Something You Should Know - The Benefits of Finding Wonder In The World & What Is Money and How Does It Work?

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Starting point is 00:00:27 Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. Today on Something You Should Know, who came up with the idea for sunglasses and when? Then finding wonder in the world and why it's such a good idea to develop your sense of wonder. Because it's really an incredibly beneficial emotion, both psychologically and physiologically. And what's really fascinating to me is there appears to be a direct

Starting point is 00:00:53 biological pathway between wonder and better health. Also, can people really get by on four to five hours of sleep and still perform well? And what is money? How does it work? There's a lot of confusion. For example, people think the government might run out of money. We cannot run out of money. Impossible. Money is a keystroke credit to an account. It is a keystroke. You cannot run out of keystrokes. A bank can't run out of money. The Treasury cannot run out of money. All this today on Something You Should Know.

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Starting point is 00:02:14 Hi, welcome to Something You Should Know. This morning, I woke up to a bright, sunny day like many people, and as usual, one of the first things I reach for before I head out the door? My sunglasses. And it made me wonder, where did sunglasses come from? It turns out that even in prehistoric times, people wore basically sunglasses made out of walrus ivory to block harmful reflected rays of the sun. The earliest historical reference to sunglasses dates back to ancient China and Rome. The Roman Emperor Nero apparently liked to watch gladiators fight through polished gems, kind of like sunglasses. Around the 12th century, the Chinese came up with wearable dark lenses similar to our sunglasses. They were made from flat panes of smoky quartz.

Starting point is 00:03:06 Those ancient sunglasses had little to do with the sun, though. Chinese judges wore them to hide their facial expressions while they interrogated witnesses on trial. It was Sam Foster of Foster Grant fame who came up with the sunglasses we wear today. And in 1929, he started selling his sunglasses from a Woolworths store on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey. And soon after that, they became a sensation.

Starting point is 00:03:33 And that is something you should know. I'm sure you've heard the phrase, childlike wonder. It's a way of looking at the world that gives you pause, makes you see things with a different kind of appreciation. It gives you a perspective on where you fit into the world. Of course, the thing about childlike wonder is you tend to lose it as you get older. But seeing wonder in the world is actually a great way to view things. And wonder has wonderful benefits, as you're about to hear from Monica Parker. Monica is a speaker, writer, and authority on the future of work. She has spent decades helping people discover how to lead and live a wonderful

Starting point is 00:04:18 life. And she's author of a book called The Power of Wonder. Hi, Monica. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Hi, Mike. Thanks so much for having me. So what is wonder? How do you define it from your perspective? Yeah, so wonder is a fascinating word. It's sort of something of a shapeshifter. So we have wonder that is the verb to wonder, which might be how we describe curiosity.

Starting point is 00:04:41 But there's also wonder that's the noun, which would be a catalyst for, say, the emotion of awe. And so my definition of wonder is really connecting these two concepts into a single emotional experience that starts with openness, moves into curiosity, then absorption and awe. And it's really almost even a cycle because each time we experience one of these components, the more likely we are to experience them in the future. And why would we want to experience them in the first place? Yeah, because it's really an incredibly beneficial emotion, both psychologically and physiologically. It makes us more creative, more desirous of studying

Starting point is 00:05:23 the world around us. It makes us more humble, less materialistic, more generous, better community members. People who are higher in the component elements of wonder tend to have healthier relationships. They perform better in school and work. And what's really, really fascinating to me is the physiological benefits. What we found is that there appears to be a direct biological pathway between wonder and better health because it lowers what are known as our pro-inflammatory cytokines, which are markers of inflammation

Starting point is 00:05:53 and connected to things like heart disease and Alzheimer's. It also lowers our blood pressure and our cortisol levels, which are our stress hormones. So really, really positive for us, for both our brains and our minds. So when I think of wonder, I often think of the look on a child's face when he sees something for the first time. At Disneyland, a child sees Mickey Mouse and gets up close to him. To me, that's wonder. Absolutely, and that look on the, that to me, that's wonder. Absolutely. And that is wonder. And even one of the things that I like to tell people is to try

