00:00hi everyone welcome to the a 6 & Z
00:02podcast I'm sonal today's episode with
00:04me and Hanna is another one of our
00:05podcasts from our recent road trip with
00:08voices from the ground in Washington DC
00:09though this one actually takes us all
00:12our guest is economist historian and
00:14journalist who was last at the Economist
00:16Mark Levinson the author of the beloved
00:18book the box which is about how the
00:20shipping container made the world
00:21smaller an economy bigger but this
00:23hallway stall conversation is actually a
00:25quick tour through all his books
00:26starting from his most recent one an
00:28extraordinary time where we touch
00:30briefly on the topic of the Golden Age
00:32of productivity and beyond to the topic
00:34of the death of retail and his book the
00:36great anp2 finally wrapping up on
00:39logistics transportation infrastructure
00:40supply chains and touching very briefly
00:43on a future of work and where government
00:45comes in policy wise on all this or
00:47doesn't we're so excited to have you
00:49welcome mark thank you glad to be with
00:51you so those seem like really different
00:53topics what's a big idea that drives the
00:55thrust of your work that kind of
00:57connects all the dots I'm really
00:58interested in the connections between
01:02economics and the world we live in a lot
01:06of my work starts out at a micro
01:09economic level looking at particular
01:11companies looking at particular
01:13industries and tying of the developments
01:17there to broader trends that really
01:19affect how we live affect our standards
01:21of living more recently I've been
01:23focusing on some of the trends in
01:26productivity growth because I believe
01:29that a lot of the improvement in our
01:30living standards really comes out of
01:32these kind of micro improvements at the
01:35private sector level rather than as a
01:37matter of great policy and what that
01:39means and this is a frustration for
01:41public officials is it they're no easy
01:43government solutions we've now been
01:46through generations in which politicians
01:51and the economists who advise them said
01:53that they had the cure for poor
01:55productivity growth I argue in an
01:58extraordinary time that actually this
02:01was what was behind the political swing
02:03to the right in the late 1970s early
02:051980s when we got Margaret Thatcher and
02:07Ronald Reagan because the more Social
02:11Democratic type of governments
02:13before that hadn't been able to restart
02:16productivity growth and so voters turn
02:18to people with other ideas but the
02:20people with the more free market ideas
02:22proved no more successful than the
02:24people with the more statist idea what
02:26are we actually comparing to as we're
02:28thinking about these I well this is not
02:30good enough this is i what are we
02:32holding up as what we want or something
02:33that we'd prefer it to be the end of the
02:36post-war boom and the return of the
02:38ordinary economy a story I'm telling is
02:40that the quarter century after the war
02:42was an unusual period of very rapid
02:46economic growth the period from 1948 to
02:501973 was probably the period of the
02:54fastest economic growth in the history
02:56of the world GDP around the world grew
02:59at more than five percent a year now at
03:01five percent a year something doubles in
03:0414 years quadruples in 28 years so even
03:08with some population growth people's
03:10incomes were growing very rapidly
03:12people's living standards were rising in
03:15a way that was was visible to them they
03:18were able to buy houses for the first
03:20time and cars for the first time and
03:22send their kids to high school and maybe
03:24even college and and we had all kinds of
03:27very rapid advances in living standards
03:29what was that due to what was the big
03:32driving force we had an unusual
03:34confluence of factors in the post-war
03:36period that people have really forgotten
03:38about now one is that there was a great
03:43deal of underused capacity underused
03:46resources in the economy I'd like to
03:48remind people that at the end of World
03:50we still had three million mules on
03:53farms in the United States an occult
03:56post-industrial revolution time you
03:57don't even realize it you have millions
03:59of people and not just in the United
04:02States European peasants and-and-and
04:05Japanese farmers around half an acre of
04:07land who could be moved from very low
04:10productivity jobs into very high
04:12productivity jobs in the cities and we
04:14had a lot of that in the 50s and 60s
