Final Farewell and Fundraising Appeal

Okay, let's get real about healthcare for a second. I think we can all agree it doesn't always work the way it should. If you've ever waited on a prescription refill or had a hard time getting the care you needed, you know what I mean The system should just work better for everyone That's exactly what the people at Optum are trying to do every day. They're a healthcare company linking patient care and pharmacy services and using data and technology to drive the whole system. so care is connected. complicated. patients and providers. Things like making it easier to get care that looks at the whole person primary care doctors to mental health support and even in home care and then using technology to make sure they all work together. teechnology designed to help doctors spend less time on busy work and more time with their patients. And those prescriptions? OptM is bringing costs down, saving patients money and making it easier to get refills. Little by little, OptM is helping make healthcare work as one for everyone. Head to business. optim d. com to see how. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing OdU, the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all in one, fully integrated platform that makes your work easier from CRM, accounting, inventory, e commerce, and more. And the best part, OdU replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. This is why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you Try Odoo for free at Odoo. com That's OD oO d. com Hello everyone. I'm Kimberly Adams. Welcome back to Make me Smart, where none of us is as smart as all of us. Thank you for joining us, whether you're watching the YouTube live stream or listening to the podcast. Welcome to our Friday happappy hour episode, Economics on Tap And in case you missed it on yesterday's show, this will be my final economics on Tap as the host of Make Me smmart. In June, I'm stepping into a new role at Marketplace as the host of the Marketplace Morning Report. So today for our last hurrah, I've invited my predecessor, David Broncaccio to join me. You all know him as the longtim host of Marketplace Morning Report, but he's now a special correspondent for Marketplace. David, welcome to the show I am so honored to be here during your Swan broadcast. Well, it would not be much of a swwan broadcast without swwan drinks, I guess. Ccktails, mocktails, what you got? I've got it's pretty obvious actually, right? You sure the joke Okay. so no, but when I tell you what it is, this must be what everybody does every week.. This of course, given your status as in transition Yeah, this nice class where it's for Mary's grandmother Mary Bran Caccio. This, of course is A last word That's what this cocktail is, right? That's what you'd have to have. this evening. I've been squeezing limes. I had some You know, I had all the ingredients going there and so to you Congratulations on your new endeavor Thank you because I'm drinking a last goodbye cocktail as well. Of course, right? We didn't coordinate, dear friends. This is just a great mine Yeah, I was thinking of something to think, you know, drink along those lines as well. So mine is U Cgnac, peach brandy, grenadine and lime as well, and triple sick. And so yeah, cheers David to all the versions of Goodbye And alone. goodbye The other reason I'm having this is because it's super easy to make because All the ingredients in a last word are equal size. So you know, the green Chartreuse is the same as the le. No, it's so hard to find right now. Yeah, no, I still had some. just You can see what kind of lush I am. I've had my bottle for about two years. Waiting for this moment, I'm sure. So yeah, I had it from prior to supply chain issues Well, let's talk about you for a bit and what you're doing next at Marketplace. So you're going to be a special correspondent, but you've got a new beat. Tell us all about it What a great topic. Let's talk about me. Yeah. amazing top. And then we could talk about you too. So I've been doing the wonderful Marketplace Morning repeport for thirteen years as you say. It's an incredible team. that you are inheriting But I will say we moved to California, as you know, as some people know, a little over a year ago, about a year and a half ago. And you know, it's a live show. So I'm getting up three hours earlier Pacific time. and that meant Alarm at two AM first editorial meeting. Not at five fifteen, like you'll have to do Eastern timeim, but at two fifteen AM I'm a morning person. I'm fine with that, but that's the no You know, over the years, you're like, can I keep doing this? and the new beat is, I think compelling. I am going to become a special correspondent covering future effects. All those times that you will say with the NSDAQ and the S andP are doing this hour. That's short term thinking, my dear friend, right? And I was a perpetrator as well for all those years. And you know, the morning report does favor stuff you didn't know when you went to bed, right? That's what a morning show can be all about. We also bring context to the stories, but it's a lot about what's happening And that can be shorter term. So I'm on the long