SoftBank's Investment, ABC's Trump Settlement, and Guest Co-Host Paul Krugman

27:07Donald Trump was against TikTok before he was for it, especially because one of his big funders, Jeff Yass, was a bite dance for people who don't know, is owned by a lot of big U.S. billionaires, just so you know. It's running out of time and options. And let me just say, you've written extensively about China. What do you see as their move? Because China's economy continues to struggle. It's in a period of deflation with prices falling in six consecutive quarters. And, of course, these Trump tariffs we just discussed. So what do you see as their move and repercussions here? I'd love your thought.

27:39Do you want to go backwards any way you want to go through it? Yeah, on TikTok, that is one social media platform that I have never visited in my life and don't really expect to. And so, but we know that in many ways, the social media are media. And we wouldn't want a largely corona-controlled entity to own the New York Times. We wouldn't want to own one of our major cable news networks. And the same logic really does apply to social media. So I'm fine with the idea that we really need to force divestiture. Now, I mean, you could say the general principle is you shouldn't have people who are fundamentally hostile to American values owning social media platforms.

28:27So, of course, Elon Musk did divest Twitter. But anyway, the China story, let me talk about stuff I actually know something about. China, it's a really interesting case because China has moved very quickly from incredible, roaring economic success story towards something that looks a lot like Japan circa 1990. And of course, Japan was a huge, I'm old enough to remember when, you know, airport stores were full of books with samurai warriors on their covers promising to teach you the secrets of Japanese management. But what's happening with China is we go to the fundamentals. Their working age population has been declining now for almost a decade.

29:11So they're in a kind of a real Japanese style demographic slowdown. It's interesting. They are still doing really impressive stuff on some advanced technologies, but as best we can measure with the overall technological level of the economy. You know, what economic jargon calls total factor productivity. But anyway, the overall efficiency of the Chinese economy is not growing very fast. The big convergence on Western economies that they were experiencing in the 80s, 90s, even the first decade of the 21st century appears to have largely stalled, which means that China has gone from an economy that's capable of doing 8 % growth not that long ago to something where 3 % or 4 % would be really a lot.

30:01But their whole economy is set up to be an 8 % growth economy. They have very, very low consumption relative to income. The government kind of suppresses distribution of income that comes from production to the public. It's a complicated story, but basically lots of their growth does not filter down to consumers. And they maintain investment of 40 % of GDP, which is like triple what we do. And there's no place for that money to go. So they were able to mask it for about a decade with a gigantic housing bubble with all those ghost cities and all of that. But they run out of room. They can't do that really anymore.

30:47But they seem to be weirdly incapable of accepting that they need to kind of grow up and accept that they are going to be a middle-income, moderate growth economy from here on in. Right. So what do they do with these bans coming, with this TikTok thing, with the tariffs? That just adds to the pressure. Because one way that you can temporarily try to deal with that kind of stagnation is to run, you have this productive capacity and not enough domestic demand, so you want to export stuff. And I'm not sure exactly how TikTok plays into that, but the reality is the world is not going to accept all those exports.

31:26The world is not going to see BYD destroy their auto industry. BYD, for people who don't know, is their car, which is quite a good car, but they're not going to let it in this country. There's no way. Yeah, it's just not, it's just, I mean, even if you can make an intellectual argument that we should accept it, it's not going to happen. I used to spend a lot of time in and studying Japan. So I was one of the relative handful of Western economists who looked at Japan's problems in the 90s. And instead of saying, oh, those stupid Japanese said, gee, this is a big, advanced country with policymakers who are not ideal, but are not idiots.

32:00If this could happen to them, it could happen to us. And sure enough, it did. But, you know, a lot of us were very, very critical of the Japanese for not being more forceful. And I've often argued that those of us who were critical, which is a group that included, among other people, Ben Bernanke, that we should all go to Tokyo and apologize to the emperor. Because they actually did a better job. First of all, they did a better job of dealing with their financial crisis than we did. But also that they, in the end, handled it pretty gracefully. You know, Japan is no longer going to rule the world, but they never had mass unemployment.

