Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello, welcome to Call It Like I See it, presented by Disruption. Now, I'm James Keys. And in this episode of Call It Like I See it, we're going to discuss the push we're seeing right now for raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour and consider the extent to which the benefits that are being toute and the risks being warmed of, warned of, are legit or are they overstated?
And later on, we're going to weigh in on some recent research on male aggression being tied to challenges just to masculinity for some, as opposed to actual real physical threats.
Joining me today is a man who is giving food for thought Dog. So get a plate. Tunde. Ogunlana Tune Day. You ready to get it down today?
[00:01:00] Speaker B: I'm ready to get it down. I'm ready to get my plate and I'm ready to eat.
[00:01:05] Speaker A: All right, now we're recording this on March 1, 2021, and we wanted to take a look at the debate over raising the minimum wage that we're seeing going right now. Now, many trace the drive to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour back to protests by fast food workers in New York city back in 2012.
And we've seen several states and cities since then pass laws which operate to increase the minimum wages, some going all the way to $15 an hour.
But in the last few months, we've seen this push to go to $15 an hour really bloom federally.
And we now know that this won't happen in this upcoming stimulus bill and we don't have to go into the political maneuvering of all that. But I do want to just talk to you about whether raising the minimum wage from where it is now is, is a good idea or if the people talking doom and gloom are onto something that we should really be paying attention to. So Tunde from where we stand today with a federal minimum wage at 725, do you think that raising the minimum wage is a good idea from an economic perspective and from a social perspective?
[00:02:08] Speaker B: In preparing for today, it made me realize how like we have other important topics that's become now kind of cultural wars, whether it be climate, whether it be healthcare in this country and other things, tax policy, all that.
I've realized that this minimum wage debate has become also a political culture fault line and what you mean by that.
[00:02:33] Speaker A: You're kind of saying people aren't arguing this purely on the basis of merit. It's kind of how they view themselves or how they view what America should be for from more of a Feeling standpoint. Right.
[00:02:47] Speaker B: I'd rather have a thoughtful conversation with you and get down to the real deal of what does this all mean.
[00:02:53] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:02:54] Speaker B: And the thing is that I guess to get into it now is I look at this debate as two pronged. One is kind of the math part, the arithmetic, the facts of wages.
You know, what it does raising wages to maybe, let's say, employers, what it does having lower wages and what that means for workers. And as you know, it's one plus one equals two. Somebody's got income and they've got expenses.
[00:03:20] Speaker A: Or in economic terms, you got supply and you got demand.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: Correct.
And I know we'll get into conversations that you like as well down the road here about things like the tension between labor and capital during these disputes. So to me, that's one part of, I would call that kind of the more granular and factual and more of the mathematic part of the discussion, which is math, one plus one equals two. So we can't, I mean, someone could debate me about that. But in the end, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's kind of like we understand what that, that's kind of set in stone those, that side of the argument. The other side being the social and cultural part, I think is the part that's more esoteric, philosophical, and where you do get all this kind of like you said, about the gut feel, some people feel like it's the right thing to do, some people feel like it's not. And they have their reasons. And I think from that vein, I look at it as also, I realized in doing some reading, as we were preparing was what is the, this comes down to the social compact and what is the agreement between the government and its citizens as to why this is even discussed at the federal level? And we're going to get into that later. And it got me thinking about things like the Hippocratic oath and some things from the medical community. Like we made a decision in this country that if someone shows up to an ER room, they're going to get seen whether they have insurance or not, whether they like, let's say, universal healthcare or they don't like it when you show up to an emergency room and you got a real issue like you've got a bone sticking out of your leg or, you know, you can't breathe because you're choking on something. They're not asking you what your insurance coverage is at that second, or they're not asking you what, what, what political stance you took. There's a, there's a certain culture that we've developed in our country that if someone shows up to the hospital, they're going to get taken care of.
[00:05:09] Speaker A: And, and some, some would say that that's like true American exceptionalism. Like, the way we do things here is that we go the extra mile in certain. Something like that. Like, that's not required for a functioning society to do that. That's. That's a level that's going above and beyond. But go ahead.
[00:05:24] Speaker B: And I'll say this, you know, not to make this about healthcare, but there are societies that have chosen not to do that.
[00:05:29] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:05:30] Speaker B: That's foreign to us. We have never.
We don't know what it's like to have somebody literally go to the hospital with their life on the line and be turned away just because they don't believe that in that culture or that society. So, and I think, you know, I have had already a couple of events where had I not gone to the hospital, I would have died. And I.
Until you're in that state, the feeling of vulnerability is incomparable. So what I'm getting at here is where are we as Americans in terms of our social compact with workers versus the capital side? And it got me thinking about the why. So when I think about the why, I thought, why do we have a minimum wage in the first place? This wasn't in the Constitution. This wasn't in part of the founding documents of our country. It's had nothing.
[00:06:19] Speaker A: And to have a free enterprise economic system based on a market, you don't have to have a minimum wage.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: Correct? That's a very good observation. Yeah.
[00:06:27] Speaker A: It's not a prerequisite.
[00:06:28] Speaker B: Yeah, this isn't. There's nothing in the, let's say, the definition of capitalism that says you have to have a floor on wages. And, you know, we didn't fight a civil war about this. So I started thinking like, okay, so where in our history did this kind of start coming in?
And I learned that the minimum wage was first implemented in 1938 at 25 cents an hour. And then, of course, my brain took me to, okay, so what was going on in 1938? And we all know that we're in the midst of the Great Depression.
So they told me, okay, at that point, which was similar, around the time when we created as a country Social Security, there was a social agreement and a compact between labor and the government and capital that said, there's going to be a floor for someone. And I think, you know, we want to be very clear Here sometimes this gets mixed up with welfare, like somehow that people that are asking for minimum wage are asking for handouts or something like that. We're not talking about any of that. We're here talking about someone that works 40 hours a week for 52 weeks a year, a full time worker. What is the fair?
