The Economy, the Media, and Fatherhood — with Kai Ryssdal

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Hi, everyone.

I'm Kara Swisher.

And I'm Scott Galloway.

And Scott, we're dropping an episode of the Prof G-Pod in our feed today while we're out for the holiday.

It's your episode with Kai Risdahl, who I love.

He's the host and senior editor of Marketplace.

Tell us a bit about it, Scott.

Kai Risdahl is a role model for me, no joke.

I'm thinking a lot about masculinity, and this is individuals who demonstrate strength, service to country, protect others,

have great relationships as a spouse and a father, and are ballers professionally.

And Kai is all of those.

He served in the Navy for eight years.

He's outstanding at what he does.

And so I was just thrilled to have Anson Risdahl on the pod.

He's a great guy.

I love Kai.

He's terrific.

What are you doing for your holiday?

I have a holiday coming out.

You mean August?

Yep, Fourth of July.

No, not the Scott-free August.

It's 4th of July.

This is dropping on the 4th of July.

I'm in Europe.

I don't think we celebrate 4th of July.

What am I doing?

Oh, I'm going to be in Mykinos.

Well, I will be up at a parade in a little town in Vermont.

They have tractors go through town.

It's called Peacham, Vermont.

I'll be in Peacham, Vermont, watching the tractors roll.

Very American.

I'm going to suggest that we're going to have...

Very different July 4th, although we both will see fireworks, but mine will be hallucinogen-induced.

Oh, right.

You're going to see colors in the sky, but yours will be be incendiaries celebrating our independence.

Yes.

Anyway, we hope you enjoy your Fourth of July, and we hope you enjoy the show with Scott and Kai Risdahl.

And Scott and I will be back on Friday.

Episode 255.

255 is the country code for Tanzania.

In 1955, the Walt Disney Company opened its first theme park, Disneyland in Anaheim, California, and the first safe and effective polio vaccine was developed.

I had real concerns around the side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine.

And then and then I pulled my head out of my ass.

Not really a joke.

Go, go, go!

Welcome to the 255th episode of the Prov GPod.

In today's episode, we speak with Kai Rizdahl, the host and senior editor of Marketplace.

I am thinking a lot recently about masculinity and role models for a modern form of masculinity, which is desperately needed.

Why?

Because the left refused to acknowledge the strain, stress, and disadvantages and obstacles that young men are facing because it's not politically correct to advocate for men because that somehow meant that you were, it was a zero-sum game and you weren't compassionate about the struggles that women have and still do face.

But into that void, into that

cowardice around our ability to talk about the group that has fallen further fastest in America over the last 20 years, slipped in some really ugly shit.

The Andrew Tates of the world, that in order to pimp the ridiculous crypto universities that make Trump University look like fucking MIT, you know, the most dangerous thing about some of these quote-unquote advocates for men is that a lot of their content starts out reasonable.

Be in great shape.

Be action-oriented.

Take control of the situation.

These are great things.

And then it comes off the rails, and it's about power.

It's about exerting power specifically over women and positioning women as the enemy.

And

I'd like to think, actually, I don't like to think, I know a lot of young men listen to this podcast.

This is when you know you have lost the script, when you start blaming women for your shortcomings and the challenges facing you.

That is when you know you have totally lost.

But into that void slip some very unfortunate narratives.

And it has caught fire among young men who are looking to feel good about themselves, looking for an excuse, excuse, looking for someone such that they felt seen.

And what we need to do is take back that dialogue.

Anyways, a very long-winded way of saying, okay, part of that is role models that we want to look to.

And I have several and I'm writing about them, but one of them for me is Kai Risdahl.

Why?

Why?

First, served his country for eight years.

After getting a college degree, he was a lieutenant, I think an ensign.

I don't know what it's called in the Navy.

I think it's lieutenant.

And served in the Navy for eight years.

I think anyone who serves in the Navy and protects our shores for for eight years can rightfully say that they are working in the agency of something bigger than themselves.

It means they're in great shape, by the way.

Do you realize that supposedly two-thirds of young American men and women do not qualify for the armed services because they are emotionally and physically unviable?

They are not in good enough shape.

They are not mature enough.

They are not mentally strong to join the service.

So what does it say?

It says you're in great shape.

It says you are disciplined.

It means that you nod your head, you tip your hat to the people who have fought, made sacrifice.

And I'm not just talking about died.

I'm talking about people who leave their families for six months at a clip, people who give up much bigger earning jobs to serve in the agency of their country.

So Lieutenant Risdahl was in the Navy for eight years.

He then went on to demonstrate incredible excellence.

I think he is one of the premier voices.

in radio.

And I like the fact that he's courageous, that he will, you know, he's largely seen because he works with NPR NPR as seen as automatically.

People think he's going to be a liberal.

He's not afraid to call out bullshit on the left and on the right.

And he's outstanding at what he does.

All of those things add up to one thing, one thing.

Actually, add up to several things.

But one of the things they add up to is masculinity.

And this is the kind of role model we need.

Anyway, anyway, wasn't expecting to go there.

What's happening?

The dog is in Cannes.

Gan.

I'm in Cannes for the Cannes Lions Creativity Festival, or what I refer to as the Which Advertising Sucks Least awards, where you go to parties.

