The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Price of Prosperity: Why Rich Nations Fail and How to Renew Them by Todd G Buchholz

Episode Date: December 8, 2023

The Price of Prosperity: Why Rich Nations Fail and How to Renew Them by Todd G Buchholz https://amzn.to/3Teu652 In this bold history and manifesto, a former White House director of economic policy exposes the economic, political, and cultural cracks that wealthy nations face and makes the case for transforming those same vulnerabilities into sources of strength—and the foundation of a national renewal. America and other developed countries, including Germany, Japan, France, and Great Britain are in desperate straits. The loss of community, a contracting jobs market, immigration fears, rising globalization, and poisonous partisanship—the adverse price of unprecedented prosperity—are pushing these nations to the brink. Acclaimed author, economist, hedge fund manager, and presidential advisor Todd G. Buchholz argues that without a sense of common purpose and shared identity, nations can collapse. The signs are everywhere: Reckless financial markets encourage people to gamble with other people’s money. A coddling educational culture removes the stigma of underachievement. Community traditions such as American Legion cookouts and patriotic parades are derided as corny or jingoistic. Newcomers are watched with suspicion and contempt. As Buchholz makes clear, the United States is not the first country to suffer these fissures. In The Price of Prosperity he examines the fates of previous empires—those that have fallen as well as those extricated from near-collapse and the ruins of war thanks to the vision and efforts of strong leaders. He then identifies what great leaders do to fend off the forces that tear nations apart. Is the loss of empire inevitable? No. Can a community spirit be restored in the U.S. and in Europe? The answer is a resounding yes. We cannot retrieve the jobs of our grandparents, but we can embrace uniquely American traditions, while building new foundations for growth and change. Buchholz offers a roadmap to recovery, and calls for a revival of national pride and patriotism to help us come together once again to protect the nation and ensure our future. About the author Former White House economic advisor, managing director of the legendary Tiger hedge fund, and winner of Harvard's annual teaching prize. Buchholz is a co-producer of the Broadway smash Jersey Boys and the co-writer of the new musical Glory Ride, which will be produced in London in 2017. He frequently appears on TV and radio on PBS, NPR, Fox, CNBC, Charlie Rose, and Bill Maher. Buchholz was named "One of the 21 Top Speakers for the 21st Century" by Successful Meetings magazine and recently gave a speech to two thousand people in LA as the warmup act for Jay Leno.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com.

Chris Voss. Chris Voss. There you go. When you know it, when the Iron Lady sings it, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the big show. We certainly appreciate you guys being here as well. As always, the Chris Voss Show is a family that loves you but doesn't judge you. We accept you for who you are for the most part, unless you're evil. We might not accept you if you're evil.

But we always bring the smartest minds on the show. The most brilliant authors, the CEOs, the billionaires, the governors, the congress members, the U.S. ambassadors, astronauts, Pulitzer Prize winners, the people who will bring you a lifetime of research, experience, cathartic moments, challenges, mistakes they made, and the stories they lived and learned through. And now you can too with the Chris Voss Show. I sound like I'm doing an infomercial. Now you can too. And if you call today, you get two for the price of one.

Four to five episodes, three to four episodes a weekday, 15 to 20 a week. There's so much content out there. And if you're not getting epiphanies and learning something from every show, you need to, I don't know, turn off the phone and go back and listen to them. We have an amazing young man on the show with us today. Todd Buchholz joins us. He is the bestselling author and former White House director of economic policy. And he's going to be talking to us about his works. He's written multitude of books. Namely, one of his popular ones was The Price of Prosperity, Why Rich Nations Fail and

How to Renew Them. He is a renowned economist, White House advisor, and best-selling author. He connects the dots between Wall Street, Main Street, and financial capitals throughout the world. An internationally known consultant on global markets and winner of Harvard's annual teaching prize, he advises world's leading companies and lights up economics with a wickedly sparkling wit, according to Associated Press. Welcome to the show, Todd. How are you? I'm doing just great.