32:34They haven't had mass social unrest. There's every indication is that the Chinese are not managing that kind of graceful downshifting in their growth rate. And so that could be really ugly. How can they with the population? They've got the expectations. Oh, but they just need to let more income get through to consumers. They need to shift from 40 % of GDP invested to 25 % and then 20%, which means increasing the consumption share by the same amount. And now it's true. They took the Japanese about 15 years to make that kind of shift. And the Chinese have delayed this so long that it's a much more violent thing.

33:13But still. They don't have a choice. Basically live it up. Yeah. What will the tariffs do if these tariffs go into place? At one point it's 100%, I guess, on those cars. Yeah. Yeah, well, and it's, I mean, during the campaign, Trump was saying 60 % on China, and that may now escalate. And yeah, this is rough. I mean, particularly, you could say, well, all right, they can just export to someplace else, but we're a fair bit of stuff was probably in effect, you know, rerouted through Vietnam, but that won't be, that will be cracked down on. So is Trump putting the squeeze on them a good thing for the United States?

33:48No, because we do not want the world's biggest country, by some measure, the world's biggest economy, we do not want to see them descend into chaos. And other things, autocracies that are failing at economic management have this habit of trying to distract people by launching wars. I find myself thinking about the Argentine Junta and the Fallen Islands. Yeah. I've been around for a long time here. So Taiwan's going to be a little different than the Falkland Islands, I suspect. Yeah, a lot tougher, although that didn't work out too well. No, still. And that would be disastrous for all of us. Right, right, because of our chips and everything else.

34:32Speaking of that, I'm just curious, with Apple, Apple is looking to kickstart sales growth with a series of major design changes. They have a big market in China, by the way. They would love to see China put more money in the hands of consumers, because that's one of their—same thing with Elon Musk, by the way. with Tesla. The company plans to reduce an iPhone next year that will be thinner and cheaper than current models, according to the Wall Street Journal. Apple is working on two foldable devices. Foldable devices are very hot now. They're going to do a smaller one and a giant iPad-like one.

35:02They're pushing for quick release. Now, you've been skeptical and somewhat contrarian about tech product hype in the past. Talk a little bit about that, because iPhone sales, which account for about half of Apple's overall revenue, are in the slump with fiscal 2024 revenue growing less than 1%. They were on a bit of a tear in the last few years, but people don't upgrade anymore. And you've talked about this. So talk a little bit about it. And China is a critical part of their business, right? Where they make stuff and they also sell stuff. Yeah. So a trade war would be bad for just about everybody, but it would be especially bad for Apple.

35:36And Tesla. And Tesla. But one of the things that is extremely, makes me very unpopular when I do talk to tech types is saying that, you know, for practical purposes, in terms of the lived experience, technology has really slowed down a lot. I remember when people were enormously excited at the latest iPhone, or, you know, I remember when smartphones first became available, and now it's okay, it's going to be thinner and foldable. Well, that's fine. I have nothing against that. In fact, I'm pretty much in the Apple ecosystem in terms of my own and phone and computing and all of that, but it's not world-changing by a long shot.

36:23And so, yeah, they're going to, in a way, Apple is kind of in the position that China's in, you know, a very high growth past and a kind of, if they do it right, then okay, but not spectacular future. Could they fix that by some spectacular, you know, Jobs did that many times. He was in one business and then suddenly the iPhone, then suddenly the blank. Yeah, maybe there's something out there that will do it. Although at this point, everybody's into AI as the, and that's where all this tension comes from. But hard to know. I mean, new technologies are, by their nature, really hard to predict what might be coming down the pike, what might be transformational.

