How the Big Beautiful Bill’s Passage Will Reshape the Economy

0:00:03 Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you’re not sure where to start?
0:00:07 Thumbtack knows homes, so you don’t have to.
0:00:10 Don’t know the difference between matte paint finish and satin?
0:00:13 Or what that clunking sound from your dryer is?
0:00:16 With Thumbtack, you don’t have to be a home pro.
0:00:17 You just have to hire one.
0:00:23 You can hire top-rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews all on the app.
0:00:24 Download today.
0:00:28 There’s a lot nobody tells you about running a small business, like the pricing.
0:00:38 The marketing, the budgeting, the accidents, the panicking, and the things, and the things, and the non-stop things.
0:00:42 But having the right insurance can help protect you from many things.
0:00:47 Customize your coverage to get the protection you need with BCAA Small Business Insurance.
0:00:53 Use promo code PROTECT to receive $50 off at bcaa.com slash smallbusiness.
0:00:55 Today’s number?
0:00:58 $2,380.
0:01:05 That’s how much a single meal costs at Sublimotion, the world’s most expensive restaurant located in Ibiza.
0:01:13 A very specific number to start the show, but not without reason, because as we speak, my co-host Scott Galloway is partying in Ibiza.
0:01:14 That’s right.
0:01:16 Prof G is still on vacation.
0:01:24 I don’t know if he’ll be dining at Sublimotion tonight, but I do know that with all these Grunz ads I’m selling, he certainly can.
0:01:36 Welcome to Prof G Markets.
0:01:41 I’m Ed Elson, and today we have got the one and only Robert Armstrong on as my guest host.
0:01:44 Robert, great to have you on.
0:01:45 It’s great to be here.
0:01:48 I’m just trying to imagine what a $2,800 meal is like.
0:01:52 Is it just, is it everything just covered in gold?
0:01:54 I’ve heard it’s 20 courses.
0:01:56 It probably lost seven hours.
0:02:00 I mean, it’s just such a crazy number.
0:02:02 I just don’t know what happens.
0:02:04 I mean, it must include wine.
0:02:06 The wine must be just outrageous.
0:02:08 Certainly a great, great wine program.
0:02:10 Well, I hope that Scott is enjoying it.
0:02:13 Maybe he’ll get to dine at Sublimotion.
0:02:13 We’ll see.
0:02:14 Yeah.
0:02:19 Today, though, we will be discussing the Big Beautiful Bill and its passage through Congress.
0:02:25 We’ll also be discussing some new jobs data, what that means for the economy, and also the great generational wealth transfer.
0:02:32 And I just want to say, Rob, this is the very first time on this program that I am wearing a tie.
0:02:35 And I did it for you, because I know that you love ties.
0:02:36 I do.
0:02:38 And I know that you are upset that people aren’t wearing ties anymore.
0:02:41 But here you are on the podcast, and you’re not wearing a tie.
0:02:41 I know.
0:02:46 It’s casual Thursday, because Friday’s a holiday, and so casual.
0:02:49 And I also just got out of the car and was in a rush to get started.
0:02:53 So I’m sorry that I’m dressed up as you, and you are dressed up as me.
0:02:56 That’s a good dynamic.
0:02:57 It feels good to be dressed up as you.
0:02:58 Okay.
0:02:59 I love it.
0:03:01 So there’s so much to talk about today.
0:03:05 I feel like it’s been an amazingly busy holiday week in some way.
0:03:05 Exactly.
0:03:08 And we don’t like holidays here at Prof G Media.
0:03:11 We like to work all the time.
0:03:12 So that’s what we’re going to do today.
0:03:15 Let’s start with our first story.
0:03:19 Now is the time to cry.
0:03:23 I hope you have plenty of the well at all.
0:03:30 President Trump has signed the GOP tax bill into law after the House narrowly passed it with a final count of 218.
0:03:38 The bill will fund several of Trump’s top priorities and include an extension of his 2017 tax cuts.
0:03:40 It also includes major cuts to SNAP and Medicaid.
0:03:47 According to the CBO, it will increase the deficit by $3.4 trillion over 10 years.
0:03:48 The motion is adopted.
0:03:48 The motion is adopted.
0:03:54 USA!
0:03:55 USA!
0:04:13 Rob, this big, beautiful bill, which we’ve discussed for many weeks now and which Scott and I have at least been very critical of, critical of the deficit spending, critical of the tax cuts, which, as we look at it, will only make rich people richer.
0:04:25 Critical of how those tax cuts will be paid for with the deficit spending, as I said, but also all these cuts to these programs that primarily help poor people like SNAP, like Medicaid.
0:04:26 And now here we are.
0:04:28 Your initial reactions.
0:04:32 You know, the most consequential feature of the bill is the deficit part.
0:04:40 The relationship between government budget deficits and markets is really interesting.
0:04:43 And it’s really interesting because it’s non-linear.
0:04:49 In general, markets like deficit spending.
0:05:03 When the government borrows money, especially money from abroad, and pushes it into the economy in whatever way, that money, just as a causal regularity, tends to end up on the balance sheet of American companies.
0:05:08 And it tends to end up in investors’ pockets, and they put it in the stock market, and the stock market goes up.
0:05:19 But, and I think we’ve talked about this on the show before, it’s a matter of markets liking deficit spending until they really, really don’t.
0:05:34 Which, if you get to some point where the debt becomes unwieldy, the government’s interest rates go up, the government is a force into either austerity, into inflating its way of its trouble, and then the wheels completely come off all at once.
0:05:39 So there’s a kind of game of chicken aspect to deficit spending like this.
0:05:40 You always want to do a little more.
0:05:42 You always want to do a little more.
0:05:46 But then at some point, you know it’s all going to go terribly wrong.
0:05:55 You just hope that point happens when someone else is in office, and you are retired and, you know, keeping bees or doing whatever retired senators do.
0:06:02 I saw this great chart from the Yale Budget Lab, which basically just maps out what this will do to GDP growth.
0:06:06 And it perfectly summarizes what you said.
0:06:14 Basically, just to describe it, you initially have this little bump where GDP goes up 0.5%.
0:06:20 And if you were to just look at that little time frame of a couple of years, you’d think, okay, this is a good thing.
0:06:23 But they extend it over a long period.
0:06:25 They extend it to 2050.
0:06:30 And after that bump, suddenly the line starts to go down and down and down.
0:06:35 And by 2050, you’ve got negative 2% GDP growth.
0:06:39 And any projection like that, a huge amount of assumptions goes into.
0:06:44 And the most important assumption is, what is the interest rate on the debt going to be?
0:06:45 Do you know what I mean?
0:06:49 So at what point – so there’s two actually moving pieces here.
0:06:58 One is when the interest on the debt becomes just a drag on the economy, right?
0:07:04 That you’re just – it’s like a slow burn thing where the interest payments get higher and higher.
0:07:05 And it’s just like a household.
0:07:13 At some point, you’re just spending all your time maintaining your debts and not like buying things that are fun or useful or interesting or make you happier.
0:07:29 The second point is that the tendency of these things to turn into a crisis, which is suddenly the deficit and the debt spiral out of control, the bond market rebels, and you have a financial crisis.
0:07:37 And those wouldn’t happen – and I’m often asked by readers when I talk about this, well, how do we know when it’s going to happen?
0:07:42 And the whole point of it is that we don’t know when it’s going to happen.
0:07:48 If we knew where the line was, where it was too much debt, then we just wouldn’t cross that line and life would be easy.
0:07:49 We would know what to do.
0:07:56 But because you don’t know, crises – part of the thing that makes a crisis a crisis is that it’s unpredictable, right?
0:07:58 And you don’t know when you’re going to hit it.
0:08:01 So we’re just – you know, we’re just playing chicken with the national debt.
0:08:04 And, you know, some countries can get away with it for quite a long time.
0:08:08 Japan, as a percentage of GDP, has much more debt than they do.
0:08:10 And they just keep cruising along fine.
0:08:15 So maybe we’re like Japan, and we can get away with this irresponsibility indefinitely.
0:08:16 But what if we’re not?
0:08:23 And it seems that that is – I mean, if you just look at the stock market’s reaction, Wall Street kind of likes this.
0:08:28 And that – I mean, NASDAQ, S&P both climbed last week.
0:08:30 They both hit record highs.
0:08:41 And I think that sort of reflects your point there, which is actually, yeah, we’re playing this game of chicken, or kicking the can down the road, or whatever we’re doing to the debt.
0:08:52 But in the short and medium term, what this basically means is trillions of dollars in spending that’s going to be injected into the balance sheets of those U.S. corporations.
0:09:08 And so for Wall Street, it seems like – I mean, correct me if I’m wrong – but for Wall Street, they kind of go, maybe we’re a little frightened by this whole debt situation, and we know that it’s real, and we understand how financials work.
0:09:15 But ultimately, you know, this is going to be a good thing for XYZ company, and so we’re okay with it.
0:09:20 I think I agree with you all the way, except that word ultimately.
0:09:20 Right.
0:09:21 Right.
0:09:26 I think you have to always be thinking about how far ahead markets are thinking.
0:09:36 And although in our finance textbooks, we’re told that financial markets discount infinitely into the future, we know that that’s not true.
