The Ricochet Podcast - Life During Wartime

Episode Date: March 20, 2020

Settle in, shelter-in-placers, we’ve got another super-sized (and shall we say, impassioned) edition of the Ricochet Podcast. In addition to the robust debaters, we’ve got Deb Saunders (self-quarantined from an undisclosed location) and Arthur Brooks who provides some much needed optimism in these dark days. Music from this week’s show: Life During Wartime by Talking Heads... Source

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Billionaires today, if you can believe it, have an effective tax rate lower than the middle class. Why are you complaining? I wrote the code. My call was perfect. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson and Rob Long. I'm James Lylex. Today, it's Deb Saunders on Vegas and D.C., how they're handling it,

and Arthur Brooks with some good news, America. So let's have ourselves a podcast. I can hear you! Welcome, everybody. This is the Ricochet Podcast number 488. I'm James Lylex here in Minnesota, where one can still freely walk about, although there's not much to do, Welcome, everybody. This is the Ricochet Podcast number 488. I'm James Lallex here in Minnesota, where one can still freely walk about, although there's not much to do. I will be joined in a second, we presume, by Peter Robinson, who, you know, he's not gallivanting out and doing the whole Boulevardier thing,

because he's in lockdown along the road with 40 other million Californians. Rob Long is in New York, which we presume has not yet descended into some sort of, you know, the Warriors-style anarchy. But how are you doing there, Rob? How are you holding up in your palatial redoubt where I can't help but not see you as the guy in the Omega Man with all of the accoutrements of Western civilization, of high society around you

as you sip the last brandy and the bricks come through the window. One of my dear friends has sent me a link to a website that describes the CZ Scorpion Evo 3A1 submachine gun from the Czech Republic. You know, they're actually very good armaments makers. And, you know, he said, look, if it comes to that in New York, let me know. I'll send this to you in pieces and you can assemble it. No, look, people here, the weird thing about New York is that New Yorkers, when disaster strikes, they all get together. You know, they'll come together in clumps.

So 9-11, things like that. Sandy, when Hurricane Sandy hit, there was no power below 14th Street. So everybody walked up, and the Ace Hotel on, I guess, like 25th, 24th Street, had giant power strips that they plugged in because they had power. They plugged in, and they sort of had them outside, and chairs. you could sit there and plug your phone in and everybody did it and everybody did 9-11 there was but but now the crisis has hit so the come togetherness now is to stay at homeness and to be apartness which is weird so that you know you kind of smile and nod at you with people walking their dogs at nighttime to try to take a long walk at night um and you kind of like you know keep your six feet distance but everybody kind of looks at everybody else in the eye and kind of like yeah yeah this is crazy right um so it's actually fine

it's it actually is fine it doesn't this is a thing that we're going through and then we'll stop going through it and it's we're all going to be fine. The interesting thing is now we're at the point where the stuff that we were making aha jokes about a little while ago now seem like quaint luxuries. We adapt very quickly to how things change. I mean, I've adapted to the fact that I can't just wander in the grocery store and pick up some flowers. It's not going to happen for a while. And that when I do go into the grocery store, or for that matter,

even when I go downtown, I feel as though I am spelunking in Chernobyl. It's like it's radioactive outside, and you dastn't go there. I think we're joined from all that racket by Peter, who apparently is cobbling together furniture or some lumber project while he's talking. He's climbing out of his latex suit. I beg to differ from your cheerful, let's buck up, be calm and carry on mood. I don't think we are all right. The economic effects of this, the costs of this are beginning to become clearer. The costs are vast and immediate.

And we don't actually even know how many lives we're saving. So here's what's become clear just in little family Robinson. High school canceled. Learning moves online. Here's what's been established. Learning online doesn't work. For the first three or four days, all the parents were talking ha ha ha about the teenage apocalypse. Now, actually, it's not quite as funny as it was because the teachers aren't available, there are no office hours, the kids aren't asking each other questions about the work,

let alone the whole question of canceled sports and activities, so there's pent-up energy, no place to go. This is not a happy scene. Another Robinson child just finished one huge piece of work to get ready to take some tests. He wants to go to medical school, and now the application process for medical school takes something over a year. You put in your application, you get called for interviews, so you get a job in the meantime. And it doesn't have to be a great job. It just has to be a job. With any luck, it's a job in the medical field, working at a very low position at some lab. Nobody's responding to job applications.

They're just not responding. Another child here, these are, I see children, everybody I'm talking about except my high schoolers in his 20s, salesman in a pretty hot tech startup. Well, nobody's buying. Not only is nobody buying, nobody's answering his phone. And a hot tech startup still has single-digit millions of dollars on which to continue to exist.

And now suddenly, how long can we hold out? And this, I had some phone calls yesterday. This is across the tech scene, or I should say at least the startup scene out here. Startups are really hot. The teams are terrific. The products are great. By the way, I know some of the teams. I can vouch that they're terrific.

The products, I don't begin to understand. But people who are very intelligent do understand them. And now everybody's more than nervous. How long can our money hold out? How long will this last? So I'm starting to think, wait a minute. And this is in this lovely bubble of Northern California where— That's the point.

It's like Lake Wobegon. All the children are above average. Everybody has plenty of money. This is a very wealthy little pocket in the country. You spread this across the entire country, and people are going to have trouble making their rent, and small businesses are going to have trouble making their loans. And the costs of this—I mean, it even crossed my mind. I don't want to be melodramatic about it, but even if we're just adding up numbers,

the deaths from COVID-19 are, what, as of yesterday, 154 in this country. You know, what do we know from Appalachia about unemployed males and the so-called deaths of despair, the suicide, the drugs laws. If this lasts much longer, we're going to start seeing some of that. The costs here are real. And so I'm all in favor of this. I started to notice in Twitter over the last couple of days, there's a little pushback here. What did South Korea do? Aggressive testing,

yes, but they got people back to work as fast as they could. Well, no, they shut it down. That's what they did. They shut it down with a policy of suppression, not mitigation. And that is the policy that we're going to have to do, because if you want it short and sweet and hard and fast— For how long? Well, it was less than about a month for them. It's going to, you know, that's what it's going to have to be. You can't argue with the virus. You can't. The virus doesn't care.

First of all, in a bubble economy, which is what Palo Alto is and Silicon Valley is, where it's fueled entirely by venture capital, capital that's been given to companies, to venture firms to sort of distribute and to roll the dice, essentially. That's going to happen no matter what. That contraction was happening. It happened right when they said the WeWork IPO is not going through. Oh, no, no. That's a totally different matter. It's not at all. No, no, no.

You're just not. That is simply not correct. No, it's utterly true. What's happening now. Wait, let me finish. It's utterly true. Venture capital began to get queasy. But I'm talking about specific startups. 12 kids here, eight kids there. That has $6 million. That

has $5 million. That's totally unaffected by WeWorks, totally unaffected, miles from your IPO. No, but the IPO is the exit. Not always, and less and less all the time, less and less all the time. That is what I mean. Less and less all the time means there's a much, much more contracted sense of what you're going to invest in. The money pools are not there. You can't go for the second. Private equity is changing. No, that's just not so. No, Peter, I got to say, there's no point in arguing it because you can look it up. You're wrong. You're absolutely wrong. I know it's hard because you live in a world which is entirely dependent on an endless flow. I'm making a different point about which you don't seem to know very much. There are the major WeWorks. There are a few, half a dozen at any given time, ventures that are on the runway for IPO. Those are all popping in. It had nothing,

not flopping, but new nervers about those that had nothing to do with the coronavirus. What I'm talking about is the six county... There's no point in arguing about this because you don't want to hear what I'm saying. They shut down in Northern California. When the exits disappear, when you cannot say to your LPs that there's a likely IPO for X percent of your investments, when the IPO market seems to be incredibly, incredibly contracted, which had happened before Corona, That has a ripple effect all the way down. We're a year and a half out of date on that. The IPO is not the only exit anymore. It's not the only way to- It's the biggest one, and it was the fantasy one, and it's where you get your 10 or 20

bagger, which you need to make your fund back. No, not so. Look, this is an easy thing for us- This is an easy point for us to look up because you're wrong. I'm not. I'm sorry, Rob. You just don't. Go ahead. Make your point.

