Congress in Chaos, The Ozempic Effect, and the Healthcare Strike

23:43And here's the thing. When your wife gets lung cancer, you don't have to worry about going bankrupt. Yeah. And so, look, I don't know if it can ever happen, but the U.S. healthcare system, and this is where I hope AI really comes in with a fist of stone to meet the biggest chin in history, and that is U.S. healthcare. There has never been an industry that is more ripe for disruption than U.S. health care. Yeah, this is what people have said for decades in tech. They've been trying. They've been throwing themselves at that wall for a long time and have not been able to breach it. But the frontline workers, I want to be clear, just bringing it back, trying to bring it back to strike.

24:17The frontline workers have not registered the gains that the insurance companies and the hospital. That is true. The hospital organizations have registered. Yeah, there's huge stress on the system. You can just feel it when you go to any hospital thing. They're overworked. Even the doctors, they're like, ugh. I get dinner with doctors is the world's largest bitch fest. I went to a dinner with eight neurosurgeons, and they were all basically saying, I can't believe we're only making$1.2 million a year, and I've had to give up Wednesday golf. Oh, no, really? But the other 90 % of healthcare workers, from the nurses to the admin staff, I mean, for God's sakes, they are vastly overworked.

24:58And not only that, they did hero's work during the pandemic. They did. I mean, these people - They're exhausted. Up and down the supply chain and health care, these people really stepped up. I mean, they really stepped up in what was a horrific situation. They are. It's a really broken system if you spent any time in it in the U.S. Anyway, let's also chat about the UAW strike, which passed a 20-day mark this week. Talks are continuing, but no deals yet. Ford and GM are also laying off and furloughing hundreds of workers as this drags on. GM announced on Wednesday that it secured a new$6 billion line of credit and estimated The cost of strike is to be about$200 million during the third quarter.

25:38When are they going to do some of that? I don't know. I do think this gets solved. I think they do have some leverage here. But my sense is they're not that far from a deal. They've offered them 20-plus percent. And they've even said, and this is an interesting stat, that any UAW worker over the course, based on this agreement, should be able to save a million bucks by the time they retire. And I think that's actually really interesting. They're signaling that they're closer. They definitely are signaling that. That's right. The first day was a stalemate. Now they're saying not a stalemate. And their wages have lagged behind others.

26:20UAW, I'm going to read some of the demands. 40 % raise in wages has come down to 36%. Demanded autoworkers reinstate regular cost of living adjustments. That seems reasonable. They want to end the tiered system of employment that leaves newer workers less. Retirement benefits, they want more contributions. The 32-hour work week with 40, which is easy to take advantage of. Rights to strike, things like that. And Ford, for example, wants to raise those wages, as you said, by 20%. Probably will be okay on cost of living. They'd eliminate the tiered system of wages. said they would boost into 401k accounts.

27:01You know, it seems like they're moving there. They have to, unlike the studios, they're negotiating with each of them individually, these three big ones. So it's a little different of who's going to give. I would assume when one gives, the others will give. Yeah, and they've been smart. They don't want to run through the fund, the whatever you call it, the union fund. So they've been very strategic about which touch points or leverage points they're striking against. But if you were, again, to go long term, if the UAW really wanted to be strategic in game theory, this whole thing out, they would charge everyone, every union member, an additional due, and they would build a huge war chest.

27:40And then they would go to the workers at Tesla and say, unionize with us. And if you do and you get fired, we will pay you for up to a year or two years. In other words, this is a no. Oh, interesting. This would be a no-lose situation for you Tesla workers because at the end of the day… That's a big baller move. That's a baller move. If they keep trying to squeeze juice from a lemon that has gone from 80 % share to 40%, which is the U.S. auto industry, which they are going to expedite the decline with a wage structure that is unilaterally higher but not multilaterally, then all that's going to happen is the international, the foreign automakers, and specifically Tesla are going to run away with it.

28:22And not only that, again, it comes back to our number one rule. Find the biggest pile of money and stand as close to it as you can. And Tesla, Tesla is worth more than the entire automobile industry. So if the UAW really wants to make money, if it really wants to have leverage, it needs to figure out a way to unionize Tesla workers. Everything else is kicking the can down the road and weakening an already weakened corpus. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, we'll see. We'll see. Tesla has managed to resist that. It's interesting. There were some more lawsuits around racial harassment and stuff, but there's a federal lawsuit that's accusing it of discrimination.

