Part One
Econ Buff Podcast #41 with Rex Pjesky & Ryan Mattson
Dr. Ryan Mattson and Dr. Rex Pjesky talk with me about inflation and potential policies responses to it. We respond to a Washington Post article proposing different things the White House can do to combat the current inflation episode. Dr. Mattson reacts to the first proposal which suggests national reindustrialization. He describes the economic theory behind inflation and monetary policy, setting up the whole episode. Dr. Pjesky discusses the suggestion to stop federal spending, what it means, and how fiscal and monetary policy interact. He believes this is one of the few decent suggestions and enlightens us on the interaction between monetary policy and fiscal policy. Dr. Mattson addresses Claudia Sahm’s proposal control the Covid Pandemic to fight inflation. He praises Sahm’s work in general but criticizes this article as off base in terms of macro theory and practice. Dr. Pjesky explains how investing in child care will not be a solution to inflation. We spend the rest of the episode exploring this question. We field questions from the audience about various inflation and unemployment ideas. Dr. Mattson and Dr. Pjesky address what the labor force is and how it interacts with inflation. I lay out my view on how culture and economics interact. Dr. Pjesky discusses how economists identify whether a trend can be causing another trend. Dr. Mattson argues that family structure does not have macroeconomic consequences and I push back. Finally, we explore the nature of wages, government intervention, and inflation.
Photo by Joshua Sukoff on Unsplash
Transcript
Stitzel: Hello, and welcome to the EconBuff Podcast. I'm your host, Lee Stitzel. Today, we have a very special episode in front of a live studio audience. Thanks to all of Dr. Mattson’s class for being here today. We're going to try to take an opportunity, if any of those questions come up, to be able to field them. So, we'll see how that goes on this particular episode. With me today is Dr. Mattson, who's a professor here at West Texas A&M, and a research associate at the Center for Financial Stability. Ryan, welcome.
Mattson: Thank you. It's good to be here.
Stitzel: Also with us today is Dr Rex Pjesky, a professor of economics here at West Texas A&M. Rex, welcome back.
Pjesky: It's good to be here.
Stitzel: So, we have a cool topic today. There’s a Washington Post article titled --- What should the White House do to combat inflation? Experts weighed in with 12 ideas. This article is from earlier this year, and it just presents a very nice opportunity for us to get some economic discussion going about that. I'm going to do something relatively simple [and] just read some excerpts from these different things, and then give my guests an opportunity to weigh in on those things. So, this article starts by stating some relatively basic things. I'm gonna read these two excerpts just to get us started. So ---
“The United States is experiencing its most dramatic burst of inflation in four decades, as rising prices hit nearly every sector of the economy and create new political hurdles for the Biden administration. As the country frets over inflation and the administration ways how to react, the Washington Post asked independent experts from across the ideological Spectrum how they would respond if they controlled the White House.”
So, we're going to go through those and just get some feedback from economists on all of these things. I'm going to start with the very first one here and just progress through these ideas. The first one is titled: Make America Produce Again by Robert Hockett. Hockett is a law professor at the Cornell School of Law. He says the following,
“It should have been obvious even in February 2020 that the coronavirus was going to present the American economy with both demand-side and supply-side challenges, It should therefore also have been obvious that measures to boost demand with government programs --- such as stimulus checks and unemployment benefits --- would fuel inflationary pressures if not accompanied by measures to boost supply and the availability of goods and products. After two years after our pandemic began, policymakers are now finally talking about supply chains, as they should have in early 2020.”
“Attention to truck routes, warehouses loading docks, is helpful but it isn't nearly enough in our present environment --- not in a world where we needlessly import so much of what we used to produce.”
“The president and the White House Cabinet, in consultation with experts from industry, should plan a national-industrialization across industries in every region of the country, and the Federal Financing Bank within Treasury can fund projects devised by all relevant federal agencies.”
I'm going to give this one to Ryan. Give me your thoughts on this idea about Making America Produce Again as a way to fight inflation.
Mattson: So Hockett’s talking about a supply-side argument here. He gives some lip service to the demand-side arguments, that if we have an increase in aggregate demand we'd get inflation. I have two issues with this analysis. And the first one is that what he's talking about is a long-run increase in the aggregate supply of the economy, which, first of all, as Keynes famously quipped: “in the long run, we're all dead.” This is going to take a lot of time to do. A lot of time to change over. And from a macroeconomic perspective, this could take 10-20-30 years before we see the effects of it. So, I don't see this as a solution to the short-run inflation problem that we have. The second aspect is in macroeconomics. Yes, he talks about supply-side and demand-side. But all of our production is also our expenditure. This would have in the short-run a boost to aggregate demand that would be, by definition, inflationary. We build up these trucks. We build up this infrastructure. But someone's earning wages from this. So, this is going to end up pushing up inflation even more so, if it is successful, and if it is credible on that. Certainly, have other opinions on how the Fed is the driver of this inflation as opposed to anything we see in the supply-side.
Stitzel: I thought your first comment was going to be: why are we asking law professors about economics questions?
Mattson: Well, our Fed chair is a law, is a JD. So, I suppose we can do that.
Stitzel: We've already opened that. We can't put it back in Pandora's box, huh?
Mattson: Yeah.
Stitzel: Is this even true? When reading this, the first thing that jumped out to me after two years after the pandemic, policy makers are just now talking about supply chains. I just don't think that's true at all, or at least they're not running in the same circles that I've been running.