How do you tell the difference between a party being thrown by an old media company and a new media company?

The basic theme of the old media company parties is, we're still relevant.

We matter.

Let's give awards to each other.

And what's the theme and kind of the banter, the tone at Meta or Google Beach?

We're your partners.

We're your partners.

We care.

God, I'm in a bad mood today.

I'm angry.

How can I be angry?

I'm at the Hotel DuCap.

You know why I'm angry?

I promised, I promised all my listeners on Pivot that I would bring back video of hot men releasing falcons to kill seagulls because they used to do that here.

And what do they have here now?

They have ceramic owls.

Ceramic owls.

I feel ripped off.

I feel ripped off.

At least 2,700 of that 2,800 euros I am paying a night here was to see a falcon instinctively rip apart a seagull.

That is worth 2,700 or the 2,800.

So I expect to just pay 100 euros tonight, or maybe I should pull an Elon Musk.

Maybe I shouldn't just, maybe I should just not pay my bill.

Do you realize there's no Twitter beach this year?

I've been coming here about eight, nine years in a row, and there's always a Twitter beach because they're like, we're relevant.

We're one of the big guys.

There's no Twitter beach this year.

You know why?

Because he doesn't pay his bills.

That's right.

The world's wealthiest man.

And now the president or the former president don't pay their bills.

Is that an example of masculinity?

Is that how you demonstrate strengths?

You bully people weaker than you.

You You don't pay your vendors to pay your failed casinos, or you don't pay people who work for you.

Anyways, I love it here.

Why do I love it?

Why do I love it?

If I were just going to come to Cannes, I wouldn't.

As a vacation spot, I think out of 10, it's maybe a seven.

In terms of a conference, I like it.

I don't love it.

I think on a scale of one to 10, it's kind of a seven, too.

But the peanut butter and the chocolate of a very good conference and a very nice place to vacation,

boom.

Daddy is trying foie gras and drinking rosé.

And the greatest hotel in the world, in my view, is the Hotel DuCap.

It just reeks of European elegance.

I absolutely love it here.

I don't know the themes yet, though.

There's always kind of a theme.

I think this might be the year, actually, that Snap, if I were to make one prediction, it's that Snap is going to come back.

I've spent some time with the Snap executives here.

They've replaced a bunch of people.

It feels like they're getting a bunch of really impressive people.

The former CEO of Whedon Wyden-Kennedy, Whedon-Wyden, Wyden, I don't know, the formerly relevant advertising agency, Wyden Kennedy.

She's super smart.

I think she's their new CMO.

I met all these country managers that seemed really on the ball.

I like Evan Spiegel.

And

their success this year won't be something that's their fault.

Their success is going to be driven by the decline of TikTok.

As TikTok gets closer and closer to a ban, it faces more and more scrutiny and gets diverted.

And probably at some point, that's got to hurt execution.

And there's a decent chance they, in fact, might be kicked out of the U.S.

if they don't spin it.

Who's going to benefit the most from that?

First and foremost, probably Meta Reels, and we're already seeing that.

I think Reels is already kind of killing it, notched up.

And by the way, oh my God, Facebook, what's it up?

2.5, 3x in the last six or eight months?

I think Snap's about to get the same dead TikTok bounce, if you will, in the rest of 2023.

Anyways,

that's sort of a prediction.

But it is wonderful to be here.

Okay, let's talk about something a little bit more substantive.

Rashir Sharma, who is the head of Rockefeller Capital Management, has been tracking Forbes' annual list of billionaires over the past few years and noted that the number of global billionaires has increased five-fold over the past two decades.

Think about that.

According to Sharma's research for the Financial Times, there are now more than 2,500 billionaires worth over $12 trillion.

That's up from 500 billionaires worth a total of less than $1 trillion in 2000.

Think about that.

The number of trillionaires is up five-fold over the last 20 years.

That is just, that is just staggering.

Billionaire wealth in the U.S.

represents 18% of GDP.

Think about a small, a tiny group of people represents 18% of GDP, up from 15%

just five years ago.

In France, for example, billionaire wealth is increasing faster than in any other developed country and has nearly doubled over the past five years, so 21% of GDP.

Inherited wealth accounts for 85% of the country's billionaire wealth, which is twice the global average.

In some, they're big on dynasties here.

They look down on new money.

You're not supposed to make money, you're supposed to inherit it.

Well, at some point, someone's got to make it, I guess.

In terms of billionaire wealth to GDP percentage, Switzerland leads at 25%.

Think about that.

One quarter of the GDP stems from, or it could be equivalent to the number of billionaires.

Japan is the least.

Why?

Why?

Because Japan believes in a progressive tax structure.

The U.K.

is second at the bottom.

And then at the top is France, Sweden, and Switzerland.

And the U.S.

is just behind France, Sweden, and Switzerland.

What's going on here?

Some of it is a function of our networked global economy.

If you're in the top 1% of what you do, you're just great at what you do, or really we're talking about the top 0.1%, maybe even the top 0.01% in terms of talent and capital.

You now have access to global markets.

So if you made the best widget, you no longer just had a $25 trillion economy you were selling into the U.S.

You're selling into a $200 trillion economy or $150 trillion economy, which is

the entire world.

We now have trade barriers have come down dramatically, and the best has a much broader market.

What does that mean?

