're talking about, the actual red tape,
the policies that allow further to be more or less housing.
But then again, like Kyla was talking about, when you
start looking at it through an investment wealth building lens
as well, it gets really really stink and complicated because
you start to think, well, at some point it's a
(36:59):
bubble will pop until you realize that like we'll shoot,
I still need somewhere to live, or you look at
Toronto and you're like that bubble never pop, or it's
like twenty years, right, That's what it's so crazy about.
Oh you're like, hey, I'm twenty nine. I'm having my
second kid. It's time, and you feel like that's the
thing about housing. Sometimes it is situational and is personal,
and it's it's less about the numbers and it's more
(37:20):
about like how you feel and wanting to move on
to that ladder, and like the actual specific economics a
reality of it, like it doesn't matter to you quite
as much.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
In the moment.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
So, Kyla, we've got more questions we want to get
to with you in just a second. We specifically want
to talk about I don't know, let's get a little
macro here. What is money? We'll talk about that and
more in just a second.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Right, we are back for the break in, Kyla, like
Jiel alluded to, let's talk about money, because you've been
talking about money this whole way we have last section
is mostly about vibes and attitude, and I guess this
is kind of a continuation of that because you write this,
and this is a quote from your book that money
is a presence that haunts our daily activities, which I
think a lot of people certainly agree to agree with that.
(38:09):
I think a lot of people feel that way. But
you also say that it is a social construct that
relies on trust. Yeah, it's almost like it's almost like
a language. Sure, it works, but it's only as useful
as other folks are also using that language. Otherwise it's
just you doing your nerdy thing with letters exactly. So
(38:29):
I guess what I want to ask is, like, how
do you think we should be thinking about money? I guess, yeah,
especially just in the digital age.
Speaker 4 (38:38):
Yeah, and money is I yes, like the A lot
of the first part of the book is dedicated to
money because I think it's like so cool. I think
that money is like such a fascinating thing because it
is sort of this collective trust between everybody, Like you know,
the US dollar bill is backed by the full faith
and credit of the US government.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
Like that is a transaction of trust that we're all doing.
Speaker 4 (39:00):
We're all like, yes, this money means something. And I
think that, you know, not to get like too woo,
the money's not real, but like it is cool how
that actually happens.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
But yeah, I think money.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
In the digital age is interesting because I think we're
still trying to figure out what money is. Like, money
is sort of this promise. It's a glue that holds
society together. And how does that apply to the digital forefront,
like we have credit cards, we have you know, the
US government is kind of going digital with some aspects
of money. We don't use cash as much as we
(39:29):
used to, so like we have digitized a large part
of the transaction experience. But like will it be cryptos right?
Like will there be a central bank digital currency? I
don't think anybody really knows the answer to that. I
know the Federal Reserve isn't too interested, but yeah, I
mean I think it's going to be Like there's kind
of an opportunity to rethink how how money works, Like
(39:52):
do we apply it to a blockchain?
Speaker 3 (39:55):
Right?
Speaker 4 (39:55):
Like do we have sort of a digital letter ledger?
Do we kind of keep it how it is now?
I think video games are kind of a cool place
to learn about money and transactions, like how they have
each each game kind of sometimes has it in unit currency.
I'm sort of rambling about the exciting parts of money.
But I think again, like it's another question of what
(40:17):
could happen is how we treat money and is it
going to be as necessary as it is now? Are
we gonna have universal basic income? Like there's a lot
of interesting things to consider, but yeah, just the structure
of money is so fascinating.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
You mentioned crypto, and I think probably initially Matt and
I were crypto skeptics, and I would say we're still
certainly not like full throated apologists or crypto or anything
like that. But it does like the way we use
money mostly digitally these days. It works pretty well for
most people, being able to send money via Venmo, being
able to log into their bank account, transfer money from
(40:54):
one place to another, credit cards like that system seems
to work decently well. But does bitcoin or cryptocurrency any
other other kinds of cryptocurrency Do those meet your threshold
definition of what money is? And like, I don't know,
do you see that being more of a prevalent way
that we exchange money in the future.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
No cryptos right now?
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Do?
Speaker 4 (41:18):
I mean? I think bitcoin has an identity crisis, which
is a non popular take for the bitcoin people who
might be listening. But like, is it a currency? Is
it an asset? You can't have something gain and value
and then expect to spend it on a cup of coffee.
It just doesn't work financially ethere m is more, I
think the digital computer kind of world, so I don't
(41:38):
think any crypto right now has meant that qualification. But
I don't think crypto's goal is to be money. I
think it is to be like an investment class, which
is fine, So no, I don't think so. I like
this is kind of where I wish my imagination was better,
because I would love to really think about like what
a world could look like with new money and like
(41:58):
what it could look like to turn act differently, But
I just am not that creative.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
And so I think that there is.
Speaker 4 (42:05):
A lot of exciting stuff that crypto has shown us,
despite like obviously the terrible parts of crypto FTX included
that have made it not so good, But I think
there's cool things that we can pull from the technology.
Like I think one of the things I also try
to hopefully get across in the book is that nothing
is black and white, like everything is very nuanced, which
(42:29):
can be frustrating, I think, but like that's how I
think of most economic concepts, is like there's an element
of nuanced all of it. And I think here so
with money and crypto and how it all relates, there's
so much nuance in it.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
And like nuance doesn't sell, it's you know, like that's
so like Matt and I are all shades of gray
on the show too, and sometimes we're like, man, if
we just had a harder line on this or that,
like maybe get more clicks, But like that's just that's
just not typically Typically you're selling something then and you're
not trying to help people or or tell the truth.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
I meant like, as you're talking through bitcoin not being
a currency, and again, Joe, I mean, folks who listen
to the show know that we tell folks to not buy,
to not buy crypto, like you need to be investing.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
In the boring stuff.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Yeah, the s and P within your four one K
we talk about the basics, but I couldn't help but
to think about, like what is it that's causing bitcoin
to go up? And it's because folks believe that it
might be the currency, the medium of exchange of the future.
And it kind of makes me think about even the
US dollar and how in other countries, what are folks
doing They're hoarding American dollars, Like there is so much
money that is in circulation because they know, like you
(43:34):
said that the US dollar it's backed by the might
of the United States and everything that it represents and
So if I guess step outside of the boundaries of
the US and kind of visualize bitcoin in the same
way that maybe other countries do, that's the part where
I start to think, well, shoot, I don't know, maybe
it could be a currency, because isn't that what folks
(43:56):
abroad are doing?
Speaker 5 (43:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (43:57):
Maybe I think it's more like stability with the US
dollar versus like bitcoin.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
People want that thing.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Which feels very unstable.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
Yeah, they're like, k.
Speaker 4 (44:07):
You know, what was the big bed on Twitter the
last year, like bitcoin reaching one million or something?
Speaker 3 (44:12):
Do you all remember that?
Speaker 1 (44:13):
Oh? No, I don't. Okay, Yeah, spends all his time
on X for my phone. I check in like twice
a week for like five minutes. I don't really care about.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
Twitterer, the freedom.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
Take the.
Speaker 3 (44:31):
I do.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
We have talked so much about macroeconomics and how they
have the wide world of like money and high finance
impacts us. In your opinion, what are the most important
things that the average person should be paying attention to
keeping tabs on especially? I mean think about we live
in the information age, and it can be sometimes like
you just want to check out and watch a good
(44:52):
show on Netflix or whatever, because it just all feels
so overwhelming. So what are maybe like the most important
things you would say, these, these are the things you
should be kind of like keeping an eye on if
you want to be an informed, informed person in today's
modern economy.