Mattson: No, they've been talking about supply chains before, in fact. You have a previous podcast where, I think, you have a podcast with Dr. Pjesky and myself, where we go back and forth whether this is a supply-side shock or demand-side shock. And I keep coming down on the demand-side. Where we could see a supply-side shock is the expectations of inflation, and how firms would write the contracts, and how they would decide what prices they're going to be charging on the market, based on what they can supply. But moving the short-run aggregate supply curve, in a Keynesian context, is very painful. That would be more of a Volcker policy where we contract the money supply not boosting long-run aggregate supply.
Stitzel: I think we have an opportunity to, kind of, set some of the groundwork in general. If we're talking about policies in the context of these suggestions, is moving the supply around actually going to be something that potentially fights inflation?
Mattson: In a macroeconomic context --- no.
Stitzel: O.K. So, that's just one of those things I think is going to crop up several times here. O.K. I think [the] last question that I want to ask from this section, I mean, [is] we’re explicitly talking about, and he uses the phrase “national re-industrialization across industries in every region of the country.” I appreciate the framework that you're coming from, because you're saying: look, if we take this from a Keynesian model, and just value freely about what the policy would be, does it work or not?
Mattson: Yeah.
Stitzel: But give me some commentary here on this idea that this is a very centralized approach to this. What are your views on that? Rex, also feel free to jump in here.
Pjesky: Well, I think that the example that he uses from history that suggests that such a plan could work --- I find to be a little misplaced. So, in the article he, you know, states correctly that we did do something like this around 1940 when World War II started. So, the United States at the time was producing almost no military equipment whatsoever. President Roosevelt told industry to start building planes, ships, bullets. etc. And of course, we all know the history of that. We did. All right, we know the production of the United States of planes and other machines of war increased more than, I think, anyone at the time at the start of this would have even viewed possible. The concern that I have with this is that the economy in its state right now --- and the goals for such a program if it was going to be successful, the economy is so heterogeneous, and --- [is] no one knows exactly what we need to build. When you are about to go to war, and that's your single focus, then it's very, very clear what you need to build. You need to build the most advanced planes, ships, and military equipment that you can with the technology available. That’s a very, very easy question to ask. That's a very, very easy question to answer. But now, today in 2022 --- when you go forth with the assumption that the U.S economy is too de-industrialized, and we want to re-industrialize the economy --- the concern that I have with that is that no government, or no board of industry experts, are going to have enough knowledge to actually decide what things we need; because building stuff is really, really easy. Building stuff that fits together in a way that benefits citizens, consumers, [and] households (however you want to frame this) turns out to be incredibly difficult.
Mattson: Well and going back to inflation --- the example he brings up is we nationally industrialize. We have this big national push. But that was in an environment of very low inflation, and, in fact, deflation. The Great Depression -- almost said the Great Recession there, but O.K. we can go there too. The Great Depression was a massively deflationary decade. And this kind of a historical example that he's bringing up is not a cure for inflation. In fact, the result of this is that inflation began to kick back up in the 40s and the 50s, as we probably wanted from that kind of a stimulus.
Stitzel: I mean, it’s obvious Rex's critique is correct here. But even if we said: let's increase the amount that is produced ---- increasing the amount that you are supplying, in areas that people are not interested in, [then] what it is that you're producing does nothing to inflation. That's worse.
Mattson: Right.
Stitzel: It's wasteful.
Mattson: Right. You build a lot of things people don’t use.
Stitzel: O.K. So, this is a perfect segue to our second point here. Our second point here comes to us from Brian, I'm gonna say this, Riedl who's a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He's arguing we should stop the spending.
“A year ago, the Federal Reserve forecast that inflation would increase by 1.8 percent in 2021. Instead, consumer prices jumped 7 percent --- the highest rate since 1982.”
“Yet Washington poured gasoline on this fire by enacting the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan in March. This surge in spending is a key driver of higher prices faced by consumers. To combat it, lawmakers should begin pairing back the portions of the remaining $500 billion in scheduled spending from the rescue plan, but Biden's Build Back Better legislation on the back burner and resist new spending sprees.”
Rex, let me start with you. What's your thought on stopping the spending as a potential inflation fighting mechanism?
Pjesky: This would probably, of all the 12 things that are in this article, this is probably the one that fits, sort of, the standard story of economics best with how to start inflation. I think most economists --- and both of you can correct me if you think I'm wrong about this. Probably most economists would say that we are having inflation right now, because we have had a massive increase in government spending that was funded --- not by extra taxation, not by more traditional borrowing through the bond market, but through money creation where the Treasury and the Federal Reserve basically worked together to facilitate the spending that Congress wanted to do, that Congress passed. So, when you put money into the economy --- especially at such a rapid rate as we've seen in the last two years, and there's no counterbalance to that at all in any context whatsoever --- [then] the only thing that you should probably expect to happen in a macroeconomic sense is that you get a bunch of inflation; which is exactly what we have seen in the past year, or perhaps a little longer, at this point. So, the solution here is to basically roll that back. So, if inflation is caused by excessive money creation by the Fed to finance government spending, then the solution to inflation would be to simply stop that process.
Stitzel: Is that a solution, or just a jumping off point, right? So, if we've spent if we spent too much, [then] does stopping the spending reverse the inflation? Or does it just simply stop making it worse and how would that work out?