It means second best or mediocre that doesn't have some sort of geographic advantage or relationship advantage gets crushed, right?

So

the top performers are aggregating more and more wealth.

This does grow the economy because we become more productive.

If we're buying the best stuff, it raises competition.

Things are more productive.

You get more for less.

So on the whole, it's good for the economy.

It leaves a lot of people behind.

The question is, do we have prosperity?

Yes.

But do we have progress?

That's a tougher question to answer because we're not very good at reinvesting in the people who get outsourced in a global economy.

But more than anything, more than anything, the argument I just made is the go-to for Republicans and wealthy people and the incumbents as to why they're just killing it and so much more money at the very top.

The primary reason is that government has been weaponized and is able to engage in massive tax avoidance.

The way you can dance between the raindrops if you don't have a U.S.

passport once you get really wealthy and can avoid incredibly sophisticated people to tell you where to live, what passports to have, how to file your taxes, how to hide your income offshore is absolutely staggering.

In sum, tax rates pretty much globally are progressive until you get to the 98th or the 99th percentile, and then they absolutely plummet.

Typically, when we get to these levels of income inequality, the good news is that these levels self-correct.

The bad news is the means of self-correction are usually war, famine, or revolution.

And there's different types of revolution.

I think some of the social justice movements and some of the things that have happened over the last 10 years are based on righteous causes, but they go after wealthy people specifically because it's a form of revolution.

And that is, people are just sick of wealthy people abusing the Commonwealth.

Anyways, massive, massive income inequality, but it's not just a U.S.

problem, and tax avoidance is not just a U.S.

problem.

The U.S.

is sort of leading it, I would argue.

Maybe there are certain countries in Europe, our tax code's gone from 400 pages to 4,000.

And what do you know?

What do you know?

The Republicans are angry about the debt ceiling limit.

They want to be responsible.

So, what do they agree to to get it done?

What do the Democrats agree to?

They cut $20 billion from the $80 billion in incremental IRS spending, which, by the way, every dollar, incremental dollar that goes to the IRS raises $12.

And why?

Who gets off the hook here?

Rich people.

Because guess who's really expensive to audit?

Because their tax returns are so fucking complicated.

See above, rich people.

So every dollar, every dollar in IRS funding that we decrease, that we take away from the IRS is nothing but a transfer of wealth from the poor and the middle class to the rich because somebody's got to pay for our Navy and it's either going to be our kids or our grandkids in the form of debt or taxes on the lower and middle class that can't engage in the massive tax avoidance.

Anyways, back in the spring of 2022, President Biden proposed a billionaire minimum tax.

He wants Congress to pass a law that would require the wealthiest American households to pay a minimum of 20% on all their income, including unrealized investment income that currently is on tax.

According to the White House, the Uber wealthy pay just 8%

of their total realized and unrealized income in taxes.

Now,

there's a part of this I don't like.

This is sort of a wealth tax.

And I'm not sure I'm down with a wealth tax, only because the wealthy are the most mobile people in the world, and they might in fact decide to move and turn in their passports.

And I'm not sure if someone's willing to hold on to a stock, should they have to pay taxes on it or just when it's realized?

Right now, our tax system is based on when you realize the gain.

Now, that does have some perverse effects.

In New York, all those medium-rised buildings below 14th Street are owned by a small number of families that live in Long Island.

And all they do is invest in these buildings and then sell them into a 1031 exchange and roll it tax-free into another building.

So all of their wealth aggregates tax deferred.

They never pay taxes on it.

And then they just put it in a trust and will it on to their children.

And Uncle Sam never participates or never gets any revenue from this literally billions of dollars of increase in value of this real estate in lower Manhattan.

We have decided for some reason that money is much more noble, much more righteous than sweat.

We let money compound tax deferred, but sweat gets taxed between 10 and 50 percent a year.

We've decided that the working man or woman isn't as less noble, that we want them to figure out a way to have investment income.

And you can see why the tax advantage made sense at one point.

We need more capital to fund big, bold projects and encourage people to take risks.

But here's the thing.

It's gone way too far.

It's gone way too far.

People who are working, you know, if you were to bifurcate the tale of two cities in America, who's doing really well, who's struggling, would it be young versus old?

Would it be rich versus poor?

I think think you could fairly accurately distill the tale of two cities that is America into the following groups.

People who make their money for money and people who make their money from sweat, from sweat.

20% minimum tax on billionaires is arguably not enough.

We need 23% of GDP to operate the Navy and our national parks so we're going to have a minimum that's lower than what the average tax rate should be across America.

And here's the thing.

Here's the thing.

It's not tax rates.

We're focused on the wrong thing, and they want us focused on the wrong thing.

So we don't focus on what's actually going on here.

It's not about tax rates.

It's about the tax code.

It's about the code.

23% of GDP goes to run the government.

We fund some of it with debt.

So say we need 21 cents on the dollar.

That means on average, we need a 21% tax rate.

What if you charged corporations a 30% tax rate?

Not terrible, folks.

It was 92% at the end of World War II.

Under Carter, it was 60 or 70%.

I think that's too high.

But let's say if you make over $1 million a year as an individual, you're killing it, and/or you're a corporation making over $1 million in profit.

We're going to tax you at 30%.

You can still do really well paying a 30% tax rate.