0:09:36 Not at all.
0:09:46 As my friend Al-Husseini, Ed Al-Husseini of Columbia Threadneedal likes to say, ultimately, you have to remember, markets exist to satisfy people’s greed.
0:09:54 And, you know, and greed goes up and down, and it ebbs and flows, and, you know, sometimes fear is stronger, and sometimes greed is stronger.
0:09:56 But we are at a greed moment right now.
0:09:57 Yes.
0:10:02 And there’s just, we’re in that, we’re in greed mentality, not fear mentality right now.
0:10:03 And that stuff can change quickly.
0:10:17 And, you know, we’ve been in greed mentality ever since kind of the middle of April, which was when we were, we were in the beginning of April, we were really in fear world hard.
0:10:27 Which was, you remember, that was Liberation Day, and the president comes out with the insane poster board number thingy in the Rose Garden.
0:10:29 And it’s like, we’re taxing the penguins.
0:10:32 The most expensive poster board in history.
0:10:33 In history.
0:10:36 And it’s like, everybody’s like, this person is insane.
0:10:38 There is no adult supervision.
0:10:42 Uh, you know, cats and dogs living together, everything else.
0:10:48 Happily, in the following weeks, there was an incredible amount of walking all that stuff back.
0:11:00 And ever since the massive walking back or taco-ing of everything, however you want to describe it, the Wall Street vibe has been, the bark is not as bad as a bite.
0:11:01 Everything is cool.
0:11:03 He’s not going to do anything stupid.
0:11:05 Scott Besson is sensible.
0:11:07 He is going to get us out of trouble.
0:11:09 And it’s been in greed times.
0:11:12 I mean, the run we have had since April has been incredible.
0:11:13 Historic.
0:11:24 My favorite, uh, way to measure how, how greedy a run is, is to look at Kathy Wood’s ETF, the, uh, the ARK ETF, which is like.
0:11:26 Is it on, it’s on a tear right now?
0:11:27 Ah, rip!
0:11:29 It’s at a three-year high.
0:11:30 People are loving it.
0:11:33 And that’s like your spec tech or junk tech or whatever you want to call it.
0:11:35 It’s the bleeding edge of tech stocks.
0:11:40 And it’s been roaring and outperforming the market.
0:11:41 And it’s a three-year, and it’s at a three-year high.
0:11:44 And what that’s telling you is greed’s in the driver’s seat right now.
0:11:48 We’ll be discussing that more in our next segment, where we’ll talk about the economy.
0:11:56 But just to break down some of the winners and losers here of this bill, I mean, the sectors that will be directly impacted.
0:12:02 I’m just going to go through some winners and losers that I’ve compiled, and let’s get your reaction.
0:12:05 You can say disagree, agree, or chime in.
0:12:09 So, first off, clean energy, obvious loser.
0:12:10 I’ll disagree already.
0:12:10 Okay.
0:12:20 I don’t know the details, but the very worst stuff, the very worst adjustments to the tax credits were taken out at the last minute.
0:12:21 Yes.
0:12:25 So, like, I’m looking right now at the stock of First Solar, and it’s up 8% today.
0:12:30 I mean, it was down before, but it’s recovering some because the very worst didn’t happen.
0:12:37 Like, I think the rule now is, like, if you start your project before 2027, don’t quote me on this, anyone.
0:12:44 But the date at which you can still take advantage of the tax credits was pushed back, et cetera, et cetera.
0:12:51 So, it wasn’t as awful as it could be, but on net, of course, negative for green energy, infrastructure, all of that stuff.
0:12:58 I think the reality being that the markets were pricing in such an obvious feeling of pain in the industry.
0:13:02 I mean, we had people on who said this is going to basically kill the industry.
0:13:11 That’s not going to happen, but certainly this is going to cripple the industry in a material way.
0:13:11 No question.
0:13:20 So, I think what’s happening is now that the markets are kind of, like, ripping, well, correcting back up as they realize, okay, this maybe isn’t going to be as bad.
0:13:20 Yeah.
0:13:24 We’re being hit in the head with a slightly smaller hammer than we thought before.
0:13:26 That’s how I would describe it.
0:13:26 Yeah.
0:13:36 Moving along here, oil and gas, winner, less investment to clean energy, which is obviously going to be a boon for fossil fuels.
0:13:38 You’re going to have looser regulations on fracking and drilling.
0:13:43 Healthcare is a loser because of the Medicaid cuts.
0:13:49 And you wrote about what is happening in healthcare land in a recent newsletter.
0:13:52 Do you have anything you’d want to chime in on there?
0:13:58 There is a small subset of healthcare companies that specialize in serving Medicaid patients.
0:14:00 Centene is one of them.
0:14:01 Molina Health is another one.
0:14:06 These are insurers that have programs that help people who are on Medicaid benefits.
0:14:17 I mean, in general, though, the larger healthcare problem is not just Medicaid, but, like, this administration’s whole approach to healthcare.
0:14:27 So, like, in the long run, the cuts to the National Institutes of Health are probably more detrimental to the country’s health than anything in this bill.
0:14:29 You know what I mean?
0:14:30 But, look.
0:14:30 Yes.
0:14:36 You know, they’re making it so that the poorest have less access to healthcare.
0:14:42 You know, the market aspects of that are, of course, the least important.
0:14:48 I always struggle with this because, you know, we’re a markets show and we’re supposed to be covering, okay, what happened to stocks.
0:14:53 But then, you know, we have this other data here on what these Medicaid cuts are going to do.
0:14:56 Nearly a trillion dollars are going to be cut over the next decade.
0:14:59 But here are some pretty crazy stats.
0:15:04 Up to 16 million Americans by 2034 are expected to lose their health insurance.
0:15:13 And then the most damning stat is that this is projected to result in 51,000 preventable deaths in America per year.
0:15:20 So, those are the kinds of things where I hear that and it’s like, we’re busy talking about, oh, what happened to UnitedHealth.
0:15:34 I mean, sometimes, you know, you’ve got to realize, you know, like I often joke with my, you know, we’re kind of in the toy section, right?
0:15:35 That’s the part of it.
0:15:43 You know, it’s like, obviously, the stock market is an important part of our capitalist economy and our capitalist economy has created incredible human prospering and so forth.
0:15:48 But there is a point at which you can’t, you do take the stock market too seriously.
0:16:00 But if you want it to be totally cold-hearted and sort of money-focused about this, you know, we want a workforce that’s well enough to go to work, right?
0:16:13 You know, and especially if we’re going to turn off the immigration flows, we’re going to want, you know, prime-aged American men and women to be able to show up to work.
0:16:17 And if they’re too sick, they ain’t going to do that.
0:16:19 And that doesn’t seem like a very good bargain to me.
0:16:22 Well, this is the great thing about AI is it doesn’t get sick.
0:16:26 Well, you know, we’ll see.
0:16:28 You don’t have to pay for the health insurance.
0:16:29 That’s why I love AI.
0:16:31 Just going through the list here.
0:16:33 So defense, another winner.
0:16:35 We’re going to have increased defense spending by $150 billion.
0:16:39 I also have luxury stocks, just, you know, general rule.
0:16:41 Rich people are getting a lot richer from this.
0:16:44 You’re going to have a lot more money to play with.
0:16:49 And then I’ve also got gold and Bitcoin down here as winners.
0:17:00 And I’d like to get your thoughts on this because, you know, my view, my personal view, is that these are actually quite useless assets, ultimately.
0:17:12 But I think the reality here is that the story that drives the value of gold and Bitcoin, that story is very much aligned with what is happening right now.
0:17:28 And that is increased deficit spending, a general erosion in faith in American credit, increased debt burdens, you know, possible runaway inflation, all the things that the Bitcoin maxis warn about and talk about.
0:17:33 I don’t think Bitcoin is an actual solution to these things, but that’s the thesis.
0:17:42 And therefore, I would think that this is kind of a win for Bitcoin, at least in the medium term.
0:17:44 I think that’s probably true, although it’s interesting.
0:17:49 We were talking about how greed is in charge in Wall Street.
0:17:53 Bitcoin’s actually been going sideways for a while, which I think is kind of interesting.
0:18:00 I’m really interested at those moments where Cathie Wood is going north and Bitcoin is going sideways.
0:18:01 I don’t know why that is.
0:18:02 I don’t understand Bitcoin very well.
0:18:04 I’m just pointing that out as a fact.
0:18:10 But where I strongly agree with you is we’re entering a world, not just in the United States, but I think globally.
0:18:14 Where, and, you know, I think we’re going to talk about inflation later.
0:18:15 I don’t want to get too into it.
0:18:20 Where you need to take inflation more seriously in building your portfolio.
0:18:21 Right.
0:18:34 And, you know, how you want to express that view that inflation is going to be a bigger risk to your wealth in the next 20 years than it was in the last 20, you’re going to want to express that view somehow.
0:18:41 And whether that’s by owning precious metals or some weird bit of code in a computer somewhere, I wish you the best of luck.
0:18:42 But you’ve got to think about it.
0:18:44 What are some ways to express that?
