Yeah.

Yeah.

Can I tell you though, the Burning Man ideas can cut both ways because I, for a long time, was pursuing writing a profile of Artsy and/or Carter Cleveland, the founder, and I abandoned it, but it was a very interesting company, and he was a very interesting founder and very Burning Man, and this was like peak that era.

This was like 2016-ish.

And he was doing a lot of these-- He was always, like, painting his nails and wearing feather boas and no shirt, and he was doing these, like, unhinged or, like, lightly hinged front-facing camera updates from the playa and, you know, various other festivals and whatever.

And I thought that the board would object, that that would be, you know, alienating or upsetting, like, is he okay kind of stuff.

And I was so wrong because the board loved it, and they told me, someone told me that, like, the weirder he acted, the more they were like, "That's our guy.

... yeah, yeah.

Like, why did you start it? Like, what is the goal? What are you going for here?

Yeah.

I think it, it really is just I always have these questions about how the world got this way, why we are the way we are, why we've got this structure around us, and honestly, whether it's working.

Like, I feel like it's very healthy to reevaluate all the deals that we made or the deals that someone before us made and see if they're still working and if it's the way that it should be.

Should being in pretty big quotes.

Um, and so the, the luxury of the show is that I get to basically follow my interests, um, and h- answer my very sincerely motivated questions.

So the odd mix of guests is [laughs] is exactly that, is because I both have done a lot of work over the 15 years I've been doing this, uh, I think I need to update that number, but something like that, that I, like, feel like at this point I know who's good and who's gonna tell me the truth and who's, like, spinning.

That's okay.

introduce yourself.

Hi, I'm Mary Childs.

I was a Bloomberger for six years.

That's where we met.

That's where we met.

And I was until somewhat recently a host of Planet Money, NPR's twice-weekly economics podcast.

I'm a little out of breath because I was late coming here.

Mary wrote a book about PIMCO.

Before we dig into the current news cycle, can you paint a picture of the bond market for us? Like what's a treasury bond? Why are treasury bonds so important to the global economy?

I just want to say these are my favorite questions, and I'm so excited to be here.

It's never a good sign when I get to talk about bonds, but I do love it.

And I will say, I think it's really glamorous.

I just had to put that forward.

So a treasury bond is, as you said, it's simply when investors, institutions, people, anybody with money, it could be you or me, it could be a pension fund, it could be an insurance company in Japan.

They lend money to the U.S. government.

Higher

[laughs]

Um, [laughs] but I do love it, and I will say it's...

I, I think it's really glamorous.

I just had to put that forward.

So a Treasury bond is, as you said, it's simply when investors, institution-, people, anybody with money, it could be you or me, it could be a pension fund, it could be an insurance company in Japan, they lend money to the US government.

The US government has a gap between how much money's coming in in revenue, and it wants to spend more, so there's that gap, and that gap needs to be financed in the markets.

And so they need to borrow from people like you and me or Japanese pension funds and insurance companies or whoever it may be, or the Central Bank of China.

So in lieu of following traditional wisdom on this, what strategies is Trump pushing for to stabilize the treasury bond market?

[laughs]

[laughs] You're the ringer, right? That's the, the dynamic that's established.

Um, well, I'm curious because Nick, I think you've been so rhetorically successful in, in, in building a lot of these points and, and identifying where people are upset.

But what I'm failing to hear is what you would actually do about it.

I think I'm confused about the forcing mechanism because as far as I know, it's market response and government, and that's kind of it.

So you can regulate, you can legislate, you can tax, you can use the tools of government to cause a corporation-

Yes.

And consumers can pressure corporations to act in one way or another.

Is there any more than what Alex was just saying about what the lump of labor fallacy is?

Well, I think that one thing that, that is sort of relevant and, and sort of painfully salient at, at this moment too is if you think about the transition from, you know, when getting through that adaptation period can be really difficult and painful 'cause those are not necessarily similar tasks that you're doing.

You went from, you know, using your hands to, to create this fabric and then now you're suddenly in charge of a machine.

That's just a different part of your brain.

It's not, you're, you're not really...

It's not clear that those are, are easy substitutes.

And so that re-skilling is crucial and that transition in the aggregate in the, in the economy can be pretty painful for workers too.

... that really break the mold.

Hmm.

And for those living alone, there was an increase in mental distress that's nearly twice as large as for those who live with family.

And this is all so bad that the researchers think that the increase in remote work may explain about a third of the increase in social isolation and mental distress since 2011, except for the actual pandemic.

people-Knowing this information would change their minds about remote work?