29:07Make it a no-lose proposition for the workers at Tesla. Yeah, that's an interesting idea. It'd be very expensive. If the UAW could unionize Tesla, then we actually have the hot girl union. Okay. All right. Okay. It's like the Barbie thing. That would be the real victory. Go for it, UAW. We'll see. I doubt they will do that. I'm going to go on a limb and say this thing gets settled within the next two weeks. A week. I'll say a week. Feels that way. Yeah, a week. Yeah, it feels that way. By the way, speaking of unions, Drew Barrymore's writers aren't going back. They're mad at her. Those writers.

29:39I think she had three or four. Well, it's going to be hard to replace those writers. I mean, that is some tight dialogue. So what happened? What happened after you got divorced and you stopped drinking rosé? What happened? Yeah, that's some tight, great original scripted drama there. Ooh, they're going to be tough to replace. You know what? It's not a bad show. It's not a bad show. Okay. You know what? It's her. Is it? I can't see I've seen it. That's your cup of tea. And she's very likable. I'll give her that. If that's your cup of tea, that's a good show for those things. There's a lot of weeping.

30:08There's a lot of weeping happening on that. We should weep more. I think we'd have better. We should weep more? I cry all the time. Scott. I cry all the time. I think it was the last century. I cried last time I cried. I'm not a crier. I'm not a crier. You are a crier. It feels really good. It puts you in touch with your emotions and informs what's important to you. I don't know. It's fine. Whatever. I just watch TV if I feel bad. Anyway, let's move into more news. Scott, you've called weight loss drugs the biggest business story of the year, which I agree with you. Over 9 million prescriptions written for them in the last three months of 2022 alone.

30:43The big three are Ozempic, Wagovi, and Mungero. They're apparently causing Americans to spend less money on food, according to a Walmart executive, or at least they're anticipating it. It's seeing a shift in the amount of people are buying with the president and CEO of Walmart's U.S. operations citing a slight pullback in overall basket. It makes you, I was reading, it makes you have one less Coke and a bag of potato chips a day, which adds up to a lot. There's a lot of reporting and speculation about the impact of these drugs on various industries, traditional diet companies, snack foods. There was even an article recently about airlines saving fuel with lighter passengers.

31:15We've already seen the power of Ozempic and Wigovian literally reshaping Denmark's economy, thanks in part to pharmaceutical Novo Nordisk. Denmark's GDP grew by 1.7 % in the first half of 2023 from a year ago. Let's talk about this, because eventually these prices will come down. Ozempic's list price is about$935 a month. Sometimes it gets prescribed and you get the insurance kicking in. Wigovia is about$1 ,300 a month. Where are we going to see that? I think this is the biggest business story of 2023. I think this is probably the biggest technological breakthrough since GPS or the iPhone. I mean, if you think about it, I mean, United thinks they would save$80 million a year.

32:02But look at the second order effects here. Knee replacements would go way down. I mean, fast food. Why does – nobody walks into Arby's and thinks, this was a good decision. Literally. Nobody thinks, okay, I'm getting shaved beef that's delivered here in a gelatinous cube and then reheated. Alcohol consumption, the people who are taking a Zempic consumed 62 % less alcohol. I think you could see, Cara, I think you could see a baby boom because people who are slim feel better about themselves. Their sex drive goes up. You could see, I mean, it's just, I'm overwhelmed. 40 % of America is obese. There isn't 40 % of America that's anything.

32:51And they might go to 5%. In addition, it's not just 40%. I know a lot of people who are not obese who are on Osempic. They're like, I need to lose 20 pounds and I want to do it quickly and easily. And not only that, it changes your brain chemistry. And it looks like it not only turns off signals for eating more, it could turn off signals for wanting to drink more. Also, it's not just that, but strokes, Alzheimer's and everything. Now, I've been talking to a lot of doctors about this because it's the next book I'm writing on, working on. But I think in the short term, all this stuff looks good.