I'm doing even better now that you called me a young man. I think we're done for the show. That's great. There we go. That's all we need. Yeah. We've reached our pinnacle there. So, Todd, give us your dot coms.

Where do you want people to find you on the interwebs? They can find me at econtodd.com. That's econt econ todd.com that's econ todd.com or if you're good at spelling you can spell out my name todd buckholz.com on x formerly known as twitter it's econ todd and then later we may be talking about another project i'm working on and you can find go to glory ride musical glory ride musical and you'll find, go to Glory Ride Musical. Glory Ride Musical, and you'll find out more. There you go. Let's lead off with that first, and we'll get that out of the way.

Tell us about Glory Ride Musical, your latest work. I was involved in a new musical that was performed in London this past spring and summer called Glory Ride, which is based on an extraordinary story from World War II, a true story about the Italian winner of the Tour de France, who during fascist Italy, as the Nazis were about to invade, saved children from the fascists using his bicycle. So it's an extraordinary true story that is relatively unknown. In fact, the hero of the story, an Italian named Gino Barclay, was as famous as Muhammad Ali is in

the United States. And he spent his career riding a bike. He won the Tour de France before World War II. And then after World War II, the oldest guy ever to win the Tour de France. And he told nobody, nobody about what he had done, how he had risked his life and the life of his family in order to save young innocent children from the fascists. So we were pleased to put together this musical with extraordinary songs if your audience goes to at glory ride show that's at glory ride show on twitter or instagram or gloryridemusical.com you'll find out more and we're going to be mounting it in the states and in canada over the course of the next year and you know the enthusiasm for the show has just been extraordinary there you go coming to a theater near you that sounds wonderful and what a great story too as well i mean yeah it is i mean it's it's a story that brought people

to tears but also there's comic relief and and i've sort of been involved aside from my work in economics and finance and politics i have been involved in this aspect of show business i was one of the original investors in a little show your audience might know called Jersey Boys. And so that was kind of my first foray into the business. And Glory Ride Musical is something that I think will end up having as long a life as Jersey Boys has had. There you go. You're a new playwright then. You're the new Broadway thing. With your support, Chris. We'll try and get you there. So let's talk about a few of your books here. I noticed your latest one is the fourth edition of New Ideas from Dead Economists,

The Interdiction to Modern Economic Thought. Do we want to start there or do we want to fall back to one of your earlier ones? No, no, that's quite, in fact, that was the first book I wrote. It's been out, there have been four revised editions. I just did fairly recently the audio version of New Ideas from Dead Economists. And every time I've had to revise it and renew it because Lord knows the economy changes and the economic challenges change. And sometimes old ideas need to be either refound or redeveloped and sometimes trashed in order to move on and create progress. So I'm real proud of New Ideas from Dead Economists. I wrote it when I was a mere graduate student. Oh, really?

Now, Chris, it's so bizarre to me because I'll have professors at major universities come up to me and say, oh, I was inspired to study economics by New Ideas from Dead Economists. I look at them and I say, aren't I younger than you are? How is it you were inspired by me? Anyway, so your audience that's available from audible and amazon and everybody else either in kill form paperback form or the audio form which was really fun to record there you go a fourth edition there you go so what are some of the new ideas from jet economist so what can we learn from economist why is it important to learn from econis maybe too well i'm sure all of us

uh who listen to your show have felt the pain of inflation over the course of the last couple of years as painful as it's been for 40 years in fact many of us lament going to restaurants or even to the grocery store these days to see what was going on in the economy during COVID, post-COVID. And they inflated the money supply in a way that would make you think they knew nothing about the history of economics. And if they had just read new ideas from dead economists, maybe we all wouldn't have suffered from 10% inflation last year. So what should they have done better? They kept pumping money into the economy long after it was needed. And this was the Federal Reserve Board as well as the White House. Once the vaccines had been rolled out, and even before the vaccines were rolled out starting in November of 2020, the economy had already begun to bounce back. And it turned out, look, when COVID first hit in the spring of 2020, we all were scared, not just for our lives,

