Government Shutdown Ends — But the Damage Doesn’t

0:00Support for the show comes from Upwork. If you're overextended and understaffed Upwork Business Plus helps you bring in top quality freelancers fast. You can get instant access to the top 1 % of talent on Upwork and marketing design AI and more. Ready to jump in and take work off your plate. Upwork Business Plus sources, vets, and shortlists proven experts so you can stop doing it all and delegate with confidence. Right now, when you spend$1 ,000 on Upwork Business Plus, you'll get$500 in credit. Go to upwork.com slash save now and claim the offer before December 31st, 2025. Again, that's Upwork.com slash S-A-V-E.

0:36Scale smarter with top talent and$500 in credit. Terms and conditions apply.

0:46Support for the show comes from Crucible Moments, a podcast from Sequoia Capital. Every exceptional company story is defined by those high stakes moments that risk the business but can lead to greatness. That's what Crucible Moments is all about. Hosted by Sequoia Capital's managing partner, Rolov Böte, Crucible Moments is returning for a brand new season. And they're kicking things off with episodes on ZipLine and Bolt, two companies with surprising paths to success. Crucible Moments is out now and available everywhere you get your podcasts and at cruciblemoments.com. Listen to Crucible Moments today.

1:28Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start? Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to. Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin, or what that clunking sound from your dryer is? With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro. You just have to hire one. You can hire top-rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews all on the app. Download today. Today's number? Six. That's how many days old Mary Stewart was when she became Queen of Scotland. That makes her one of the least qualified leaders in history, just behind Linda McMahon. Money market matters.

2:11If money is evil, then that building is hell. The show goes on! The folks are never watching so soon! Welcome to Prof G Markets. I'm Ed Elson. It is November 13th. Let's check in on yesterday's market vitals. The Dow hit another record ahead of the shutdown vote in the House. The S &P 500 was flat and the Nasdaq declined. Meanwhile, the yield on 10-year treasuries fell. Bitcoin dropped towards the key$100 ,000 range and finally gold climbed. OK, what else is happening? The Trump administration has proposed a new idea to tackle home affordability. The 50-year mortgage loan. Right now, most first-time homebuyers take out a 30-year mortgage.

2:58According to administration officials, a 50-year mortgage would lower monthly payments, helping new buyers enter the market. However, many housing experts say that the monthly savings on those payments would be small and homeowners would wind up paying actually a lot more in interest. So we wanted to break down the economics of this 50-year mortgage proposal. also we're speaking with Ramit Sethi, host of the Money for Couples podcast and bestselling author of I Will Teach You to Be Rich. Ramit, thanks for joining us again on Profit Markets. Thanks, Ed. We want to get your reactions to the 50-year mortgage.

3:32I know you have a lot of takes and a lot of opinions that are very polarizing on home ownership. I see this headline, Trump wants to have 50-year mortgages, or at least that's being floated. I just, I got to get your take on this. What do you think? Well, what do you say to pathetic politicians who simply want to, at any cost, keep the price of housing going up? What do you say to a government that essentially says to people, hey, if you can't afford a$450 ,000 Rolls Royce, how about we spread those payments out over 50 years? And how do you reconcile that with a public that has the number one religion in this country being home ownership, who many people jump and say, wait, lower payments?

4:18Sounds good to me. We have a very bad policy here, very bad recipe for the average American consumer. It's one of the worst policies I've heard in recent years, and that's really saying a lot. Break down what the what the the grift kind of is here, because you describe it is lower payments, but spread out over a long time. Why exactly is that bad? The concept of interest is a word that many people generally understand, but they rarely understand the specifics. We know that we pay interest on a mortgage, okay, but the math is extremely counterintuitive. You take a typical$500 ,000 house at six or so percent for 30 years, okay, fine, that's one thing.

5:03You'll pay about$3 ,000 a month. If you have a 50-year mortgage for the same house, you're going to save about$300 a month. People go, wow, that sounds good. But what they don't pay attention to is the fact that they're going to pay an extra half a million dollars in interest. The American consumer typically does not understand how mortgages work. That's why they are so profitable for Wall Street. And this is yet another way to make more money off of consumers who do not understand basic math. Why do you think they are proposing this? I've seen some rumors about why someone came to him and had a list of presidents.

5:41Yes. Yeah, that guy. I mean, that guy's under investigation for several different things. The guy's a nut. He's horribly conflicted. And then let's take the recipient who gets an index card and then goes, sounds like great national policy. Post it. In addition to that, we have a general historical U.S. government policy of propping up home ownership rates. And this is really important. The goal is not to simply increase the home ownership rate. That should never be the goal. Because if you just want to juice the numbers, you can. We've seen that happen before in the last recession. You can simply make mortgages available to less qualified people all in the hopes of increasing that one number.