Speaker 4 (45:07):
Yeah, I mean I think that it's hard because there's like,
how I get asked this a lot, and I never
really have a good answer to it because it's like, yes,
you need to pay attention to inflation, and you need
to pay attention to the labor market reports, you need
to pay attention to the GDP prints, but like there's
(45:28):
so much interpretation with those numbers. So I think that
it's like important to pay attention to the jobs market,
Like what's happening? Are people quitting their jobs? Like what's
the quits rate doing? Is there a lot of job openings?
Is inflation going down? What's driving inflation? You know right
now it's auto insurance? What does that mean for you
as a consumer? What does it mean that shelter costs
(45:49):
are so high? And then in terms of GDP, like
as the economy growing. But like with all of that
being said, there's a lot of confusion with these metrics,
and like the data doesn't always really capture reality in
a large sense. And I don't know if we have
time to get into all of that, but like inflation
sometimes is weird because shelter costs are driving it, but
like rents are going down and it's kind of like
(46:11):
just there's a lag.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
So it's personal. Rates of inflation can differ too, depending
on what.
Speaker 4 (46:16):
You're precisely, and so I think it's just kind of
like having a broad overview of the economy. Like the
way that I sometimes talk about is like everybody knows
that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, right,
and you kind of have to like know what all
the mitochondrias of the economy are, so like knowing the
mitochondria of GDP and like inflation and labor market, just
(46:37):
so you have a general sense of what's happening, but
like not going too deep into the weeds, because sometimes
that data isn't very helpful.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
Well, I think what you're pointing to is that, like
it's good to be to reflect on that data, but like, ultimately,
so much of it comes down to us as individuals
and what it is that we're choosing to do. And
I think that we can externalize our failures or our successes,
but man, the ability for us to internally and to
take action within our own lives. I think that ultimately
is going to move the needle a lot more than
(47:07):
perhaps how certain pieces of data might be interpreted. But Kyla,
we really appreciate you talking with us. Where can folks
learn about the book?
Speaker 4 (47:15):
Yes, so they can go to paying on random house
dot com and search in This Economy. There's also information
all on all my social pages at Kyla scan on Instagram,
on Twitter, at Kyla Scanlon on YouTube. My newsletter is
Kyla dot subseac dot com. The book itself is called
in This Economy, where you can find out more. There
are sixty illustrations. There's an ebook version, there's an audiobook version.
(47:38):
You can also purchase a signed version if you choose
to do so, or just purchase a regular version, which
is always so appreciated. But yeah, thank you guys for
having me on, of course.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
Yeah, Kyla, we really enjoyed this combo. Thank you so
much for coming on.
Speaker 3 (47:53):
Of course.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
Well nice, okay, So, I honestly I felt that we
could have spent a full hour just talking about BIS
and we almost went down that path where Kyla was
like I've I've got a bike for every different activity
of the weekend. So they took a bike vacation to
France that we talked about before we start, were not
recording about that, So I mean that's cool. Yeah, totally
(48:14):
up our alley. We love Kyla's kind of approach to
life in that way. But yeah, regarding in this economy,
you have the big takeaway from our conversation or from
her book, Joel.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Yeah, So one of the things Kyla said earlier on,
she said it's easier to make good decisions when you
have better information. And that's true. I mean, think about
it in like a negotiation. If your boss is saying
it was I can only give you a five percent raise,
and you've got information you know some of your co
workers got a ten, twelve, fifteen percent raise and that
actually they don't have any other prospects and they need
someone to fill this role asap. You have good information,
(48:47):
you know that you can push the UH test those
limits of what they're willing to pay you. Those are
the kind of things, right, Like, the more information that
we have, and and she was also saying kind at
the end, you can get bogged down in information. You
can try to consume too much of it. But I
think if you pick and choose the most important things
to follow in kind of what's happening in the economy,
that extra information can act as an advantage for you.
(49:09):
It makes me think of what we were talking about,
Matt in twenty twenty three, when job switchers were getting
paid a whole lot more, and it's like, well, in
twenty nineteen, there the gap between getting paid more by
Mosey and down the road and stay input was minimal,
and in twenty twenty three it was significant, And so
that was like the best time to change jobs if
you were interested in doing something else. It was going
(49:31):
to provide a bigger economic impact. So let that data
sway you what's happening in the economy sway you, or
at least let it help inform the decisions you're making.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
Sure, Yeah, okay, So my big takeaway will be the
other side of that coin, which is essentially there is
the possibility of being inundated with too much information, And
I think that's the you know, again, we try to
find somewhere right in the middle to have like the
right amount of information. It's the goldilocks paradox, right, Like
you don't want too little, you don't want too much,
because I think one of the risks that we run
(50:00):
with being just completely overrun with information is the risk
the danger of blaming things on other folks as opposed
to knowing that, man, there is so much that we
can do on our own regardless of what the quits
rate is. How am I doing within my industry or
specifically even just within my specific company. And that's, honestly,
that's what we strive to do here on the show,
Like we are trying to find the pieces of information
(50:23):
that pertain to individuals' lives the most, while trying to
ignore the rest, because a lot of that can be
just white noise.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Yes, you're right, and I think one of the kind
of what you're what you're alluding to as well, is
the healthier your personal finances are, the less you need
to be intricately aware of everything that's happening in the economy.
Speaker 2 (50:42):
Like because imagine somebody who's completely financially independent, they're not
dependent on anybody, anything, any company for their livelihood.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
If there's like dark recession clouds coming over the water,
and you can see that in the economic data but
you have a six month emergency fund, you have a
job that you're doing well like, you have to be
far less worried as the person living paycheck to paycheck.
So that's where personalance is so crucial. But then it
can also allow you to take advantage of a particular opportunity.
(51:11):
You can say, oh, I've got the six months, I've
got a huge savings buffer. Actually, now is the time,
perfect time for me to launch my own business. When
most people would say that seems crazy. Many people would
advise against that, but recessions are often the best time
to start something new. So sure, you can dig when
other people is agging. It's like Warren Buffe it says,
be fearful when others are greedy, be greedy when others
are fearful. But you can only really do that if
(51:33):
where you're at with your personal finances isn't a great spot.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
You got to be in a strong, solid financial position.
Speaker 1 (51:38):
That's right, man.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
All right, let's quickly introduce here that you and I enjoyed.
So again we are continuing a few weeks of you
and I drinking crap beer, not craft beer. Since you
and I both failed at our miserably our Daffy campaign,
which you can still donate to you by the way,
But you and I both enjoyed. You picked up a Flight,
(52:00):
which is a beer by Yingling. This is a light beer,
so oldest in brewing America, right.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
Okay, So what's the difference between Yanling Light and Yingling Flight.
Speaker 1 (52:10):
Well, this is a low carb beard. Also, I was
gonna say the only thing good about this beer was
it we didn't really it's not gonna affect our waistline
because it is low car killow calorie, low carb.
Speaker 2 (52:19):
But yeah, it was pretty pathetic. Ultimately, I don't have
much to say. No, it's a super light beer, barely
any flavor. So it was wet That's what I've got.
Speaker 1 (52:29):
That's right. So I can't wait for this to come
to an end in the near future, but we will
drink more.
Speaker 2 (52:33):
Crap beers, very non offensive though, like no off flavorstri
It's kind of like just breathing air.
Speaker 1 (52:39):
That's how that's how I think about it, akin to water.
All right, that's gonna do it. For this episode. We'll
have links to where you can buy Kylo's book, to
her site, her newsletter, all that stuff up in the show.
Notes on our website and how to money dot com.
Speaker 2 (52:52):
That's right, man, So that'll be it until next time.
Best friends out and best friends out the be
Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt.
Today we're talking in This Economy with Kyla Scanlon. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
So it is tricky to describe who Kyla Scanlin is
and what exactly it is that she does, because, yes,
she has a massive following on TikTok, but she's not
simply an influencer. Yes she has an incredible newsletter, but
she isn't simply a writer either, though she has written.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
For the time.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
She's written for New York Magazine and Bloomberg and her
brand new book, In This Economy, How Money and Markets
Really Work that was just released yesterday. And so ultimately
I would say that Kyla is an educator because where
she really excels is bridging the gap between the complexities
of our modern economy to simple every day living. It
(01:05):
is so clear that she is passionate about empowering individuals
with the knowledge that they need to make informed financial decisions.