That means everyone else, everyone else would have to pay somewhere between 12 and 15%.

Raise your hand if you would be down with a 12 to 15 percent tax rate for the majority of small businesses and the vast majority, i.e., 99 percent of Americans.

We don't need higher taxes.

We need to enforce the tax rates we have.

In some, in some, we have tremendous prosperity, but we don't have progress because we don't believe in a progressive tax system.

We need to elect people that will say America is about a few things: it's about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but it's also

about a progressive tax structure.

It's also about muscle.

We need to fall back in love with muscle, with sweat, with work.

Let's fall back in love with muscle.

We'll be right back for our conversation with Kai Rizdahl.

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Welcome back.

Here's our conversation with Kai Risdahl, the host and senior editor of Marketplace.

Kai, where does this podcast find you?

I'm in a shed attached to my garage here at home.

Nice.

Is this where you do

day job?

No, the engineers make me get out of the studio so we can actually have reliable connectivity.

So, you know, I get down to the studio every day, but otherwise I'm here.

Nice.

So let's bust right into it.

Walk us through how you've been thinking about recent Fed movement.

And we have inflation on the one end, credit crisis on the other end.

What do you make of all this?

I think a couple of things.

First of all,

the Fed is now between a rock and a hard place because they've been doing this for a year and a half.

And the labor market has said, hey, screw you.

We don't care.

We're still going to to stay at 3.7 percent unemployment.

We had a little banking spasm in March and April, which Janet Yellen actually said was worse than anybody thought.

Thanks, Madam Secretary.

But that seems to, you know, to quote Powell, there seems to have been a line drawn under the worst of it, so maybe that's true.

And now we're seeing actually inflation over the past 12 months come down pretty substantially.

So as Raphael Bustik said, president of the Atlanta Fed, to name drop another couple of people, now the hard part starts, right?

Because they're going to keep rates high until inflation gets to 2 percent.

The question is, can they ever?

And the answer is, I don't know.

And it feels as if we've been one month away from a recession for 18 months.

In terms of the economic indicators you look at, what are your thoughts?

I look first and foremost at the labor market, also wages.

But look, I don't understand how we get a recession in an economy that's adding 339,000 jobs last month, where growth is still 1.s3%, I guess it was, where consumers, despite all the headwinds, are still spending money.

Yes, drawing down savings, but they're spending money.

And I don't understand how you get from here to there.

And look, you can look at like tech layoffs, if you've talked about a bunch of times.

You look at tech layoffs and everybody says, oh my God, technology companies are laying off all these tens of thousands of people.

And yes, they are.

But you know why they are?

Because they hired all these tens of thousands of people excessively in the throes of the pandemic.

And now they're just right-sizing, which, look, it sounds like a callous thing to say, but that's literally what they're doing.

They're shedding the excess from the pandemic when they don't need it anymore.

And now we're going from there.

But if you look at other indicators, if you look at jobs, if you look at wages, if you look at consumers, I don't know how you get to a recession from where we are right now.

The CEO of Apollo had an interesting view on it.

He called it, we might be in for the non-recession recession, and that is that wages and employment remain strong, retail sales remain strong, but asset values come down, that so much of asset value prices are now dictated by the top 1% that with a spike in interest rates, you might see the price of real estate, the stock market come down, but that the real economy remains fairly solid.

Aaron Powell, Jr.: Yeah, the real economy is robust.

And look, asset prices could afford to come down a little bit, right?

I mean, you know, the major indicators are now in a bull market.

Let's not put those identifiers on it.

That's sort of a fallacy anyway.

But they've been high for, relatively speaking, for a very long time, and they could use a little air coming out of them.

And consumers, you know, you can talk about economic headlines as much as you want and pick your indicator.

But as long as consumers are spending and as long as they have jobs, which they do, there are still openings and you can get a job if you want one in this economy.

It's really tough to see this being a hard recession.

Look, yes, I know we've never really successfully, except for that one time in 94, engineered a soft landing.

But maybe, maybe, maybe this time is different.

As we've talked about on Marketplace for three years now, Everything has changed.

Everything has changed, right?

Where I'm in a shed attached to my garage talking to you who's God knows where because you don't have to go into an office.

And if you don't want to, you don't have to, right?

I mean, I've got a 25-year-old son who said to me the other day, Dad, I am never going to go to work for a company where they make me go to work five days a week in the office.

And that's the reality, right?

And that's where we have to go from here.

This is now the baseline.

Let's adjust.

What are some of the market stories that you've been thinking about that you don't think have gotten the sunlight they deserve?

Well, look, let's set aside AI for a minute because

we just don't freaking know what's going to happen with AI.

And look, I know you're a big fan.

I am scared and dubious and a little bit excited.

But otherwise, look, I think you have to look at things like transportation, that, and as the supply chain snafus come undone, there's a boom to be had there.

And I think, honestly, the fortunes of tech going forward in this new environment, right?

How they function minus these excess people that they've shed as we all now keep turning to technology.

And you can, you know, buy yourself a pair of Apple $3,500 visors, whatever the hell they're called, if you've got the $3,500 and you can figure out what to do with it.

But look, technology is the future.

And it has been for decades, and we're going to keep on going that way.

And so you said something that you're a little bit dubious or scared of AI.

What are your thoughts?

Expand on your thoughts on AI.