term beat. Now, I don't know. whyy don't we do this game, Kimberly U We could let's trade some ideas for what the meta issue that underlies all our problems in this world Right. So someone would say climate change what do you got You got something there that's like one of the Greed ye, greed, indeed. Some people might say, money in politics, right? Fix that fix a of a lot of issues. you know, the tendency of people who develop new technology not to think about the impact of their Wor. Now that is a interesting longer term question, isn't it In other words, instead of just inventing something, what's it going to be doing for or two society in five, ten, thirty years, often that question is not asked I want to ask questions like that. So I'm arguing here that a good candidate for the meta issue that underlies all issues that we face is short term thinking So let's do some stories in which we explore longer term effects of the decisions we make now Let's do some interesting explorations of how we can fix the natural human tendency to only look at the next two weeks. And it has a fancy pants economic term. It's called hyperbolic discounting Um, ooh a way to understand why they use a term like that is if you graph the results when you ask This kind of question So Kimberly Would you like a hundred dollars in three months? or twenty dollars now Right? You know, Kimberly, you're mature woman of the world, you'll probably take the hundred. lotots of people would say the twenty Partly because they're like, I don't trust Broncach. Where' he going gonna be in a couple month? He may not pay off. That is one thing, but also because immediate gratification. That's how humans are an interesting issue that I certainly will also explore. maybe on your mind is is thinking about the future a privilege When so many people in America are living hand to mouth paycheck to paycheck. Yeah, they might want to think about the future Right, exactly, Eactly. So we're going to have we're going to go deep We're going to have fun and we're going to do a big combination of this. I don't know we were talking Too long ago. I don't know if do you remember when I too what was the inspiration for this beat is the Is this the Secretary of the Future Yeah. Yeah, ye, yeah You should tell this story because not everybody knows this story. Okay, so I, you know, one of the moments of my career that I'll never forget is I was doing the public television show now and I got the last long form interview. with a literary gr Kurt Vonneet, juni u the great social critic and comedian, wise guy, writer sllaughterhouse five, player piano, so many others And he was deep in his eighties, Kusty, but charming. And he was fantastic in this interview I was fine, but I didn't have to do much because he was so fantastic And He looks at me And it's about an eleven second soundbite, but it's become a bit of a meme if you take a look Even all these years later, it's been many years. He looks at me and says, what no country has ever had, is a seecretary of the Future And there are no plans for our children and grandchildren And then you see me lean in saying that's a great idea. So all these years later, I'm trying to execute on Kurt Vonnegutzs great idea. And you know, by the way, some years ago my crew in the morning The one you're inheriting. They're wonderful journalists. They found Country that has the Secretary of the Future. Wan to just guess randomly what part of the world that country resides in What country would be so enlightened they would have such a thing I would say someplace in Sub Saharan Africa Good for you No Scandinavia, When you think of all likelighten things, often thoughts turn to Scandinavia as well as Sub Saharan Africa. You and I share a passion for Subaharan Africa. I've lived there You've done work in the The northern part of the continent. ent count. Yes Yeah not sub Saharan, north of the Saharan. But it is in fact, Sweden, and they didn't call it a Secretary of the future. It had some turgid bureaucratic sounding title Some corporations have secretaries of the future. They never call them that. Sometimes they call them chief sustainability offfficers, right. They don't have any power. it's just greenwashing and doesn't really matter. If they have the ear of the chief executive offfficer, these secretaries of the future Um can be a powerful position. And you know, of course, climate change is part of that, The environment is certainly part of that, but it's not only that you know, a seecretary of the Future that goes to CEO and says, lookook, you're making a lot of money for the next quarter doing this dumping of toxic waste on the slide And that is accruing to our bottom line now it's going to be found out in the fullness of time, and we are going to pay out terrible U, you know, damages when it's found out, stop doing that And you can actually have seecretaries of the Future that advise like this So I'm really looking forward to the beat. We are still very much in the listening phase, not the talking at phase. When you ask the question of what people think is like the most pressing issue for the future, lots of folks in the chat, in addition to giving you a tons of congratulations