The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - The Future of Social Security and Medicare, When Is Graduate School a Good Idea? and How to Raise Resilient Kids

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

Scott discusses social security and Medicare and whether its future is at risk. He then advises an early-career listener looking to pivot and wraps up with parenting advice. Music: https://www.davidcuttermusic.com / @dcuttermusic Subscribe to No Mercy / No Malice Buy "The Algebra of Wealth," out now. Follow the podcast across socials @profgpod: Instagram Threads X Reddit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome to Office Hours with Prog. This is the part of the show where we answer your questions about business, spectacular entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officehours at ProfG Media.com. Again, that's officehours at ProfG Media.com. So with that, first question. Hello, Prof G. This is Ross from Windermere, Florida.

A loyal fan of your various podcasts. In fact, I told my younger brother about it and he will not miss a single episode. Anyway, I am 67, about to turn 68, and therefore keenly interested in the continued availability of social security and Medicare. During the campaign, Donald Trump said he wouldn't fuck with either of those, but will he? What's your best guess on whether Social Security and Medicare are up for some kind of a modification? And do you think that Congress has the will to go along with it?

Anyway, thanks again for all that you do. I don't think you have anything to worry about, boss. The Social Security is kind of theoretically, or not theoretically, is largely considered a very successful social program. Before its invention about one in five seniors lived in poverty. Now it's, I think, one in 12. It has been very successful. People depend upon it. It provides people with a lot of comfort. And in addition, it's kind of America's new alley of transferring wealth from the young to the poor. So you can kind of see where I'm going with this.

I'll come back to that. But social security is the government's biggest budget item and Medicare is the second largest. As a matter of fact, about 40% of our federal budget goes to programs for people over the age of 65. It used to be 10% then it went to 25 to 40. Within probably 10 years, over half of the majority of our federal budget is going to go to programs for people over the age of 65. In 2024, Social Security accounted for over 1.4 trillion of federal spending, and the program covered over 71 million workers. Last year, the US spent over 800 billion on Medicare.

Over 25% of American adults are enrolled in the program. Now, are the future of these benefits uncertain? Recent reports project that the Social Security and Medicare funds would be depleted by 2033 and 2036 respectively. Before his first term, Trump promised he would preserve both Medicare and Social Security. However, things changed.

Each of his yearly budget proposals included cuts to both Social Security and Medicare, although they were never enacted. Still Trump has maintained that he will not make cuts to the program, nor will he change the retirement age. I don't see any path other than either deficits, which are taxes on the young or some sort of means testing for social security. And by the way, I do believe there is no reason that I should have social security.

And people say, well, you paid into it. Well, they call it social security tax. There's a lot of taxes I pay where I don't register the benefits. It's not called social security pension fund. Now, to be clear, it's not adding to the deficit, if you will, because in fact, it's an offline budget item, but at the same time, it still is the biggest item in our budget.

It used to be one, it used to be 12 workers for every one retired person, now because people are living longer, it's now three to one, and it is a real tax on the young. At a minimum, at a minimum, we should lift the cap. I believe it's either six or 8%, but basically the cap is at 160 grand.

So I have analysts working here at ProfG who make 160 grand. So they make, or they pay $9,000 in social security tax. I make 16 million and I pay $9,000. Why on earth are the rich not paying their share to support our seniors? So if you're going to continue to transfer this much money to seniors and you think it's a good idea, fine. But why on earth would it be a regressive tax on the young? Why? Because my generation has decided that the new

Gestalt is quite frankly, let me think, to fuck young people. I also think we should means-test it. I also think we should means test it. I think if you have over a million dollars in assets or a hundred thousand in passive income, you don't need social security or you shouldn't get it and all this bullshit, I paid into it. Actually the majority of people who collect social security for a number of years take out two to three times

what they put into it. So this notion that I'm entitled to, no, you're not, it's a tax. People who need it are entitled to it. So I think you got to entitled to it. No, you're not, it's a tax. People who need it are entitled to it. So I think you gotta means test it. Also, when we invented or implemented social security, the majority of people weren't living to 65. Guess what?

Now the majority, the vast majority of people are living past 65 and or working past the age of 65. So we need to means test it and we need to lift the age. What should social security be? It should be a safety net for seniors who are no longer working of a certain age where it doesn't make sense for them to work who need the money. That would be fiscal sanity. Thanks so much for the question.