but for the economy. We thought, oh my God, every business is going to go bankrupt. And then over the next couple of weeks or months, we realized the economy was a lot more nimble. Some companies might, in fact, do well during COVID. Think about Netflix and Peloton, the sort of stay-at-home companies. They did extraordinarily well. So the economy tried to recalibrate itself. And yet Washington, D.C. just continued this panicked approach, pumping too much money into the system, sending checks to every family, families that needed the money, families that didn't need the money. And this happened, honestly, under both a Republican and a Democratic administration. And it went too far. And it

wasn't until last year that finally washington dc thought you know what maybe there's a little bit too much money in the system of course there is when you see that we're a grocery bill our grocery bills are going up 20 that's a hint that they did something wrong yeah what about what about some of the unchecked unbridled capitalism that's going on i mean it's been very clearly communicated from a lot of CEOs that they are price gouging. I don't, you know, I think that's just politicians. Honestly, if you look at people a year ago, lots of people were saying, oh, price gouging amongst the egg producers. If you look at a lot, because egg prices were up substantially last year and into

the spring of this year. When you look at a 20-year chart, and any of your listeners can just Google it, 20-year chart, 50-year chart of egg prices, you see they go up, they go down, they go up, they go down. Now, when they go up, we say, oh my gosh, it's a bunch of Scrooges. When they go down, do we all say, oh, suddenly they've become Mother Teresa. Suddenly, you know, it's a bunch of Scrooges. When they go down, do we all say, oh, suddenly they've become Mother Teresa. Suddenly, you know, it's Albert Schweitzer and their gender. No, there was overall inflation in the economy. When Valentine's Day came around and you had some politicians saying, oh, it's conspiracy. It's like old man Milton Hershey in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and Mr. Mars got together in a smoke-filled room and they decided to raise the price.

No. When the government prints too much money and sends out too many checks, the price gets pushed up and up. And now, thankfully, in the last couple of months, things have been drifting into better shape. Is it because the CEOs are suddenly becoming more charitable? No, it's because money has been pulled out of the system, which has allowed the inflation rate to come down some. But I'll say it's come down some, it's actually come down substantially, but prices are still quite high compared to where they were two years ago. And I certainly feel the pain of most American families. Yeah. It's interesting. The Fed also, I think, as a contributor,

they've admitted that they waited too long to start increasing the Federal Reserve rate, which I was screaming about six months before they should have been doing it. And so that was a real mistake by not increasing that and trying to cool the economy faster as well, I think. I don't know. What do you think? Yes. I mean, they could have taken action sooner. Because they didn't, we faced a bigger problem to solve. And look, I mean, that's kind of the history of American government. You wait till things get out of hand, and then you think, oh oh gosh, maybe we should do something about this. I'll give you another example. And I don't want to be too esoteric and too finance-y about it, but everyone listening to this podcast and watching knows that a couple

years ago, interest rates were super low. In fact, mortgage rates were incredibly low from roughly 2008 until this past year, right? So the US government owes trillions of dollars. Don't you think it might've been smart if sometime in the last 15 years, the government said, you know what? Why don't we try to lock in those low interest rates, because we've racked up trillions of dollars of debt. Why don't we refinance issue 100 year bonds or 50 year bonds and lock in low interest rates so future American taxpayers won't have to pay this huge interest payment? Well, they never got around to doing it. And so therefore, when you look at the federal budget, interest on the debt, which had been nil a couple of years

ago because interest rates were so low, is now exploding. And so Winston Churchill had once said, you can always count on the Yanks, the Americans, to do the right thing after they've exhausted every other option so you know we're in the midst of exhausting options i guess as opposed to solving problems it was an interesting time i suppose you could say that i don't know it's it's the federal reserve in which you they they definitely learned from 2008 i think in their response initially but yeah i think you're right. They left the bank open too long. And the, I mean, the P, what was those PPE loans? Oh, right. Just the amount of just billions in waste and the way that was distributed was insane. And, and, and, and