04:17so that was one big boost to
04:20we had very rapid increases in education
04:24we know that education is associated
04:27with productivity in the United States
04:30at the end of World War two going to
04:32college was not common it was just a few
04:35percent of the population of eighteen
04:39year olds actually went on to college
04:40and the average education level was
04:43around eighth or ninth grade so in a
04:45very few years a government spent a lot
04:48of money building a more educated
04:49workforce and and it paid off the
04:52government was the one that seated that
04:53or was that just a shift in the fact
04:55that adolescents existed and know this
04:57was heavy expenditures building
05:00universities all over the place take a
05:02look at how many universities in the
05:03United States started after World War
05:06two okay that's when a lot of government
05:08money started it was no longer an elite
05:10thing to go to university and how about
05:11women entering the rich lands well women
05:14entered the workplace the other thing I
05:16think that was really consequential in
05:18in this quarter century I'm describing
05:20was that we had the growth of motorways
05:22the interstate highway system in the
05:25United structural about what it does if
05:29you are a manufacturer or retailer that
05:32lets you sell over a wider area lets you
05:35operate your facilities more efficiently
05:37you don't need a warehouse in every town
05:39you can have one that'll serve a large
05:40area if you're an employer or a worker
05:43it's changed the size of your labor
05:45market I mean in in Silicon Valley San
05:48Jose and San Francisco are now part of
05:50the same labor market right that wasn't
05:53the case after World War two these were
05:54very different cities and they were a
05:56considerable drive apart and and so that
05:59ma it's a better fit between people and
06:02jobs and then leads to hire product they
06:05can't be repeated once you've moved
06:06those those sharecroppers to the cities
06:09to take jobs in industry using heavy
06:13machinery they've moved and you don't
06:16have those underused resources again
06:19right there were countries around the
06:20world that literally went 25 years from
06:231948 to 1973 without a single year of
06:27recession we had countries that had less
06:30than 1% unemployment back then so how
06:33did this burst of productivity this
06:34golden age actually come to an end well
06:37in in 1973 we really saw a trend change
06:40that was the year of the great oil
06:43crisis that some people may remember
06:44what we have moved into in since 1973 is
06:49really an environment in which economic
06:50growth has been slower the improvement
06:53in living standards has been slower the
06:55unemployment rate in most countries has
06:57been permanently higher we have not been
06:59able to recapture the very unique good
07:03times that we had in this old and aged
07:06and I think that we're not going to be
07:08able to what we're experiencing more
07:10recently is actually normal this is the
07:14way most economies work most of the time
07:16and how it worked before this golden era
07:19the golden age was actually the
07:20exceptional time it's not normal that
07:22economies grow at a rapid pace it's not
07:25normal that incomes double or triple or
07:28quadruple in the matter of just a few
07:30years and and I don't think we should
07:32expect that to recur IV this is
07:33analogous to child development and how
07:35human body and adult develops because
07:37there's a rapid development that happens
07:38in the birth of a child and there's
07:40another big rapid shoot that happens in
07:42adolescents and then you have you
07:44continue to grow but it's a little
07:45slower and in fact thinking about the
07:47natural conclusion of your argument is
07:50that that growth is now shifted to other
07:52countries like India China where they
07:54are now experiencing the kind of boom
07:56that you're describing that happened pre
07:581973 that's a great analogy take Japan
08:02which in the 1960s early 70s was growing
08:06at seven or eight percent a year and
08:07then it down shifted and then it down
08:09shifted some more more recently China
08:11went through a period where it was
08:13growing at 10% a year China's case we do
08:16it to take the numbers with the big
08:18grain of salt even so people were
08:21extrapolating and say saying you know
08:23when China grows at 10% a year for the
08:25next century its economy is going to be
08:27twice as large as the rest of the world
08:30but China is not going to grow at ten