No, that was my point. My point is that when there's a smart- Your point, virus made no difference because the IPO market was already drying up because WeWork's collapsed. If that's your point, you're not right. You're just wrong. Do you want me to say what my point is or do you want to tell me what my point is? My point is that- What is your point, you're not right. You're just wrong. Do you want me to say what my point is, or do you want to tell me what my point is? My point is that— What is your point otherwise?

My point is that when there's a sharp collapse, like there is now and there's going to be, that everyone— I'm trying to draw this distinction between the IPO market collapsing because WeWorks went bad and people got jitters, and the coronavirus thing, which is different. When there's a—can I finish? Go ahead. When there's a sharp decline, a sharp economic event like this, it is a watershed moment. They sometimes call it an inflection point, and everybody rethinks their positions. Everybody rethinks the things that they were queasy about. They get very nervous about that. They were when they were ecstatic about they get queasy about everybody's enthusiasm to put money in the market goes way down. The first people who feel the effects of that are people who are involved in speculative and venture economies. That is simply a fact. You can deny it if you want, but it is simply a fact. And that was happening already.

That wasn't happening at this pace. It wasn't happening at this extreme velocity. But that's what happens when an accelerating inflection point happens. Everything gets really, really fast. That is exactly what has happened. And, I mean, I don't know why we're arguing about it because it's so obvious. All right. What I'm saying is that this what is going on, I'm making a point which is totally separate from WeWorks. And yes, of course, the collapse of WeWorks made people nervous about the IPO market. And in this environment, what they were nervous about,

they're now scared to death about. Sure. Yes. What I'm arguing, however, what is certainly the case is that the coronavirus is something different and worse in the tech economy than the drying up of IPO money and the collapse of WeWorks. They're related. The coronavirus has made things that were happening already worse, but new things have begun to happen. And set aside tech. Set aside tech. Telephone call yesterday with somebody who's in the hotel business, chain of hotels. They are furloughing 80 percent. Yes, hotels and restaurants. 20 percent of the workforce is going to be out. In tech, because I happen to live here, those were the examples that came to mind. But across the economy and tech, everybody out, nobody out here is going to starve or have probably real difficulty. But there are a lot of people, well, the people who drive into Northern California from across the Bay, from the Central Valley, the guys who mow the lawns and the people who take care of all the whole economy is shrinking. People out

in the Central Valley are going to be having a hard time. So I'm saying that the Wall Street Journal editorial today, which says, you know what? We can't keep this up. We've got to come up with some other way of combating this virus other than shutting down the whole economy and taking a 20 percent contraction in GDP in one month. It's not sustainable. I read that and thought, they have a point. And I hope everybody in the White House is listening. Well, what's the point? The point is that we should have a magical mystery solution? The point is you need to start thinking about how to get people back to work, maybe reopen schools. Maybe the kids are not the ones you should be attempting to protect.

It just seems to me, the point is there's been an overreaction, probably an overreaction. We need to think now, shift the thinking from how do you shut down the economy to how do you get the economy growing again while redirecting your efforts to protecting the most vulnerable, not everybody, but the most vulnerable. The countries that have succeeded at suppressing the virus, at actually turning the corner, are the ones that took very, very swift, decisive, kind of extreme action. It lasted for less than two months. It lasted for less than a month in South Korea, but they saw an effect. By the way, I'm not asking that tendentiously. I just don't know what Taiwan did.

Taiwan is Japan. I know they took very draconian actions and they're still essentially shut down. Well, the South Korea, South Korea, South Korea is a very good model. South Korea is back to work, essentially. Right. And they started late. Here's who didn't. Here's who followed a de facto policy of mitigation, Italy. Wait, define mitigation. Mitigation is flatten the curve. It's like, well, you know, everybody kind of stay home a little bit and we'll flatten the curve. And eventually, no, that does not, we now know that does not work. What we're looking for is a policy of suppression where we actually really do seriously stay home for two weeks and we watch as the numbers go down. And our number, the transfer number, I mean, the rate of infection number goes down to below one. How long did the South Koreans shut down?

I don't know. It was measured in weeks, not months. OK, we can live with that. Probably. We got to with that. Probably. We've got to do it. Next question. These are questions. Has Fauci, has anybody said, yesterday I was reading, yesterday morning begins with the Wall Street Journal, or no, that was yesterday evening. I think that the journal's editorial came out.

Yesterday morning began with, this could last 18 months. Yeah. began with, this could last 18 months. Now, Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, shutting down the whole state and saying that 56% of Californians were going to become infected. Well, if 56 are going to become infected, shut down the whole state for how long? And all totally open-ended. My deep suspicion of politicians having spent so much time in politics, I begin to see people like Gavin Newsom and say, you know what, they're starting to enjoy the limelight a little too much here. I just begin to get nervous that the, I'm repeating myself, that the present massive costs are not being taken adequately into account. You don't feel that at all?

No, I feel the opposite. I think they were taken into account, so we didn't do anything for a long time. I mean, had we had a massive response in February or, God forbid, had China not lied to us and done it in January, we wouldn't be having this conversation now. If we shut down the economy in January? Yeah. We didn't have to shut it down in January. We'd probably have to just have everybody use Purell all the time and everybody wear, you know, whatever they're wearing. That's uncontroversial. All that stuff. If we'd gotten started on something earlier, we'd have had to do less. The earlier we'd have gotten started, the less. But you have to get worried about it.

You have to believe that it isn't just so I don't get a cough and a sniffle. It's like I do that so I don't get Corona because Corona is coming. James has walked off with the two of us are just going at it. James, come back. Yes. Well, if you had these guys' energy levels, of course, you'd be perpetually happy, but maybe you don't. And you're working at home and you're a little bit stuck and you just don't know what to do. And you got the blahs. Who wouldn't have the blahs in a situation like this? You have some more coffee, but you think maybe this quarantine self-isolation time is a good time to kick that coffee habit.

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Hey, Deb, welcome back. We'll get to Washington and the mood there in a second because we all know how everyone is so deeply concerned about the mood in Washington. But L.A. or Las Vegas, has your paper gone remote is my first question. Ours has, and we are doing land office business, absolutely breaking every single record, which itself is a story. And two, how are the casinos feeling? Have they all shut down? Are they just moving the slot machine six feet from one another? Let's take your paper first and then talk about how Vegas is dealing with the fallout. By the way, we have this great story up at ReviewJournal.com about a Hawaii legislator who went to Las Vegas, played the

slots, thought that was social distancing, and he got it. So he's blaming Vegas. But Las Vegas is shut down. Governor Sisolak basically shut down all the casinos. He shut down all non-essential businesses on Wednesday. He- he announced it on Wednesday. It happened Thursday. And a number of casinos already were shutting down. But that sort of made it official. So, and the

slot machines were supposed to be unplugged so that you can't have social distancing slot playing if you wanted to. I guess unless you have one at home. So, it- I mean- and this is just- I can't tell you have one at home. So, I mean, and this is just, I can't tell you how devastating to the economy of Las Vegas this is because, I mean, imagine,

this is a tourist industry town. And there was a number of hotel chain executives went in to see the president this week, and they were talking about having vacancy rates in the single digits for their rooms. Sorry, occupancy rates in the single digits. You can't live that way. So Las Vegas, the real estate market finally got to where it was in 2006. It's high just now. And the city is going to take a huge economic wallop. It's horrible. My paper, most people are working remotely. There are editors in the mothership. Hey, Deb, Peter here. How are you? I was following you and

Wesley on Twitter, and you were self-quarantining, or was that a joke that I didn't get? Oh, no, I'm home. I'm home. I can go back to work March 27. I have not been tested. So what happened is I covered CPAC. And I thought, but I sort of felt I don't have any symptoms. Why would I change what I'm doing? I didn't get near the person in question. And by the way, if you notice, and there's a story in the Washington Post about this today, we know of two people at CPAC who had it.

Now, there may well be more, right? So I all of a sudden one day got a fever and was short of breath, climbed the stairs of my townhouse. So I got in touch with my doctor. He had me go to the emergency room. I followed all the precautions. I was not a bad person about that. And they wouldn't test me, even though I had, you know, I was coughing a little bit. I had a fever and the shortness of breath, but they would not test me.