And plus she does all this with a touch of
humor while simultaneously not ignoring the philosophical angle as well.
And so we're excited to talk about all things money
and markets and economy related. Kyla, thank you so much
(01:25):
for talking with us today.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Oh, yes, thank you so much for having.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Me of course. Oh okay, the question that we ask
everyone who comes on the show. The first thing we
need to know, Kyla, is what your craft beer equivalent is.
What is it that you spend in a lot of
money on that some people might think is crazy, just
like Matt and I do with beer, but you think
it's perfectly normal, and simultaneously you're saving and investing at
the same time for your future.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
I have five bikes, so yeah, I know, I know,
I know.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah, so I've got your beat.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
What but I also have I'm a family of six,
so you can't count your kids. We have seven bikes
at our house, but there's one of you and there
are six per capita.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
And you have the space for all these bikes.
Speaker 5 (02:09):
Oh.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
I have a special little bike hangar that I have
in my apartment where I like hang the bikes from
and then two of them don't hang, so I have
three hanging, and then I have one up against like
my dining room table, and then one up against my couch.
So there really isn't a lot of room for living
in the living room.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Yeah, just bikes.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
They're literally all over the place.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
And I mean, we know we've been to your site
and know something about you, but you're really in mountain
biking as well, right, you're out in Colorado.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
Yeah, yeah, mountain biking, gravel biking, road biking, adventure biking.
I also bike commute, so I don't really drive, so
I have a bike for each you know, hobby. But yeah,
so like that's what I do on the weekends is
going bike big miles.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Do you have a cargo bike for when you go
to the grocery store?
Speaker 3 (02:57):
I use a backpack. Yeah, so I put it okay.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Back I guess you don't need a whole you don't
need multiple pioneers.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
If it's just you again, it's just just.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Seating a bunch of Joel made a note, he said,
to highlight the fact that Kyla.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Is all by herself.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
So it's my dog.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Check that box with somebody friends, is what I said.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
Somebody friends, many friends and likes you.
Speaker 5 (03:26):
Hat another reason we're excited to talk with you, because
so much better than having like a dozen cats, I think.
So you could be a bike lady. Lady, Well, oh,
I wanted to ask you.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Have you so you do a lot of biking out
out west, you've done much out east? Specifically, one of
my favorite trails was Katsuma. It's a nice downhill single track,
real close to Mount Mitchell.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
No, I haven't.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
I've done most of my mountain biking out west, so
I haven't really actually done nothing out east.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
He keep that in mind if you want to, if
you want to do like an Ashville mountain biking style trip,
there's a lot of It's not Colorado, but there's a
there's some decent.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Stuff that'll your itinerary for you. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
I used to teach mountain biking for at a boys
summer camp when I.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Was in age, So yeah, that's awesome. No, I'll definitely
check it out.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
We can loop back to that later after we're done
talking about your book, because let's let's talk about that.
It was published, It was released yesterday, and it's got
some serious econ one oh one vibes that kind of
took us back to high school, but way more interesting
than high school. And of course it was updated for
modern times, helping for folks to connect the dots in
(04:35):
a digestible way. What is it that kind of caused
you to want to write this book?
Speaker 4 (04:40):
Yeah, so I've been making content about the economy for
over two and a half years now, had worked in
the industry for a little bit, you know, studied it
in school. And I think the big takeaway throughout that
entire experience was that, you know, people are in the economy,
but they don't know a lot about the economy or
they don't have acce to the tools that they need
(05:01):
to understand the world around them. And so I wrote
the book just to give people a toolbox. Like it
talks about inflation, it talks about GDP, it talks about
the labor market, it talks about the Federal Reserve, fiscal policy,
what money is, and it's just meant to be like
a guide for people who want to just have a
general overview of what the economy is. And there's sixty illustrations,
(05:22):
so it's meant to be fun, which sometimes economics can't
be that fun. But yeah, that's why I wrote the book,
is to help people through the more fuzzy parts of
being in the economy.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
It feels like we need that more than ever too write.
I mean, think about what's happened over the past few years,
and before that, the economy felt a lot more straightforward.
It feels a lot more discombobulated these days. And I mean,
do you think that we need in an economic education
even more in twenty twenty four than we maybe did
in I don't know, twenty fifteen.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Yeah, I would say so.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
I mean, I think, you know, the pandemic really did
or on the economy, just in terms of the jobs
that were lost, but also because of what the Federal
Reserve did with raising rates, right like, we entered this
whole new economic regime that we'd never really been in before,
at least in recent history. And now we have this
selection coming up at the end of the year where
(06:18):
the economy is going to be a hot topic. And
so I think, now, as you said, more than ever,
it is important that people understand what's going on so
they can make the right decisions that they need to
about their own economic circumstances. And I think also, like,
if you live in a world that's big and confusing
to you, it's hard to make good decisions. And so
if you have just sort of a general understanding but
(06:40):
interest rates are like why they're going up, how that
could impact mortgage rates and auto insurance all of that stuff,
I think that helps a lot. I think that things
can be painted to be rather confusing when most of
the time they can be simplified to be rather simple.
And that's also a goal of the book. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah, it's more than just you can take like an
overlease simplified view of things, and so like, for instance,
if you're a home buyer, it's like, okay, interest rates
go down, good, frisk go up bad, But there are
other factors to consider. And like you talk about you
mentioned fiscal and monetary policy. Like on the fiscal policy front,
you highlight the incredibly short tenure of Liz Trust as
(07:20):
the Prime Minister of Great Britain and.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
She lasts like thirty days on it.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
I think there's a lot that we can learn there.
Can you just kind of talk about that, elaborate for
a minute, Yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Mean I think that like the way that fiscal policy
can come about most of the time is because of
short termism. Like what happened with Liz Trust is she
had this whole mini budget plan that ended up being
largely inflationary and sort of did the opposite of what
she wanted it to do.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
And you know, the.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
UK was experiencing a bunch of inflation during that time,
and so everyone was like, what are you doing, and
it seemed like she didn't really know, and that's why
she didn't last very long. Actually, like this head of
Lettuce ended up lasting longer than she did. But I
think that's like just something that you will need to
understand is like how fiscal policy will interact with the
broader economy and like why it can be inflationary, why
(08:06):
government doesn't have unlimited money to spend, but then also
like policies that the government could put toward, Like I
think a lot of anger that we're experiencing right now
is because of the fiscal response that we saw during
the pandemic, and then the pullback of that fiscal response,
Like people saw that the government was able to provide,
you know, an element of unemployment that is more than
(08:29):
they provide now, rent forbearance, student loan forgiveness, all this stuff,
and so I think it's important that people understand like
why that stuff would start and stop.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
And then also to the less TRUSTe example.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
Just show an example of how fiscal policy can impact
the broad economy in a bad way.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Okay, so you talked about kind of the starting and
stopping of certain government interventions into our economy. There were
certainly a lot of different things. I feel like it
was like a kitchen sink approach, especially from the federal
government during the heart of the pandemic, and understandably so
given kind of what we were facing. But then there
were long lasting implications of that, especially when we're talking
about let's say, the stimmy checks. It seems like there
(09:09):
was some necessity for those, but then maybe we over
overdid it to a certain extent too, and that's caused
this long lasting inflation. So but then I think sometimes
people get used to a certain kind of government policy
and then it goes away and they're like, wait, what,
why isn't that there anymore? So I don't know, how
do you think about when governments get involved, how to
(09:29):
what extent they get involved, and then the kind of
secondary the domino effect of some of their actions.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
Yeah, I mean, I think number one, and this is
a view that I have to check myself on sometimes,
but I think governments exist to serve the people, and
they should spend money on their people. Like that's kind
of like why we pay taxes, and so I think
that's just like one opinion that I have, and I
think it's important that governments do invest in the populist
(09:54):
for the long term. But I think to the example
about stimulus checks, like that was so supportive to people,
like it got the United States through the pandemic way
better than any other developed country. Like the US right
now is doing much better than anybody thought we would
be doing in twenty nineteen, like before we even knew
(10:16):
the pandemic would be happening, Like the stimulus checks sort
of save the American consumer. But now it's kind of
like this battle with inflation, and so I think the
government has a responsibility to spend money. But now because
of the Federal Reserve raising rates in order to battle
the inflation that you know, could have potentially been caused
a little bit by these stimulus checks and outsized fiscal
(10:38):
spending during the pandemic, the Federal Reserve has been raising
rates in order to battle inflation because of that, but
because rates are high, like interest servicing costs on government
debt is really high, and so it's kind of like
all of these big things that loop back into one another,
and it's kind of like whoa, you know, the Federal
Reserve impacts the US government. The US government impacts the
federal reserve, and that impacts me as a consumer, And
(11:00):
so it is trying to tie a thread between all
of these disparate, seemingly disparate things. Yeah, I think governments
have a responsibility to spend, but they also have a
responsibility to not have you know, servicing costs be so high,
the debt costs be so high, and I think that's
going to be the big struggle over the next decade.
