Huang Out, Robots In and the Real Cost of Thanksgiving | Off The Clock

Justin Wolfers (0:00)

The standard story is, AI is a replacement for cognitive work. And so therefore, in the United States, for the first time in a long time, we have a technology that's coming out, well-paid white color workers, whereas previous technological revolutions really undermined blue color work. The agricultural revolution did that, the move to manufacturing did that, globalization did that.

The work week may be over, but the economy, she never takes time off. And this week, I don't think she even took a breath. I'm Justin Wolfers. This is Off the Clock. And once again, I am joined by, I'm so pleased, my friend and America's favorite economics journalist, Stacey Vanek Smith. This is where two mates at the end of a very long week, sit back, relax over a beer. And what do what two mates do?

Talk about economics.

Stacey Vanek Smith (0:57)

Absolutely. Justin, I'm so excited to be here. I'm a columnist with Bloomberg Business Week, host of the podcast, Everybody's Business, and very excited about having a virtual beer. Although I'm like, sadly only have water, but there is a lot to talk about.

Justin Wolfers (1:10)

We can fix that water in post-production. Don't worry about that.

Our job is to pick through the recent headlines and tell you what you should actually be concerned about, what you can safely ignore, and we're also going to find some silver linings. Stacey, last time I saw you was just before Halloween. And if I remember, you were not dressed quite as fancy as you are right now. You had more of a, just, you looked like a whole committee.

Stacey Vanek Smith (1:38)

An avian look.

Justin Wolfers (1:39)

Yes.

Stacey Vanek Smith (1:40)

I was dressed up like the Federal Open Market Committee.

Justin Wolfers (1:42)

It was quite extraordinary. You had a hawk on one shoulder, a devil on the other. And just like Kevin Walsh, you were number two front and center. And I loved that for you, and I loved that for Kevin.

Stacey Vanek Smith (1:54)

And you were dressed up like a $120 barrel of oil, the scariest monster of all.

Justin Wolfers (2:01)

You know what happened that night? My kids refused to hug me. They said, Dad, we don't like you.

SPEAKER_4 (2:08)

You're the problem.

Stacey Vanek Smith (2:10)

This is the risk that you take when it's like children of two economists. They understand how scary that costume actually is.

Justin Wolfers (2:19)

People keep telling us that we should get to work and not yammer. I'm going to yammer because you just said it.

Very few people realize this. People often talk about It's a Wonderful Life is the movie with the best bank run scene in it. What they forget is the musical Matilda has one in it. When I showed my daughter, whose name by the way is Matilda, that musical, and she saw the bank run, she was totally fine through the whole thing, and she saw the bank run and started screaming, Dad, make it stop.

Stacey Vanek Smith (2:47)

That's not true.

Justin Wolfers (2:48)

Really?

It wasn't that long after the financial crisis. We're all bearing the scars. But Stacey, we didn't have a bank run this week. Look, you might have thought that we'd come back and talk about the midterm. Quite, yes. Well, not yet. Not yet. So you might have thought we'd come back and talk about the midterms. But the world's moved on because one of the biggest companies in the world, well, it didn't have a scene from the movie Matilda.

It had a scene from a very different kind of movie, actually.

Stacey Vanek Smith (3:17)

Yes, it did. We're speaking, of course, about Nvidia, and it's lost about $600 billion or so in the last week because its CEO, Jensen Huang, news surfaced of an extramarital affair he had with a fellow tech CEO, possible probable Chinese spy, and then a couple of other affairs to boot.

Justin Wolfers (3:40)

Yeah, I just love it when you can summarize a news cycle, an affair, same bloke, different affair, same bloke, different affair. Markets had to get used to adjusting to, I don't even know what you call, a trio of affairs?

But who knows if it's just three.

Stacey Vanek Smith (3:56)

Well, I think the big one though is the Chinese spy affair. Well, the other two, I don't know, one someone was his director, I don't know, they're all bad. They're all bad in different ways.

Justin Wolfers (4:04)

Yeah. We have so much variety to choose from on today's economic smorgasbord. And so-

Stacey Vanek Smith (4:10)

The first silver lining.

Justin Wolfers (4:12)