33:22All the studies are looking good. It's the long term issues around inflammation and all kinds of things. that they're, some people are advising that you go on it for a short time, lose the weight, and then come back on it if it, you know, if you haven't been able to keep it up. It's going to be very interesting. And it does, it is around drinking for sure. It's a really interesting trend. Like it affects a lot of stuff because people have compulsions. There still needs to be long-term studies on this stuff. But we can't even, you go out, you go out the blast zone here. Some of the biggest companies in America, whether it's PepsiCo or Walmart, If their sales go down 10 or 15 percent, you're talking about a stock price that goes down 40 or 50 percent.

34:01I have a – I surrendered to a friend who's lost a considerable amount of weight on it recently. And I have to say – Oh, no. You've run into more friends. This is one friend who's told you. Yeah, I know. But this guy had a real weight problem. And it's looking great. He feels great. A lot of those comorbidities have really – I think he doesn't know what to do with himself because he – and I think the compulsion to eat was quite strong. and I was fascinated. And what are you going to say to someone? Of course, that's great. Good for you, brother. That's great. I do think the long-term studies need to be taken, but if the long-term studies are looking as good as the short-term studies, I look around now and think everyone should be on this thing and they should bring these prices down, which they will.

34:41The prices will come down. Everyone's trying to get their own drug. But the CDC says there are$170 billion in direct costs related directly to obesity. The Milken Institute says it's more like$1.7 trillion I bet. And then if you could take those costs out of the system, you're talking on a$25 trillion economy, you're talking about a reduction in costs of 6 % or 7 % of all of GDP. In other words, the impact of Ozempic could be a multiple of the most optimistic impact of AI on our economy. So I think this is just, this is going to reshape health, reshape the economy. I think it is, think about what it's going to do for, do you know when a kid grows up obese, he or she is exponentially less likely to get married, more likely to be depressed, less likely to go to college, more likely to become a tax on the healthcare system, more likely to be impoverished because they can't afford their diabetes medication.

35:44I mean, this is this just could be. I'm very excited. I'm very excited. You're very excited. He's very excited. He's going to start buying puts and whatever you buy, whatever. Shifting completely, which actually is probably good for everybody's health, too, is social media traffic to new sites has taken a tumble in the last year. Meta and X have lessened efforts to elevate quality information. X has also stopped showing headlines for articles shared on the platform. So they're sort of getting out of the business on threads. Adam Masseri is saying, I don't understand what he's saying. He's saying, we like news, but not really like news.

36:20I'm not clear. They don't want to get near news. They don't. That's my impression. But what it is doing is there are some funny tweets because you can only see the picture when they put a link up and then you have to explain what the link is. Now people, the headlines don't automatically populate. So people are putting things like, Elon Musk found dead at Twitter headquarters of apparent suicide, which is not nice. But nonetheless, they're having people are doing all kinds of weird headlines to try to attract attention to it. So it's making the platform less attractive to use for sure. And, you know, Facebook is never has been pulling away from news for a long time.

36:55We'll see what they do on threads. I think they're just terrified of what happens over on Twitter, the nastiness. But and want to stick with more like Taylor Swift information type of thing, news, that kind of stuff. What do you think about this? I mean, we still have great organizations that take the responsibility seriously. And if they hear something, unless they can corroborate it, they don't print it. And I do think there's a large swath of America that really values that information. And anything that reduces exposure to that kind of fact-checked information or, you know, what you affectionately refer to as journalism is a bad thing.

37:32And are they doing it because they don't want to lose the traffic to other sites? Yeah, they want to keep people on the site. That's what he said, essentially. You know, why should I give away the milk for free? I think that seems to be, I mean, I get his point. But, you know, here's the thing. I just interviewed Steve Inskeep from NPR and he said a lot of, you know, they pulled away from Twitter because they called him a government, whatever, he kept calling them state-owned media or then government-funded media. He is also government-funded, by the way. And he said it was more noise than actual help to their stories.

38:06And I agree. When I was running Recode, the numbers were so clear that we got much more traffic originally, you know, just organically. Second was, you know, Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn was also important. Twitter was way down on the stack, even though it was the noisiest place and all the reporters were there. I was always sort of struck by that, that the referrals were not that good from Twitter. And I do think, like you say, you're spending all this time and energy on it and it doesn't have a payoff. And for him, it doesn't have a payoff. You want to keep people on Twitter. He wants creators to go on the site to write.

