Lots More with Kyla Scanlon on the Economic Vibes

SPEAKER_1 (0:03)

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Joe Weisenthal (0:10)

Tracy, do you think that the reason it's so hard to buy houses because of BlackRock is buying all the houses?

Tracy Alloway (0:17)

There's a loaded question.

That's like, what's that famous loaded question? Maybe this is more well-known in Britain, but the, when did you start beating your wife?

Joe Weisenthal (0:25)

Yeah, no, no, we have that here. It's a little different.

Tracy Alloway (0:28)

Yeah, a little different.

Joe Weisenthal (0:29)

It's also, when did you stop, by the way?

Tracy Alloway (0:31)

Oh, I'm sorry, yeah, yeah, okay. Yes, that makes more sense.

Joe Weisenthal (0:35)

Yeah.

Tracy Alloway (0:36)

Oh dear, this conversation has already gone off the rails.

Joe Weisenthal (0:41)

I did a deadlift. One, two, three.

Tracy Alloway (0:48)

Barges.

Joe Weisenthal (0:48)

This is an after-school special, except.

Tracy Alloway (0:50)

I've decided I'm gonna base my entire personality going forward on campaigning for a strategic pork reserve in the US.

Joe Weisenthal (0:56)

Where's the best squid ink pasta?

Tracy Alloway (0:58)

These are the important questions. Is it robots taking over the world?

Joe Weisenthal (1:01)

No, I think that like in a couple of years, the AI will do a really good job of making the Odd Lots podcast.

And people will say, I don't really need to listen to Joe and Tracy anymore. We do have.

Tracy Alloway (1:13)

Cha-ching. You're listening to Lots More, where we catch up with friends about what's going on right now.

Joe Weisenthal (1:21)

Because even when the Odd Lots is over, there's always Lots More.

Tracy Alloway (1:24)

And we really do have the perfect guest. Didn't we learn that big factoid, that really interesting factoid, in one of our conversations that actually the single-family institutional ownership includes individual landlords in addition to huge firms like BlackRock?

Joe Weisenthal (1:43)

I just feel like, this is what I think about all the time, TikTok macro, which is like BlackRock is controlling all of the market.

BlackRock is controlling all the market. Blackstone is why you can't buy a house. All people in Congress are insider traitors. What else is there? What else is there, Kyla?

Kyla Scanlon (2:07)

In terms of TikTok and what people talk about on there.

Joe Weisenthal (2:09)

Yeah, like what are like the sort of like pillars of like modern beliefs about how the public that needs to be educated?

Kyla Scanlon (2:17)

Yeah, I mean, it's always the system that's working against you, right? I mean, I think there's so many misbeliefs about the economy was just, it makes it really hard to talk about the economy. Like inflation going down doesn't mean that prices are going down.

I think that's a really big one. And then the BlackRock thing really takes hold. That's very, very popular.

Joe Weisenthal (2:33)

That's like a big pillar of like how many people see the problems with the economy.

Kyla Scanlon (2:37)

Yeah, like ETFs own the world.

Joe Weisenthal (2:39)

ETFs, yeah, own the world. I'm trying to think what else.

Tracy Alloway (2:42)

There's a lot. I should say we are speaking with Kyla Scanlon, our good friend who has just published a new book called, fittingly, I have to say, I love this title, In This Economy, How Money and Markets Really Work. She's also a Bloomberg Opinion contributor. She's been on the podcast before, and congrats on the book, Kyla.

Kyla Scanlon (3:01)

Oh, thank you. Yeah, it's super exciting.

Joe Weisenthal (3:03)

Thank you for coming to chat with us.

Kyla Scanlon (3:05)

Oh, no, thank you all for having me.

Joe Weisenthal (3:06)

Also the creator of the word, vibe session. Yeah. Which has just like become, it is, but it is you, right? Like you said it first, right?

Kyla Scanlon (3:14)

Yeah, no.

Joe Weisenthal (3:14)

And now everyone says it, and I was like, oh, JP Morgan.

Kyla Scanlon (3:17)

I know, I saw that.

Joe Weisenthal (3:18)

Are claiming this is a vibe session, but you created that too.

Kyla Scanlon (3:21)

Yeah, I know I did. Back in July, 2022 But yeah, I know other people have taken credit for it, which is fine, you know.

Joe Weisenthal (3:26)

No, it's not fine.

Kyla Scanlon (3:27)

No, it's not.

Tracy Alloway (3:29)

But this is sort of the amazing thing about the vibe session, because when you first wrote about it, it was because the hard data was still coming in relatively strong, but all the survey data, people seemed to really, really downbeat on the economy. And now a couple of years later, that's still the case more or less.

Kyla Scanlon (3:47)