[00:07:30] Speaker A: Or I mean more precisely, we're talking about somebody who works an hour. How much should they get for that hour? Now presumably they're working more than an hour. And then we like to quantify it from the standpoint of okay, if someone works 2,000 hours, which, you know, usually that's your calculation because you do two weeks of vacation, which doesn't really exist as much as far as a given anymore anyway, but that's usually 50 weeks, 40 hours a week is 2000. So if someone does that, are we okay if they're still in poverty? Are we okay if they still can't afford to live, like to afford a place to live or they can't afford to eat and. Yeah, so getting to the social construction or that compact, I would say, yeah, this came about when our society saw the downside of not putting some type of baseline in as far as the two things they took care of. If you're working, we want you to make at least a certain amount of money. And then once you're old, we want you to have at least a certain amount of Tunde to be able to live and not be on the street because you can't work anymore. So those are the two things following the Great Depression that Americans decided or the Americans leadership decided. Okay, here's the things we. The baseline we have to establish so that we can build this type of society that we want.
[00:08:43] Speaker B: Yep. And I think, and you've alluded to some of these, these ideas that you know, because, because there's all type of people that are out there, right. And let's say employers, some employers would want to take care of their employees and feel magnanimous about all that and some don't and some would do it, but in certain situations, like a recession or something might cut wages down to a dollar.
[00:09:08] Speaker A: So. Well, let me jump in there real quick because I had wanted to. I want to get to an answer of this also. But that part about it is, you can't forget the fact that this is a capitalist system. And capitalist systems put downward pressure on wages. Like going all the way back to Adam Smith, like, this is the way capitalist systems work is it puts downward pressure on wages. So even if you have business owners who want to do right by their employees. The pressure, there are pressures that are going to be placed on them and put on them to where they're going to want to push wages down.
The rule of thumb basically is that in the capitalist system, wages, if left alone, unchecked by government or any type of regulatory industry, wages will drop below sustenance. And so if that's what we know from 400 years of practice, so to speak, then we do a minimum wage in order to stop that. To put a. To put guardrails. You use the term guardrails. I like the term guardrails. On what we know, the nature of things that we engage in are. So we want to run a democracy. We need to put certain guardrails up to make sure that our democracy, the common pitfalls for a democracy, we don't get subjected to them. And then the same thing here. We want to have a capitalist free enterprise system. There are certain guardrails that we've learned as societies and studying economics and so forth that need to be put up. So I think from an economic standpoint, I would say that this definitely is justified. From the standpoint of it is that the question isn't. The question's already been answered. Should we have a minimum wage now? Should we. Should the minimum. What the scale of the minimum wage is, is really the debate. We've already pretty much decided. Nobody, there's. There's not two sides of an argument being, okay, we should have $15 and the other side being we should have nothing. It's just we should have 15 or we should have 10 or we should have. We should keep it the same. And so it's a matter of scale. How big should it be? How much money should 40 hours a week make for you? And the, you know, we can talk about the numbers, and I know you want to do that, but what you'll see basically, and why, from an economic standpoint, I think this always makes sense within reason. Again, not saying you're going to pay somebody $80 an hour to, you know, do something, do menial task, but within reason, as long as it's something within reason, because the people at the lower end of the wage spectrum spend all their money. And so it be that money just goes right back into the economy. It creates more demand for goods and services, which will create a positive cycle that feeds itself. You more demand, more demand, needs more demand. You have more workers. You have one of the common misconceptions. I'll kick it back to you after this. But one of the common Misconceptions in our society we have, which I think is intentional, by the way, is we look at business owners as job creators, as if they do it from a magnanimous. Magnanimous standpoint, like, oh, yeah, I'm feeling good today. Let me create a job. And that's not how it works. They create jobs where there's demand for the things they sell, you know, and so if you create demand, then business owners, seeing that they need to get that they get that money, they hire people to help them get that money. And so ultimately we want demand as far as to see our economy work. Well, that's why when the government wants to stimulate the economy, what do they do? They put money in everybody's pocket. Put money in everybody's pocket, what do they do? They go spend. It stimulates the economy. So minimum wage can offer something like that. And to point out what you said, or to kind of piggyback on what you said earlier, does so not in a handout way, but just in saying we're going to regulate the system a little bit to make sure that if somebody's playing by the rules and working hard, you're going to have enough money in your pocket to live, and then that's going to further help the economy.
[00:12:46] Speaker B: Yeah, no, those are all great points and a couple of them to unpack a bit. I mean, one is I want you to allude real quick to Adam Smith, because you can't bring a name up like that and not give us a little bit of background on who he was.
[00:12:59] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, Adam Smith is kind of. He's looked at from an economic. In the economics field, he's looked at as kind of like a forebear, like somebody who came up with a lot of these theories. And he wrote wealth of nations, which is like treaties level as far as in. He, you know, like, he was an observant guy. He saw a lot of things in terms of when you had more of a mercantile system, how things were working and then how things could work in other ways. And so when we say, you know, it goes back to like, he lived in the 1700s and he's writing all these things and. But one of the things he observed is in terms of wages is that, yeah, when, when you have those pressures, those competing pressures between capital and labor, the pressure is always being pressed downward on wages. And so you need to either need to correct for that or you need to know that's there and just say, oh, well, you know, that's kind of the. That's the battle you have when you have like labor unions and so forth, they're fighting for, for more of a piece of the pie. And capital's like, eh, we ain't got it, you know, or whatever it is, whether they have it or not.
[00:13:56] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's a great point. And I want to point out too, I was looking it up. The book was published March 9th of 1776. So we're about a week away from the 245th anniversary of that book. Wow. And yeah, no, it is wow. And it's actually amazing. And I find it fascinating because that goes back to what I said about the kind of the numbers part, that there's two parts of this debate. Yeah, a lot of this stuff has been settled for a long time. I mean, think about it. That book is 245 years old and is applicable in today because it basically was a foundation of our economy and everything. Like you said, that he pointed out in that book is still accurate today because what people don't understand is economics. There's a reason why it's not part of a science curriculum. But in the end, what makes economics tick is the movement of humans and what we decide to do in our collective behavior, both at a micro level, which is what you decide in your family and your household to go buy and eat and go spend money on. And that on a macro level, what we all choose to do collectively and then what the nation choose to spend its treasury on and all that.
So I think with a few things you said, I want to back it up because they're very important.
One of the things you mentioned was the lower income spends money. So let's sit on that for a minute because that's so true.
I looked at this as we were reading it as now I'm going to go 30,000ft here for the listeners. I know they're not the same, but raising the minimum wage is somewhat akin to the stimulus that was just passed over. You know, the various stimuluses that were passed over the last 12 months due to the COVID pandemic. What had happened, people lost their jobs and they got a $600 check here or 1,000, $1,200 check there.
