The Wealth of Wall Street with Oren Cass
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Salkku X. Five numbers. Five messages. Estimates. Conclusions. Power. 10 weeks to solve the code. 10 000 euros as a gift card. Salkku X is waiting for its opener. Go to the contest at power.fi.x Hey everybody, welcome to the weekly show podcast.
My name is Jon Stewart. I am the host. of this and today oh special thing tonight uh the halftime of the podcast uh we're gonna have someone do a halftime show entirely in latvian they're just gonna sing i'm still recovering from just the the anger and outrage that the right expressed over a fun musical before the center i They've gotten so weak, so thin, so feeble that they can't go 15 minutes without hearing a country song. It just, it hurts them. It hurts the country. It hurts the foundation that we were built upon to have something like that. My favorite was somebody mentioned, you know, Trump is complaining. The whole thing is in Spanish. And you're like, you know, that the name of the place you live, you know, the language that's derived from right.
Mar-a-Lago. Yeah, that ain't that that ain't from London, brother. But moving on to more important things, you know, I read an article. just recently that I've been waiting for so long to read as coming from someone from the right, which was about how our economy has been over-financialized, that the financial services has become too large a part and it's hurting ultimately the bottom line. And I'm sure that there are 50 years of left-wing economists out there who saw the article and just rolled their eyes and thought, yeah, Finally. But I was excited to see it and to see that it was written by our old pal, friend of the show. It's a title not bestowed often. Friend of the show.
How has financialization impacted worker prosperity?
And he is joining us today to discuss this article and to discuss these larger issues in general that an over-financialization of the economy may portend for the future stability of our economy. So I'm delighted to welcome back Oren Kass, Ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to reintroduce himself. His name is Oren Kass. Oren Kass. Oren, it's so nice to see you again. You are the chief economist at American Compass. And that is a self-imposed title?
Imposed is good. Yes, self-imposed. Okay.
The founder and chief economist at American Compass Think Tank, contributing opinion writer for the Financial Times and the New York Times, which is why I wanted to talk to you. You recently wrote an op-ed in the New York Times. And it is an op-ed I have been waiting for, young man, for many, many years to come from someone who is more or is classified as more on the right. So to get into it, I want you to briefly explain. It was about the idea that the financialization of our economy is a net negative. But I want you to give just sort of a brief description of this op-ed and sort of what motivated you to write it.
Sure. Well, thank you for having me on to talk about it. These are always a lot of fun. You know, financialization, I guess we probably have to define it as a starting point. It is essentially, and there are all sorts of technical definitions, but essentially refers to the increasing role of financial markets in the economy where they sort of become ends unto themselves and people start transacting and rejiggering and configuring businesses and taking cash out. not with any effort to create anything valuable in the real world, simply to generate more cash out of the activity.
Give some examples of what financialization specifically, what that might be.
Sure. So you see it in a lot of the kind of Wall Street firms. If you think about hedge funds, private equity funds, right? A lot of the time what they're doing is they're collecting a whole lot of money and interesting question where that money comes from. And then they're going out and looking for things that they think they can buy at one price and sell at a higher price.
What examples illustrate the effects of shareholder capitalism?
So if you're a hedge fund, right, in the case of what's called a high frequency trading hedge fund, you don't even care what you're buying and selling. You're literally building bigger fiber optic cables to try to race your trades to the floor faster so that you can get out in front of whoever else is bidding on them.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:02–2:47
2
How has financialization impacted worker prosperity?
2:47–5:18
3
What examples illustrate the effects of shareholder capitalism?
5:18–7:54
4
What policy interventions could rebuild a more equitable economy?
7:54–10:08
5
How do historical economic policies relate to today's issues?
10:08–12:31
6
What role does government play in economic stability?
12:31–14:44
7
How can we measure the effectiveness of economic policies?
14:44–18:02
8
What are the implications of current economic trends for the future?
18:02–1:34:48