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0:22

conversationswithtyler.com. Hello

0:27

everyone and welcome back to Conversations with

0:29

Tyler. Today I'm delighted to be chatting

0:31

with Kyla Scanlon, who is here with

0:33

us in the studio. I have described

0:36

Kyla as a force of nature. From

0:39

the point of view of this New

0:41

Jersey boy, she has come out of

0:43

nowhere from Western Kentucky and is all

0:45

of a sudden one of the best

0:47

and also most popular just discusers of

0:50

economics and economic reasoning and economic thinking.

0:52

So this, in my view, is fantastic.

0:54

She is super active on TikTok,

0:57

she has a sub-stack, very

0:59

active on YouTube, on Twitter, and

1:02

now she exists in real life

1:04

also, but she has a book

1:06

out in this economy, How Money and Markets

1:08

Really Work. Did I leave anything out? No,

1:11

I think that's really

1:13

comprehensive. Welcome Kyla. Thanks for

1:15

having me. Let's start with your origin

1:18

story. So when

1:20

you're young, you're going to libraries a lot,

1:22

right? Yeah. What are you reading and why

1:24

do you read that stuff? Oh, I read a lot of

1:26

fiction when I was younger. Yeah. And

1:28

it was mostly because I was trying to

1:30

understand world building. Like I was really fascinated

1:32

by that. So I read the Graceland series

1:34

and Harry Potter. But for me, the library

1:36

was also a place to go that supported

1:39

that kind of learning. Like it was kind

1:41

of, I didn't realize that reading

1:44

books was cool until I went to

1:46

the library. And so it

1:48

had just been really formative with how I thought

1:50

about learning throughout my entire, you know, childhood and

1:52

adolescence. And are you still doing

1:54

world building with economics? Is that like a better,

1:56

more fun, more complex world? Or are you giving

1:58

up world building? tried in the

2:00

book, I had something called the economic kingdom because

2:03

for me, I think thinking

2:06

in games is really helpful for econ because

2:08

there are so many moving pieces and everything

2:10

is interconnected. And so the

2:12

first chapter of the book was my

2:15

attempt to describe the economic kingdom, monetary

2:17

policy castle, fiscal policy castle, inflation castle,

2:19

labor market castle. So I still try

2:22

to world build when I can. Any

2:24

science fiction when you're young or not so

2:27

much? Fantasy more? Yeah, yeah, more fantasy. Science

2:30

fiction was always a little too real

2:32

for me. Too real? More

2:37

generally, why do you think young women are more

2:39

likely to read fantasy than science fiction? I

2:41

mean, maybe it's because it is too real, right?

2:43

I think younger women are more empathetic and so

2:45

maybe they're able to pick up on the nuances

2:48

of science fiction or perhaps it's

2:50

just not the interest in like aliens

2:52

and in other worlds like that. I

2:54

think there's more romanticism that happens for

2:56

younger women versus men. And you get

2:58

a lot of that in fantasy, not

3:01

like romantic in the sense of like

3:03

love, but just sort of like beautiful

3:05

places and science fiction can tend to

3:07

be more warfare. OK,

3:09

so now fast forward to age 16. You're

3:12

in high school. All of a sudden you've become

3:14

an options trader. How did that

3:16

happen? Yeah. So my dad, he was options

3:18

trading with a group called Tasty Trade, just

3:21

sort of self taught. And I

3:23

was really interested in it because I was like, what

3:25

is he? What is this? And so I sort of

3:27

watched him do it and he was like, do you

3:29

want to try? And so I self taught myself and

3:31

it was fun because like we had something to chat

3:33

about. And then I just I did that for an

3:35

entire summer is like a summer job. And I was

3:38

really bad at it. But, you know, I gave it

3:40

a shot and I ended up writing

3:42

a blog called Scanlon on Stocks, where

3:44

I talked about my options trading experience.

3:46

And that was my first foray into

3:48

Internet writing. And it was enjoyable. I

3:50

wouldn't recommend it. But I learned a

3:53

lot about how markets function. And then

3:55

I didn't even know until I got

3:57

to school that you can major in

3:59

finance. And so like then I got

4:01

to school and I was like, I'm going to be an engineer. And

4:03

then I was like, oh, you can like do this. And so it

4:05

was cool. How efficient do you think

4:08

the options market is? I would say it's,

4:10

you know, the pricing strategies are interesting. I

4:12

don't spend as much time on it, but

4:14

like I know that the volatility metrics are

4:16

pretty useful. And I think that there's interesting

4:18

things that you can do like combinations of

4:20

calls and puts on. You just have more

4:22

optionality than like buying a stock and hoping

4:24

it goes up. But in terms of efficiency,

4:27

I think it's hard to make money in it. How

4:29

is it you lost so much money trading

4:32

a Brazilian ETF? Oh, I

4:34

just, I, everything I

4:36

did, I was pretty risk averse and

4:38

so I wanted to be neutral. And

4:40

so I put on this trade called

4:42

an iron condor, which you do have

4:44

protection against, but I just kept on

4:46

making these trades where I was almost

4:49

too, I didn't want to take

4:51

on any risk. And if you don't take on

4:53

risk, you really can't make a ton of money,

4:55

but you can lose money. And so that's what

4:57

happened to me. So high school finishes up, you're

4:59

going to college and you end up going

5:01

to Western Kentucky University, right? Why

5:04

not go to an Ivy League school? It was too

5:06

expensive. Too expensive, but you could have. Yeah,

5:08

I mean, I had really good grades in

5:10

high school. I took all the AP classes.

5:13

What was really nice about Western is I had a

5:15

full ride and I got paid to go there. And

5:17

then I ran cross country and track and field for

5:19

the school. So there's just a lot of options there.

5:23

Like I look back and I

5:25

loved my professors there, but it's interesting

5:27

because when I graduated, I went out

5:29

to work for a capital group in

5:31

Los Angeles. And the only way

5:33

that I got in was through a blind

5:36

resume. Like the Ivy League does matter for

5:38

a lot of the big finance jobs. And

5:40

so it was a really,

5:42

really good experience, but yeah, it's funny

5:44

like the credentialism and just sort

5:46

of navigating that when you don't have it. Do

5:49

you think you're better off for having gone

5:51

to Western Kentucky? I think

5:53

so. I had a lot of opportunity there.

5:55

So I ended up triple majoring, came in

5:57

with a ton of credits. I

5:59

did research. and worked as

6:01

a tutor and was, you know, I

6:03

graduated as valedictorian, which was really cool,

6:06

ran there for a few years. And so

6:08

I just think like at a school like

6:10

that, and the professors were so supportive, like

6:12

really just a great learning environment. So at

6:14

a school like that, there's more time and

6:17

space for you to mold your own learning

6:19

journey. And that's what I did. Like I

6:21

wrote a blog all throughout school scaling on

6:23

stocks. And you had three jobs you

6:25

once said, right? What are the three? So I was

6:27

a research assistant, I was a tutor, and

6:30

then I helped out in the office at

6:32

the school. And so, yeah, it was busy.

6:35

And what is it you did, you learned

6:37

the most from, or what was the generative

6:39

experience at Western Kentucky for you? Taking

6:42

economics or something else? Yeah. Running?

6:45

Running had its own like life lessons for

6:47

sure, and how you balance time and sport.

6:49

But I think for me, like I

6:52

just sort of learned that

6:54

you can design your own path. Like

6:56

when I got there, I didn't know you could really major in

6:58

finance. I was gonna be an engineer. I didn't really like the

7:01

math classes. So then I was like, okay, I'll be a doctor.

7:03

And I didn't really like that path either.

7:06

And then I took an econ class with

7:08

Dr. Brian Strow. And I

7:10

was like, oh, this is really fascinating. Like

7:12

I didn't know that you could sort of

7:14

study human dynamics and money and the philosophy

7:16

of money. And for me, I

7:18

just started adding on classes and I

7:21

began picking up finance classes, began picking

7:23

up data analytics classes. And

7:25

I think I've sort of carried that

7:27

optionality into life now, where it is

7:30

like you can design your own path

7:32

if you have the right support, if

7:34

you have the intentionality behind the decisions

7:36

that you're making. And so it was

7:38

very, like at a school

7:40

like that, everyone was so kind and supportive

7:43

that there was just support for every crazy idea I

7:45

had. Like I started a club and I was

7:48

able to do so many different things because

7:50

people cared, yeah. Yeah, I went to

7:52

a state school as an undergrad, George Mason, and

7:54

I'm actually very glad I did. Yeah. It was

7:56

very unusual. And then you finish

7:59

and... Obviously you didn't go to graduate school. Is

8:01

it just like you're fed up or

8:04

too many other things intervened or what

8:06

was your thinking then? Yeah. So I

8:08

wanted to do a PhD. Yeah.

8:10

In economics or finance? Both.

8:13

Either one. I was kind of, and I, and

8:15

I talked it over with my professors and they

8:17

were like, you should get some experience with institutions

8:20

before you do a PhD. Like, you know, spend

8:22

some time working at a big firm and then

8:24

you can go back and get a PhD if

8:26

that's what you want to do. And

8:28

so I graduate and six months later, the pandemic

8:30

happens. Okay. And so everything just kind of got

8:32

derailed. And now you've just ruled it out. You

8:35

don't want to do it. Yeah.