Is we spend all this money, how do we pay
(11:21):
it off?
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Sure? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
On the spending front, Jerome Powell in sixty Minutes mentioned
that our current gap between spending and current tax levels
it's just unsustainable. And so like, how do you think
the ballooning national debt and deficits are going to impact
the future? Is it as simple as okay, there are
going to be higher levels of taxes that are going
to be levied upon American citizens Or does it come
(11:45):
down to measures of austerity when it comes to what
folks are going to be willing to stomach.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
I don't.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
Yeah, I mean I think that, like one of the
big lessons during the pandemic was that austerity doesn't have
to be the case. And you can sort of have
an economy outside of not spending money. But I think
now like we swung the pendulum so far on the
other side that it's like, Okay, we need to find
the middle ground between austerity and whatever, like we're doing
right now, and we are kind of finding that middle ground.
(12:15):
Like you know, the Biden administration passed the CHIPSAC, the IRA,
the IJA and all of those things were a lot
of money, and they are going to be a lot
of money, but they're not going to cost a bunch
of money into the future because.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
They're creating jobs and stimulating the economy and creating growth exactly.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
Yeah, yeah, that's the goal of them, and I do
think it'll work out that way. But yeah, I mean,
I it's like, because you can't raise taxes, especially in
an election year, but you're gonna have to figure out
something else to do to get money. And like the
government has been doing more bond issue wanes, because like
the way that a government makes money is through issuing
bonds or raising taxes on people. To sort of reduce
(12:52):
it to the simplest form, but I think that they're
going to need to really think about it. But it's
so I mean This is the really tough part about
economics is it does wade into the political so often.
And I think that's the big issue, is that, you know,
the polarization has made it hard to sort of accomplish
(13:13):
anything on either side.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
They call it the dismal science for a reason. It
can't be a bummer sometimes for sure, especially when everything
is politicized and you're like, man, we just like let
some of this stuff be more math related and less emotional.
But speaking of that, like, one of the things I
love about a lot of the content you create, Kayla,
is you give a real human element and you view
(13:37):
things through a human lens. And I think that is
why people gravitate towards your work because sometimes a lot
of people in the economics profession it's like units, it's
the way we talk about people are there like plug
and play inside of an economic system. And you talk
about it from a very personal perspective, and you talk
about measurements of growth and economic health, and then you
(13:59):
discuss what you call the productivity paradox. You say consumption
is key to a healthy economy, but too much seems
to create an unhealthy society. And I feel like that's
like spot on. We're very much living through that. So
how do you think about the economy of a healthy
economy and healthy people.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
Yeah, that's been like kind of a funny thing about
the economy over the past year, as you all know,
is like, oh, the American consumer is still spending, like
things are fine, but it's kind of like whoa, Like,
you know, the consumer spending is such a big part
of the economy and there's so many different ways to
measure that, and like so many different things go into it.
But like the general ideas that people spend money economy
(14:38):
go big. And I think that like when you sort
of pull back and think about that, it's like, well,
what are people spending money on? And now we're getting
all these reports about like credit card debt, the delinquency
rates going up a little bit. And I think too,
like as Americans, we struggle with consumerism. We really like
new stuff, and you know, for the long term that's
(15:00):
tough because we have these huge landfills that are going
to have to be taken care of one way or
the other. And consumption is great until you have to
deal with the trash part of it. And like we
did see a shift from goods to services to people
were engaging in like Taylor Swift concerts, for example, are
getting more haircuts or whatever. There's this piece called Life
(15:22):
after Lifestyle by Toby Shoren where he talks about how
a lot of people end up identifying through consumption, like
they identify themselves through the brands, and so then brands
end up setting culture and that's kind of weird world
to exist in.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Like a Stanley water bottle kind of person, that sort
of thing exactly.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, which is interesting. That's a good
example of the Veblin good where the price can increase
but people still buy it because it's kind of like
a luxury item. But yeah, I would say that's what
I have noticed is people spend a lot of money,
but there's still like this sense of anger and sadness
(16:01):
that money can't really fix, you know.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Yeah, well, especially this is something we've talked about on
the show before too, but especially when everything that you do,
whether it's your identity and even how it is that
you give to charities, when that is looked at or
sort of interpreted through this lens of consumption, something.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Just feels really off about that.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
And it's just not our ability as individuals to consume,
but to like actually contribute to society in a way
that doesn't just boost profits of companies.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Building healthy communities and like raising families and like, yeah,
enjoying the nature around you. I mean, those are like
the things that make us human. But we've i think,
like identified being human in other ways through a more
consumptive lens, and that's like largely what leads to a
lot of this un happiness. It's like, yeah, marketing everything,
big business everything.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
Yeah, No, I mean I think that's a really good point,
like sort of the your eyeballs are expensive commodities, Like
people will pay a lot of money for your attention,
and so I think that's created this sense of distrust
in people because it's like, well, what is an advertisement?
Like how can I trust anything if people are selling
to me all of the time and I'm tired? And
then I think to the point of like community too.
(17:09):
You know, a lot of people have talked about the
decline of third places, the loneliness crisis. You know, the
fertility rate is super low, and so we it's interesting
because like we have all of these kind of big
societal problems that we're sort of brushing under the rug
because they are really big, and I don't think anybody
knows how to fix them because they're so systemic.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
But then we like.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
Have companies like open Ai who are doing good work
and like you know, innovating on this really cool technology.
But the end state of that is concerning for all
of the big issues that we're facing already, and I
don't think we have a solution for it, and so
I don't I was talking to somebody earlier today about
Nintendo because Nintendo is going to release a new version
(17:52):
of the Switch and.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Twenty twenty five, right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
And so like investors are mad about that, but like
as a person, I'm kind of concerned, well not concerned,
but it's like, you know, they're a hardware company, but
are they going to build a Nintendo world like what
we see sort of a metaverse emerge out of the
video game companies sooner rather than later, so they you know,
these are questions that people have been tossing around for
the past couple of years, but like.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
How far removed are we from a Wally esque future?
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Right?