We are not ready for what it can do.

First of all, all, it's come so fast, right?

Technology obviously moves faster than human beings can calculate.

But like yesterday, there weren't a thousand people in this country who could spell AI, you know?

And now my daughter doing chemistry homework is searching for help with, well, she was.

And if you're her chemistry teacher, don't listen to this, on ChatGPT, you know?

And also, oh, by the way, it was wrong.

It was giving her the wrong answers.

And that's part two, right?

We, the human species, are not sophisticated enough critical thinkers to be able to look at this amazing tool and not go, wow, this is incredible.

Instead of, wow, this is incredible, but.

And what do you...

So is this the technology?

If you look at

you spend a lot of time, I think of you're the...

Andrew Ross, what he is to television, you are to radio.

That's very flattering.

I appreciate that.

Remind me of each other.

Which technologies or which companies do you think are best and worst positioned in tech?

You know, the answer is I don't know, right?

Because I try to look at the economy as a whole and as a consumer, and I don't look at specific companies like you do and like Andrew does, right?

Andrew's much more laser-focused than I am.

I will offer you this.

I think what we have to do now is think about AI as it affects professions and industries.

Mine, for instance, at some peril.

You could probably go out now and find a chat GBD that sounds like me, has the attitude that I have, has the syncopation and delivery that I have.

And if my bosses could figure this out, I'd be out of a job tomorrow, right?

I think honestly, people who add value in this economy, arguably people like you, right, with thoughts and critical thinking and skills, not to, you know, blow smoke, but that's your stock in trade.

And as long as human beings can do that better than AI, then I think we're going to be fine.

The trades,

I just had $1,500 worth of plumbing done on my house, which is a long, long story.

But we need people who can turn wrenches and drive trucks until automatic trucks get here, right?

We need all of those things that people can do with their hands.

And so maybe they will finally have a boom in this economy as knowledge workers suffer and are challenged.

So you're in the media.

I just want to, I'd love to get your thoughts.

And the simplest way to ask the question is CNN question mark.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

So look, I actually feel for the journalists at CNN who,

and look, I've been critical of a lot of their coverage, but they work hard, they believe in what they do, and they have pride in their product.

And the last 18 months, well, two years, ever since the Zucker thing and the Andrew Cuomo thing, have been really tough for them.

And so I sympathize for them.

That said, their industry is in a secular decline, right?

It's just going away as technology changes and CNN is going to have to go over the top as opposed to being part of the cable package and then the revenue is going to decline.

Media writ large,

look, I think those of us who can add context and

perspective in addition to the raw information, right?

Because you can get a news story from AI today with some layers of sophistication in it, but I don't think you can get necessarily

the context that I give or that Andrew gives on the mornings on CNBC and the experience in a way that's going to be meaningful for people.

And then, of course, you have to factor in social media, right?

You have to think about things like Twitter and all the others that are trying to grow up out there.

And I don't know.

I think probably Twitter has dealt a deathblow to the idea of news by social media because Elon Musk has done whatever the hell he's doing with that platform.

And so now all of us who have profiles and audiences on Twitter are using it less.

I don't have the time or the energy to build up another social media platform, right?

It takes, I mean, you know, my followers, however many of them there are, it took me me 13 years to build that up.

And I don't have the time or the oomph right now to go back and do that again.

You have accounts on Twitter, Mastodon, and Post News.

Neither Mastodon nor Post News have really registered with you.

I switched over because everybody was switching over.

And look, this is a failing of mine, right?

In

hanging on till the last gasp.

I really, when it was great, I enjoyed Twitter.

I had a good time.

The interactions, the serendipitous discoveries.

I've got a zillion people in media and elsewhere who I now call my Twitter buddies.

And I have interactions with them, even though I've never met, we've never spoken on the phone, couldn't pick them out of a crowd if their avatar is not actually their picture.

But I really enjoyed it.

And what came clear to me when I did the blue sky thing and I did the Mastodon thing, and I think I have an account on post, but I'm not really sure, is that it just takes time and energy.

And I've got other things in my life I need to concentrate on right now.

And

when you think about podcasting or shifts in streaming and you think about,

I mean, you've got a brand and you've got a following.

If you could just have like shake your channels and your presence on a Netcha sketch, where would you devote most of your time?

Do you think it's do you think it's would you want a big TikTok following?

Would you want to double down on podcasts, radio, linear radio?

What is your thought about the media landscape as it relates to trying to build a following?

Look, I love linear radio, but let me back up to TikTok for a minute.

I don't have mental energy for the scrolling of TikTok and the scrolling of Instagram reels and all the rest of them.

It just, it's such a time suck.

And look, there are great serendipitous discoveries to be had there as well and recipes and

whatever.

I just don't have the gas for that because it just saps me.

Look, linear radio, I love linear radio.

Linear radio made me what I am today in terms of brand and presence and name as far as that goes.

As I say to people when they say, oh, you're such a star, I'm like, I'm a reasonably big fish in a sort of small-ish public radio pond, right?

But that's not the way of the future, right?

People in COVID stopped driving in their cars and Linear Radio's audience went down and it's questionable as to whether or not we're ever going to recover.

The future, obviously, is podcasts.

The challenge, of course, is that there are too many.