38:47He was like, why don't you just put the whole story on Twitter and that will help you? And I was like, why would we give you our story? Anyway, the whole thing, it's just a relationship that was bad from the start. is now going to be less and less. Well, look, what's happening here is slowly but surely what happened with Google. And that is Google initially 10, 15 years in the olden times, you type in what is the best direct flight or what is the best airline to Brazil. It would have an ad and it would shade it in blue saying, this is an ad. And then the rest of the links would be based on kind of the algorithm trying to figure out the best place to take you.

39:25Slowly but surely, the right rail, the top, all got weaponized, all became ads. And now they don't even shade anything because oftentimes with certain searches, literally the first two or three pages are not the best place to take you according to the algorithm, but somewhere that Google can further monetize. And that's what's going on here. They don't want you to leave. They want you to spend more time on the platform so they can advertise it more. I actually think over the long run, it's probably a good thing for the real great journalism at the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New York Times, you know, et cetera, et cetera, that people are going to miss that stuff.

40:00And if they can't, I'd like to think they're going to opt, they're going to spend more time going direct to site, but we'll see. Yep. The numbers were startling at the time and they continue to be. I mean, you can just see it. I have seen it over and over again, what attracts people. It's not Twitter for sure, but that's okay. We'll see. He can do whatever he wants. He's going to, his, Linda's meeting with bankers this week. There's been rumors that they've had it. I don't believe those rumors. I'm sorry, meeting with bankers to do what? To deal with the$13 billion in debt. At some time, the bankers have got to unload it off their balance sheets.

40:33Oh, yeah. No, that would be - Why don't you buy that, Scott? Why don't you buy those? Well, that would be great paper. I know a lot of institutions that would like that paper at the right price because - Well, the price isn't low enough yet, I think. Well, that's it. So, there's three banks. It's Barclays, Morgan Stanley, and I think it's B of own almost all of it and they've acted in concert and they haven't sold it because they don't want to figure out they want to price They don't want to price it to market and take that kind of loss. Yeah, but I think it's a great piece of paper because I do think at the end of the day Musk isn't going to default on it I think he's gonna want to and he's got so much money.

41:08He's got so much money. That's what everyone's like Oh, he's good everyone was like Kara is gonna lose if I'm like they're not taking it back from him Mm-hmm. I don't think so but and if he does if he does you own it say it's say it goes out at 70 cents on the dollar That means you own Twitter for, what is that,$9.1 billion. I think Twitter is probably worth$9.1 billion. They think it's less. They think it's Snapchat to$8 billion. They think it's$8 billion. You mean in terms of where the debt trades? The debt is$13 billion in debt, and they think the company is worth$8 billion. Oh, no, it's not.

41:38I mean, okay, so the components that make a better price value of a company are first you have the debt,$13 billion, and then you have anything above that is the equity value. So if the debt goes out at less than 100 cents on the dollar, what you're saying is there is no equity value. And I think that's what happened here. So if the debt goes out at 70 cents on the dollar, that's saying that the company is worth$9 billion. And what I would argue is that if it did go out at 70 cents, I would say that's a great piece of paper because, one, I think he will continue to pay that 12 % on that 70 cents, which is like an effective yield of 15%, which is a nice yield.

42:12And if he stops making those payments, you own Twitter for$9 billion. And I think that even that is a – I think that's a good deal if you could bring in someone responsible and re – I think a new owner could pretty easily reconnect and get a lot of goodwill and show a lot of growth to advertisers. Well, look what's going on at Yahoo. We should have the guy who's running Yahoo. They're doing pretty well. Yeah, Jim Lanzone has done a great job. Anyway, another last one. Amazon has used an algorithm to test how much it could boost prices according to portions of the FTC monopoly lawsuit. The algorithm codenamed Project Nessie.

42:44Where do they come up with these names? Tested out how high prices could be raised before their competitors would stop matching the price. This is a very complex thing. Matt Levine had a very good column on this. Like, what's the difference? If they coordinate and talk to each other, it's different than just declaring these numbers. I don't know. We'll see. Project Nessie also helped Amazon match discounted prices from competitors. The company made over a billion dollars in revenue using the algorithm and then said it didn't work. and Amazon has said that it's grossly mischaracterized by the FTC.