Starting point is 00:06:28 to approach life like a child. As a child, they're always adding new experiences and what are known as schema. So they're basically building the lens through which they see the world. And one of the challenges is that as we become adults, we sort of have decided we already have all the information we need and we decide that there's not so much wonder to be seen anymore. But if we can see the world through the eyes of a child, always beginning, almost that Zen precept of to always be beginning, then we are able to recapture that sense of childlike wonder. Well, yeah, and you hear that phrase, childlike wonder, because everybody knows exactly what that is. But what you just said about that as you get older and you have a lot of life experiences, it seems as if there are fewer things to be in awe of, to find wonder in, because, you know, been there, done that. I've already seen

Starting point is 00:07:26 Mickey Mouse a million times. So it doesn't matter to see him again, doesn't inspire those same feelings. That does seem to be true, that as you get older, the world is less wonderful. I can appreciate sort of that take, but the reality is that I think that's a perception that we have because there is so much to feel a sense of wonder about. And there's no question, we can't see Mickey Mouse again for the first time. We can't see the Grand Canyon for the first time except once. But what research shows is that we can, if we choose to see it, find wonder in the quotidian. We can find it in our day-to-day lives. And that might be just a perfect sunrise or a beautiful autumn leaf, but really it's about the lens through which we choose to see the world. It's about a mindset.

Starting point is 00:08:16 Is it, for someone like you who practices this, is it deliberate? Do you have to stop and say, okay, it's time to find some wonder now, or is it more smooth than that? It just flows. What the research shows is that if we prime ourselves to find wonder, and it can be a single sentence prime, I'm going to find three things to feel a sense of wonder about today, then our brain will commit greater cognitive resources to finding it. And so certainly priming can help, but over time, as it becomes a practice, neurons that fire together, wire together, and we'll start to create these neural pathways where we will recognize wonder more often. I don't see it as onerous. I simply see it as another thing that is good for us and fun to do. Okay, so I'm looking at a sunset, and it's a beautiful sunset. What's the difference

Starting point is 00:09:12 between looking at the sunset and saying, isn't that a beautiful sunset, and looking at that sunset and finding wonder in it? So one of the main ways is it's something that psychologists call small self. So anything that we experience that feels a sense of vastness, and that can be a sense of emotional vastness or cognitive vastness, where we say, goodness, this makes me feel like a small component part of a bigger system. That's really how we start to tap into wonder. And that's where we start to get the benefits of wonder, where we get that neuroplasticity, where we start to feel pro-social emotions, which are the helping emotions like compassion

Starting point is 00:09:52 and empathy. And so really, if we have that experience and consider where we as a human connect into this bigger cosmos of the world, that's where we start to feel that sense of wonder. Okay. But in a very practical way, you're now looking at this beautiful sunset. What is it that goes through your mind that does what you just said without saying neuroplasticity and other big words like that? Yeah. It's really just to say, this makes me feel small. This experience is so big that it makes me feel small. And that idea of small self, to appreciate the immensity of that moment and not to become habituated,

Starting point is 00:10:36 to say, oh, well, there's a sunrise every day. It's not a big deal. Instead to say, look at this incredible opportunity we have for another day. Look at the beauty, how it changes all the time. To have that sense of vastness is really where we're able to connect and then say, but that makes me feel small. And when we feel smaller, it makes our problems feel smaller. It makes us connect to other people more deeply.

Starting point is 00:11:00 And so really it's that opportunity to say that I am only a small piece of such a bigger, magical puzzle. So that's wonder to an experience that makes you feel smaller in reference to what you're in wonder of? That is probably one of the main components. Absolutely. That sense of small self. There are other aspects of it, certainly being absorbed, being fully present, not trying to, really trying to shut down that chattering mind that we all have. So that's one of those things as well, if we can actually be present in the moment and not be thinking to explore in our own minds, you know, the cognitive elements or the intellectual elements of what we're experiencing.