But if I could do the extra sketch, I'd find long-form podcasts on subjects that I'm interested in.

And I would do those as long as I feel like working, which, you know, another 15-ish years, probably, probably, right?

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Do you have any thoughts or predictions about the

upcoming election?

Well, you know, it's funny.

I honestly thought, and actually I predicted this to Carol when I sat in for you on pivot when you were off doing whatever the hell you were doing.

I thought, and this was probably six or eight months ago, that Biden was going to take

the better counsel

and not run again.

He would say, look, I have done what I promised to do.

I've restored respectability for the United States.

I've restored confidence in government.

My job here is done.

It's time for somebody else.

He obviously didn't do that.

And now this 2024 election is fraught for a whole bunch of reasons that have nothing to do with who the Republican candidate is going to be, right?

The man's going to be 86 years old at the end of his second term.

And this one actually is on the Democratic politicians in this country, right?

That nobody has the guts to say, he's too old.

I mean, look, yes, he's mentally sharp.

And yes, he negotiated with Kevin Kevin McCarthy.

And yes, he won, air quotes, the debt limit negotiation, but he's old.

He has the stamina of an older person, right?

Read his schedule.

That's a real challenge.

So, so

my prediction for the 2024 election is it's going to be about a whole bunch of things that are not policy.

Yes, there will be Biden and the role of government in this economy and infrastructure and build and jobs.

And maybe it'll be Trump and American carnage.

I don't know.

But we're going to be talking about age, and we're going to be talking about the vice president, and we're going to be talking about a bunch of things that I don't believe this country is best served by.

Yeah,

I think the Republicans are basically going to try and run against Vice President Harris and try and convince people that it's really, that she's going to be the president.

So

do you think that,

well, I'll put forward a thesis that on the left, we're so worried about being an ageist that we ignore the fact that biology is ageist.

And, you know, it feels to me that at the age of whatever it is now, 81 or 82, there's a good chance the next 15 months, you could get very sick or die.

It's just, you know, when your parents get to this age, it's touch and go on anytime anything happens.

And it strikes me that sometimes on the left, we're so worried about being empathetic and progressive that we just create an enormous opening for the Republicans to run through.

And I'm not classifying you as Democratic or Republican, but

any thoughts?

Sure.

My thought is that Democrats bring a knife to a gunfight every single time.

Every single time.

Say more.

Well, look,

okay, let me frame it a different way.

When Trump was in the White House and he would do whatever it was,

I would be generally appalled

on what he was doing, specifically with the economy, right?

Because that's my beat.

And he demonstrated that he didn't really understand the economy and how it works.

But then you'd see folks, whether in the commentariat or on Twitter or on whatever, saying, well, Democrats ought to do the same thing.

And we ought to, you know, not adhere to the norms and we ought to do whatever.

And I said for a long time,

if you want the norms to be upheld, you have to uphold the norms, right?

If you want a president to do X, Y, and Z, because that's what we always do, then you can't actually, because the other guy is doing something, do whatever you want.

And I think the challenge for Democrats now is that all of that is off the table, that the political dialogue in this country has become so barbed and so

base

that there is no room for nuance.

This isn't necessarily new.

There is no room for nuance, and there is no tolerance for trying to have a reasoned discussion.

And so what happens is the Democrats try to have a reasoned discussion and Republicans steamroll them every single time.

Yeah, it definitely feels as if

if the U.S.

was a horror movie, the call is coming from inside of the house.

There's such a lack of trust or civility.

So let me ask you this.

Sorry, I know it's your podcast, but I respect you as a thoughtful person.

There is no trust and there is no civility.

And I will say parenthetically, this is sort of a self-serving question because I'm working on ginning up a speech that I can start giving to people in groups and high schools about restoring trust and public service

and what it means to be a part of this country that we call America.

What do you think the solution is for the lack of trust and mutual respect that we have right now?

It's Lieutenant Kai Risdahl.

You were a lieutenant, weren't you?

I was.

I think social service.

I think mandatory national service.

I back a lot of Israeli companies, and I found that the founders met each other.

in the army, they met their spouses in the army, and they see themselves as Israelis before conservative

or progressives.

And when I think of the great legislation in the 60s and 70s, I think it's because the people we elected, granted, you know, men, white men, so there's some problems there, but they'd served in the same uniform and they saw themselves as Americans.

And then also a reverence for the truth that we got to get back to the closest thing we have to the truth, and that is

data and science.

And that, you know, if someone can convince you to believe absurdities, they can convince you to commit atrocities.

So the first place I would start is national service.

And I'll put the question back to you.

What are your thoughts on national service and how serving your country impacted your view of the world?

Oh, look, my military service made me what I am today.

It lasts to this day in me.

I believe strongly in mandatory national service.

For a while, I thought it was mandatory military service, but I don't actually think it has to be that anymore because we're not in that place.

And look, I've got a whole riff on whether we would have been in Afghanistan if members of Congress's children could have been drafted.

But that's a whole different thing.

We have no common experience.

We have no mutual understanding of

events

and experiences that make us what we are.

And look, the greatest generation is a horribly overwrought phrase, but they had something that I don't think we've had in this country for a very long time.

And you could say, well, there was a draft in Vietnam, and look at how that worked out.

And I would argue that what happened in Vietnam in terms of national unity and

cohesion was, number one, the result of the government lying to us.