I don't know.

I think we kind of love remote work for a lot of obvious reasons.

Like, we hate commutes, we like the flexibility, especially if you have a family to juggle.

It can be really, it can be imperative to have.

[laughs]

I'm basically channeling Bess.

Bess just wrote something for New York Mag the other day called Good Luck Trying to Opt Out of the AI Stock Market Bonanza, and I loved it because it read my mind, 'cause it was exactly what I, and I think a lot of people, have been thinking about, which is these monster IPOs are coming down the pike.

All of the, all asterisk, Felix, I hear you, all of the index fund providers, where you and I put our retirement funds, you know, they build the indexes, and then everybody goes and buys them, and so my BlackRock fund and your TIAA fund and whatever all buy these products, and those products have rules that prevent unprofitable companies, that prevent too new of companies, that prevent, like, little guys from getting in that are maybe not the best companies getting into those indexes, which then you and I invest in our retirement accounts and... or in our discretion.

I don't know what you do.

So all of those companies had been bending their rules to allow these monster IPO companies to, the Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceXes, into the indices.

And I'm an index fund investor, but I don't want that.

But Mary, you're gonna broaden this out, I know, because you're Mary.

[laughs]

I'm basically channeling Bess.

Bess just wrote something for New York Mag the other day called Good Luck Trying to Opt Out of the AI Stock Market Bonanza, and I loved it because it read my mind, 'cause it was exactly what I, and I think a lot of people, have been thinking about, which is these monster IPOs are coming down the pike.

All of the...

All, asterisk, Felix, I hear you.

All of the index fund providers where you and I put our retirement funds, you know, they build the indexes, and then everybody goes and buys them, and so my BlackRock fund and your TIAA fund and whatever all buy these products, and those products have rules that prevent unprofitable companies, that prevent too new of companies, that prevent, like, little guys from getting in that are maybe not the best companies getting into those indexes, which then you and I invest in our retirement accounts and/or in our discretion.

I don't know what you do.

But Mary, you're gonna broaden this out, I know, because you're Mary.

What did you learn from that chapter?

That's one of my favorites for obvious reasons.

I think it's such a problem that we have across our society that, like, is a problem that came of good things.

Like, economic progress means that, like, everybody's got jobs, everybody's wages are going up.

The prices for a lot of these goods as we have technological advancements and improvements in efficiencies, the prices go down, and that's fantastic.

Our phones get smarter.

There...

Wow.

And so what does this mean for the ACA marketplace? Does that have implications for insurers if they're covering fewer people?

Yes.

And it's not just that it's fewer people, because it's actually fewer younger and healthy people.

They are the ones who tend to drop out or cut back on their healthcare coverage.

But they're also who you need for the structure of an insurance system to work.

And this pattern does seem to show up in the Wakely data.

Among people who signed up with the same ACA insurers in '25 and '26, those who did make their January premium payments were about 10% less healthy than those who skipped that January payment.

[laughs]

Is there any more than what Alex was just saying about what the lump of labor fallacy is?

Well, I think that one thing that, that is sort of relevant and, and sort of painfully salient at, at this moment too is if you think about the transition from, you know, when getting through that adaptation period can be really difficult and painful because those are not necessarily similar tasks that you're doing.

You went from, you know, using your hands to, to create this fabric and then now you're suddenly in charge of a machine, that's just a different part of your brain.

It's not, you're, you're not really...

It's not clear that those are, are easy substitutes.

And so that reskilling is crucial and that transition in the aggregate in the, in the economy can be pretty painful for workers too.

So I think...

[laughs]

Is there any more than what Alex was just saying about what the lump of labor fallacy is?

Well, I think that one thing that, that is sort of relevant and, and sort of painfully salient at, at this moment too is if you think about the transition from...

You know, when getting through that adaptation period can be really difficult and painful 'cause those are not necessarily similar tasks that you're doing.

You went from, you know, using your hands to, to create this fabric and then now you're suddenly in charge of a machine.

That's just a different part of your brain.

It's not, you're, you're not really...

It's not clear that those are, are easy substitutes.

F- f-

Is there any more than what Alex was just saying about what the lump of labor fallacy is?

Well, I think that one thing that, that is sort of relevant and, and sort of painfully salient at, at this moment too is if you think about the transition from...

You know, when getting through that adaptation period can be really difficult and painful, 'cause those are not necessarily similar tasks that you're doing.