6:25But that is not really the goal. The goal should be to help Americans live their rich life. not to juice the numbers for an arbitrary percentage of homeownership to go up. Yeah. I love how you describe the religion of homeownership, the cult of homeownership. Could you just describe that for us? Maybe some people have heard you. I know a lot of listeners are fans of you. But describe what is the religion of homeownership and why are you so against it? Homeownership is a religion in America because we use very little logic. Instead, we use trite, pithy little phrases like, you're throwing money away on rent, or you don't want to pay your landlord's mortgage.

7:06First of all, how come we never say we're throwing money away on rent when we go to eat out at sushi? We're paying our landlord's mortgage. We're throwing money away on the bill. No, we're not. We're paying for value, and we are happy if someone else can cover their bill. Actually, we don't really care. Just give me the sushi and take my dishes. We also do not understand math. very few people, in my estimation, less than 3 % of American homebuyers actually run a simple buy versus rent calculation. Almost nobody knows what an amortization calculator is. So as an example, if you went up to the average homeowner and you said, hey, was buying a house a great decision?

7:45They go, yeah, it's so great. They take the big number minus the small number and they think that's their profit. What they don't understand is that if you buy a house today, you will be paying more towards interest than principle for 19 years. These words are foreign to most of us because we do not understand the math. We simply believe the religion that tells us buy a house, then profit somehow. And that's as far as we go. Yeah. Say this goes through, say we do have 50-year mortgages in America. What would that do to America? What would that do to the finances of Americans? And also, what would it do to the housing market?

8:26Well, that's the question I'm actually really interested in. I mean, I've seen a lot of discussion about how the prices would simply go up. And I'll be very interested to see what happens. I think in the last 10 years, a lot of economics has surprised many of us. For example, as interest rates went up, housing prices still continued going up. So I'm very interested in that. I can tell you on the individual level, since I speak to so many people on my podcast and my newsletter that very few people actually understand phantom costs. Most Americans make major purchases simply by the monthly payment.

9:02So they literally go into a car dealer, a car dealer named Chet goes, how much you want to pay this for this car per month? And that's how they make a$48 ,000 decision. Of course, what we know is that these financial companies are very sophisticated and they understand this weakness in human psychology and they exploit it. So what I would expect to see is that people, if they choose to take these 50-year mortgages, which will be positioned as purely advantageous, they will get this massive house, 50-year mortgage, and they will not understand why they cannot seem to afford their day-to-day. That's because they didn't factor in maintenance.

9:39They're building very little equity, and they never calculated any of these things up front. Yeah. What do you think is the solution? I mean, we have a housing crisis, and this appears to be sort of the instinctive, oh, we'll just make mortgages more available, and we'll extend the timeline. It sounds like you don't agree with that. I don't agree with that. What is the solution to what's happening in the housing market? How do we make housing more affordable. There's only one solution, and that is to build more housing. Yeah. Housing is in virtually every city in America, housing is illegal to build.

10:20You cannot build more on your own property, which you own. You cannot build apartments, duplexes, triplexes, skyscrapers, row houses, none of it in almost every city in America. We have a strong housing crisis, and that is purely because of NIMBYs. It's the people who bought their houses in the 70s, 80s, 90s, and then they pulled the ladder up behind them and said, no more building housing. Well, guess what? That's great for them. Their housing prices went way up, but it's not so good for younger people, people of color, and everyone else. And so what has to happen is NIMBYs have to be defeated.

10:52There is no other way around it. There is no secret policy that will change this. We need vastly more supply. And the good news is it's starting to happen in California, in New York, and in other places as well, but it's going to take a long time and we need it now. Defeat the Nimbys. I love it. Ramit Sethi is the host of the Money for Couples podcast, which I highly recommend you go check out, especially if you're in a couple and finances are a topic of conversation, as it is for everyone. Also the bestselling author of I Will Teach You to Be Rich. Ramit, always love having you on the podcast.

11:25My pleasure. Thanks, Ed.

11:30Shares in on running surged yesterday after the company crushed expectations on both the top and bottom lines. The Swiss sneaker maker raised its full year guidance for the third consecutive quarter. It's now expecting 2025 sales of$3.7 billion, up 3%. From its previous forecast, net income nearly quadrupled year over year. The stock jumped as much as 20 % on the news. This comes at kind of a challenging time for the athletic wear market. Year-to-date, ON is actually down 24%. Its competitors have fallen too. Nike is down 15%. Adidas is down 30%. And the parent company of Hoka, well, that stock has dropped 60%.