43:16They're trying to prove Amazon's a monopoly. This is a complex, pricing is a very complex situation. And whether they're colluding or they're cooperating or they're just watching other people's prices and matching them, it's interesting, interesting. So when I got out of business school in 1992, only 40 % of us on graduation day had jobs because it was a recession. Yeah. Yeah. And a bunch of us, I got an A in accounting. So I got put on some list where American Airlines reached out to me and said, would you be interested in interviewing to be a yield analyst? And what a yield analyst was, they put you in a cubicle in Dallas and said, your job is to take all of this data and use our templates and figure out pricing.

43:57Because the ultimate example of price discrimination is a plane, a plane headed from Dallas to Chicago. Two people can be sitting next to each other and one's paying 200 bucks and the other's paying 2000 and they use a variety of things including is this paying is this person staying over a saturday night if yes that means they're a tourist means they have less money if they're coming back same day it means they're on business price and cents i mean they just have these very complicated algorithms for figuring out how they get the most yield and that's what amazon's doing here the problem is is that amazon is so good at it that they are effectively dictating pricing for all of the internet.

44:34And they're capturing additional margin where they can and where they can't, they're lowing the prices such that no one else can capture surplus margin. And in my opinion, it's a powerful argument that Amazon, they're not doing anything. I mean, we've got to move away from this notion that they're bad people doing something evil. It's just that at some point when one company has all of the data and all of the capital, Other companies can't compete. And I think we have to move out of this thing of saying, well, did they do anything wrong? No, maybe not. But they're now in a position where they have so much power that because small companies, which generate two-thirds of the new job growth, can't emerge, the economy, stakeholders, and shareholders would be better off putting in place some regulation and breaking them up.

45:17But the pricing mechanism they use here basically ensures that no one else can undercut them ever, right? So they maintain more and more share. But where the pricing is weak in the ecosystem, they charge the maximum price and they make money there. No one else gets a shot in making surplus margin. And everybody else has to compete against Amazon in the more competitive markets. It just basically sucks the oxygen out of the room for everyone but Amazon. Yeah, though I think a lot of people think that they've got a real upward hill in proving that this is a problem. You know, that this is – there's no email that goes, let's collude or anything.

45:53They don't even need to, right? They don't even need to collude. They could just watch. They don't need to collude with anybody. Yeah. Or coordinate, collude. I forget. I just, a lot of my lawyer friends are like, this is not going to work. But just one piece of data here. The VIG they take, and we've said this before, the majority of their revenues on their e-commerce platform come from third-party retailers. That is retailers where they do not have to take ownership of the item. They're a platform and Joy Bag of Donuts gets on the platform and they pay a certain amount of their top line gross revenue to Amazon for being on what is the most powerful platform in the world.

46:31And that number, that VIG has gone to 45%. Yeah. And this is an indication that an ecosystem is not healthy. Yeah. And all you need to do is speak to retailers on the platform who have been there for 10 years. Yeah. No, that's where the real story is. That's what I can tell. I think we should get a VIG. Should we try to get a VIG from someone? Who could we get a VIG from? I love that word, VIG. I thought we were buying Twitter and Time Warner. Now we need a VIG from Amazon. Remember Nathan Mierwald used the term VIG for Microsoft? I remember that. That's the first time I heard of it. Okay, Scott, let's pivot to a listener question.

47:04You've got, you've got, I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman. You've got mail. And the question comes via voicemail. Let's listen. Hi, Kara, I'm Scott. I have a question for Scott. You have spoken about how problematic it is that elite universities are becoming increasingly exclusive. I'm a major gift fundraiser at an elite university that I won't name, and I secretly agree with you. However, you also mentioned giving$20 million to your own alma mater, UCLA and Berkeley. So my question is, how did you come to direct your philanthropic dollars to these institutions, which are becoming more Birkin bag by the year?

47:41by donating. Are you furthering these schools' missions to become increasingly exclusive? Is it okay since you are alma maters or public universities? As a university fundraiser, I feel conflicted about working in this industry, and I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thanks so much. She secretly agrees with you. Well, so, you know, somewhere between 3 ,500 and 5 ,500 degree granting institutions. And so to To paint them all with the same brush is a little bit unfair. And I think when Harvard sits on an endowment of$52 billion and refuses to let in more than 1 ,500 kids, they have decided they're no longer public servants.