Question number two. Hey Scott, this is Chase calling from Hawaii. I started listening to you after your podcast with Giovan. Really appreciate what you do. I'm 24 years old. I work listening to you after your podcast with Dio Vaughn. Really appreciate what you do. I'm 24 years old. I work for the Division of Forestry and Wildlife. I love it, but the pay is horrendous. I make about $40,000 a year. For a while, I was complacent, told myself I don't need to make money. I like what I do, but I

realized that I absolutely do need to make money. I want to start a family. I want to buy a house, buy nice things. I find myself extremely motivated to put my all into something, go all in, but at the same time, I'm completely overwhelmed by the number of ways there are to make money nowadays. I feel stuck. I have my degree in psychology.

I'm not going to use it. If I could go back, I definitely would have got my degree in something else. What would you do if you were in my shoes and how do you navigate finding a balance between making money and doing something meaningful? Next. Chase, first off, I really appreciate the question. And the first thing I want you to do, because I hear some like sadness or disappointed or anger yourself in your voice,

is I want you to forgive yourself. You're 24, boss. You're doing something important. You're working for the Division of Forestry and Wildlife. That's like, you know, a million species and trees would like to say thank you, but they can't. And when my kids are roaming around the Redwoods and get to see a bear and Aspen,

that sounded douchey, a bear and Aspen. You get my point. You're doing something meaningful and you're getting good experience in your workshopping. That's what you're supposed to do in your 20s. And you're still so ridiculously young. You could have been doing nothing and you'd still be fine because you can start your life at 40,

much less you're an infant professionally at 24. So this is what you're gonna do. You're gonna forgive yourself and realize you did something. You've got a couple of years under your belt. You've done something important now. I don't know enough about you, but I have a gut for what you may wanna explore. The first thing is a no brainer.

I need you to put together a kitchen cabinet of some people you trust that are smart, that know you, that you can call and get advice from and say, I'm thinking about this, I'm thinking about this, or find people who maybe left the service and are doing other things. Start to talk to people and find a group of people that you can call and get advice. It is very hard to read the label from inside of the bottle. Two, and this is where my guy kicks in, you sound to me like someone who is a perfect candidate for graduate school.

And I would need to ask some more questions. Do you like school? Because here's the thing about graduate school. It's for two people. It's for people who are very focused and need a PhD in microbiology so they can go do work on coming up with the cure for cancer, right? But the vast majority of people at least go back

to get an MBA or what I call the elite and the aimless. I was one of those people. I had decent certification, I was smart, I was hardworking, but I had no idea what I wanted to do. I'd spent two years at Morgan Stanley and fixed income and all I knew was I didn't wanna do fixed income at Morgan Stanley anymore, but I didn't know what I wanted to do.

And the majority, I would say two thirds of the people that go to business school don't know what they wanna do. Their first essay, they lie. They pretend they're to business school, don't know what they wanna do. Their first essay, they lie. They pretend they're really focused. They don't know what they wanna do. That's why they're going back to graduate school. That's where you are.

You're elite, right? You obviously went to a school, you got a psychology degree, you got a good job servicing our nation and public service. You're elite. You're a little bit aimless right now, which spells to me, graduate school. So this is what I want you to do. I'm going to start talking to a bunch of people, including people who've left the service, find out what they're elite. You're a little bit aimless right now, which spells to me graduate school. So this is what I want you to do. I want you to start talking to a bunch of people, including people who've left the service,

find out what they're doing. I want you to put together a kitchen cabinet of people to bounce ideas off of, and I want you to think about graduate school and see if it's a fit for you. Anyways, I really appreciate your service and chase from Hawaii. You're doing, you're exactly where you should be. You're ahead of the game. You had a good job serving the public, serving the public good. You're 24, you live in Hawaii.

It is good to be Chase. We have one quick break before our final question. Stay with us. Support for ProfG comes from LinkedIn. It's 2025, and if your B2B marketing strategy for the new year doesn't include improve your ad targeting, then your ads can just get lost in the noise. LinkedIn ads can help by ensuring your message makes it to the right audience. With LinkedIn ads, you can precisely reach the professionals who are more likely to find your ads relevant. With LinkedIn's targeting capabilities, you can reach them by job title, industry company, and more. LinkedIn ads let you build the right relationship, drive results and reach your customers

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I live in Altadena, California. I'm originally from Baltimore, Maryland. It was a tough city. When I reflect on my childhood, I think about times where I caught the public bus to school. I would be on there with crackheads, dope dealers, people just going to work trying to survive. I would be on there with crackheads, dope dealers, people just going to work trying to survive.

I had conversations with these folks. I learned a lot, and it instilled a level of grit inside of me. My question for you is, as I become a new father, how do I instill that level of grit inside of my children so when life gets hard and throws them curve balls, they have the self-awareness and the durability to overcome any obstacles.