37:03But as they are, Stan, no, it's hard to see. Like China. Apple's like China. That's a really interesting insight that they've got to sort of manage their decline. That's on my, not even decline, it's just downshifting. It's sort of, you've been driving along the highway at 70 miles an hour, and now you're on local streets where you really shouldn't be going above 30. And how do you, can you make the adjustment to driving safely under these conditions? No, Paul, foldable phones. Foldable phones. Oh, boy. Will you get one? I wait until the last, you know, I only have my current phone because my last one was viciously attacked by a tile floor.

37:48Okay. I'm getting one right away. You know that. I'm getting a phone. Yeah, well, that's a different business. I have wanted a Fodable for a long time. I've been bugging them about it. My whole, when I saw Cook recently, I was like, you know, the app economy is over. You get that, right? Because it's all going to be. And by the way, they're getting, to be fair, they're getting very good reviews for their integration of ChatGPT into the iPhone right now. So some of the things will be services which have been growing like crazy at Apple comparatively. I've actually invested in one of those poor pay search engines that doesn't do AI.

38:22Oh, okay. Because anything I actually really need to research, I have a much better idea than ChatGPT of what's actually a relevant result. For now, Paul. And it just gets in the way. For now. No, eventually. I'm teasing. Lots of things can be replaced. And then me as well. Would you put all your stuff up and become, you know, I was talking to Martha Stewart. She was going to do Marth AI. She has so much content she's created and has been affiliated with. She was going to load it all up and find out what happens. Let's just say watch this space. Oh, oh, Paul Krugman is AI. Robotic Paul Krugman.

38:57Robot me, yeah. Robot you. So, I love when you keep saying watch this space. I love it. Well, you know, first of all, I'm talking with various people about various things, and I also have some constraints because, you know, and just in general, I'm still on the payroll at the time through the end of this month. And also, I don't want to be one of those people who trashes their place on the way out. Yeah, yeah, that's for later. But no, I'm kidding. But you're going to do merch, obviously, Paul Krugman merch. There's going to be t-shirts. Well, let's try. I don't know. I haven't quite figured that one out yet.

39:31You would deal with Kim Kardashian for skims or something like that. Look, I'm 72 and fighting it, but I don't think fashion is going to be my thing. Well, the world is your oyster now. So speaking of lack of oysters, ABC News has agreed to pay$15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Donald Trump. The suit centered around comments that ABC's George Stephanopoulos made in a civil suit against Trump brought by E. Jean Carroll. He said he was found liable for rape when he actually had been found liable for sexually assaulting and defaming Carroll. And the judge had mentioned that it was in most terms that would be considered that.

40:06And that's, I think, why he said it. But in fact, the jury had found liable for sexual assault and defamation. Under the terms of the settlement, ABC News will donate the money,$15 million, to a future presidential foundation and museum. And Stephanopoulos and ABC also issued a statement of regret for the mistake. Many experts thought, I've talked to a dozen lawyers, they thought ABC would have won. And Trump typically does this a lot, and so does, speaking of Elon Musk, we just talked about him, they use legal threats as a means of having people acquiesce. So talk a little bit about this. I mean, from a business point of view, again, it's using censorship, it's using legal means, it's using anything but actual competition or just like things work out.

40:55As more than that, what we're seeing is that some of us had warned that a second Trump administration would be one in which the coercive power of the government against business would become huge. A mixed economy, the government plays a big role. Private sector plays a big role. Lots of things in the private sector depend upon government decisions that are reasonably favorable. As long as you have rules, norm, rule of law, then that kind of works okay. But if you start to have arbitrary exercise, and one of the things we worry about on tariffs, it happens to be the case that the way that our trade laws are written, the president has enormous discretion in tariff setting.

41:44And in some ways, one of the worst things about Trump tariffs will be not the tariffs he applies, but the ones he doesn't because he can play favorites with who gets to get exempted from a tariff. There is some evidence he did even on the relatively small tariffs he imposed in the first term. So if you were ABC and you're looking at all the ways that Trump can hurt you if he wants to, then you pay protection money. That's what just happened. And this is a much bigger thing than just competition. This is basically big business already acknowledging that we've become a protection racket. Pay for play.