But number two, as a result of that, the home front became completely fractured.

And so there is a way, I don't know what it is yet, but I'm working on it,

to reestablish this common understanding of what it means to be a responsible member.

of this representative democracy.

And I should tell you, you know, so I've got four kids, one of whom listens to this podcast and

who I'm sure we'll hear about this from.

But my second son, I don't believe listens.

But he and I have been going round and round for a couple of years on this idea of a responsibility to what it is that this country has given us.

Sorry, this podcast took a whole different turn, but whatever.

He does not see it my way.

And I was trying to, we were out to brunch as a family a year or so ago in Westwood, and it was just not long after the Russian invasion.

And I tried to explain to him why it matters to the United States that Vladimir Putin is doing what he is trying to do to the Ukrainians and why it matters that we stand with them in their defense.

And he basically said, Dad, why is this my problem?

And I said, basically, literally in these words, because freedom isn't free.

And then I said, oh my God, think of a better line.

But it's not without controversy, this idea, even in my own family, but it's something I believe strongly.

Yeah, I mean, it's a multi-dimensional problem, or with no silver bullet, but national service, I also think the social media algorithms that pit us against each other have convinced us, and your son, to a certain extent, that's an adjacent indication of it.

People think their neighbor who's the different political party is the enemy, not Russians pouring over the border in Ukraine.

And we've got to get back to this basic truth that Americans will never have greater allies than other Americans.

I think that's a big problem.

Income inequality.

My God.

I look at what's happening in L.A.

I mean, that's a whole other ball of wax.

But you're a dad, four kids.

I'd love to get your advice on what you've learned, notes on being a dad, what you would do differently, what you would do again.

My kids and my family are my whole life.

I mean, yes, I have a rewarding career and yes, I enjoy it.

as I said, I'm a big-ish fish in a small public radio pond, but my family and my kids and my wife are my whole life.

The thing that's become clear to me as I've gotten older and as the kids have aged, right?

My oldest is 25, my youngest is 16, is that it's work.

It's work.

It's so much work.

And it's not the hard, exhausting work of when they were young and you had to entertain them and help them put their shoes on and make sure they had their backpacks for school and all of that.

As they get older, and full credit for this goes to my wife, because when I was growing up and as I got older and left the house, I have a younger brother, but they were just the two of us.

My parents very much intentionally, I think, stayed out of my way and didn't try to.

She's not going to listen to this, so I can say this.

I don't think my mother's, my parents are still alive.

My father passed away.

They did not try to actively be a part of my life.

And as a result of that, 40 years after I left the house, you know, I keep in touch, but we don't have a strong family bond.

My wife, on the other hand, came from a close-knit family, close-knit, extended family.

They go out of their way for each other.

And she has made me see, especially as the kids get older, that you have to put in the work.

You have to put in the work.

Don't helicopter parent and don't, you know, nag in this and that, but stay in touch, be in contact, be better.

Because look, I was very present as a father and, you know, did the soccer dad and took Red Eyes to the East Coast so I could be around more for them, you know, when I had to travel and all of that.

But it takes work.

And I don't think

I didn't know that.

I didn't.

You strike me as someone who's very,

I don't know, feeling, wants a real intimate, deep relationship with your kids and your partner, and yet it doesn't sound like you had that growing up.

Where did that sense of

belonging and concern and care and intimacy, where did that come from?

How did that develop?

Look, I should be clear.

I have a loving relationship with my mother.

We're just not especially close.

But that's surprising.

I mean, everybody has an image of you on radio, and that

may or may not be the real you.

I would imagine someone like,

I'm not especially close to my father.

And it's because, quite frankly, he didn't make much of an effort with me.

And

that encouraged me.

I connected the dots or connected the non-connection of the dots pretty early and decided I didn't want that with my voice.

I wanted them to feel very close to me, so I was going to make the investment.

You know, that was hugely shaping for me.

When you spend time with your sons, like and you reflect on your past, what were the influences or kind of

so I'm when my kids were younger, I modeled myself after my dad.

My dad was very present in our lives growing up, but he was, you know, he's Norwegian, raised in the Lutheran church, didn't talk much, didn't share many feelings, but he was there.

He was physically there.

So that was my model for when my older boys were younger.

You know, by the time my third son and our daughter came along, it was

the older boys were older and you're doing different kinds of parentings for a 10-year-old as you are with a one-year-old.

But as they became teenagers,

the need to work at this became clear and that came from my wife.

That came from my wife.

And you know, it's funny because my wife is also going to listen to this, by the way.

And I think

she is the binding force in our family because of her upbringing and because of what she

experienced as a young person.

And now her interactions with her sisters and her mom and the extended family are super close.

But it takes effort.

You have to make the phone call.

You have to get on the plane.

You have to do all the events.

And even when there aren't events, you just go

and you say hi or whatever.

I will say that my guess would be, and it's not a guess, we've had this conversation.

I am in my interactions with people, I'm very much like my father, right?

I don't, unless I've got, interestingly, unless I've got a microphone in front of me, I don't share thoughts and feelings a lot.

And I know that frustrates her.

And I'm working on that.

You know, we've been married 27 something years.

But here's that word again.

It's work.

It's work, right?

You got to work.

Any other thoughts on being a good partner?

