Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello, welcome to the Call It Like I See it podcast.
I'm James Keys and in this episode of Call It Like I See it, we're going to discuss state run lotteries, particularly as we're seeing, you know, the jackpots getting in the billions.
And later on we're going to look at a recent piece from the Atlantic that argues that America is in fact on the right track and that all the pessimism that many feel about the direction of the country is frankly misguided.
Joining me today is a man who knows very well who he is, Tunde Ogonlana Tunde. You prepared any juicy takes for us today?
[00:00:59] Speaker B: I guess you gotta wait and see.
Don't tell me in an hour if I did. Good.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: Now recording this on January 23, 2023 and a couple weeks ago we saw someone in Maine won a 1.35 billion and that's with a B Mega Millions jackpot, which I guess now they maybe need to change that to Mega billions unless they probably don't want to lose the alliteration. But obviously that's a jaw dropping amount of money to win in a lottery.
And this isn't even the first billion dollar jackpot. There have been several others. And I know there was a Mega Millions, another Mega Millions one, there was a Powerball one, you know, going back a few months. But there's an author out there making the rounds, this historian, Jonathan D. Cohen, and he's making some raising some very interesting questions about whether governments should be doing this kind of thing anyway and just kind of really taking a close look at it. And this kind of thing, what I'm meaning is promoting and facilitating actually, you know, administrating gambling as opposed to just allowing. So tell me Tunde, after having seen several billion dollar plus jackpots over the past few months, what's your mindset on the appropriateness of state affiliated or state run lotteries? Do pros like raising money without taxation outweigh cons like attaching the state to something like gambling which is potentially destructive for the citizens of that state? Or at least some of them?
[00:02:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm okay with it. There we go.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: That's my please expound on that.
[00:02:40] Speaker B: But I thought this was going to be a short show.
[00:02:44] Speaker A: Hey, brevity is always great.
[00:02:48] Speaker B: I guess people do want to hear an explanation, not just the yes. And we're out. Thanks for listening everyone. No, but I mean, so yes. My answer is yes.
Do states promote other things that we could find that some people do maybe harm themselves? I'M sure we could. But in the case of this one, I just think the.
I think there's several reasons. I mean, one is, number one, another way to raise revenue for a state without having to constantly increase taxes. That's something I think that just the public generally appreciates. Number two, you know, I know that there's. There's the stats about certain people in certain income brackets that they spend a certain percentage of their income on lottery tickets, but it seems to be a very, very small part of the population. And, you know, I just don't see a problem with it, to be honest with you. And I think that it's fun. You know, a lot of people actually just enjoy participating in something like this. Kind of like, you know, many people know that going to a casino and playing a slot machine, specifically, other than card games and roulette and other things where you might have a little bit more chance, are pretty much a losing proposition. And it's. The house is going to win generally all the time, but people still play slots and have a budget and, you know, something people enjoy. So I don't generally see what you're pointing out.
[00:04:06] Speaker A: There is more the idea of playing for entertainment.
[00:04:09] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:04:09] Speaker A: Going in with. Instead of going. Spending $40 at a movie, you go sit down at a slot machine and put $50 in and just. You get an hour and a half correct payment. Or knowing that the machine wouldn't be there if it was handing out money like that.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean, and I was. In preparing for the day, I was, you know, thinking about, okay, so how do I deal with a lot? I mean, we probably play, my wife and I, maybe 10 times a year whenever there's the big jackpots. And then from time to time, when I see the jackpots at like 9 million, I'll play just because even though I know for a fact in my mind, statistically I have the same chance of winning as I do when. When it's bigger, there's still something fun to me that I like to fantasize. Oh, if I want 9 million, and after the lump sum, time value, money discount and taxes, maybe I'll net out 2, 3 million. You know, that's a little bump making my life a little easier.
[00:04:54] Speaker A: That's how the wealth manager looks at it.
[00:04:56] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: Everybody else is like, oh, man, I'd buy a new car.
[00:05:01] Speaker B: Yeah. I had to take taxes out first.
[00:05:03] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, of course.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: But. No, but that's the point of saying, like, I just enjoy. Like, it's fun, Nate. You know, I know I'm gonna participate. I probably won't win, but that's life. So in general, that's my answer is I don't think it's. And I will say this to end the last point is it's already been proven, which we'll get into that if you don't do it at the state level, it will become a black market thing.
[00:05:24] Speaker A: Well, but there's. You have to be careful with that though, because the question I think it's a good question that Cohen asked here and he had used he's out the reason why he's out everywhere. You know, there's a bunch of articles with this guy right now, he promoting a book for a dollar and a dream state, lotteries in modern America. And he goes, like you said, he gives a lot to stats and so so forth. And yes, correct, like. But I don't think the debate in terms of, you know, if the state doesn't do it, it's going to exist no matter what. But I think it's not the question here. I think that's be really being asked that he's taking a look at is does this harm the legitimacy of the state? Like we is the state government and the state itself supposed to be out here for the general welfare of the people? If that's the case, then how does potentially taking advantage of, you know, citizens that have a gambling problem or whatever, like how can that fit into this state mantra and versus that's not saying if the state doesn't participate that they can't make money on it. There's a lot of things that happen. The state doesn't sell us food, but they still get a cut when we buy food in taxes, you know, sales taxes or whatever. And so it's not like the state can't make money from it, you know, through taxation or whatever. Now granted, a lot of this is about not adding taxes or whatever, but having the state put its name on it I think is a really interesting point. And so like just for example, like one of the stats Cohen throws out there is that, you know, now great, he said 50% of Americans will buy a lottery ticket once a year. But the 70 to 80% of lottery sales is just 20 to 30% of the people. So there's a smaller subset of the people that are buying tickets that are in there. Of the people that are buying tickets is only half of the population anyway. So that's an even smaller subset of American population that are putting 80 of the money into this thing. So is it. Are These people that are by and large, hey, this is just entertainment and you know, I'm having fun where they're buying it that much. Or are these people that the state? Because the state is the one administering this. Not just saying, oh, we'll tax it, but saying, no, no, no, this is us. This is the Florida lottery, this is the Ohio lottery, this is the, you know, California, whatever those states are, they then putting their name on and almost in a sense tarnishing themselves to say, yeah, yeah, you know, we will take your money, you know, so to speak.