And I'd been to CPAC. They would not test me. I still haven't been tested. Virginia has the test now, but they won't let my doctor give them to me, give one to me. And did they explain why that you don't, what, you're not coughing up blood? In other words, how much worse do you have to be before you qualify for a test? Did they explain the criteria? There are difficulties in administering the test because you need to have enough PPEs,

personal protection equipment. And so there are shortages there. There are two places within about 80 miles of here that Wesley, my husband, found that are administering the tests, including Arlington, but you have to be an Arlington resident to qualify. And, you know, look at that. So I forgot to say this. So they also gave me a chest x-ray and they tested me for the flu. I didn't have A or B or one or two. I always get those mixed up. But I did have a viral infection. So I am sick.

And I'm at home for two weeks. Have you been getting better? Yeah, I am getting better. It's really humid today, so it's making me feel a little woozy. But, yeah, I'm better. And I've been working from home. You know, I rested over the weekend. And I obviously have not been into've been working from home. You know, I, I rested over the weekend and, um, I obviously have not been into the white house, uh, since then. Okay. So I have, you're, you're working from home, but you're still, you're reading everything. You're talking to people.

And I have a question for you as Rob and I just demonstrated, you missed it, but Rob and I just demonstrated people are starting to get angry and, or I won't even say, but they are starting to feel very deeply. And as it happens in our opening chat, I took the side of, not didn't take the side, but I expressed the frustration that people are beginning to feel that the economy is shut down. Kids can't get jobs. High school students whose classes have been canceled are already learning that they can't learn, that the stuff of following your classes online just doesn't work as well. And the question is, and as you mentioned, Las Vegas is shut down. I was talking to somebody in Texas yesterday. Family runs some hotels.

Eighty percent of their employees laid off. These are people who aren't going to be able to make their rent this month. Okay. And so I'm saying, wait a minute, the costs here are really heavy. Exactly how many people are we going to be saving? Do you guys know exactly what you're doing here and shutting down the whole economy? And then Rob will speak for himself, I'm sure. But Rob is saying, wait a minute. What we all know, this virus is really dangerous. And the countries that have succeeded in it have shut down, have succeeded in containing it, have shut down for as long as it took. And the president so far, he started saying, let's not take, let's not overreact. But right now he's in full shutdown mode, I think.

Are you feeling, somebody on the Hill, people on the Hill must be feeling the pushback. This is tricky politically. Excuse me. Yeah, so I have a number of things to say for that, and thank you for opening that door. One of them is, I mean, Donald Trump shook hands with Matt Schlapp, who had close contact with the person at CPAC who had it, found out he had it later, tested positive. And it's sort of interesting to see. We keep hearing how really contagious this is. The Washington Post had a big star in CPAC today. There's one other person that we know who went to CPAC who got it. Person after person, Matt Goetz, Ronna McDaniel, all these other people who had been there, they've all tested negative,

including the president, by the way. So, and I was there and I don't know what I have. I have a viral infection, right? So I don't know how deadly and Dr. Fauci said that basically the, the mortality rate is 1%. I've looked at some of the other, some other data and that's certainly within a good ballpark, right? Now we want to make sure that people who are really vulnerable don't get this, right? That's obviously an important thing. The Wall Street Journal has an editorial today making all the points that you've made, Peter, about how, let's face it, if we shut down the economy, that's bad for everyone's health. Yes. And so I hear what you're saying. And let me add my personal.

I mean, how long does it take really before some of these guys just think of Las Vegas, those people who have no. How long does it take before some a couple of guys get tanked up and there's some domestic violence that the cops have to deal with in Las Vegas? This this is rough. I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, I completely agree. And my pet peeve is schools. So there have been over 30 governors, including Nevada's Governor Steve Sisolak, who have closed down all the public schools in their state. If you read the CDC guidelines, they don't suggest that. They don't suggest closing down a school at all that hasn't had community spreading or somebody who's been infected in the school. And when that happens, they suggest closing down the school for two to five days to clean it.

I mean, they're not talking about, obviously, if you're in Seattle, that's totally different, right? If you're in an area that's had a lot of community spreading, you're going to shut down your school. You should. And there was just, sadly, a case of an elementary school student who showed up in a Nevada school who was infected, or someone at the who was infected or someone at the school was infected. But the idea that we act as though there's no downside to shutting down public schools, that's the most amazing thing I've ever seen. And the fact that they were doing it when no one's telling them to do it, I just don't understand. Well, I mean, hey, Dennis Roblong,

there are people telling you to do it, whether they're right or they're Well, I mean, hey, Dennis Rob along, there are people telling you to do it, whether they're right or they're wrong. I mean, the teachers don't want to come in. And, you know, these are probably, you know, labor union rules, but they, if they, you can have teachers in schools, if the teachers say, I'm not coming in, you may as well close school. That's not necessarily the right thing to do, but I can see how, how you can make that decision. But I mean, the, the argument isn't to, to shut down everything forever or to shut it down until this disappears with the face of the earth. The argument that the people who are in favor of the suppression policy are making, and that's most people in the White House now, is that if you shut it down for two weeks,

two, three weeks, it really is a question of number of weeks and not a question of number of months. And the economic disruption is short and sharp and deep as opposed to letting it get large, letting it overrun. The multiple of the people who might end up or might or might need to end up in the ICU in this country is something like 10, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 times the number of beds we have. That doesn't just mean that the people who are sick will be in stadiums and hallways and outside like they are in Italy. It also means the people who are normally sick, who have heart attacks and strokes and everything, they're also going to die. So they'll be victims of corona just as if the victims of corona are corona. We tend to think these things are separate, but a hospital bed doesn't really know why you're there. It doesn't care if it's being used by somebody who's a burn victim or a car accident victim.

It doesn't make a distinction. So there are arguments to do this. Okay, and let me just say, if the government's telling you to stay home, you should do it. There's no point, if there's an order like that,, you should do it. There's no point if there's an order like that for you to ignore it. Right. We, we want it. You may be skeptical. They are experts and we want it to work. So let's just agree on that. But I, I, I've seen closures. I've heard, I've seen people talking about closing the public schools through 2020. Explain that to me. Or through the school year. I don't understand that.

So, yes, I believe that if that's the plan, we should all honor it because we want to limit the spread of the virus. And who knows? Maybe if everybody or almost everybody stays home for two weeks, that will really make a big difference. I truly hope that works. My concern is what's going to happen after this. And my concern are that these edicts that come out that just seem to go on forever. Why would you tell the people of your state that the schools should probably aren't going to open at least till after the summer? Why would you do that? Right. No, no, I absolutely

agree with that. I think that there's been a general failure about a process to understand a process in place, which is bizarre because we have a process in place for so many things. I mean, people in Louisiana have a process in place for hurricanes and people in Florida have the same thing. And people in California, whether you personally take responsibility for it or not, there's a municipal process in place and a municipal process in place and a state process in place for what happens during that. You have another Category 8, Category 9 earthquake. So there are what we seem to be doing here is making it up as we go along,

which is a deeply, deeply human failure of not planning for the worst because we think maybe some bad juju will happen and we'll create the worst, or we just don't want to think about it. But if all these policies had been in place, and you could just basically make that code call like they do in the Andromeda strain, wildfire, and everything sort of like creaked into place in the end of January, beginning of February, we would not be here today. I don't know that you know that. I just don't know that you know that. I just don't know that you know that.

I don't know that, but I do know, we have models. South Korea is a pretty good model. We have models for getting the rate of infection down below one. We do have those models, not in three months, not in nine months, not in a year, but in a month. Go on. I'm sorry. I'm interested about another way of getting at the same question is the politics of it. Here in California, the first thing that happened was the shutdown of six

counties in Northern California. I live in one of those six. You can argue that that was perfectly reasonable because there were some coronavirus cases popping up in these six counties. But as of yesterday, Governor Newsom has shut down the whole state. Now, contrast that with Ron DeSantis in Florida, where as far as I know, the beaches remain open. There was quite a lot of criticism. He just closed them. Oh, he did close them. Okay. That was my question.

That was my question. I believe he did. Okay. I believe that he did. All right. That was just the question. I thought if all the incentives are, if all the politicians are reasoning, well, maybe I overdo it, but nobody will blame me for that if the crisis isn't as bad as we thought. Whereas if I underdo it and the crisis, so they're all running the same calculation roughly, and they're all shutting things down, I guess, right? There's no pushback yet politically.