And to James's point, there's that that money went right out of their hands in the economy. And a lot of people were asking those questions about, well, why is the stock market going up when all these jobs are? Because the stock market knew that money was coming.
It was literally like a recycling of money.
[00:15:53] Speaker A: And, well, you call it the velocity of money.
[00:15:55] Speaker B: Yeah, and I'll explain that in a sec.
[00:15:56] Speaker A: But it's kind of, let me say something just for clarity. It's not everybody spends money. It's that on the lower end of the income spectrum, they generally spend all of their money. And so whereas somebody who makes $250,000 a year, if you give them $600, they may spend it or they may just put it in the bank somewhere, put it in a CD somewhere, like they don't need to spend that. They're not, they make, they make more money than they need to spend on a monthly basis anyway. And so but when you take people who the dollars that they get, they spend back out, that directly goes back into the economy and that supports economic activity in a way that's almost one to one. And so that's really what we're talking about there is if you give people who make 7.25 more money, that money's going right back into the economy, like directly.
[00:16:39] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's the thing, and that's why I even talk about the performance of the market last year. Not to try and get in the weeds with that, but this idea that again, what is the macro economy reflection of is the behavior of a group of humans. So a lot of people saw that and said, hold on, they're going to give out $4 trillion.
There's a high margin of that that's going to go recycled right back into purchasing products from businesses that a lot of them are publicly traded on the exchange. So this idea, so the stimulus worked because it gave people confidence that the economy would not go into a depression.
And it got me thinking that the minimum wage argument is exactly that. And you're right, James, you or I get an extra, you know, $5 an hour for our labor that's going in the bank most likely because we do okay and we make more than we spend anyway.
But somebody earning $11 an hour, going to 12, 13, 15, that money is really going to get spent because they're going to buy things that they haven't been able to buy. And it's not just about just consumer goods. Of course, consumer goods are there as well, but it's going to give people better opportunity for housing opportunities.
They're going to be able to rent apartments in different places eventually, hopefully buy homes. They're going to be buying nicer cars. They're going to be doing certain things. So all that goes back to what you just coined, the term velocity of money, which is if you give that person a dollar versus giving Me or you? The dollar, if you and I are given that dollar, it sits in the bank.
And the velocity is not as rapid as someone who gets the $600 goes to the grocery store, goes to, you know, buy a new shirt. That money is now recycled in the economy at a much higher velocity because then that business takes in revenue. They're paying their rent, they're paying employees, they're paying, you know, the owner is taking money for their family. So, so, and then those employees of that business and that owner are going to buy goods from someone else.
[00:18:41] Speaker A: So the idea, and well, I wanted to say one other thing cause I want to keep us moving.
Like I do think that some of the concerns people raise from an economic standpoint shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. Like raising the minimum wage would create dislocation. Like I think the Congressional Budget Office came out with a report saying, hey, if we raise the minimum wage $15, you would lose X number of jobs. It was over a million.
And on the first cycle, basically, as far from a one to one basis, that's probably true. I wouldn't doubt them. That's not a partisan entity.
The problem with that analysis though is that what happens is when you increase the wages, yes, every single job that everybody has right now may not be there. Some businesses may need to hire less people or retain less people. But what would happen is if there's that much more money being spent, then other businesses will pop up to again to capture that money, to go get that money. And so what you're counting on basically is not necessarily the every job that's there being maintained, you're counting on more entrepreneurship, more jobs being created than what's going to be lost. So there's going to be dislocation. Not 100%. Everybody stays where they are. Some people stay where they are and make more. And then other people, there'll be other opportunities because people are buying twice as many cheeseburgers, people are buying twice as many books, people are buying twice as many as everything.
Well, the people who at that end of the income spectrum. So I think it's important when you're looking at it from a number standpoint is to not stop your analysis right at the point of, okay, we've done this, what happens to all the existing jobs? Because the whole point of it is to grow the pie by growing demand. And then so from that standpoint, I think you're looking at there's, there's still things to be concerned about. Again, it's not to dismiss these concerns, but I've seen people raise childcare as an issue like, hey, well, what about that? Because that's often paid not by big businesses, but by individuals who are just working themselves. And so all of those things are considerations. And that's where you need. Actually that's the point of our system where we debate issues, come up with compromises and so forth. Because if those are real issues, which I'm not saying they're not, then someone should propose some type of a compromise where we can figure out a way to account for that. And whether we adopt the compromise or not, it's something to put on our radar so that we can think about it. Because one thing about it is nobody has all the answers. Like that's, that's one of the things that for whatever reason we don't embrace. Like every side wants to think that they have all the answers to everything and so give us something else. But I want to move to social.
[00:21:09] Speaker B: That actually just made me realize as you're talking that.
And you make a good point. I mean, look, some people have a zero sum, right? And that's why I said that's where you go from the kind of numbers and this stuff that we're talking now back to the social of I just don't agree with it, I don't believe in it. Yeah, but, but the idea is, because I started thinking the people that don't agree with raising the minimum wage are usually the same ones who don't believe in a basic universal income.
And personally, for me, I'm, I'm not sure how I feel about that. I get the idea that everybody probably needs a little bit of help here and there. Not everybody, but some people do.
But you know, that to me is a slippery slope to a whole different system from capitalism. So I'm not sure how I feel about it. But what I would say is if you do fight raising minimum wage, especially like not even once a decade, you know, to keep pace with inflation, then you are actually in the long run probably doing help to the universal income cause. Because your point about childcare is very valid.
Let's, let's go back real quick and look at the numbers. Current minimum wage at the Federal level is $7.25.
Again, to your point, about the 2000 hour annual full time kind of thing, you're looking at just around 15,000 a year for one person who is, who is making minimum wage. And so at some point, like you said, if someone's got to pay $500 a week for childcare and they're a single mom making 725 an hour, I mean, it's probably not happening. But like you said, at some point the society is going to advocate something. Either she got to make more money in that example, or I could see where the argument for basic universal income might not be, okay, let's just give her $1,000 a month. Or it might be, but it could be saying if she makes under a certain amount her child care, certain things are just subsidized. Kind of like food stamps.
[00:22:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:58] Speaker B: Now we got stamps for everything, child care stamps, you got, you know, certain goods and services that, that people might just need to survive today. Right.
[00:23:05] Speaker A: So I think you're really onto something with that.
[00:23:07] Speaker B: Well, let me just finish because.