8:37

You're too productive to go back to school. Yeah.

8:39

I mean, it's something I think about a lot

8:41

because I really, I have had the opportunity to

8:43

like go and speak in classrooms like Harvard and

8:45

MIT and Berkeley, and it's one of my favorite

8:47

things is like just talking to students because I

8:49

had professors that invested so much in me. Like

8:51

when I got to school, I was like this

8:53

lump of a person. I didn't really know what

8:55

I wanted. And I had a professor

8:57

whose name is Dr. Trachi, who just invested a lot

9:00

of time in me, Dr. Lebodinsky

9:02

too. And so I think

9:04

for me, like there's this deep desire to

9:06

reinvest in people. And I get to do

9:08

that a little bit with social media, but

9:10

you don't really, like they're abstract beings when

9:12

you're making these videos, right? When they're talking

9:14

about the book. And I just think there's

9:16

something really neat about being in a classroom

9:18

as you know, so. And given the unusual

9:21

position you have in the world, how is

9:23

it you think about how you build out

9:25

like your small group of people in

9:27

a way you don't have many peers your

9:29

age, but the people you chat with on

9:31

WhatsApp, I don't mean family friends, but so

9:34

semi professional. Some version

9:36

of your peers, how do you build that or haven't

9:38

you, or what, what does that look like for you?

9:40

I think I'm bad at that. Yeah. I have a

9:42

lot of people like that. I can ask questions to

9:45

you. Like Derek Thompson has been a big supporter over

9:47

at the Atlantic. Conerson also at Bloomberg. Yeah, he's great.

9:49

He's amazing. They're both great. Yeah. They're, they're all great.

9:51

And so like, there's a lot of people that I

9:53

can turn to and ask questions. But yeah, in terms

9:56

of peer group, it's a little funny. There,

9:58

there's some people like Josh Auti. in

10:00

who runs the YouTube channel Ordinary Things.

10:03

We were talking about cameras today. It's

10:05

sort of a weird

10:07

intersection where it's like economic theory, but then how do

10:09

you deliver this to a wide

10:12

audience? It's sort of a weird mix. Yeah.

10:14

Yeah. And then for a while

10:16

you're selling cars. Do I have that right? Yeah,

10:18

yeah. What have you learned selling cars? Yeah, I

10:21

learned a lot. It was

10:23

actually a really formative

10:25

experience. And I didn't

10:28

realize how formative it was until I was

10:30

talking about it a few months ago, because

10:32

when you're dealing with people buying cars, you're

10:35

with them during an incredibly vulnerable financial

10:37

experience. And they hate you, right? They're

10:40

like, this person is trying to rip

10:42

me off. And so I sold Hyundai's.

10:44

I was 19 years old during one

10:46

of my college summers. And

10:49

I just learned how important it is to

10:51

have economics education. A lot of people come

10:53

in. Maybe they don't understand what

10:55

a down payment is or what interest rates are

10:57

or what sort of financing they

11:00

have to look at. Everybody came in way

11:02

over budget. So that's your start as a

11:04

Tik Tok or YouTube or everything else with

11:06

selling cars? I think so, yeah, without even

11:08

realizing it. Because I was so frustrated because

11:10

the industry is just ridiculous. Everybody wants to

11:12

make money. It's a business. Yeah, for me,

11:14

I looked at that and I was like,

11:16

wow, there's so much opportunity to help people

11:19

just understand this stuff, understand the world

11:21

around them. And that's definitely

11:23

for aid into the content. And were you

11:25

good at selling cars? I was very good.

11:28

Yeah, surprisingly, because I'm quite introverted.

11:31

But in my experience, most

11:34

sales things, especially something like that, people just

11:36

kind of want you to listen to them.

11:39

And so that's something I immensely enjoy,

11:41

just listening. And so, yeah, I sold I

11:43

think 38 cars my

11:46

whole summer was on the lot. I worked

11:48

insane hours. But yeah, sold a lot of

11:51

cars and met a lot of really interesting

11:53

people. So you say you're introverted.

11:55

Now, how many Tik Tok videos do you

11:57

think you have, not including any alts? I

11:59

think over Over 500. Over 500. In

12:02

how many YouTubes? Oh my gosh,

12:04

probably over 150, 200, yeah. Substack,

12:07

other things. How

12:10

does that square with you being an introvert? What's

12:12

the bigger model here? I started

12:14

making videos during the pandemic. I

12:16

was living alone in Los Angeles. It was just losing

12:18

my mind in this 350-square-foot apartment. I

12:23

realized that nobody knew when it was going

12:25

to end. I said the

12:27

only way that I'm probably going to have connection

12:29

is if I'm talking to people through a screen.

12:32

I just started talking about stuff. I've always loved

12:34

educating. That was the point of the blog. With

12:37

videos, it's actually quite

12:40

ideal for an introvert because you're literally

12:42

in a room all alone talking to

12:44

yourself. That's what I have.

12:48

I'm so grateful to do it every day. When

12:51

people meet me in real life, I think it can

12:53

be jarring because I'm quite quiet. I

12:56

prefer to listen. I think most people

12:58

expect people that post on social media

13:00

to be more boisterous. Do

13:02

you have a method where you

13:05

produce perfect paragraphs spontaneously or you

13:07

have to rehearse it or you

13:09

do different takes? What's

13:11

the equilibrium here? It

13:13

depends on what style I'm doing. I

13:15

have a whiteboard that I'll sometimes write

13:18

on, but more and more I've tried

13:20

to just riff, like

13:22

have it be more stream of conscious. I don't know

13:24

if that works. What I normally would

13:26

do is write out a script in my notes app

13:29

and just read from that and

13:31

then pull. But you're not looking at it when

13:33

you're talking, right? No. You're just

13:35

saying things. You write it out and then you put it aside.

13:37

Yeah, exactly. The goal is

13:39

to keep your eyes on the screen at all times.

13:41

You've got to be looking at the other person who's

13:43

watching it. Now you

13:45

can just riff on anything. You're

13:47

with a friend and the friend says, I want three

13:49

minutes of Kyla on compound interest and you can just

13:52

do it. Yeah, I know. It's a

13:54

there's definitely like the Federal Reserve. If somebody gets

13:56

me talking about the Federal Reserve,

13:58

there's actually within my friend there's

14:00

usually some sort of countdown until I

14:02

mention the Federal Reserve. It's something I

14:06

really enjoy talking about and I don't

14:08

quite understand like obsession, human obsession, like

14:10

why people get interested in things. It's

14:12

something that's very interesting to me and

14:14

I don't quite know why the economy

14:16

is so fascinating to me personally but

14:18

I think it's really important that people

14:20

understand it. As someone who

14:23

would count as an outsider by most

14:25

typical standards compared to other commentators

14:27

on the Fed, what

14:29

is it you think that you might see or

14:31

understand that others undervalue? I mean

14:34

I think there's definitely sort of a young person

14:37

audience that I pull from. So every

14:39

day I get hundreds of comments from

14:41

people telling me their own personal experience

14:43

and what they're going through and my

14:46

audience is younger, right? Like you know

14:48

20 to 35. So I think that

14:50

is very useful. It's a more boots

14:52

on the ground kind of approach and

14:55

then yeah I would say that's probably

14:57

the primary thing. Does being

14:59

on social media so much drive you crazy?

15:02

Yeah you know this. I don't think it

15:04

drives me crazy actually. Really? No I don't

15:06

think so. Maybe it's not for me to

15:08

judge. Do you separate yourself from it? Yeah.

15:10

Yeah so you like post something and you're

15:12

like okay. And I don't follow

15:14

much politics. I mean we're here in early July.

15:17

I've actually been following politics the

15:19

last week but that's unusual and

15:22

I'll just look the other way and

15:24

read about China or India or something.

15:26

That's politics of a different kind, right?

15:28

Yeah. And so for you how do

15:30

you separate yourself from it? I think

15:32

I'm a very good person at compartmentalizing

15:35

but you think it does drive you crazy? I

15:37

think so because like a lot of the

15:39

comments are personal. Like they

15:41

see you as a non-objective commentator even

15:44

if you're talking about data. And so

15:46

for me it's been difficult the past

15:48

few months because you're talking about various

15:50

data sources like what's going on with

15:52

inflation, what's going on with labor market,

15:54

but because we're in a post-truth society

15:56

everybody is like you're lying and you're

15:59

a liar. And they're horrible

16:01

for that. I've worked on

16:03

that because you're just a figment of

16:05

their imagination, right? Of the audience's imagination.

16:07

In a way they're making a deal with you.

16:09

They promise to listen and give you numbers and

16:12

you promise to let them abuse you. And

16:15

that's the exchange. Like that's what they want. Is

16:17

there a right to selectively abuse? Yeah, no.

16:19

And they, they, something to project on,

16:21

right? And so it's never

16:23

about you. And that's what I, uh,

16:25

my ego gets horribly in the way

16:27

because ideally I'd remove all ego

16:29

and realize it's not about me, but I,

16:31

I'm working on that still. And you think

16:34

by now you have a thick skin. Oh

16:36

yeah. Yeah. So you've worked on it

16:38

and you've succeeded. Well, I think success is

16:40

an end state here where it's, I don't know

16:42

if I'll ever reach it. Yeah. For

16:44

me, it's, it's a more of

16:47

a process and I'd like, I still

16:49

take a lot of stuff very personally, because I just

16:51

take it personally when it

16:54

feels like the data isn't resonating

16:56

or if I'm not explaining something properly,

16:59

or if I haven't done a good

17:01

job at conveying the idea of the

17:03

video. And I think that's like the hardest

17:05

part. It's like, how could I have done that better?

