Derek Thompson

It's exact, it's numerators and denominators.

Yeah, that's a fantastic answer.

I mean, my way of summarizing all of this, and there's a lot of food on the table right now.

So if someone's like, wow, we're talking about a lot of different things.

Here's how I would try to organize it.

I'd say number one,

Working Americans today are richer than they used to be.

Real incomes are rising.

So it is just a fact that working Americans today are richer than they used to be.

That's number one.

Number two, inequality is also rising, which means that average numbers can often mislead because averages disguise inequalities that exist within that aggregate data set.

So number one, we're richer.

Number two, we're more than equal.

Number three, homes are getting expensive faster than Americans are getting richer.

So it can simultaneously be true that one economist can say, Americans are richer than ever.

Why are they complaining?

And another economist can say, Americans are upset about the price of homes and they're both right because housing appreciation is rising faster than incomes.

And number four, it is...

The first point that we made in this episode, simply the case that it is unusually difficult for the folks outside of the US economy to get into the US economy.

There's a no vacancy sign right now on the Hotel of America.