08:32percent a year for the next half-century
08:34it's becoming much more like a normal
08:37mature economy in which the growth rate
08:39is a couple of percent a year and and
08:41that's all they're going to be able to
08:43expect but it doesn't mean necessarily
08:44that like in adolescents are growing as
08:47a human being you only get one burst
08:49these things can come and
08:50there can be other kind of confluence at
08:52these factors when you were talking
08:53about the Japanese farmers with their
08:54mules and the sort of move towards the
08:57way automation that may end the move to
08:59cities increased productivity
09:00are there any Inklings that you're
09:02starting to see if possibilities like
09:04with the automation we're starting to
09:05see happen today and maybe even with
09:07autonomous cars new infrastructure Mike
09:09you know the city and for their things
09:11that's give you any sense of it may be a
09:14new era might be coming at some point or
09:16just even a way to juice the body on
09:18steroids like just inject some more
09:20steroids into this economy you're asking
09:23great questions here and the answer is
09:25maybe I think that these are things we
09:28really can't predict if you look at past
09:31episodes of fast productivity growth in
09:35general they weren't predicted very well
09:37for example we had a spurt of
09:39productivity growth which translated
09:41into to faster income growth in the late
09:4490s and and the first years of the 2000s
09:47this is the famous internet boom you may
09:50remember we remember it but in 1992 no
09:54one predicted this what happened was
09:56that there had been investments and in
09:59infrastructure there had been
10:01developments in technology decades
10:04earlier and finally during this period
10:06of time they all came together but I
10:08think a lot of people would argue that
10:09we're in a moment like that again Wow
10:11I think that's a question which we can't
10:13answer so if you take a look at a
10:16technology will it actually
10:17revolutionize the way certain industries
10:20I don't exclude the possibility but that
10:23you have to keep in mind that there are
10:24also a lot of complications you're
10:25seeing this right now as we grow through
10:28this this rather brutal shakeout in
10:30retailing yes everybody knows and that
10:34you can order goods on the internet
10:36that's not news these days ok but but
10:38the reality is that for a lot of
10:40retailers there's a problem here because
10:41they're maintaining an internet business
10:43they're also maintaining a retail store
10:46business because some customers want
10:48that so in some cases their costs have
10:50gone up they have not become online
10:53retailers they have become bricks and
10:55mortar / online retailers and their show
10:58rating for the online sometimes they've
11:00channels that they're having to service
11:02and that's actually made their
11:04operations less efficient in certain way
11:06I actually say there's a flip side of
11:07this though again which I think is
11:09really fascinating can when you think
11:10about the Internet economy birth of
11:12Amazon which is let's face it the
11:14behemoth and everything everything
11:16stored everything everything and they
11:19recently as we know started doing
11:22physical brick-and-mortar bookstores the
11:24difference is that they started online
11:26and they went into physical using data
11:29to help stock and think differently
11:32about how to create their store in an
11:33Internet native way in the physical
11:35world so I also wonder if well the debt
11:37that retail might be on the horizon if
11:39after that there might be an entirely
11:41new post boom a new boom around retail
11:44that's completely reshaped by new
11:45technologies we don't know that's
11:47entirely possible but just to give you
11:49something to think about
11:50Amazon's problem in terms of getting its
11:54books into its physical stores is
11:56entirely different from its problem
11:58getting its books ordered online to you
12:01the customer yeah so now it needs a
12:04different kind of logistical system it
12:06needs to figure out how to distribute to
12:08retail stores like the ones it
12:10apparently is is building that's a going
12:14to have a lot of costs attached it may
12:16have some efficiencies attached at least
12:18while they're developing it so my point
12:20is to say that the the path of sometimes
12:24people who were involved in the tech
12:26industry kind of get very romantic about
12:29how quickly these great technologies are
12:31getting absorbed but in reality life is