There hasn't been much of a pushback politically. And there's a certain tension. I mean, it's interesting. I was watching Governor Cuomo yesterday saying that he wants to have uniform standards for the whole country. And, you know, this White House says, no, this is a state and local issue. You guys know best what to do. And I've felt that that's a good strategy. Now, maybe at some point in time, someone will decide that we should have a two-week shutdown.

And it should be really, really strict. If they're going to do it, they should do it soon. I mean, this is voluntary. You mean a two-week national shutdown? National shutdown. Got it. Okay. I mean, this is voluntary. You mean a two-week national shutdown? National shutdown. Got it. Okay.

I mean, this is voluntary, but it's not, I mean, I guess, I mean, I don't really know how people think we're going to enforce a real tough shutdown. I mean, and tell me this, Peter, how many homeless people live in the Bay Area? All of them. How do they shelter in place? How do you deal with that? That's right. So, I mean, I just, and let's face it, they have been a public health problem, well, for as long as I lived in California. Right.

And nothing was done about it. I just, I mean, so it's not as if you just you can make a declaration like that in certain societies. But I don't know. And I don't know that it's you're going to have to do something about a lot of people who have been under the radar for years, right. A sensible, maybe, I'm not a physician, but I'm certainly not, I have no doctorate in public health, but maybe a sensible use of the first test kits to arrive in San Francisco is to give them to the cops and say, go test the homeless people. If those people are sick, we've got to bring them in and help them. Legally, what a mess that is. I think it's easier to say this is what we should do than to do it. And I'll leave it at that. And that's one of the reasons why they have this 15 days to stop the spread. I'll follow it. I'll do it. I want to do what's best for my community and my country.

But, you know, I'm 65 years old. I have a house with a yard. I can do this. If they don't get the tests out better, people who don't have what I have or people who have to pay the rent, people who are, you know, they're going to start finding ways to get around it. And they're going to do more. Because they have to. Well, but that's the argument for a shutdown, right? Because if there's no job for you to go to, you have to stay home, even if you're paycheck to paycheck. There's a cruel logic to it, which is the only way to keep paycheck to paycheck employees home and not going to work is to enforce the shutdown, is to stop running the public transportation, stop running the buses, stop running the subways, and then keep everybody home.

And then try to figure out on the other side of that how you're going to make, how you're going to help those people in a two-week, three-week, utterly standstill economy. There's a cruel rationality to it, which is awful but hard to deny. I mean, if we follow the pattern of the countries that have been, you know, limited success with this, that's what we should be doing. But again, I think that those are different countries. And if the CDC says that's what we should do, I'm doing it. But I mean, I think that we have to have a discussion about what is achievable and whether the means of saying this is how we're, like I said, so what are you going to do with all the

homeless people in the Bay Area if you do that? Where are you going to put them? You're going to have to have a place to do that. And if you have a shutdown and they're not included, guess what? You're not going to stop the spread of the virus. So this just has to be done in a manner where people are helped. And let me just – my situation here. So my husband and I, I've read the guidelines. They say that I'm supposed to be in one room with a mask on. I'm not doing that.

You know? I'm just doing that. If I go down, I'm taking Wesley with me. He won't let me. Yeah. Right. If they have a test that tells me I have it, I will do that. But, you know, and but the chances are to get that mask. Your civic duty is to be on these podcasts. You cannot wear a mask. That's right. So, I mean, the thing is, there are things that really have to be up and running. People are not going to, as I said, I can afford to just never leave the house, right? Or I actually went out twice and walked my dog and I wore a mask and stayed six feet away from people and people could tell that I was wearing a mask.

So they stayed away from me. Fresh air is a good thing, right? But other than that, I have stayed inside my house every minute. And if anybody went near me, I like ran away from them, okay? And I didn't cough the whole time. But how do you expect, I mean, really, people are not going to stay home because they might be sick forever. So the testing thing is really going to get ramped up. And I say this, you know, as someone who's in Virginia, this is crazy.

They've really got to get that going better. And it was fun when everybody got to blame Trump for it, for the fact that there were problems with the CDC getting the test together. Well, now it's a state problem and they're going to have to deal with it. Deb, how is Trump doing? This is the obvious question that we haven't asked yet. How do you think he's doing? Well, he started off making it all about him, telling people that he knew he was handling it well because he had a really good approval rating with Republican voters. He wore a Keep America Great hat to the CDC. I mean, just totally inappropriate things. And yet, I think we have seen Trump turn a corner this week where he's

taking it much more seriously. And he's got a really good team of people who I think are handling this very well. Are there mistakes made? Of course there are. That's what happens when there's an epidemic. The places that handle that person perfectly, well, that's great. But I just think that we're a bit of a messy country and that we don't necessarily handle things perfectly right away. And part of it is that we just have this attitude. I certainly do that. I can handle what's coming my way.

Right. Right. And so I think that people and, you know, there are polls now that show him above 50 percent for approval for this. And I think it's because he stopped making it about him and he really understands what needs to be done and he wants to do it. And I love I mean, Dr. Fauci, do you love this guy? Oh yeah. Deborah Birx. Right. I mean, he's got a really good team of people, the surgeon general, and they're coming out and they're talking and they're being really fact oriented. They're telling people, this is what we know. They're being incredibly transparent.

So I have faith in them that they're making the right decisions. And I got to say, by the way, governor Sisolak in Nevada came out and he did this. People are dying. You've got to do this. Well, you know, that doesn't really work. You have to sort of lay out the case for why you decided 30 days when the federal government's saying 15. You have to sort of lay out the numbers a little bit more, I think. Let people believe that you're, because, you know, I think there are people out there who think that there are a bunch of experts who can work at home telling them they have to when they can't. I've got a question. I'm going to pose a political theory to you because I think you and I sort of have seen the past week and a half the same way. with Trump was fumbling around and doing his normal Trump routine that followed quickly, really within 72 hours by a pretty masterful, I think, Friday, a week ago now, I think. Was it a week ago, two weeks ago? God, it's hard to remember. A press conference where he gathered

the experts and he looked like he was doing what a president should do, which is chair a very important meeting with very smart people. And since then, the White House has been sort of a steady drumbeat of caution and measures and sort of thoughtful escalating the response that we have to this virus. So I'm wearing a MAGA hat today. I mean, I think that Trump is doing a really good job. But don't you think that I'm using me as an example, that a president, any president, President X, President Y, you got your 43 percent of people who love you and you got a 43 people, people, 43 percent of people who hate you. And you got the people in the middle and the people in the middle may not like you and they may not like your policies, but they want you to succeed. Those are people who are loyal to the idea that you're my president, too, even though I didn't vote for you, didn't like you or I don't like the way you tweet. And if this president seems to be doing things that make me want if I'm a Trump skeptic, make me want him to succeed.

And I think that's a very important part of what I where I think his approval ratings, why his approval ratings are going up, because we want this guy to succeed. And he seems to be taking it seriously, and I'm in his corner. That's a very deep insight. Our fate is linked to this guy's fate, really linked to his fate for the first time. Oh, and can I bring something up then? Don't you think? Is that right? Yeah, I think that's right. Absolutely. And I think when people watch the briefings and they keep asking him, say, well, why do you call it the Chinese virus? They're at home thinking, excuse me, we don't really care about that. We want to find out what they're going to do to make sure it doesn't spread anymore. You know what?

I don't begrudge him that. I really don't begrudge him that. He can't help himself. But I think it's, you know, he's a politician, so you've got to remind people the other side's nuts. There's one other little wrinkle here that the two of you just touched on. I'm sorry. You know, he's a politician, so you've got to remind people the other side's nuts. There's one other little wrinkle here that the two of you just touched on. I'm sorry. It's fascinating.

We could talk forever. I won't. I'll just make this last point that plays into the politics. One thing that's showing up is the difference between people who are on a government paycheck, which will keep coming, and those who work for universities, which have huge endowments, and their paychecks will keep coming, and those who are right out there in the private sector, totally exposed. The people who run and work for hotels, airlines. And the feeling that Trump really feels for represents the people who are out there in the private economy whose paychecks may dry up. He understands those people. That's a very powerful thing with him, I think, at this moment.