12:12So what exactly did On get right this quarter? Will it be enough to turn the stock around here to help us break down these earnings, what they mean for investors? We're speaking with Dylan Codden, Senior Analyst at William Blair. Dylan, thanks for joining us on Profit Markets. Yeah, thanks for having me. Good to be here. So take us through the earnings. I mean, up 20 percent. Clearly, Wall Street's very happy about this. What are the headlines in these earnings? They're happy now. They weren't happy into it. So I think a lot of what you're seeing, there was some chatter, some inter-quarter data that suggested trends really fell off the cliff.

12:46And there's an underlying anxiety for On that it's going to go the way of Hoka or Saucony or some of these other brands that have allowed a certain amount of oxygen that Nike gave them when they kind of de-emphasized the wholesale channel, right? So you're seeing a lot of sort of trendy pandemic era brands start to crest over. And so those trends in combination with that broader anxiety, I think what you're really seeing today is just, you know, they live to fight another day. You're not seeing On kind of succumb to the same deceleration. Yeah, tell us more about what's going on with Hoka and Swarceny.

13:18I mean, I think these are the kinds of brands that most people know about now, I would say. I know what Hoka is. My girlfriend wears them. My sister wears them. These are becoming more and more popular. But it's interesting that actually they're not doing very well right now. I mean, Hoka's parent company down around 60 % year to date. What's going on with these sort of lesser known but kind of known athletic wear brands? Yeah, so stocks and fundamentals, right? I mean, two things can be true. They can be popular and they can be decelerating. I think if you look at most popular footwear silhouettes throughout history, Speary, Top Siders, Toms, Stan Smith, you get about six years of the trend.

13:56And from a stock perspective, you really want to only own the first three because the latter three are sort of coming down the other side of the mountain. And so the only way to really kind of pull out of that is reinvention, which we can get into. But really what you're seeing is when Nike de-emphasized wholesale, 2019 through 2021, they allowed a lot of shelf space to go to these newer or sort of emergent running brands in particular, right? So Coca, Saucony, Brooks, you know, Asics really had a moment whereby Nike's folly was there to their benefit. Now you're three, four years into that. And so while the footwear, the brands themselves are still popular, the trend itself is starting to break a little bit.

14:37What does this mean for Nike then? And it sounds like a lot of this is downstream of Nike and their decision way back when to kind of get out of the wholesale game. Is Nike doing OK? I mean, where does Nike stand in all of this now? My view is that Nike never really had a problem. It's just at scale, right? I mean, they are the largest athletic brand in the world, right? And so when you think about sort of general scaling principles like Ziff's law, Nike can only be so big and can only really grow with category or population growth, right? So what you see with Nike is that it tends to kind of be steady state.

15:13And what's happening now is that, sure, it's getting some product mojo back, no question, right? and sort of putting a greater sense of urgency into their business. But their North America wholesale business in any given quarter has been$2.5 billion for the last decade, right? There's no real growth there. It's just that they're kind of coming back into a channel with some newer product. And I think people are misinterpreting that as some sort of acceleration in the business. The reality is they're just sort of recapturing share that they already had, you know, a couple of years ago. You mentioned the sort of three years up and then three years down that we see with a lot of these lesser known or up-and-coming footwear brands.

15:48It almost sounds like these brands burst onto the scene. Everyone thinks this is the next Nike, and then they're not the next Nike. What do you think about that question as it pertains to On? I think many of us do believe maybe this is the next Nike. Do you think that On could be the next Nike? What would it have to do to displace Nike as sort of the king? Yeah, yeah. Beware any narrative that is the next anything in my view. But the real fundamental, I think, structure to any longevity or any sustainability is just reinvention. Yeah. Right. So if you look at a Hoka versus an On, Hoka is effectively two silhouettes, right?

16:28I mean, 60 % of their business are just two shoes. And if you look at, again, some of those other footwear brands I've mentioned, Allbirds would be in there, right? Tom's, Stan Smith, right? Now Samba. They're really undynamic products. They're really a standalone offering, right? If you look at Nike and you take all the same trend data, Nike's Air Force One and certain Jordans, they go through the same six-year cycles. It's just that Nike stacks them up against each other. So it supports the underlying trend of the brand and popularity of the brand. It's a concept that's sort of better understood or best understood in artists, right?

17:02No Beatles album was the same, right? Each iteration was a reinvention with permission from the audience, right? And so On, as opposed to Ahoka, has permission from its customer to reinvent product. They got into tennis. They had the strong Roger Federer connection. They get into hiking as a national extension training because people are already using their shoes at the gym. There's natural lifestyle extensions to all of this. So they're really able to move the brand into different directions that while they're the existing core on silhouette that you think of, that will crest over. It's not to say they're not subject to general corporate gravity.