42:25And that's scarier than anything. I mean, it's one of those reasons to wonder whether 2024 was maybe the last real election. So talk a little bit about, because from a business, from an economy point of view, you can have a very robust economy even with this cooperation, or does it ultimately end this oligarchy? And in lack of innovation, which has been the hallmark of the U.S., really, dominance and innovation and new, fresh ideas, it's really been a remarkable run for the United States over the last 40 years. Yeah, for the last 25 years, you know, in 2000, roughly, all advanced countries seemed to be about on the same level technologically.

43:08The U.S. has now pulled well ahead. And there are, one of the pieces I've written recently says a lot of that is actually just geography. There's probably room for only one Silicon Valley anywhere in the world. But a lot of it is also, yeah, openness, rule of law, success depends upon actually producing stuff that people want and can use, on being able to attract the best and brightest from around the world to work. And all of that is at risk. You're in a situation where we know that there are people with influence on Trump who think of tech jobs as being goodies to be handed out and don't let foreigners have those.

43:50We know that we may well be heading for a situation in which success in business depends upon pull with the administration, depends on whether you're in or out of favor. And we even have, I mean, for what it's worth, regimes like that, according to an IMF study, it subtracts about 1 % from growth. How do you look at with all these billionaires around him? And they certainly are just one. It's mostly tech that's going there. But Disney just did this, right? This is Bob Iger doing this. He had had to approve of this settlement. And he is not. You haven't seen him at Mar-a-Lago, but this is his version of that, right?

44:31What is that? And were you surprised that it's been the tech people who had mostly stayed out of government, right? And until they realized there was an interview that Marc Andreessen did, who I've known for a long time. I find him largely a despicable character. But one of the things he said, he was terrified by what Biden was going to do. And he was scared. And that's what drove him into Trump's arm, which I think is unlikely on some level. I mean, I am actually not surprised because I'm a cynic. And the thing about tech, by the way, is these are no longer upstart innovators that we're talking about now.

45:03We're talking about people who made their billions very, very young, but they're now middle-aged. And they're sitting in many ways on these monopoly positions created by their past efforts. And, of course, they're going to try and curry favor with the government. The libertarian ideology was never more than skin deep. But I also think that some of the backing Trump, this is the classic error. Oligarchs, it's funny, in a democratic rule of law nation, great wealth brings a lot of power with it. And it's natural to think, well, if I help elect an autocrat who is sympathetic to my interests, that I'll have even more power.

45:55But you very quickly find out. that actually all of the power is on the other side. And I don't think analogies with Putin, I mean, I'm hoping that we're not going to go full Putin, but the analogies are really clearly there. And the oligarchs who helped put Putin in power thought that they had bought themselves a government, and they found out that they were working for him, not the other way around. And if they didn't work for him, their fortunes can disappear quite quickly. Yes, windows started to look. Well, falling out of windows. I hope we don't get to the falling out of windows stage, but it could.

46:31And so, no, this is a, and that's going to happen very, very fast. I mean, I'm, I think there's a reasonably strong case to that, that Elon Musk and Trump will have a falling out and Musk will not be the winner. And I don't know that for sure, but I'm actually kind of looking forward to it, to be honest. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not a saint. Okay. What's the counter to that? Where does that break? Because people have always been quietly running the country, right? The whole idea of whoever it happened to you. It agrees in degrees. Yes. But is this unprecedented? I don't think so, right? It's totally unprecedented.

47:10Right. So talk about the precedent. This is the story of Putin's Russia. This is the story of— What about in our country? That there have been wealthy people behind the scenes. They just aren't as performative. They don't jump down at a rally and show off their belly and stuff like that. How is this different? I actually have been wondering about that. I'm planning to do a little, you know, I'm not a historian, but I think it really is an interesting question. We had a Gilded Age in which there were enormous fortunes and a lot of raw corruption. And yet, democratic institutions were not corrupted too much.