And that's what I'm saying is that the people that are against raising minimum wage are usually the ones that think of that type of behavior as straight socialism. And the other thing too, I would say is actually hearing myself say this. I prefer to see the minimum wage over that because that's going to come out of all of our pocket in the U.S. treasury, these subsidies and things like that versus a business that might be making a good profit that just has been asked to steadily raise wages over, over a certain period of time to a very low percentage of the workforce because not that many people are making 7.25 an hour. So the thing. And we have those.
[00:23:43] Speaker A: Well, and let me jump on that real quick because, yeah, I agree with you. Like, by and large, I want everyone to be treated with a level of Tunde But the universal basic income sounds better than. There's a lot more to think about with that basically. Like, there's a lot more because then you have to worry about whether that changes the calculation for things in terms of anytime you do anything from a policy standpoint, you got to consider unintended consequences and so forth. So what does universal basic income do there? And they have.
Raising the minimum wage is much easier and it's much more tangible. And it still does tie.
It ties everything to, to work productivity and wage. Now the, you know, like, that doesn't require us to change basically everything that we do and how our, how we approach everything. So, yeah, you're correct in that you kind of, if you don't want to go the one direction, then saying, hey, well, let's, let's raise the floor a little bit on our wage structure now. Seems like a good way to kind of do something without having to go that other direction.
[00:24:40] Speaker B: No, and that's what I was gonna say. I think actually this conversation makes me realize that the raising the minimum wage is actually fair.
[00:24:46] Speaker A: The social part of it though is I think that why wouldn't we want to raise the floor in our nation? You know, isn't that American exceptionalism? Isn't that saying we want, if someone works a full time job, they should be able to live a decent life regard like should we not want minimum wage to be like that? And so I actually it strikes me always that a lot of people that really push American exceptionalism so hard seems to have so low expectations for America and Americans and I don't know if they use American exceptionalism like that construction kind of as you know, to make themselves feel better, but they don't really believe it because I look at it like, well, hey, if anybody can do it, why can't we? You know, like why can't we? I want, I think you incentivize more people to work if that's your minimum wage. Like we get more people to buy in, more people to contribute, more people to invest more in society by making it so that investing in society, playing by the rules is more profitable. It brings more to you. It brings you a level of Tunde Right now minimum wage from a social standpoint is not doing the job that it was set up to do. So it's time to raise it. Now again you want to debate where you raise it to, fine. But yeah, you need to raise it and you get it up. And then again that creates more a better experience in society and that's what we should be wanting.
[00:26:05] Speaker B: Now you make a great point. I mean I just did the math here out of curiosity as you were talking. So do you know what the unemployment benefit is in the state of Florida?
[00:26:13] Speaker A: What?
[00:26:14] Speaker B: I believe it's about 285 bucks a week. And that's not including the stimulus. You know that the extra stimulus was on top of that.
And I know in Florida, fortunately for our state, we have a higher minimum wage than the federal level, but I just did the math. 725 times 40 hours in a week is 290 bucks.
So if you had a state, hypothetically, that which I think more than 50% of the states don't have their own minimum wage. They use a federal minimum wage.
And if they're paying and Florida is pretty low from my understanding in terms of, in comparison to other states about our weekly unemployment rate, I think a lot of states are like 5, 600 bucks for unemployment. So my point, you make a great point that by not raising the minimum wage, I could See somebody and somebody's, you know, people having that mindset of, well, why am I going to work for somebody yelling at me and some boss and getting all dirty and greasy when I can go pretend like I'm looking for work and make, you know, unemployment every week.
[00:27:06] Speaker A: Well, hold on, hold on. Let's put that in the economic context. Because the way you do it there, you put it in like, oh, there's something wrong with those people. But the same way I was telling you, like in capitalism the pressures create downward pressure on wages. Well, in that sense, the economic analysis there is that working with your time is less valuable than getting fired. Yeah, economic analysis.
[00:27:32] Speaker B: Sorry, go ahead.
[00:27:33] Speaker A: No, no, I was gonna say that's the economic analysis. You don't have to put the person doing that analysis in any kind of crazy light. Like it's just like, yes, you should not have a system set up. We're not doing things a certain way or doing, doing things the way you would like to incentivize is less desirable. You want to set it up. So doing things in a way that benefits society is desirable.
[00:27:53] Speaker B: I feel like to, to the point you made, that this, this idea of businesses are going to, I agree there would be a disruption with raising the minimum wage potentially. And I do think that the way it's being discussed, when it's discussed thoughtfully is no one's saying go from 725 to 15 in six months like this massive shock. They're talking about doing it over a 5, 6 year period graded in gradually. And so, you know, will there be some job losses? I'm pretty sure. But will those jobs reappear a few years later somewhere else where there's more demand? Because you basically have another stimulus that this time isn't funded by the taxpayer but is funded by apparently the corporate fat cats that everybody seems to hate but no one ever wants to touch.
[00:28:37] Speaker A: And it's ongoing, just a one time thing.
[00:28:40] Speaker B: It's.
But this is why I just agree with you just on the social and the cultural part. Because that's the part I feel is the cultural part, because I talk to a lot of people and people that it would be in their interest. Kind of like when the Affordable Care act was being discussed and people who were unhealthy, who couldn't afford their health insurance premiums and all that were the ones that were against it. And I've got people that, you know, I've talked to making nine bucks an hour, but because of their, the way that they feel either politically or culturally or Socially, they're against this. And I'm thinking, no, you're right about that. And the other thing I just wanted to say real quick is also looking at the companies who are supporting this. So it's Amazon, Target, Walmart, Costco, Hobby Lobby, Wayfair, Best Buy. And I'm just reading the list, there's more than that. And then they're talking about Trinity Health Systems and some of these big, big health, you know, hospitals and all that. Wells Fargo, Franklin Savings Bank, Allstate, Amalgamated Bank. So what I'm saying is you're talking about some of the largest employers in this country that are saying, we're okay with this, we don't have a problem.
[00:29:41] Speaker A: And that's where I'm, they all offer goods and services. They know they're going to get more money everywhere.
[00:29:46] Speaker B: That's my point, James, is that it shows you that when corporate America, especially at this level, like you're saying that Wells Fargo, they know that more people with more money means they're going to borrow more money from them, right? They're going to Amazon.
[00:29:57] Speaker A: You know that Amazon's in favor of this.