You went from, you know, using your hands to, to create this fabric, and then now you're suddenly in charge of a machine.

That's just a different part of your brain.

It's not, you're, you're not really...

I- it's not clear that those are, are easy substitutes.

[laughs]

Wait, so what were they doing with the ants?

So I learned over the course of, of reading about this that ants are a huge industry now.

Uh, it is a big adult hobby spurred by apparently social media, and authorities in Kenya have been warning about this increasing demand for garden ants.

Apparently European and Asian collectors like to keep them as pets.

And this is actually the-

Mm

...

the little seeds all about.

Now you're just old pearls and gold-plated bits of chocolate.

My initial theory, Darian, thank you for bringing this up, is that I thought that maybe I was just old and power hungry.

And that's why I finally wanted to go to Davos.

As you may know, Davos is the long-running conference hosted by the World Economic Forum in Davos.

davos switzerland and in my opinion it has basically been an environmental nightmare it's notoriously difficult to access this little mountain so all these ceos and bigwigs fly in on their own private jets and planes to this remote little mountain town and they have all these elaborate and expensive stands and booths that have been set up for this very brief occasion

And what's changed?

Okay.

Yes, I think to some extent I am older and whatever.

And this is where GiveWell comes in.

Yeah, there was an interesting thing that happened.

There were some USAID workers who were inspired and bored and mad and a few things.

I probably shouldn't speak for them, but these USAID workers suddenly had some free time and took the list of projects that they knew had just been unfunded, that had already been vetted, that had been approved.

Money was like being spent actively to, you know, causes that had been deemed worthy and they make this list it's called project resource optimization and they send it to various parties around the philanthropy world being like hey these things just lost funding for example give well here are some that we know that you might have an affinity for you love malaria treatments you love nets that prevent malaria because they block the mosquitoes those are super cheap super effective that's like the canonical example here are some things you can just pick these off the list it's like low-hanging fruit And so at that moment, GiveWell had sort of been internally like obviously aware of what was going on, you know, not only from reading the news, but also talking to their contacts who were hearing like, we just lost our grant.

We maybe don't have the grant.

We have part of the grant.

Because in a weird way, if everything has fallen apart, that is where philanthropy can do the most good.

And this is where GiveWell comes in.

Yeah, there was an interesting thing that happened.

There were some USAID workers who were inspired and bored and mad and a few things.

I probably shouldn't speak for them, but these USAID workers suddenly had some free time and took the list of projects that they knew had just been unfunded, that had already been vetted, that had been approved.

Money was like being spent actively to, you know, causes that had been deemed worthy and they make this list it's called project resource optimization and they send it to various parties around the philanthropy world being like hey these things just lost funding for example give well here are some that we know that you might have an affinity for you love malaria treatments you love nets that prevent malaria because they block the mosquitoes those are super cheap super effective that's like the canonical example here are some things you can just pick these off the list it's like low-hanging fruit And so at that moment, GiveWell had sort of been internally like obviously aware of what was going on, you know, not only from reading the news, but also talking to their contacts who were hearing like, we just lost our grant.

We maybe don't have the grant.

We have part of the grant.

Because in a weird way, if everything has fallen apart, that is where philanthropy can do the most good.

And this is where GiveWell comes in.

Yeah.

There was an interesting thing that happened.

There were some USAID workers who were inspired and bored and mad and a few things.

I probably shouldn't speak for them, but these USAID workers suddenly had some free time and took the list of projects that they knew had just been unfunded, that had already been vetted, that had been approved, money was, like, being spent actively to, you know, causes that had been deemed worthy.

And they make this list, it's called Project Resource Optimization, and they send it to various parties around the philanthropy world being like, "Hey, these things just lost funding, for example, GiveWell, here are some that we know that you might have an affinity for.

You love malaria treatments, you love nets that prevent malaria because they block the mosquitoes, those are super cheap, super effective, that's like the canonical example.

Yeah.

What have you brought our judges today?

Good morning, judges.

My mission was to investigate what effect a tax cut extension would have on GDP growth, and then explain why different economic models might give different answers to that question.

The economists I talked to said, yes, it could generate some growth, largely by incentivizing lower income workers to work more hours.

But everyone agreed it would not be nearly enough to make up the lost future tax revenue.

For help with my challenge, which was rhyming, I called in some trusted professionals: award-winning children's book author Liz Garton Scanlon, and Planet Money producer extraordinaire James Sneed.

And then I got help writing and performing from a rapper in Berkeley named Rex Life Raj.

So does it?