17:08

And luckily I get another chance to try tomorrow,

17:10

but I would say

17:12

it's, it's disheartening sometimes. Putting aside your

17:14

own work, what kind of economics do

17:16

you think young people are learning from

17:18

TikTok? Concerning. Is

17:21

it conspiratorial? Is it leaning in

17:23

some particular direction? I would

17:25

say it's definitely conspiratorial. There's a lot of

17:27

desire to pin inflation onto companies, which I

17:29

don't know if that's the best thing to

17:32

do. There's a lot of desire

17:34

to have a scapegoat, right? I think a lot

17:36

of people are frustrated with their economic situation. And

17:39

so they look at TikTok videos and

17:41

somebody's telling them that yes, BlackRock is

17:43

conspiring against them. And that's

17:45

very soothing, right? And so I think that's

17:48

where we have ended up with TikTok and

17:50

Econ. So if you're on

17:52

social media so much and they've driven

17:54

you crazy, why is your own analysis

17:56

so free from conspiratorial thinking? What's

17:59

the antidote? that you have taken? I

18:01

don't know. I mean, I think I

18:04

try to read as many possible sources

18:06

as I can. If I'm not talking

18:08

on a podcast or doing a speaking

18:10

event or in a meeting, I'm usually

18:13

reading. And so I just try to

18:15

read as much as I can. And

18:17

I have the opportunity to have one-on-one

18:19

interviews with the Deputy Secretary of the

18:22

Treasury. I just interviewed Austin Golsby of

18:24

the Chicago Fed. And I

18:26

feel like having that one-on-one sort

18:28

of talk helps me realize, OK,

18:30

there's real stuff going on here. Are

18:33

there any conspiracy theories you believe

18:35

in? I've

18:37

asked myself this question. There's very few, but there are

18:39

a few. What do you believe in? Well,

18:42

I think JFK probably was killed by

18:44

more than one gunman. But

18:46

not for sure. I think there was

18:48

some concerted effort to adjust the

18:50

timing of the arrival of the vaccinations before

18:52

the election. I think more

18:55

sports events are fixed than we realize. Those

18:57

would be the three I'm inclined

18:59

to believe in. It's hard for me to think of others.

19:02

And do you think they're fixed because of gambling?

19:04

Yeah, just gambling. And it's often the referees

19:06

more than the players, or team

19:08

coaches, or someone who knows about an injury. And

19:11

there's now betting, like how many rebounds did you pull

19:13

down? So some of it's even the players. There is

19:16

this one guy in Toronto. He's been banned from the

19:18

NBA. So I suspect

19:20

that's tip of the iceberg. Yeah, yeah.

19:22

I mean, yeah. Those are my only

19:24

conspiracy theories. I feel impoverished. No,

19:27

those are more than I have. I don't

19:29

know if I'm even wise enough to know

19:31

what conspiracy theories I believe in. Because I

19:33

tend to take everything and be like, OK,

19:35

that makes most sense to me. But I

19:37

think that the thing with conspiracy

19:39

theories is there's oftentimes more incentives in place

19:41

than we know, which goes to the point

19:44

of JFK and what that could have meant.

19:46

But yeah, I don't have any direct ones

19:48

that I'm like, yeah, that probably happened. How

19:51

is TikTok changing? Putting aside possible ban,

19:53

but just the thing itself? I

19:55

mean, there's a couple of things that are happening. People

19:57

aren't on there as much. I think

19:59

Instagram reals. has surpassed it in popularity.

20:02

Mark Zuckerberg just continues his domination

20:04

path. And I think also

20:06

the algorithm is maybe not as good as it

20:08

used to be, perhaps it's because not

20:10

as many people are scrolling, but there's more

20:13

and more focus on TikTok shop. TikTok

20:15

really wants to make a lot of money and they're

20:17

like, if we sell commerce, if we

20:19

sell goods to people, that'll be

20:21

the way that we make money. And

20:23

so now every other video for people

20:25

is like a face mask or a

20:27

purse or clothes. And so

20:29

you have users that are constantly

20:31

being advertised to. And so

20:34

I think more people view TikTok as

20:36

an exhausting experience than one

20:38

of connection as it was in 2020. And

20:41

in general terms, how do you think Reels is different?

20:44

Is it more wholesome or? Well,

20:47

so I only scroll once a week and that's usually just

20:49

to get a sense of what's happening. This is

20:51

on Reels or you mean on TikTok? Both, yeah.

20:53

So I try not to actually use social

20:55

media other than Twitter. I'm a Twitter power

20:58

user or Twitter power scroller, I suppose. But

21:00

yeah, Reels is a little bit different because

21:02

they have curated it to be more wholesome.

21:04

You're not constantly being advertised to, at least

21:06

not as directly and as gimmicky as TikTok.

21:09

And I think that there's more focus

21:11

on the authentic creator. What's nice about

21:13

Instagram as a platform is that you

21:15

have stories and that you have posts

21:17

and you have Reels versus TikTok does

21:19

have stories, but you don't, when you

21:21

scroll on TikTok, you don't really scroll

21:24

for a single person, but Instagram, you're able

21:26

to curate more of a personality because there's

21:28

like a profile page. It's not as algorithmic.

21:30

There's more intentionality, I think, with the platform

21:32

design versus TikTok just wants to keep you

21:34

scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. But I think

21:37

Instagram, it seems to be okay if you,

21:39

you know, straight from the path a while.

21:42

And say five or 10 years from now, what

21:44

do you think Reels will look like or what

21:46

will it do? Oh, I mean, I

21:48

think it'll be much more engaging. I think

21:50

there'll be AR, VR. I know Mark Zuckerberg

21:52

is quite interested or used to be in

21:55

the metaverse. I'm sure AI

21:57

will have some sort of involvement with

21:59

that. AI creators or

22:01

something else. So I think that

22:03

the scroll model will have to

22:05

shift. I'm not

22:07

sure what it'll shift to, but

22:10

I think that sort of motion is going

22:12

to not be so enticing

22:14

soon. But yeah, I think it'll

22:16

definitely be much more interactive and the

22:19

user will be able to direct it much more

22:21

than in the algorithm, if that makes sense. Yeah.

22:24

And someone who's been and still

22:26

is an avid reader, if you think about

22:28

teens or people in their early twenties, what's

22:30

the future of print culture and reading? Does

22:33

that worry you, or you think it's fine?

22:35

Well, TikTok is just selling books and it's

22:37

wonderful, or it's falling to pieces. What's your

22:39

take? What do you think? From

22:42

the data I see, print

22:44

culture is declining unless you count the internet,

22:46

which is not what I would mean by

22:48

print culture. But you can

22:51

be on a flight, say sit in business class,

22:53

the most elite group of people you could imagine,

22:55

like pick an elite route. And everyone's looking at

22:57

a screen and I'm the only person reading. And

23:00

that worries me. Yeah. Do you think they're

23:02

reading on their screens or do you? No,

23:05

they're watching movies or videos. Now book

23:07

sales are fine. I think

23:09

romance right now is the most sharply

23:11

growing category. Colleen Hoover. Yeah. That may

23:13

be good culturally, but I'm not sure

23:16

it's good for print culture as we

23:18

understand it. No, I mean, it's like

23:20

a big deal if you sell at your advance.

23:23

Right? I think it's like 99% of

23:25

authors don't. It's an alarming statistic. So

23:27

the whole business model of print is

23:29

a little bit funky in terms of

23:31

the publishers. I just published a book,

23:33

so I'm hoping that people go and

23:35

buy it. Again, that's the music economy, how

23:37

money and markets really work. Very good book. But

23:40

I don't know. For me, and I feel like

23:42

it's probably the same for you, books I try

23:44

to read as much as I can, especially

23:46

print. I just feel like there's something

23:48

so beautiful about having a paper experience

23:50

and being able to write on the

23:52

page and annotate it. But yeah, I

23:54

mean, I

23:56

think the more and more people I talk to say like,

23:58

oh, I don't read or need to get back

24:01

into reading. And that's just like my anecdotal

24:03

experience. But you look at the numbers too.

24:05

And it's, it's, Numbers don't show

24:08

what's happening. So I'm unsure. But

24:11

what is read? And I also have

24:13

noticed the last 10 or 15 years, I

24:16

don't see many big nonfiction books that have

24:18

had a lot of impact. Yeah, I

24:20

guess it's like Ray Dalio. And

24:22

it may be just luck of the draw and

24:24

it will come back. But it feels the

24:26

80s, 90s, maybe early oddies,

24:29

you had more of that books like Jared Diamond,

24:31

whether or not you agree with it, but everyone

24:33

would read it, talk about it. Maybe

24:35

Piketty was the last one. But I

24:37

don't see that much of it. Well,

24:40

do you think it's like escapism, like people

24:42

just don't want to deal with nonfiction because

24:44

that's reality and it's easier to escape from

24:46

it? Or maybe the low hanging fruit

24:49

has been plucked. There's like a good popular science

24:51

book on everything now. Everything's uncovered. Plants

24:53

are intelligent and you said geology works and

24:55

okay, I've checked all my boxes. I don't

24:57

know. I guess so. I mean, I actually I

24:59

think most of what I like, I love nonfiction.

