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Justin's looking at me going, what do I do? What do I do? Hey, everybody. I'm Kyle Rizzo. Welcome back to Make Me Smart. Where we make today make sense.
And I'm Kimberly Adams. Thank you for joining us on this Monday, May 12th. Today, we're going to do some news and then some smiles. Let's start with the news. Mr. Rizdal, what you got? Well, so look, I caved when it came time to put something in the rundown because I wanted to keep it, you know, vaguely business in the economy. But honestly, the freaking airplane and the freaking white South Africans coming as refugees and the prescription drug frauds.
And all of it. And I just, what is happening? The corruption and the ineptitude and the this and the that are just mind boggling and not a peep, not a peep.
from Republicans in Congress. It just, it makes me crazy. I understand, though, why people, and I say people being those who still have any modicum of energy to still engage with politics and, you know, do something about the things happening in this country. I understand why people aren't...
energized around it because you have people being snatched off the street and disappeared, you know, and human rights violations happening and other issues that, you know, women dying in childbirth on the regular because they don't have access to reproductive health care in half the country. And so I understand why people are choosing to prioritize other issues, which means that
Things that would otherwise be overwhelming scandals just don't even register. You know, I mean, Steve Bannon said it, right? Flood the zone. Flood the zone. And that's what they're doing. And it works because everybody's, I'm tired. I'm sure you're tired. Everybody's tired.
Yeah, that actually plays into my make me smile later, but we'll get to it. So anyway, I want to talk about this story. No, I'll give the nod to the story just because it's a cautionary tale. It's a story in The Wall Street Journal today. It's an exclusive. The journal says Apple considers raising iPhone prices without blaming tariffs. Here's the operative paragraph. The company is determined to avoid any scenario in which it appears to attribute price increases to U.S. tariffs on goods from China, where most Apple devices are assembled.
sources said. So this is what you have to look out for in the next, and forget the reprieve and forget the retaliatory and forget all this stuff. Companies will start using tariffs as an excuse to raise prices, even though tariffs are partially held in abeyance, even though tariffs might not apply to their particular product, even though tariffs might only be 10% on their product, but they might raise prices 15%. So this will lead to an elevation in prices almost no matter what. And I think we should just be ready for that.
It's the inflation story all over again. We saw so many sectors increasing prices, even though they weren't subject to supply chain shocks or the limits that were actually causing inflation. They were just like, yeah, I'm sure why not? Reason to raise prices and people just eat it. Yeah, totally. But I'm encouraged because I'm seeing consumers really be more mindful about their purchasing decisions in light of all this. Like, yes, people were stocking up, but I think the stocking up made people really look at what they had.
And what they needed and what they wanted. And like I was listening to Henry Epp's story today about – on your show today about this person stocking up on like a special type of vinegar, right? And they looked around and they said of all the stuff that I have that I'd be really sad to lose access to if it got more expensive, it'd be this. Let me stock up on it. I'm making that choice.
And the person still didn't regret it after the pullback because I guess the vinegar gets better with age. But also, you know, like the things that my friends I know have stocked up on, they're just like, well, you know, it just means I'm not going to buy it later. It's just a shift in the retail sales numbers, which is the numbers are going to be so wonky for the next few months. So skewed, yeah.
Like the trade numbers are going to be messed up. The retail sales numbers are going to be messed up. Like we're not going to be able to pull any meaningful assessment about the economy from retail sales, from warehousing numbers, from trade numbers, from just about anything for what, like the next six months at least? Yeah.
Yeah, it's going to be really hard to get a good assessment of how this economy is doing, given all the back and forth. Good luck, Fed. Good luck, Fed. Yes. What's yours? Go ahead. Mine is the same story that I also did on the show today, which is about the Republicans rolling out their massive tax package. And I know that the tariffs are like
an easy story to kind of wrap your mind around in terms of like, this is how it will impact things. But I really do think in terms of meaningful economic impact on Americans' day-to-day lives, what's happening in Congress right now is almost more impactful because they are talking about whether or not they're going to extend these 2017 tax cuts on the individuals. Because just as a reminder, the corporate tax cuts were made permanent. The
individual tax cuts were set to expire because the political calculation back in 2017 was that nobody would want to raise individual tax rates. And so that would be fine. And the thing is, the price tag on this is so high, $4 trillion plus, that the cuts they will have to make in order to fit this into the rules of reconciliation, which is the way that they can move it through Congress without Democratic votes, is
to make these numbers work on paper, they are just looking everywhere for cuts. And most of them are coming from social safety net programs. And
I know it's easy to kind of get lost in the weeds of congressional maneuvering. It's like, oh, it's in committee and then it's getting marked up and then it's getting voted. It goes to another committee. It's going to the budget committee. It's going to score it. And then it's going to go to the rules committee to make sure it appeals. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it makes it feel like it's not real legislation. Right.
The thing is, like, they are designing this to pass without Democratic votes, which means if it makes it through these various committees, it's very likely to become law. And some of the changes that this legislation lays out are quite significant. So I'm just going to read a section here from Politico here.
that's wrapping this up. Colleges would see a special tax on their endowment investment earnings rise. Corporations would find it harder to deduct the pay of highly compensated executives and green energy subsidies championed by Democrats would be paired. Undocumented immigrants would find, would have a harder time claiming tax breaks. Pro-EU
Private foundations and other nonprofits would face higher levies and professional sports franchises would see an important deduction crimped. Remittances to other countries would be subject to a new 5% tax, and there would be additional rules for people claiming the earned income tax credit.