You are so right. And I really do think that people feel that there's a sort of government class that's telling other people what to do. And Trump is standing up for people who want to be out there. They want to be working. They want to succeed. And I have to say, I mean, I think he says Chinese virus just to get those questions and just to turn people and make them hate the press more, too, by the way. I mean, it's like every time a reporter asks a question about that, a Trump voter gets its wings.

Yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree. I mean, and I as you know, I'm not a Trump fan. And I'm like, yeah, you know, those guys are nuts to Trump. Go after them, because it does show this kind of like it's a it's the living animated embodiment of that old joke about, you know, what happens when the nuclear apocalypse happens. And the headline in the New York Times the next day is, world destroyed in nuclear Armageddon. Women, comma, minorities hit hardest. That's right. It's just a sign of a mindset from the before times, really. Having these people sit there and spout out the old woke arguments is like listening to people in ancient Rome in the

College of Augurs discuss the line of succession while the Visigoths are pouring into the forum and taking everything. I mean, it's just they're irrelevant. They're utterly irrelevant, and they don't even know it yet, but it's all the old thoughts are the only thing they have left to cling to, because everything has shifted

under their feet, and they don't get it. But you do, Deb, and we thank you for being here, and we love listening to you and hearing you. And we hope you are well and continue to improve. And keep us posted. And we'll have you on as soon as possible to give us the news on both Vegas and D.C. Thanks a lot. Thank you for being my window to the outside world. Yeah. The window needs cleaning, but we're happy to do it. It's cloudy and cracked as it is. And if you have any Windex, look at the label. It says it kills 99.9% of all germs. So I've been using that thing in the form of Purell

and gargling with the damned stuff. And, you know, it's lemon fresh. So you add a little vodka to the Windex, you're good for the day. So, Deb, thanks a lot. Thank you. Tell Wesley we said hello. I shall. Through a mask.

All right, everybody. Through a mask. Peter's right. If you work for the government, your check's coming. coming if you work for a university there's endowments on the way but a lot of people are out there and exposed and a lot of people are already carrying debt and debt is only going to get worse in a situation like this and you don't want that to happen so what do you do well if you are carrying revolving debt and this is i've made the spot many times but perhaps it's no more frequent and pertinent than it is today If you're not paying off your card every month, and in situations like this, it might be really hard to do that. That means you're paying thousands in interest every year that really you don't have to.

So here, Lending Club. We've told you about this before, and it's something you should think about now or pass along to somebody who might need this help. Lending Club can consolidate your debt or pay off your credit cards with one fixed monthly payment. They've been doing this since 2007. They've helped millions of people regain control of their finances with affordable, fixed-rate personal loans from Lending Club. No trips to the bank, one of those essential places that remains open. No high-interest credit cards either. Just go to LendingClub.com. We're all working from home. Let's borrow and get our financial house in order from home. LendingClub.com. Tell them about yourself, how much you want to borrow. Pick the terms that are right for you. And if you are approved, your loan will be

automatically deposited into your bank account in as little as a few days. Now, Lending Club is the number one peer-to-peer lending platform with over $35 billion in loans issued. Go to LendingClub.com slash Ricochet. Check your rate in just a few minutes. Borrow up to $40,000. $40,000. That's LendingClub.com slash Ricochet. LendingClub.com slash Ricochet. All loans made by WebBank, member FDIC, and of course, Equal Housing Lender. And our thanks to LendingClub for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. And now we welcome back to the podcast, Arthur Brooks, former president of the American Enterprise Institute and professor of the practice of public leadership at Harvard Kennedy School and the Arthur C. Patterson Faculty Fellow at the Harvard Business School. He's also a columnist for The Washington Post and his latest book is Love Your Enemies, How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt. Arthur, welcome. And let's talk about that culture of contempt. There was a tweet the other day where somebody put out a picture of Mike Pence leading

everybody in a moment of prayer before they got down to business, and it was roundly castigated by people saying that the mere expression of faith in this situation shows that we're dealing with snake-handling, buck-toothed yahoos who are going to disregard science and pray to the sky god and the rest of it. David French took us to task for saying that, saying that when somebody criticizes them in the culture of contempt that you talk about, actually we must consider the holistic virtues of the whole person's life. You know what? I think when people reveal themselves, they reveal themselves. The question is, do we get contemptuous of the contemptors, or do we find it in our hearts to move on and just say, let's talk about this when things get better?

Wow, that was a mouthful. And I want to, first of all, let's start by, you know, on behalf of snake-handling buck-toothed yahoos everywhere, I mean, I want to say that, you know, I try to start each day, my own day, with prayer. And I find nothing neither objectionable nor even especially strange about the idea of any group of people asking for basic wisdom before they go into the decision-making process. The problem is that every even ordinary act of traditional piety is seen through the lens of complete contempt by those who are looking, in the culture of contempt, people are looking for reasons to have disdain and disgust for people from the other group. And that's exactly what we see. If it weren't that, it would have been

something else. Hey, Arthur, it's Rob Long in New York. Thanks for joining us. Can I just follow up on that? Because we just had Deb Saunders on, and the four of us kind of had this thought, which is that, just to get political for a minute about it, because you're talking about American politics. Let's talk about him. There are, you know, 43 X number percent of people who love Donald Trump and are going to vote for him no matter what. And there's about the same number who hate him and are never going to vote for him and would have voted for Bernie Sanders or Kamala Harris or Joe Biden. They're going to vote for the other person. There's a bunch of people in the middle. And those people in the middle, what makes them

different is, and different from the opposition, is that they want the president to succeed. It didn't really matter the President Trump, President Obama, President Clinton, President Bush. They want the president to succeed. They wish him well. He's their president. Right. And isn't that the, I mean, if you use the current metaphor, isn't that the virus that we want the other, the 80% of partisans or 85% of partisans to sort of catch this idea that, well, you know, it's my president too. Yeah, sure. And, you know, that's the one thing that generally speaking is the silver lining of the cloud of some terrible national disgrace or tragedy. We find after 9-11, after a war, after a great national tragedy, we typically we come together as a nation.

And what we're really worried about is that people will use the current crisis, the coronavirus crisis, to further drive us apart as opposed to bringing us together. Now, one quick thing. Eighty five% are not partisans. The truth of the matter is when you almost, no matter how you slice the data, people will behave like partisans despite the fact that what they really want is less division. 93% of Americans say they hate how divided we become as a country, but they have a particular point of view and they see bullies on the other side and they need, in an environment of bullying, you will choose your bully to protect you from the other side's bully. And so we're in a suboptimal equilibrium. I'm an economist,

so I talk that way. We're in a suboptimal equilibrium in which we will choose our bully over the other guy's side, but we don't want either one, in point of fact. I think that if somebody were to exploit the true opportunity of the moment for greater unity in this country, not to sound like an Estonian social democratic party or something, but we could actually have a new day coming out of this coronavirus epidemic. We could basically have people say, look, forget it. I don't want any dividers. No dividers, either side. I think this is the opportunity that we think. This is the majority emotional baseline at this point, I believe.

Arthur, Peter here. Okay, let's stick with that. We're in a mess right now if the Wall Street Journal editorial this morning is to be believed, and I find it persuasive, that the costs of shutting down the economy, the costs of sending everybody home and telling them to stay home, are beginning to be felt, not just in the dropping of the Dow, but hundreds of thousands of Americans who are going to have trouble making their rent this month. And that's just the beginning. So we've got people who feel very strange. Tomorrow morning, in your prayers of thanksgiving

you may offer thanks that you missed the opening chat where Rob and I got a little angry with each other as many people are now where my view is wait a minute this is an overreaction and Rob's view is no no no we're trying to save lives shut it down now get through the pain early alright how do

we the economy whatever happens we've got at least a quarter of a contraction and maybe two quarters of economic contraction. is going to be running for president against Joe Biden, who, well, I don't want to, let's just say he's a little on the creaky side and his politics seem to be in motion. The Joe Biden of the old days was a blue collar New Deal Democrat, and now he's a Bernie Sanders Democrat. And he's 77, 78. We've got, we're going to be coming out of this coronavirus with any luck. We'll be coming out of it by the summer. The economy will be down. People will be really, nerves will be frayed.