48:19And I think a lot of universities, including mine at NYU, have probably fallen too much in love with this rejectionist exclusivity positioning that's bad for America. And it creates— It makes people feel bad, even if they're thinner. But go ahead. It creates shame and rage across American households and just huge disappointment. If you had a drug that would increase the likelihood, increase your—do you realize with a college degree at the age of 25, you have on average, you're going to live 10 years longer than someone who doesn't have a college degree at 25. If you could give a pill to people that made them less likely to be obese, depressed, or kill themselves or kill other people and live 10 years longer and get married and vote, wouldn't you give that pill to everybody?

49:05That's called higher education. So the fact that there are institutions that have the money to give the pill to more people and they don't is really upsetting. Now, having said that, I think the University of California is fighting the good fight. They're going to add the freshman seats of a new university over the next 10 years. Chancellor Block, who's just announced he's stepping down. Chancellor Christ at Berkeley. I approached them and I said, I am passionate about trying to create more on-ramps to the middle class for young men. I think there's a lot of jobs and young women, but I see the real problem is with young men.

49:37And we have the infrastructure, we have the brands. Let's fall out of love with this notion that we have to shove everyone through a traditional four-year degree in liberal arts. And let's create, let's use our incredible infrastructure, our brands, our incredible faculty to offer certification programs, one and two years, in things like nursing, specialty construction, energy efficient heaters. There's just so many jobs out there for these types of people. And let's lift up young men and women, two-thirds of whom are not going to get a traditional college degree. Where has metal, wood, and auto shop gone?

50:11They've disappeared. So where do these kids go, mostly men, but also some women, who are hard working, have skills, want to have a good life, want to get married, want to be good citizens, want to pay taxes, and are told by America, if you don't go to Dartmouth and end up at Google, you and your parents have failed. And I got to be honest that the University of California, granted, pretty much everyone nods in a room when you show up with 20 million bucks, but they're taking it seriously and they're going to try and implement programs. And my vision here, I hope at some point, and I'm going to call a lot of your friends, Cara, I don't want an admissions department.

50:49You show up, you're in. That doesn't mean you get the certification. But if you show up, the whole point of America is to give the least fortunate opportunities, not to try and weed out everyone who's not freakishly remarkable at 18. You can't predict greatness at 18. But anyways, I do think the University of California, I have some real issues with. When I applied to UCLA, the admissions rate was 76%. I was one of the 24 % that didn't get in. I applied again. I got in, changed my life. It's the reason I'm here with Kara Swisher. Yeah. Now it's 9%. That's a problem. But their heart's in the right place.

51:23They're trying to do the right thing. And when I approached them and said, I have some capital. I have an idea. They said, let's get on it. And they're working with me to try and offer, to try and start a program. So I think this woman is making the point. Is that if you find alternative ways to teach people and get them a step up is what you're talking about. It is. It is a really interesting. It's either too expensive for people, right? These schools have put people, put themselves into eternal debt, who can't afford them and get in. Or it's the exclusivity is really over the top of qualified people.

51:58I'm still mad about Stanford, you know, some 40 years later, right? I'm still like. Stanford, kids can't. The safety school, when I applied, UC Boulder was the safety school. UC Boulder will reject hundreds of 4.0s this year. And here's the real shame, and that is the majority of schools, for the majority of people, if you go the full four years, even taking out a lot of debt, it pays out over your lifetime. But this is what happens. A lot of kids in their first or second year realize college isn't for them. The family has struggled. They borrow 50, 100, 200 grand, and the kid drops out. and then the kid has to face his family and say, I have put us all in debt and I have nothing to show for it.

52:45And guess what? That debt, unlike any other debt in America, is not dischargeable in bankruptcy. So you don't think America is about fucking young people? Look at the fact that student loan debt can't be discharged in bankruptcy. That is so immoral. So there are literally hundreds of thousands of kids every year that have to go home and say, Mom, Dad, I know you saved for college your entire lifetime for me. I know I got into college and I went, but I have failed. And now all we're left with is massive debt. And guess what? The school gets paid. The school gets paid. I get it. Yesterday, the Biden administration approved debt release for additional 125 ,000 student borrowers totaling, according to CNN,$9 billion in forgiveness.