Pjesky: Well, I mean, inflation would go back to zero. And that's kind of an interesting question to ask if I understood your question correctly. If inflation goes back to zero, or two percent, or whatever the target would be, [then] that doesn't mean that average prices are going to go back to where they were in 2020. And I don't think that anybody has the specific goal to actually cause deflation to, sort of, average out the past three to five years of --- you know, by the time we get this solved it'll be three to five years of, you know --- this economic overheating. One of the things that I tried to do as I was reading through all of these proposals --- that were made by these different, you know, different individuals with a variety of expertise --- is to read them with the mind to take them seriously, all right? So, if we're going to, you know, truly stop inflation --- you know, how would this idea, or that idea that maybe somebody else has that's not me --- what are the merits of those ideas? And what are they trying to accomplish? And is it possible for those goals to be accomplished? And is inflation reduction included of those realistic goals? I tried to take each one of these seriously. And so, with your question --- will this actually stop the inflation --- if the author's assumption is correct that inflation was caused by money creation, then stopping the money creation will stop the inflation. There's absolutely no question about that.
Stitzel: So, we've got two components there. And so, I really want to focus on this first thing first, right? So, one of the things that's not clear, I think to non-economists, is what does fighting inflation mean? Do we have to reverse the things that we’re doing in order to undo the inflation? Is that how inflation is fought? Or is inflation a fire and you simply stop adding fuel to it will burn itself out? Maybe this is not an analogy that you like, but I'll kick this one to Ryan. [What are your] thoughts on what inflation fighting actually looks like?
Mattson: Well, inflation fighting --- and I do like Dr. Pjesky’s point about trying to treat each of these seriously, and I might not have taken this point as seriously as he did; because as someone who leans towards kind of a monstrous position on inflation fighting --- for me this author buried the lead. There's a little clause in there about:
“The problem that once America's output capacity taps out, any additional stimulus will simply bring inflation [rather than additional production] --- especially when financed in part by Federal Reserve bond purchases.”
So, I'm actually going to take the blame off of the federal government on this one and put the blame back on the Fed; because the $1.9 trillion he talks about was backed and financed fully by the Federal Reserve, along with $2 trillion more of money creation that was going on by the Federal Reserve. So, if we're looking at inflation fighting, I'm not sure I would look at fiscal policy all that much. O.K. So, let's say we stop a lot of the spending. But is the Fed still generating a huge amount of money supply that's going into the financial system? So, what we want to do is --- we want to slow this inflation down. We definitely don't want to go to deflation, because deflation is coupled with large recessions. If we’re going with a forest fire argument, then yeah. This is an out-of-control fire. And what we need to do is contain it. And we can't really go down and bring it down. What we can do is, you know, build up those barriers, try and keep it from spreading, and wait for it to burn itself out. But Dr. Pjesky, again, very rightly points out as well that this is not that prices are going to go back down. They're just going to stop increasing as quickly. And that's what we want to see. Again, from a Keynesian perspective, you want moderate inflation. The magic 2% number. We're way off of that. And it's still right now an unexpectedly high number. When people start expecting that high number, then they start spending differently. And that would also contribute to inflation. The fire is going to spread. And I'm not sure that stopping spending is going to convince people to not spend more of their paycheck at the beginning of the month, anticipating it will be worth less at the end of the month.
Stitzel: So, you anticipated what my second point was going to be [which] was, you know, how the spending is financed is the key driver here. So, you've gone right to that point. So, I really want to synthesize this, right? So that the couple ideas in inflation fighting that we're looking at here is [that] you are not trying to get back to the price levels that you were…
Mattson: Yeah.
Stitzel:…that you were at before the inflation started. And the reason for that is that inflation is an increase in prices. So, stopping the inflation doesn't mean going back to the prices. It means stopping any further…
Mattson: Yeah.
Stitzel:…increases in the price. That's what we mean by inflation fighting. Deflation, as you've stated, has its own kind of problems. Probably ones --- I don't know if Rex would agree with this, probably ones --- that we would consider worse actually than inflation, because you’re immediately going to go into a recession. So, we're not really looking for that, but what we're looking for is to actually, sort of, stop the bleeding in terms of that. And you think --- it seems maybe there's disagreement between the two of you whether stopping the spending (a fiscal the government spending) ----…
Mattson: Hmm mmm.
Stitzel:…[whether] stopping that is actually going to do that or not. Is that based on how you view that spending being financed? Or is that fundamental to where the spending is coming from?
Mattson: For me, it's a bit of both; because if inflation is too much money chasing too few goods, the Fed is the one that has the control of the money supply. Fiscal policy, at least from my view and my bias in the past, has not been successful in containing inflation or expanding inflation, unless it's massive like World War II. So, I just don't see this second option as having that much effect one way or the other, unless it's a giant, giant push, much larger than $1.9 trillion.
Pjesky: Well, I mean, I agree with everything that Dr. Mattson said. Of course, the, you know, the assumption that the article was making --- and the assumption that I would make personally, even though this isn't about what my views are necessarily --- what would be that the, you know, the spending that the federal government has done had to be financed from the Fed. You know, there's obviously no way that the government could have raised taxes that much to finance that spending to redirect, you know, resources from private to public use directly through taxation. And also, I'm not sure that through the more, you know, traditional borrowing mechanisms that the federal government might use --- that don't have anything to do with the Fed --- would have would have been sufficient to raise the (what is it) $6-7-8 trillion dollars of excess spending that we’ve seen in the last couple of years. So, I, you know, I agree with Ryan completely in everything that he said; but I do think that in this particular case, the Fed’s finance of the spending was a simple, practical matter. Theoretically, it does not have to be that way. The federal government has other ways to raise funds of course. But given the magnitude, and the political environment of the last couple of years, I don’t think that those were options. It would have been --- it is a completely different conversation --- a very good thing to think about. And I haven’t really seen anything on this. What if the Fed would have just refused?
Mattson: Hmm mmm.