about your transition, have given answers. So we have a couple here. let me scroll back up to where everybody was saying it I saw somebody else in addition to greed was saying like a lack of empathy, which is similar In that realm, there is also expanding inequality U That's from Jin Pck. Kevin from Raleigh says captive capitalism So there's that one. And so yeah, o, someone else said hate and divisiveness And another person said The meta issue is manifestation of the tragedy of the commons. So it seems like there's a lot of interest in this topic. So I can't wait, when are we going to start hearing your stories on this Well, I'm working on some now. We're still developing because we're listening. I mean I just wrote down some of the things that people have suggested in the chat Um, And but I think Early summer, June, I've got an extravaganza. I'll give you a little one here a little Yes. A teaser about what it is? Absolutely. No, absolutely. I mean, I haven't done my reporting on this yet. And if you have some great sources folks who are in who have joined us here on all years Um Some people may remember a long time ago, I did a big series for Marketplace on technological unemployment. It was called Robots ate My Job. I went across the country. U and in part trying not to ever encounter a human. You can drive from the Atlantic to the Pacific these days because machines have replaced so many of us This is gonna be called, we think, robots ate My taxes Now setting aside and this will be part of the coverage, the argument that someday Kimberly, if all this AI stuff works out, you will be so AI empowered that you can do nine of these podcasts live every hour And because of your productivity, you're going to get paid all this money and because of that, you'll be paying a lot of taxes. Let's just stipulate, yeah, maybe in the fullness of time Not so sure that's the case, but that's one argument. However, There is nobody Nobody says it is not going to be disruptive for a while, And it could be quite a while. And by disruptive, they mean people losing their jobs. And if they find other jobs, maybe they're not better jobs, at least in the disruptive phase If it's that disruptive and all these people get thrown out of work, they will not pay income tax And it will destroy every state budget in the country and it will wreck the federal budget even more than it's already wrecked And so if you take a look, and some tech companies are ono this, including AI companies, and they're saying not all that loud, but they're saying Hm, yeah, it's an actual issue. Society has to deal with this somehow. And there'll be some interesting approaches, there's interesting ways of thinking about what do we do If AI, even if it makes the economy bigger and better someday. has a medium term effect of acting like the Great Depression of two thousand eight and nine So I'm working on that because I think it's something we got to deal with that's about the future, but we got to be talking about it. Now Oh my gosh, there's so many things where this is similar to like the energy crisis where I was doing some reporting on all the investments in nuclear energy and it's like a ten year solution to a two year power supply problem. We're not quite, there's a big gap in between. Okay, well anyway, I'm probably gonna be bugging you a lot later for tips on how to transition my sleep schedule. But before we go to the break and the game, I do want to ask you maybe for like a jumpstart on my summer reading list Some of the books that full disclosure I ask you this in advance so I know you're ready. Th books that really stand out to you as just like good mind framing works to move into this new role. I mean, it was a hard question because you and I have been swimming in the same fish tank for so long that we' liable to have read the same things. You're also extraordinarily well read. So I mean you know maybe you That's already part of the of your reading list. but book everyone said I needed to read before I took the role of host of the afternoon show back in nineteen ninety three when I came back from London was Michael Lewis's Lars poker Have you read that? yah I have it no 's it's it stands up. S things don't. This is about his time as a youngster Um at Solomon Bothers on the bond trading floor learning how raw capitalism really works And it was gripping because you know, Michael Lewis grew up to be the legendary. nonfiction author, this, I think is his first work and you really get a sense. of the rawness and aggressiveness and the take no prisoner's nature of financial markets in that kind of context. And so it's a great read. It's worth putting on your reading list Um What was the second one I was talking about Numbers go up by Zeke Fox, which is interesting because Zeke was I didn't. I didn't actually finish reading the book. I skimmed like the beginning of it, but he was on our show talking about Sam Bankman Freed's trial Yeah. I mean, Fox is an amazing investigative reporter. He's done some time at Bloomberg, for instance And he was curious, a couple of years ago, he started his voyage about, you know, what's the And What's the deal with this crypto business? And he had a