My wife and I will remain in Southern California for the foreseeable future. Thank you. Uh, thanks Michael. And I hope and trust you were not affected by the fires in Altadena. Um, just be clear the first couple of years, let me, let me break it down as a dad. And not everyone has the same experience. I'll give you my experience. I pretended to like it. I thought it sucked. I was stressed out. I was stressed about money.

I was just trying to keep this little science experiment away from a body of water and just keep it alive. And then slowly but surely, one of my favorite shows growing up was a show called Frasier. And Frasier said about his son, you know, you fall in love with your kids. And that is I didn't, a switch didn't turn on when my sons were born. And I'm like, Oh, I'm madly in love with this thing. I was more scared and nauseous than anything. By the way, childbirth is so disgusting.

Try not to be in the room. Uh, I'm going to get you for that. Anyways, you do fall in love or I found that over time, it just got better and better, it went from awful to less awful to tolerable to good to now I just, I think I just have purpose in my life. I've figured out finally in my life what my purpose is, and that is to raise loving, patriotic men. And in terms of establishing grit for kids, I mean, there's a couple of things.

One, we have a tendency to overprotect offline and underprotect online, and it should be reversed. You're, fortunately, all this bullshit around smartphones is probably going to be solved or at least addressed by the time your kids are old enough. But some of the mistakes I've made, I didn't instill enough about doing chores with my kids such that they developed routine and saw connected reward with effort. They're actually pretty good with money for some reason. I don't know where they got that,

but they understand the value of money. Sports and athletics. I started working out with my kids at a very young age and pushing them in such that they could understand their limits. The gift I got from Rowan Crew was that when you feel like you can't take anymore physically, that means you're about a third of the way

to your actual limit. And Crew teaches you that. It teaches you to break limits, you just are, you know, exceed limits you never thought were possible. And you can carry that to the rest of your life. So how do you do that with kids, sports, working out, also letting them fail? There's something called bulldozer or concierge parenting that is supposedly making a generation of fragile kids. What does that mean?

I had someone call me and say, well, you're an academic. Our daughter who straight A's is getting a B and the teacher clearly does not like her, so we're thinking about calling the, the principal. Can you give us, and as being unfair to her, can you give us some words? I'm like, that is absolutely the worst thing you could do for your daughter. Your daughter is going to face injustice and unfair assholes the rest of her life. And she needs to learn how to deal with it and maybe cope with disappointment. And so we have developed this so much bulldozer and concierge parenting where we clear out all the

obstacles for our kids that they develop this Princess and the Peace Syndrome where they show up to college, get their heart broken, get their first D, and they freak out. You don't want to use so many sanitary wipes on your kids' lives so they don't develop their own immunity. So what I do, and this is hard, I'll give you an example. My youngest is going to meet his friends at the Westfield Mall,

which is a very nice mall in London. I order him an Uber, which I probably shouldn't do. He has a goddamn Uber app. Why am I doing it? I typed in the wrong Westfield and he ended up on the wrong side of town, of London, freaking out, calling me, calling his mom, his mom calling me, and I decided I put my foot down. I'm like, you got a smartphone, you got an Uber account, figure it out. Figure it out, right? He's panicked.

And he did figure it out. He actually found that the subway was the fastest way to get to the right mall. He went in, he has his Oyster card and he got there. That builds confidence, that builds resilience. Summer jobs, my oldest who is 17 is now thinking about, what makes his resume look good for college? And he's doing these things that are kind of, I don't know, he's thinking about biology or something in the sciences. So he's gonna intern at the medical clinic. And I said, this is what you do.

We vacation on an island or we spend summers on an island. I'm like, I want you to get a job washing dishes or being a busboy. Services jobs build grit. It's where I got a lot of mine and not only that it builds empathy. So what do we have? We have chores, we have jobs, we have sports, and we have a lack of concierge or bulldozer parenting. And occasionally we let the kids fail and then tell them, I don't know, that's a tough one.

You need to figure it out. This, I hope for you that having children does what it did for me. And that has given me a sense of purpose and a sense of peace. Thanks so much for the question. That's all for this episode. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officehours of Proffjimedia.com. Again, that's officehours at Proffjimedia.com. This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez. Our intern is Dan Shalon. Drew Burrows is our technical director.

Thank you for listening to the Proffeshe Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice, as read by George Hahn. And please follow our Proffeshe Markets Pod wherever you get your pods for new episodes every Monday and Thursday.