Pjesky: Could they have done that? And what would have happened?
Mattson: We're kind of in that vein. So, comparing to the Great Recession, for example --- the $700 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was not followed by inflation at all, in fact followed by deflation.
Pjesky: Yes.
Mattson: So then, if the federal government could have done this stimulus without the backing of the Fed, do you think then the inflation rate would have been more controlled?
Pjesky: Oh, I mean, absolutely. Absolutely. There may have been other, you know, effects. Maybe been other effects of the economy. And, you know, here's something else that's my view as well --- that is again, sorry Lee it's a little out of context, you know --- the stimulus that we've seen, especially at the beginning of the pandemic, was different than stimulus that we've seen, like, in the 2007-2010, you know, time period with the Great Recession; in that a lot of the federal government policy, regardless of how it was financed or designed, was in fact designed to take people out of the workforce, as opposed to putting people back to work. The overarching goal of all of the actions done, by both the Fed and the federal government during the Great Recession, was to try in one way or another to put people back to work. During the pandemic, especially during 2020, we had the express exact opposite goal, where a lot of the government policy was designed so that people could stay home from work and not work. So, we wanted to stimulate the economy. We wanted to have paycheck protection programs, and other forms of stimulus and assistance that went into the economy --- to enable people to keep paying their mortgages, to keep paying their, you know, car loans, to, sort of, you know, keep the human and physical capital together that represents the fundamental infrastructure of a market economy together --- so that when the pandemic was over, we could just [and] the idea was the noble goal of this is that we could, kind of, go on as were after that. So, all of that was to prevent financial crisis. Anytime the federal government or the Federal Reserve stimulates the economy, [then] one of the goals is to prevent financial crisis. But the nature of the conditions at hand meant that we wanted people to stay at home because we had a contagious disease running around. So, I think people really, really underestimated the impact that those things would have on the inflation rate, even up to the beginning of this year. You know, a year --- not this calendar year but even as little as a year --- ago or so, I mean, they were forecasting an inflation rate of 1.8%. They were obviously very, very wrong about that. So, you know, how the economists and other forecasters at the Fed got this so wrong is a very, very interesting question unto me. And I hope we learn the right lessons from that --- whatever those are.
Stitzel: Our next point here is actually argued that we should control the pandemic as a way to fight inflation. So, let me read this really quickly; and then basically Ryan, you'll have an opportunity to respond to this, and to what Rex just said, because these go together obviously. So, our next expert here is Claudia Sahm. Claudia is the Director of Macroeconomic Research at the Jain Family Institute. She says:
“Consumer prices rose 7 percent in 2021 --- the fastest pace in 40 years --- and COVID deaths doubled more than doubled to more than 800,000. These two facts are bound together. The solution to today's high inflation, as with labor shortages and supply chain disruptions, is clear: Contain the pandemic”.
“…what's pandemic-related and what's not is impossible to know for certain. But COVID's fingerprints on inflation are unmistakable.”
“We do not have a monetary policy crisis. We have a COVID crisis. In fact, up to this point, fiscal and monetary policy have been relatively bright spot in the pandemic and notably better than after the Great Recession. Yes, inflation is high.”
Mattson: All right. So, I do like Dr. Sahm’s analysis in this whole thing, in terms of the effect of the global pandemic. But I think what's missing here is that whether it's the supply or the demand side, the largest shock of 2020 --- and I don't want to say COVID was not a large shock, it was a large shock, but the largest shock --- was the lockdown. So, yes. We have people who are getting sick. We have people who are dying [and] people who are taking two weeks off of work and not able to get there. But then, we have an extremely large amount, and a larger amount, of people who have been told to stay home. And as Dr. Pjesky then again points out with all of this is the fiscal policy was meant to keep people from working. So, we have a large GDP contraction, somewhere along the lines of -10%, caused by this what amounts to a regulatory action, in order to fight a global pandemic, which is a right decision [and] is a good decision in my opinion. But we need to recognize that --- it's not [that] we've already, well I suppose I can’t say we've already controlled COVID --- but the effect of COVID is going to be less than 2020 and 2021. The major effect is the fact that we all came out of lockdown. The major effect is that restaurants can now have a 100%, as opposed to 10%-30%-50%. The major effect is people who've been sitting home for a year are now going out and wanting to spend, and this is a demand-side argument. So, I think that from a microeconomic perspective, and from a wage perspective, I think this is a very good argument of returning to some stability in labor markets. But this is not a macroeconomic argument in the same way that going into lockdown and coming out of lockdown is. And so, I feel like she's taking a supply-side argument, when I'm just like the first argument we talked about, [that] it should be a demand-side argument that we're making. And what she's been proposing is also still inflationary in the short-run. We're going to push out supply that pushes out someone's production, income, [and] expenditure. That's demand. This is going to cause inflation in the short-run. So, I don't think that this is a particularly convincing argument either.
Stitzel: It’s worth noting here right the shock is the pandemic itself, right? I mean, I think sometimes we get so locked in on what it is that we can do policy wise; and then, we look at the fallout and then say…
Mattson: Hmm mmm.
Stitzel:…and I agree by the way everything you said actually about the problem that we have is related to the lockdown. You know, but in the same way Rex just asked the question: what If the Fed refused? Well, what if policymakers just refused? I mean, you still have a supply shock that is and, you know, we could maybe talk about what the demand-side shock would be. There's still a shock in the system…
Mattson: Hmm mmm.
Stitzel:…either way.
Mattson: Hmm mmm.