12:33messy and some of these technologies
12:36take awhile to be used efficiently and
12:38some of them will never be used if it's
12:40really more than there are successes
12:42there's no question about that
12:43so does it remind you at all of the sort
12:45of death of the supermarket that you
12:46talked about in the great a in your book
12:49the great A&P in the great A&P
12:51I was writing the history of what was
12:54for about fifty years the largest
12:55retailer in the world people forget this
12:58now but the great Atlantic and Pacific
13:00is that what A&P said yeah I had one in
13:02my town I didn't even know yes it was a
13:03great Atlantic Pacific it was so named
13:05in 1869 for the Transcontinental
13:09and at one point it had more than 16,000
13:11stores in the United States so it was a
13:14behemoths it was the Walmart of its day
13:16but one of the things that kept it so
13:19vibrant is that it remade itself
13:22continually because shopping trends
13:24change consumer expectations changed
13:26from what to what it started out as a
13:29seller of coffee and tea and spices it
13:32made itself into a small grocery chain
13:36and and then in 1912 it developed the
13:41idea of having an economy grocery chain
13:43which is to say it would have a very
13:45bare-bones store and sell products much
13:49cheaper than the competition and that's
13:50what drew drove its growth in a small
13:53period of years it integrated vertically
13:56so it made its own chocolate its own
13:58macaroni its own candidates own salmon
14:00and and so ad then had a huge network of
14:04manufacturing plants and again we're in
14:06the 1920s here and and then it started
14:09building supermarkets it was not the
14:12innovator in any of these things an P
14:14did not even idea of supermarkets but
14:17once it saw how supermarkets would work
14:20and how they would fit with its business
14:22it started building supermarkets all
14:24over the place and by the end of the
14:261930s was the biggest supermarket
14:28operator in the country so what ended up
14:30being its downfall the company stopped
14:32innovating the company stopped remaking
14:33itself it was big it was fat
14:36it was happy of the two brothers who had
14:39controlled it for decades both died in
14:41the 1950s and it was then run by people
14:45who had been with the company for
14:48decades and whose idea was to preserve
14:51it rather than to keep it changing you
14:54know the the beat that keeps coming up
14:56in this is that basically the tension
14:57between this idea that you can innovate
14:59but then you get too good at what you do
15:01too comfortable too complacent okay so
15:03what's the big so what's a big then
15:05lesson or take away from that you know
15:08from your work on the gray A&P till this
15:10narrative around the death of retail
15:11today retailing is full of dead bodies
15:14people like to talk about how unfair
15:18competition is sometimes because big
15:20companies have have more power than
15:23little ones but when you are a big
15:26Taylor you can't change so easily okay
15:28if you own one store and you think you
15:30need to do something else you go in
15:31there with a hammer and some plywood and
15:33you can do it if you I'm in a thousand
15:35stores you're stuck okay you've got your
15:37locations you've got your product line
15:40you've got your brand name and you can't
15:42change easily it's a really difficult
15:44situation and so a lot of stores end up
15:48yes innovators dilemma classic good real
15:50estate case so the other theme that's
15:52come up and that connects all the dots
15:53with this entire conversation that this
15:55post boom world was one of the drivers
15:57was this like rapid development of
15:59infrastructure Amazon exists because of
16:02logistics and infrastructure like
16:03innovations and being able to ship
16:05things and delivery things fast you know
16:07we talk about the supermarket and the
16:08growth of suburbs around railroads and
16:10transportation transportation and
16:12logistics and infrastructure is like the
16:13thread that connects and drives all
16:15economies so let's talk about the box
16:17which is all about logistics and
16:19infrastructure in the form of container
16:20shipping you chose one very specific
16:22thing in the box to talk about it had
16:24this massive effect on a global economy
16:26give us a little bit of a sense of what
16:28that story was like I remember Tim
16:30describing that when he pitched your
16:32book this incredible scene of how the
16:34just the giant mountains of peanuts and
16:37the ships like how quickly did shippers