[00:07:44] Speaker B: No, I mean, my direct answer to that is, I don't. Not in my opinion, let's put it that way. I think this is where we do get to just opinions. You know, this is about kind of morality, what an individual may think that the role of the state is, or not.
Again, I think that it's a good question you raise, right? Like if the state's not doing it, who's doing it? So then we could see, let's just say an example of Vegas style casinos like the Wynn and mgm. And maybe we're here in South Florida with the Hard Rock casino. What if they just started getting into gambling, right, I'm sorry, Lotto, obviously they're in the gambling.
But if they just said, okay, so the state's not going to do it. We're just going to have big, big, big lottos nationally and statewide and all that. And you know, it would be the same.
[00:08:28] Speaker A: These are private companies already that administer a lot of these things anyway.
[00:08:31] Speaker B: Well, you know, private companies might be contracted by the state to do things like create tickets and have a certain infrastructure. But what I'm saying is imagine if you took the state out and you just said, okay, we'll let the casinos do this. Because someone, you don't have to imagine.
[00:08:45] Speaker A: That's what I'm saying. That's kind of the point is like in Florida, for example, the name on all the casinos is seminal, but they pay a lot of money to the state for the ability to do that.
[00:08:54] Speaker B: But what I'm saying is that I feel like the lotto is a cleaner way because in the end the Seminoles have a big operation and they got a lot of expenses. So all the people that would play the lotto through the Seminole system, if that existed, you would have to deduct what it cost the Seminole operations to run the thousands of employees and all that versus so you're saying the state.
[00:09:13] Speaker A: Would potentially make less money.
[00:09:14] Speaker B: That's what I think, yeah. Because you've got A layer in the middle.
[00:09:16] Speaker A: Well, most likely, yeah. If you're the one who's taken the leg on to do all this or to do more of the stuff, then you're generally going to get more money out of it.
[00:09:23] Speaker B: And the thing is, is that because this is where I look at it, it's more of a cultural thing. Like that's what I mean. It's. I don't think like this is one of those. Where is it right or wrong?
My question is, I err to the side that it's right. Just because history has shown us that if you. It's like prohibition or certain other things, if you don't allow this legally to happen, people will just run numbers and do.
[00:09:43] Speaker A: You're going into the wrong. It's not a question of whether it should be legal or not. It's a question on whether the state should be putting their name on it as this is ours.
[00:09:51] Speaker B: But just like they can allow. But that's what you're saying, given my.
[00:09:55] Speaker A: Alternative of whether it would be illegal and then happening in the black market is not really on the table here.
[00:10:00] Speaker B: But it is if. First of all, I already said I don't think the private industry should take it on because that would create another layer of expense. Right. So I think the state is good at running it versus if we just gave it to the Hard Rocks and the Seminoles and the, you know, the MGM grants in Vegas and said, you guys are responsible now for running lotteries. Oh, and we're gonna.
[00:10:21] Speaker A: Did you just make the case of communism that things will be more efficient if the state does it and not let private companies do it?
[00:10:29] Speaker B: No, I made an argument.
[00:10:31] Speaker A: I think that's what you just said.
[00:10:32] Speaker B: I made an argument of why I think the state should keep running lotteries. I didn't.
[00:10:36] Speaker A: But that's. But the point is you can apply that same logic to any industry.
[00:10:40] Speaker B: Well, you can apply that to public school and public fire departments. I'm not here to make all these arguments from an, you know, how do you run economies and all that. You asked me a specific question about do I have an issue and do I think it's right for the state to be the one administering a lottery? And I'm answering you yes, for the various reasons. I'm answering you and the other.
[00:10:57] Speaker A: I'm just trying to keep it constrained though, in that of course, if you say, oh, either the state runs it or no one runs it, then yeah, I think everybody comes to the same conclusion then because it's relatively harmless. It's not heroin, you know, it's relatively harmless and but the, it's. It becomes a thing. Whereas if the state outlaws it or state runs it, then yeah, outlawing it is going to be more harmful because it's still going to happen and you're going to take it to the black market. But if the question is should this just from a.
Is the state exceeding its mandate in terms of what it's there for, for the common good? Should the state be involved in stuff like this versus just taxing it, which the. Everything else the state just taxes, you know, more or less other than literally things like the public good, education, you know, you're saying we're going to say education, fire department and lottery, you know, like those are the things that we got out of state.
[00:11:53] Speaker B: But that is a public good. Like that's what I'm saying.
[00:11:56] Speaker A: But let me, but you know, so the thought, my thought on this also and honestly, honestly I come down on the same side as you. Like, I don't, I can appreciate the thought of that. Hey, you know, like attaching the state to something like this is a potentially is a negative, but it also could be a positive too. You know, like that's the piece that I come to as well because there's been much ink spilled as far as how bad people are engaging odds. You know, like you just. And that's something that's part of this discussion as well. Like, you know, part of the reason is the jackpots, you know that's talked about by Cohen. Part of the reason the jackpots are much higher now than they used to be historically is because they made the odds worse. They doubled the price or they, they, they charged more for the tickets, but then they made the odds much worse. But the concept is psychologically people don't really care about the odds. You know, they care about the jackpots. And so there's also a, I think a perception benefit that the state gets because for a lot of people, you know, that is there's some level of joy, entertainment and so forth. And I don't think that it's just a given, only that you have these, you know, these, these civic minded people saying oh, the state should not be doing that. Like I just don't think that's how people buy in. In theory that may be how certain people look at it, but I don't think that that's an overly common way to look at it. So from my standpoint, I come down on the same side as you, but I, I do Think it's very important though to not look at this as should the state do it or should it be illegal? It's really just should the state do it or should the state just treat it like nearly everything else that the state does? You know, the state doesn't by and large say, okay, well, well, you know, food is important for people enjoy food. Hey, let's open up a state steakhouse. You know, they just don't do that kind of stuff. Like the state generally speaking, you know, taxes things and then you know, allows that to happen. So I just don't want this conversation to go into that.