Chris, you know, I have to be fair about it. When COVID first struck, it was frightening. And I certainly supported the Fed in taking aggressive action to make sure the economy didn't utterly collapse in the spring of 2020. There was great uncertainty and great fear, and it was entirely appropriate for them to get the printing press going. It's just it went on too long when it was very clear to Wall Street and very clear to some other smart people that it wasn't needed. And they just kept going. They fell asleep at the wheel

and the American people, therefore, pay the price every time we walk into the grocery store. There you go. Yeah. It's, you know, some people say, are we going to ever get back to normal? And I'm like, I think I'm pretty sure this is the new Yeah. It's, you know, some people say, are we going to ever get back to normal?

And I'm like, I think I'm pretty sure this is the new normal. You know, I mean, even now, like, we have supply chains that are still mucked up and stuff. Yeah. You know, as someone who travels a fair bit, anyone who travels a fair bit, certainly laments or curses the price of a bottle of water in the airport, right? You go through TSA, oh, God forbid you have an ounce of water in a bottle. Throw it out. And then you get into the airport and you got to pay $6 or $5 for a bottle of water, right? That's the sort of price I'm now seeing in grocery stores not in the airports

it's as if the entire country has become airport shopping as opposed to you know more main street shopping wouldn't you wouldn't you say though that the airport is basically a tourist trap though with that pricing oh it is i mean that that's a trap now to argue the other side to be fair it's expensive to supply things to the airport. You've got to make sure all your deliveries go through security, have security clearances, and so on. But I do think there's a pretty fair profit margin that those stores are able to get. And in some airports, the storefronts are awarded by bidding and you know making pledges to have competitive pricing and other cases it's you know bureaucratic bungling and other places it's probably bribery

to get the friend of the airport authority his buddy has the snack shop yeah there you go it's it's always funny that tsa makes you put away your liquids, and then you're like, wait, but there's liquids on the side that I can take on the airplane. How does that work? So, I don't know. Maybe you're paying extra because those are the safe liquids. I don't know. You, like me, grew up in an era where we didn't have to do any of this bullshit

when you boarded a plane. Oh, my. I mean, when I was – I used to commute between Washington, D.C. and New York City. I'd stay over in the city a couple nights a week, but I'd be back and forth on the shuttle. And sometimes it was the Eastern shuttle. There was the New York Air shuttle a long time ago. There was the Trump shuttle at one point, all these shuttles. But what was in the U.S. Air had a shuttle.

This is all from LaGuardia Airport. And it was really, it was so easy because the Delta Shuttle from New York to Washington left every hour on the hour. And the U.S. Air every hour on the half hour. And you didn't even have to decide which airline you were going to take. As you were approaching, depending on traffic from Manhattan to LaGuardia. You could look at your watch and tell the cab driver, oh, it's a quarter after. I can make the shuttle that takes off in 15 minutes. Drop me at US Air or drop me at the shuttle because you just breeze through security. Those were the days. I'm sure there are some bad aspects to it, but those were much easier days for commuting. Boy, they sure were nice.

I miss them. So let's parlay that into your book, The Price of Prosperity, Why Rich Nations Fail and How to Renew Them. That came out June 7, 2016. Where do you, as you look at what you wrote in that book, where do you see us now on on the potential for us to fail are we are we on that list more so than what you wrote or anticipated in 2016 where are we on the curve yeah good question chris i am by nature an optimistic guy you know i i probably am. Well, I consider myself energetic and optimistic. And I wrote that book, The Price of Prosperity, which you see over that shoulder. And on the cover is a kind of ragged American flag.