25:02

I read quite a bit of it. Paved Paradise,

25:04

I just finished that, which is a book about

25:06

like parking lots and cars and car culture. It's

25:08

very, very good. Yeah. But then

25:10

there's something appealing about fiction. But yeah,

25:13

nonfiction is it's it's definitely a tough

25:15

space. Philosophy of money, Morgan Houseville that

25:18

did very well. Yeah. So yeah. What

25:20

shapes what you choose to read? You go to

25:22

book talk or friends tell you or you visit

25:24

bookstores or anything? Yeah, it's usually through visiting

25:26

bookstores. And then I normally have a topic

25:29

of the week that I'm pretty interested in.

25:31

So like it'll be dominoes and I'll read

25:33

the history of dominoes or I read a

25:35

book about cults. Like it's just kind of

25:37

whatever my mind wanders to. There's always a

25:39

book about it. Yeah. So yeah, it just

25:42

sort of follow that and I ride my

25:44

bike a lot. And so I just sort

25:46

of listened to audio books and podcasts on

25:48

the on the bike. Yeah. The

25:50

best book in an area you don't care about

25:52

is very, very good. And probably you should read

25:54

it. Yeah. Even if you don't care about like

25:57

cults. Yeah. Sure. What was the book

25:59

on cults? I'm trying. of remember, it was

26:01

actually called Cultish by, is it Amanda Montel?

26:03

Have you heard it? I don't think so.

26:05

Okay. I might've said her last name wrong, but it

26:08

was good. It was talking about like, you know, cults

26:10

of the past and then cults of the present, like

26:12

core power, CrossFit, just sort of like what happens when

26:14

people get sucked into a cult.

26:16

And I think that's quite interesting because

26:18

like, you know, with people trying to

26:20

figure out religion, I think there's more

26:22

tendency to have cult-like tendencies. Yeah.

26:25

We have more cults in my opinion. You

26:27

think so? It was like a I doomer

26:29

cult, right? Yeah. There's like acceleration is cult.

26:31

They're both cults. You might agree with one

26:33

or the other, but they function as cults.

26:35

Yeah. And do you think people are seeking that

26:37

out or did they just sort of stumble into

26:39

it? I think they're seeking it out, that it's

26:41

maybe a more volatile age and

26:44

people want to latch on to something.

26:46

Organized religion is weaker, so they look

26:48

somewhere else, maybe adjacent to religion, but

26:50

not quite formally religious. And do

26:52

you think that's just human behavior is that we

26:54

always need something to latch on to? Like we're

26:56

always going to need to seek out the capital

26:58

T truth? But I think when social

27:00

trust is lower, which we'll get to as a

27:02

topic, people want to do

27:04

this more because they don't trust in

27:07

the authorities as much. They believe in

27:09

all these conspiracies, right? Yeah. Why do

27:11

you think people trend towards conspiracies? Like is

27:13

it just because they don't trust institutions? I

27:16

think there's two things at work. One is

27:18

we've actually had a number of bad events,

27:21

financial crisis and pandemic, and 9-11 would be

27:23

three big obvious ones. Arguably there

27:25

are more, but those three right there is a lot. And

27:28

that sets off a negative mood. And then I

27:30

think there's a lot of contagion and it feeds

27:32

on itself. And you get into the cycle where

27:35

it's self-validating. So social trust is lower. Things

27:37

in fact work less well and politics works less well.

27:39

And then you think, oh, well, I'm right not to

27:41

trust all of this. And it looks

27:43

like you're right in a way you are right, but you

27:46

still would be better if you could jumpstart a much more

27:48

positive dynamic. Yeah. Do

27:50

you think there's a human tendency towards negativity

27:52

in that sense? Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Especially when

27:54

you have those few bad events that clearly

27:56

are just very bad, right? Yeah. Yeah. But

27:59

people don't view that. them as outliers, they view

28:01

them as. There's recency bias.

28:03

So if you were born in year whatever, and

28:06

the three big events of your life were not

28:08

like the fall of communism, but 9-11, great financial

28:10

crisis and the pandemic, you're like, whoa, what kind

28:12

of world is this? No, yeah, I think,

28:15

so I just turned 27, I was

28:17

born in 97, so like born into the dot-com bubble.

28:19

So that's you, yeah. Yeah, yeah,

28:22

and my cohort, which is why I

28:24

think there's a tend toward nihilism, yeah.

28:27

But you're optimistic or not

28:30

pessimistic at least? Oh, I try to

28:32

be optimistic as much as I can. Yeah,

28:34

I try to always see the good in

28:36

situations. I think, like there's a quote from

28:38

James Baldwin that I really like where the

28:41

essential idea is like you can look to all

28:43

books of the past and realize that somebody else

28:45

has gone through exactly what you're going through before.

28:47

You know, history is a cycle. And so I

28:49

just kind of take heart in that. It's like,

28:51

you know, I believe in humans and I believe

28:54

we always figure it out, even if we suck

28:56

momentarily. And so that's how I

28:58

try to remain optimistic. And you still

29:00

live in Western Kentucky, yes? I bounce around,

29:02

so Colorado, California. I travel quite a bit

29:04

right now, yeah. Does

29:06

being in Western Kentucky make you more or less

29:08

optimistic when you're there? Kentucky is a

29:11

very beautiful state, but it was

29:13

hard for me to be there

29:15

sometimes. There's a lot that

29:17

the state could figure out and it

29:19

has taken steps towards figuring it out.

29:21

But, you know, people struggle with their

29:24

health, the opioid epidemic hit it pretty

29:26

hard. And there's just not a lot

29:28

of money for things that deserve

29:30

to have money, like healthcare there. It's just a

29:32

state that has gotten the short end of the

29:34

stick for a very long time. What's

29:36

your ideal place? To live? Yeah.

29:39

For me personally? Yeah. Oh gosh.

29:41

Constraints removed. You can afford the rent,

29:43

whatever, the freedom to build. I

29:46

really love the mountains and the woods.

29:49

Yeah, I love riding my bike.

29:51

So anywhere where there's trails and

29:53

where I can ride on the

29:55

road, it's a simple life. Books

29:58

nearby, a nice coffee shop. That's

30:00

all I really need. Yeah. Is celebrity dead?

30:02

Oh. And

30:05

do you need celebrity? You said it's all I need,

30:07

but in fact, you have however many tip-toking you do

30:10

videos. Yeah, I know. There's always

30:12

a little bit of hypocrisy sometimes,

30:14

I suppose. I think celebrity

30:16

is dead. I actually, I put

30:18

that down because I scared sort of your thoughts on

30:20

that as well. I mean, I think people look

30:23

toward influencers as celebrities now

30:26

and like the celebrities themselves are just sort of

30:28

these figments of movies, but like

30:30

an influencer is somebody who's going to

30:32

be like your quote unquote best friend.

30:34

It's somebody that you tune into every

30:36

aspect of their lives and they give

30:38

you access to every aspect of their

30:40

lives. And I think that far supersedes

30:42

everything that we've ever gotten from a

30:44

celebrity. I think of celebrity as

30:46

having peaked maybe in the 1980s. You

30:49

have Eddie Murphy, you have Schwarzenegger,

30:51

you have Madonna, Michael Jackson, and

30:54

it was a thing. Yeah. And then that

30:57

starts to collapse and break down and

30:59

we recreated this very different thing, the

31:01

influencer. Yeah. And that's you, right?

31:04

I don't love the word because I feel like,

31:06

you know, this is just probably me getting up

31:08

on a high horse, but I feel like I

31:10

talk about the economy. I don't really talk about

31:12

like my life. Like, I guess if

31:14

I'm influencing people on economic theory,

31:17

perhaps, but I consider an influencer

31:19

somebody more who is essentially a

31:21

marketing ploy in disguise. And

31:23

I don't consider myself that entirely.

31:26

But a lot of that people use as a channel

31:28

for relating to you as a person, right? Like

31:30

if I hold a public event, it's

31:33

striking to me, not just that it's predominantly

31:35

male, but it's males within a

31:37

certain age range, something like 20 to 35,

31:40

who are somehow looking for something and

31:43

they are smart. And I maybe give them

31:45

some smart content they want, but

31:48

it's also connected to, there are

31:50

different models of how a person like can be,

31:52

or can be curious, or can be productive, and

31:55

they're very interested in that. And

31:57

the people who are like 60 years old don't

31:59

feel. they need to come see me because

32:01

wherever they've ended up, it's where they're at.