Starting point is 00:11:51 But really, probably one of the key pieces is that smallness. But what is the, I mean, I know you mentioned about the benefits of doing this, but say, for example, because I saw this the other day, you look at it like a double rainbow, and it is just incredible to see. It's so big, and yes, you feel so small compared to this thing, and then it's gone. And just like the rainbow disappears, my experience is over, and my life goes back to where it was it was a brief moment it was a pause it was a distraction and it was beautiful and wow it's wonderful but so what i mean you know now it's gone and and you know now i've got to go pay the bills sure and i you know there's an expression that says after the ecstasy the laundry laundry. There's no question that there's life

Starting point is 00:12:46 that we have to deal with and that this is a moment in time. But there are ways that we can extend and deepen the impact that it has simply by taking time to recognize it while it might not have felt like it changed you. The research would show that that does linger, that that has a longer term benefit

Starting point is 00:13:06 than just that moment. But also there are other ways that we can help extend that. If you were to share that experience with someone else and say, I saw this incredible double rainbow, then you're basically telling your brain to experience it again. If you were to journal about it or write about it, then you would have that additional experience once again. And so there are ways that we can extend that experience or magnify it. And there absolutely is research that shows that wonder shared is wonder multiplied. Because it seems like if I have to now start journaling about my rainbow, it kind of sucks the magic out of it. It came, it went, that's what makes it so wonderful. And now if I'm going to have to write a paper about it, it seems less

Starting point is 00:13:52 wonderful. It's not a have to, it's a choice if that's something that helps you connect to it. Everybody has a different way that they connect to wonder. And so if for you, you want it to be ephemeral, you feel that for you, wonder is something that is rare and fleeting, then that can be the way that you experience wonder. Those can be your wonder bringers. For other people, they want to have that experience be multiplied. And so they want to share it or they want to journal about it. And we do know that having those opportunities to journal or to share it with other people does extend that experience, but it's really very personal. And so for you, if you want it to be rare and fleeting, then it can be, but it will still have a positive impact.

Starting point is 00:14:35 We're talking about your sense of wonder and all the benefits of developing that sense. And we're talking with Monica Parker. She is author of the book, The Power of Wonder. Thank you, and have a nice life. Unfortunately, life doesn't come with an owner's manual. That's why there's BetterHelp Online Therapy. Connect with a credentialed therapist by phone, video, or online chat. Visit betterhelp.com to learn more. That's betterhelp.com. At Wealthsimple, we're built for whatever you're building. Built for Jane, who wants to break into the housing market.

Starting point is 00:15:28 We're built for Ted, who's obsessed with what's happening in the global markets. And built for Celine, who just wants to retire and explore the world's flea markets. So take a moment and think about what you're building for. We've got the financial tools to help make it happen. Wealthsimple. Built for possibilities. Visit wealthsimple. Built for possibilities. Visit wealthsimple.com slash possibilities. And I think I've mentioned this on another episode, but I remember very distinctly, there used to be in Long Beach, California, next to the Queen Mary, there used to be Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose airplane, which he built out of wood in World War II. I don't remember the story, but this airplane is so big. It is so immense, you can't even imagine how big it is, unless you see it.

Starting point is 00:16:33 And I was standing at the doorway where people would come around the corner and it would smack them in the face. And to a person, I would watch them come around the corner and they would go, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. because they were just in awe of this thing because no one knew how big it was. And I just got such a thrill out of watching that. Kids, grownups, everybody would turn the corner and just be in awe. And you've just perfectly encapsulated how wonder shared is wonder multiplied. Even though those people perhaps didn't know that they were sharing that experience with you, you were sharing it with them. And by watching them experience it, you got that little dose of

Starting point is 00:17:17 it as if you were experiencing it again for the first time. And so I think that's a perfect example of one of the reasons why we love to have these wonder experiences together, why people go to church as a group, why people like to enjoy music and gigs as a group, because that sense of wonder, that sense of awe, that sense of exploration and discovery can be shared. And it has an impact then that is greater than the sum of its parts. Do you think, though, that when you start to find wonder in lots of things, that part of wonder, part of one of the elements of wonder is its rarity? And if you see wonder in everything, then you're not seeing wonder in anything,

Starting point is 00:18:05 because it's all wonderful. And I think that I can appreciate why people would think that. And even the original folks who were studying this, so if we go back to even Maslow, his idea of a peak experience is really a wonder experience. And Maslow believed that peak experiences were rare and fleeting. But towards the end of his life, he believed that, in fact, we could find them quite frequently. Some of the awe researchers also in the beginning believed that awe was always only rare and fleeting. But now they've found that those rare and fleeting moments can have the same benefit as these quotidian moments because it almost becomes aggregated. It's these little moments that add to each other and can still have the same impact. And so again, it's about shifting the lens and saying it doesn't only have to be that. If that's your choice, it can be.