And then this lunatic political season will be upon us. All right. Arthur, your great talent is saying how the Constitution and capitalism and our fundamental faith will get us through. How will it? How do you see a happy outcome? Okay, so there's always a happy outcome. It just sometimes takes a little bit longer, sometimes, and other times. And so, you know, but that's basically the same thing that people would confront John Maynard Keynes with, and he said, well, yeah, well, in the long run, we're all dead. Exactly. So let's talk about the short run. So I understand that particular argument.

But if we have any sense of history, it's not going to be very long from now when we're going to be saying when the coronavirus is going to be behind us and the great recession of the coronavirus will also be behind us. These are truths. These are things that are not going to persist forever. It won't be the end of the republic. It won't be the end of capitalism. It just won't be. It's just going to be painful. And what we're trying to figure out is how to measure out the we started off spending too much time on politics and economics, not enough time on public health, didn't spend enough time thinking about it. So we were underreacting to the public health crisis. Certainly now we're going to find out that we're overreacting to the public health crisis, not that we shouldn't do anything. But what we have is public health officials who are being placed de facto in charge of the American economy. Now, it's worth pointing out, I mean,

it's an important thing that we're listening to Anthony Fauci and Scott Gottlieb and people that I really love. But at the same time, we have to remember that any good doctor will say, well, how much chemotherapy should I use to kill this tumor without killing the patient? And that's exactly what we're trying to figure out. So you boys, Peter and Rob, I want you to love each other again. See, I specialize in that. Rob is so lovable. My job in loving Rob is easy. His job in learning to love me is much harder, Arthur.

It's everyone's hard job to love everyone else. The problem with the world is other people, let's be honest. Very Sartre of you. Very nice. Nice existentialist quote. So, Arthur, don't you—I'm asking questions to which I think I already know the answer, but I want to hear your answer because you always say something that will surprise me. So don't you, though, really in your heart of hearts, don't you wish we were a little more like South Korea, a little more able, a little less likely to go rail to rail and a little more composed from the outset. Don't you, if you don't despair of American democracy,

doesn't it from time to time just annoy you that we do this rail to rail, overreact in one direction, run screaming in the other direction? Don't you wish we were like Hong Kong? We're not an ethnically homogenous country that comprises half of an Asian peninsula. Yeah. I mean, so do I despair of it? Sure. Like anybody else. I mean, it drives me crazy. It makes me nuts. But I have to say, this is actually one of the great charms of the United States. One of the great advantages of the United States is the messiness of the constant state of experimentation and the fact that we have institutions that are so, at the public sector level, so powerful that they can dictate all aspects of our lives. We're not, look, guys, we're just not obedient people. That's a good thing,

mostly, but sometimes it's incredibly inconvenient like it is today. And it's not something we're going to change overnight. And it's something that you know that when we come out of this thing, which we will in a matter of weeks, months at the most, that it's going to be the messiness and the lack of obedience, the lack of, you know, the lack of ability to actually play by some government's rules. That's going to be the reason that the United States is going to lead this world out of this crisis. We're going to show the way how entrepreneurship, how freedom, how our adherence to the ideas of the American experiment are good for the whole world. And this is going to actually save the world as we have been doing over and over and over again for the past hundred years. There's still a reason that I guarantee you going around

the world right now that everybody in countries that are now pulling out of the coronavirus would still say, yeah, I want to go to America. You can't hear me. You can't see me, but I'm sort of cheering here because I agree with everything you said. And I would only ask one thing. I'm just one, you know, larger question about it. We are not an obedient people because I am not an obedient person. I'm the worst employee you could ever imagine. I don't like, I don't like going on, when I have to go on those national review cruises, I just hate the, the groupness of it. I hate that. Well, it's eight o'clock. It's just dinner seat. I hate all that. Um, and I hate being told what to do and I hate it, hate it. And I hate the mayor of New York City.

And so and I'm not crazy about the governor. And they're both telling me to do stuff. And I don't like it. I just need to get my head around the fact that the that that they're not telling me to do something. It's this virus that does not care who the mayor is, the president is, who controls the House or the Senate. There's a fantastically

humbling logic to the science. It's not going to listen to the fact that, you know, 20 percent of our workforce that works in hospitality industry is going to be staying home unemployed. It doesn't care about any of that. And am I, I put it this way, am I a ghoul because I find this lesson important? Do you know what I mean? No, look, I mean, yeah, no, no, I understand. Look, I hate following rules too. And the only time I ever found real respect for rule following was when I became president of AEI and as management, I need other people to follow my rules.

You know, and suddenly my whole attitude changed, quite frankly. But, you know, I understand that. But at the same time, I follow rules constantly when it's a practical thing to do in the cost benefit calculus inside my brain. You know, I don't go to, you know, lecture at Harvard, you know, wearing my underpants outside my pants. There's all kinds of rules that I follow because it's a question of prudential judgment. That is not a rule at Harvard, I guarantee you.

I hate to interrupt you, but I can assure you that there's no rule of Harvard about where you have to wear your underwear. Well, look, I teach at the Harvard Business School, so let's just say it's an unwritten rule. Societal norm. It's a societal norm. It's a societal norm. It's a societal norm. It's a societal norm. You know, it's very complex. But at the same time, what I dislike is being sort of battered about by the capricious, arbitrary whims of powerful bureaucrats.

That's what I dislike. When there's actually prudential judgment going on in people who have authority, I'm delighted to follow it. You know, when people are talking, I mean, look, I'm a Catholic. I'm a rule man. And at the same time, what I bridle against as a Catholic against Roman Catholic Church is when I think it's arbitrary and capricious the rules that they're setting or that they're sort of earthbound in the way that they're thinking about these things. This is normal. This is absolutely normal for us to not like it when it looks like somebody is using their power arbitrarily, but actually following authority that's legitimate. We make these judgments all day long.

You know, I live in a culture where you have rules and their authority comes from a shared consensus among the people that these are the rules that will follow for the better for everybody. When I'm standing outside down at the office back when I used to go there, having a little charut, I was always pleased by the sight of Minnesotans queuing up for the bus. They start where the pole is, where the bus will stop, and then they form a line, as opposed to forming an angry mob that's just going to shove and try to get all the way in at the same time. That speaks a lot of a particular culture. And it's not opposed from time. There's not, you know, Kim Jong-il saying, thou shalt queue this way. It's because people say, well, this is the best way for us to do it. And it speaks of an orderly mentality. But I mean, yes, here's the thing, Arthur, it seems at the end of this, there's going to be some sort of reckoning. We're going to have to look around at the wreckage and what we're rebuilding and figure out what went wrong. The question is, are we going to do that right? Because we never

really seem to do it. We're happy to get back to normalcy and we sort of shuffled to the side the things that got us in this situation. There's all kinds of precepts and ideas and assumptions about our ruling class, the way things were done, that have failed us. And it seems important for us to look at these because so many cherished shibboleths have been shattered. The EU has decided, oh my gosh, borders, national cohesion actually do matter. We're seeing every single day regulations that were put in place by, gosh, for our own protection being swept away without a second thought because they weren't needed at all right is this going to are we going to be leaner and smarter and a little bit more clear-eyed and not subscribe half-heartedly to this sort of

gauzy davis worldwide globalism that had suffused the world before in our ruling class but start to look with a little bit more clarity to the things that got us into these situations? It's a good question. I don't know. I mean, there are certainly some things that we will probably leave behind. I mean, you remember in the old days when the Soviets would say that we're soft, when Americans are soft, and we don't have any discipline and all that. And it would always kind of hurt a little bit because there was something true about it. You know, we are or we would be, you know, the conceits that we live by through the, you know, the largesse of our capitalist excesses. You know, it sort of bothered me a little bit. And lately I've been looking around and feeling a little bit terrible about our society where we're all the fads that we're dealing with right now, the ridiculous societal fads.

And you wonder which of these fads will be left behind on the now, the ridiculous societal fads. And you wonder which of these fads will be left behind on the side of the road when we come out of this. You notice that people are spending a lot less time talking about their, you know, the importance of identity and talking a lot more about us all actually trying to get healthy and well together. I think that that's actually a good thing. The idea that we are not intersectionally should be thinking about our victimhood, but rather thinking about the shared story of what it means to be Americans and what it means to be human beings. I think that's the most important thing that we could do. Will we learn all the lessons about whether regulation was right or wrong or stupid or smart?