0:18:56 Because I feel like this is what has made gold and Bitcoin for the past few years such a winner is it feels like those are the two assets that specifically tell that story.
0:19:13 But it seems to ignore the possibility that if we live in this world of runaway inflation and, you know, massive debt to GDP and, you know, interest payments are, you know, taking up the largest share of the federal budget.
0:19:21 There are just a lot of other what ifs that you have to answer that can’t just be solved with, oh, Bitcoin.
0:19:37 The beautiful thing about the low inflation regime we lived in for most of the last 20 years is that in a low inflation regime, if your stocks in your portfolio are going down, your bonds are probably going up.
0:19:44 In other words, if the economy looks bad, then your people are going to be going to treasuries and your treasury holdings are going up.
0:19:56 So you have your bog standard 70-30 portfolio and you have negative correlation between those two chunks of your portfolio and you rebalance and it is a machine that works beautifully.
0:20:02 When you are in a high or higher inflation regime, that trick no longer works.
0:20:11 In a high inflation regime, you can have economy bad and nobody wants to own treasuries because they don’t want to take the inflation risk.
0:20:13 So you don’t have that negative correlation.
0:20:19 So the first thing you have to do is take a long, hard look at the fixed income part of your portfolio.
0:20:23 Maybe you want to own TIPS, inflation-protected treasuries instead.
0:20:27 That’s a problematic asset class in its own way, but maybe you need to do that.
0:20:29 Maybe you want to own less bonds altogether.
0:20:32 Maybe you want to own, uh, real assets.
0:20:37 Like maybe you need to think seriously about the real estate kind of part of your portfolio.
0:20:38 Right.
0:20:48 Uh, you know, I was always jealous of, uh, my, my sort of stepfather-in-law, I guess he was, because he inherited an apple farm in Ohio.
0:20:51 And I always thought, who gets to have an apple farm?
0:20:52 And what a great asset.
0:20:53 It’s a great asset.
0:20:55 You know what I mean?
0:20:57 You can grow whatever there.
0:20:58 It’s always going to be there.
0:21:00 Ohio farmland is brilliant.
0:21:05 And so maybe part of the solution is, like, you know, have a little cornfield somewhere.
0:21:07 Nothing realer than real estate.
0:21:08 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:21:09 Yeah, exactly.
0:21:18 So just, I mean, you mentioned that the, the bond allocation, obviously, like 60-40 has been the way people have done it.
0:21:34 I mean, if we were to run with this thesis about American debt, and maybe we should ground this in some numbers and some projections, we recently had, um, the president of the CRFB on, on the program.
0:21:49 And they put out some numbers, and they found that this new bill will actually be, actually be worse in terms of deficits than the original House bill, which is already crazy, considering the fact that the House bill was proposed.
0:21:56 To your point, you had all of these Republicans, or not all of these, a few Republicans, saying, this is a terrible idea.
0:21:58 Look what it’s going to do to the deficit.
0:21:59 It went to the Senate.
0:22:00 They rejiggered it.
0:22:05 And now it’s even worse, which is just hilarious in and of itself and scary.
0:22:09 Yeah, it tells you something about our process, that these things get worse as they go.
0:22:09 Exactly.
0:22:20 And then only, as you budge up against the deadline, suddenly, all the people who said no to it, the Thomas Masseys of the world, they say, okay, well, I don’t really have a choice here.
0:22:27 But regardless of the politics, it’s going to increase debt to GDP to more than 125%.
0:22:28 We’re currently at 100%.
0:22:37 It’s going to increase interest payments as a percentage of GDP from 2.5%, that’s where we’re at today, to 6%.
0:22:48 So, if we were to just run a long way with this thesis, that this is unsustainable.
0:22:49 Yeah, yeah, this is unsustainable.
0:22:53 So, let’s deal with the non-crisis circumstances first.
0:22:59 I mean, let’s just say we’re in a world where not only the U.S. government, but a lot of governments do this.
0:23:04 That we’re in a spendier world in terms of governments.
0:23:07 I mean, we already see this, for example, in Germany, is loosening the belts.
0:23:13 The famously austere Germans are even like, God, we need some tanks over here, you know, et cetera.
0:23:15 So, that’s one aspect of it.
0:23:24 We’re also in an aging world, which means we have a small – like, the workforce as a percentage of the total population is getting smaller.
0:23:26 That’s inflationary too, right?
0:23:29 You’re going to have to pay – there’s going to be more competition for workers, higher wages.
0:23:32 We’re cutting down on immigration, right?
0:23:35 For in our case, that will be inflationary.
0:23:44 So, let’s just imagine, crisis or no crisis, the world of 1.5% inflation, let’s just say that’s over.
0:23:45 Is it over?
0:23:46 Can we say that?
0:23:47 I want to say it’s over.
0:23:49 We’re in a world where governments spend more.
0:23:51 We’re getting older.
0:23:54 And also, here’s another very important – when you’re talking about the end of deflation,
0:24:01 there was a massive exporting of deflation from China to the rest of the world in the last 30 years, right?
0:24:05 As they, like, became the factory of the world and made all this cheap stuff and we spent less on everything,
0:24:08 that’s kind of over now too, right?
0:24:12 Globalization is kind of ending and it’s also just kind of a one-time effect in general, right?
0:24:14 We don’t get to have China again.
0:24:21 So, I mean, my core – my main hypothesis would be we’re going to be in a higher inflation world.
0:24:23 We ain’t going home again.
0:24:27 But the example of Japan always bugs me.
0:24:28 They have really high deficits.
0:24:31 They’re a really aging society, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
0:24:33 And if anything, they’ve had deflation problems.
0:24:35 They may be the exception that proves the rule.
0:24:37 Their situation is very special.
0:24:40 They have a special kind of economic culture there.
0:24:45 But they’re the one that bugs me, that, like, maybe we will get into a deflationary slump.
0:24:49 And, of course, the easiest way to kill inflation is just to have a huge recession.
0:24:54 So, if you really care about inflation, just tank the economy and problem solved.
0:24:55 Maybe that’s what we need.
0:24:58 Maybe that’s all part of the power plan.
0:25:00 Yeah, exactly.
0:25:02 Trump seems to think it is.
0:25:09 So, anyway, in that world, I think you still want to own bonds in your portfolio, government bonds.
0:25:12 I think they still have a special role in a portfolio.
0:25:17 But I think you probably want to have, you mix in some other stuff.
0:25:25 And just in general, anybody who had anything in a portfolio in the last 20 years has done awesome.
0:25:31 And for planning purposes, don’t plan on that keeping on going.
0:25:32 Right?
0:25:35 We have probably just lived through the good old days.
0:25:38 And it’s not to say the future is going to be bad.
0:25:51 But we’re not going to be ripping off tickets at 10% on the equity markets and, like, 4.5% on the bond markets and just laughing our way to the bank and moving to Florida.
0:25:57 It’s going to be more historically normal returns in the next 20 years than in the last 20 years.
0:26:04 Do you think that the U.S. versus foreign markets story has a part to play here?
0:26:11 I mean, we’re sort of framing it as if we’re living in an inflationary world.
0:26:16 But it could be, you know, we might be living in an inflationary America.
0:26:16 It’s true.
0:26:26 And the historical returns in the U.S. will look more like what they look like, you know, in Europe and the rest of the world.
0:26:28 American returns have been so good.
0:26:32 Most foreign markets haven’t had returns nearly as good.
0:26:37 And just because it’s simple enough for me to understand, I’m really into mean regression.
0:26:43 You know, if something is really high, it’ll probably get a little lower next and vice versa.
0:26:44 Right?
0:26:50 And I like that as a justification for the international strategy.
0:27:03 The other side of me, though, is that the plain hard fact, you and I can sit here and moan all we want about the dysfunctionality of the American political process and our addiction to debt and everything else.
0:27:08 But the fact is, our economy grows faster than the other developed economies.
0:27:12 We are still, I think, a more innovative economy.
0:27:14 We are a more flexible economy.
0:27:17 You know, people move more easily here.
0:27:18 People change more jobs here.
0:27:19 We have a great job system.
0:27:29 Like, part of U.S. outperformance is undergirded by the fact that we have a superior, a structurally superior economy to most of the rest of the developing world.
0:27:32 And that’s, I don’t see that.
0:27:38 I mean, barring stupidity on a previously undiscovered level, I don’t see that changing.
0:27:44 We’ll be right back after the break with a pulse check on the economy.
0:27:48 If you’re enjoying the show so far, be sure to give Profit to your market to follow wherever you get your podcasts.
0:28:01 Support for the show comes from Vanta.
0:28:03 Are you a startup founder or security professional?
0:28:05 If so, you’re going to want to listen up.
0:28:08 Navigating vendor security requirements can be challenging.
0:28:11 Facing your first security compliance audit can be downright scary.
0:28:14 With Vanta, it doesn’t have to be.
0:28:18 Vanta is a trust management platform that helps businesses automate security and compliance,
0:28:22 enabling them to demonstrate strong security practices and scale.
0:28:26 Simply put, your company can’t grow if it can’t prove that it’s meeting security standards,
0:28:30 including SOC 2, ISO 27001, and HIPAA.