Starting point is 00:18:57 But what I want to encourage people to do is really instead to have a mindset in which we can find it anywhere. Is there been any research, do you find that it seems like as people age, that wonder becomes less a part of their life? It's just because it has to be more deliberate, because fewer things are new and exciting. And is that true? I mean... It is absolutely true. It's true for a couple of different reasons. First, one of the key components of wonder being curiosity, we are naturally less curious as we age. This is simply again, because we think that we've discovered everything there is to discover. But of course, that's erroneous. There's so many things we can discover. But curiosity is a bit like a muscle. The more that we practice it, the more then that we will be able to experience curiosity.

Starting point is 00:19:57 So if we can hone that sort of curiosity muscle, then we will find more things to feel a sense of wonder about. But we are dealing with a more calcified brain. We're dealing with neural pathways that are very set. And we're dealing with more schema, building blocks that have decided, well, I know everything there is to know about the world. But I think in that there's a little bit of hubris as well, you know, a little bit of ego to say, well, I've seen it all. But of course, if we, again, approach things with the eyes of a child, we can find those elements to feel a sense of wonder about. But there's no question that it is harder than it is for about. But there's no question that it is harder than it is for children. And that's one of the reasons why I believe we feel such a sense

Starting point is 00:20:30 of wonder watching children experience those things for the first time. It's why we get so much joy watching babies and children, you know, have those experiences. Generally, I think when people think of wonder, they think of it in a very positive way. But it seems like you can find wonder in negative situations, sad situations. It's not all positive and wonderful. You can find wonder in the bad, too. And that sense of mixed emotion, another one of those is nostalgia is a mixed emotion, where we can reflect back and consider both the positive and negative. And it's really positive that it's beneficial for us. There was a piece of research

Starting point is 00:21:09 done where widows and widowers, if they reflected on their deceased loved one and remembered both the positive and negative elements of their relationship, they were more resilient. They were better able to manage their grief. And so what we know is if we choose to receive both the positive and negative, as opposed to sort of a toxic positivity, pushing always towards being happy, then that gives us a greater what's known as emodiversity. It means that we have a better portfolio of emotions to access, and that's really helpful for us. And so what you're talking about is sort of this mixed emotion where there's a little bit of a poignancy of remembrance of happiness, but also of struggle and sadness. And having those two at the same time is really, really helpful. It also shows that it makes us

Starting point is 00:21:56 more tolerant people because we're able to see nuance in the world as opposed to everything being black and white, happy or sad. At the very beginning of our conversation, you said that there are some real benefits to finding wonder in life, health benefits. And so how much wonder do you have to find? How much wonder do you have to see to get those benefits? What the research says is that it doesn't actually take that much. There's some experiments that have been done where people looked up just at a grove of trees for two or three minutes and they were able to have benefits. Or people watched drone footage of something that

Starting point is 00:22:35 was awe-inspiring and they were able to have benefits that lasted for several days. A 20-minute wonder walk gives people benefits for up to a week after. And so it really can have a significant benefit. And what makes a wonder walk a wonder walk? Again, you decide it is. You simply choose to not ruminate on what's going on outside of that walk. And you prime yourself to say, I will find something on this walk that will give me a sense of wonder. I will look for things that give me a sense of wonder.

Starting point is 00:23:11 And that can give me a sense of wonder. I will look for things that give me a sense of wonder. And that can give significant benefits. And so it really, the additive, small, aggregate moments of wonder that we have over time can impact us in a way that I think we really don't appreciate. Well, this is such a great topic for conversation because people don't typically talk about it very much. I mean, we all have a sense of what wonder is, and we've all experienced it, but we don't talk about it much about how it works and why it's good for you and what it does for you. So I appreciate this. I've been speaking with Monica Parker, and the name of her book is The Power of Wonder, and you will find a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes. Thank you, Monica. Thanks so much, Mike.