And the book was written about the forces that were tearing apart the country and the forces of, you know, bad finance from the government, worries about Medicare and social security, worries about people losing their job to international trade, the education system, immigration. And I wrote that book and I thought at the time, you know, for an optimistic guy, it looks like a kind of downer of a book and a book cover. And surely things can't be so bad. And now to see the country today, substantially more divided than it was even in 2016. And we see, I mean, that book was written before there was open shoplifting, before there were riots in American cities, before there were supporters of barbarous Hamas seemingly taking over American colleges. So it's, you know, America is in a time of struggle. I used to comfort myself by saying nothing is bad, is as bad as it would have been in the 60s or 70s in the Vietnam War era, where President Lyndon Johnson in 1968 basically couldn't leave the White House.

And he was hounded and he said, I'm not going to run again. And I thought nothing we were going through was that bad and now i really do wonder with the upcoming election and the divisions in this country what it will take to stitch back together again this great country so do you have any thoughts on ways that we can at this point do you want to we need to regain a respect for american history first of all american history is not really taught very well, if at all. If at all anymore. In schools these days. And I feel that there's an obligation among Americans who are born here,

as well as immigrants. I think that if someone wants to immigrate to this country, they should have to study American history. However, as a native born American, I have to say this, if someone is an immigrant to this country, and they have embraced this country, they have just as much right to consider themselves a descendant of the Thanksgiving pilgrims, just as much right to consider themselves a descendant of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and John Adams as I do, or as the oldest Yankee living in Boston. Once you're on the team, you're on the team, man. Yes, exactly. I mean, Ronaldagan had said this he said you know the unique thing about

american america is that if someone moves to france they're not going to become a frenchman it's not in the nature of france and the republic but that is in the nature of the u.s but we've somehow lost that and we don't expect immigrants to embrace America. We expect them to only fight for their own identity. And that's fine to embrace your own identity and take pride in it. We all should. But if you're not going to take pride in a country that saved half the world against Adolf Hitler, if you're not going to take pride in a country that has taught much of the rest of the world democracy, then you are not an American. And I think there needs to be a kind of reciprocal understanding of the country. In The Price of Prosperity,

I propose a few things. If you are an American student, and put away immigration for a moment, if you're an American student and you're applying for a loan from the U.S. government in order to go to college, and I hope you pick a college that really gives an education as opposed to indoctrination, but if you are going to apply for that, I want you to prove that you know something about American history. I would require anyone who's applying for a federal student loan to have their passports or their driver's license stamped in at least four American institutions of history, whether it's the Statue of Liberty or the Lincoln Memorial or the Museum of Tolerance or the Muhammad Ali Museum in Louisville, Kentucky. That does a wonderful job teaching about civil rights. But if you can't bother, and people say, oh, that would be expensive. How can you expect someone to get on the Greyhound bus. You know, we can create foundations to support students to go from one American monument to another. But if you can't be bothered with that, then I as a taxpayer can't be bothered with supporting your, quote, higher education.

Yeah. If I could have a dollar for, you know, anybody who seems to want to ever want to quote me the Constitution online or in person. In the Constitution, it says, it seems like the people who always say that are the people who have never read the Constitution because if you pull out your copy that you keep around you like I do, you're like, where is that in here? I don't remember reading this. It's astounding how many people have never read the no it's true it's true probably most people in

congress yeah i mean yeah you might you might have a constitutional right to be a jerk but you know you you might we might not need to look we might need to look a little bit more specifically at the provisions of the constitution that allow for that yeah i think that's it's so that's that's always funny too when people are screaming i i have you know the right to speak my mind you know when they're getting pulled over by a police officer and you know they're trying to claim themselves yeah and then the funny thing is somehow the more they've had to drink you know the stronger their constitutional right oh i have a constitutional right really you can't even walk a straight line i've been told i become an illegal alien when i drink i don't know what that means i think alien probably was the joke i was going for i don't know

one of those two but i i definitely levitate into space when i drink so that's why we don't do it anymore so the interesting things with the price of prosperity, how do you think we're doing as an empire when we're, what, almost 248, 249 years in? We might be 250 soon. Depends. You know, it's hard. Our nations are fragile things.