0:28:37 Vanta can get you audit ready in weeks instead of months, saving you up to 85% of associated costs.
0:28:41 And Vanta scales with your business, helping you continuously monitor compliance,
0:28:45 unify risk management, and streamline security reviews all in one place.
0:28:51 More than 10,000 global businesses trust Vanta to achieve compliance and save them time while they’re at it.
0:28:53 Starting and running a business is hard.
0:28:55 Let Vanta help make it a little bit easier.
0:28:59 Go to Vanta.com slash markets to meet with a Vanta expert about your business needs.
0:29:02 That’s Vanta.com slash markets.
0:29:06 What’s up, y’all? It’s Kenny Beecham.
0:29:14 The 2024-2025 NBA season is over, but all that means for us is that the 2025-2026 season is already beginning.
0:29:21 On Small Ball, we’ll be talking about breaking news, major trades, and all the exciting developments the offseason has in store.
0:29:23 Which teams are tearing it down?
0:29:25 Who is retooling to make a championship push?
0:29:29 And what teams are leaving me dumbfounded by their lack of direction?
0:29:31 Don’t miss Small Ball with Kenny Beecham.
0:29:35 New episodes drop every Friday, available on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.
0:29:38 Support for this show comes from Quince.
0:29:43 Their lightweight layers and high-quality staples can become a part of your everyday essentials.
0:29:49 Quince has the kind of stuff you’ll actually wear on repeat, like breathable flow-knit polos, crisp cotton shirts,
0:29:54 and comfortable, lightweight pants that somehow work for both weekend hangs and dressed-up dinners.
0:29:58 And the best part, everything with Quince is half the cost of similar brands.
0:30:00 I’ve tried out Quince.
0:30:03 I got a very nice linen shirt.
0:30:08 I think every guy needs to make sure they have a linen shirt, especially going into the summer.
0:30:15 Plus, Quince says they only work with factories that use safe, ethical, and responsible manufacturing practices, which is great.
0:30:18 Stick to the staples that last with elevated essentials from Quince.
0:30:24 Go to Quince.com slash markets for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.
0:30:31 That’s Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash markets to get free shipping and 365-day returns.
0:30:33 Quince.com slash markets.
0:30:43 We’re back with Profty Markets.
0:30:46 Let’s take a pulse check on the U.S. economy.
0:30:52 The employment report came in stronger than expected last week, with the U.S. adding 147,000 jobs in June.
0:30:57 But other indicators suggest that the broader economic picture looks more mixed.
0:31:04 Manufacturing activity contracted for the fourth straight month in June, and the dollar is hovering near a three-year low.
0:31:14 So, Rob, let’s just start with this jobs data, because this surprised all of us, I think.
0:31:15 Me, for sure.
0:31:16 147,000 new.
0:31:21 I was like, it’s going to be 75, and everyone’s going to freak, you know, and it was twice that.
0:31:23 You had your takes ready to go.
0:31:25 Yeah.
0:31:27 Got to shift them.
0:31:27 Exactly.
0:31:34 So, 147,000 new jobs in June, economists expected 110,000.
0:31:41 I think it’s fair to say that this kind of blew past expectations.
0:31:41 Yes.
0:31:51 So, going off of that, the economy maybe is in pretty good shape, but there are also just these
0:31:56 other signs floating around that would, you know, be contradictory.
0:32:01 Almost every indication of the job market shows this incredible resilience and steadiness.
0:32:06 We’ve had all these shocks, and it’s tariffs, and it’s this and that, and whatever.
0:32:12 And the job market just churns along, creating jobs, beating expectations in an incredibly steady
0:32:12 way.
0:32:20 And if you look at other job market indicators, how many people are quitting jobs, how many
0:32:23 people are getting fired from jobs, how many, you know, et cetera.
0:32:27 All the sort of sub-indicators are also this incredibly steady picture.
0:32:33 If you want to nitpick, however, about the jobs market, here is what you say about it.
0:32:36 It is not very dynamic.
0:32:39 Not a lot of people are getting fired.
0:32:40 That is good.
0:32:42 Also, not a lot of people are getting hired.
0:32:44 That is not good.
0:32:48 So, you might like more of both of those things at the same time, right?
0:32:51 Because that means people are like, oh, but there’s a better job over here.
0:32:52 There’s different opportunities.
0:32:53 I can afford to quit.
0:32:56 Or the company can afford to let me go because I’m, you know, and it’s all.
0:32:58 So, there’s something a little bit static about it.
0:33:06 And the one official statistic that does not look good right now is continuing jobless claims.
0:33:12 That means people not people who are just entering the ranks of the unemployed, applying for unemployment
0:33:12 insurance.
0:33:16 It is people who have entered and are staying.
0:33:18 They still can’t find a job.
0:33:22 And the trend in that number looks notably bad.
0:33:24 However, the numbers are low.
0:33:31 So, it’s not been enough of those people to make the overall kind of sum numbers, the aggregate
0:33:32 numbers look bad.
0:33:39 But the trend in people who have lost work and can’t find new work is a bit alarming.
0:33:45 So, there is something, again, it feels slightly stiff, the job market, you know?
0:33:46 So, don’t get fired at it.
0:33:50 That’s my, don’t make too many of those jokes about the professor.
0:33:51 Disparaging jokes.
0:33:54 I can’t help myself.
0:33:54 Yeah, yeah.
0:33:57 So, that’s a thing.
0:33:57 Yeah.
0:34:04 We also saw this other data from the ADP, which, and I can’t really figure this out.
0:34:06 It said the exact opposite.
0:34:10 I mean, ADP measures private payrolls.
0:34:15 And it found that the private sector lost 33,000 jobs in June.
0:34:23 And that came out a day before we got that official government data, which found that we added 147,000.
0:34:31 There was a lot of state and local employment in the plus number on the official payrolls report.
0:34:31 So, that helped.
0:34:32 But it wasn’t the whole story.
0:34:37 People, in general, like to hate on the ADP report.
0:34:39 They think it’s not very reliable and very volatile.
0:34:39 Okay.
0:34:44 And I, but I, I don’t think the differences are particularly easy to understand.
0:34:54 I guess it’s just a good point to remember that we are measuring something very big and very dynamic and very hard to measure.
0:34:55 Right.
0:35:02 So, it’s not like some person has went out, gone out there and literally counted every single job in the economy.
0:35:09 It’s sampling and you’re depending on the quality of the data and, you know, you’re using, you know, different information sources.
0:35:14 And so, you know, you can’t, one month is just one month, as we like to say.
0:35:19 And the reliable thing is to look at the three-month moving average, the six-month moving average.
0:35:24 So, these little bits of variation wash out, as it were.
0:35:32 Just to go through the jobs data by sector, as you said, we saw this big increase in state and local jobs.
0:35:35 Government added 71,000 jobs.
0:35:39 And that was the biggest increase of any sector is government jobs, which is so interesting.
0:35:42 After we’ve seen this, you know, we’re going to make the government smaller.
0:35:43 Yeah, but state and local, though.
0:35:44 Yes.
0:35:49 Other big increases were in education and health.
0:35:54 We added 51,000 jobs and also hospitality, 20,000 jobs.
0:35:56 Where did we see decreases?
0:36:00 We saw decreases in business services, minus 7,000 jobs.
0:36:07 And also, and I think this is probably the most important, manufacturing, down 7,000.
0:36:16 So, I’d like to get your views on what this says about the tariff inflationary environment in general.
0:36:21 Because a lot of people look at this data and they say, oh, we’re great.
0:36:22 Unemployment’s down.
0:36:22 We’re ripping.
0:36:25 You know, tariffs aren’t going to be a problem.
0:36:32 And my whole thing has been, well, tariffs aren’t here yet and we’re only going to start to see signs very slowly.
0:36:35 And the first place you’d see those signs would be manufacturing.
0:36:36 Okay.
0:36:43 I do not want to join you and the president, by the way, in the general fetishization of manufacturing.
0:36:44 Right.
0:36:53 There is, we all have sort of romantic feelings about the good job, the good union job down at the mill kind of stuff.
0:36:58 And, like, you know, we live in a technological world.
0:37:01 We don’t, I don’t want to get all misty-eyed about manufacturing.
0:37:02 Manufacturing is important.
0:37:03 You want to make stuff, et cetera, et cetera.
0:37:04 It’s one sector among many.
0:37:12 I would rephrase your point slightly to say, where are the cyclical industry jobs?
0:37:17 Where are the jobs for industries that are economically sensitive?
0:37:19 Where are those jobs?
0:37:30 So that’s, you know, hospitality, that’s manufacture, that’s construction, that’s, et cetera, energy industry, et cetera, et cetera.
0:37:39 So if the economy was great, you would see people in cyclical industries adding jobs, not just health care and government and et cetera, et cetera.
0:37:41 And I don’t see a lot of that here.
0:37:45 So it’s hard to argue that this report screams that we’re in a cyclical upswing.
0:37:58 I think the kind of consensus view that we are in a very, we are in a kind of slowdown from a very extreme cyclical high still holds and is totally consistent with what we see in this report.
0:38:03 You know, if I’m worried about anything in this economy, it’s not manufacturing.
0:38:05 It’s like housing and construction.