[00:13:40] Speaker B: But this seems historically to be just one of those outliers as a way that states historically have, have been able to raise money from the population without outright just telling everyone it's a tax. It's, I guess it's a fun way to be taxed.
[00:13:53] Speaker A: Why do you think that is? I think that's an interesting part of the. No, I think, I think that as opposed to. Because I mean, think about it though, like what I just called you, I tried to call you out real quick on the communist thing. Like, what if the state said, hey, it's a great way to raise revenue. Let's start putting on sporting events as the state like. And hey, people like sporting events. I don't know that people would react the same, so to speak as like.
[00:14:14] Speaker B: Oh, they'd be like, no, because I.
[00:14:15] Speaker A: Think lottery, we should have a private person on that. So.
[00:14:19] Speaker B: But, but I think it, I think it hits on a couple of important like themes for individuals. Right? Like number one is when, when you think of being taxed, it means someone is trying to either like the way we have, if you get a W2, someone's taking, they got their hand in your pocket before you get the money. So people don't like thinking about that. And then just the traditional way is, you know, you gotta write a check somewhere and no, no, I'm saying the other way around.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: Why do you think that we as our free market, table banging society are okay with the idea of the state running the lottery? We're not okay with the state running almost anything.
[00:14:57] Speaker B: I think this is kind of a similar vein, right? Meaning I think everyone recognizes that states require revenue and funding. And I think again, historically this has been one way for nations and states around, you know, historically to raise revenue without it being kind of a punitive action, you know, now without sending tax collectors and kind of a military style intervention in your domestically to get to.
[00:15:20] Speaker A: Going back hundreds of years, hundreds of Years, that's a thousand.
[00:15:23] Speaker B: That's why, like I was surprised in learning just, you know, the Han dynasty used a form of lottery to pay for, partially pay for the Great Wall of China. Says two centuries later, Caesar Caesar Augustus started a lottery to subsidize repairs of Rome. In 1567, Queen Elizabeth won chartered the nation's first lottery designated as profits.
[00:15:42] Speaker A: You know, but see, the thing is, again, all of those are autocrats. Like, why do us in this first.
[00:15:49] Speaker B: One in Massachusetts in 1745.
[00:15:51] Speaker A: But I'm just curious and I don't have the answer to this, but the idea that, like, if the government started saying, hey, we need to raise revenue, we don't want to tax you, let's sell cars. And so we're going to have the Florida car, you know, people would be.
[00:16:04] Speaker B: Like, no, But I think, you know, remember, lottery is a simple. I mean, basically it's just accounting and then you hire, you know, like we said, you contract a company that just makes the tickets. I mean, to sit here and make cars as the state and all that, I mean, that's a lot of more effort into trying to produce something and it's going to cost you a lot to produce it.
[00:16:22] Speaker A: The only thought I had on it was that potentially that maybe there's a like. And this again goes into whether or not the state should be lending its name to something like this. Just that the most important thing with the lottery is the trust factor, so to speak. Like the, you know, at least I know the odds are long, but I at least want to know that I'm getting a fair shake on those odds.
[00:16:40] Speaker B: And so, yeah, I think that could.
[00:16:41] Speaker A: Be part of it brings a certain level of kind of, okay, this is official credibility. Like, yeah, credibility to it. And so. But again, that's why I find it to be a very interesting question when it's like Cohen is saying that should the state be lending their credibility to this? And I mean, the contrasting point I wanted to get, you get to get your thought on this as well. Because the argument that you make, not just you, but anyone if, when asked if you're challenged on should the state be doing this and you say, oh, well, you know, it's a, it's a good way to raise money without really, you know, being punitive and stuff like that, which is not a lot of people make that argument. You can make that same argument about heroin, about cocaine, about prostitution. You could do a lot of things to say, hey, you know, like the state, hey, we can make a lot of people are Going to do it anyway. So we might as well, you know, like the state might as well cash in. So, you know, like, do you think. Where do you think the line should be? Like, should this. Should we have the state, you know, you know, like a bunny house, you know, like, should we have, you know, different state. We used to have. And just to point. Make this point, in many states, there used to be state stores where they sold alcohol, and that would be the only place you could buy alcohol in the state was, you know, these state stores where, you know, and that. That was kind of. That. That kind of thing as well. So what do you think the line should be on something like that? And what do you think about that? And what do you think the line should be?
[00:17:55] Speaker B: I don't know. I mean, I. It's a tough thing because you're right. I mean, should alcohol be sold by the state and the state gets all that revenue and I mean, with all the problems alcohol creates in states and, you know, from domestic violence to car crashes and all that, maybe. Maybe we should rethink that. Right. So I don't know. That's why these are good, open questions of how to run a society. And I think that in terms of things like drug use and all that, I think we need to be honest. Right. Like, first of all, lottery is a form of gambling. So at the end of the day, we sit here and say, well, Nevada and Native American kind of nation lands are the only areas in America where gambling is legal. Well, we're deluding ourselves. It's not. Because as we're identifying.
[00:18:38] Speaker A: Well, that's not even the case anymore now because most states, a lot of states, you could do it on your smartphone.
[00:18:42] Speaker B: Yeah. And then you got sports gambling and all that. So my thing would be, why not just have a federal legalization of gambling in the United States and then figure out how to regulate it properly and.
[00:18:50] Speaker A: Well, should. But if we do that, though, should the states run the casinos or have their own casinos?
[00:18:56] Speaker B: Nah, I mean, I'm fine with the way.
[00:18:58] Speaker A: So. Okay. So just part of it is just.