hard time finding a real business model underneath it all. He found lots and lots and lots of hype U Zek is also amazing because there's an episode where he gets the texts that we all get, the spam texts. Camberly that say Did you like dinner last night? Or you fell out of my contacts. who is this again? Those ones And he on purpose answers it And what he finds takes It takes months There is a scammer playaying a long game and The scammer won't tell Zeke what they're up to or what kind of job they have. I'm in financial services or something like that Over time, Zeke gets it out of them And it turns out I'm in crypto and I'm very wealthy now And he's like, oh, really, I'd like to try that And they no, you wouldn't be interested. And they actually won't engage with him at first, but time goes on Sure enough, they get two hundred bucks out of them produces a profit it's only two hundred bucks because they're thinking of him as a much bigger fish later Now this pig areing scam Pig butering and it gets super tragic He's able to track down who Where's the boiler room producing these things And at the time, he finds it's in Cambodia And it is people who are trafficked. It is essentially enslaved people having to do this And it's just shocking to see what the backstory is on that. Now this some of this, right Kimberly, now here in twenty twenty six. pieces of this may get solved in a sense, not the potential for losing all your money to scammers. the origins of the text, that's all going to be AI coming after us. It's not going to be trafficked people, but it' it's it's a fascinating yarn that he tells The other book on your list was pattern Recognition by William Gibson. Why that one? I mean, he's known for science fiction, right?. I love that one because He saw something coming. I think that's from the early nineties that book. It holds up quite well It's the protagonist is a woman who's a brand expert who advises big fashion companies on street fashion trends. She's so sensitive to brands that she has to file off the word Levi' from the button on her jeans because brands, she's so sensitive to them. makes her allergic. She gets actually physically ill when she's around a brand. but she's sensitive to them But what the story is really about is at a time when we were not even thinking about the internet as a distributor of video content There is a time when we didn't know it could do video. I didn't know. And what happens is some found footage shows up on the web And it captivates the whole world because it's mysterious. Is it real? What's it mean? And there's little scraps of this video. And it becomes this worldwide mystery that the brand expert is called in to try to resolve I totally recommend that you grab this at some point this summer I'll probably start with that one because you know I love a good sci fi and I've read other William Gibson stuff, but not this one. so I'm definitely going to dig into it. I was also thinking about what books I might add to your summer reading list. and there's please Well, there's a book that I read and I was Lucky to interview the author when it came out back in twenty twenty one It's his book called The Some of Us by Heather McGeen And I think about this book a lot. It's all about let me get the exact subtitle It's what racism costs everyone and how we can prosper together Right? And it's a history book in some ways, about all the things that we as a society have decided we would rather not have than share And the Yes, ye. like public pools, for example. And that was a story that she told in the interview that I did with her about my hometown of Stain. Louis, where they literally shut down all of their public pools rather than integrate them. And it was like a huge thing and One of the underlying themes of the book was this idea that Economy does not have to be a zero sum game It does not have to be that just because one person gets something, someone else has to lose it. We can build a different kind of economy that can just expand the pie for everyone. And I think especially when we do get into the rhythm of daily news, it's easy to get caught up in zero some thinking And so I was like, let me reread this book over the summer and just like remind myself that it doesn't have to be this way. And I really love the book I look forward to reading this. Maybe I'll get started this next week actually. I can download it on Kindle The u, you know, humans are wired to be with a mindset of scarcity, right? And so if you don't get there first, You think that someone else was going to get what was coming to you. and in a mododern advanced economy that isn't necessarily the case And also of course, political forces exploit that as a kind of divisive device in the culture pull people apart for political reasons when in fact U we can what's what's the name of this program about What's the what's the subtitle of Make Me smmart, right? together you can be bigger than a of us Yes. And so that can work out economically as well. Just because you share doesn't mean you need to end up with less. I look forward to reading that. Thank you. Heather McGeee Yeah, And then there's a book that I'm listening to, an audiob book right