The highly popular child tax credit would grow, as would the standard deduction. And then I'm not reading anymore. They're still trying to hash out the SALT deduction, which is a big sticking point. We've talked before about the state and local tax deduction and how some of these –
blue state Republicans are really digging in on this. They originally floated an idea of making it like 30,000. It's $10,000 right now. They floated the idea of making it $30,000. That was initially rejected by some of these blue state Republicans. So we'll see where that ends up, but that will be a meaningful impact to people who are affected by that. And this is,
The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was such a huge piece of legislation. I remember we did a marketplace special on it at the time because it really did reshape the way that our tax code works, the way that our economy is incentivized in many ways. It changed the way a lot of small businesses did business to adjust to this tax law. Like how many small businesses have you heard of that used to be LLCs that are now S-Corps basically just to get around this tax law?
And so I hope folks will pay attention because in the spirit of like you still have some agency in politics and government, you can't do much about tariff policy other than change your shopping habits. But this legislation is still being worked on. So if there is an issue you care about, best believe the lobbyists are banging down the doors of these members of Congress to get what they want in this piece of legislation. So you should, too.
Yeah, they absolutely are. They absolutely are. All right, Justin, let's go. All right, what is your smile today, Kimberly Adams? My smile is an article in the bigthink.com, or bigthink.com is the actual website. And it is about...
Tolkien, J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. And the headline is, Why Tolkien Thought Subcreation Was the Secret to Great Fantasy and Science Fiction. According to Tolkien, fantasy requires deep imagination known as subcreation, and the genre reflects a fundamental truth of being human. And this piece highlights how
To read fantasy and science fiction, you really end up, if it's written well, you end up immersing yourself in these other worlds and it stretches the limits of your mind and your creativity. And that level of escapism kind of spawns a different way of thinking that can translate into other parts of your life. And I...
you know, when I was younger and had more time to read for fun, I was a huge consumer of fantasy and science fiction. And I still love it when I get the chance. And I know a lot of folks in this particular environment are looking for ways to escape and check out and,
rather than doom scrolling or in my case, binge watching anime sometimes. Not that there's anything wrong with binge watching anime because I like it. But it just reminds me that in other periods of my life where I've gone through really difficult moments or transitions or times of emotional upheaval, I've really retreated to like fantasy and science fiction. And there's one series that I think I've read the entire series three times through at this point just because I'm
At various points in my life, I was like, need a reset. I'm going back to the dragon riders of Pern. And so like, if you're looking for a way to kind of get away from everything and, you
find a little refuge, I highly recommend books. And I know it feels very grown up and sophisticated to be reading like nonfiction and the very serious books and the books about saving the democracy and everything. But I do think there's value in reading fantasy and science fiction and just using that to expand your mind, especially in this moment. So that's why it made me smile.
There you go. It's a good one. Always good to expand your mind. Mine is not at all mind-expanding, but it is just sort of kind of funny. So I kind of can't get enough...
of the stories about the new pope. I am not a religious guy, definitely not a Catholic guy, but it is wild to me that there's a pope now who has experiences that I can relate to. Growing up in America, going to high school, American colleges. I mean, it's just kind of wild. And he plays Wordle with his brother, right? I mean, you know, he went to the White Sox World Series in 2000, whatever it was. Anyway, story in the Chicago Sun-Times today, some guy went to the Vatican, waited in line to see the pope as he was going wherever he was.
handed him a baseball and said, would you autograph it for me? And the Pope said, white socks or Cubs?
The guy gave the right answer. He said Sox because the Pope is a White Sox fan and the Pope autographed the baseball for him. I just think it's amazing. We're going to have a little picture of that on the show page. It's just cool. It's just cool. And look, there's a lot of issues with Catholic Church and a lot of issues with Prevost himself and, you know, all this. Actually, not so many with Prevost himself. I was about to say, I haven't heard any. I've literally heard nothing bad about this man yet. Let's put it that way. Right. But he's like a regular guy. And so he signed a baseball. He signed it. Leon PP14. Yeah.
That's amazing. That's funny. I wonder if he had to like practice his new signature since that's not the name he's been signing his whole life. He's only had a new signature for like five days, right? He's been Bob Prevost for 69 years and now for five days he's been Leo.
Yeah. I wonder if they have – I've seen online where there are people who will come up with a fancy signature for you and help you learn how to write it. And I wonder if they hired a coach or something. I can't imagine. But maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. Anyway, that's it. That's what I got. That's all we've got for today as well. So tomorrow we are going just in a completely different direction because we're tired. Yeah.
And we are going to go pure escapism and we're going to do our deep dive on a faraway planet called K2-18b. You may have seen some recent headlines that scientists found the potential signs of life on this planet. Other scientists are not so convinced. So we are going to dig into that with an astrobiologist and find out how the search for life on other planets is going. I hope you will tune in.
Make Me Smart is produced by Courtney Bergseeker. Our intern is Ohamalek. Today's program is engineered by Jessen Duller. Marissa Cabrera is our senior producer. Bridget Bodner is the director of podcast. And Francesca Levy is the executive director of digital. And there you go.
Claudette Powell spent a decade in Hollywood building her career before making a radical change. She quit her job, gave away her belongings, and drove across the country to become a nun. I had nothing left. I had turned over my car to the community. I had no more savings, closed my savings account, my checking account, shut down my cards. And that's really scary.
I'm Rima Grace, and this week on This is Uncomfortable, is it possible to find financial security and eval poverty? Listen to This is Uncomfortable wherever you get your podcasts.