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0:49

Hello everyone, my name is Kimberly Adams

0:51

and welcome back to Make Me Smart where

0:53

we make today makes sense. It's Wednesday,

0:56

April 23rd. I'm Kyle Rosdell. Thanks for joining us

0:58

on the pod. Today we're going to do our usual

1:00

thing. News, smiles, and then

1:02

get out of your hair. Kimberly,

1:04

I'll try that again. Kimberly, let's start with

1:06

news. I screwed it up on the retake

1:08

too. Go ahead. It's okay. It's

1:10

one of those days. It's Wednesday. You

1:13

know, we've been paying so much attention to

1:15

tariffs, rightfully so. It's affecting so many

1:17

of us, but like, I just saw a

1:19

couple stories today that were a reminder. that

1:22

in terms of what the federal

1:24

government is doing, the reach of

1:26

some of the Trump administration policies

1:28

is just so widespread throughout various

1:31

sectors of the economy. And many

1:33

of those effects we haven't felt

1:35

yet. And so there was a

1:37

story in the Hill about the

1:39

Trump administration making cuts to the

1:41

FDA, and in particular, the milk

1:43

quality testing program. And that program

1:45

was suspended effective Monday. And this was

1:47

one of the early concerns that

1:50

people had about cuts at U .S.

1:52

USDA and the FDA and some

1:54

of these other oversight agencies that the

1:56

people responsible for ensuring the

1:58

safety of America's food supply were

2:00

potentially being cut, leaving it to

2:02

private industry alone to regulate

2:04

itself. Now, that's not to say

2:07

that private industry will not

2:09

regulate itself. at all. But the

2:11

incentive model there is not

2:13

exactly ideal and we have

2:15

history showing us that that

2:17

doesn't always work so hot.