0:38:08 The housing market is a bit of a shambles right now.
0:38:11 And that is a super cyclical part of the economy.
0:38:17 And when the, and it’s not a huge part of the economy, but it’s like a big swing factor for the economy.
0:38:20 It’s really bad when the economy is bad and it’s really good when the economy is good.
0:38:26 So it can have a big influence on the cycle and the housing looks bad.
0:38:30 And that has to do with high rates and a lot of other stuff.
0:38:38 It feels like one of the things we’re grappling with here is, can you make any conclusions from this report?
0:38:39 Correct.
0:38:45 And a lot of what you’re saying is, not really, because it’s kind of soft.
0:38:48 You really want to look at the three-month averages.
0:38:51 You know, some of these things are more cyclical.
0:39:01 But yet, it’s Jerome Powell’s job to look at this data and draw a conclusion and then come up with a decision.
0:39:05 Look, it does rule out the worst scenarios.
0:39:09 Like, there’s no way to make this report look awful, right?
0:39:12 And if the number had been 50, we’d all be having kittens.
0:39:14 And that didn’t happen.
0:39:20 And once again, despite all the uncertainty and the bad sentiment reports and everything else, the number is fine.
0:39:21 It is solid.
0:39:26 So we cut the sort of horrible right tail off.
0:39:27 And that’s a good thing to do.
0:39:33 Where we are to the left of that in the good tail is definitely very much open to debate.
0:39:35 I mean, there’s no question.
0:39:44 I mean, if you look at the odds the futures market is putting on a rate cut in July, after this report, those odds just fell through the floor.
0:39:46 We’re not getting a cut in July.
0:39:49 And by the way, we shouldn’t.
0:39:55 The economy just created 150,000 jobs in a month.
0:39:58 You know, we are worried.
0:39:59 We should be worried about tariff inflation.
0:40:01 And we shouldn’t have a rate cut.
0:40:02 The economy is doing pretty good.
0:40:05 We don’t need to be in a rush to cut.
0:40:07 Powell is right.
0:40:08 And Trump is wrong.
0:40:10 Yeah, exactly.
0:40:13 It’s like not a complicated situation at all.
0:40:18 You know, and if things slow down next month, there’s always, you know, the next September meeting or whatever.
0:40:23 We should talk about what this means for the Fed and for Jerome Powell.
0:40:31 Because, yeah, as you say, the probability of a July rate cut, which, by the way, a couple months ago, it was at around 80%.
0:40:35 We’re down to 5% after this.
0:40:45 Everyone agrees this isn’t going to happen because, to your point, the boogeyman for Jerome Powell is low employment and employment numbers are fine.
0:40:57 But if you’re Trump and you see this data, which, I mean, it’s a tough thing because for Trump, he probably wants to say, everything’s great.
0:41:00 Therefore, stop freaking out Jerome Powell.
0:41:04 But at the same time, there’s the argument of everything’s great.
0:41:08 Therefore, why should we cut rates?
0:41:11 He wants to celebrate how great his America is.
0:41:12 And he wants rate cuts.
0:41:16 And he cannot have, he cannot have both in this circumstance.
0:41:27 You know, I have a bit of, of course, as you, I’m sure, have talked about on the show, we’ve had a lot of noise from the White House and its allies.
0:41:30 Jerome Powell is screwing us all.
0:41:32 He’s doing a lot of damage.
0:41:39 You know, the guy who runs Fannie and Freddie is, like, going after the chair of the Fed.
0:41:42 Besson is on TV going after him.
0:41:50 And I actually think this is fine because the superpower of Jerome Powell is being dull.
0:41:53 And he’s like this guy who sits there and says, we’re following the data.
0:41:55 Here’s what the data says.
0:41:56 And here’s what we’re going to do.
0:41:58 Matt, see you next month.
0:41:58 Right.
0:42:02 And you have these, you have Trump and everybody else.
0:42:03 You have terrible Todd Kosta.
0:42:05 He cannot do our job.
0:42:07 We are not, we’re not going to be replaced by him.
0:42:12 And, you know, he just is like, you know, and, you know, you can say, oh, he’s screwed up at the beginning of inflation.
0:42:13 Fine.
0:42:13 We can have that argument.
0:42:14 Maybe he did.
0:42:14 Great.
0:42:18 But at this time, he’s just saying, we have a job to do.
0:42:20 It’s to balance our two mandates.
0:42:21 Here’s how we’re doing it.
0:42:34 And the more Trump and his minions scream and yell, it, to me, it underlines the independence of the Fed rather than it’s like, oh, that’s the reason we have to have an independent Fed because of those guys.
0:42:35 Right.
0:42:38 And I’m sure other people don’t have the reaction I do.
0:42:39 I’m a markets nerd.
0:42:42 I’ll look at it differently than Joe or Jane Public will.
0:42:51 But I just feel like we’re having this great civic lesson in why an independent Fed is good and how an independent Fed should behave.
0:42:53 You know, Jerome is not out there.
0:42:57 Jerome Powell is not out there being like, oh, Trump is stupid and this is an outrage.
0:43:01 He’s like, it’s really not my job to think about what the president says.
0:43:02 I just follow the data.
0:43:12 I guess the thing that kind of upsets me about the Powell bashing is the possibility that people hear what Trump is saying and they agree with him.
0:43:17 And maybe fewer people than I think are actually in agreement with him.
0:43:28 But for me, it’s upsetting because I’m like, this is the guy who a few years ago everyone was saying was going to crash the economy with his high rates.
0:43:38 I mean, I remember my I remember vividly reading this Bloomberg article, which said that the odds of a recession in the next 12 months were 100 percent.
0:43:45 And it was a survey and everyone said, I mean, he was getting criticism, not just from Trump, but from everyone.
0:43:47 And he said, no, we’re going to stick with it.
0:43:49 People said soft landing, not possible.
0:43:51 He got the soft landing.
0:43:58 And I guess it just upsets me to then have the president saying this guy’s doing a terrible job.
0:43:58 He’s too late.
0:44:04 If Jerome Powell’s superpower is being boring, Trump’s superpower is not being boring.
0:44:05 Right.
0:44:09 And his superpower is like making you feel strong emotions.
0:44:10 The yin and yang of boredom.
0:44:11 Yeah, right.
0:44:18 He like he whether you like him or you hate him or whatever, he draws these powerful emotions out of us.
0:44:24 And so my attitude is like it’s my job as a citizen, as an and as a journalist to just be cool.
0:44:33 I’m not going to be emotional about stuff the president says because that’s you know, we need more people being cool on all parts of the political spectrum.
0:44:46 I just want to shift us to how the markets are reacting to all of this, because, you know, we’ve got all these underlying economic indicators, which, to be honest, are not great.
0:44:51 I mean, you’ve got GDP contracting and it was just revised lower in Q1.
0:44:55 You’ve got all these manufacturing indexes, which are shrinking.
0:45:02 You would argue whatever, but I would argue that’s the first place you look for inflationary impact in terms of tax.
0:45:04 You also got the dollar, which is falling.
0:45:07 It had its worst starts of the year since 1973.
0:45:13 And, you know, yes, we got this jobs report.
0:45:17 But aside from that, it doesn’t look incredible.
0:45:26 And, you know, you could also add on the wars that are exploding all over the world as a reason to be worried.
0:45:35 And yet, to your point from the previous segment, stocks and riskier assets are exploding.
0:45:37 And you’ve got all of that happening.
0:45:43 Meanwhile, the underlying indicators are telling you this is a little bit scary.
0:45:45 What do you make of that?
0:45:50 I’m slightly more glass half full on the economy than you are.
0:45:57 Job creation is there and GDP, although it’s decelerating, it’s still growing.
0:46:06 And in a pretty good clip, the economy of the United States, you know, I don’t know where, like, the Atlanta fence GDP now is right now.
0:46:10 But we’re in, I think we’re above one and a half percent anyway.
0:46:14 And we might be a kind of one and a half percent real GDP growth economy.
0:46:18 So we might actually be growing above potential a little bit here.
0:46:20 So I think the economy is actually OK.
0:46:23 Now, there is the bad stuff that you’re talking about.
0:46:38 But here, and I think we may have discussed this on earlier parts of the show, one of the most salient and interesting features of the economy we have right now is the big division between hard data and soft data.
0:46:50 So if you look at hard data, which is like actual transactions, who got hired, who got hired, what profits are companies reporting and so forth, real facts, economy looks like, just as I said, pretty good.
0:46:54 But if you ask people how they feel, they tell you they feel bad.
0:47:00 And that goes for investors, consumers, CEOs, everybody.
0:47:02 We’re dealing with this uncertainty.
0:47:08 And so the factory contraction you’re talking about, I assume you’re talking about the ISMs.
0:47:08 Yes.
0:47:17 And what that is, is you go to the factory manager and you say, do you think business is expanding or contracting?
0:47:21 And do you expect it to expand in the next three months or to contract?
0:47:25 And the factory guys have been saying, I expect it to contract.
0:47:26 I expect to hire less.
0:47:28 I expect to do less capital expenditures.
0:47:31 But output is not as bad.
0:47:32 It’s not great, but it’s not as bad.