[00:29:59] Speaker B: Exactly how many people might be on their phones ordering more stuff with a higher wage? So, so that's what I'm saying is like the corporate industry sees it and it goes back to, and we talked about this on a prior discussion months ago about the ESG investments, the socially responsible stuff that when Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are coming out with studies saying companies that are socially sustainable perform better from a growth perspective and their stock prices have higher returns.
I don't think Morgan Stanley and, and, and, and Goldman Sachs are made up of people who are like tree hugging lefties that, that, you know, support Bernie Sanders. You know this, what they're doing is they're using empirical data and saying this is the fact. And then, so when you start looking and uncovering, that's what I said, like climate change. I, I never understood why that was such a huge argument for people. If you understand how a greenhouse works, if you lived up north, anywhere where it snowed. I remember being a kid, you're driving down the street and there's all these greenhouses in the winter when it's covered in snow and you can see through the window. And I remember my mom explaining me, yeah, you trap the CO2 in that dome and it makes the area hotter and the plants survive. I was like, okay, that's not too hard to contemplate.
So you have to make it then a cultural issue.
[00:31:16] Speaker A: You're right. Yeah. I mean, that's a good point to
[00:31:18] Speaker B: get enough people to not want to buy into it because now they've staked their emotional and their ego into this position.
So now they can't go back on it from a subconscious level. And that's why I said the math and the economics on a minimum wage, it doesn't lie. And you're right, we would have to be ready for maybe a couple years of maybe some sort of dislocation, maybe some job losses. But in the end, that's okay because you take a little bit of a half step back. It's take two step forward type of thing as a nation.
[00:31:48] Speaker A: Well, but the thing is, is that when I say the dislocation, I'm saying the growth would be happening at the same time. It's just like I said, you may be working at burger shop A, and then the burger shop say like, all right, we got to cut, cut employment. But then a new burger shop's going to open up because there's more people buying burgers. You know, it's a new demand you can't argue with.
[00:32:06] Speaker B: Until this conversation, I didn't realize how much that is going to fall back on us, the taxpayer, when people are hurting and, you know, and they need food and all this stuff. Because our country is not going to let people just mass, en masse, starve. Like you said, the 30s prove that, that at some point it gets bad enough where the country will step in because the population is going to demand it. And so instead of being proactive, we're being now the same that we've been the last. You know, well, we're just 30 years of our pilot.
[00:32:34] Speaker A: We're easy to distract. Like you said, that's your social argument or the culture war argument is that the people, it's easy to take some people's eye off the ball, basically, and make it about other things that it's not really about. So I did want to. I mean, we've been talking about how it generally, the minimum wage is something that, although there are challenges that need to be addressed, when you do it, it's something that will, that grows the pie, so to speak. It creates more demand. And there's just. Every single economic theory knows that you creating more demand is going to create more activity.
But the one question I wanted to ask for you is does this make sense? And we don't have to spend a ton of time on this, but one thing that people are raised is, does this make sense during the pandemic? Does that change the calculation at all, or should we try to continue to just set up the world the way we want it and then work through the pandemic as we are? And then also, I mean, if you want to touch on it as well, one thing is, what does it make sense to do it federally?
[00:33:32] Speaker B: Good questions.
So I'll ask the second one first. I think the first question is more of just, you know, whatever you think is right. I mean, I don't know if I'm the guy to answer, should you do this in a pandemic or not, or do it in normal times or not? I mean, from an economic standpoint, I think we already answered where we see it.
[00:33:49] Speaker A: And just real quick for me on that, if you're going to do it, I say you just do it. I mean, it's not like we aren't trying to out. We're not out here trying to create demand. Like the whole pandemic has been about, hey, let's create more demand, let's create more demand. So I actually like this idea as a way to do it sustainably. Again, like, government cutting checks is great, but that's not a sustainable solution to anything.
[00:34:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:10] Speaker A: So if anything, the pandemic gives us some Runway to try to help people absorb the changes, so to speak. And so when you get to the Runway after the pandemic, people are more ready to let this thing take off. But go ahead.
[00:34:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, look, that's a good point you made, because I didn't think of it this way until you said that. I'm still neutral on whether it should be down or done now or not. Because I think.
What I think is, you know, now I'll tell my answer. I think the answer from an economic standpoint is yes, it should be done because it appears it'll be healthy for any economy to have to have the bottom rise up as well over time so that their purchasing power grows and we all make more money. So that's one thing. But you make a good point. That is if we're in this transition, because it got me thinking again, I'm not going to say no one cared, but I would say a lot of the people that I talk to, because a lot of my clients are business owners and I like them a lot. Personally, I actually love some of them, like their family, but they're very, on this culture meme of like the you can't raise the minimum wage type of thing. So when we talk, I hear a lot of that type of argument and their reasons.
And. But what it's Interesting is you're right, all of us, me included, just to disclose it. And I should say all, but everybody I know that owned a business and me included received PPP or ETO loans or a combination of it last year.
And that's the thing is that I didn't, and neither did anyone I know didn't start arguing about the treasury shouldn't be giving us that money.
So my point is, is that you know, if the government actually had a better narrative and a better marketing game, they would actually be telling people like me that like look, we're, we're not even gonna ask anymore. We're raising the minimum wage because guess what, we just saved your ass last year.
We just spent 4 trillion on you. So you know what, or is not even coming out of your pocket all the way right now.
So raise the wage and go work hard and go earn more, you know, get your business growing more and blah blah blah. So it's interesting but, but, but to finish, I think that the second question to me was an important one about the federal government making this decision. So it's interesting. I definitely have learned and come to appreciate federalism and the system that the founders created over the last few years. Much more so than I had when I was younger in terms of the divide, you know, kind of these three co equal branches and then states that have their own rights and their own ability and their own state constitutions and all that. So yeah, I feel like the go the federal government I think should have a role in a lot of things because we're a country and a central government obviously has a role in important stuff.
But I think that I like the idea of leaving it to the states. And I, I know that we in Florida just a few months ago, like you said, we're in March, So was it four or five months ago in the 2020 election our state passed a constitutional amendment to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
[00:37:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:03] Speaker B: But they're doing it what I would consider the smart way. So it's, it's, it starts now in 2021, the first dollar. And it's just going to go up every year until 2026.
And so I think a model like that at the federal level could work.