32:03

Yeah. And maybe with you, there's a similar

32:05

dynamic. You're a model for something

32:08

for them? Productivity. I don't

32:10

know. Maybe. I haven't really

32:12

thought about that. I guess

32:14

so. I'm not sure what

32:17

people would find in me. If

32:20

you hold a public event, like who

32:22

shows up, a book signing? It's what

32:25

you just described. Yeah, the same group of

32:27

people. Same group of people. Yeah, pretty much. And they're

32:29

looking for something. Yeah. Yeah. And what

32:31

do they think they'll find from you, through you, with

32:33

you? So I

32:35

get approached after events most of

32:37

the time, and people often just

32:39

thank me for simplifying economics. And

32:41

so I think that's the main

32:43

thing. The most recent conversation I

32:46

had was this person who

32:48

felt like his worries weren't being recognized

32:50

as a young person. And

32:52

I think that's what I try to spend a lot

32:54

of time doing is I talk a lot about the

32:57

housing crisis, talk a lot about what it's like to

32:59

sort of move up the quote unquote ladder. And

33:01

so perhaps it's that like there's maybe not

33:04

a lot of, there's a lot of focus on being

33:06

40 and being a part of the

33:08

economy, but maybe not being 20 and being a part of the

33:10

economy. How

33:13

good or bad do you think economics education

33:15

is today? I

33:17

mean, I think there's a lot of really great resources.

33:19

You all do a great job with that. Thank you.

33:21

Yeah. I think that I don't

33:23

know if we need to start in high

33:25

school, require an Econ class. But it's quite,

33:28

I think even the concept of supply

33:30

and demand sometimes can be confounding to

33:32

people. And so I would say

33:35

that there's plenty of resources and I don't

33:37

know if people just don't want to have

33:39

access to it, but there's maybe not a

33:41

lot of interest. Yeah. Have you found that?

33:44

My intuitive sense, not based on data,

33:47

is economics education was better in the 1990s

33:51

in the sense that often what really changes people's

33:53

minds are events. And

33:55

people were more sensible than and less

33:57

conspiratorial and there's way more resources. now,

34:00

obviously. But I'm not

34:02

sure it's improved the actual educational outcomes. If anything,

34:04

it seems to have gone backwards. Do

34:07

you think that's just across the board? We have way

34:09

too much information and not a problem. No,

34:11

I think it's that events have gone a bad way and

34:14

that makes people more negative in ways that are not useful.

34:17

Because we haven't had a moon landing

34:19

or something exciting. Yes. Yeah.

34:22

Now, we may have those in biomedicine with

34:24

AI, but even those, they seem to freak people out

34:26

a bit. People are really freaked by AI.

34:28

Yeah. I think on average, more people are

34:30

freaked out than excited. I think that's right. So I'm not sure

34:33

it's going to serve that function, even if you think it

34:35

should. And so do you think

34:37

the hesitancy to education then is like people

34:40

are like, it's just not exciting to me? And

34:42

because there's no event to base exciting things off

34:44

of? I think it's too exciting, but in

34:47

the negative direction. Sure. Like, oh,

34:49

someone stole the election or there's so many

34:51

different versions of whatever. Some mistaken

34:54

belief about COVID and very

34:56

negative. And if people have

34:58

negative feelings, I think their actual thoughts

35:00

become worse, even though sometimes the negative

35:02

feelings are justified. And what role

35:04

do you think media plays in all of that?

35:06

Do you think it's perpetuated a bad cycle? There's

35:09

some negative bias in media, which

35:11

is hard to overcome. One of the things I've liked

35:13

best about your work is you never fall for that.

35:16

Always trying to be objective and analytic. So

35:20

there's some negative bias. And then I think

35:22

the US having lost relative status in the

35:24

world, people may not be directly

35:26

aware of it, but at some level they sense

35:28

it. And that makes people more negative. Not

35:30

in all other countries, to be clear, but here.

35:32

And then I think that adds

35:35

on to these other negative events and people become

35:37

more emotional and just have worse ideas. The

35:40

worst ideas. About economics. Sure.

35:42

About many other things too, but certainly about economics.

35:45

Yeah. And just like what's the right economic path

35:47

and maybe not seeing economic policy as a whole?

35:50

The 1990s was very Pollyanna-ish,

35:52

mistakenly so, I think in retrospect.

35:55

But I think it was good for people's ideas

35:57

to be more optimistic. more

36:00

easily grasped. The place

36:02

where I've seen the best economic education, I

36:04

think, is Singapore. And

36:07

try to go there if you can. It's

36:09

not surprising if you have a taxi driver,

36:11

lecture you about comparative advantage. Like, even using

36:13

the term, it's happened to me. And

36:16

it doesn't seem weird. People there just know a lot.

36:18

And do you think that's because of good public education?

36:21

Very good education system, but I think they've

36:23

had so much recent success. It's

36:25

raining now, but overall there's still enough

36:28

positive outlook that it

36:30

steers them in better directions. Because

36:32

there's such a negative outlook here, of

36:34

course the direction is going to be

36:36

negative. I worry the

36:39

negative outlook is spreading to many other

36:41

places, including Singapore, actually. So the

36:43

US is exporting negative outlook? Possibly. We'll

36:45

see. So if you go

36:47

to different countries, like you go to Poland, things feel

36:49

very positive. Well, they've had 4% growth

36:52

for now, like over 30 years. Of course, it'll feel

36:54

pretty good. India people seem

36:56

quite optimistic, but

36:59

it's harder to think of places like that than

37:01

it used to be. And do

37:03

you think it's the worries of, you know,

37:05

you said the US is losing status, losing

37:08

status to China? To China, but

37:10

just a general sense of we're not kings

37:12

of the world anymore. Of course

37:14

we never were, but now it just seems more

37:16

obvious that our face is being rubbed in the

37:18

mud, right? Yeah. And that breeds some amount of

37:21

resentment. Yeah. Towards policymakers.

37:23

And just everything, right? It may not be

37:26

policymakers. It could be elites, or

37:28

people think somehow Bill Gates or someone was pulling all

37:30

the strings. Often the policymakers

37:32

get off easy and it's some set of

37:34

figures who have actually nothing to do with

37:37

the matter, who get blamed. Do

37:39

you think there's a way out of it? Historically,

37:43

you see societies finding ways

37:46

out. But if we knew the

37:48

formula, I think we'd be out of it already and we're not out

37:50

of it. And I know that

37:52

I don't know the formula. Like, I try to

37:54

do my small bit, but now there's no formula,

37:56

I think. Some of it's

37:58

luck. better dynamics,

38:01

maybe people who are more

38:03

analytic making more of an effort. But

38:05

that might be small relative to just events.

38:08

Yeah. And it's interesting too because you

38:11

see people wanting to escape, I think.

38:13

Like the people that normally might have

38:15

contributed to shifting towards positivity

38:18

or instead like retreating into

38:20

subgroups. Yeah. Yeah. Which

38:23

is not... Like everything's fragmenting. It might make

38:25

it harder to dig out of the various ditches. Yeah.

38:28

You also hope, well, there are all these fragments, some of

38:30

them will turn positive and maybe one of

38:32

the fragments becomes a spark. I

38:34

hope so. That's speculative and it hasn't happened

38:37

yet, but that's my hope. Yeah, I

38:39

hope so too. I think right now a lot of

38:41

people feel pretty bleak more so than

38:43

ever. Yeah. Yeah.

38:46

What would you do to improve mainstream media?

38:48

You're in charge. You

38:51

own a TV station, a major newspaper. What

38:53

would you do? I mean, I think

38:56

that we were just talking about

38:58

negativity in media and there's a chart that

39:00

I like that shows the sentiment in media

39:02

headlines has gotten extraordinarily negative. Like everything has

39:05

a story. It's just, it's a business model,

39:07

right? And so I don't know if

39:09

this plan would make a lot of money, but I think

39:11

there's a lot of need for foundational resources

39:13

on media sites, which a lot of

39:15

them do have access to. I

39:18

think no paywall, which is money.

39:20

Hard to manage. Problem number one. But

39:22

you have no paywall. I have no paywall.

39:24

Yeah. Yeah. And

39:27

I think just like really objective stories. I really like

39:29

what Sima Ford does where they tell a story and

39:31

then they say where the reporter's bias might be. I

39:33

think that's just useful. I think you kind

39:36

of have to parcel out media stories as

39:38

much as you can be like, here's the

39:40

facts. Here's where potential bias might be because

39:42

that's what people, you know, at least right

39:44

now this idea is very responsive to the

39:46

moment. People are constantly seeking where they could

39:48

possibly be lied to. And so

39:50

that I would try to do everything I can

39:52

to make it as straightforward as possible, give access

39:54

to the data sources that I'm talking about. Like

39:56

I'm talking about CPI, you know, here's where

39:58

you can go and check CPI. That's how I

40:00

would run a media site. And

40:03

if people want to use Twitter now, X better,

40:06

what's your advice to them? You do it, I

40:08

do it. Right? So

40:10

we do something some people don't manage.

40:12

They quit, they leave, they're disgusted, whatever.

40:14

Do you block? No,

40:17

I've never had to, I blocked like one or two

40:19

people. Yeah, do you mute? Sometimes

40:22

with the people I mute are not bad, they're

40:24

just too prolific. Yeah, just saying too much. Yeah.

40:26

Yeah. I mean, I've, like, I

40:28

love Twitter. I think that I wouldn't

40:31

be here if it weren't for Twitter. And

40:33

I'm very aware of that, just because so

40:35

many smart people are on there. Yeah. And

40:37

so that's kind of where I got my

40:39

start. So I think that for

40:41

me, like, I just, I know who's really

40:43

good to listen to, like, employ America, great

40:45

think tank, you know, the people at Bloomberg,

40:47

always tweeting great stuff. And I

40:50

kind of know what not to be paying

40:52

attention to. There's a component of media literacy

40:54

to it. Like, you have to sort

40:57

of scroll by the viral video and get

40:59

to, like, the data source, right? And

41:01

so I think that's the way to use Twitter. And

41:03

then, of course, it's the cesspool. Like, it's the harassment's

41:06

unreal right now. But you just

41:08

mute your tweet when you tweet it, and

41:10

then you just don't check. Yeah.