0:47:35 So it’s almost like the tariff thing.
0:47:38 When does this bad sentiment come to roost?
0:47:40 And I think we know why there’s bad sentiment.
0:47:41 There’s two reasons.
0:47:48 One, within the last five years, we had an incredible economic shock, which was the pandemic and then the inflation.
0:47:51 And so people are still finding their feet.
0:47:56 And number two, we don’t know what the heck the president’s economic policies are from day to day.
0:47:59 Tariffs being the most important one.
0:48:02 So you’re like, I don’t know what’s going to happen to my business.
0:48:08 You know, what am I going to have to pay for inputs like factories in America import tons of shit.
0:48:19 And there, you know, we know for a fact that people who run factories to say nothing of farms or whatever are worried about immigration and tariffs.
0:48:21 And they’re feeling like crap.
0:48:25 But for now, the factories are still cranking stuff out.
0:48:27 People are still buying stuff.
0:48:28 Consumption is good.
0:48:34 But, you know, it’s weird that the sentiment is so poor across the board.
0:48:41 And while the sentiment is somewhat partisan, in other words, if you ask a Republican how things are going there, they are going to be a little bit happier sounding.
0:48:45 They’re still trending the wrong way, too.
0:48:46 Right.
0:49:01 And so I don’t know, like at some point, if this cloud of uncertainty doesn’t clear, I would have to imagine that bad soft data turns into bad hard data.
0:49:02 That’s exactly.
0:49:07 That’s the question that I, when does the soft data become the hard data?
0:49:11 I’m convinced it’s, I’m convinced it’s coming.
0:49:11 Yeah.
0:49:18 And the Fed would agree with their projections, specifically with inflation, too.
0:49:25 So let’s, let’s get your prediction, if you’re willing, on inflation.
0:49:28 I keep on saying it’s coming.
0:49:30 Do you think it’s coming?
0:49:34 No, I don’t think we’re going to get another spike.
0:49:41 My prediction is we’re never getting sustainably to 2% in the foreseeable future.
0:49:45 We’re going to go along and it’s going to like be bad one month.
0:49:49 And it’s going to be kind of in that 3% range and bouncing around.
0:49:56 It’s going to be basically just high enough to make your bond portfolio not work.
0:49:58 You know what I mean?
0:50:01 But I, because I think we just had this terrible experience.
0:50:08 So Trump rattles on about how he’s a low rates guy and the chair of the Fed is selling out the country.
0:50:10 I don’t think he’s going to screw around.
0:50:11 Right.
0:50:23 Whoever his guy is in the Fed, if this happens after May, if we get an inflation spike, I don’t think the president is going to stop, stand in the way of the Fed snuffing that shit out.
0:50:29 Because he just saw inflation destroy Joe Biden’s term and his legacy.
0:50:32 I don’t think he’s going to touch the stove.
0:50:33 Right.
0:50:37 I mean, unless he’s, yeah, unless he’s a lot stupider than I think he is.
0:50:40 Uh, I just don’t think he’s going to do that.
0:50:52 So, but I think for the kind of systemic long-term grinding reasons we have, we’re going to be kind of, it’s going to be like having a low fever where you’re like well enough to go to work, but you’re like, I don’t know.
0:50:56 I’m like feeling kind of cruddy and it’s going to be like that.
0:50:58 Sort of like how we all feel all the time.
0:51:02 So, and you know, that’ll have some upsides.
0:51:04 Like the economy is going to be a little bit hot.
0:51:12 Employment will probably stay good, but I think we’re going to be struggling with this because of low immigration, because of tariffs.
0:51:16 And also like, tell me what the tariff policy is.
0:51:18 We had this experience yesterday.
0:51:21 I was working with one of the young people I work with, Hak Young Kim, who we just hired.
0:51:22 He’s great.
0:51:27 And we were just, I was like, Hak Young, all I want you to do in this piece you’re writing for tomorrow.
0:51:29 Is give me a general sense.
0:51:39 Give the reader a general sense within an order of magnitude, what the tariff on the average American car is going to be when this happens.
0:51:43 And I thought you need to hire like a team of analysts.
0:51:44 Yeah.
0:51:51 I thought we’d be able to get within five or $10,000 one way or the other, like, you know, close enough for hand grenades.
0:51:54 Well, the U.S. government couldn’t do that.
0:51:57 They tried to do it with the billboard and they couldn’t do it themselves.
0:52:03 And it’s like, okay, it’s the steel and aluminum and then the tariffs aren’t stacked.
0:52:06 So does the steel and aluminum count against the imported parts?
0:52:07 Do those net out?
0:52:08 But how would that work?
0:52:10 Because where does the aluminum get imported?
0:52:11 And then there’s this other thing.
0:52:16 And the trade deal with Canada and Mexico, how do those adjustments play in?
0:52:16 And you’re like.
0:52:19 How is a store manager supposed to figure it out?
0:52:19 Yeah, yeah.
0:52:24 And I wonder if the people who are running the car companies are like, I don’t know.
0:52:30 And if that’s true, that helps to actually explain why we’re not seeing the inflation yet.
0:52:32 Because they don’t know.
0:52:33 That’s what I think it is.
0:52:33 Yeah.
0:52:38 So they’re not going to raise prices when they don’t know if there really are tariffs yet.
0:52:41 Because they don’t want to lose market share.
0:52:44 That’s why my view on this is, this is going to take a long time.
0:52:46 You know, you need everything to funnel through.
0:52:53 And you also need, I mean, Jerome Powell needs to have enough data to make an informed decision,
0:52:56 which is why I predicted July rate cut would not come.
0:52:58 But I think the same thing is true of every business.
0:53:03 You’re not going to raise your prices, especially after we’ve already had such massive inflation.
0:53:08 You’re not going to do it until you absolutely know what the hell is going on.
0:53:11 And yeah, this is the question we’re all arguing about.
0:53:12 When is that going to happen?
0:53:16 And all my predictions have been wrong up until now.
0:53:18 So I’m going to abstain from predicting.
0:53:20 But I agree.
0:53:23 The logic that you lay out, Ed, I think is the right logic.
0:53:28 We’ll be right back after the break with a look at the great wealth transfer.
0:53:33 If you’re enjoying the show so far, hit follow and leave us a review on ProfG Markets.
0:53:45 Support for the show comes from Mint Mobile.
0:53:48 If you’re looking for ways to save money this summer, you’re not alone.
0:53:53 You can start by saving on something you might be overpaying for anyway, your phone bill.
0:53:56 Mint Mobile offers premium wireless service at an affordable price.
0:54:01 All of their plans include high-speed data delivered on the nation’s largest 5G network,
0:54:03 plus unlimited talk and text.
0:54:05 And you won’t need to give people a new number either.
0:54:09 When you switch, you can bring your existing phone number plus all of your contacts.
0:54:13 With Mint Mobile, you can say goodbye to your overpriced wireless plans,
0:54:17 jaw-dropping monthly bills and unexpected overages.
0:54:21 Get three months of unlimited service from Mint Mobile for $15 a month.
0:54:24 This year, skip breaking a sweat and breaking the bank.
0:54:28 Get this new customer offer and your three-month unlimited wireless plan
0:54:33 for just $15 a month at mintmobile.com slash markets.
0:54:36 That’s mintmobile.com slash markets.
0:54:40 Upfront payment of $45 required, equivalent to $15 a month.
0:54:43 Limited time, new customer offer for first three months only.
0:54:46 Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan.
0:54:47 Taxes and fees extra.
0:54:49 See Mint Mobile for details.
0:55:01 We’re back with Prof G Markets.
0:55:05 We are in the middle of the largest generational wealth transfer in history,
0:55:08 with $6 trillion set to be inherited this year alone.
0:55:14 In 2023, 53 new billionaires emerged just through inheritance.
0:55:19 And in the next 25 years, more than $83 trillion will be passed down through inheritance as well.
0:55:24 Meanwhile, the Big Beautiful Bill includes a provision that will make it even easier
0:55:28 for ultra-wealthy families to pass down their wealth tax-free.
0:55:35 The estate tax exemption will be increased to $15 million for individuals and $30 million for couples.
0:55:40 In other words, you can give your kid $30 million and you pay nothing in taxes.
0:55:49 So, Rob, this is a sort of larger, more generational story that Scott and I have talked about for a while,
0:55:53 but that is now starting to appear in headlines.
0:55:54 Baby boomers are dying.
0:55:56 That’s what the, that’s the summary.
0:55:58 Baby boomers, dead.
0:56:01 Exactly.
0:56:06 That, that, that is actually, yeah, that is what is happening.
0:56:07 The baby boomers are dying.
0:56:11 And as we know, the baby boomers have done very well.
0:56:16 The, the, the richest people in America are generally speaking the baby boomers.
0:56:20 And the wealth inequality has gotten insane.
0:56:26 And just to go through some of the numbers, the top 10% of Americans own 93% of all U.S. stocks.
0:56:31 The top 1% control $25 trillion worth of equities.
0:56:35 That is roughly half of the market cap of the entire S&P 500.
0:56:41 There are now 902 billionaires in the U.S., up 800% since 1990.
0:56:45 In sum, a handful of extremely rich people.