I'm not hell bent that it has to be $15. I think that's where negotiation comes in and good old politics like I think we remember it to be where there's compromise. Because one thing that we should all acknowledge is, you know, the cost of living in New York is not the Same as it is in Idaho. And the cost of living here in South Florida isn't the same as it is in Wyoming or in California. So I do think there's a federal minimum wage is symbolic, whether it makes sense or not. I think it shows that we as a nation are going to put a certain floor under what we feel that our workers should earn. But I do think there should always be wiggle room for states and municipalities to make some final decision. Because
[00:37:58] Speaker A: it's interesting to say that I look at it differently in the sense that I think that the 15 is the floor. Basically, the federal government isn't saying that's where New York should be or that's where California should be. It's actually saying that's where South Dakota or Wyoming should be. And then everybody else can go from there. And so by raising that floor, ideally, the people who need to go higher would go higher from a state standpoint.
[00:38:23] Speaker B: An interesting way to look at it. Yeah, I haven't thought of it like
[00:38:25] Speaker A: that, but let me tell you this. I share your discomfort with doing it federally generally, but I do think there needs to be a floor that need. The floor needs to be raised. That's really the thing.
I don't profess to know whether I don't know that 15 is some magic number that seems to just be easy to say or easy, like seems to be catchy is why they caught on to it. Because 15 or 14, 25 or, or 16 and, and 10 cents.
[00:38:52] Speaker B: If I was a smartass, what I would do is I think they started that in 2012. Yeah. And I would look at what the inflation adjusted numbers would be.
[00:38:58] Speaker A: I'd be like, it's higher. It would be higher. I'd be like, you guys are wrong. It should be $17.
[00:39:02] Speaker B: 12.
[00:39:03] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. I mean, like you're saying it's a
[00:39:05] Speaker B: meme now at 15 an hour.
[00:39:06] Speaker A: Where'd it come from? It's just kind of catchy and stuff. So, I mean, I think, but I think that whatever, like this is, again, what you think of yourself as a society. Like, if are we going to say 15 is the minimum, but places where the cost of living is higher, you know, hey, you guys should be doing a little bit more. But that's what the baseline we want. If you live in Montana, if you live In Mississippi, the 15 is the number we want. We want you to be able to make, you know that we want you to be able to make $30,000 a year if you, if you work full time. And that's what you're saying, and so I don't have a problem. Like, while in theory, I'm always leery of doing things federally when the local concerns are very specific and disparate amongst the states, in this case, I look at it more so as, like, the bottom needs to be raised. And we just haven't tended to this for so long that the bottom. It just seems like a lot. To go from seven and a quarter to 15 is like, whoa, that's a lot. But it's because we haven't done anything on it for so long.
[00:40:05] Speaker B: No, and that's the thing is that. And that's why it's just interesting that this all. I mean, I guess this is humanity, right? It all falls down to these culture and emotional things. Because, you know, that's why I keep thinking of things like the climate and all that as another type of example where people get so caught up into the emotional arguments and then they. They get wedged in these sides, that kind of the rational discussion of why something may or may not make sense gets totally thrown out the window. And, you know, it's, it's, it's. So, you know, this not even part of the discussion. No, I know. And, and, and so that's where, you know, I think, well, you know, Tunde,
[00:40:49] Speaker A: that's what we're doing here, actually. Like, there's a whole bunch of, like, penalties.
[00:40:53] Speaker B: Boring. Because I didn't call you a pos.
And you didn't. You didn't. You didn't.
[00:40:57] Speaker A: You didn't.
[00:40:58] Speaker B: You didn't say that. I have, you know, little hands. And, you know, we didn't make nicknames for each other to belittle each other. So it's boring. And you know what? If someone's still listening, then I guess they're just boring like us.
[00:41:08] Speaker A: But, yeah, this would not.
[00:41:12] Speaker B: All of us nerds.
[00:41:13] Speaker A: So this isn't cable news fodder, you know, like, that's not what it is. But yeah, so, like, no, I, I talk about it. You know, I. My reference is always like, that people seem to want their politics like they want sports, you know, like what? They want a team. They want, you know, like their team to move the ball forward or to, you know, to press defense and don't let the other side. It's like, well, hold on. No, no, no. This is supposed to be a little bit collaborative. Now, obviously you have things that are important to you that you want to try to get done, but there's a collaborative nature to this that, like, to our own peril, we we ignore. So. But yeah, I mean, we can move on after that. I did, you know, I think that looking at the discussion, though, I mean, and look, looking at it from a government and a society standpoint is worthwhile and not always in the lens of political horse race. And so that's what we wanted to do here from that standpoint. Understanding that, you know, like, that's just, that's not going to be, you know, you don't have the fireworks flying and, you know, the food getting thrown and so forth. But understanding these issues a lot of times can help a thoughtful person come to their own conclusion.
[00:42:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:42:13] Speaker A: So, yeah, but we also wanted to discuss, you know, this recent research coming out of Duke University, which was just.
It made us laugh a little bit. It made us like, say, of course a little bit. Because it talked about male aggression and men that respond aggressively to insults type of thing, attacks to their masculinity or their manhood. Not talking about, like, if you challenge somebody physically or if you push somebody, do they respond aggressively? But just like, if you insult them, do they respond aggressively? And they found a common thread that they could replicate in a study. They could replicate this and show a tendency that men who rely on external validation for their manhood, they're more. They respond more aggressively to insults of the manhood. You know, you would say, okay, duh. But again, a lot of things that you think are or that come across as like, kind of, you can see it in your gut, you can feel it, you know, like, oh, yeah, that's just kind of how it is. It's. Sometimes they don't play out like that. If you actually test the theory. This one did. And so, you know, it was. It was interesting to see. And, you know, we found we both had some jokes and we both had some stuff. We were like, let's talk about it. And so, I mean, what was your take on it, Tunde? You know, just in terms of how people, where they get their sense of masculinity, determines how they respond. If someone is testing their masculinity, again, not physically, it was just like, just calling them out, you know, in a way, in an insult type way.
[00:43:38] Speaker B: I just knew that I'm about to get in trouble in my marriage. Again with this conversation, because I'm going to say something stupid.
So.
No, but it was a fascinating study because, like you said, it confirmed stuff that you kind of felt in your gut. And what's interesting too, I think with the study was the fact that we're men, so you gotta kind of Self reflect and say, how do I behave when someone challenges me my manhood.