[00:19:00] Speaker B: Whatever we're comfortable with. Right.
[00:19:02] Speaker A: Okay, so that's what I'm saying. So is the line in your mind just whatever you've seen already, like, whatever, whenever you're.
[00:19:08] Speaker B: I think it's. It's a good question, James, because when I. When I learned that history, I mean, that was fun for me to see that the Han dynasty in China helped finance part of the Great Wall. What it tells you is this is nothing new. How do societies Raise revenue to do big projects and do things that they want to do. And it's either you got to raise money somehow. It's either you got to rape and pillage your neighbor. Right. You got to go take all their gold. And the Russia model. Yeah, yeah, the Russia Ukraine model. But, you know, it's the. It's the Spanish conquistador model. So I have the ship sunk on the way back to Spain.
[00:19:40] Speaker A: Too much gold.
[00:19:41] Speaker B: Yeah. And all that. Right.
[00:19:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: So that's one way to do it, which probably is not the way I want to, you know, say that it should be done. But that's one way. Another way is just straight up income tax and taxation of goods and services like we have generally, and that's export.
[00:19:56] Speaker A: All types of stuff.
[00:19:57] Speaker B: Like all the stuff. Yeah. And this is. And fees and all that. And so we all put up with that. And so I think that the lottery is just another way to say for a government to kind of come to its people and say, hey, look, we need to build some bridges over here or we need to pay for schools over there. Here. This will be a little bit of a funner way to do it. And maybe a couple of you might win some stuff and feel good about it. And so.
[00:20:19] Speaker A: So. But then. So. But that. That doesn't answer the question of where the line should be, though, other than you're saying whatever you've seen before. To me, I think. I think the line isn't a clear and bright line. Basically, there's no way. There's no way to arrive at a logical conclusion as to why the lottery or a state store selling alcohol should be run and put. Have the government put their name on that and these other vices, potentially, the government either will make legal but won't put their name on it, and they'll just get taxes or they'll make it illegal. There's no real. There's no logical way to distinguish that. It's a feel thing. Kind of like what you said. You arrived at it organically. It's just like, oh, well, you know, the lottery, they've been doing that for, you know, government's been doing that for a long time. You know, governments haven't been selling drugs to their people for a long time. Well, at least above the.
Above the board.
[00:21:08] Speaker B: What do you define as a drug?
[00:21:09] Speaker A: Yeah. So, you know, like. But even. Even, like prescription drugs, the government's not in the business of actually selling those. You know, like, they. It's still. It's. All of that is done. And part of that's our market system, you know, like. And that's where we get into. And I find that fascinating. Just the idea that we as Americans who are so, you know, we hold so tight to our market system and we don't blink at all when the idea of the government running the lottery. We don't want the government running anything. But just in terms of what you said, it's a. Well, let me, but let me, let me, let me say this point though, because the line as to, okay, should the government run, like, should the government run the stock market or the day trading part of the stock market? All of those things you can make, you can make the same arguments for and against with, when you deal with the lottery than you can for any of those, basically. And so the lottery you do, you can say with the lottery that relatively, it does seem to be a little more innocuous than, or a lot more, I mean, depending on your perspective, than alcohol, for example. Like, so you can try to formulate some, you know, like, you work yourself into some type of coherent argument in that way, like, oh, well, the lottery is not as bad as these other things. But then you start throwing out other things, you know, marijuana or slot machines or whatever, and then it's just like it gets fuzzy. You know, it's gambling, as you made very clear earlier, which I thought was an important part of the conversation, is gambling. And we're okay with the government doing this kind of gambling, but we're not okay with the government doing other types of gambling. You know, but we want the government to make it, to make it legal, but just let the private companies handle it.
[00:22:36] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's interesting because you got me curious. I'll go. I'm just to pick on MGM looking at their numbers. So 2021, they did 9.45 billion in revenue, 1.25 billion in earnings. But in 2020, they did 4.92 billion revenue and lost 1 billion in earnings. My point is, is that if we relied on private companies to be taxed in order, meaning let them do the lottery and then tax them, we'd run the risk too, that there's always going to be different.
[00:23:02] Speaker A: Businesses don't run that risk anyway, though.
[00:23:04] Speaker B: No, because when they take, when the state just takes in everybody buying these tickets for two bucks, they really just.
[00:23:11] Speaker A: The state still have. If people aren't buying the tickets because of a pandemic, just, I mean, just if they lose money, they still would lose the money. They still have exposed expenses, they still have employees, they still have all that stuff. So. Yeah, but I think economic factors make you a net negative. Whether you're taxing businesses or whether you're running the business, you're still not going to make the money.
[00:23:29] Speaker B: No, but I think the centralization of the state because remember then MGM's got to put ads in front of me and all this.
[00:23:37] Speaker A: And the state has to put ads in front of you too.
[00:23:39] Speaker B: But remember, the state has more legitimacy. And like you said, the state, I mean, part of this is psychological. The state makes a lot of people feel like they're not gambling. Hey, you go to, you go to, you go to the casino in Vegas and play the lottery.
[00:23:51] Speaker A: Hey man, don't take these arguments anywhere else, man. People will start wondering where you are on the free market stuff.
[00:23:57] Speaker B: No, think about it. It's no different than.
[00:24:00] Speaker A: I understand.
[00:24:01] Speaker B: It's no different that if some, if the doctor prescribes some people opioids and before this recent last few years where marijuana is much more accepted. Right. Let's say 15, 20 years ago, a lot of people look down on smoking marijuana as a way to deal with pain or, or just depression and other things. They would say, oh, go take an opioid. But look at. Opioids are no better. Right. They're actually worse in terms of. Yeah, so my point is, is that it's an example where we have been conditioned in certain sense to say this is okay and this isn't. And I think gambling for, because of gambling has some of the morality and religious tones over it that a lot of people may not participate in a lottery if it was done by a private entity that appeared to be a casino or something else versus really the state does it. And it's more like, okay, like you said, it's more trustworthy people. Trust is okay. If I'm playing this lotto on the state.