16:38see this possibility and start using it
16:41was it fast or slow let me give you just
16:43a quickie history here the idea that you
16:45could save money by shipping goods in
16:48containers came along in the 1700s okay
16:51this was an old idea and nobody had ever
16:53figured out how to make money out of it
16:55because they what would happen was that
16:57will you'd make a container out of
16:59wooden and nails and you'd put your
17:02goods in it and then at the other end of
17:04the trip somebody would break the
17:06container apart and use it for firewood
17:07that was a pretty inefficient system and
17:11nobody ever found this to be viable it
17:13actually cost more to ship goods in
17:16what made this whole thing work was the
17:18arrival of a guy named Malcolm McLean
17:21who was a trucker so he didn't come from
17:23the shipping industry and he understood
17:26that what was needed was not
17:28particularly a container but a new
17:31system for moving Freight okay and the
17:34container was just up
17:36a container it was just a container and
17:39a lot of people in the back in the 50s
17:43and 60s were who are in the shipping
17:45industry were very enamored of their
17:46ships and they thought they were in the
17:48shipping business and a McLean's basic
17:51position was nobody cares about your
17:52ship they just want to get their goods
17:54from here to there and let's design an
17:56efficient system for doing that so
17:59shipping containers first came into use
18:01in the United States in 1956 they
18:05started being used internationally
18:07across the Atlantic in 1966 and the
18:10industry was pretty substantial by the
18:131970s by that time most of the older
18:15vessels had gone out of service but it
18:17was really in the 1980s when modern
18:20logistics took off there are a couple of
18:22things that happened you had in this
18:24country Freight deregulation which meant
18:27that you could actually sign a single
18:29contract to import products and that
18:33would cover delivering the goods to a
18:35port and moving them inland by rail to a
18:37final destination or having a truck pick
18:40them up and move them to a final
18:42destination so you could actually
18:43integrate all these modes of
18:45transportation and and have some
18:47assurance that the goods would get there
18:49and then you had improvements in
18:53communications this was referred to as
18:54electronic data interchange so all of a
18:57sudden it became possible to run an
18:59international supply chain in the 1980s
19:02now you could send instructions across
19:04the ocean quickly about how you wanted
19:07something shipped or how you wanted
19:09something made and and so this de
19:11innovation the container that had really
19:13come about in the 50s started to make a
19:16substantial difference in the world
19:18economy in the 1980s when we had the
19:20birth of modern supply the most
19:21fascinating thing to me the idea that
19:24astounded me most about the box was the
19:26idea that the containerization of moving
19:28Goods was allowed things to travel
19:31multimodal e that because of that does
19:33modularization you can now break things
19:35across ship to train to plane across the
19:39world and that is like a really
19:41eye-opening idea and I think it's really
19:42interesting that you reference the EDI
19:44because the analogy that I was thinking
19:45I was actually packets in moving data
19:47across lines like the ethernet and
19:50packetization of data also led to this
19:53thing where you can move things across
19:54phone lines either net lines other
19:57computer lines broadband etc and and
20:00essentially reassemble them at the other
20:02that's analogy that's a really really
20:04mind-blowing idea so I guess the
20:06question I have is what's happening next
20:08and now that you think is interesting
20:10and the end the next evolution and
20:12supply chains that is along these lines
20:14well a couple of things that are going
20:16on in supply chains and they're not
20:17necessarily good international trade and
20:19manufactured goods actually grow more
20:21slowly than the world economy for the
20:23past six or seven years that's a big
20:25reversal from the previous trend why is
20:28that one of the reasons is that supply
20:31chains have become less reliable these
20:34ship lines went out and purchased very
20:37very large vessels and I'm sure your
20:39listeners have seen these vessels can
20:41carry cash you've seen them firsthand
20:42cuz I went to the Panama Canal many
20:47Panamax of the biggest container ships
20:49now at sea can carry more than ten