But what I found too, and it's interesting cause I think the study got into that too. Well, not. I think I know about the age ranges. So men between like 16 or 18 and 26 are at the highest level of insecurity about their manhood and they respond the most aggressively.
[00:44:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:20] Speaker B: And it obviously as men get older, you know, we get more secure in it. And it's funny because I started thinking about, you know, I'll be 43 in a couple weeks.
So I'm, you know, middle aged. So I kind of, you know, I'm not too old yet. But I remember being a teenager into my early twenties and, and, and it's. I'm married, I've got three kids, I'm pretty like secure in my manhood. You know, I procreate it. I don't gotta prove anything to anyone. So I just started thinking about. Yeah, I remember when, you know, you're like a teenager and you know, you wanna brag to your friends about what you did with some girl at the party or whatever. You know, when you're in high school and then in college, you gotta be the man doing this and that and you know, there's. And it's not even like it's just you personally, right. It's the culture of manhood. So then we get caught in wanting to brag because the other guy said he did this and now I'm better than that. So I got two girls last night. You only got one.
And then I was joking with you like, you know, a couple weeks ago, we talking crappy with each other about this stuff. And I'm like, james, if I go once a day, I'm good for 48 hours.
You know what I mean? Like shit, I can't remember the last time I went three times in a day because I don't feel like it anymore. And I'm happy to say it like, you know, like I'm not ashamed. But you know, if I'd have finished my business in under 90 seconds when I was 21, you wouldn't have heard about it because I told him. I'd be bragging about that. I'll be laughing if I'll go over 60 seconds. I'm looking at my wife like, God damn it now, you know, I'm getting tired. I'm going to hurry this up. And it's like there's no shame in it at all because I don't care. Like, you know, who's going to judge me now on that stuff about my manhood. And I think that's where. And I, you know, for the audience, I'm not here to talk about me, but it's more of what was going through my head as I was reading the study.
And it made me realize how accurate it is that it is about a little bit about your life experience and age as well. Because then I was.
[00:46:06] Speaker A: Think about it, though. If you think about it, we are animals. Like, for whatever reason, like, we are. We're, you know, great and exceptional animals in the sense that we can contemplate our own being and our own existence and so forth, which we don't know that other animals do that, but we are animals and I think we kind of get lost in that sometimes. Like, of course, look at other mammals. The other mammals, the male, when they. When they go through certain times in their life, get more aggressive or want to find themselves in the pecking order, whether it be primates or lions even, you know, one male will drive out the rest of the males and say, hey, no, this is my. This is mine right here. And so it's not that we have animal behaviors that are hardwired into us in terms of how we interact and react. It shouldn't be a surprise. Again, it's interesting that someone actually tested it and could see it and can replicate it and so forth. But yes, of course, when you're 18 to 26, you're trying to find your pecking order, you're trying to find, you know, where you are. And the other thing that stood out to me about this also was if you take it out of just the male context, you know, if you just look at it, another thing that we kind of implicitly know, or, you know, like your parents might have taught you or whatever, was just that if you rely on external validation for anything, that you're subject to making bad decisions, you know, because you're always trying to please the crowd or you're showing off or whatever. And so this is. If you rely on external validation for security or rely on external validation for. To make yourself feel worth something worthy or whatever, then you're going to end up making decisions that are suboptimal, basically. And so in this, it's just, yeah, if you rely on external validation for, you know, for masculinity, then you're going to. You're going to do things, you know, just based on that. You're going to be the tail wagging the dog because you need that validation. And so. And what if you really if you put the two together, men, what they've shown here is that men are, have a tendency for that, that they're just like when they're a certain age, men have a tendency to rely on external validation for something and it leads to aggression and it leads to things that from a societal standpoint, we need to kind of keep control of, you know, like a man doing that stuff on his own, you know, whatever. But from a societal standpoint, we can't have people flying off the handle all the time because there's a bunch of
[00:48:19] Speaker B: us around here and we, that's just, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if things like, you know, testosterone and all that plays a role. I mean, one thing I know we've talked about this offline, just having our regular philosophy talks audience. You don't want to be in the middle of those.
But, but, you know, like, let's say for most of human history, right from early Homo sapiens, you know, however long it's been, a million, 2 million years, Hunter gatherer, stage, stone aged all the way, you know, maybe, maybe only until about 3,4000 years ago when you had more of the farming and the ability to have different societies that, you know, humans live to about 30 to 35 years old.
[00:49:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:49:01] Speaker B: I mean, if you were 40, you were like a dinosaur back like 10,000 plus years ago.
So the idea, and that's why I laugh now seeing up to 43, because what I'm getting at is as males get older, our testosterone declines. And I started thinking about it from, you know, because when I read these things, I often think about the evolutionary need for it.
[00:49:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:49:21] Speaker B: And what I think is interesting is that now we have 8 billion humans, half of them are men. And one thing that was very interesting about this study is they did test women. And this is one of those studies that was very firm that women don't behave like this. This is our problem, this masculinity. And, and so it got me thinking about certain things. Like, number one again, my gut always told me this, but now it's been confirmed. I always felt like, man, when I see like, especially grown men, forget about a kid that's 20 years old. I'm talking guys our age and older that always act like they got to be macho and beating their chest out. I always, I always had this gut feeling that that must come from some deep insecurity. Yeah. And they got to prove themselves all the time. And, and this kind of confirms that. And then, you know, also, you know,
[00:50:07] Speaker A: like part of that as well is they're trying to prove themselves to themselves. Like part of finding yourself in the pecking order, it's not just proving yourselves to other people, it's proving yourself to yourself. Where do I fit in? Where do you know? Am I at the top? Am I in the middle? Am I at the bottom? And so yeah, that constant need to prove is, you know, it does, it is reflective of that.
[00:50:26] Speaker B: And that could come. And that's where, you know me with the psychology, how strong I believe that, you know, so much of our development was done when we, you know, was, was formed in our minds and our psyches when we were in elementary school or earlier when we were. And my point is we were so young that we didn't realize what was happening. So now as adults, we kind of react to that. So you're right, let's say, you know, guys like us, but let's say you had a really, really dominant father that was actually, you know, kind of a dick and made you, you know, he called you gay or something, you know, just made you feel inferior as a man. You might be our age trying to act, you know, trying to flex and show out somehow and you don't even realize why or, you know, I told you a brief quick story about a guy I knew when I was in college and, and he was a womanizer. But then turns out, you know, we find out years later he went to therapy, he ended up, he was molested by a male kind of family member when he was 11.