No, we won't learn those lessons. Will there be changes? For sure. But I think that the idea of coming together with less division, of loving each other a little bit more, of having a little bit more humility, a little bit more tolerance, a little bit more love toward people who disagree with us, I think that that actually will happen, and I'm looking forward to it. Okay, Arthur, last question for me, and I'm going to get really sort of down and dirty because, you know, the Democrats are using this crisis. But I do want to say something about that. Like, there does seem to be a problem.

Maybe it's just taxonomy. Maybe it's just my problem. But there's a difference between the health care system and the public health system. And the health care system is never going to have all the ICU beds that we need for a giant disaster like this. That would make no sense. It's never going to really have enough ventilators. That's going to make no sense. It's got a whole bunch of things.

We're never ever. But it's going to single payer system. I mean, Italy's got a single payer system, right? None of that's really going to make sense. But it does seem to be a public health. A public health failure that we're all responsible for. And do you see that that will be changed? I mean, look, the best time to fix the roof is when it's sunshining.

But then when the sun is shining, you think, why bother fixing the roof? How optimistic are you that after this is done in a month, a month and a half, I'm an optimist. We're going to say, okay, well, let's just, we got to figure out a plan here for the future. I'm not optimistic. I'm not optimistic. You notice that we keep building houses over and over again in Malibu Canyon. Yeah, but they're nice houses though. Yeah, they're nice houses until they burn down and then they burn down. And then, you know, then we say, oh, we shouldn't build houses here or on barrier islands. And they keep getting knocked down. The reason is because we're resistant.

If there's not a terrible hurricane for 10 or 15 years, pretty soon we start building wood frame houses in Florida again. That's just basically how people are. And there's a cost benefit calculation that goes into that. You know, it's in a way it has its own prudential judgment of not be thinking about doomsday every single day of the year because you have to enjoy your life. You know, and there are certain decisions that you need to make. The idea of saving all your money, making sure that you're you have peak capacity for the next

hot zone apocalypse, every single day of the year when you need to use resources for other things, public resources are scarce. You need to use them in all sorts of ways. Sometimes you don't have enough. I realize I don't like it right now, but there are decisions that we have to make as a society using our scarce resources unless 99 cents in the dollar would be sucked up into our public health system so that when the unthinkable occurs, we have exactly the right number of ventilators, masks, and beds. I don't think we're going to make that decision. Alas, no. I think you're probably i think you're probably

right we're no matter what happens after this we'll still be human beings see now i'm going right on a limb with this this is you know bold predictions on my part thank you for summarizing my relatively erudite yet vacuous point of no i didn't i was i just suddenly i realized oh my god we're just we're still people you you know, like Soylent Green. We're still people. We're not going to be super people. We're going to be the same people. Yeah, no, I get it. You know, there's all kinds of things where people go through a terrible, you know, couples will go through a terrible crisis together and come out the other end and say, we're never going to spend any time thinking about stupid nonsense anymore. We're not going to fight about it. You know, by the end of the day, they're fighting about, you know, what they should have for dessert. It's people. That's right. Damn it. Yeah. So in other words, in six months from now, the New York Times lead story will be,

are you ever going to fix that damn toilet or do I have to listen to it leak forever? Which would be exactly right. You know, and then by the way, there's a whole psychological theory of this is called homeostasis. Homeostasis says that for us to be able to perceive the world around us, we cannot be flooded by odd occurrences forever. You need the ability, you need to have the ability to have a peak emotional experience, but you can't maintain the peak emotional experience for very long such that you can be open to new experiences along the way. That's the reason when you get a raise, it gives you joy on the day you hear about the raise, not the day you get it in your paycheck and certainly not six months later. And after you come out of a crisis like

this, you remember the crisis, but you soon forget such that you can live your ordinary life. That's actually good, not bad. Right. That's the title of our podcast, Homeostasis. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Arthur, I want to thank you on behalf of Peter and Rob, but also note that if I could ask us, you're in Brookline, you said, right? Brookline, Mass. Exactly right. I just put a house in Newton. You'll be happy to know I put a bid and was accepted on a house in Newton one day before this whole thing went down. This is really good for an economist.

Oh, you should refine refine up exactly my allies used to live in newton i love it you love it uh but my daughter is uh was at boston university and had to leave her dorm uh with all kinds of stuff left behind so i'm just going to ship you you know some labels and some boxes and stuff like that if you could just wander over to bu and scoop some of that stuff up. Sure. I'll just put her futon in the corner and no problem. Well, it's a Casper. You can get that thing back in the box really easy. If anybody can, you can. Arthur, thanks for joining us today. And we'll talk to you again. Thanks, Jensen. Don't forget, just keep loving each other. It's all good.

Yeah. Well, we have to do a tele remote remotely, so it's a little bit more difficult than we thought. Yeah. So he's I wonder what the traffic is like. I know that the traffic here in Minneapolis is wonderful because when he talks about, you know, all the good things that have come from this, you look at the maps of the traffic and there is many. There are accidents, which is good because people tend to pay too much for their insurance. That's for sure. Well, that was the point I was getting around to eventually, so I might as well get right to it. It's reported that Americans are overpaying on car insurance by over $21 billion. Billion dollars.

$21 billion overpaying for your car insurance. And I'll bet you feel like you're one of them, right? Searching for a better deal, though, it can take hours. And it typically results in this barrage of unwanted spam calls, right? They call you up, hey, we saw you went to our website. It's a nightmare. It just is. Until now, that is, thanks to, are you ready?

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And our thanks to Zebra for sponsoring the Ricochet podcast. Well, we should probably dash off here. But, you know. This is a long one. This is the jumbo-sized. This is the quarantine-sized podcast. We've gotten this long before yeah but but it makes us wonder what was so important that we felt compelled to keep talking about it for hours yeah um it's like

i was thinking like people you know when they're in real trouble and they pray to god i swear i'll never do a bad thing again i will i will all the things i'm going to do for you i swear and then you know they get out of the scrape and then then they're, you know, that's it. Eddie, cue up the post of the week music, because, you know what, we have to observe this. We can't let everything fall into utter chaos. The proprieties. Standards, there are standards. We have to observe the rules. I mean,

just as one dresses in one's best before going down like a gentleman, as Guggenheim did in the Titanic, we, too, will keep our formatics in place, so let's have the sounder for the James Lacs Post of the Week. The James Lilacs Member Post of the Week. And what is this one about? Why, it's sheer retroactive bribery.

It goes to D12, who wrote a post in the member section called Introduction. Quote, I'm new here. You can blame Spin for that. Anyways, I've spent the last decade and change wearing my country's cloth as a naval flight officer. And D12 goes on to say, hey, I've joined Ricochet. I enjoy it. And everybody flooded in there to welcome D12, thank for the service, ask questions and the rest of it. We've got another member I just wanted to highlight. Of course, we get new members all the time.

But when somebody uncloaks and announces themselves, I feel that's got to be the post of the week because they deserve having themselves hoisted on our shoulders and carried around the stadium to great applause. So, everybody, let's welcome D12. Rob, Peter, anything else before I have the mandatory obligatory statements of closing that nobody listens to? Oh, I don't think people – do people not listen to that? We'll find out in just a second. I know they didn't listen to it when I did it. I think they do listen to it when you do it. We'll have closing wisdom from Peter and Rob, advice for the next week in just a second. But first I have to tell you, this was brought to

you, this very podcast by The Lending Club, The Zebra, and Hydrant. Support them for supporting us. You're at home. You can, you've got time to do it. They'll bring stuff to your door. It's quarantine made. And since you're also at home staring at the walls wondering what you can do, well, your children are probably annoying you. Well, they're probably tech savvy. Send them on iTunes. Have them give us wonderful five-star reviews, just like those Chinese bot farms you see where they have a whole bunch of iPhones lined up and little mechanical fingers pushing the five-star button to make sure that the app's ratings are ginned up. I'm not saying you should go that far with your kids, but it wouldn't hurt. The more reviews we have, the more listeners we get, the more Ricochet gets members, and the more happy we all are, and we continue to be here for the foreseeable future.

Rob, Peter, if you were to say one thing to, well, you are saying one thing to America for the next week prediction. How do you think we'll be feeling next week? Even testier. Rob. No, I don't think I certainly won't feel testier. I don't know about Peter. I can't speak for Peter. I will say I will make this bold prediction that in one week we're going to feel really good.