[00:24:53] Speaker A: If everyone is, I think that applies. But I think that applied more in the past. Like right now, gambling is so ubiquitous that I don't think it matters. And honestly I think that the argument that it should be done by the state is the weakest of the arguments. Like the state does it or not. Like, and there's any argument you make that the state should do it is really going down the road of anti free enterprise, you know, like it really is. I mean, but ultimately I'm comfortable with the status quo, you know, like so I mean, I'm a human being, you know, like I'm comfortable with status quo. I don't think we need to flip the status quo over. But I Do think these are fair questions to consider as we're looking at something like the lottery? Because we can't ignore what it is that some people have problems with stuff like this. And just because it may not be as addictive as a slot machine, it still has the. You have the government out there when they're running ads and stuff like that. They are basically trying to get their own people. You have the government trying to get their own people to engage in behavior that is potentially destructive. And that itself, like I said, because that behavior also comes with a positive kind of, oh, hey, you know, I can win all this money thanks to the state. It has that too. But it's just something you have to be aware of. You potentially could harm the legitimacy of the state in some context where people are like, yeah, my government is trying to get me to do things that are bad for my. Or my government's trying is telling my dad to do something that makes it so I can't eat, you know, like, type of thing. So, I mean, it's just. It's a slippery slope, you know. And then once you make that argument, then it's like, well, hey, the government might as well, you know, get into. To get. Let's open back up the state stores. You know, total wine. You're gone. You got to go to the state.
[00:26:32] Speaker B: That's where I think it's. It's just the culture of the time, because you're right, there was a reason why this. This state stores existed at one point is because alcohol was seen as a societal ill potentially right back in those days. And so maybe they were making the.
[00:26:46] Speaker A: Same arguments as you, though, that, hey, you know, the government is more official. The government, you know, like, is. Has the legitimacy and, you know, we're the only ones that can be trusted. You know, like, there's a lot of reasons.
[00:26:56] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I'm saying. That there's just. Things change. So right now we're in the. The era where the state is trusted for lotteries, but, you know, not. Not much else.
And the private companies are trusted for other gambling and other vices. So. And I'm saying, like, to me, it's all the same in that way, but I get it that it's not the same from an economic model perspective.
[00:27:17] Speaker A: Well, but I think your point that culturally we're accepting of that and it doesn't seem to be a crime against nature, so to speak, where it's like, we have to do something about this. Like, it might not be ideal, and that's Kind of where I come down on this is probably not ideal. You know, it's probably not ideal to have the state. Like I said, the state. Here, they're running an advertisement. Some kid sees that, like, yeah, that's why I can't eat, because my dad spent all his money on, you know, lottery tickets. Like, that's probably not a good idea, like that kind of concept. But it's. It doesn't seem. This might be one of those things that when you sit around and you're in a think tank or something like that. Oh, yeah, this is something that could be not ideal. That could be. This is something that, like, you can come up with these type of things, but this doesn't seem to be some urgent issue that if we don't address, then, you know, all is lost type of thing. Like, it seems like the status quo seems to work well enough right now. It has its flaws, as the status quo does in many respects, but there's probably other things that are more urgent for us to deal with. Just. But I don't, don't think we should be. Not be unaware of the kind of paradox that we're dealing with here. The kind of, you know, like slippery slope, even, so to speak. Even if the backstop of the slippery slope is our. What we're comfortable with, which we're used to, which is pretty resilient. You know, the status quo is, you know, difficult to change. So the second topic we want to discuss today, very interesting. You know, there, there's been a lot of discussion on, you know, from. In our political. We hear it all the time. And some of that's just because it's easy to get people to pay attention if you say that things are bad. But we've seen so much discussion as far as people not being, not, not being optimistic about where America's going. And, you know, like, there's actually some numbers here. Peace in the Atlantic discussed this just this month, and they Talked about how 17% of Americans, only 17% of Americans, thought that America was on the right track, which is. That's like, that's very obvious. That's a very small number. But it's shocking to think because, you know, if that many people are pessimistic about a country, then, you know, you, you have to wonder what's going on in that country. And that really informs what we see from a political standpoint a lot of times is that if people are that pessimistic, then, you know, like, maybe you. Maybe it's time for to blow things up, you know, it's a logical conclusion, so to speak. So what stood out to you in this piece, you know, about the. Now. Now. But. Excuse me, I should say this, though, but the piece made the, The. The argument and made a persuasive argument that this pessimism is misguided at best. It's not taking account the big picture, what's going on and how things go, you know, the ebbs and flow throughout history. So what stood out to you in this piece about how despite the rampant pessimism we see in people's perception on the direction of the country? There actually is a lot to be optimistic about.
[00:29:56] Speaker B: The whole article stood out to me. That's what we're gonna talk about. That's why we're talking about it now. I was gonna joke and say, are you telling me that if people are told that their country is so bad all the time that they might do something crazy like storm their capitol?
[00:30:09] Speaker A: Exactly.
They are led to believe. And if they believe that it's time to be pessimistic, they could do a lot of things. That being. That being included.
[00:30:18] Speaker B: You know, it's interesting because again, I know that we can go down different rabbit holes in this kind of conversation and talk about, you know, where people get their information and ecosystems and all that. And I started thinking, you know, it is amazing how technology does influence us in so many ways, because I started thinking about the late 80s into the 90s. You had things like AM talk radio that was kind of for people that didn't. Weren't happy with, let's say, either the direction of the country or certain things in their society. They could tune into that stuff and that would give them something. They. That. That. That was. Was able to give them some satisfaction and, and allow them to feel kind of, you know, the miseryless company joke that I say that they, they can be miserable, but someone else out there hears them and is telling them why that they are. They. They are right to be miserable about all these changes in their country.