41:12

Yeah. Yeah. I like the animal videos

41:14

too. So some of the, there was

41:16

one today, like, two big bears wrestling with

41:18

each other. I watched the whole

41:20

30 seconds. Oh, did you, what were they doing? Just

41:23

sort of like... Fighting. Oh. You

41:25

don't get to see the end, which I

41:27

suspect was not decisive. Oh, no. But

41:29

they're pretty rough with each other. Were they black

41:31

bears? I think so, yeah. Big black bears.

41:34

Yeah, they were pretty... I saw a bear up

41:36

close, and it was one of the scariest moments

41:38

of my life. This was in

41:40

Colorado? It was in Colorado, yeah. We were on

41:43

a hike, and my dog, I have a

41:45

dog named Moo, and she froze up, and

41:47

I was like, okay, what's going on? And I

41:49

look over, and there's a bear three feet away

41:51

from us. Very scary. Oh. Yeah.

41:54

High housing costs. How much of

41:56

it do you think is nimbyism,

41:59

and how much... is it's just worth more than it

42:01

used to be to live near the right people. Oh,

42:05

are those not the same thing? Well,

42:07

they're interrelated. Yeah. But let's say there's

42:09

no NIMBY like South Korea, Seoul.

42:12

They've built an enormous amount. It's a very

42:14

vertical city. It has like a

42:16

third of the country's GDP, but

42:18

it's still very expensive to live there. You can't say

42:20

they're too NIMBY, but it's

42:22

worth a lot to be in Seoul. And

42:25

Busan is important, but there's nothing

42:27

really close to being in the

42:29

economic, financial and cultural center. So

42:32

at least in Korea, it seems, well, it's

42:34

about co-location and not about NIMBY. But

42:36

if it's Oakland, California, I suspect

42:39

it's mostly about NIMBY. That's in NIMBY, Berkeley.

42:41

Yeah. Yeah. I would say definitely some areas

42:44

it's about NIMBY. It's people really trying to

42:46

protect the value of their home and the

42:48

value of what they perceive their surroundings to

42:50

be. And they don't want any change ever.

42:52

And so I think some components of it

42:55

are definitely people being resistant to any idea

42:57

of progress. And then I think a lot

42:59

of it too, it's just, we haven't built

43:01

enough. I interviewed the deputy secretary of the

43:03

treasury about the housing crisis. And

43:06

yeah, it's just a problem that we've had since the

43:08

great recession. Home builders got

43:10

freaked out when the housing market crashed. So

43:12

of course they're not going to build, right? And

43:14

now rates are really high, so it's even harder

43:17

to build. And we've had all

43:19

these zoning restrictions and we just make it really

43:22

hard to build too. And

43:24

so I think it's this, you know, perfect storm

43:26

of events. And then also a house is meant

43:28

to be both a speculative asset and then a

43:31

place that you live. Yeah. There's one of my

43:33

favorite charts from the Fed. I talk about it

43:35

all the time because it's a distribution of financial

43:37

assets and it shows the bottom 50% all their

43:40

wealth is tied up into housing. And so if

43:42

you say to those people, like we're going to

43:44

build around you and potentially reduce

43:46

the value of your home, they're not

43:49

going to be so happy about that. There's studies showing that

43:51

building more doesn't reduce the value of a home, but

43:53

I think you're sort of fighting an

43:55

uphill battle with housing because we tell

43:57

people that this is like the ticket.

44:00

to the American dream and then also

44:02

just don't have enough of it because of that. Right. So

44:05

if someone with real money came to you

44:07

and said, should I invest more in real

44:10

estate in very high quality locations, what

44:12

would you tell them? How should they think about that?

44:15

I mean, I guess so. Yeah. Like if you

44:17

went into, I think 70% of

44:19

homes in New York were recently bought

44:21

up with cash. So people are definitely

44:23

still investing in those areas. This is

44:25

a dynamic that I'm quite interested

44:27

in because I think you

44:30

saw during the pandemic, people, you know, moving away

44:32

from urban centers and moving out to the suburbs

44:34

or rural areas to have more space. And

44:37

so I don't know if like with transit and

44:39

like cars and stuff, will, will the outskirts become

44:41

more desirable? Like I think you can look at

44:43

Texas and sort of see that. So

44:45

it just depends on what highly desirable area

44:47

that they're talking about. But

44:49

you don't think the MBs will win and crash the price

44:51

of real estate? Well, I think

44:54

you can look at Austin, Texas and see

44:56

that the MBs did win there and, you

44:58

know, the housing prices are going down. I

45:00

think they were down 12% as of December,

45:02

2023. And

45:05

so I think in

45:07

some places they'll win, but then in some

45:09

places like New York, for example, the resistance

45:11

is just going to be far

45:14

too high. So it'll just depend on what city it's

45:16

in. But I think you're seeing a lot

45:18

of progress in certain places. Progress

45:20

meaning building more. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Alison

45:23

Schrager had a recent column for Bloomberg. You

45:25

may have seen it. She argued today's young

45:28

investors take on too much risk. Oh,

45:30

do you agree? Was she referring

45:32

to crypto? Some of it crypto, but not

45:34

only, you know, meme stocks would be another

45:36

simple example. They can be risky. Yeah.

45:40

Do you think that they do? I don't

45:42

think I have enough data. I

45:44

suspect they're in a position where they can afford it,

45:46

but that they're also not

45:48

optimizing. That would be my intuitive response.

45:50

Connor sin has a theory on this where

45:53

he thinks that because millennials,

45:55

Jinsy can't afford homes, that they're

45:57

gambling on crypto and meme stocks.

46:00

And I think I could see that.

46:02

I think that one of the comments

46:05

I get the most often is people asking me how

46:07

they can make the most money as quickly as possible.

46:09

Yeah. And you have a simple

46:11

answer, right? Yeah, and I'm like, oh man, yeah, that's

46:13

why I'm making these videos because I hate the answer.

46:16

And so I think that you

46:18

see a total disconnect in the market right

46:20

now between any sense of fundamentals. Like the

46:23

Magnificent Seven are up, I think, 8%

46:25

on the week, 8% on the

46:27

past week, perhaps, and basically no news.

46:30

So the stock market is sort of

46:32

driven by hype cycles right now, more

46:34

so than ever, I believe. If you

46:36

remove the top five companies, AI companies,

46:38

Nvidia included, the market

46:40

is actually down. And so I think, to

46:42

answer this question more concretely, number

46:44

one, there is a desire to gamble. And then number

46:47

two, I think people don't see the stock market

46:49

as a reflection of fundamentals. They see it

46:51

as an opportunity to gamble because it is

46:53

so removed from elements of

46:55

reality. Is that a hype

46:57

cycle, or is it the reality that AI

46:59

will displace a lot of traditional economic activity

47:03

and newer companies will gain more? Well,

47:05

so I know that you're a big proponent of

47:07

AI. Did you see the Sequoia

47:09

memo where they were talking about how much would have

47:11

to be produced in order to? Absolutely. And

47:14

what did you think about that? Oh, I think

47:16

it's all going to crash, like with the railroads and

47:18

the dot-com bubble, but that it will come back and

47:20

then make a fortune. Oh, wow. So you

47:22

think it'll, like right now, it's too hyped up. It'll

47:24

swing back down. Well, it depends.

47:26

There's publicly traded stuff and inside stuff, and

47:29

it may be quite different answers. But

47:32

all the major technological revolutions I've seen

47:34

in history, they have bubbles. And

47:36

the bubbles pop, and a lot of people lose a

47:38

lot of money. So I would be surprised if this

47:40

time it were different, but I would

47:42

be surprised if it just stayed down low and never

47:45

came back. pets.com is gone, but

47:47

the internet is with us. Yeah, that's

47:49

true. And I guess, like, you

47:51

know, part of the Sequoia memo was

47:53

like, we don't know how some of this application will

47:56

be applied. Like, we don't know where AI will be

47:58

actually useful. Do you

48:00

think that's sort of the example of pets calm with

48:02

the internet bubble like there is useful parts of AI

48:04

and the Unuseful parts the pets

48:06

calm of AI will get washed out in

48:08

the cycle It may

48:11

be more dramatic than that So one

48:13

possible model is the AI services become

48:15

commoditized So the people who paid for

48:17

all the fixed costs of training and the like there are

48:19

sort of speak the suckers They'll never

48:21

get that money back. We'll have really cheap AI Soon

48:25

for every almost everyone and

48:27

most of the gains will go to users and consumers

48:30

I'm not sure that's the case, but that would

48:32

be my default model and the investors just lost

48:34

a lot of money But

48:37

you see the same like with vaccines most

48:39

vaccines don't make money. They may lose money

48:41

They're great for the world overall and

48:44

maybe we're just going to keep on repeating that pattern Yeah,

48:47

and there was a bloom really big Bloomberg

48:49

article that got all that pushback talking about

48:51

the energy usage of AI

48:53

do you think that'll be like Sam Altman

48:56

was even like we have to have nuclear

48:58

eventually Like what are your thoughts on AI

49:00

blowing out? Well, I would

49:02

be long energy, you know the

49:04

hard part of energy not the commoditized

49:06

part But the parts of the infrastructure

49:08

that you can't just build on mass

49:10

at infinitum So I think not

49:13

only because of AI just data centers the demand for that

49:15

will go up a lot Us

49:17

will be slow with nuclear but countries

49:19

that are non-nimby on energy Have

49:22

a very big geopolitical comparative advantage and we

49:24

just don't quite see it yet I think

49:26

that's an underrated feature of today's world energy

49:29

energy So like UAE which

49:31

has shown a lot of willingness to build a

49:33

lot more and they have a lot of

49:36

Sun there I think they'll do very well For

49:38

that reason. Yeah. Yeah, I think energy is

49:40

like it's sort of this thing that we don't

49:42

really think about because we're so used Like flipping

49:44

on the light switch and having it. Yeah work

49:46

like we've done such a good job at hiding

49:48

it from people That's right Yeah And so there's

49:50

something about it and it was a big thing

49:52

in the 70s and then it more or less went away

49:55

and it Got pretty cheap and I just think it's gonna

49:57

come back. Yeah, or it is back already. I think so,

49:59

too I think that might be

50:01

bigger than like when you're talking about the AI,

50:03

I think the hypercycle will die down as well.