Stitzel: Like, if you do nothing --- and that might be a bigger or a smaller shock. So, I mean, I think there's some sense in what's being argued here…
Mattson: Hmm mmm.
Stitzel:…has some truth, but I just don't see how you tie that to the current episode of inflation. And, you know, when I see a quote like “we do not have a monetary policy crisis.” Full stop. I just don't see how you get to that point, given that economists are going to tell you when we have inflation it’s a monetary problem.
Mattson: Hmm mmm.
Stitzel: So, are you? I see what --- you've said it, right, where she's talking about micro issues and labor market shortages. And there are actually a lot of interesting dynamics, probably worthy of its own episode on a podcast. But we're here to talk about, we’re here to talk about….
Mattson: Yeah.
Stitzel:…inflation. How did we not have a monetary problem, whether regardless of how you feel about lockdown?
Mattson: Well, and what she said is true. It shouldn't be a monetary problem, because if you look at, say, monetary policy in the Great Recession --- monetary policy failed. We didn't get the inflation we wanted. Monetary policy --- if you want to look at the 7%-8% inflation we’re experiencing now, that's actually a monetary policy success. We got the inflation that we wanted. We just got too much of it. So, the Fed in in all of its creative action to finance fiscal policy to push more money into the system, did exactly what a good central bank should have done, and run up the money supply as quickly and as high as possible. The resulting inflation is a result not of a supply-side issue, but the Fed not contracting back down in terms of the money supply, so that we get back to target. They push too much in and they got what they wanted.
Stitzel: So, the 1.8% inflation forecast was wishful thinking. It's like this is what we want to see?
Mattson: Well, had they contracted the money supply and raised interest rates sooner, [then] maybe we could have been there.
Stitzel: Right, but that's them saying almost, like, this is what we would want is what you've said, right?
Mattson: Yes.
Stitzel: They didn't forecast zero inflation. They didn't forecast 10% inflation.
Mattson: No, no. They did the 2% inflation.
Stitzel: Yeah, but, but...
Mattson: Because and that makes sense. Because we want people to think 2%.
Stitzel: I'm saying there's no model there. Obviously, they didn't run things through a model and spit that number out.
Mattson: Oh, I'm sure.
Stitzel: The said if our policy --- well, actually they did. They said if all the things that we did in response to COVID was right, we want a little bit of inflation. What’s the ideal inflation? Some arbitrarily smaller number than 2%.
Mattson: Yeah.
Stitzel: 1.8% sounds good. Let's just put that out as our forecast.
Mattson: Sure, yeah O.K.
Stitzel: So, I'm too cynical, but this is the idea.
Mattson: No, that sounds about right.
Stitzel: O.K., Rex. Thoughts on this?
Pjesky: All right, yeah. I mean, you know, I could try at this point. I don't even know what control COVID means at this point, right? So, it appears that it's out there. And again, the question in these circumstances, whether you're in economics, whether you're in public health, [or] whether you're in public policy is you want to make absolutely sure that you learn the right lessons. So, you know, the questions that circulate in my mind right now are things like, you know, why on Earth did this go so differently than we thought that it could possibly go one way or another looking forward from March 2020? So, I don't think that anybody in March 2020 could have or would have forecast a world in which we live right now at this date. So, you know, we've tried all the measures that that were supposed to be taken. We locked down. You know, some people said that we should have locked down harder. Some people say that we should not have locked down at all. So, we've tried, you know, we've --- we have a vaccine. We've had masks and other protective measures that we can take. But yet, you know, despite all those things, COVID is still with us. And, you know, we still hear people all the time getting it. And it's still a significant health threat even right now. And so, to me --- the whole basis of this article, I can't get on board with from the beginning. So, you know, controlling COVID in March 2020, of course, would have been the answer. But I do not think that's the right line of thinking today, because and, you know, unless you would want to be really specific on what you meant by controlling the COVID pandemic.
Stitzel: Well, from the article she’s just calling for more of the public health, more of the public information, masks, testing, [and] vaccines.
Pjesky: That for regardless of whatever reason --- it didn't work.
Stitzel: Yeah.
Pjesky: So, you know, maybe they didn't work because they were not tried hard enough. But I, you know, then you get into a political process question. You know, could we have done these things harder, what, you know, whatever that means.
Mattson: Lower interest rates even more.
Pjesky: Yeah. Well, I mean, just like, you know, locking down even more. So, you know, absolutely, you know, forbidding people from going places anywhere. You know, I mean, there's always more measures you could take. But you reach that political limit where you just don't even need to think about these things because they're not practically possible.
Mattson: Well, and it's, you know, if we're going to be arguing inflation --- it's a monetary policy. And ending COVID or controlling COVID or finding, so this is ---- that's a public health policy. And I'm not sure I want inflation considerations going into public policy for health for example. Well, if I'm getting sick, I'm not concerned about inflation rates and the Fed funds rate.
Stitzel: And you don't want the opposite either.
Mattson: Yeah.
Stitzel: I don't want my public health officials fighting inflation. And I don't want my Federal Reserve fighting public health issues.
Mattson: Yeah.
Stitzel: So, I mean, maybe that’s controversial, and maybe Claudia would disagree with us. But I think --- O.K.
Mattson: I think it's a separation of powers, but yeah.
Stitzel: Did you have more about that?
Mattson: No, probably not until another topic.
Stitzel: O.K.