Speaker 4 (18:23):
And that's important to consider with the lens of the
economy too, Like I think what I tried to really
accomplish in the book, And what I try to do
with my work all the time is tie the economy
back to like these big societal problems and also these
exciting societal things like AI could be really cool depending
on how we use it, and all of that's kind
of like a component of the economy. And so I
(18:45):
think it's helpful to see the world around you as
like a web and see all of how how all
the pieces sort of connect, because then it doesn't feel
so big and confusing. But yeah, I mean, I think
all of these things are important to consider because we
are a capitalist society and so everything we do ultimately
does have a dollar signed attached to it. Yeah, and
it's important to recognize that as well.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
One of the like criticisms it's always been levied against
the fire community is like financial independence retire early is
like if everyone did this, the economy would go to pot.
We'd all like we'd be like living in a third
world hell hole overnight or something like that. Right, So,
I don't know, I guess big growth kind of seems
to be the what our economy is based on. And
(19:24):
how do you like still have a thriving economy if
like growth over every single other metric begins to kind
of wane, and we like, how's that going to impact individuals, markets,
and investors.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
That's the question that a lot of people are trying
to grapple with too, is like, you know, there's a
degrowth movement. It's kind of like, oh, we don't need
to grow as quickly as possible, but you know, we
have a very hungry machine on our hands, and the
machine demands growth at every cost. And I think that's
the concerning thing that we're going to have to figure out.
It's like, you know, you're right, like, how do you
keep the stock market moving if like companies aren't going
(20:01):
to be growing so much year over year? How do
you avoid an element of stagflation or even just stagnancy
in general? I think that like everything has been so
cheap and easy. This is a blanket statement, but like
things have been cheap and easy for the past twenty
or so years. Like energy is pretty cheap and easy.
We were able to frack find a bunch more energy.
But now we're like, oh, geez, this is probably gonna
(20:24):
you know, explode the earth, Like we should find alternatives,
but that's going to cost money and cost time, and
it's maybe won't be growth right away, but you can
already see people returning to oil and coal because it's like, oh,
green energy is too expensive, Like it's taking too much time.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
We have to grow right now.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
And so I think another thing not to like point
out all society's problems because everybody already knows, but like
we have this very short term mindset around a very
long term life. And I think that's like something that
is just going to have to be taken into consideration
is things aren't cheap anymore. Everything is more expensive, people
are more tired, and every generation has had problems, right,
(21:02):
But like I do think people now more than ever
are struggling with something real big, and how do we
navigate that in the economy that's so reliant on growth.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Yeah, yeah, I think we totally agree. And you even
mentioned earlier short termism, which is what it seems like
is going through everybody's mind, especially those who are in
charge of policy, those who are in elected office. It
seems like all the low hanging fruit has all been
snatched and we're kind of looking up and just being like, oh,
it's gonna be a lot more it's gonna be a
lot harder to apples at the top of the tree. Yeah,
(21:34):
and for this to be sustainable. But Kyla, we've got
much more to talk about. We might get to housing,
maybe even crypto, but we get to all that more.
Right after the break.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
We're back from the break, We're still talking with Kyla Scanlon.
We're talking about her new book, In This Economy, which
is just a great name for a book these days.
And I still remember, I'm sure this was like an
inflection point for you. You read your newsletter every time it
comes out, and you had one about the Vibe Session
and that was like your most popular one ever or something,
(22:13):
and I think you got like an article in the
New York Times because of it. And then in your
book you say that vibes hold a surprising amount of
power over outcomes. So, okay, vibes feels like this kind
of hard to touch sort of thing. What do vibes
even mean? And then how does that shake out? What
do how do vibes and the way people I guess
feel despite maybe the economic numbers and stuff that come out,
(22:35):
how do those feelings impact outcomes?
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Yeah, so the.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
Vibe Session was written back in twenty twenty two when
we saw this like really big disconnection between consumers and
and economic data.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
So people were.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
Feeling tremendously bad despite the economy doing relatively okay. And
so when I wrote that piece, it was kind of
a reflection of the comments that I was getting on
the videos that I was producing on social media, so
like TikTok, Instagram, et cetera. I would be like, inflation
is going down, and people would be like, I hate
(23:08):
everything and I'm sad, and I was kind of like,
what's like, why what's happening here? And so, yeah, exactly,
or take out a loan to egg your house. But yeah,
I think that was that was kind of like the
impetus of that piece. And then the reason that I
said that vibes were so important and I still believe
(23:29):
that they are, is inflation expectations are really important, right,
Like what people think is going to happen with inflation
like sort of influences how inflation shows up in the world.
There's been a lot of research on this. It's kind
of like a self fulfilling prophecy of sorts, And that's
sort of the idea of the vibe session is that
it is a self fulfilling prophecy, like if people feel
really bad about the economy, is the economy even good?
(23:53):
Like do the metrics actually matter? And the research has
sort of evolved since then to take into account like
structural affordability problems like housing. Right, we have a housing
crisis that's super hard to navigate and it's going to
create you know, so called bad vibes, So the vibes themselves,
there is an element of reality to them. Media headlines
are another good example, like if you have a negative
(24:14):
word in a media headline, your click through rate increases
by two point three percent. A positive word it decreases
by one point nine percent, So that can influence vibes.
It's just like I think in economics oftentimes a lot
of researchers do a great job at incorporating like how
people feel, but I think more so now than ever,
(24:34):
it's really important to consider how people feel about their
economic circumstances because that's ultimately more informative of how they'll
end up feeling about the economy at large, their job prospects,
what they end up doing, how they choose to innovate.
So that that was kind of how that research came about.
And why I think the vibes are important. It's because
(24:56):
you know, how people feel matters. As like silly as
that sound, it's like it really is true.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it does have a massive impact
and actual you know, like we're kind of specifically talking
about the vibe session that over the past couple of years,
but just general like what we're talking about here are
just general perceptions and attitudes towards what is actually going on.
But that being said, like actual recessions, they do occur,
and so talk about I guess booms and busts, talk
(25:22):
about bubbles and how it is that vibes or attitudes,
how it impacts those cycles and maybe even what lies
ahead for us if you're so willing to make a
prediction a forecast.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
Yeah, I mean, I think speculative nature. It is just
human nature. Like you know, some people say the toolip
bubble was a siop, but like there was something happening
with the tulips, and like you know, back in the
sixteen hundreds and people buying a bunch of them and
you know, not enough toolips. All of a sudden the
price skyrockets and then the same thing happened during the
tech bubble of the late nineteen nineties. It's all speculation.
(25:55):
It's a lot of it's human nature. The two thousand
and eight Great Financial Crisis was of course bad behavior
by banks that wasn't necessarily people driven. But you know,
people were getting into mortgages that they had no business
getting into, but they didn't necessarily know that.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Right, And then it was almost like the opposite at
that point, right right, Like you look back to the
Great Recession. Basically folks, everything looked rosier than it actually
was because the banks at that point in time were saying, oh, yeah, oh,
you totally qualify.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Actually you qualify for multiple you have a pulse, Okay,
let's give me this loan.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
Even if you didn't have a pulse, they were like,
well sign it to your gravestone.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Right, then the vibes are good and like there was
exuberance and all that stuff. And so I think that's
super important to considers because like how people feel like
ends up dictating how they spend money, right, And I
think a lot of the consumer spending that we've seen
over the past few years has been if they call
it post COVID yellow spending, Like people were like we
(26:53):
almost died. Like sure, let's go to ce Taylor Swift
for thirteen hundred dollars. But that's driven bye bye in
credit card debt most of the time, even though consumers
do have a decent amount of savings. But I would say, like, yeah,
vibes are really important, and like maintenance of vibes is
really important. Like the Federal Reserve, one of their tools
(27:14):
and their toolkit is forward guidance. So they have rates,
they have their balance sheet, and then they have forward guidance,
which is them just like talking and so like how
they talk ends up dictating how the market responds, like
what traders end up doing, what the high frequency trades
end up doing, And that's all vibe space. Like it's
like based on the color of Jerome Pal's tie, you know,
so it's.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Like the specific words to use.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Yeah, get me really'd be crazy?