You think about the Star Spangled Banner. We hear it, obviously, before nearly every football game. And over the years, there have been inspiring recordings. I think about whether it's Whitney Houston or any number of inspiring recordings of the Star Spangled Banner. And you think about the last line of the Star Spangled Banner ends with a question mark. Right? Does the flag still wave over the land of the free and the home of the brave? There's a question mark when francis scott key wrote that the the the country was not 250 years old it was a fragile young thing and he saw that there had been for instance a republic of genoa that lasted a couple weeks there had been other republics that had been established not long before the U.S. that

had perished within a year or two. So it was not a rhetorical question. It was a serious question. And there have been empires throughout history, of course, the Roman Empire, but more recently, the Habsburg Empire was a powerful empire that ruled Middle Europe and parts of Southern Europe. And it's gone. I've never met a Habsburg. I knew it. Why? They ended with World War I.

The Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire controlled the Middle East, North Africa. Never met an Ottoman. You know, I've had my feet on an Ottoman hotel lobby, but I've never met it. They're gone. Why did they die? And the price of prosperity, I point out,

it wasn't because, oh, you know, their economy got weaker. It's not because they had bad weather or an asteroid struck and wiped out Ottomans and dinosaurs. No, it was because there was nothing to stitch that empire together. an asteroid struck and wiped out Ottomans and dinosaurs. No, it was because there was nothing to stitch that empire together. The Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg Empire were made up of different cultures and different nations. And yes, they would go to war together and serve largely in one army, but the Croats and the Slavs and the Russians and Germans would not have any loyalty

to one another. And so my fear is that the United States of America is increasingly slipping away from itself and the center is not holding. Now, you can ask, do we have to unify? I mean, isn't it possible to have a country that's just very pluralistic, everybody go about their business and not have war with each other? I guess it's possible. When I go to Los Angeles International Airport or JFK Airport or O'Hare Airport in Chicago, I see lots of strangers going this way and that way, catching their flight, going to this terminal and this jetway and gateway and so on. And generally, I don't see fistfights. I don't see war taking

place at O'Hare Airport. But it's a bunch of strangers pursuing their own sort of thing. But I don't see a country. And so ask yourself, is it possible for the united states of america to stay together if we have nothing more in common culturally than whoever happens to be passing through jfk or o'hare at a particular moment and i don't think based on history based on the ottomans based on the romans based on the hapsburgs it's possible for us to maintain the United States of America, unless there's something that we share in common other than geography. And the country is so big, latitude and longitude, we hardly share geography. Yeah. That's one of the things that I utilize lately in discussions with politics with people. I go, okay, if we're going to talk about politics, we're laying a foundation first. Number one, we're Americans first.

We need to agree on that. Number two, you can talk about whatever party you want or whatever ideas you want, but the underlying foundation of our discussions is that we are, one, people as Americans. So I don't want to hear language like the other and that, and that sort of thing. The language needs to be we as americans

and it's interesting it's interesting when i when i set that up in those conversations that the conversation changes so maybe we can have more of those types of discussions where we identify that we are americans first and you know fuck the parties in my opinion i think that's right and you know look when i when was a kid, and the price of prosperity kind of begins with this. I remember my father having friends over for barbecues during the summer. And you'd hear things like, oh, if Richard Nixon gets reelected, I'm moving to Canada. Or if Jimmy Carter gets reelected, or if Ronald Reagan gets elected, I'm moving to Canada. They were just bluffing. No one ever moved to Canada. They were all just bluffing.

No one ever moved to Canada. Now I hear that kind of conversation, and I hear about people getting passports for Portugal and New Zealand, and I of our division was actually after the 2000 election. And as controversial as it was, and regardless of whether you think who should have won and so on, it was the first time in my life I saw bumper stickers on cars that said, not my president. president that to me is like an influenza that has now coursed through america's veins if you will for the last 23 years whenever the opposition party wins that's not my president it is your president whether you like him or her or not you're an an American, damn it. Yeah, so we'll see. We'll see what happens. And maybe that's, maybe, you know, what you've talked about is maybe that's what we

really need to do is get back down to the culture identity that we're all Americans. I mean, I've heard that we have the greatest melting pot on Earth. Like you mentioned, like, France and stuff, if immigrants go to France. I know that, and I think this is based on studies and some data I saw once, but basically we're one of the best in this country at helping immigrants really integrate to us and who we are.