Fast forward to the early 2000s is where you get the real kind of cable news becoming very robust. You know, Fox on one side, MSNBC on another, and all can capture everyone's attention. And I just think the last probably, you know, 10, 12 years or so, with the really, really robust growth of social media algorithms, things like that, I just think it's so sad. But it's not a surprise that the negativity catches more eyes than positivity. And like we've talked about in the last segment about Corporations and profits. Right. If I own a business, I want to make money. So if I'm in a media business, making money is being more negative.
[00:31:50] Speaker A: Yeah, and that's just. It's just you're in the media, the news media business, that's defined by profits, you know, which hasn't always been the case, but, you know, it's something that exists currently, today. But I mean, just in terms of. I think that the piece, though, it spent time kind of discussing the rampant pessimism, but I think a lot of the more insightful aspects of it dealt with the reasons that it gave for optimism, you know, and it really, you know, certain things that stood out, you know, we're just talking about how for nations when they're about to fall, you know, a lot of times you don't have the level of energy and kind of innovation going on in those places that we have right now. And I found it to be very fascinating because you're looking at that and it's like, yeah, we are like our society is reinventing itself constantly. Right. Stagnant by any means. And so if you're judging it based on that, you know, like all this and the term that was used was creative energy. And if you're judging it based on how much creative energy is out there, everybody's trying to get something going. Entrepreneurship is like, it's like, oh, wow.
[00:32:54] Speaker B: That'S what I mean. It's, it's. The article is very enlightening. I mean, I mean, and look, let.
[00:32:59] Speaker A: Me say this before I pass it back, because the thing, what it, what the article did, and we'll get into some of the pieces, but what it gave, like, the pessimism that you talk about is more of a general feel, or even you are, you remember, focus is your reality. So if you're, if what you watch, what you consume is focused on certain negative things, but we're not experts in judging what is important as to the trajectory of the country. We don't necessarily know what are the important factors. So what this did actually was say, okay, actually, if you want to judge where a country is from a trajectory standpoint, where they're going, these are the kind of things you need to look at. And on those, it was like, hey, America actually is doing very well in those things. So to me, that was the most insightful piece is it gave us some metrics to judge, and then it actually applied those metrics to what's going on.
[00:33:46] Speaker B: Yeah, no, and I think that, you know, it is fascinating. Like, look, I'm Going to cite from the article here that American headlines denoting anger increased by 104% from 2000 to 2019. The shirt of headlines evoking fear surged by 150%. So again, it's, it's, I think, just like we've identified in different discussions on this show over time about other areas where we have as consumers, we kind of were blinded by how invasive some of these things we consumed were. And what I'm thinking of now is something like food. When fast food started in the 50s and into the 60s, it was seen as a convenient way to get food and this and that. And McDonald's tastes great. It took, you know, a generation or two to see how human beings bodies dealt with that, to figure out that, hey, by the 90s, we're having a child obesity epidemic.
[00:34:46] Speaker A: Well, and also just to learn that, oh, the food companies, they were, they were like, right. Mild million miles ahead of us.
They would communicate with us and then also how to make things taste or stuff like that where it would trigger our brains.
[00:35:01] Speaker B: That's exactly where I'm going. So we didn't learn until 40 years later that we as consumers were fighting a battle against literally armies of psychologists, you know, food experts and all this, that they knew exactly how much sugar or salt to put on a hamburger and put it on the bun and all that to make it so it's addicting. So we want to, want to come back. And so the same thing, I think with just our technology is that we are now finally uncovering and beginning to understand that all this stuff is affecting us mentally. And I think when you look at stats like that, that shows that the output is more negative. And then there is another stat they cite that from. They say for nearly 40 years that Gallup was conducting a poll about asking Americans if they were satisfied with their personal life. 85% over that 40 years said they were in January of 2022.
[00:35:58] Speaker A: And that's stable. People's personal life. 85% were saying they were good with it. Yeah, stable, you know, like for. Yeah.
[00:36:05] Speaker B: And, and so. But in 2022, only 17 said they were down from, I guess 69 when they answered in 2000. So again, but if you look at all the other stats cited, like you said, business entrepreneurship is higher. If we look all this stuff, we've talked about this in different discussions, like, everybody's hammering about the economy, but we still got 3.6% unemployment. Like, it seems like statistically things are okay, but everyone has this sour mood.
[00:36:33] Speaker A: Because that's that's my point. We don't know how to judge the trajectory. And so we're just. Our reality is defined by what we watch. And so we're watching these things, and then that's our reality. But then that's the benefit here is taking the step back. This piece allows you to take a step back and say, okay, actually, here's the. This is where the prize is. This is where your eyes should be on the prize in terms of evaluating whether or not America's on a good trajectory. Another thing that was brought up was the idea, the fact that it's an open society, and open societies allow, and this is something, I know, a point that you've hammered in the past. Open societies allow you to allow the societies to adapt. You know, you were just talking just recently about how culture has changed in various ways. Well, in open societies, culture changes, by and large, don't destroy the society, because the society can adapt and then create new culture and then create new norms and so forth. Whereas in rigid societies, when things change, the whole house of cards could fall. And so our setup makes us particularly suitable to continue to evolve as things go on and continue to have these high levels of entrepreneurship. So I want to ask. There were four areas that specifically were mentioned in terms of how our society. And these are, again, metrics, things that he's looking at, you know, how our society unlocks creativity, which is the lifeblood of a, Of a burgeoning society. And, you know, like, which of these, you know, which one of these, you know, either stood out. Would you want to comment on, like, the increases in the time efficiency, how much less time it takes. I'm gonna run out, run through all four. The increases in the time efficiency, how much less times it takes for us to accomplish things that need to be accomplished, or that, you know, historically it takes, you know, walk five miles to get water versus turning on the faucet, you know, or educational investment was number two. Helping people live healthier and longer lives was number three. And then innovation infrastructure, which of those, you know, like, stood out to you or did you find significant? And, you know, I think the innovation.