47:47I mean, a lot of purchased votes and all of that. But in the end, when people voted for something different, those votes were honored. we didn't lose, in some ways, the essence of what America's about despite all of that. And it's an interesting question to ask, why didn't the J.D. Rockefellers and the J.P. Morgans go to the limit? Why were they willing to allow Teddy Roosevelt to be elected? Right. Often a wealthy person. FDR, wealthy person. JFK, wealthy. for billionaires. Well, FDR brought us closer to a coup than we like to think, but yeah. But how did the progressive movement manage to flourish in a time when the wealthy also had that?

48:33And I don't quite know the answer, although it's possible, hard to believe, but it's possible that people actually had at least some values and ideals, enough to say that, okay, I will go this far, but not beyond that point. I'm not so sure with this crew. I'm not so sure either, but whatever I know them. I'm certain they will go as far as they take because they are perpetually aggrieved. They're aggrieved, Paul, because they're the victims, just so you know. Oh, yeah. That's one thing. I mean, you would know better than me. I do. My really strong sense is that particularly the tech bros, I mean, everybody loved and admired them 10, 15 years ago.

49:08And now they're not loved and admired universally. And I think that really, you know, I do spend enough time in meetings with people of various, people at the top of multiple status hierarchies. And everybody wants to be what they aren't. And these are people who can buy anything except love and adulation. That's correct. It was funny. It's funny you say that because one of them was in touch with me and they're like, see, we won. And I said, you're still an asshole. I still think you're an asshole. I'm sorry, can I say this? But I said apparently somebody used grok to search for the word most used to characterize Elon Musk.

49:49And it was asshole. Yeah, yeah. Well, that wasn't the one who called me. But nonetheless, same difference. I want to say the same thing. I often say to many of them, you're so poor, all you have is money. Anyway, we're going to go on a quick break when we will be back for wins and fails.

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50:26Okay, Paul, let's hear some wins and fails. Would you like me to go first or would you like to go first? Why don't you go first? Okay. I think a fail is HBO is no longer airing episodes of Sesame Street on Max. They've opted out to renew the output deal, which brought new episodes. The library, the existing Sesame Street library, which my kids watch a lot, I have two younger kids, remain on the platform until at least 2027. and the new season will be there, but they're moving on. And so I just, I don't know. They're wonderful. It's not like some things get old and you shouldn't keep airing them, but Sesame Street remains fantastic.

51:06It had been in a five-year deal, and it's sad. I mean, they're trying to save costs. It probably doesn't do very well for them, but to me Sesame Street's been around since 1969, if you can believe it. But they're often at the whim of politicians and defunding and everything else. But so I just you can see them till 2027. But the control over something like this is really sad to me by people who are just looking for, you know, obviously David Zasloff just did a whole machination about spinning things into pieces at the company. And I, by the way, I have a contract scene. And nonetheless, I think it's horrible, David.

51:44Bad job. And my plus is I just did a whole on with Kara Swisher about books. And I had two amazing book critics come on, Dwight Garner from The New York Times, who's amazing, and Becca Rothfeld, who writes for The Washington Post. And we had a great time talking about books that will be appearing, I think, next week. But she did a review of Jordan Peterson's new book, We Who Wrestled With God. And I recommend that you read this review. I think Jordan Peterson is just a dimwit, which she writes about. And she says, let me just read this. It takes a special kind of spiritual dimwit to cast a text as fierce and mysterious as the Old Testament as a banal and scolding exhortation to make your bed.