0:56:49 And the majority of them are quite old.
0:56:56 And just about now, they’re dying and they’re giving it to their kids.
0:57:01 And it is creating what some people are calling the inheritocracy.
0:57:08 All of that wealth that was collected by this small handful of individuals is now being passed on to their children.
0:57:12 So, Rob, just very general reactions.
0:57:17 If America is becoming an inheritocracy, what does that mean?
0:57:20 What does that mean for the economy, for society, and for investors?
0:57:26 The rich have a lower marginal propensity to consume than the poor.
0:57:32 So, you give a rich person the next dollar, they invest it or save it.
0:57:35 You give a poorer person the dollar, they spend it.
0:57:45 And without going through all the mathematics or whatever, that means wildly unequal societies grow less quickly than they otherwise could.
0:57:46 Right?
0:57:51 Because you’re not feeding the real economy, you’re feeding the financial economy at some point.
0:57:54 And in theory, the financial economy should feed the real economy.
0:58:04 But for reasons that are not well understood, the savings in America in particular doesn’t go to productive investment in America.
0:58:07 It becomes debt of poorer people or whatever.
0:58:09 So, that is bad.
0:58:16 And agnostic to how you think we ought to solve this problem, I think it’s important.
0:58:19 Like, I feel uneasy about redistribution.
0:58:21 I’m a real capitalist.
0:58:23 I’m a greed is good guy.
0:58:30 But massive inequality makes our economy less healthy than it otherwise would be.
0:58:34 It reduces opportunity and dynamism and all of that stuff.
0:58:35 So, it’s bad.
0:58:45 On a psychological point, I don’t think it’s fun to be the kid who inherits all the money and then never has to do anything for the rest of their life.
0:58:50 Like, I know a couple of those people and it’s actually not that cool a situation to be in.
0:58:52 You know what I mean?
0:58:55 Like, you want to be rich enough so, like, your parents pay for your college.
0:58:55 Exactly.
0:58:57 And maybe get you your first car.
0:59:00 But you get a lot richer than that.
0:59:04 And it’s like, you know, therapy and drug rehab.
0:59:07 As Scott would say, a Range Rover and a cocaine habit.
0:59:08 Yeah, exactly.
0:59:11 So, I don’t think it’s socially all that good.
0:59:14 Now, one interesting question.
0:59:16 And I’d be interested in what you feel about this.
0:59:26 Are the baby boomers, the money goes from them to my generation, the X’s, or maybe it skips a generation and goes to the millennials or something.
0:59:31 Do they behave differently as rich people than the boomers did?
0:59:32 That is the question.
0:59:34 And I have no idea.
0:59:36 I mean, I have never really thought about that.
0:59:39 I mean, let’s just put some numbers to it.
0:59:45 So, as I said, in advanced economies, $6 trillion will be inherited.
0:59:50 As I said, 53 people became billionaires in 2023 because of inheritance.
0:59:58 My favorite stat, by the way, those people represented 40% of the newly minted billionaires in that year.
1:00:07 So, if you ever meet someone who just became a billionaire, basically now, the chances that they got that money from their parents is 40%.
1:00:11 Well, all of them are going to be in that restaurant that Scott is eating tonight.
1:00:15 And so, he’ll be able to do a sort of sociological study, talk to them all, you know.
1:00:16 Exactly.
1:00:17 See what they’re all about.
1:00:17 Yeah, yeah.
1:00:21 And to that point, that is what I think will likely happen.
1:00:30 It’ll be like the Gilded Age, where these people who inherited the money, they don’t actually understand the value of the money because they didn’t earn it.
1:00:35 And they’ll be spending it at sublimation buying $3,000 dinners.
1:00:46 I think that the money, just based on those psychological reasons that you just described, the money is going to be spent completely recklessly.
1:00:55 It’ll be crazy, crazy spending, which in a way, maybe that’s a good thing because that’s your redistribution mechanism.
1:00:58 Like, somebody has to build the yacht.
1:01:03 Somebody is the welder who builds the yacht or flies the helicopter to the yacht or whatever.
1:01:08 Or is the person with the fan fanning the person while they’re eating grapes?
1:01:09 Yes, exactly.
1:01:10 Someone has to hold the grapes.
1:01:12 I’m not holding them.
1:01:13 God, no.
1:01:17 It’s not exactly the society we dream of, right?
1:01:17 Exactly.
1:01:20 You know, it is to these two sides for me.
1:01:26 I think that, you know, I’m a big believer that capitalism is kind of the best idea anybody ever had.
1:01:35 And that it just like, you know, if you go back to pre-industrial times, we were all dead at 35 and we had bad teeth and everything sucked, right?
1:01:39 And what got us out of that is two things.
1:01:46 The idea of constitutional democracy and the idea that you ought to leave people alone and let them be greedy and get after it, right?
1:01:48 So, and I feel great about that stuff.
1:01:49 I love commerce.
1:01:50 I love success stories.
1:01:54 You know, it’s like, I could sum this up in one person.
1:02:00 Like, I think Jeff Bezos, what he has done with that business is so awesome.
1:02:13 Like, the way he thought about it, the way he built that investor base, the way he thought about how to finance it, the way he talks about the business, what it’s achieved in terms of, like, helping people and making our, like, lives better.
1:02:15 I love all of that.
1:02:16 I totally agree.
1:02:26 And then he, like, rents Venice and, like, has the biggest, and it’s just, like, the vulgarity of it all.
1:02:31 It’s just, like, his wife was basically married in a dress made of diamonds.
1:02:33 You know what I mean?
1:02:34 And it’s like, what are you doing, dude?
1:02:36 You know, come on.
1:02:40 You know, so I love the Jeff Bezos who built Amazon and thought about Amazon.
1:02:44 And, you know, I could talk for hours about the different choices he made.
1:02:47 And then it’s like, this is how you act?
1:02:50 He lost all of his sophistication in a heartbeat.
1:02:51 Yeah.
1:02:53 On the way out the door.
1:02:55 It’s like, what are you doing, man?
1:02:57 You know, you’re acting like a clown here.
1:02:58 You know?
1:03:02 And so that sort of sums up my split thinking about this.
1:03:10 Loving capitalism and thinking a way there’s got to be some kind of golden mean or balance or something that we can achieve, you know?
1:03:16 I love your point, and it is true, about what happens when the rich get really rich.
1:03:23 I mean, it’s sort of the lie of trickle-down economics, where you’re so rich that actually you don’t spend.
1:03:33 And, you know, maybe you say, oh, you’re investing in businesses that maybe will become productive.
1:03:42 But as you say, the stock market is becoming so incredibly financialized, it’s often not actually an investing event.
1:03:44 This is just trading events.
1:03:48 And meanwhile, you’ve got things like Bitcoin and gold, which are skyrocketing.
1:03:52 If your money’s sitting in Bitcoin, that’s not doing anything productive for society.
1:03:54 No value is being created.
1:03:57 It’s negative value because of its environmental impact.
1:03:57 Exactly.
1:04:00 And it’s just wasting all the energy to keep it on.
1:04:00 Exactly.
1:04:04 I mean, gold is better because you can just put it in the vault and it doesn’t take away.
1:04:06 But I think that is very true.
1:04:11 And just some data here from the IMF, which validates that point.
1:04:16 An increase in the income share of the bottom 20% is associated with higher GDP growth.
1:04:27 An increase in the income share of the top 20% is actually associated with a GDP decline over the medium term, which I think really proves that point.
1:04:30 So that’s sort of the issue.
1:04:41 And to me, it’s all about how do you unleash the greed of human beings to create more value and expand the pie?
1:04:43 That’s sort of the question.
1:04:53 And the trouble for me is when all of that value is being plowed into massively unproductive ventures.
1:04:55 I would say that that’s why I don’t like gold.
1:04:56 I think gold is an unproductive venture.
1:04:58 I don’t like Bitcoin.
1:05:00 I think it’s unproductive for similar reasons.
1:05:07 I also think a $47 million wedding in Venice is an unproductive venture.
1:05:14 I think a yacht and taking apart a bridge to get the yacht through the bridge, unproductive.
1:05:23 And so this big question is like, how can you unleash all of that capital to be put to productive ends?
1:05:35 And is it a problem that all of that money is going to go to these young people who will, let’s face it, spend it on drugs and yachts and champagne?
1:05:37 I think it’s a really hard question.
1:05:41 And the only, you know, I don’t know what to do about it systemically.
1:05:47 Like, do we need a new tax regime or do we need a different treatment of things or a new way of accounting for this stuff?
1:05:53 I’m not sure about any of that, but I was actually talking about this very topic with my wife as we were driving out to where we are now.
1:05:59 And we were talking about as a person, we all kind of fight this battle within ourselves.
1:06:06 And what I mean by that is you have to know when is enough or you’re never going to be happy, right?
1:06:23 You can, we all get caught on what they call the hedonic treadmill, which is like, if only I get one set of nicer things, if I go on one more nice vacation, or I have one more pair of shoes than the pairs of shoes I have now, or one more picture to hang on the wall, then I’ll finally have enough and I’ll be happy.
1:06:26 And then you get the next thing and you start running towards the next thing.