[00:38:28] Speaker B: Infrastructure clearly is significant, and I want to go down that road. And then there was other thing like education investment. I mean, look, stats are stats, right? So we could say, yeah, do we invest more in education than, you know, Finland or somewhere? Maybe, but do we have actually better educated kids? Maybe? I would argue that point.
[00:38:45] Speaker A: So it didn't say that it's efficiently invested.
[00:38:49] Speaker B: Yeah, and so, but, you know, I'm Looking at other stats like you are like, and I didn't know some of this stuff. It's just good, like you said, it's good to step back and say, hold on, this thing ain't that bad. In 1993, 28% of American children lived in poverty. By 2019, that number was down to 11%.
[00:39:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:05] Speaker B: And it says a better educated society is a richer and more creative society. And that's what I mean. Like, it's just good to see that stat. I saw something about like in the year 2000, only 1/3 of Hispanic high school students graduating went to college. And by like 2015, it was 50%.
[00:39:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:21] Speaker B: Like, those are to me good things. Right. Like, even if a kid doesn't finish college, at least they got an exposure to something else. They sat in some classes, they network and met some other kids. You know, that's all helps someone do something else in life. You know what I mean? And so that's to me.
[00:39:36] Speaker A: And just that's motivation. That is, hey, let's try to take the next step, whether you complete it or not. Just pushing, you know, keeping the push.
[00:39:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And here's the interesting thing, like in 2020, because the pandemic, there was a surge in small business formation. And they have a quote from an economist who did a study on this and he says, I quote here, our findings strongly suggest that the pandemic surge in business application was followed by true employer business creation with significant labor market implications, end quote. What that means is he's not just saying people just went to their state website and set up an LLC and it's just sitting dormant. They're paying a couple hundred dollars a year in state fees. Yeah, they actually have. The research shows that these businesses are running. And again, that could be a reason why unemployment is still so low in face of all the Fed raising rates and all that. Because maybe there's just that much demand. And you know, again, that's why, and I've joked with you on this, that maybe this is what our society is. Our society is an example of what it looks like when human beings are at the top of Maslow's hierarchy.
[00:40:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:37] Speaker B: And literally we have so much time on our hands that all we can do is watch cable news and be doom scrolling online and. And complain.
[00:40:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:46] Speaker B: Because all these stats look so much better and it's just amazing. I mean, I didn't even realize this. With all the we hear about the carbon emissions, the environment, carbon emissions per capita have plummeted this century. We are now Back down to levels from 1910s. The cost of flying across the country has fallen roughly five fold since the mid-1970s. I mean, it keeps rattling on these stats. I'm like, wow, this actually is pretty good. How can we celebrate this?
[00:41:09] Speaker A: Yeah, you know what, it lines up well because the one that stood out to me actually the most was the increases in time efficiency.
[00:41:16] Speaker B: Yeah, that was crazy. That's 40 hours of work to buy a pound of sugar like 80 years ago. So. Yeah, and that was like.002 seconds.
[00:41:24] Speaker A: It's like a couple of seconds. And so. But like I see this, you know, and part of the reason I was able to start my own business is because of things like this, you know, like the ability to like the ability. For example, one of the examples I think they gave was depositing checks from your cell phone, Things like that. Like, that wasn't the reason I could start a business, but just that kind of stuff, it's safe, that's real time. I used to, I remember I used to go twice a week, have to go stand in line, deposit checks and so forth. I'm billing all that time I'm working and I just sit there with my phone. At the end of the day, snap, snap, snap, and I'm done. And that's like, that's literally an extra 30 minutes that it bought me. And then obviously if you look at the pandemic and what that did now this is, this is something that's a bit transitory. We'll find. We haven't found our new water level yet. But the commuting is a just a mind boggling time suck. Like it is something not commuting. It literally gives you like, you can't buy time, you know, but not commuting is the closest you can get to that because if you just eliminate a 30 minute each way commute, you literally have an extra dollar, extra dollar, an extra hour of your day. Like, and you feel that when you first make that change. And so like all of the things that we're doing and that we've done over the past 10, 20, 30 years that allow us to do more with less time. Like one of the things for me that was significant was legal research. When I was in law school, legal research involved going to a library, like physically and going through books. And that took a long time once I got into practice and then shortly thereafter, legal research is sitting on the computer and my hands on everything. And that was one of the reasons why I was able to.
[00:43:04] Speaker B: Your kids will never learn the Dewey Decimal System.
No, seriously, Because I remember I used to tell my kids, you guys got a phone, you can get everything right there. I used to have to actually go to a library, you know, go find the little cards. Yeah, hopefully they had it. And then you have to go check it out and read it, you know, and it's just like. So you're right. I mean, all those is funny. I was somewhere yesterday with my son and we had to pay for something that. The young lady at the stand had one of those squares on her iPhone and it's. And scanned my credit card, and I just thought the same thing. Like, wow, anybody can be a bit. You know, just. Whereas before she would add a gig, pay for a cash register and, you know, had some.
[00:43:37] Speaker A: And so all of those things lower the barrier. Well, they either lower the barrier for entry or they just make it that much more attainable for all these small businesses to spring up. And so to me, like, just. Just looking at that and seeing how we're not at the end of the road there, like, that's stuff that's all been continual and it's going to continue to be. To happen. And so that's like, yeah, wow. If we're making efficient use of time, like I said, time is finite. Like, yeah, oil is finite and whatever, but time is. You run out of time every day, you know, and so the. The ability to make more with time, I. I can definitely see how that can create a more creative, more productive society. And we are pushing that envelope every day. And so to me, that one really stood out. I mean, all four of them did. But that was the one that was like, oh, yeah, you're.
[00:44:24] Speaker B: You're only, don't tell anybody, but I got a time machine. But we'll keep that a secret, okay? Only you're going to know. Okay.
[00:44:30] Speaker A: Hey, man, now I'm going to extort you. I need to go on the time machine or else I'm telling everybody.