Because everyone kind of dreams of being us. We are the dream. People come here wanting to be American, seeing American culture and society. And I don't know, sadly, they want to eat McDonald's, but they should probably stay away from that part of us. I mean, look, don't get me wrong. I have been in numerous taxis, for instance, just over the last year, and have heard heartwarming stories of coming to America and embracing America. And look,

the immigrant taxi drivers are more likely to say America is the greatest country on the face of the earth than just about anybody else. And so, you know, over the course of 130 years, we've done largely a terrific job, and immigrants have, in embracing the country. But now people are told that, no, it's better to pursue your individual identity or your group identity. We hear this phrase, oh, our diversity is our strength. No, our diversity is not our strength. Diversity is wonderful, and it's great, and it brings all sorts of ideas to the country and changes and develops the culture. But our strength, when we really have to pull together, is not our diversity. It's what pulls us together. It's respect for human rights. It's respect for the Bill of Rights. It's a recognition of the value of human life

and a willingness to fight for it. That's our strength, not the fact, I'm from Afghanistan. You know, I'm a Buddhist. No, that doesn't give us the strength. It's the belief in central principles about human life and human dignity. That's what gives us the strength. There you go. Or I'm a Christian. Any sort of identities that are non-American. People need to come together

and go, we're American. And like you say, all these different variations they want to take and do is push on people and make everyone believe. That's one of the problems we have right now with the rising right wing, our radical left wing crazies. I mean, I don't, I'm a moderate Democrat. I'm not happy with either side's extremes right now. And they're very dangerous to America.

And I think they're, I think the extremes are things really pulling us apart. And, of course, they get the most distance and noise on, you know, media. But, you know, when you talk to people, you know, when I go around and hang out with people, even if, you know, we might be in opposing parties, you know, I don't sense any less of a friendship. It seems like it's almost overplayed in in the media and polling i mean certainly the vast majority of americans are not infected with the sort of divisions that we've just been discussing but i think it's one of these situations where it's a matter of what is the proportion? And look at it this way. You could live in a community where 99.5% of people are law-abiding,

and it's probably going to be a quite safe place. And you could live in a neighborhood or a place where 90% are law-abiding, and a minority, only 10% are not law abiding. But if you've got 10% of your neighbors are criminals, that's going to feel like a really perilous place. So I think, yes, of course, the overwhelming majority of Americans are not sowing this division and this acid. But I think that number has gotten bigger. It's still in the single digits, but it's no longer 1%.

And I don't think that university professors have made a positive contribution towards keeping in check that sort of acidity. Yeah. You know, what was the thought i had the pulling away from the it seems like social media seems to be one big thing that's destroying us if anything is probably going to destroy us it's going to be social media i think because the most insane, the most radical people seem to get the most amplification. And those people, you know, it's either our way or the highway. It used to be before Newt Gingrich came to Congress, you know,

with Tip O'Neill and stuff, there was more bipartisan working together. And it wasn't so much the my way or the highway sort of thing or and and you do it or else and since then we've seen you know not only the toxicity that you brought but you've seen the you've seen the the just the log jams in congress where they can't do anything because god forbid they should give one win to the other party. I think, look, you mentioned social media, which is a perfect time to remind people I'm on Twitter at Econ Todd. And Glory Ride the Musical is Glory Ride Show on Instagram. So beyond Econ Todd and Glory Ride Show, the divisions are there,

but here's, I think, what's happened that's been so terrible, frankly, for society. It used to be that a Republican would look at a Democrat and say, oh, my gosh, how naive and stupid you are. And a Democrat would look at a Republican and say, you're just stupid. You know, you just need to think through things and don't just repeat what you... It's a plague of stupidity. That's what we thought the other party was infected with. Now, Democrats will look at Republicans and say, you know the problem with you? You're evil. And vice versa. The problem with the other party is not that they're stupid and naive and uneducated. You're downright evil

and trying to destroy me and destroy everything good in human life. Yeah, you bring up a good point. I think that's what a lot of people... Yeah. And we don't see each other as, like I said,