Starting point is 00:23:47 It's been wonderful. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool.

Starting point is 00:24:24 And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson, discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show.

Starting point is 00:25:02 Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy,

Starting point is 00:25:32 it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named the Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back. And in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think there's a lot of confusion about money, what it is, how it works. It used to be

Starting point is 00:26:10 that you knew you had a dollar because you could hold it in your hand. But today, much of the money we spend and receive, we never see it. We never touch it. Also, we often hear in political arguments that if we don't do something, the federal government will run out of money.

Starting point is 00:26:27 But it never seems to run out of money. And what about taxes? You might think that we have taxes to fund the government. But there's more to it than that, as you're about to hear from L. Randall Ray. He is a professor of economics at Bard College and senior scholar at the Levi Economics Institute. And he is author of a book called Money for Beginners, an illustrated guide. Hi, Randall. Welcome to Something You Should Know. So what is money? How do you define money?

Starting point is 00:26:59 That's the big question that I've been trying to answer in writing for the past 30 years. You know, what is money? So most people will say, oh, well, you know, it's coins, it's paper money, and it's something I use to go buy stuff. Okay. And so that's sort of a functional approach. What do I use when I go buy stuff? Increasingly, you don't use coins or paper money. You flash or you tap a piece of plastic on a reader and that's how you buy stuff. So I think that we need to get away from this notion that money is something we can get our hands on. If you go back in time, actually, most market activity as far back as we go took place on the

Starting point is 00:27:57 basis of credit and debit. And really that, I think, is how we should look at money. Money is a credit in your hands, and it's somebody's debt. And so I think of money as being a debt denominated, that is measured, kept track of, in terms of a money of account. In the United States, that is the dollar. Well, and you're right that money, we think of money as like our money is in the bank and we could go get it. But if you have a couple hundred thousand dollars in the bank, you can't go down to your local bank and say, can I have my money? They probably don't have that much in that bank. Yeah. If you've ever seen the safe door open, you look in there, they couldn't possibly have the money in there. They may have hundreds of millions of dollars of deposits of their customers, and they certainly do not keep that money in the safe.

Starting point is 00:29:07 So where is it? Well, it's neither here nor there. It's electronic entries on a computer hard drive. That's what it is. It's a record of what the bank owes you. That's what your checking account deposit is. It's just a record of what the bank owes you. And when you make a payment to someone, your bank will debit your account and credit the account of whoever is receiving your payment.

Starting point is 00:29:39 So it's just a series of credits and debits. It's just a series of credits and debits. It's all accounting. So the money that we use, that we trade with each other and we buy things with, is the government's money. Why is it the government's job to make money? Well, so I can say a lot about the government's money. But first, you can create money. You can take a piece of paper and write, I owe you $5. You have just created money. Money is the record of a debt.

Starting point is 00:30:15 You have just put yourself in debt. I owe you $5. Now, can you find someone to accept it? If so, you really have created money. And probably your mom would take it. Maybe some of your good friends would take it. So the problem is, for you, the acceptability of your IOU is pretty narrow. When a bank writes IOU $5, that's going to be accepted almost everywhere, in part because we've got the government standing behind it in several different ways. Your checking account is the bank's IOU. The bank creates this, we could say, out of thin air. It is just a keystroke credit

Starting point is 00:31:12 to your deposit account. They can create money. So we often hear in politics people talking about the debt, the country's debt, and that we have too much debt, that the country will run out of money, that we will not be able to pay our bills, and that if we just print more money,

Starting point is 00:31:31 then we get inflation, and that we are printing money on the backs of our children because they will have to deal with this debt in the future. Yeah, there are three misunderstandings in that statement. First, we cannot run out of money, period. Impossible. Money is a keystroke credit to an account. It's just a credit. It is a keystroke. You cannot run out of keystrokes. As long as there is one person left at the Fed with one finger, they can keystroke some more credits. Okay? So that is just simply false. It's propaganda, really, trying to scare people. We cannot run out of money. A bank can't run out of money, and the central bank can't run out of money. The treasury cannot run out of money. They can always make all payments as they come due. Now, can the government or the private sector