20:52thousand truck size containers Wow okay
20:55these are enormous vessels so what has
20:58happened well imagine you've got a port
21:00but instead of having a ship carrying
21:03two thousand containers showing up every
21:06day now you've got a ship that carries
21:08ten thousand containers showing up once
21:09a week you've got a mess on your hands
21:12because you've got this enormous load of
21:14traffic which you need to get all these
21:16containers how does it work the net
21:19congestion yeah that's right you've got
21:20a bottleneck and this has come at a time
21:23when growth and trade has been pretty
21:25slow so there's considerable
21:27overcapacity in the industry and and
21:29even so the the reliability has fallen
21:32so what you've seen is actually
21:37manufacturers and retailers contracting
21:41they would like to make things closer to
21:43where streams because they think is less
21:45risk when one of the things that I think
21:48happened in the growth of these
21:49international supply chains is that
21:52companies paid a lot of attention to
21:54cost they said you know our hourly labor
21:57cost in China is a lot cheaper than it
22:01they didn't really pay much attention to
22:02risk and risk is a cost factor there
22:06were a number of US companies that
22:08failed or came very close to failure
22:10because of supply chain disruptions key
22:14merchandise wasn't available when they
22:16needed it for their factories or for
22:18their stores I mean this is a story of
22:20hardware startups the problem isn't that
22:21they don't can't plan out and predict
22:23and build it's that they need to lock
22:24down that supply chain inventory at the
22:26right time but yet they have that issue
22:28that they don't know how many products
22:29or customers are gonna buy they don't
22:31know how much to make so there's a sort
22:32of chicken egg problem the same thing in
22:34book publishing so you've got the the
22:36container ship lines that essentially
22:38created their own crisis they got bigger
22:42and bigger ships because that was more
22:44efficient for their purposes their own
22:46costs running shims went down upper per
22:49container as the ships got bigger they
22:51didn't devote too much thought to the
22:53problems of the ports or the railroads
22:55or the truck lines and all of them have
22:58had a lot of difficulty coping with this
23:00flood of containers and and so I think
23:02one question facing this industry going
23:05forward is whether these long-distance
23:08supply chains will continue well I have
23:11to ask a question though if that's is is
23:12that necessarily a disaster because
23:14isn't that also the inevitable sort of
23:16cycle of things aggregating and
23:18aggregating lengthening and contracting
23:20etc and also in that same context and
23:22one of the arguments I've heard for
23:24there's actually advantages to shorter
23:25supply chains for example in the case of
23:27like hardware and software innovation
23:29there's this rapid iteration and back
23:31and forth that happened so if you have a
23:32components manufacturer in Mexico and
23:35you're designing a chip or some piece of
23:37hardware you could rapidly iterate on
23:39your designs without the long delay if
23:41that happens when you have a big time
23:43difference and a bunch of other
23:44logistical issues with someone you know
23:47doing the same thing in China so there's
23:49some argument that it's actually not a
23:50bad thing because it actually speed ins
23:52innovation almost in some cases in some
23:55cases it may speed innovation in general
23:57I think that manufacturers and retailers
24:00are expecting that it's going to reduce
24:02risk another trend that you see is that
24:06many manufacturers and retailers are now
24:10looking to multiple sourcing now in many
24:13trees it's cheaper to have a single
24:16source right because you've got huge
24:18economies of scale one factory makes a
24:20ton of stuff and that's great so long as
24:22it's working it's cheaper because it's
24:24tough right but maybe it's worth paying
24:27a little bit more and have an extra
24:30warehouse we're seeing a lot of that now
24:33we had for example a work stoppage how
24:37did the the Port of Los Angeles actually
24:40the West Coast ports in general in the
24:42early part of the century a lockout by
24:45the port employers how did that affect
24:48lockout you mean like it was like they
24:50locked out the union workers as part of
24:52a labor dispute and and so a lot of
24:54companies said well maybe we ought to
24:57redirect some of our traffic to ports on