[00:44:36] Speaker B: All right, So I got to. After this show, I'm going to the time machine. I'm going to. I'm going to make sure I didn't say that on the show. But no, it's interesting because, you know, that's something that also stuck out because even reading this, and again, I know that for the audience, James and I joke about not trying to go through our greatest hits, about talking about some of society's ills and all that. And in reading this, I could find myself defaulting to that. Like, we were discussing, like, oh, you know, the media is negative, everything is negative. No wonder why people are negative. And I came out with two. A couple conclusions. One is the creativity, and that's where I'll get on the innovation infrastructure in a second. But you know what I thought of, like, we were joking about that. Well, you go storm your capital. If. I guess if you're being told everything's so bad and you have a bunch of time. Yeah. And a bunch of time on your hands. Right.
[00:45:19] Speaker A: I just.
[00:45:19] Speaker B: Because I was thinking, like, yeah, who the hell. I gotta work all day. I can't be going up to that government, you know, Capitol and go storm and shit. And so the.
No, but I also thought that it is true. Like, look, we got a big country and a lot of people have an outlook on how things should be. I mean, that's a very distinct way I put it, how things should be. So I thought expectations, if.
[00:45:40] Speaker A: Can define your experience in terms of how enjoyable it is, you know.
[00:45:43] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:45:43] Speaker A: Your expectations are a certain way and they're not met. Even if things are good, you could. You would not enjoy it.
[00:45:48] Speaker B: But part of. I think. And I'm not going to go all the way here because I don't think this is 100% of it, but I think it's a portion of it, which is because we continue to not want to have certain conversations in our country about just the country's history and all that, then I think that there's a lot of people that have been led to believe that it's like the Manifest Destiny thing that God gave their group this country and their group is the one that should be in charge. And I think as we see the demographics change, because the majority group now is down to 58% as per the last census, I think we're going to have more of this anxiety because for a lot of people, that is what their emotional connection is to the feeling that their country looks a certain way. And not just looks.
[00:46:40] Speaker A: It's not to the Constitution. It's not to the idea that America can be innovative and all that stuff. It's that it's. It's that America is going to look a certain way.
[00:46:47] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:46:47] Speaker A: And sound a certain way.
[00:46:48] Speaker B: And the look. Yeah. It doesn't have to be just a racial look. I'm not going there. Only it could be about, you know, like issues like transgender or religious concerns or whatever it is, is that people don't like the changes they've been seeing. And what's happening is because of the way, like you said about social media and all that earlier, again, like I said, I thought about this in preparing, I thought, yeah, in the 90s, when Rush Limbaugh was, and other people like him, you had to still voluntarily take your time and go and listen to that on the radio. And it was only for three hours a day or whatever. Now that stuff is finding you and it's, and it's, and it's throwing a lot of people, it's focused, having them focus more on their emotional state versus on like you're saying, on look at stopping and taking a breath and saying, let me look at the facts here, number one. And number two, like you said, let me actually look at what this country is about. And it's not about a race or religion, it's about the Constitution and the idea that we have a country, enterprise, free enterprise, freedom of speech. So that's where I get off.
Yeah, let's not go back there. That was, that was, that was painful, that. But that's where I get to like that point about the innovation infrastructure, just to finish off here is it feels messy sometimes our country, it feels kind of disruptive and a little bit like, you know, you don't know what's going to happen. But this is why when I talk to people who are like, know what they're talking about, like in the military and stuff that we talk about China. And I remember I asked a dude who was on the spy satellites, a friend of mine, and I said, man, how come are you really nervous about China? He goes, hell no, man. And I go, why? They got a billion people, they got all this, all this stuff, all the talking points, right? I'm telling him, he goes, tunde, they don't innovate. All they do is copy us.
[00:48:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:48:30] Speaker B: And they can't even do that. Right. And then you think about the Russians, all the issues they've had with their military, their military should have walked over Ukraine by now, a year into this. But the reason I've been reading, you know, early in the war, reading articles is because of the authoritarian regime, they don't allow innovation at the ground level for their troops. So the troops always have to call.
[00:48:50] Speaker A: And officers, I mean not just really.
[00:48:53] Speaker B: Where we, our military is allowed to make game time decisions on the ground without having to call back in all the way to the Kremlin.
[00:49:00] Speaker A: And so all of that stuff is other kind of embodiments of this creative energy that we have done a good job of promoting, you know, and that our country reaps the benefits for. And so I mean honestly, like, I get it in terms of like the pessimism to your point that you were making. The pessimism sells, so to speak. It's compelling. You know, if things are all good, then, hey, you know, maybe I'll just go toss the ball with my kid. I won't need to sit here and watch this news program, you know, and so you get that.
[00:49:30] Speaker B: But I wonder which one is healthier long term.
That didn't sound too bad, tossing up.
[00:49:36] Speaker A: All my kid, hey, but not if the world is coming to an end.
[00:49:40] Speaker B: Or I gotta go watch Tucker Carlson tonight and find out. All these. All these brown people are crossing the border and the transgender people are trying to teach my son how to be a woman. I mean, that's. You're right. Like, which one is going to be more relaxing? I think I'm a.
[00:49:51] Speaker A: Which one is going to get your attention? You know, it's which way? Like, so you get the news game. But I mean, I think that, again, like, recognizing our limitation and saying, okay, hey, maybe we are not experts in the trajectory of a nation. And actually, if you are concerned about the direction that America is heading, which a lot of people seem to be, maybe you should kind of look into it and say, okay, well, how do you measure that? And then where do we stand on those measurements? Because it looks like if you do that exercise, you may come to a different conclusion than if you just go based on the emotional, you know, based on whether you're aware of it or not, what's being put in your head, you know, on a consistent basis based on outlets that just want to keep your attention. So I think we can wrap there, man. We appreciate everybody for joining us on this episode of Call Like I see It. Subscribe to the podcast, Rate it, review us, send it to a friend. And until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:50:41] Speaker B: I'm Tunde. Open line.
[00:50:43] Speaker A: All right, we'll talk to you next time.