Starting point is 00:32:40 spend too much and cause inflation, which will reduce the value of the money. Yes, that can happen. Okay. If we create too much money and spend too much so that we're trying to buy more goods and services than our economy can produce or that we could import, then prices can be pushed up. You can get inflation. So that could be a danger. When we look, say, 10 years into the future, 20 years into the future, we are an aging society. That means we will have relatively more old people on social security compared to young people who are workers or children of workers who will become workers. So the question will be 10, 20, 30 years out in the future, will we be able to produce enough real goods and services to take care of all the retirees

Starting point is 00:33:55 plus the people of working age plus the children? Now on all reasonable projections of what we think the nation's productive capacity will be, I can assure you that the estimates are we will be able to do that. We're going to be productive enough to take care of all the young, all the old, and everybody in between. And since we can't run out of money, we'll be able to afford it. But every year when the government spends more money than it makes, there is a deficit, and that deficit gets added to the debt, and doesn't eventually, someday, somehow, somebody have to pay that back? There is this great fear that if the US government

Starting point is 00:34:46 runs a deficit this year, deficits add to debt. So over the course of this year, if the government spent 500 billion more than it received in taxes, that will add 500 billion to the national debt, which is somewhere north of $30 trillion right now. We would add 500 billion more. And some people say, well, this can't go on forever. You can't have the outstanding debt grow year after year? Well, if you look at the past 200 and something years since the founding of the nation, the debt has grown steadily. It has grown faster than GDP, which is our measure of national output. The debt ratio has grown over that period at a rate of 2% per year. It's gone on for over 200 years. The notion that something that has been going on for 200 years can't go on a while longer just boggles the mind. We will be able to grow the debt. Now, households

Starting point is 00:36:10 and firms at some point need to repay their debts. They have finite lifetimes and hopefully by the time you die, you're going to pay off your debt. The U.S. government doesn't have a finite lifetime. It has been around for over 200 years, and maybe it'll be around 200 more years. It doesn't actually ever repay the debt. The debt grows year after year. All that happens is that when a bond matures, so if you have a 10-year bond, at the end of 10 years, it will mature and the holder can present it to the

Starting point is 00:36:55 government and say, I want cash. Government will say, fine, we'll give you the cash. And then the government will just issue another 10-year bond and sell it to someone else. That's what happens. The debt doesn't get repaid. It gets rolled into new debt. This has been going on for 200 years. Well, then why then? Because I'm having trouble, and I think people have trouble understanding what you're saying. Let's take money off the table, and let's just say that we trade in Mona Lisas, and there's only one, but we could make more. As you say, the government can make more money. Well, if you make a lot of Mona L's the value of those Mona Lisa's becomes declines

Starting point is 00:37:47 because if there's only one it's really valuable if there's a million of them they're not so valuable. So how can you just keep printing money and say that there's no real consequence to that? The debt, government's debt, is our asset. Okay? If the government issues a $100 bond, that will be held in the non-government sector by banks, by household savers, by pension funds, and by private firms that want to hold the safest asset in the world, which is U.S. Treasury bonds. That is the safest asset you can possibly put in your portfolio. And you have to remember that if the outstanding debt is $30 trillion, that means we, all of us, taken together, have $30 trillion of the safest asset in the world.

Starting point is 00:38:55 We are happy to hold that, and we get to earn interest on it. It doesn't reduce the value of that debt. A $100 bond will remain worth $100, and it will earn interest for us. So I get the bond thing, that the government's debt is our asset in that way, but very often the government spends money and says, we need to raise taxes in order to pay for this. There's no bond involved. It's tax money that comes straight out of my pocket into the government's pocket. That's not my asset. Taxes reduce our net income.