25:01mm-hmm okay so they still call they
25:04still send their goods to Los Angeles or
25:06Long Beach or Oakland but they also send
25:08a portion of them now to Savannah or New
25:11York because they want to have options
25:14they want to not have the risk that
25:16their supply chain will be shut down
25:18there's another fascinating analogy with
25:19the digital world here because it
25:21reminds me of the time of the early days
25:23of the internet when as internet became
25:24super popular and more multimedia
25:27started coming online there were
25:28tremendous bottlenecks in data traveling
25:31through pipes and so they had to figure
25:33out new methods to essentially reroute
25:35and decentralized it from these central
25:37choke points so it's kind of a
25:38fascinating thing and I also now by the
25:40way explains when I was in Panama
25:41I was a little struck by this thing
25:43where every single ship that goes
25:45through spends a day being inspected
25:46before you can even put it through and
25:49it costs like a million dollars per ship
25:50to put it through her something I forgot
25:51them out but it's some significant
25:52amount and it just blew my mind like
25:54there's so much extra work but now I
25:56understand because of one ship
25:57bottlenecks that entire thing nothing
26:00gets through for like the entire day to
26:02make sure so what we're seeing in
26:08container shipping now is a lot like
26:10what we saw in the United States with
26:12the railroads in the 1870s 1880s 1890s
26:16when many railroads went bankrupt
26:19we went from a country that had hundreds
26:22of railroads each a few miles long to a
26:27of large railroad networks we went
26:30through something similar when we had
26:32airline deregulation starting in 1978
26:34you may remember we used to have lots of
26:37regional carriers around the country had
26:39had a number of national airlines and
26:43and only two international airlines that
26:45were heavily protected by the government
26:47now there's a lot more potential
26:50competition and of course the carriers
26:52have dealt with that by merging so
26:54you're actually now got a situation in
26:56which you're supposed to have throat
26:58competition but they've tried to find a
27:00way around it by by merging and reducing
27:03the number of airlines the inevitable
27:04cycle we're headed in the same direction
27:06with container shipping now many
27:09container carriers are in financial
27:11distress a lot of them have merged into
27:14the big carriers there are now probably
27:17three so-called alliances of container
27:20carriers that kind of dominate world
27:22trade so we may be in an environment in
27:25which there are few enough players that
27:27they'll be able to have a better handle
27:30on prices and on shipping rates and and
27:33that will mean less competition that
27:35will be good for their shareholders it
27:36probably won't be good for shippers okay
27:38so the rapid we started this with
27:39talking with your view that connects the
27:41dots between all these books and you
27:43have this perspective of this economist
27:45historian and you know the question is
27:47is it good to know that this is an
27:49ordinary economy or are we just talking
27:51about cycles of things that are just
27:53gonna that inevitably decline and grow
27:55how do you know it's just not a typical
27:56waning and that is actually really is
27:59something different I think this
28:01actually has a lot of political
28:02implications for decades and decades
28:05we've trained people to believe that the
28:08government can provide a very steady
28:11income can provide low unemployment can
28:14provide rapid economic growth and I
28:17think the government's ability to do
28:19this is limited what we're seeing I
28:22think and not just in the United States
28:24is somewhat of a crisis of expectations
28:27it's a reckoning if you take a look at
28:29what's going on now in Europe or in
28:31Korea or in Taiwan people expect more of
28:35their public officials than their public
28:37officials can deliver people want their
28:40incomes to grow quickly their public
28:42officials promised yeah we'll bring back
28:45the good old times will make their your
28:47incomes grow quickly but in reality
28:49we're in a normal age in which people's
28:52living standards rise slowly I feel like
28:54when oh well well you're saying that's
28:56all I can think it's like we'll only
28:57really time can teach us that that's not
28:59you know there's because I'm trying to
29:01think like what can we do to to reset
29:04those expectations but we can't really