And he felt that he just needed like his subconscious told him that he had to in order to kind of throw that memory off, he had to just be with as many women as possible. And so it's just interesting what causes some of these things. And that's why again, I thought about me like I feel secure and like I was saying, you know, and toot my own horn and all that shit. But in the end, yeah, I know this is, you know, I don't want to act like I'm so self centered, but I started thinking like, well, would I be the same guy if I wasn't married? Right.
If, if, if I was single? Because I know guys my age that are single and I've never been married, not that they're divorced, but you know, they just never been married.
[00:51:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:59] Speaker B: And they still out on the town, they go to strip clubs, they're out there trying to again, prove their manhood and it's just, you know, and that's what I said, you know, I'm not going to look down on those guys, because how would I act if I was single? I'm. I'm confident in certain parts of my masculinity because I have a good marriage and I've already procreated. I have kids. So, like, it's like, you know, if someone came and started talking stuff to me now and you ain't a real man, like. Like I joked earlier, man, you telling me you can't bang somebody three times in a day. You ain't a real man. I'd probably look at him and say, you know, I probably could. I just don't feel like it and I don't care.
[00:52:30] Speaker A: Well, you know, what it is, basically, is that there's nothing that anyone could tell you that would make you actually truly question your man. Like, there's nothing they can say.
[00:52:39] Speaker B: Like, I have an insecurity at this point where I might have. When I was in my late teens, let's say somebody could have picked a scab.
[00:52:45] Speaker A: Chances are you did, because that's kind of how males are. And it's very interesting from that standpoint, just in terms of that development. And like I said, in a village of 20 people, the issue is probably less than it is in a city of 20 million, where you end up with senseless killing and things like that. And it's like, how do we get a handle on this? And it's like, well, man, maybe this is just part of us. I think it is when we pack in like that that we're just going to have these types of things. Things. And you know, it. I think it's good to look at these types of things because trying to come up with solutions as far as how we can all live together in close quarters. We need to be doing that.
[00:53:22] Speaker B: Yeah. No, I mean, but look, this study is very interesting because what it points out is that this is who men are.
[00:53:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:53:28] Speaker B: And especially at certain ages. Right. At that younger age, let's say the
[00:53:31] Speaker A: 18 to 20, it's a spectrum still. It's a spectrum still. But this exists basically. Like, not everyone, even in the study, not everyone reacted the same way, even based on age. But the tendencies, the same person at different ages would be more. Tend to have a higher tendency.
[00:53:47] Speaker B: Well, that's. That's the way I give myself as an example, because I'm thinking about it like, yeah, I definitely wasn't the way I am now 20 years ago. And then I was thinking, that's where I started thinking, well, if I just had a different life, like, if I was a single guy, still never Married, no kids. I mean, maybe I would have some insecurity about that. Maybe I'd be insecure that I'm not married, I don't have kids. And that creates another, you know, thing. And then the other one, which I'll finish on, which made me smile, which proved the whole study in itself. And I'll read here from one of the articles we had on this was Men's aggressive responses didn't end with the study questionnaire. The researchers noted the study designers received violent threats from some men who received low scores. Further evidence that the study hit a nerve. When I read, I was like, drop the mic. I was like, I wish I could get a graphic of a scientist in a lab coat dropping a mic.
Like, just looking at some guy saying, the fact you just threatened to kill me because I gave you a low score just proves actually that I'm right.
Yeah.
[00:54:52] Speaker A: I mean, now that was a trip.
[00:54:54] Speaker B: That was hilarious.
[00:54:55] Speaker A: Them dudes took it so seriously that after the study was over, they came back like, yeah, you.
[00:55:01] Speaker B: And. And this is one of those studies where they knew they were in a study too.
Like, yo.
So, yeah, but that's my point about it, right?
And again, not the reverse tracks into the police thing, but it's like, even when faced with knowing you're in a situation, that's what I'm just saying that there's a certain percentage of men that just can't take what they might perceive. And that's why I'm being very careful with the way I'm saying about this police thing, the way they perceive maybe being challenged in their masculinity. And that's all subconscious. It's not about what we see on the surface. And that's why I'm saying that. I'm not excusing anything. I'm just making the point that in reading these kind of studies, it makes me look like. Like you said, and that's why it made me think of it.
If you have a city of 20 million people, which is not unrealistic, but any large society, then there's more opportunities for these type of interactions to happen between men.
And we see it all the time.
[00:56:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, and that's that. That's kind of why it's good to study this type of thing.
[00:56:03] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's fascinating. And honestly, this is where I feel like as a society, we should do a better job bringing this information actually, at, like, at the school level. Like, I'm talking, like, young men in high school should be taught, starting to learn this stuff. So that. Because imagine you and I being armed with this information as teenagers growing into, you know, the college days. But I know not everyone goes to college.
You might at least have a little bit of foundation.
[00:56:28] Speaker A: But I think we just learned from the people threatening the studies, the scientists after the fact, that even if you had the information, it wouldn't help you if you were one of the ones that were prone to be triggered by this.
[00:56:41] Speaker B: This is where you're going to get glass half full Tunde.
[00:56:44] Speaker A: Oh, oh.
[00:56:44] Speaker B: Which is rare. And I would say I didn't use the S word today, by the way. And to the audience, that's not the S word that I did use. It's a D word.
But. But no, my glass half full is just that. You're right. There's some percentage of people that's never going to change. But I believe that there's a percentage of young men, because I remember stuff from certain classes at school like that you just pull back to it and say, oh, maybe I'm doing that. That's all. That's my glass half full. It's worth the effort. Put it that way for me.
[00:57:09] Speaker A: No, that's not to say you don't do it. That's not to say you don't do it. But it is. But the study did kind of confirm that even if you know it's coming or to some degree, even if you know you're being tested, you know, like. Like that's just a trigger for some people, and particularly at a certain age, you are more prone to being subject to that trigger. So I don't know. We can wrap it from here. It's interesting, though. I mean, it gave us both a good laugh also, so. But we appreciate the audience for joining us on this. Subscribe to the podcast, rate us, tell us what you think, give us a review. And until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:57:38] Speaker B: I'm Tunde to everyone.
[00:57:39] Speaker A: All right, we'll talk to you next time.