Americans on the same team anymore. We're just, you know, we're a team, whatever. And it's kind of sad too it seems like more and more we've we've turned in i don't know maybe it was always this way because i didn't live forever but maybe it's more this way where you know people people could see through the divisions and always come together you know for a lot of things we've always come together for a lot of things but you see where we're so far apart you know i think you know just thinking out loud when you know richard nixon and and jack kennedy were actually friends

you know they've been colleagues in the senate and and and obviously they were very different personalities but they they generally had a friendly relationship and there've been other rivals. You mentioned Tip O'Neill and, and, and Ronald Reagan. You know, I think the experience of world war II was leveling for that generation of American men and women, because they all had to fight, you know, and we can have digressions about you. You were in the infantry on the front line, whereas you got to write press. I mean, but basically American men and women lost their freedoms in daily life in order to defend the country.

And I think that was a leveling. And everyone in Congress would respect, okay, I disagree with you because either you're a liberal or a conservative, but I know when Uncle Sam needed you, that you were in that submarine or you were holding up that flag in the 60s and early 70s could have been some sort of leveling, but it was prosecuted and managed so incompetently and seen so bitterly that I think that undermined any sense of that. And I think the shared experience helped the nation stay stitched together in the post-World War II era. There you go. There you go. So, any final thoughts as we go out and pitch us out on your current works and what's going on next? I don't think we should end on, you know, necessarily always a pessimistic note. I mean, the fact is there are extraordinary things and extraordinary good things going on in this country. Just take life expectancy.

Clint Eastwood is directing another movie. He's 93 years old. William Shatner took a spaceship into space at age 90. All sorts of almost magical things are taking place. And so we do have the opportunity for American prosperity and for a better American life. And let's hope, you know, maybe we follow some of the recommendations

and the price of prosperity. We can get to that time. Definitely, definitely. We can get to a better place. And I would like to us all to start seeing each other as americans and quit we need to quit playing the team thing and and and you know i mean the the great debate of america is what makes it so beautiful the the diversity of ideas and of course the melting pot of ideas the fact that we can talk with each other about ideas, we need to get back to that, I think. So some great data there, man.

We really appreciate you coming on the show. Thank you very much, Todd. Good, Chris. Good to be with you. There you go. And order up Todd's books, wherever fine books are sold. There's the New Ideas from Dead Economists, The Introduction to Modern Economic Thought, as we talked about today. And his other book, The Price of Prosperity, Why Rich Nations Fail and How to Renew Them.

And check out his other books. You have quite a few books I'm looking at here. How many are there, Todd? I think there are eight. There's even a novel, a Dan Brown-like novel called The Castro Gene. For those people who don't want the heavy issues but want to be wrapped up in a political thriller. There you go. caster gene did you see how we had somebody from who's worked in cuba since like the 80s or 90s that has come out today that they found is has been a mole this whole time a cuban no i didn't

i didn't see that came across the wire today it's pretty crazy oh i'll have to look that up was there an exploding cigar involved? I don't know. I'm still trying to figure out that whole brain wave thing that was going on in Cuba. I guess it's happened in a few places. So that, or someone's taking some mushrooms and I don't know what's going on there. Anyway,

thank you very much, Todd, for coming to the show. We really appreciate coming on as well. Good. Good to be with you. Bye. Thanks for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, fortune. That's Chris Voss, linkedin as well. Good. Good to be with you. Bye-bye now. Thanks to my audience for tuning in.

Go to goodreads.com, Fortuna's Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortuna's Chris Foss. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time.