50:05

I think energy will be like the point of

50:08

interest when that is in a downturn. Yeah,

50:10

especially for places that don't have

50:12

simple solutions like hydroelectric or solar.

50:15

Yeah. The cost of

50:17

that has gone down tremendously, like battery power, the cost

50:19

of that is down quite a bit,

50:21

solar has gone down quite a bit. Yeah, but you

50:23

still need some backup, right, for solar. Even

50:26

if batteries are good, the notion

50:28

that there could be like a big volcanic explosion

50:30

and the sun is somewhat blocked for a year

50:32

and a half and you just don't have

50:34

power, I think there will and

50:36

should be backups of some kind. Yeah. Probably those

50:39

should be nuclear, but again, it will be up

50:41

for grabs and there'll be a lot of demands

50:43

that are hard to satisfy. Yeah. Yeah,

50:46

I think nuclear. Do you think that's like the way

50:48

that we have to go? I

50:51

don't know about have to. So I have friends who are

50:53

like utopian geothermalists.

50:56

I don't feel I can evaluate that. They

50:58

feel that a lot of places, not just say

51:01

parts of the American West, can access

51:03

geothermal power just by making the technology

51:06

better. I just can't tell if they're right or not.

51:09

But if they're right, that's great. If they're not right, we're back to

51:11

nuclear. But voters don't

51:13

like nuclear in most countries. And

51:16

that's just because of associations? They

51:18

don't like having it near their homes. The

51:21

associations, French voters seem okay with

51:23

it, Swedish voters. So

51:25

not everywhere, but NIMBY is strong and

51:27

NIMBY versus nuclear. NIMBY is always one.

51:31

Do you think that voters oftentimes vote against

51:33

their own self-interest? I think that's kind of

51:35

a... Yeah. That's the way we're voting is for.

51:37

Feel good about yourself, but make a

51:39

bad decision. Oh, and

51:42

has that always been the case? It's

51:44

selective. I think the

51:46

overall composition of the federal budget, it's

51:50

too much to old people and not enough to

51:52

young people. And that is because old people vote

51:55

more. And you wouldn't actually say

51:57

it's bad for the old people. No, they get more to

52:00

die. It's okay for the old people. But

52:02

still, there's a lot of expressive voting and people

52:05

wanting to vote for causes just to send a

52:07

message. But when it's done en masse, it

52:09

screws up the system. And you see

52:11

this in the French elections that were just concluded. The

52:14

extreme left, the extreme right, they get a lot of votes

52:16

because people are upset with the status quo. In my

52:18

view, it would have been better if they all voted for

52:20

Macron. And

52:22

maybe you had, you know, five or 10% with

52:24

protest votes, but you have most of

52:27

the electorate casting a protest vote. And

52:30

why do you think that's happened? Like, why has

52:32

everything become, you know, to the talents

52:34

of the extremes? Well,

52:37

if you mean France, I think people are

52:39

genuinely upset about what they consider too much

52:41

immigration. And there's not been a

52:43

real policy response. But I

52:45

also think the French have a historical

52:48

tradition of being especially expressive politically. Action

52:51

in the streets and strikes more Americans

52:55

have their own version of that. Maybe that would

52:57

be listening to people on TikTok or something. But

52:59

France, you get out there and you do something

53:01

and you really protest. But I

53:03

think they end up with a less functional politics for

53:05

that reason. A lot of it self-destructive. Do

53:08

you think we don't have to get into it, but do you

53:10

think the US is trending toward that? I

53:13

think we're trending toward greater passivity where

53:15

all kinds of outrageous things happen and

53:18

no one protests, which some on my age is

53:20

quite extreme and unusual,

53:23

and they just operate on social

53:25

media and maybe that absorbs the

53:27

chaos, but you get less

53:29

error correction over time. Yeah, because

53:31

people are passive. People are

53:33

very passive and they become more passive, but they're given an

53:36

outlet where they feel like they're doing something. Yeah, like

53:38

sharing a story on social media. Yeah. Yeah.

53:40

But in the aggregate, the stories kind of

53:43

wash each other out so you

53:45

don't have impact even though your story might have

53:47

caught some attention, but both sides do it. And

53:50

then you're left with not much protest. Yeah.

53:52

And the passive acceptance of whatever the

53:55

result is going to be. You

53:57

know, without taking sides politically, there have been a

53:59

variety. if candidate selected in different places where

54:01

30, 40 years ago you would have thought they're

54:03

going to be big protests. And

54:06

mostly there weren't. Yeah,

54:08

I don't think there's been much of any.

54:10

I mean, there was protests during 2020, you

54:12

know, BLM, but yeah, it doesn't

54:14

seem like that's something I've thought about. Like,

54:16

you know, there would be like, why

54:19

don't I protest certain stuff, right? Yeah, you

54:21

do in a way, but very indirectly. But

54:24

yeah, no, it's sharing a story, right? You

54:26

know, yeah, like it was really

54:28

interesting watching the France election because it sort

54:30

of mirrors in a sense what's happening here,

54:32

especially with the breaking apart of the left

54:34

here. And people just seem

54:36

to want to check out, you know? Yeah.

54:39

Yeah. And maybe the depression, the

54:41

passivity, it's all part of some calm

54:44

and negativistic picture. Do

54:46

you think it is because of demographics? Like, you know,

54:48

they're like, oh, the older people are taking over young,

54:50

free younger people, for example, like they're like, I'm just

54:52

not going to do anything because it's just

54:54

so far out of my control. I

54:57

don't know. There are still democratic

54:59

incentives in the system. So

55:02

I think people think in

55:05

generational terms, maybe more than is warranted

55:07

by the data. I've had

55:09

this discussion with Peter Thiel. He talks about

55:11

like boomers and millennials and Generation X and

55:14

Z. To me, it's a continuum.

55:17

And it's the events at any point in time

55:19

that matter a bit more. But

55:22

I think people disagree on these questions. I

55:24

don't think it's settled. In terms of? How

55:27

different generations are, whether it's continuum

55:29

or you have these fixed start

55:32

and stop points. Well, I think it's

55:34

kind of the culty thing that we were talking about

55:36

earlier, where it's like people want to belong to a

55:38

certain generation. It's easy to put yourself in a box

55:40

that way. Yeah. Yeah.

55:43

Yeah. I

55:45

don't think so. I think it creates more

55:48

problems and answers. Yeah. Yeah.

55:50

It's some sort of solution that involves

55:52

a lot of talking across generations. Yeah.

55:56

Some people have this view like, oh, the boomers, they all

55:58

die off. And then you get something very different. different.

56:01

It would surprise me if that were the mechanism. Well,

56:03

I think everyone, you'll just step

56:05

into the boomer's shoes. Yeah, exactly. Meet

56:08

the new boss, he's the old boss.

56:10

You see that with Gen X, I think, to a certain

56:12

extent, just sort of accepting elements of

56:14

that status quo. Yeah. Yeah. Rilke,

56:17

I brought my copy of Rilke. Why is Rilke

56:19

important to you? Oh, you know, I've been

56:22

working through my own copy and I just, I

56:24

think that there's a lot of

56:26

life lessons in what is being discussed

56:28

in the poems. I'm not a scholar

56:30

in any sense of the word, just

56:33

somebody trying to understand

56:35

things, but there

56:37

is a passage that I sent you about poems are

56:39

not emotions or experiences. And

56:42

I think that that is just what

56:44

he is able to convey is like

56:47

everything is an experience in the way that

56:49

he writes and it's really quite beautiful. Yeah.

56:52

What else do you like in poetry? Like what do I

56:54

look for? Or what other poets or

56:56

however you figure it out? Oh,

56:58

I have a poem page on my- Oh, I know.

57:00

Yeah. Yeah, my notion. What else? What's the

57:02

meta-algorithm? I try to find

57:04

answers, yeah. Which,

57:07

you know, it's, I don't know if it works

57:09

or not, but I try, I

57:11

think oftentimes, you

57:14

know, I probably absorb more of the

57:16

world than I should. I don't have

57:18

great boundaries up against emotions. And

57:20

so I think I turned to poetry, especially

57:23

with the economy. It's so personal for people.

