Introducing ... The Ryssdal Window
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Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com slash try. Go to shopify.com slash try. shopify.com slash try. Hello, everyone. My name is Kimberly Adams, and welcome back to Make Me Smart, where we make today make sense. It's Wednesday, April 23rd. I'm Kyle Rosdahl. Thanks for joining us on the pod. Today, we're going to do our usual thing, news, smiles, and then get out of your hair. Kimberly, let's start with...

I'll try that again. Kimberly, let's start with news. I screwed up on the retake too. Go ahead. It's okay. It's one of those days. It's Wednesday. You know, we've been paying so much attention to tariffs, rightfully so. It's affecting so many of us. But like, I just saw a couple of stories today that were a reminder that in terms of what the federal government is doing, the reach of some of the Trump administration policies is just

So widespread throughout various sectors of the economy and many of those effects we haven't felt yet. And so like there was a story in The Hill about the Trump administration making cuts to the FDA and in particular the milk quality testing program. And that program was suspended.

effective Monday. And this was one of the early concerns that people had about cuts at USDA and the FDA and some of these other oversight agencies that the people responsible for ensuring the safety of America's food supply...

potentially being cut, leaving it to private industry alone to regulate itself. Now, that's not to say that private industry will not, you know, regulate itself at all. But the incentive model there is not exactly ideal. And we have history showing us that that doesn't always work so hot. And now we've got contractors hired by the FDA to support staff in lieu of the actual people who were doing it full time. And

There's not great evidence about the price efficiencies within the federal government of hiring private contractors to replace federal workers like that, that it actually saves money. There's not too much data to support that that is a default.

So it'll be very interesting to see if there's actually any savings there. And then there was a Politico story about cuts to the U.S. Forest Service that have been happening. And the headline is crazy. Forest Service cuts ignite fear, fury over wildfire risk. The Trump administration has slashed more than 10% of the agency's workforce with more layoffs expected. And just after the wildfire seasons we've been seeing, not just in the West, but in other parts of the country as well,

It's, no pun intended, wild to me to think about reducing the people who are the most experienced at taking the actions that can mitigate the risk of wildfire, you know, of wildfires and then fighting them. I'm reading in this Politico piece that about 75% of the agency staff are trained in wildland fighting. So that means there are fewer workers around the country clearing brush and thinning trees to reduce the risk and intensity of wildfires.

And when fires do break out, there'll be fewer workers available to stop the spread. And as you know, I don't have to tell you where you are. This has a huge economic impact when these things are able to rage unchecked. I think the category heading for your items and mine together is we are not a serious country anymore.

Yours are just we're doing stupid, self-destructive things that not only will not benefit the American public, will actually harm large chunks of the American public. I, for example, enjoy having my milk quality tested. Mine is a story in The Wall Street Journal today that lo and behold, who could have seen this coming? The president of the United States has decided he's going to back off his tariff trade war with China today.

Maybe even cutting them by half. Now, two points. Number one, clearly in leaking this piece, the White House is saying, please, China, please, please, please come to the negotiating table. Please, please, please, please. That's number one. And number two, and this is sort of we are not a serious country, but also the markets are an idiot.

Even if he cuts these tariffs at 145 percent in half, that's still 70, 60 percent tariffs on imports from China. That is economically destructive. And I, for one, don't understand why the markets are up today. That's it. Those are my ideas. Yeah.

It's what we talked about before. You know, you push the extreme so far in one direction that everyone thinks a slight dial back is a win. It's the Overton window, but for markets, right? Yes. That's exactly what it is. Oh, gosh, that was the nerdiest joke. We're going to call it the Rizdell window. That's what we are. It's the Rizdell window. We both laughed at it. Oh, my God. There we go. All right, shall we? Yes. All right, let's go.

All right. I got two. You got none. Yeah. What's up with that? Usually it's the other way around. I know. My smile is that we made an Overton window joke on this show. It was very funny to me. No, no, no. It's the Rizdahl window now. Overton window, but for markets, it's the Rizdahl window. I'm sorry. You know what? We should totally trademark that. We totally should. That is 100% the Rizdahl window. Got it. I've got two, one of which is, oh, are you kidding me? And the other one is just cool. So...

There are news reports today that Pete Hegseth, the much beleaguered secretary of defense for completely valid reasons, he is beleaguered by the way, has ordered a makeup studio installed at the Pentagon so that he looks nice when he goes out to do his press briefings. But also that's where he does his Fox News hits from. Just thought I'd point that out. How much does somebody have to hate you to leak that about you?

Hmm. Number two, and this is the cool thing, a piece of the New York Times today about the physics of pour over coffee. That is to say, you just pour water on the grounds and you make your coffee that way. Now, I know you're not a coffee drinker, but there's all kinds of other cool stuff in this article, like literally a scientific paper on how to best make pasta. There's all kinds of really cool stuff. It's like it's it's from it's all from a journal called The Physics of Fluids. And I'm not a science guy, but this was pretty cool.

I saw a Reddit thread a while back of like somebody had asked, you know, what are some of the really life-changing scientific discoveries made in recent years that just like did not even register, you know, in the public? And they were listing, you know, things like neuroplasticity or –

the, you know, mapping of, you know, our DNA and like other things that just will drastically change people's lives that would have been just earth shattering, world bending discoveries in any other time. But since there's so much going on there, like all these amazing scientific discoveries happening that are just like, meh. I mean, kind of like when the government acknowledged that there may be aliens and we were all just like, whatevs. Whatevs. You know, fine. Yeah.

It's like tracks. Why not? That's right. That's right. All right. There we go. I believe. Yeah. Short and sweet today. We are going to be back tomorrow. Please keep sending us your comments and your questions. You can reach us at makemesmartatmarketplace.org or leave us a voicemail at 508-UBSmart. Make Me Smart is produced by Courtney Bergseeker. Our intern is Ohamalek. Today's program was engineered by Justin Dooler.

Ben Talladay and Daniel Ramirez composed our theme music. Our senior producer is Marissa Cabrera. Bridget Bodner is the director of podcasts. Francesca Levy is the executive director of digital. And there it is on a Wednesday. If there's one thing we know about social media, it's that misinformation is everywhere, especially when it comes to personal finance. Financially Inclined from Marketplace is a podcast you can trust to help you get serious about your money so you can build a life you've always dreamed of.

I'm the host, Janelia Espinal, and each week I ask experts important money questions, like how to negotiate job offers, how to choose a college that you can afford, and how to talk about money with friends and family. Listen to Financially Inclined wherever you get your podcasts.