We're going to feel really good. We're going to feel like we understand it, we have our arms around it, and that we are making progress. And I think that the jokes are going to be funnier. Annika Rothstein just tweeted something, maybe laugh out loud, I retweeted it. Our own, I should say Ricochet's own Annika Rothstein. Somebody tweeted that Governor Cuomo today said that New York conducted 10,000 tests yesterday, which is terrific. And he also has, Governor Cuomo has also ordered all non-essential workers to stay home. And Annika tweeted, I'm sure Bill de Blasio will appreciate the days off. That's lovely. So a week from now, we'll start hearing about the outer edge of the shutdown. Trump, Fauci, these guys are going to start putting some notion of how much longer we're going to have to endure this.

People want to hear that. The physicians will be able to make estimates. My other prediction is that in days, we're going to start hearing about clinical trials, about ways of controlling the symptoms. I'm not sure about a cure. Certainly a vaccine won't be tested by then, but we're going to be... Good news is going to start coming out of laboratories and getting confirmed. So yes, I guess I agree with Rob. We'll feel better a week from now. Good news will start... I think good news will start coming out of American laboratories, actually, just to be... Oh, sure. That goes without saying. Who else has laboratories that stand up to ours?

Cuban, Venezuelan, no doubt. I think you're right. I think the mood of the people who make the news lags a week. And when this started, I thought we're going to have three bad weeks, and the middle one is going to be the worst because they're going to be reporting on all the stuff that happened the previous weeks that sort of bubbled up to the surface. And the media is still at this point and Twitter as well. And the whole social media culture is, is still in full absolute shrieking nightmare through a megaphone all the time. If they will surface all of these people who got it. And I can't, the number of people who are telling testimonials, these terrifying testimonials, because they thrive on that. When did you start the three-week count? Is this the bad middle week?

No, this is the first week. Ah, ah. Okay, wow. So next week, you're disagreeing with Rob and me. Can't this be week two? No, I think maybe by the end, yes, we will. Because there's certain things that have to happen. One, we will get tired of feeling miserable and scared.

We just will. And we will get tired of apocalyptic thinking. You just do. In the time after 9-11, there was a week and a week after that that everybody was just completely shattered on edge. You can see a plane near downtown, even in Minneapolis, without feeling nervous. You couldn't go to the mall without having this sort of electric spidey tingle at the back of your head because you figure there are going to be Al-Qaeda guys on the roof dumping bags of anthrax into the ventilation system. I mean, but you get tired of living like that, and so you move on to the next step. point where they can't shake their old habits and they're going to have to because at some point, like CNN had to issue a big, how many Pinocchio? Well, that's the Washington Post. President comes out and says, okay, here's this anti-malarial drug. The FDA is going to approve it. CNN's point was

not that it's an effective means perhaps of treating it. It's that the president said it was approved when the FDA just said, okay, you can use it. Because they're still locked into this model of seeing everything, that particular presidential prevarication prism. And it ain't going to work for them because people, as Rob said, Arthur, as you guys have said, people now realize their fate is twinned with this guy and they want him to succeed. And that's a very powerful thing. It's hope. It's optimism. It's what will get us through this. And it sucks now. But, you know, living around with it, I've got a teenager down the hall. I've got a foreign exchange student from Barcelona coming to live with us on Saturday. The house is going to be full of laughter and joy and sound. We're going to bake bread and make paella and the rest of it.

I've got at least eight, I shouldn't have said that, rolls of toilet paper. We're okay. I'm going out later today maybe to find flour. And if I can organize some flour, we're going to make some more bread. And that's great. But, again, I live here in this nothing but darkness pours from the screens of my social media. But then when I do venture out and I go to the store where I see people keeping distance, keeping calm, with this incredible, bounteous, amazingly lurid, beautiful, bright, colorful produce section that just says, America is still here. It ain't over. It's not even close to over.

We'll get through this. We will, we will, we will. Can I share two anecdotes just too quickly to go along with what you're saying? Around the corner, it's a very fine grocery store I go to. Around the corner from me in New York City. And I went there in the afternoon, late afternoon, and it was like seriously depleted. And the guy said to me, he goes, yeah, you know, just people can buy a lot of stuff. And we just he said, we have plenty.

We just got to keep restocking the shelves. Right. It's hard because it's down in their coolers and they got to keep bringing it up. And then the meat guy was like, people keep buying like meat that you have to like steaks when they should be buying stuff where you could braise, you know, you braise a brisket and, you know, you can feed you for the next week. And it's better the next day, the third day, the fourth day, the fifth day of a braise, you know, fifth day of abasubuko is delicious. Right. So we were laughing about that. And then I ordered stuff today from so I ordered a lot of chicken because I was going to fry chicken because fried chicken is delicious when it's hot. It's also delicious when it's cold. Um, and, uh, I ordered, I ordered from Whole Foods delivery, uh, for this morning,

um, uh, two quarts of buttermilk cause it's got a soak in buttermilk for the day. Uh, and, uh, I guess I didn't see the text, the guy shopping for me at, um, Whole Foods, you know, they don't know what you want or why you want it. So he substituted buttermilk for whole milk. So now I've got two quarts of whole milk that I'm not going to drink, and I don't know what to do with it. And so I don't know. I'm going to do something with it, or I would like to be able to give it to somebody. But, you know, I don't know. I guess people just – I don't know what this anecdote is really all about, except it's a slice of my life.

Well, at least you have people to go to the grocery store for you, which is great. Yeah, to deliver. When I was at the aforementioned grocery store with all the produce and profusion, as great as it was, there were some gaps on the shelf. And you think, well, there's that one thing. There's two of that thing that I want. I could take two. I could take just one. Do I really need it?

And you have to kick into all the thoughts of all the people who have to restock and all the people coming after you and the rest of it. And so you scavenge lightly. And you figure let's not hoard. Let's be sensible. And then on the way out, I was standing in the line. And before me in line was a young woman. I wrote about this in Ricochet. The only thing that she was buying was a single flower, just a flower. She'd come into the store, she'd seen all these beautiful, and she had

walked out with just that, not food, not rice, not milk, not that toilet paper substitute, but just that. And you don't know if it was for her or if it was for somebody else, or if this was just some angelic vision sent down to us to say, look, there's more to it than that. Here, contemplate this thing of beauty. Or this really clueless kid who doesn't understand what's going on. But let's just think of it as a single little example of beauty here. And as she left, I said to the clerk, wasn't it just great to see, just wasn't it nice to see her just buy a flower? And the clerk just melted and said, I know, I know.

And she smiled, too. And we all did. and it was great and uh later in the lot i just saw somebody stealing taking the flower away from her at knife point but you know good yeah i just i just wanted to give it a new i wanted to give a new york ending that rob would appreciate there's one national guardsman who's going to show up and point his rifle at her so she could put that one flower in it and they can fully you know recreate the 1960s. Oh, the 1960s will be stunningly irrelevant at the end of this. And that's just another good thing that's going to come out of this whole thing and the reckoning beyond. All right,

folks, we've gone long, but you know, we could probably go another hour and maybe we will, but there's also going to be the Dr. George Savage thing probably over by the time you listen to this, but hey, medical information, it'll be stored Ricochet, reminding you that this just isn't a place for politics. It's a place for everything in the world and everything in life, and we're all here to talk about it. Join Ricochet today, and you can be part of the great member feed, or just keep listening to these podcasts and

using our sponsors, and we appreciate your patronage being there, and by gum, by gosh, by golly, we will talk to you next week. Next week, fellas. Next week, by which time I will have reacquired my usual homeostasis. Slowly with weapons, packed up and ready to go. Heard of some great sights, I find a highway, a place where nobody knows.

The sound of gunfire, off in the distance, I'm getting used to it now. Lived on a brownstone, lived in a ghetto. I've lived all over this town. This ain't no party, this ain't no disco. This ain't no fooling around. No time for dancing, for lovey-dovey. I ain't got room for that now. Transmit the message to the receiver Hope for an answer someday I got three passports, a couple of visas

You don't even know my real name High on the hillside, the blocks are floating Everything's ready to roll I sleep in the daytime, I work in the nighttime I might not ever get home Ricochet. Join the conversation. I got some groceries.