Speaker 4 (27:40):
Yeah, markets tank, But yeah, I mean I think that's
kind of like the thesis of vibes is we have
to pay attention to consumer sentiment, especially now with information being.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
So fast moving.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
Is that like you look at the stock market, and
of course the stock market is not the economy, but
like you look at the stock market that is not
trading on fundamentals at all, Like there is no sense
of reality to a lot of the stocks in the
stock market. It's just based on expectations and like what
people think that could happen to the various companies. One
of my jobs before I started this job was to
(28:14):
build financial models for various firms and like various companies
and predict what stock price they would be.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
And it didn't matter. It never mattered what the model said.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
And I think that can be true in the economy
as well, is that you can have all the predictions
in the world and like how people feel will dictate
a large portion of what actually ends up happening.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
All right, So this one of the things you mentioned
in your book and has been historically true, is that
if when we go through an actual recession, there's a
lot of opportunity in a recession, which seems kind of counterintuitive.
It seems like recession bad, I should be sad, I'd
live under a rock sort of thing. But even during
COVID we saw like small business formation skyrocket. So I
guess bad circumstances can lead to good outcomes for or
(29:00):
a segment of the population who is willing to take
on some risk. So can you talk about maybe the
opportunities that a recession can provide.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Oh yeah, I mean.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
I think like there were a lot of people cheering
through recession in my comments section during the twenty twenty
era because a lot of people wanted to buy a
house for cheap, and so, like that's just one example
of what could happen. Is the home prices can go
down during a recession. Stock prices end up going down,
so you can kind of get things on an economic discount,
(29:29):
of course, at the cost of the broad economy. But
there are positives to a recession because it's a business cycle.
Like we're not going to necessarily be in a recession forever.
And I'm not saying it's a good thing by any means,
but a lot of people do think it's a good
thing because it's like a reset for the economy. Like
it shakes out a lot of companies that maybe shouldn't exist,
(29:50):
like a lot of zombie companies that have you know,
investor money, but really don't have any products.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
It shakes out for some.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Of the riskiest investors too, maybe who have made bad bets.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
It's something like Game Stop probably wouldn't happen during a recession,
and so like there's just a lot more of a
sense of reality during a recession. And of course, like
you know, jobs are lost. It's it's extremely hard, Like
two thousand and eight was devastating for like my family specifically,
and I know many others. So it's not a good thing.
(30:21):
But like, there are opportunities because it is a cycle,
because there is an other side to them most of
the time.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
I mean, I want to touch on housing because you
mentioned how a lot of folks were rooting for a
recession because for them it would have presented that opportunity.
You would devote a whole chapter to the to the
messed up housing market. And I really like the section
on reflexivity. Talk to us about how feedback loops, how
they influence our decision making and lead to market movements
if you don't mind.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
Yeah, yeah, I know, housing I think is super important,
but yeah, reflexivity is kind of like the same idea,
Like people will go into a market and they'll be like, oh,
the price is cheap, and the market the price will
get bit up, and then it's sort of like this
few of the price getting bid up and then people
you know, enter and exit. And I think you can
see that model like animal spirits, reflexivity, those sorts of
(31:09):
things show up across all aspects of the economy, and
they're very, very similar to vibes, like how people feel
about certain price movements, what they end up doing in
response to those price movements ends up influencing how things
ultimately move.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
And it seems like, tell me if I'm wrong. But
in cities where we're seeing zoning laws change, we're seeing
more housing being built. Austin, let's say, we're starting to
see prices decline. It also could be partly that Austin
went haywire for a while too, more so than some
other cities. But how do you think about maybe the
lack of housing supply and the strict zoning rules in
(31:49):
parts of the countries where people want to live and
there's just not enough units being built because of maybe
some of the red tape that's blocking their way.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
Yeah, So I actually did an interview with the Deputy
Secretary of the Treasury, Whalley Daamo about how the US
government was thinking about housing, specifically the US Treasury, And yeah,
like the whole takeaway from the interview was like, we
don't have enough homes anywhere and in places that people
want to live, and so I think housing supply is
like really the big issue in zoning specifically is such
(32:21):
a headache because we don't allow for a lot of
mixed use zoning and a lot of places so you
can't mix commercial and residential. And then in cities like
Los Angeles, for example, like la is seventy percent zoned
for single family, so you can't build a lot of
apartment complexes or duplexes or triplexes or town homes.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
It's like ADUs are the only thing that people have
been able to build there, And yeah, last couple of years,
it seems like.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
Yeah, and like the part of the reason for that
is nimbiism, like not in my backyard, where people are
wanting to protect the value of their home. And what's
interesting about housing And I didn't cover this in the
book because I didn't, but I wish I had, because house,
I'm saying, was never meant to be this like speculative asset.
Like over the past up until like the nineties, I
(33:05):
think housing had only returned zero point zero six percent
over the past hundred years up into the nineties versus
the last however many years has returned like sixty percent,
and I'm just ballparking that number.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
But now we view.
Speaker 4 (33:18):
Homes as something to live in, but then also something
that's meant to be this huge part of our investment portfolio.
And if you look at this chart that the Federal
Reserve releases called the Distribution of Financial Assets, you can
see the bottom fifty percent, all of their wealth is
tied up into their home, like that is their asset.
And then if you look at the top ten percent,
they have business ownership and they have stocks, and that's
(33:39):
where all of their money is coming from. And so
in the United States, we've created this world where people
feel like they have to get a home in order
to make any money or to have any sort of
nest egg for their kids. When really, if you look
at like the example of the really rich, its equities
and it's business ownership as much as possible, which is
harder to achieve, but like it's probably an important path
(34:02):
to set people on. And so like the US housing
market is a nightmare because of that, Like we have
this thing that we're saying, like, Okay, go live in that,
but then also expect to make a million dollars from it,
and you don't want anybody to build around you because
you want to preserve the value of your home so
that you can die a millionaire.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
And it's like we.
Speaker 4 (34:17):
Have just this huge, like warped mindset around it, and
it's like very prevalent. I think it contributed the housing
theory of everything. I sorry, I could like talk for
an hour straight about housing, but yeah, the housing theory
of everything I think really applies. Like you know, we
don't have walk couple cities, so people like see their
homes as this place to inhabit, this place don't really live,
(34:41):
and we expect it to be something that will make
us really rich and safe.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
So how do you help people like think about that
when or your followers and stuff. When you look at
the numbers and hey, buying at these rates and at
these prices and renting is going to cost me half
as much, But then I don't feel like I'm living
the American dream that I want to live. That can
be like deflating, but from an economic reality, it means
(35:08):
you've got a lot more money to funnel into investments
or into business building. So that's something we've talked about
is like that cult of home ownership is over sold
and for a lot of our listeners, hey, maybe it's
a later thing or maybe it's a never thing, because
you can build wealth in so many other ways. I
don't know, how do you help people think through that conundrum.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Yeah, I think it's tough.
Speaker 4 (35:26):
I think there's this expectation that's kind of built in
to like getting a home, like the quote unquote American dream, right,
like you feel like you should have the white picket fence.
But I think you all are right, Like there is
other ways to build wealth. And so the way that
I try to talk about it is like you're not
crazy for feeling like you can't afford a home, like
there is a structural affordability problem crisis year, like there
(35:47):
aren't enough homes, And there is really interesting theories around
you know, renters and what they're able to do outside
of buying a home, like they'll go. And it seems
like sports gambling is popular, but investing is popular too,
So there are alternatives to building wealth or spending your
money in general. But it's it's a tough thing to
(36:09):
talk about. I try to talk about the policies a
lot people are building, they are passing laws to like
fix this stuff. It's just going to take time.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Yeah, and of all markets that one moves slowly. It
just we don't have those like those little concrete pouring
things that kind of look like they're spinning out toothpaste,
but it's concrete to make houses. Like I'd realize that
they've made a couple communities out of that sort of stuff.