1:06:33 And at some point, each of us has to step off the hedonic treadmill and be like, look, things are cool.
1:06:35 You know, my family’s cool.
1:06:35 I’m cool.
1:06:37 I’ve got books to read.
1:06:38 I’ve got plenty to eat.
1:06:40 I got a warm, dry place to sleep.
1:06:42 I live in a beautiful city.
1:06:42 It’s enough.
1:06:43 Right.
1:06:47 And that’s a hard, that’s a psychological challenge.
1:06:51 That’s kind of an analog to the economic challenge that you just described.
1:06:54 I feel a little sappy even saying that out loud.
1:06:55 Here I am.
1:06:57 I’ve said it now and I’m out there in the world.
1:07:08 Let’s just talk about the, I mean, in terms of what could be done about it, my view is you go after the inheritance tax.
1:07:21 I mean, that’s why I was so shocked to see in this new bill that has just passed in the House that we are increasing the estate tax exemption.
1:07:28 We’re saying that $27 million tax-free to your children, that actually isn’t enough.
1:07:33 And what’s hilarious is the reasons they’ve ascribed to increasing it to $30 million.
1:07:34 It’s farmers, right?
1:07:36 And they always talk about the farmers.
1:07:36 Sorry, yes.
1:07:41 Farmers, but also because farmers need to pass on their businesses, okay?
1:07:42 Inflation.
1:07:51 They say, well, inflation has happened, so now we need to compensate for that by, you know, upping it from 27 to 30.
1:07:54 It’s like, hold on, inflation’s also happened to the poor people.
1:07:57 And it’s happened to the financial assets that the rich people have.
1:07:59 That’s why they’re doing this.
1:08:09 And to me, when I think about how do you address this problem, how do you redistribute without pissing people off too much,
1:08:16 the best time to do it is when the guy’s dead and you do it and it goes to their children.
1:08:22 I think you have a very good case there, but the right to pass on what we’ve earned to our children,
1:08:26 like, really strikes at people’s emotions and their heart.
1:08:32 And they’re not thinking when they hear it about what the number is and how it will never apply to them.
1:08:35 Like, you get to the point about it was $27 million, now it’s $30 million.
1:08:37 That’s like, rah, rah, rah.
1:08:41 What they hear is they want to take your money away that you want to leave to your kids.
1:08:43 So it’s very politically a tough one.
1:08:49 You know, what a lot of people, economists, talk about is a wealth tax rather than an income tax.
1:08:52 Because what we’re talking about is not differences in income.
1:08:54 We’re really talking about differences in wealth.
1:09:00 And if you could tax wealth, that would solve part of the problem.
1:09:04 And I think that you could maybe sell that politically more.
1:09:07 Like, we’re not going to increase your income tax.
1:09:11 We’re going to say, you know, people who have over $10 million are going to pay a little bit more.
1:09:18 And if you don’t have $10 million, maybe your paycheck will get bigger because we’re going to lower the marginal income tax rate and we’re going to do the wealth tax.
1:09:22 The problem is that wealth is hard to measure.
1:09:26 You know, your income is right there on your pay stubs.
1:09:29 And the government’s going to be like, okay, 35% of that, no, no, no.
1:09:32 Wealth, it’s like, where is it?
1:09:34 How do you value stuff?
1:09:41 How do you, you know, where, where, how do you prevent people from hiding it or putting it somewhere else or putting it in some weird tax structure?
1:09:45 It’s like a technical problem of instituting a wealth tax.
1:09:57 One solution that I’ve thought about is a borrowing tax where, you know, a lot of these people, the way that you subsidize your lifestyle with cash is you just borrow against your holdings.
1:10:02 And that’s sort of how they, they don’t pay taxes because there’s no, there’s no liquidity event.
1:10:14 But if there was some sort of tax where it’s like, okay, if you’re going to borrow this amount, which you’re literally going to use to buy your car and consume, then we’re going to force you to pay a little bit more in tax.
1:10:19 And maybe that results in, you get to borrow less cash than you had originally hoped.
1:10:21 Does that work for you?
1:10:22 Yeah, no, I like that.
1:10:25 And I mean, again, questions of structure, but it’s very sensible.
1:10:39 You know, when, of course you wish as a capitalist is that organically, somehow you built companies where the wealth, it expanded wealth at more strata of society.
1:10:57 Like it’s always, by the time you’re talking about redistribution, I’m already cringing a little bit, not to say that I’m against it at the end of the day, but you just wish that the economy itself was structured so that more workers got a bigger share of it.
1:11:14 And, but I don’t know, I mean, it seems like with technology, we have a very technologized economy and technology is set up to provide extreme rewards to a small number of people who own equity in a piece of intellectual property, basically.
1:11:26 And, and, and, and so it’s not, you know, that’s, I don’t, I don’t know how you get to the economy that is organically redistributive as it were, you know, that would be the dream.
1:11:33 Well, maybe the answer is that we need to just let the kids have it and let them spend it like idiots.
1:11:35 And that’s how you do it.
1:11:36 Yeah.
1:11:38 Maybe that’s the best we can do.
1:11:43 You know, we got to get into the limousine business and the helicopter business and the yacht business and all of that.
1:11:48 I’m telling you, you and me, Ed, we are going to sell it.
1:11:49 We’re getting into luxury goods business.
1:11:52 We’re giving up the podcasting game and we’re going into luxury goods.
1:11:53 I am very bullish.
1:11:57 Okay, Rob, let’s take a look at the week ahead.
1:12:00 We will see the minutes from the Fed’s May meeting.
1:12:03 Also see the monthly U.S. federal budget.
1:12:08 Rob, this is the moment in the show where I ask Scott if he has a prediction.
1:12:15 Do you have a prediction that you would like to share as we wrap up this show?
1:12:23 I’ve already made one, which is that life back at the 2% inflation target is over for the foreseeable.
1:12:31 I will actually take the other side of your luxury goods trade.
1:12:36 I think the luxury industry has pushed their luck a little far.
1:12:39 And, you know, I look at the luxury industry quite a bit at the FT.
1:12:42 We have the big I go to the big FT luxury conference every year.
1:12:44 And this was actually a topic of conversation there.
1:12:47 Like, have we pushed prices too far?
1:12:50 And the industry is really reckoning with that.
1:12:51 Have we gone?
1:12:52 Are we too vulgar now?
1:13:00 And I actually think maybe the Bezos wedding in Venice was like the conspicuous spending peak.
1:13:06 And now people are like, ew, we’ve got to try something else.
1:13:07 So I don’t know.
1:13:11 I’m going to predict that there’s reconsolidation in the luxury industry.
1:13:12 I like that take.
1:13:19 I would only amend that the question is, was Bezos’s wedding true luxury?
1:13:30 Was the leopard print, skin-tight dress trend, the Dolce & Gabbana dress, is that luxury?
1:13:36 Or are we going to see like a rise of the lower pianos and the more tasteful, elegant sense of luxury?
1:13:44 Like three years ago, everything you would read in the style section of the FT was about quiet luxury.
1:13:44 Quiet luxury.
1:13:45 Yeah, yeah.
1:13:48 And that trend seems to have stopped for now.
1:13:49 But I think it’s coming back.
1:13:50 It’s coming roaring back.
1:13:50 Okay.
1:13:51 Coming roaring back.
1:13:52 Yeah.
1:13:52 Quietly.
1:13:54 Rob, this was wonderful.
1:13:59 I think Scott is going to get a little anxious, is my guess.
1:14:00 Yeah, man.
1:14:03 Yeah, maybe he’s the one who’s going to be unemployed.
1:14:04 Good luck to him.
1:14:06 That’ll show him.
1:14:07 That’ll show him.
1:14:08 Rob, thank you.
1:14:09 Thank you so much.
1:14:12 And let’s direct, or listen to some of your stuff.
1:14:16 Unhedged newsletter in the FT.
1:14:18 Unbelievable newsletter.
1:14:19 I highly recommend it.
1:14:22 And you also have your podcast, Unhedged.
1:14:24 The Unhedged podcast, twice a week.
1:14:25 That’s free.
1:14:29 You can find it wherever you find your podcast content.
1:14:30 Rob, thank you so much.
1:14:31 This was a lot of fun.
1:14:34 And I can’t wait to have you back again soon.
1:14:36 It’s always fun being on the show.
1:14:42 This episode was produced by Claire Miller and engineered by Benjamin Spencer.
1:14:45 Our associate producer is Alison Weiss.
1:14:47 Mia Silverio is our research lead.
1:14:50 Isabella Kinsel and Dan Shallan are our research associates.
1:14:52 Drew Burrows is our technical director.
1:14:55 And Catherine Dillon is our executive producer.
1:14:59 Thank you for listening to Prof G Markets from the Vox Media Podcast Network.
1:15:02 Tune in tomorrow for a fresh take on the markets.
1:15:02 Tune in tomorrow for a fresh take on the markets.
1:15:08 Lifetimes
1:15:13 Tune in tomorrow for a fresh take on the markets.
1:15:14 You help me
1:15:20 In kind reunion
1:15:26 As the world turns
1:15:33 And the dark flies
1:15:36 In love, love, love, love