17:39It's just that they're seeding more growth behind it to sustain a longer term trajectory of growth. Yeah. Well, final question and then we'll let you go. Where does On stand in terms of the almost luxury or at least premium to ultra premium market? I mean, the way I think of this brand is this is sort of the highest end of athletic wear. Is that the right characterization? Where does it fit in terms of premium? Yeah, I mean, they're trying to go after this sort of perceived white space of premium, not luxury, you know, 150-ish per shoe. So certainly higher price point relative to what's out there.

18:16I mean, I think most of Nike's business, to put a finer point on it, is done in like the$40 to$60 range. So certainly there's some white space that they see there. You know, we'll see. You know, part of a lot of this is just the broader casualization of the world, right? And so it would make sense that maybe as that's happening, you can move into segments of the market that otherwise wouldn't have been available to you because people are wearing premium product to sort of different occasions. I don't love the premium positioning personally. You know, I think the risk is that there's not as much white space there, right, just given that higher price point.

18:50So that would be something that I'm actually more cautious on with this one. Very interesting. Okay. Dylan Corden, Senior Analyst at William Blair. Really appreciate your time. Likewise. Thanks a lot. After the break, a look at the economic impact of the government shutdown. If you're enjoying the show, give Prof. 2 Markets a follow.

19:30Sponsored jobs boost your posts for quality candidates so you can reach the exact people you want faster. And it makes a big difference. According to Indeed data, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 90 % more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored jobs because you reach a bigger pool of quality candidates. Join the 1.6 million companies that sponsor their jobs with Indeed so you can spend more time interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, and more results now with Indeed sponsored jobs. And listeners of this show will get a$75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at Indeed.com slash Prop G.

20:06Go to Indeed.com slash Prop G right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash Prop G. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring, do it the right way with Indeed. By now, you've probably heard of Built, where you can earn points on your monthly rent payment. But did you know they make it possible for you to get more outside of your home, too? By paying rent through Built, you earn flexible points that can be redeemed towards hundreds of hotels and airlines, a future rent payment, your next Lyft ride, and more. Earn points on rent and around your neighborhood, wherever you call home, by going to joinbuilt.com.

20:48slash Vox. That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T dot com slash Vox. Make sure to use our URL so they know we sent to you.

20:59Nobody knows your customers better than your team, so give them the power to make standout content with Adobe Express. Brand kits make following design rules a breeze, and Adobe quality templates make it easy to create pro-looking flyers, social posts, presentations, and more. You don't have to be a designer to edit campaigns, resize ads, and translate content. Anyone can in a click. And collaboration tools put feedback right where you need it. See how you can turn your team into a content machine with Adobe Express, the quick and easy app to create on-brand content. Learn more at adobe.com slash express slash business.

21:41We're back with Profitry Markets. As we record this episode, the House of Representatives is voting on the bill to end the government shutdown, and it is likely to pass. Barring any late surprises, it should be on Trump's desk by the time you hear this. Trump has pledged to sign the bill swiftly, and once he does, things will return to normal. The deal extends funding for most federal agencies until January 30th, guarantees that all federal workers will receive back pay, and reverses the layoffs of thousands of federal workers. So here to help us understand the economic impacts of this shutdown, we're speaking with Robert Socken, Senior Global Economist at Citi.

22:22Robert, thanks for joining us. Thank you. So we're recording this while they're voting. It appears that they are going to vote to end the shutdown. When this episode goes out, likely the government will be open. Let's just start with your reflections on this shutdown, the longest in history. How do you think this will be remembered in the future? Yeah, I think this is going to be remembered as a very challenging period politically and economically as far as it goes by shutdowns. As you mentioned, it was the longest in history. And we've had shutdowns in the past before. But when you look back at the data of those shutdowns, you don't see a big economic effect.

23:08Most of the activity tends to be made up once the government reopens. But I think in this case, we saw a lot of additional disruptions, a wide range of flights being canceled, certain procurements from the government not being paid. And I think the risk of some deeper damage from this episode is more likely this time around than in prior shutdowns. So the base case is we're going to make up most of the activity, but there were a lot of stress points. And it's going to really paint a poor picture for shutdowns in the future. If this is the state of play every time we get into a shutdown, that it could potentially be this divisive and this long.

23:47Yeah, we're seeing a lot of kind of frightening estimates of the cost. We saw one around$100 billion. What are the costs that we've seen from this shutdown? What are the damages to the economy and how are we able to measure those things? Yeah, absolutely. And there's kind of I would break up into sort of two categories. There's the direct effects of the shutdown. And that is largely government workers being furloughed, not working during those periods, not being paid certain provisions from the government, like we saw with SNAP benefits, not being paid. And that is sort of the direct effect. And much of that, as I mentioned, tends to be made up when the government's reopened.