53:31because the student, federal student loan payments started after the pause, the three-year pause. As you know, the Supreme Court had struck down the forgiveness program. So he's been canceling debt. It's just going to continue. But you're right. But here's the thing. Until the cancer here is until we, you know, we should have taken that money in my view. I have a problem with student loan forgiveness. I think it sucks to be a grownup. I think people, it lets the schools off the hook. You have to put the schools on the hook for bad debt. And we should take our public universities and fund technology and infrastructure investments in exchange for two promises.

54:12One, they're going to reduce tuition 2 % a year, and they're going to increase their enrollment 6 % a year. And in 10 years on an inflation-adjusted basis, college is half the price with double the freshman seats. Let's take education back to the 80s when you don't have to be fucking remarkable to get into UCLA or UC San Diego. And guess what? It doesn't break the bank. Do you know what I did? I showed up to UCLA with 60 bucks and a 1978 Opal Manta. Opal. And I got through school borrowing$5 ,000. I got jobs, Pell Grants. And guess what? I could do whatever I wanted after I got my degree from UCLA.

54:47And then with a 2.27 GPA, I love this because you can just talk about me, you know what Berkeley did? They let me into graduate school. Can you imagine Berkeley letting anyone to graduate school? Did you get a 2.27 GPA at UCLA? 2.27. But you know what? I could make a bong out of any household item by the time I graduated from UCLA. You got 2.27 once you got in? True story. 2.27 GPA from UCLA and Berkeley let me into business school. Oh, good God, Scott. You could try harder. And here's the thing. No school, no organization, no person can predict greatness at 18 or 22. And guess what? See above 20 million, it's paid off for everyone.

55:27That's true. The whole point of these schools is to take as many bets on as many kids as possible. Well, Scott is the poster child for failing upward. Anyway, 2.27. I could also recite every line in Planet of the Apes. God, I watch that a lot. Oh, me too. We could. We could watch that together. You damn dirty ape. If you've gotten a question of your own that you'd like answered, send it our way. That was a great question, whoever you are. And I'm glad you secretly agree with Scott. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. All right, Scott, one more quick break.

56:02We'll be back for predictions.

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57:01Okay, Scott, this is an action-packed show. Let's hear a prediction. You were right about Kevin McCarthy. Linda's going to visit the bankers. Linda Iaccarino. I don't know. What do you want to predict about? Give me a prediction. I'm just doubling down. I think that the industrial food complex, the snack food industry, I think some of the big box retailers, kind of what I'll call the industrial obesity complex, we don't like hospital systems, companies that make knee and hip replacements. I think you're going to see these companies hemorrhage market capitalization over the next 12 months. I don't know.

57:35That's a good prediction. When all of a sudden 100 million people are eating and drinking less and all of the ramifications, whether it's diabetes, hip replacements, knee replacements, depression, therapy, I think there's going to be less therapy. you're just going to have this is going to be you're going to have more sports I mean there will be a lot of winners too that we can't even project but everyone is talking about AI and it's going to grab the most headlines but over the next five years the greatest shifts in market capitalization are going to happen because of the ozempic economy or whatever you want to call it the obesity economy that's about to be disrupted people just don't even recognize how much of our economy is driven by obesity.

58:20And when that goes away, you're going to see trillions of dollars of market capitalization reallocated and reshuffled. I like that. I like that. That's a really good one. I'm going to make a short prediction. I think Jim Jordan will be the next speaker of the house. Oh, no, don't say that. Really? Sorry to tell you. Yeah, he's backed by McCarthy. Maybe that's not a good thing. I just feel like he's much more compelling than, And I think people are worried about Scalise's illness a little bit. And they think he's too much of an institutionalist, incredibly, because he's not. So, and I think Nancy Pelosi is quietly chuckling in her non-office.

59:00Like, okay, fine. So, I think that's who's going to win it. That's my feeling. All right. I'm going to just say that. Wow. All right. You think it's going to be Jim Jordan, Representative Jim Jordan? Well, we'll know by Tuesday, I guess. Wednesday. Has he ever passed a single piece of legislation? I'm super looking forward to George Clooney's documentary about his time as a wrestling coach. That's going to be a good one. Oh, he's talking about? When he let that guy go by, let the, speaking of real pedophiles, let that guy bother those kids and didn't do anything about it. He denies it, but many people say that's what happened.