Mattson: So…
Stitzel: I'm gonna remind my guests here that this is a podcast and not a lecture, so we can meander at our leisure through the topics, so long as our audience here finds it interesting. And the reason I say that is because the next proposal to fight inflation is that we should invest in childcare. So, this is Lauren Melodia --- apologies if I mangled the name there --- is the Deputy Director of Macroeconomic Analysis at the Roosevelt Institute, and she says the following:
“Although the unemployment rate is falling faster than expected, the pandemic continues to fundamentally disrupt our economy. Many people are choosing to remain out of the labor market altogether until public health conditions and disruptions subside, which in turn limits productive capacity and can raise prices. One policy that could address many of these issues across sectors at once has already passed the White House and is waiting Senate action: public investment in our childcare system.”
“Childcare is the backbone of our economy and can enable all parents --- who historically have some of the highest labor force participation rates across all genders, races and education levels --- to get and keep a job. But as of 2018, many communities across the country are childcare deserts --- a result of our nation's complex history of underfunding, undervaluing, under-compensating care work and women's labor more broadly.”
“First, America's historical and continued reliance on unpaid care workers drives women’s wages down throughout the economy.”
“Second, because of this dynamic, the childcare industry is built around low wages and thin, unsustainable profits….”
“Lastly, the government's existing consumer subsidies program, while making childcare more affordable for many, has not resulted in the growth of the supply of childcare.”
“By making supply-side childcare investments --- building new childcare centers; offering loans and grants to existing or recently closed small business childcare providers; and offering universal pre-K --- we could both enable parents to reenter the workforce and create new jobs in childcare.”
“Insofar as today's inflation --- or fear of future inflation is linked to labor market tightness or dynamics, investment in childcare is critical for minimizing ongoing disruptions and expanding people's ability to work across all industries in our economy.”
Rex, I'm gonna kick this one to you. There's a lot there, but just give me your initial reaction to that as an inflation fighting weapon.
Pjesky: I mean, this is, I mean, it’s certainly not an inflation fighting mechanism at all. And so, the problems that she, you know, the problems that the author here identifies existed long before inflation reared its ugly head in our society. So, it's a very, very difficult stretch for me to be convinced that work in this area would combat inflation; because I don't see anything, any of the problems in the childcare sector of the economy being inflationary at all. So, work in that is probably not going to fight inflation. Now, it's very, I mean, this very interesting article here. And I certainly agree with her that the government through public policy could provide reform as she states it. Or, you know, I would talk in terms of incentives, you know, to, sort of, change or transform the industry in a very, very good way. So, you know, a practical problem that large numbers of people have anywhere in the United States now, or basically through time, is, you know, what to do with the kids when you need to be doing something else. You know, the kids can't take care of themselves. And, you know, sometimes adults need to do things that don't involve kids in any context whatsoever. So, a perpetual problem in society is going to be what to do with the kids in those circumstances. So, I'm very, very sympathetic to the fact that we could have massive improvements that are driven by policy. We could have massive improvements in in the way we finance and deliver childcare in the United States. But it’s not going to fight inflation. And again, my best evidence for this is that she, you know, even identifies a year of 2018, but she identifies this as a long-term problem. Inflation is something that has only been a problem for the past year. So, I think that these two things just simply are not related.
Stitzel: O.K. so, we have a question here. You're not going to be able to hear it. I'll probably edit this very slightly. But I’ll repeat the question for the audience that's listening along.
[Speaks to student]. You have a question? Go ahead. Yeah. So, the question from the audience is relatively straightforward.
“Given that there's an observed trend towards actually fewer parents staying at home, a lower proportion of parents staying at home, how can this be a cause in the manner that the author is arguing?”
Pjesky: All right. It's --- I mean, a very good comment, and I think that's a proper way to think about this question. And in fact, I address your concern in my notes that I have right in front of me interestingly enough. So, the author makes the statement that --- you know, let me see if I can find it exactly --- so, parents who's historically. [and] this is quoting from the article.
“…parents --- who historically have had some of the highest labor force participation rates across all genders, races, and education levels --- [they need to] get and keep a job.”
Because basically that's not an exact quote from the article, but that's basically it. So, my --- the question that I scribbled in in the margin here is the author says that this is historically true. So, I asked the question: are they still? And my thinking was just exactly like your thinking was. So, if parents are able to work at relatively high levels compared to non-parents --- all right, then what quite frankly, and what I would ask the author of this --- what's the problem again? So, and not to disagree with the author, but the, sort of, like, pushed them to show their work. So, let me turn the argument around a little bit and put it in a different context. Something that other people could say in a different context would be something like this --- all right, we are concerned that college is expensive, all right. Is college expensive right now? Of course, it is. College is very expensive right now. You know what I paid for tuition at Oklahoma State in the early 90s is much lower than what you guys are paying for tuition right now. So, I remember I got a $600 per semester scholarship, which doesn’t sound like anything to you guys, right? Well, that that paid my tuition. So, it was a full tuition ride. So, from 1990-1994, tuition at Oklahoma State University --- and I hope I remember the numbers correctly --- but the tuition at Oklahoma State University was about $600 a semester, O.K.? And you guys are paying about what? $5,000? You know, and this is also comparing our one school to a much higher quality research institution. So, I'll plug myself there, where, you know, where I teach now. So, but, but, but! At the same time, more students are able to attend college, all right? More people are able to get a degree. So, can you use that fact to just claim: ah, there's no problem in education finance or delivery? You know, you all say it's too expensive. But I come back and say: well, more of you guys are here, all right? More students are here. So, there must not be an affordability problem. Is that reasonable? I think those are parallel arguments. On one hand, I do think that it's incumbent on people that make these arguments to show their work, all right? One thing that is true about experts is this --- experts show their work. I don't really fault the author of this for not completely showing the work on this, because this is a short, you know, what is a 600–700-hundred-word argument here. So, it's not possible show work. I imagine if you went to this individual’s, you know, Internet web page and stuff, I'll bet there's a lot of work to be shown here. But I think that it's a great credit to you that you would ask that question, because that should be the first question that anybody asks. And other people in this line of thinking actually question the notion that inflation is a problem at, all right? So, we say inflation is a problem because it's high. Well, it's like, why is that a problem all, right? Again, that is the first question that you should ask in these kinds of things when someone presents you with some sort of problem. Well, why is this the problem, all right? Why is this a problem? What’s going on that would make this a concern, because it really --- the answer to that question really --- is going to influence the next step that you need to that you need to take, O.K.? Because if we have a problem in health, in sorry, in childcare finance in terms of affordability or access or something like that, [then] the policy response to that would depend greatly if we had a situation where parents could not work because of lack of childcare. It doesn't look like perhaps we have that problem, because as the article says, and as you have, sort of, found that we do have a lot of parents working, all right? So, those two characterizations of the problem lead to solutions that might be different from one another. So, if you want to diagnose a problem or identify a problem, if you don't diagnose the problem correctly, [then] there's absolutely no way you're going to come up with any kind of useful solution whatsoever.