52:30But Peterson, as it happens, is just this kind. I just loved her writing. I think she's a wonderful writer. And I just laughed and cackled throughout the review. and it's a wonderful review of a terrible book and that's always a pleasure for me. You know, I think it's just, I just love, I love really, as you said, there's no Paul Kregman, there's no, you can't replace any of this with anybody else but the person writing it. So I just love, Becca, what a great review you did and I'm excited for people to listen to her thoughts on books along with Dwight's. All you, Paul. Okay, wow. Now, so fails, you know, I live in New York, although it's not where I am at the moment.

53:14But, and I have to say this whole business with congestion pricing, which was on and then off and is now down on. And, you know, this is completely insane. Driving into lower Manhattan, the cost you impose on everybody else by making that, you know, this is insane. If there was ever, and not only was it something that we should be doing just plain to discourage people from doing this, but it was also a revenue source for really badly. So that has been, I thought we've finally gotten to the point of doing the right thing there. And it's, you know, I mostly take the subway, but this does get at the quality of my life.

53:55So you think there should be congestion pricing to limit people? If you try to estimate what the true cost that you impose on other people by driving into lower Manhattan during the workday, it's on the order of$100 just by slowing up other people. So the congestion pricing should be really strong. And this is so, that's a big fail. And New York is still my, you know, I sometimes, even when I'm elsewhere, I say something, well, I'll be in the city tomorrow. The city means New York. There's only one city. There's only one city. But this is really, anyway. Wins. So I have lots of questions about Apple and Tim Cook.

54:39But Apple TV, I'm a science fiction fan. And first of all, just in general, film science fiction, we are in a golden age for that. The two Dune movies. I grew up with that book. And that, my God, Villeneuve was incredible. And now I just saw, just about an hour before we got online with each other, that Tim Cook has extended Silo for two seasons. And I'm a total, both a total Silo freak and a total Rebecca Ferguson fan. So two more seasons of Silo, that's a significant improvement in the quality of life. Oh, good. Severance is coming. Did you like that one? Yeah, I found, it's funny. I have good friends on Wall Street who are absolutely into severance.

55:27And I, not quite, maybe because I've never actually worked in a cubicle. I don't, it doesn't quite work the same way for me, but I sort of see it. Have you tried Dark Matter? What about Dark Matter? Dark Matter, I've been working through, it's stressful for some reason. It's a little too stressful for these times. You would think that Silo with everybody buried underground would be worse. It's a great show. I have a cluster of civilized Wall Street friends. They were constantly going, but I was the one that turned them on. This is already old stuff, but Orphan Black once upon a time. Yeah, amazing.

56:03So this is, anyway, so, you know, I think my, I'm reading a little bit less news now because it is painful. And so better streaming entertainment. Good. That's a great, Silo's wonderful. I think you should watch Nobody Wants This on Netflix. Oh, I should look at it. It's very delightful. It's not sci-fi at all. It's about a hot rabbi, Paul. Oh, gosh. All right. Well, yeah. I don't think you seem like the hot rabbi type. Anyway, Silo is wonderful. You're right. Rebecca Ferguson, who was also in Mission Impossible, a whole bunch of things. And she was also in Dune. Astonishing, astonishing person.

56:42Is there any movie you like right now? Is there any movie that is your favorite? still absorbing Dune 2 and not a real nothing has really really grabbed me since then you don't seem like a wicked kind of guy you and Scott I should go to it although I did actually see Oppenheimer was actually a little bit back but it was Wong Wong Wong Wong definitely but that's the name of your that's the name of your I thought I caught it in the historical error there and it's too much to explain But then I checked it. It wasn't. I, I, Rob, I was actually at the Trinity test. I thought it couldn't have been because he was working at the MIT's radiation lab.

57:26But he was there for that. Oh, amazing. Wow, that's amazing. That is a great film. That's a good film to go back and watch. He's working, Chris, the director, Nola, is working on a couple of new things that I think you'll like. Oh, and I actually, by the way, I'm always a little bit shocked in general in pop culture at what I like. The musical stuff that's showing up now again at the end of my newsletter. But I'm absolutely shocked to find out I really enjoyed Fallout. Who knew? The new Paul Krugman. Not really. And he's the same Paul Krugman. Now unleashed. Unleashed. Unbound. Unbound. Paul Krugman Unbound, which I love.