But housing is so individual, I mean, and it's such
(36:38):
a such a hairy concept though too, because it's not
just so like what we're talking about right now are
like the fundamentals we're talking about, the actual red tape,
the policies that allow further to be more or less housing.
But then again, like Kyla was talking about, when you
start looking at it through an investment wealth building lens
as well, it gets really really stink and complicated because
you start to think, well, at some point it's a
(36:59):
bubble will pop until you realize that like we'll shoot,
I still need somewhere to live, or you look at
Toronto and you're like that bubble never pop, or it's
like twenty years, right, That's what it's so crazy about.
Oh you're like, hey, I'm twenty nine. I'm having my
second kid. It's time, and you feel like that's the
thing about housing. Sometimes it is situational and is personal,
and it's it's less about the numbers and it's more
(37:20):
about like how you feel and wanting to move on
to that ladder, and like the actual specific economics a
reality of it, like it doesn't matter to you quite
as much.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
In the moment.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
So, Kyla, we've got more questions we want to get
to with you in just a second. We specifically want
to talk about I don't know, let's get a little
macro here. What is money? We'll talk about that and
more in just a second.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Right, we are back for the break in, Kyla, like
Jiel alluded to, let's talk about money, because you've been
talking about money this whole way we have last section
is mostly about vibes and attitude, and I guess this
is kind of a continuation of that because you write this,
and this is a quote from your book that money
is a presence that haunts our daily activities, which I
think a lot of people certainly agree to agree with that.
(38:09):
I think a lot of people feel that way. But
you also say that it is a social construct that
relies on trust. Yeah, it's almost like it's almost like
a language. Sure, it works, but it's only as useful
as other folks are also using that language. Otherwise it's
just you doing your nerdy thing with letters exactly. So
(38:29):
I guess what I want to ask is, like, how
do you think we should be thinking about money? I guess, yeah,
especially just in the digital age.
Speaker 4 (38:38):
Yeah, and money is I yes, like the A lot
of the first part of the book is dedicated to
money because I think it's like so cool. I think
that money is like such a fascinating thing because it
is sort of this collective trust between everybody, Like you know,
the US dollar bill is backed by the full faith
and credit of the US government.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
Like that is a transaction of trust that we're all doing.
Speaker 4 (39:00):
We're all like, yes, this money means something. And I
think that, you know, not to get like too woo,
the money's not real, but like it is cool how
that actually happens.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
But yeah, I think money.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
In the digital age is interesting because I think we're
still trying to figure out what money is. Like, money
is sort of this promise. It's a glue that holds
society together. And how does that apply to the digital forefront,
like we have credit cards, we have you know, the
US government is kind of going digital with some aspects
of money. We don't use cash as much as we
(39:29):
used to, so like we have digitized a large part
of the transaction experience. But like will it be cryptos right?
Like will there be a central bank digital currency? I
don't think anybody really knows the answer to that. I
know the Federal Reserve isn't too interested, but yeah, I
mean I think it's going to be Like there's kind
of an opportunity to rethink how how money works, Like
(39:52):
do we apply it to a blockchain?
Speaker 3 (39:55):
Right?
Speaker 4 (39:55):
Like do we have sort of a digital letter ledger?
Do we kind of keep it how it is now?
I think video games are kind of a cool place
to learn about money and transactions, like how they have
each each game kind of sometimes has it in unit currency.
I'm sort of rambling about the exciting parts of money.
But I think again, like it's another question of what
(40:17):
could happen is how we treat money and is it
going to be as necessary as it is now? Are
we gonna have universal basic income? Like there's a lot
of interesting things to consider, but yeah, just the structure
of money is so fascinating.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
You mentioned crypto, and I think probably initially Matt and
I were crypto skeptics, and I would say we're still
certainly not like full throated apologists or crypto or anything
like that. But it does like the way we use
money mostly digitally these days. It works pretty well for
most people, being able to send money via Venmo, being
able to log into their bank account, transfer money from
(40:54):
one place to another, credit cards like that system seems
to work decently well. But does bitcoin or cryptocurrency any
other other kinds of cryptocurrency Do those meet your threshold
definition of what money is? And like, I don't know,
do you see that being more of a prevalent way
that we exchange money in the future.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
No cryptos right now?
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Do?
Speaker 4 (41:18):
I mean? I think bitcoin has an identity crisis, which
is a non popular take for the bitcoin people who
might be listening. But like, is it a currency? Is
it an asset? You can't have something gain and value
and then expect to spend it on a cup of coffee.
It just doesn't work financially ethere m is more, I
think the digital computer kind of world, so I don't
(41:38):
think any crypto right now has meant that qualification. But
I don't think crypto's goal is to be money. I
think it is to be like an investment class, which
is fine, So no, I don't think so. I like
this is kind of where I wish my imagination was better,
because I would love to really think about like what
a world could look like with new money and like
(41:58):
what it could look like to turn act differently, But
I just am not that creative.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
And so I think that there is.
Speaker 4 (42:05):
A lot of exciting stuff that crypto has shown us,
despite like obviously the terrible parts of crypto FTX included
that have made it not so good, But I think
there's cool things that we can pull from the technology.
Like I think one of the things I also try
to hopefully get across in the book is that nothing
is black and white, like everything is very nuanced, which
(42:29):
can be frustrating, I think, but like that's how I
think of most economic concepts, is like there's an element
of nuanced all of it. And I think here so
with money and crypto and how it all relates, there's
so much nuance in it.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
And like nuance doesn't sell, it's you know, like that's
so like Matt and I are all shades of gray
on the show too, and sometimes we're like, man, if
we just had a harder line on this or that,
like maybe get more clicks, But like that's just that's
just not typically Typically you're selling something then and you're
not trying to help people or or tell the truth.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
I meant like, as you're talking through bitcoin not being
a currency, and again, Joe, I mean, folks who listen
to the show know that we tell folks to not buy,
to not buy crypto, like you need to be investing.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
In the boring stuff.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Yeah, the s and P within your four one K
we talk about the basics, but I couldn't help but
to think about, like what is it that's causing bitcoin
to go up? And it's because folks believe that it
might be the currency, the medium of exchange of the future.
And it kind of makes me think about even the
US dollar and how in other countries, what are folks
doing They're hoarding American dollars, Like there is so much
money that is in circulation because they know, like you
(43:34):
said that the US dollar it's backed by the might
of the United States and everything that it represents and
So if I guess step outside of the boundaries of
the US and kind of visualize bitcoin in the same
way that maybe other countries do, that's the part where
I start to think, well, shoot, I don't know, maybe
it could be a currency, because isn't that what folks
(43:56):
abroad are doing?
Speaker 5 (43:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (43:57):
Maybe I think it's more like stability with the US
dollar versus like bitcoin.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
People want that thing.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Which feels very unstable.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
Yeah, they're like, k.
Speaker 4 (44:07):
You know, what was the big bed on Twitter the
last year, like bitcoin reaching one million or something?
Speaker 3 (44:12):
Do you all remember that?
Speaker 1 (44:13):
Oh? No, I don't. Okay, Yeah, spends all his time
on X for my phone. I check in like twice
a week for like five minutes. I don't really care about.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
Twitterer, the freedom.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
Take the.
Speaker 3 (44:31):
I do.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
We have talked so much about macroeconomics and how they
have the wide world of like money and high finance
impacts us. In your opinion, what are the most important
things that the average person should be paying attention to
keeping tabs on especially? I mean think about we live
in the information age, and it can be sometimes like
you just want to check out and watch a good
(44:52):
show on Netflix or whatever, because it just all feels
so overwhelming. So what are maybe like the most important
things you would say, these, these are the things you
should be kind of like keeping an eye on if
you want to be an informed, informed person in today's
modern economy.
