What's just the general background? What is the tale of these two cities? Yeah.

So the tale of these two cities is that they really had sort of a parallel experience from about 1950 all the way up until maybe 1970, 1980, okay? In 1950, both cities were industrial powerhouses, right? Detroit, obviously, with the automotive industry, right? producing something like half of the world's cars in and of itself like just within you know michigan and the broader or greater detroit metro area it was about half of the world's cars okay pittsburgh was the dominant place for steel you know as i found as i was doing the research for this you know a single blast furnace in pittsburgh could produce more steel than all of great britain combined And they had several.

In fact, they had so many that Pittsburgh's greater area was producing more steel than the Axis powers combined.

And we had other areas producing steel too.

So the way we won World War II was obviously through the courageous efforts of a lot of men and women in America and around the world.

But we also just dropped a lot of steel on them because we had a lot of steel to drop on them.

And so Pittsburgh, in a very real sense, won the second world war for the allies.

How do you, how do you disentangle those things as an economist?

So is this I mean, so are you kind of is this like you're saying here like a privatizing Social Security kind of like Bush wanted to do? Is that what you're suggesting

or just like an alternative system? To short it, yeah, I mean, that would be the solution here is to make it so that, you know, hey, we're going to take the contributions you would have made to Social Security.

We're going to put it instead into some sort of an IRA or some sort of an account somewhere.

The money's locked up, so it can't be borrowed against, right? It can't be, you know, used to balance the federal budget or whatever.

Right.

This is going to be a big hit on the federal budget.

I don't dispute that for a single second.

And so let's maybe spend a little bit of time thinking about why do people think that you can? And, you know, is there anything to what they're saying or is it just wishful thinking? Yeah.

So you might want to elaborate on why you think they're like that.

Yeah, so Scott's Tots is a now-famous episode of The Office, which aired 14 years ago at this point, which is terrifying in its own right.

But the premise behind the episode is that early in his career, Michael Scott promises a bunch of kindergartners, or third graders in this instance, that if they just graduate from high school, he will pay for their college education.

Now, it's a promise that, you know, when you make it, you feel great, right? But the bill doesn't come due for another, in this case, 12 years, right? At least, if not 15 or more.

And so Michael Scott makes this promise, and he had visions that he would be a millionaire by the time he was, you know, 45 or so, like many people in their early 30s, frankly.

And when it comes time for him to actually pony up and pay, not only is he not a millionaire, but he had forgotten about the kids he had promised that money to altogether.

So he goes to the school, the kids perform this big song and dance production.

That's not perhaps

gauging the health of the industries?

Yeah, I think that would be a better way.

The danger, of course, is we don't want to think only about productivity and how much output we're making.

We want to think about the quality of life that people have.

So this is, again, to circle back to Adam Smith, the full title of his book is An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.

So what he's doing is he's asking a question, what is wealth? Prior to Adam Smith, for 500 years before him, people thought that having money was the goal, right? If you have more money, then you're wealthier.

And that's true of a household.

So how does that play into this as well? And what are the policy implications of the impact that technology has?

But it is, well, as the wise man once said, "History doesn't repeat, it rhymes." What do we need to know about this breakdown in relations before we posit a, a remedy? Where is it the worst? Where is it unexpected? Good evening to you, Dave.

Well, good evening to you, too, John.

Thanks so much for having me tonight.

So what we need to understand is that for decades, the Canada and US trade relationship was the envy of the world, quite frankly.

The ability of people and materials and goods to cross the longest undefended border in the entire world was thought to be unquestioned, and then a year ago, this all changed.

Suddenly, Canada was accused of ripping us off.

We proposed, uh, annexing the entire country and making them the fifty-first state.

Did that happen? Is that what we're seeing?

Why not? Is there a reason they talk about?

about?Yeah.

Absolutely, John.

So when people can't afford something because the price is too high, that's indicative to economists, like Pete and myself, that there's a shortage of that good available.

The solution to that is to create more capacity, but what Congress does instead is stuff people's pockets with additional dollars at the expense of the American taxpayer.

This is exactly what we've seen out of the Affordable Care Act over the last 10 to 15 years and really every ad- uh, healthcare reform that we've put in place.

When you put more money in people's pockets, they're going to spend that money on that good, and that's exactly what we've seen.

How do they, how does Congress get it backwards, Dave?

How does it work, Dave?

Right.

So the reason why America is so incredibly productive is really three-fold.

The first is we have a tremendous amount of capital and we attract massive foreign direct investments, not just from the Trump administration and everything that he's touted, but historically, decade after decade, foreign direct investment in this country has been absolutely mind-boggling.

And the reason for it is because other countries know that we are incredibly productive and they want to invest in America.

The second reason is because this is the place where if you are a talented individual, you can come here, work for your, your time, and you are going to make a lot more money here than you will anywhere else in the world.

It's why there's so many people that want to move into the United States.

How so, Dave?

Much more tonight.

Sure.

So the easiest path f-forward here would be to stop making it more difficult to get things into the hands of the most productive people on the planet.

Those people are the American workers.

We need to abolish these tariffs, return to what we had before letting countries export raw materials and components into America so that we can transform them into the amazing products that only Americans can make.

The second is reform the H-1B visa.

Make it easier for highly skilled, highly competent, and highly educated people to come into this country and lift all boats around as we continue as a nation to build the future that the rest of the world is going to be following and trying to emulate going forward.

Was Ronald Reagan a protectionist? And if he was, what kind of protectionist? Good evening to you.

Good evening to you, too, John.

Thanks so much for having us tonight.

So the answer to the question of whether or not Ronald Reagan was a protectionist is a remarkably simple one.

The answer is no.

Now, it is true that while he championed free trade, while he tram- championed trade liberalization and global affairs writ large for the American people, he did implement some measures that, at face value, will look a lot like protectionism.

The sine qua non would have to be the VER, the voluntary export restraint, signed by Japan in the early 1980s.

However, what do you conclude with these numbers? D- was VER necessary?