Starting point is 00:39:41 That is true. And there are times when you want the government to do that. No, there isn't. No, there really isn't. I don't mean you as an individual. No, nobody likes paying taxes. Okay, that's clear. But what I'm saying is there are times when it is in the national interest to increase taxes. And that is related to your point. That withdraws net income from the non-government sector and reduces inflation pressure. So, for example, let's go back to World War II. We're coming out of the Great Depression. We know that we're going to devote a huge portion of our nation's productive capacity

Starting point is 00:40:35 to the war effort. It turns out we devoted 50% of all output went to the war effort. We had to make a transition from a peacetime economy with a very small defense sector, very little military spending, to a massive buildup of our defense sector. And taxes played a very important role in doing that. So we increased taxes, not because the government needs the money. And I can tell you, the government knew this. The purpose of the tax was not to give the government money because the government can always create the money. It can't create enough output. We had to reduce private consumption. We needed the tires to go to the military, not to civilian cars. And so we reduced people's take-home pay by increasing taxes. In addition, we said, let's get people to save. Let's promote

Starting point is 00:41:48 patriotic saving. Let's sell war bonds. And there was a huge campaign to convince people to buy the war bonds. Now, did the government need to borrow money from households? No, of course not. They knew they didn't need to borrow money. The government can't run out of money. What they wanted was households to save instead of spending so that they didn't were saving in war bonds. And there were other methods too, they used wage and price controls. At the end of the war, we're going to ramp down all the production for the war effort. Think of all those factories that were building tanks.

Starting point is 00:42:41 Now we're gonna convert those back to civilian use. Now we want households to spend more. So that would be the time to lower taxes and to get people to spend their accumulated savings so they could cash in their war bonds and start buying consumer goods. That's exactly what we did. So you can use tax increases and tax reductions as a way to first move resources to the government sector, and then second, move them back into the private sector. But my sense is that when taxes go up, they very seldom come down. Federal taxes, state taxes, municipal tax, they never go down. Okay. First, I want to make clear, when I was describing government spending, I was talking about the federal government. State and local governments are very different. State and local governments really do need tax revenue in order to spend. State and local governments really do need tax revenue in order to spend.

Starting point is 00:43:45 State and local governments do not have a central bank to make payments for them. They really do need taxes and they need to borrow in order to spend. And 48 of the states require a balanced budget. So they do not run deficits as a normal operating procedure. And states and counties and cities can go bankrupt. It has happened. Orange County went bankrupt. And there are severe consequences.

Starting point is 00:44:19 They're in a very different situation than the federal government, which is our currency issuer and cannot run out of U.S. dollars. Lastly, what do you see as the future of money? Well, the future of money is that it will increasingly take an electronic form. Even our paper currency and coins possibly have a very limited future. Well, I must say I've learned a lot in this conversation, things I did not know before, and I always like doing that. It's one of the great things about doing this podcast. I've been speaking with L. Randall Ray. He's a professor of economics at Bard College and senior scholar at the Levi Economics Institute. The name of his book is Money for Beginners, an Illustrated Guide.

Starting point is 00:45:14 And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thank you, Randall, for being here. Thanks. It's been a pleasure to be on your show. We're all supposed to be getting eight hours of solid sleep every night. That's the general professional consensus. But what about those people who say they do just fine on only five hours of sleep? Well, researchers put them to the test. The volunteer sleepers did their thing in a controlled sleeping environment for two weeks.

Starting point is 00:45:45 Those who slept eight or nine hours did just fine on cognitive testing, but the group who slept just four to six hours flunked. Their cognitive skill results were impaired to the equivalent of being legally drunk. The study found that when we get less than eight hours of sleep at night, our attention span and reaction times are the first skills to take a hit. Even getting 7 hours is not enough. One hour less nightly accumulates over time to a noticeable sleep debt. And that is something you should know.

Starting point is 00:46:20 Hey, would you do me a favor? Since the episode is over and perhaps you have a moment, tell a friend about this podcast, ask them to give a listen, and I'll bet they thank you for it. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Hey, hey, are you ready for some real talk and some fantastic laughs? Join me, Megan Rinks.

Starting point is 00:46:39 And me, Melissa DeMonts, for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? We're serving up for hilarious shows every week designed to entertain and engage and, you know, possibly enrage you. In Don't Blame Me, we dive deep into listeners' questions, offering advice that's funny, relatable, and real. Whether you're dealing with relationship drama or you just need a friend's perspective, we've got you. Then switch gears with But Am I Wrong?,

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