29:06it's just time and not understanding
29:09possibly and well and not having the
29:11same growth right I'm getting used to
29:13not having the same growth which is sort
29:15of disheartening is like so how did we
29:20move beyond that on one level it's it's
29:21disheartening on another level I think
29:24we have trained people to believe that
29:27government can deliver things it really
29:29can't deliver so how do we how do we
29:31start to do that there is a question
29:33about how the available income is
29:35distributed which is really quite
29:38separate from the question of how fast
29:40productivity is growing how fast the
29:42economy is growing and I think we have
29:44to have a real discussion about how I
29:47income is being distributed and how
29:50automation is going to affect our
29:52workforce everybody including our guests
29:56everybody and I bring this up not really
29:58in an economic sense but almost more in
30:01a psychological sense there's a lot of
30:03concern about where the jobs are going
30:05to be for people in the future I'm not
30:07too concerned about that I'm pretty
30:09confident that we'll have ways in which
30:11people can earn livings but so many
30:14people get some degree of satisfaction
30:18from their work and if what we've got is
30:22a world in which people are doing
30:26occasional work itself has become
30:29containerized that's right how do how
30:31are what are what are people going to be
30:34more - in this sense and and we can do
30:38anything we want to guarantee your
30:41income but the fact is if all you do is
30:44wake up in the morning and watch
30:46television because you've got nothing
30:47else to do you're not going to be very
30:49happy so I think we have
30:51issue here that really goes beyond
30:53economics to defining meaning finding
30:57meaning in our lives as human beings to
31:00one last thing you talked about a crisis
31:02of expectation but the reality and this
31:04is actually other theme that connects
31:06the dots that these problems are
31:07multifactorial multimodal this crisis of
31:09expectations around the world and
31:10there's they're playing out in ripples
31:12and waves in different ways across you
31:14know France Europe the US and so many
31:16different ways so I also wonder if
31:19there's some change in the geographic or
31:22governance structures that we have to
31:24think about given any thoughts on sort
31:25of the geopolitical implications of this
31:27there's any like last partying but on
31:29we've seen obviously a big shift away
31:32from faith in the the nation-state and
31:37people but due to people wanting power
31:39and control closer to home I think we've
31:42seen over the centuries cycles in that
31:44that that sort of comes and goes
31:46will city governments be able to deliver
31:50satisfaction in a way that national
31:52governments can't I'm not convinced of
31:55that yeah but in some issues some areas
31:59related to people's quality of life they
32:01can be very important
32:03I think another issue that we face is
32:06that there are things we know that will
32:12improve productivity over time yeah we
32:15can't predict how that'll work and we
32:18still need to make those expenditures so
32:20for example we know that improving
32:23education levels is in general good for
32:27country's productivity so we need to
32:30invest in education but can we say if we
32:32spend an extra billion dollars in
32:34education now that it will improve
32:35productivity three years from now we
32:37can't say that we're doing this somewhat
32:39on faith especially if the skills and
32:41jobs of the future change well that's
32:42correct we know that as a general
32:45proposition it's been important for
32:48economic growth that we've had
32:49scientific research going on does that
32:52mean that if we put more money into
32:54scientific research now that we will be
32:56able to benefit from the consequences at
32:59any predictable time in the future the
33:01answer to that is no right and these are
33:03the reasons exactly why we tend not to
33:05that's exactly right that's exactly
33:07right these are very tough choices
33:08because you're asking for our tax money
33:11to be spent and you really can't promise
33:14the return saying it's like investing in
33:16a future difficult to do so well mark
33:19thank you for joining the a 6nz podcast
33:20thank you so much for having me it's
33:22been great fun thank you
![How To Succeed As A NEW & YOUNG Realtor [Deals Every Month + Luxury Listings]](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FrtrRghgTayc%2Fhqdefault.jpg&w=3840&q=75)