Speaker 4 (45:07):
Yeah, I mean I think that it's hard because there's like,
how I get asked this a lot, and I never
really have a good answer to it because it's like, yes,
you need to pay attention to inflation, and you need
to pay attention to the labor market reports, you need
to pay attention to the GDP prints, but like there's
(45:28):
so much interpretation with those numbers. So I think that
it's like important to pay attention to the jobs market,
Like what's happening? Are people quitting their jobs? Like what's
the quits rate doing? Is there a lot of job openings?
Is inflation going down? What's driving inflation? You know right
now it's auto insurance? What does that mean for you
as a consumer? What does it mean that shelter costs
(45:49):
are so high? And then in terms of GDP, like
as the economy growing. But like with all of that
being said, there's a lot of confusion with these metrics,
and like the data doesn't always really capture reality in
a large sense. And I don't know if we have
time to get into all of that, but like inflation
sometimes is weird because shelter costs are driving it, but
like rents are going down and it's kind of like
(46:11):
just there's a lag.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
So it's personal. Rates of inflation can differ too, depending
on what.
Speaker 4 (46:16):
You're precisely, and so I think it's just kind of
like having a broad overview of the economy. Like the
way that I sometimes talk about is like everybody knows
that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, right,
and you kind of have to like know what all
the mitochondrias of the economy are, so like knowing the
mitochondria of GDP and like inflation and labor market, just
(46:37):
so you have a general sense of what's happening, but
like not going too deep into the weeds, because sometimes
that data isn't very helpful.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
Well, I think what you're pointing to is that, like
it's good to be to reflect on that data, but like, ultimately,
so much of it comes down to us as individuals
and what it is that we're choosing to do. And
I think that we can externalize our failures or our successes,
but man, the ability for us to internally and to
take action within our own lives. I think that ultimately
is going to move the needle a lot more than
(47:07):
perhaps how certain pieces of data might be interpreted. But Kyla,
we really appreciate you talking with us. Where can folks
learn about the book?
Speaker 4 (47:15):
Yes, so they can go to paying on random house
dot com and search in This Economy. There's also information
all on all my social pages at Kyla scan on Instagram,
on Twitter, at Kyla Scanlon on YouTube. My newsletter is
Kyla dot subseac dot com. The book itself is called
in This Economy, where you can find out more. There
are sixty illustrations. There's an ebook version, there's an audiobook version.
(47:38):
You can also purchase a signed version if you choose
to do so, or just purchase a regular version, which
is always so appreciated. But yeah, thank you guys for
having me on, of course.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
Yeah, Kyla, we really enjoyed this combo. Thank you so
much for coming on.
Speaker 3 (47:53):
Of course.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
Well nice, okay, So, I honestly I felt that we
could have spent a full hour just talking about BIS
and we almost went down that path where Kyla was
like I've I've got a bike for every different activity
of the weekend. So they took a bike vacation to
France that we talked about before we start, were not
recording about that, So I mean that's cool. Yeah, totally
(48:14):
up our alley. We love Kyla's kind of approach to
life in that way. But yeah, regarding in this economy,
you have the big takeaway from our conversation or from
her book, Joel.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Yeah, So one of the things Kyla said earlier on,
she said it's easier to make good decisions when you
have better information. And that's true. I mean, think about
it in like a negotiation. If your boss is saying
it was I can only give you a five percent raise,
and you've got information you know some of your co
workers got a ten, twelve, fifteen percent raise and that
actually they don't have any other prospects and they need
someone to fill this role asap. You have good information,
(48:47):
you know that you can push the UH test those
limits of what they're willing to pay you. Those are
the kind of things, right, Like, the more information that
we have, and and she was also saying kind at
the end, you can get bogged down in information. You
can try to consume too much of it. But I
think if you pick and choose the most important things
to follow in kind of what's happening in the economy,
that extra information can act as an advantage for you.
(49:09):
It makes me think of what we were talking about,
Matt in twenty twenty three, when job switchers were getting
paid a whole lot more, and it's like, well, in
twenty nineteen, there the gap between getting paid more by
Mosey and down the road and stay input was minimal,
and in twenty twenty three it was significant, And so
that was like the best time to change jobs if
you were interested in doing something else. It was going
(49:31):
to provide a bigger economic impact. So let that data
sway you what's happening in the economy sway you, or
at least let it help inform the decisions you're making.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
Sure, Yeah, okay, So my big takeaway will be the
other side of that coin, which is essentially there is
the possibility of being inundated with too much information, And
I think that's the you know, again, we try to
find somewhere right in the middle to have like the
right amount of information. It's the goldilocks paradox, right, Like
you don't want too little, you don't want too much,
because I think one of the risks that we run
(50:00):
with being just completely overrun with information is the risk
the danger of blaming things on other folks as opposed
to knowing that, man, there is so much that we
can do on our own regardless of what the quits
rate is. How am I doing within my industry or
specifically even just within my specific company. And that's, honestly,
that's what we strive to do here on the show,
Like we are trying to find the pieces of information
(50:23):
that pertain to individuals' lives the most, while trying to
ignore the rest, because a lot of that can be
just white noise.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Yes, you're right, and I think one of the kind
of what you're what you're alluding to as well, is
the healthier your personal finances are, the less you need
to be intricately aware of everything that's happening in the economy.
Speaker 2 (50:42):
Like because imagine somebody who's completely financially independent, they're not
dependent on anybody, anything, any company for their livelihood.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
If there's like dark recession clouds coming over the water,
and you can see that in the economic data but
you have a six month emergency fund, you have a
job that you're doing well like, you have to be
far less worried as the person living paycheck to paycheck.
So that's where personalance is so crucial. But then it
can also allow you to take advantage of a particular opportunity.
(51:11):
You can say, oh, I've got the six months, I've
got a huge savings buffer. Actually, now is the time,
perfect time for me to launch my own business. When
most people would say that seems crazy. Many people would
advise against that, but recessions are often the best time
to start something new. So sure, you can dig when
other people is agging. It's like Warren Buffe it says,
be fearful when others are greedy, be greedy when others
are fearful. But you can only really do that if
(51:33):
where you're at with your personal finances isn't a great spot.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
You got to be in a strong, solid financial position.
Speaker 1 (51:38):
That's right, man.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
All right, let's quickly introduce here that you and I enjoyed.
So again we are continuing a few weeks of you
and I drinking crap beer, not craft beer. Since you
and I both failed at our miserably our Daffy campaign,
which you can still donate to you by the way,
But you and I both enjoyed. You picked up a Flight,
(52:00):
which is a beer by Yingling. This is a light beer,
so oldest in brewing America, right.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
Okay, So what's the difference between Yanling Light and Yingling Flight.
Speaker 1 (52:10):
Well, this is a low carb beard. Also, I was
gonna say the only thing good about this beer was
it we didn't really it's not gonna affect our waistline
because it is low car killow calorie, low carb.
Speaker 2 (52:19):
But yeah, it was pretty pathetic. Ultimately, I don't have
much to say. No, it's a super light beer, barely
any flavor. So it was wet That's what I've got.
Speaker 1 (52:29):
That's right. So I can't wait for this to come
to an end in the near future, but we will
drink more.
Speaker 2 (52:33):
Crap beers, very non offensive though, like no off flavorstri
It's kind of like just breathing air.
Speaker 1 (52:39):
That's how that's how I think about it, akin to water.
All right, that's gonna do it. For this episode. We'll
have links to where you can buy Kylo's book, to
her site, her newsletter, all that stuff up in the show.
Notes on our website and how to money dot com.
Speaker 2 (52:52):
That's right, man, So that'll be it until next time.
Best friends out and best friends out the be
Hosts And Creators
Joel Larsgaard
Matthew Altmix
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