You got to talk more.

You got to talk more.

You got to.

All right.

So clearly, this is Kai's therapy podcast and his family background.

So

when I was a kid growing up and my dad, you know, we lived in suburban New York.

We lived up in Westchester.

My father got on the 605 train from

Scarborough, went down to Manhattan and took the train back in the evenings and was home about 6.15, 6.30, right?

And my mother literally greeted him at the top of the basement stairs with a martini.

But my father would come home

and

piss and moan about what had happened at the office and what terrible things his boss did and this guy and blah, blah, blah.

And I promised myself I was never going to be that because

I didn't enjoy, you know, I was a kid, but it just, it was like, wow, dad, what are you doing?

And as a result of that, I don't think I have in my adult life and with my wife, I really work at not pissing and moaning.

But that's the wrong answer, right?

That's the wrong answer because then you shut down part of yourself or a conversation, and that's not cool.

That's not good.

So we think a lot about masculinity or trying to shape a modern form of masculinity.

And I'm blowing smoke a little bit here, but it's true.

Serve your country.

You're in great shape.

I know you like to run, you know, good provider,

good family man, married for decades.

Do you have any thoughts about trying to what masculinity means in a modern age and how we how we shape a modern form of masculinity?

So my dad at some point,

maybe I was 16 or 17, we were having a conversation about growing up and getting older and going out into the world.

And he said, you know, Kai,

sometimes you just have to be gentle.

Just be gentle.

And I think, you know, masculinity, as we all know, can be really toxic and it can be dangerous and destructive.

And if

in a drive to

improve

American masculinity, we can all be,

we men can be more gentle, right?

There's something there.

Kai Risdahl is the host and senior editor of Marketplace, a popular American radio program that focuses on business economics and the financial markets, where he's been since 2005.

After graduating from college, Kai spent eight years in the United States Navy and later as a Pentagon staff officer.

After earning his master's degree, Kai joined the U.S.

Foreign Service serving in Ottawa, Canada, and Beijing, China.

He joins us from his home in Lakinada.

Kai, I mean this sincerely, you're a role model, mostly because you have a very handsome voice, but I just am,

I love your service.

I love your fearlessness.

I love how good at what you do are.

I really appreciate your time.

Thanks, God.

I appreciate it.

Algebra of happiness.

Are you a friend to your friends or are you a benefactor?

I was really moved by this story I read about kindness and generosity.

And it went something like this.

A mother in a very wealthy household used to, on a regular basis, ask neighbors who weren't as wealthy for flour or for salt.

And the kids said, I don't get it.

We have salt.

We have eggs.

Why are you doing this?

I said, well, they ask us for help occasionally, and I like them to feel like we're friends and it's a mutually beneficial relationship.

So occasionally I lean on them for stuff such that they feel like there's some equivalence in the relationship.

I thought that was so moving.

And it was also really informative for me.

I'm now at a point in my life where I have some influence, I have some money, and because I like to think of myself as strong and successful, I don't like to ask for anything with my friends.

I love to give.

Someone needs to borrow money.

I'm down with that.

Someone needs a ride somewhere.

Someone needs help with something.

Someone needs advice.

Someone needs help with their kid, a letter of recommendation, whatever it is, time with their.

I love, and I'm virtue signaling right now.

I love to give.

I am very uncomfortable.

asking people for help.

Why?

Why?

Because I'm a bit arrogant.

It's a manifestation of narcissism.

It's a manifestation of being self-centered, of insecurity, always wanting to feel like you're the strong one or

you're better than that person.

And

here's what a real friend does.

A real friend, if they want an intimate, close relationship with someone, asks that person for help on a regular basis.

Because this is what it comes down to.

It comes down to a question.

Amongst your friends, are you a friend or are you a benefactor?

And that is, are you reticent to ask people for help?

Do you not want equivalents in the relationship?

Do you want to feel superior to them?

Or do you want to be their friend?

Because friends want to help each other.

People don't want to feel like they're always leaning on you or they're always asking because you know what's going to happen?

Eventually they're going to stop asking and they're going to feel less close to you.

Good friends lean on each other.

They ask each other for help.

They ask each other for advice.

So are you one of the blessed people that's aggregated a certain amount of emotional, psychological, economic security, and people come to you for help?

Do you want to be friends with that person?

Then go out of your way to ask them for help.

They want to know that you need them.

They become invested in your success and

you become more intimate.

You become stronger friends.

And I'm going to do this because I read this thing and I realized I'm not being people's friends.

I'm being their benefactor because I want to feel strong and superior.

And that's bullshit.

I shouldn't be living that way.

I should be a friend to them.

I should be a a friend to them.

And when I need advice and when I could use help and there's so many things I don't know how to do or I don't know how to handle, you can't imagine how much it means to people when you reach out and you ask them for help.

When you reach out to someone and you ask them for help, what you're saying is, I think you're impressive.

I care about you and I trust you and I need your help.

Reach out to people.

Ask for help.

Be a friend, not a benefactor.

This episode was produced by Caroline Shagren.

Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer and Drew Burroughs is our technical director.

Thank you for listening to the Profit Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network.

We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice, as read by George Hahn, and on Monday with our weekly market show.

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Why do we want that that so badly?

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That's this month on Explain It to Me, presented by Pure Leaf.

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