now. It's actually by two LinkedIn executives. and so obviously I'm sure they have a particular perspective on things, but it's called openp to work, How to Get ahead in the Age of AI. And it's very much, I think it ties very much into your future effects conversations. It's very much about the fact where we are in this moment of economic transition when it comes to AI and how we as individuals can survive this economic transition becausecause the economic transition is going to happen somehow some way. And obviously folks tied to LinkedIn and Microsoft probably want to see it play out a certain kind of way. but the rest of us are along for the ride. and it's very interesting to hear their perspectives on what it will take and the kind of thinking it takes to navigate this moment. And I've found it pretty interesting so far So that's what I'm listening to right now, and then I'll probably end up rereading Heather McGeee right after I get through pattern recognition And you know what? Kimberly, here's the thing. you have this new schedule, right? I don't know if you've noticed this yet, but you're going to be done your day. D done your day by late afternoon, late morning, Eastern time You know, midday at the latest if they call you to some ridiculous meetings. That means the afternoons now are yours I am so excited about it. Like there's a version of me that's like, I will do so many things in the afternoon, even though I realize I'm probably gonna crash and like want a nap. but I'm looking forward to a lot more like cuddling up on the couch with artacks and reading books and things like that while the sun is out. That's my most enduring memory of those thirteen years here of doing the Morning showow. is sitting without haaving completed my work day And it's early afternoon with golden light coming in, Eastern or western. and and just saying I don't have to, you know I don't have to make any phone calls or look at any emails. I'm just going to read. I'm just going to go hiking or something. I will give you something get to watch out for. I never solved it. Is it a good thing or a bad thing Fridays complex because you might everybody Right. and you want to go out. So you've gotten up at four in the morning, easastern And you've done all this hard work and then you get to midday and you're free. All right. And so you're going to go Do something fun, you're going to go ice cream, you're gonna go on a hike Then all your pals are going to say, let's go out, and you will do an eighteen hour day. Almost all my Fridays or are eighteen hour days because you're going to go straight through to the normal time because you have to up on Saturday So there you'll be at eleven o'clock at night when having when you got up at four. So watch out for that and I don't even have to tell you about the tragedy of Sundays. you're not going to go to bed early enough on Sunday, are you No, but we got to take a long overdue break and then we're gonna do a rapid fire version of our game. So we are gonna take a break. We will be right back Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odu, the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all in one, fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. from CRM, accounting, inventory, e commerce, and more. And the best part, Odu replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. This is why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you Try Odoo for free at odoo. com That's ODO O d. com. Okay, let's get real about healthcare for a second. I think we can all agree it doesn't always work the way it should. If you've ever waited on a prescription refill or had a hard time getting the care you needed, you know what I mean The system should just work better for everyone That's exactly what the people at Optum are trying to do every day. They're a healthcare company linking patient care and pharmacy services and using data and technology to drive the whole system. so care is connected complicated. patients and providers. Things like making it easier to get care that looks at the whole person primary care doctors to mental health support and even in home care and then using technology to make sure they all work together. technology designed to help doctors spend less time on busy work and more time with their patients. And those prescriptions? OptM is bringing costs down, saving patients money and making it easier to get refills. Little by little, OptM is helping make healthcare work as one for everyone. Head to business. optim d. com to see how. This podcast is supported by Raymond James, a financial firm offering wealth management, banking, and capital market services that are inspired by people Before Raymond James's financial advisors build plans, they build relationships so they can craft individual strategies designed to achieve priorities and pursue what's possible. That's the power of personal. Disclosures at to Raymondjames. com Raymond James and Associates Inc, member NYSE SIPC This podcast is supported by even realities evenven G two productivity smart glasses designed to keep real time support right in view with teleprompting, conversation support, real time translation, AI assistance, and