57:25

I feel like oftentimes

57:27

you can explain economic theory through

57:29

the lens of poetry. And so

57:32

I sort of look for the

57:34

world encompassing poems

57:36

that can help me think

57:38

about the economy, if

57:40

that makes sense. And how do

57:42

you think that gives you a different perspective

57:45

on economics? What I like to

57:47

say is that it gives me a

57:49

more human-centric lens. Like I try

57:51

to think people first as much as I

57:53

can, even though it's sometimes difficult. And

57:56

so yeah, the way that the economy is composed

57:58

in my head is of people. and

58:00

I try to see poetry and all

58:02

of it. Yeah, it sounds very woo,

58:04

but. Yeah. If

58:07

you're giving advice to young people who will

58:09

be investing, and they have long time horizons,

58:11

right? They're going to live a lot more

58:13

years. Is there any

58:15

advice other than just bi-hold and diversify? It's

58:20

kind of the thing that's worked, right?

58:22

Historically, it is bi-hold and diversify. What

58:25

I do with my own portfolios by

58:27

the S&P, as much as

58:29

I can, have the cues, which is the

58:31

tech companies. And then if I purchase certain

58:33

things, like if I buy a certain pair

58:35

of shoes from Nike, or

58:37

go to a restaurant, I fly United,

58:39

I'll own some of those stocks too.

58:42

So I try to build portfolio that

58:44

reflects me as a consumer. I

58:46

don't know if that's it. So you feel in touch with the companies

58:48

and how they're doing. Yeah, and then I

58:50

think it's like, well, if my money is

58:52

going toward them, I should probably put some

58:54

money toward them as a stock. Yeah. And

58:56

I try to not look at my portfolio

58:59

as much as I can. I bought up

59:01

some treasuries when rates were super high. So

59:03

yeah, it's just about kind of paying attention,

59:05

diversifying. And then I really, there's the saying,

59:08

like time in the market beats timing the

59:10

market, which I think is what you're saying

59:12

with the younger people having a long time

59:14

horizon. I think it's really just about starting.

59:17

So going back to that chart that I referenced earlier, the

59:19

bottom 50%, all their wealth is in real

59:22

estate. The top 10%, all their wealth is

59:24

in equity ownership and businesses. And

59:26

so like there is kind of the example right there

59:28

is like, you know, the top 10% owned stocks, right?

59:31

And so I think the more that we can

59:33

encourage people to have some sort of stock portfolio,

59:35

perhaps outside of their 401k, the better. 62%

59:40

of Americans do own stocks, but it would

59:42

be nice if that was higher. You

59:44

use AI for your work at all. Yeah, I

59:47

ask it questions. Yeah, I

59:49

use Claude quite a bit for like

59:51

research. I'm a one person team. And

59:54

so it's nice to have something to talk to.

59:57

So I use Claude quite a bit and then I use

59:59

chat GPT. just mostly for like

1:00:01

fact checking and grammar and how

1:00:03

to pronounce words. I have a lot of

1:00:05

trouble saying certain words. Uglish is

1:00:07

very good for that, but I've also found that

1:00:09

chat GPT can be helpful with saying it in

1:00:11

context of a sentence. How often

1:00:13

do you think about the Roman Empire? That

1:00:17

meme. That meme. Honestly more so over

1:00:19

the last couple of weeks because of

1:00:21

what's going on in the US than

1:00:23

usual. Yeah, I mean, I think that

1:00:25

they're quite fascinating. But I think I

1:00:28

think more about the Great

1:00:30

Depression than I do the Roman Empire.

1:00:33

And why the Great Depression? I just

1:00:35

I've ended up reading a lot of books

1:00:37

about it recently. Like I trust is

1:00:39

a book that just won the Pulitzer or won the Pulitzer

1:00:41

for a few years ago. And that was

1:00:44

kind of about the fictionalization of

1:00:46

somebody who greatly profited from

1:00:48

the Great Recession. So I've just read a

1:00:50

lot of books about that era. I think

1:00:52

the Robert Barons who are like kind of

1:00:54

around the era as well are very fascinating.

1:00:57

Like Andrew Carnegie, Vanderbilt. I just think that

1:00:59

that's kind of like an interesting time in

1:01:01

human existence. And I like

1:01:03

to think about it because it was a little bit

1:01:05

closer than the Roman Empire. Yeah. Some

1:01:08

of it's a period where this negative sentiment

1:01:10

spirals out of control. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah,

1:01:12

I think people were totally distraught

1:01:15

after the Great Depression. Like there was no hope

1:01:17

on the horizon, but we made it through. And

1:01:19

I think another reason why I've been thinking about

1:01:21

it quite a bit recently is there was a

1:01:25

statistic that was released maybe a few months

1:01:27

ago or a few weeks ago that said

1:01:30

that a certain amount of people think that

1:01:32

now is worse than the Great Depression. Yeah.

1:01:34

And so I'm just trying to... And

1:01:36

unemployment's what, 4.1% or? Oh, it's yeah,

1:01:38

can you believe it? Yeah,

1:01:41

I don't know. I just think you can learn a

1:01:43

lot from recent history as you know. And so I

1:01:46

spent a lot of time just reading fictionalizations of

1:01:48

it. I mean,

1:01:50

you think about the next steps for you,

1:01:52

building out the Kyla Scanlon empire of one.

1:01:56

What does that look like? Or what are you going to do? Or what

1:01:58

are you trying to learn next? What should

1:02:00

we expect? I'd love if there's more

1:02:02

than one. Yeah, hiring

1:02:05

is a tough. So

1:02:07

I think for me, like I just wrote the book and

1:02:10

that was a big endeavor. It's very hard to

1:02:12

write a book. There was a lot of lessons

1:02:14

learned from it. And I would like to read

1:02:16

another one about something in that

1:02:19

would be very nice. And then I think

1:02:21

also I am very interested in just different

1:02:24

mediums. So like radio is

1:02:26

something I'm very fascinated by, TV shows

1:02:28

very fascinated by. I think

1:02:30

for me, I just would like

1:02:32

to produce economic education across a

1:02:34

variety of content. The reason that

1:02:36

I produce across TikTok and Substack

1:02:38

and have a podcast and have a

1:02:40

YouTube channel is because I try to reach people

1:02:42

where they are in terms of how they consume

1:02:45

media. And so I think like having a

1:02:47

TV show, you know, like a freedom

1:02:49

to choose. Sure. Yeah. I watched it as a

1:02:51

kid. Yeah, exactly. It was on PBS. Yeah, exactly.

1:02:53

I think something like that would be really great

1:02:55

where there's sort of this foundational

1:02:59

place that you can go to get access

1:03:01

to this stuff. And so that's something that

1:03:03

I want to experiment with as much as

1:03:05

possible. Just a different mediums of education. So

1:03:08

like lying between you and the Kyla Scanlon

1:03:10

TV show, like what is scarce? In

1:03:12

terms of getting there. Right. Is it

1:03:14

money or talent or someone to work

1:03:17

with? Or what's the most scarce thing?

1:03:19

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, when you're in

1:03:21

this sort of job, you're a contractor, right? And

1:03:23

so I make money from the platforms and I

1:03:25

make money from the partnerships that I have, which

1:03:27

I'm very grateful to have. But the

1:03:29

self sustaining aspect of it can be interesting

1:03:32

to navigate. And so, yeah, there's aspects of that. And

1:03:34

then there's aspects of like, how do you do a

1:03:36

TV show? Like, who do you talk to? How do

1:03:39

you get the right connections? And so it's mostly just

1:03:41

navigating a field and you know, you're in a corn

1:03:43

maze and you know that there's a way out, but

1:03:45

you just have to figure out what the right path

1:03:47

is. To close,

1:03:49

I'll repeat the book again in this

1:03:52

economy, how money and markets really work.

1:03:54

But please just repeat how people can

1:03:56

find you across all your different platforms.

1:03:58

Kyla Scanlon. Yeah. Yes,

1:04:01

yes. I'm Kyla Scan,

1:04:03

K-Y-L-A-S-C-A-N, on Twitter, on

1:04:06

Instagram, on TikTok. I have a

1:04:08

LinkedIn where I also post videos.

1:04:10

Kyla.substack.com is my newsletter. My YouTube

1:04:12

channel is Kyla Scanlan and I

1:04:14

have a podcast called Let's Appreciate

1:04:17

and then yeah the book is called In

1:04:19

This Economy and I narrate the audiobook version.

1:04:21

There's also an e-book version and if you

1:04:23

want to support a local bookstore you can

1:04:25

buy a signed copy from Boulder Bookstore in

1:04:27

Boulder, Colorado. Kyla Scanlan, thank

1:04:29

you very much. Thanks for having me. Thanks

1:04:35

for listening to Conversations with Tyler.

1:04:37

You can subscribe to the show

1:04:39

on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your

1:04:41

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1:04:44

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1:04:46

giving us a rating and leaving

1:04:48

a review. This helps other listeners find

1:04:50

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1:04:52

Cowen and the show is at Cowen

1:04:55

Convos. Until next time, please

1:04:57

keep listening and learning.