59:37Just to be fair, I do not like the man. Was he ever directly implicated? and it really, I mean, do they really have any evidence that he ignored? There's been a lot of, well, I'm interested in looking at this documentary. There's been a lot of reporting from the people, the kids at the time who say that. I think, you know, it's not illegal, but this has happened time and again in these instances. Remember Penn, whatever, that coach at Penn State got in trouble. What's his name? Paterno. Paterno, yeah. That was a really bad show, what he did there. I don't know. We'll see. Innocent until proven guilty, but I've seen a lot of testimony.

1:00:14We'll see. That felt pretty damning. I don't know. You know what? Because you are pure evil, Kara Swisher. You're pure evil. Pure evil. I'm seething with hatred. Seething with hatred. Whatever. What are you doing this weekend, Kara? This weekend? Oh, lots. Oh, my God. It was Clara's birthday. By the way, my prediction is Clara is now four and will be five next year. I had my wedding anniversary. We went to a beautiful dinner. That was our third wedding anniversary, Claire's fourth birthday. So this weekend, we're having a baby, a kid party with a bunch of power ladies of Washington. Nice. Bringing all the kids over and they're going to drink.

1:00:53I don't drink that much, but they're going to have Bloody Marys and watch the kids rip the house apart. And then we're going apple picking. We're going apple picking. And I'm getting to test a Ford Lightning, the truck. So I'll be driving the Lightning to Apple Picken. Jesus Christ. Fill in my cab. You're such a lesbian. Oh, wait, did I just say that? That's my weekend. I'm finishing my last parts of my book in acknowledgments. I have to write the acknowledgments in the last chapter. Do you think I'll acknowledge you? Who kind of like reinvigorated? Let's be honest. Your career was sort of really struggling.

1:01:26Let's be honest. Who should I not acknowledge? Not acknowledge. I'm going to acknowledge you a little bit. Just a touch. Acknowledge-ish. Just a touch. Just a scooch. Ask me what I'm doing this weekend. What are you doing this weekend? Oh, you want to tell me. That's why you asked me. Go ahead. Yeah, that's why I asked you. I'm not interested in you. I'm interested in a prompt to talk more about me. All right. I'm going apple picking with my Ford Lightning truck. I am. I have an amazing weekend planned. You're going to love this. I'm doing CrossFit with my son on Saturday. And then it's my, I'm spending, I like spending, as I get older, I'm trying to spend more time with them individually.

1:02:01and this weekend it's me and Alec and we're doing a big workout Saturday morning we're going to this cool brunch with some friends and then Saturday night we're going to see Michael Berbiglia's last night of his one-man show oh great it was in London great and then on Sunday night at 5.30 17.30 Greenwich Mean Time we're going to go see Arsenal play Man City at Emirates Stadium which I'm really excited about wow you've got an action-packed sun weekend that's nice oh those are all really fun you'll love that show It's Old Man in the Pool, right? His one-man show. Yeah, it's called Old Man in the Pool.

1:02:37You'll love it. It's such a Scott Galloway show. I did a great interview with him about that show. I love him. He's amazing. He's an amazing fellow. Yeah, I'm excited. And you'll love it. I think it'll have a lot of resonance with you, Scott Galloway. I think you'll cry, probably. I cry in everything. Yeah. No, I think you'll - I cry in Modern Family every week. Let me just say, this show has a lot of resonance for Scott Galloway. You'll see. I want to hear about it when you come back. Oh, that sounds like a lovely weekend. I'll be picking apples with the massive truck and you will be doing sensitive man things with your son.

1:03:09That's really nice. Super nice. Yeah, I'm excited about it. Anyway. Well, good. Well, listen, have a great weekend, Cara. You too. That's the show. We'll be back next week with more Pivot. Please read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Indratot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mia Silverio, and Gaddy McBain. And make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

1:03:37Yo, pure evil. He came to me with bourbon on his breath and fornication on his mind, and I liked it. I liked it. Pure evil.

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