2:19

And now we've got contractors

2:21

hired by the FDA to

2:23

support staff in lieu of

2:25

the actual people who were

2:27

doing it full time. And

2:29

there's not great evidence about

2:31

the price efficiencies within

2:33

the federal government of hiring

2:36

private contractors to replace

2:38

federal workers like that. that

2:40

it actually saves money. There's not too

2:42

much data to support that that is

2:44

a default. So it'd be very

2:46

interesting to see if there's actually any

2:49

savings there. And then there was a

2:51

Politico story about cuts to the U

2:53

.S. Forest Service that have been happening. And

2:55

the headline is crazy. Forest

2:57

Service cuts ignite fear, fury

2:59

over wildfire risk. The Trump

3:01

administration has slashed more than

3:04

10 % of the agency's

3:06

workforce with more layoffs expected. And

3:08

just after the wildfire seasons, we've

3:10

been seeing not just in the West, but in

3:12

other parts of the country as well, it's,

3:15

no pun intended, wild to

3:17

me to think about reducing the

3:19

people who are the most

3:21

experienced at taking the actions that

3:23

can mitigate the risk of

3:25

wildfire. of wildfires and

3:27

then fighting them. I'm reading in this

3:29

Politico piece at about 75 % of

3:32

the agency staff are trained in wildland

3:34

fighting. So that means there are fewer

3:36

workers around the country clearing brush and

3:38

thinning trees to reduce the risk and

3:40

intensity of wildfires. And when fires do

3:42

break out, there'll be fewer workers available

3:44

to stop the spread. And as

3:46

I don't have to tell you where

3:48

you are, this has a huge

3:50

economic impact when these things are able

3:52

to rage unchecked. I

3:55

think the category heading for

3:57

your items and mine together

3:59

is we are not a serious

4:01

country anymore, right? Yours are just

4:03

we're doing stupid, self -destructive things that

4:05

not only will not benefit the

4:07

American public, will actively harm large

4:10

chunks of the American public. I,

4:12

for example, enjoy having my

4:14

milk quality tested. Mine

4:18

is destroying the Wall Street Journal

4:20

today that Lo and behold who

4:22

could have seen this coming the

4:24

president of the United States has

4:26

decided he's gonna back off his

4:29

tariff trade war with China

4:31

Maybe even cutting them by half

4:33

now two points number one Clearly

4:35

in leaking this piece the White

4:37

House is saying please China. Please

4:39

please please come to the negotiating

4:41

table. Please please please please That's

4:44

number one And number two,

4:46

and this is sort of, we are not a serious country,

4:48

but also the markets are an idiot. Even

4:50

if he cuts these tariffs

4:52

at 145 % in half, that's

4:54

still 70, 60 % tariffs on

4:56

imports from China. That is economically

4:58

destructive. And I, for one, don't

5:00

understand why the markets are up

5:02

today. That's it. Those are

5:05

my items. Yeah.

5:09

It's what we talked about before. You

5:11

know, you push the extreme so far

5:13

in one direction that everyone thinks a

5:15

slight dialback is a win. It's the

5:17

Overton window, but for markets, right? Yes.

5:19

That's exactly where it is. We're

5:22

gonna call it the Rizal window. That's

5:24

what we are. We both laughed at it.

5:26

Oh my God. There

5:28

we go. All right,

5:30

shall we? Yes. All right,

5:32

let's go. Alright,

5:36

I got to you got none. Yeah,

5:39

what's up with that? Usually it's the

5:41

other way around I know my smile

5:43

is that we we made an overton

5:45

window joke No, no, no, it's the

5:47

wrist all window now overton window window

5:49

I'm sorry, you know what we should

5:51

totally like trademark that is 100 %

5:54

I've got to one of which is

5:56

oh, are you kidding me and the

5:58

other one is just cool so There

6:00

are news reports today that Pete Hexeth,

6:02

the much beleaguered secretary of defense for completely

6:04

valid reasons, he is beleaguered by the

6:07

way, has ordered a makeup studio installed at

6:09

the Pentagon so that he looks nice

6:11

when he goes out to do his press

6:13

briefings, but also that's where he does

6:15

his Fox News hits from. Just

6:18

thought I'd point that out. How much does

6:20

somebody have to hate you to leak that

6:22

about you? Number

6:25

two, and this is the cool thing, a

6:27

piece of New York Times today about the

6:29

physics of pour over coffee. That is to

6:31

say, you just pour water on the grounds

6:33

and you make your coffee that way. Now,

6:35

I know you're not a coffee drinker, but

6:37

there's all kinds of other cool stuff in

6:39

this article, like literally a scientific paper on

6:41

how to best make pasta. There's

6:43

all kinds of really cool stuff. It's

6:46

all from a journal called The Physics of

6:48

Fluids. And I'm not a science guy, but this

6:50

was pretty cool. I

6:52

saw a Reddit thread a while

6:54

back of like somebody had

6:56

asked, you know, what are some

6:58

of the really life changing

7:00

scientific discoveries made in recent years

7:02

that just like did not

7:04

even register, you know, in the

7:06

public. And they were listing,

7:08

you know, things like neuroplasticity or

7:10

the, you know, mapping of

7:12

our DNA and other things that

7:14

just will drastically change people's

7:16

lives that would have been just

7:18

earth -shattering, world -bending discoveries in

7:20

any other time. But since there's

7:22

so much going on, there

7:24

are all these amazing scientific discoveries

7:26

happening that are just like

7:28

meh. I mean, kind of like

7:30

when the government acknowledged that

7:32

there may be aliens and we

7:34

were all just like, whatevs? Whatevs,

7:38

fine. It's

7:40

like, tracks, why not? That's

7:42

right. That's right. All right, there we

7:44

go. I believe. Yeah, short and

7:46

sweet today. We are going to

7:48

be back tomorrow. Please keep sending us

7:50

your comments and your questions. You can

7:52

reach us at Make Me Smart at

7:54

marketplace .org or leave us a voicemail at

7:56

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8:04

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