58:04I'm really enjoying this episode. We want to hear from you, by the way, listeners. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot. It's a minute question from the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. I also want to mention that I recently sat down with Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna for On with Kara Swisher. Speaking, Paul, he talked about how billionaires funding the left are just as problematic as Elon and his minions on the right. Let's listen. Our side will say, well, Elon's a problem. Yeah, sure. It's a problem that he's pouring in hundreds of millions.

58:33But how about the billionaires on our side? I mean, how about the fact that Kamala Harris had more billionaire money than Trump did and more wealthy money that Larry Lessig and I had an op-ed on that, that I think that was part of the reason we weren't talking about transformative change on Medicare for all or standing up for unions. How often did Kamala Harris talk about inequality? And so, yes, let's get the super PAC funding out. Let's be a party that says no super PAC funding in primaries. But, you know, voters respect it more. It's not that I'm not going to call out Elon. I just did. Don't, you know, it's terrible to have that kind of spending.

59:12But voters respect you more if you're also willing to call out your own side so it doesn't just come off as hypocrisy. What do you think about that, Paul? I thought it was a little two sides of his mouth. I think that's a little bit, you know, it's certainly a little distressing that billionaires are so important to the finances of both parties. But, you know, I mean, I watched the campaign a lot. I didn't see any real evidence that Harris was being more centrist than would have been warranted by the politics. And in general, I think there are times when it's clearly billionaires are buying their interests.

59:48But I didn't see a lot of that in this campaign. And that's probably, I'm going to have a newsletter on that very quite soon, given the assassination in New York, about health care. But the reason we can't have Medicare for all just now is not because billionaires are in the way. It's actually much more just that most people are reasonably happy with their private insurance. And even if you tell them, look, this government providing insurance will be better, and people who have Medicare actually are happier than you are, that's just not a—people won't believe it. And that, you know, so it's not the billionaires that are stopping this.

1:00:30Yeah, they're in a rage and the polls also show they like it. It's a really weird situation. I think it's all these cases of denials. Well, the polls actually show us that people really like their private insurance unless they get sick. That was exactly unless they get sick. One of the things that I will note that Elon invested$250 million in the Trump campaign and he is now$200 billion richer. What an investment. Best investment of all time, I think, correct? Oh, yeah. Buying political influence is still an incredible bargain. And look how much richer he is, despite the fact that Tesla's share of the market is down considerably.

1:01:06Just amazing. And as a New Yorker, watching the current mayor and the scandal of the bribes that he was receiving from the Turks. Yeah, it's tiny. It's like two days in a luxury hotel in Istanbul. My God, that you can buy the mayor of New York for that little money. I know. Who should we buy, Paul? No, I'm kidding. Let's not do that. Anyway, anyway, Paul, you're wonderful. I'm so excited that you're out and about. I love these columns. And everybody should go to his sub stack, Krugman Wonks Out, for all of your analysis and musings. It's very varied, and you have the musical thing at the end. I like Slightly Unleashed, and I look forward to all the different things you're going to write about in the economy and more and more.

1:01:54Thank you so much. We'll be back on Friday for more. And I'll read this out. But Paul, again, really, I'm a huge fan and I'm thrilled that you're doing this. You'll have so much fun. You will not regret it. I'm definitely going to have a good time. Good. You deserve it. Today's show was produced by Lara Neyman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Enderdott engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mia Silverio, and Dan Shulon. Nishat Kirwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.

1:02:27You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Scott, I hope you're having a great time in Africa.

1:02:53of course, by more Calditaoder or Ah got your Briochos

1:03:09Here at the Big Deal D expenses original The 28th of October.