Mattson: He's got a response for you.
Pjesky: Sure, go ahead.
Audience: That makes sense.
Stitzel: So, the question from the audience is:
“Given that there is a trend increase in the number of single parent homes --- a long-term trend there --- is this a societal issue with economic ramifications, rather than a fundamentally economic problem?”
Mattson: Yeah.
Stitzel: Ryan, go ahead feel this.
Stitzel: So, I'm going to take a macroeconomics perspective on this, because again, I think I agree with you this is potentially a societal problem rather than an inflation problem. So, we've --- what you've pointed out from FRED is that you've got increasing numbers of single parent households, which may or may not be in and of itself a problem, so long as a single parents are able to successfully and healthfully take care of those children, right? If they have the means to support them, get them through school, keep them fed and healthy, [then] shouldn't be an issue. So, let me go from the micro then, because I would consider that a micro issue to the macro. The labor force participation rate --- so yeah. Let's say we have more and more single parent households, but what we've had is also more and more people dropping out of the labor force, even before COVID. This was a trend long before COVID. The first big labor force participation rate bumped down was 2008-2009 in the wake of the Great Recession. These people left the labor force, and they didn't come back. And this is an extremely, well I'd say, it's a larger number, it goes down from, say, 67% to about…
Pjesky: 63%.
Mattson:….63%...
Pjesky: Yeah.
Mattson:…62%, which for macro terms is…
Pjesky: Huge.
Mattson:…pretty large. I would say that this is not an inflation issue at all. It's not going to have any effect. In the same way I'd argue, and probably the way I teach is a bit different from Dr. Stitzel and Dr. Pjesky. I don't think minimum wage is a macro issue at all. If you ask me if minimum wage is going to increase or decrease inflation, I'll shrug my shoulders and say: I don't think it’ll matter either way, because I don't think it's large enough to affect that. So, if you're going to argue for minimum wage, you need to argue from a microeconomic perspective. You need to argue from --- if you're looking at fairness and equality or justice etc., [then] this issue that she's arguing with investing in childcare which as a parent (and I think is Dr. Pjesky and Dr. Stitzel and I are all parents, so we understand how difficult that is and that's where sympathy comes in for that) so well sir I can certainly argue as --- a macroeconomist [perspective]. Hey, taking care of kids is going to lead to better growth outcomes. Making sure that if they're a single parent or double parent household that the kids are still healthy in 10-15-20 years --- assuming they can then afford university anyway --- we’ll make them smarter, healthier, more productive, earning more wages, and doing better in life. That is nowhere an inflationary argument. Inflation is everywhere and always a monetary phenomenon. It's not a childcare phenomenon. So, I like these arguments that that Melodia is making. I think they're great arguments from a health perspective, in the same way I think a lockdown was a great argument for a health perspective as well. But it's not an inflation argument. And if we start arguing, these things are going to affect inflation. We need to start talking then about minimum wage as well. When you start talking about these things --- that honestly a lot of macroeconomists don't think actually affect the aggregates --- actually affect the large inflation number. So, yes. We can argue for a societal perspective of this, and what's going on in the larger culture and production and growth of the U.S economy, but it's not going to fix inflation.
Stitzel: So, let me comment briefly on that. I think you have to be really careful trying to neatly bin up issues like this into societal versus economic issues, as if those things as if there aren't economic forces and pressures that led to those kind of choices.
Mattson: Hmm mmm.
Stitzel: But neither did those economic issues singularly lead to those kind of choices. So, it's absolutely a societal problem; but that societal problem just obviously had fundamentally economic forces underlying those things, that we could talk about any number of those things, right? The growth in wages, and whether that permits --- single-family homes to be, I'm sorry, --- single parent homes to be viable. To talk about different innovations…
Mattson: Hmm mmm.
Stitzel:…that permit households to structure the things that need to happen within that household in a manner differently than has been done historically. And then that permits this even being an option, right? I mean, does…
Mattson: Hmm mmm.
Stitzel:…this kind of conversation is nonsensical even, I don't know, 50 or 100 years ago. But now to us it’s obvious, given the wealth, the resources, [and] the way that the economy is structured now that that's even an option. So, I would just caution against trying to, you know, always put societal issues upstream of econ issues, or always put econ issues upstream of societal issues. These things are intertwined, right? And I just don't --- and you can be really careful. It's not very useful to think about…
Mattson: Hmm mmm.
