Ezra Klein On the Legacy of Bidenomics

Joe Weisenthal (0:02)

Bloomberg Audio Studios.

Tracy Alloway (0:04)

Podcasts, radio, news.

Joe Weisenthal (0:19)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:23)

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:25)

Tracy, it's almost here. We're almost to the November Fed decision.

Tracy Alloway (0:30)

Okay, we are recording this on October 30th. Do you think by this time next week, we'll actually know who's won on the Wednesday, the day after?

Joe Weisenthal (0:39)

You didn't continue my joke about how next week is the Fed decision. You just went straight to the obvious. That's okay, we're all fried for obvious reasons.

Tracy Alloway (0:47)

Also, isn't it payrolls data on Friday?

Joe Weisenthal (0:49)

So by the time this episode comes out, payrolls will have been out. But yes, there is a lot going on right now, but one thing that's happening is the election.

Tracy Alloway (0:56)

I can't keep track anymore, there's too much.

Joe Weisenthal (0:58)

When people are listening to this, we're going to get this out before the election. But yes, we may know very soon who the next president of the United States is.

Tracy Alloway (1:05)

But whatever happens, whatever happens next week with the Fed or with the election, it's clear that Biden is no longer going to be president, right?

Joe Weisenthal (1:16)

And I think it's like a real moment. We should talk about that because I think to your point, you said it exactly. We may get a Democratic presidency under Harris, we may get a Trump presidency. But we've done so many episodes in the last four years, particularly around 2022, 2021 Others might call it a sort of post-neoliberal turn, right? This sort of industrial policy.

Tracy Alloway (1:38)

Return of industrial policy. A new supply side economics.

Joe Weisenthal (1:41)

New supply side economics. And I don't know, like, first of all, I don't know what the legacy of any of these programs will be yet. It's too soon to say, are we going to be, like, great at making chips and batteries and solar panels and all that stuff? We also don't know if anyone will talk about this stuff at all in the next administration. Was it just like a one or two year thing where people got excited about what I would say, policy adventurism? There was this effort to expand the care economy, child care that sort of fizzled, but there's still maybe interest in that. But I don't know, like, regardless of who the next president is, whether we'll see more continuation of these ideas or whether we'll go back to something that just sort of looks more like, I don't know, something people would call normal.

Tracy Alloway (2:22)

I kind of like the idea that we went through like a teenage experimental policy phase. That's a funny way of looking at it. But you're absolutely right. I think we should talk about what could happen to all of this in the next four years and beyond.

Joe Weisenthal (2:35)

Totally. Well, I'm really excited to say, because coming to this big moment, we have the perfect guest. We are going to be speaking with Ezra Klein. He is the host of the Ezra Klein Show at The New York Times. Columnist, famous journalist, done extraordinary things, everyone knows his name, so no need to add too much of an introduction. But Ezra, thank you so much for coming back on Odd Lots.

Ezra Klein (2:55)

Thank you for having me back on one of my favorite shows. I do want to say that I liked your joke at the beginning, Joe. I thought that was funny.

Joe Weisenthal (3:01)

You caught it. I appreciate that. No, it's okay.

Ezra Klein (3:05)

It brought me back to the self-conscious nerdery of the one-blog days. Jokes that are really about how boring we are. It's a beautiful form.

Joe Weisenthal (3:12)

The most important thing is still the Fed decision and the jobs report. Look, if I'm going to be honest, first of all, I sort of admire political journalists or people who really pay attention to this stuff because a lot of it hurts my brain. The fact to go in and every day talk about it and pay attention is something that and to take it seriously is something I often find myself not having the stomach to do. I'm probably a little bit less informed on the election than I should be. But some of this stuff, what we call Bidenomics, IRA, the Chips Act, et cetera, is this important to Kamala Harris? Is this part of something that she talks about and sort of conveys on the trail?