more, help you stay on top of work and daily life. And unlike most smart glasses, they're designed to look and feel like premium eyeewear With no camera and a lightweight thirty six gram design you can wear all day. The more context you give them, the smarter they get, adapting to how you work and what you need. To learn more about EvenG two, go to evenrealities dot com and see how everyday smart glasses keep helpful information ins sight so you can stay productive and hands free throughout the day And for our listeners, use promo code marketplace at evenrealities. com to get ten percent off, even ring one and or even clip when you add them to your even G two order. That's evenrealities. com promo code Marketplace. All right, we are back. We are gonna do a super quick round of half full, half empty, but with our always amazing Drew Jostad, our longt time host. We've got so many hosts on here today. Drew, take it away All right, first up this week, we have are you half full or half empty on cuddly robots Oh, I saw this video about this today. So the guy who invented the Romba has invented like this very responsive uddly robot that looks kind of like a cross between a large dog and a cat like head type thing. It's Cute ish But because of AI, it's like super duper responsive and things like that. So U I prefer our attacks. I'm going to go half empty I'm going to go half empty on this too. How about human contact? Am I sounding ancient am I sounding ancient here? I mean I' into virtual anything else. more power to him. I hope his entrepreneurial venture pays off for him. but For me All right, what's next, Drew? Next up, are you half full or half empty on online courses being sold by influencers Oh, this was a interesting. this was the interview that Kai did, right? about the influencer economy of selling courses often Sometimes there were even people selling courses on how to sell courses about various things U like how to be a better speaker or I was very close when we need I needed new headshots for the job and I was very close to signing up for an online course on how to pose for better pictures. but I didn't have time David, your face. You should just have called me, right? I looked horrendous in every portrait for my entire life until I went into television those years ago. And then I know what to do You're so amazing, Kimberly. you probably both your sides are good. I definitely have a bad side and I needed to know what it was. So you hide the bad side and just kind of go like this ood, right? listening on the podcast. He made a very debonaire side angle face. Yeah. And it got to the point where I even was able to do that for my driver's license in New Jersey. And I had for the first time in my life an awesome driver's license photo u Yeah, no, I look so what's the question is halfull or online course. I'm gonna to go half empty and read books. I think books are still better. Like let's preserve them while we have them. And I think in particular the on the economy of influencers selling so many courses without much like erification of skills. I'm going to go half empty on that. Well, that's the key, Kimberly, right? You know, look more power to them as an entrepreneurial venture yet again, I will say. Unless you can come up with a good housekeeping seal of approval, does the person know what they're talking about Um You know, at least if you had a professor at a college, you would they at least had a degree of some sort that might maybe some expertise even. Yeah, I'm half half empty on it. Although I suppose some of those folks would say they have their degrees from the School of the Hart Knocks. All right, Drew, what' Next up is the audience poll All right, everybody in the chat and thank you everyone for joining in on this sort of last hurrah of economics on tap. Let's do the poll. What we got, Drew. Are you half full or half empty on this grassroots campaign to buy spirit airlines? so much. Have you seen this? I saw some headlines about it, but you know, there is a history, right? Kimberly of employee owned airlines, why not make it a co op What was the last employee owned airline There was a point called there was an EesSOop it was called, and was it united at one point There was there was employees bought an airline, I think out of Chapter eleven to many years and I remember the full details and it transitioned into a regular airline, whichever one it was But this is interesting. I mean, good luck. I mean it's a very, very hard business. Can we all agree? Yeah, I actually saw the original post a couple days ago. you know, shortly after the announcement where the guy was like, you know, what if we were just to buy it? Like if it's so struggling financially, like maybe we could just buy it and all these people were in the chat like, I'd pitch in, I'd pitch in, I'd pitch in. And now this guy's apparently like going around and talking to investors and talking to lawyers and It's like a real thing. I think it would be just an amazing story If it could happen and this idea of people I mean, it's the ultimate market. function, right? There's demand. product rises to meet the demand. Someone takes advantage, right Yeah, and there are