Pivot
SoftBank's Investment, ABC's Trump Settlement, and Guest Co-Host Paul Krugman
Tue, 17 Dec 2024
Kara is joined by Nobel Prize-winning economist, and recently retired New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman. They discuss SoftBank's $100 billion investment in U.S. projects, ABC News settling with Donald Trump, and TikTok's latest legal setback. Then, OpenAI fires back at Elon Musk, and Apple's foldable future. Plus, Paul gets a little wonky, and weighs in on crypto's actual value, and what Trump doesn't understand about tariffs. Check out Paul's Substack: Krugman Wonks Out. Follow us on Instagram and Threads at @pivotpodcastofficial. Follow us on Bluesky at @pivotpod.bsky.social. Follow us on TikTok at @pivotpodcast. Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is SoftBank's $100 billion investment plan?
And contemporaneous with this big rise in crypto prices has been an explosion of sports gambling.
Also meme stocks, like GameStock is also, so that's probably a general phenomenon of people, you know, they probably would say, oh, I'm being a forward-looking investor, but the psychology is really that of gambling or, and so, you know, put all these things together, it's still kind of astonishing that it's gone this high, but then, you know, the National Bitcoin Reserve
Amounts to a huge government bailout, which is, you know, for a libertarian invention, it's... Very fair point.
That is actually, it is. Well, they talk about free speech and then they try to censor everybody, but that's another issue. So one of the other ones you wrote about today was about trade as we take two things. One is your piece about trade and whether Trump knows what he's doing around tariffs, which you basically conclude no. No.
But then at the same time, as we take this, news just broke that Trump and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son will announce a $100 billion investment in the U.S. over the next four years, which they say will create 100,000 jobs based on AI and related infrastructure. It's very thin on information. As you know, Masayoshi Son has had his share of failures and wins. He's sort of one of these, you know—
There's a book coming out about him, basically, you know, that he just goes up and down. Like, it's just he's really quite a risk taker. So talk a little bit about this idea of Trump pushing the trade issues and at the same time saying, I'm going to bring corruption.
I'm going to give free—anyone who invests more than a billion dollars in this country is going to get, like, right through the regulatory ticket without a problem.
Yeah. So, first of all, you know, the fact that somebody's bringing money to the United States, you know, the regulations are there for a reason. Now, if you want to fix the regulations, fine. But to say, well, you know, bring a billion dollars to the U.S., it'll— And I'm not sure what. We won't care if you're polluting the air. We won't care if you're poisoning the water.
But what's really funny for somebody certainly with my background is there's a... I'm trying to figure out if there's a way to say this and that it doesn't totally put people off. But it is a fact, it's an accounting identity that the trade balance plus... net capital flows into the United States equals zero. The balance of payments always balances.
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Chapter 2: How has ABC's settlement with Trump impacted the news?
Apple's like China. That's a really interesting insight that they've got to sort of manage their decline.
That's on my, not even decline. It's just downshifting. It's sort of, you've been driving along the highway at 70 miles an hour, and now you're on local streets where you really shouldn't be going above 30. And how do you, can you make the adjustment to driving safely under these conditions?
No, Paul. Foldable phones. Foldable phones.
Foldable phones. Will you get one? I wait until the last, you know, I only have my current phone because my last phone was viciously attacked by a tile floor. Okay.
I'm getting one right away. You know that. I'm getting a phone.
Yeah, well, different business. I want this phone.
I have wanted a Photable for a long time. I've been bugging them about it. My whole, when I saw Cook recently, I was like, you know, the app economy's over. You get that, right? Because it's all going to be. And by the way, they're getting, to be fair, they're getting very good reviews for their integration of ChatGPT into Photable. the iPhone right now.
So some of the things will be services, which have been growing like crazy at Apple comparatively.
I've actually invested in one of those poor pay search engines that doesn't do AI. Oh, okay. Because anything I actually really need to research, I have a much better idea than ChatGPT of what's actually a relevant result. For now, Paul. It just gets in the way. For now. No, eventually. Lots of things can be replaced. And then me as well.
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of TikTok's legal challenges?
Let's just say watch this space.
Oh, oh, Paul Krugman is AI, robotic Paul Krugman.
Robot me, yeah.
Robot you. So, well, I love when you keep saying watch this space.
I love, it's such a... Well, you know, there's, first of all, I'm talking with various people on various things, and I also have some constraints because, you know, and just in general, I'm still on the payroll at the Times through the end of this month, and also I don't want to be one of those people who trashes their place on the way out. Yeah.
Yeah, that's for later. But no, I'm kidding. But you're going to do merch, obviously, Paul Krugman merch. There's going to be t-shirts.
Well, let's try. I don't know. I haven't quite figured that one out yet. Skims?
You're going to do a deal with Kim Kardashian for Skims or something like that?
Look, I'm 72 and fighting it, but I don't think fashion is going to be my thing.
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