Stitzel:…these things as separate and abstract issues. For example, and maybe you'll --- maybe I read you wrong here, and so you can --- defend yourself. You said: well, there's no problem if you have single parent homes, so long as they feed and educate the children.
Mattson: Hmm mmm.
Stitzel: I don't think that's what's basically any research shows on that issue, is that there are other kind of problems that stem from being a single parent…
Mattson: Hmm mmm.
Stitzel:…home, that even if you then control for income, education, and these other factors, you still see outcomes that are just not going to be as good. So, if I read you right, [then] you're saying from the perspective of the economy, I mean inflation fighting and whatnot, but that goes to my point. We want to be careful trying to neatly disentangle economic from societal issues.
Mattson: But these are all microeconomic issues.
Stitzel: O.K.
Mattson: These are all microeconomics. So, if we want to call it, if we want to call it a problem on this or a challenge on that, that's going to be a microeconomic issue that needs to be taken care of through some other force other than money supply and fighting inflation. And we also, in going the other, way we cannot say that this is going to decrease inflation…
Stitzel: Yeah.
Mattson:…because there's no evidence that shows it does.
Stitzel: Yeah. Oh, and I definitely wasn't arguing that.
Mattson: Yeah.
Stitzel: But that's not what I was. I was….
Mattson: Yeah. O.K. Yeah.
Stitzel: I was making a broad comment about, you know, trying to disentangle societal from economic things.
Pjesky: Yeah, I mean, there's no reason to think that any kind of childcare reform would have any impact on inflation whatsoever.
Mattson: Yeah.
Pjesky: It doesn't mean it's not an important issue because it is.
Stitzel: So, let's get into a few of those things, because there's several things that I'd like to comment on, and then get your reaction to in what it is that Melodia has said here, right? You guys have already touched both of you on the labor force participation issue. Melodia makes the argument that this is, you know, due to public health conditions and things like this that are disrupting those labor markets. You, sort of, stole a little bit of my thunder here, Ryan already bringing up that this was a trend before; and we've actually seen some evidence of that, that I don't think that's a very good answer. So, I want to make one really broad comment that actually fits in with both of our audience comments, right, which is a fundamental way to think about things. And this is what the audience member did very well, is you can’t explain a change with another variable that doesn't have any changes in it, right, with no variation (as economists would say it). So, if there's been a straight downward trend --- that's over a long period of time, in a single parent home staying (or parents staying at home) --- then it's very difficult for us to point at this current episode of inflation (which started 18 months ago or whatever) and say: well, that is what must have caused it. In the same way, how do we look at this particular issue? We look at a labor force participation, and say: well, this must be a childcare issue. If the same sort of problems arises, it's not going to be the case that that’s fundamentally a public health thing. Not that I'm denying that that would necessarily have a role here, but it certainly can't explain it unilaterally. No comment there, O.K. Is that because you agree with me? Or because you find me so wrong you don't know where to start?
Pjesky: Well, yeah. I mean, yeah of course. I mean, long-term trends very, very unlikely will cause abrupt changes. Is that? Is that?
Stitzel: Yes.
Pjesky: Is that what you’re trying to say?
Stitzel: Absolutely.
Pjesky: So, we've had this long-term trend in labor force participation rate, which started trending upward in 1960ish or so…
Mattson: Hmm mmm.
Pjesky:…and peaked around, I mean, I even think that the local peak in labor force participation was around 2000 wasn’t it?
Mattson: I thought it was 2006.
Pjesky: So, it did kind of flatten out from the mid-90s to the…
Mattson: Yeah.
Pjesky:…you know, there was a generation where it basically was fairly flat. And then since, you know, at least in the last generation the last 15 years or so, it's been slowly trending down again. So, for that kind of gentle steady change to suddenly cause inflation to jump from 2%-8% in the span of a month or two, it's just ---that's just not a credible story. So, you know, what, you know, I mean, there could be a case where we've reached some threshold, where all of a sudden the Earth moves underneath our feet. But I just don't think that's the case here. So, the burden of proof would be, you know, would be on those that are trying to convince me that that would happen.
Audience: “This might be a silly question. What defines someone as being in the workforce?”
Stitzel: So, the question from the audience is:
“What defines someone as being in the workforce?”
Mattson: There’s a lot there. I can do unemployment.
Pjesky: The workforce, the labor force participation is a fairly easy calculation. It is the number of people who are working, and the number of people who are unemployed, divided by the working age population.
Audience: “But define unemployed.”
Pjesky: So basically this. If you make it as easy as possible, and with like a lot of definitions there's some nuance here that this will miss…
Mattson: Hmm mmm.
Pjesky: But if you want to work in the market for a wage, you're in the labor force.
Mattson: Yeah.
Audience: “So, define entrepreneurship.”
Pjesky: You're in the labor force.
Stitzel: So, the question. Hold on.
Pjesky: Yeah. You’re in the labor force.
Stitzel: The question from the audience then is:
“What if you're not working for someone else, but you are making money --- self-employment would be an example.”
Mattson: Yeah.
Stitzel: And the answer is: you're in the labor force, because it's not that you are employed by someone else, it is that you are making gainful.
Mattson: And once you left the military, you're in the labor force. Military is not in the labor force by the way, and neither are people in prison. So, that should be…
Pjesky: Yeah.
Mattson:…noted as well.
Pjesky: Yeah, those aren't included in the calculations.
Mattson: Yeah, so there's nuance…I think it’s sixteen.
Pjesky: Sixteen.
Mattson: Sixteen is the minimum age.
Pjesky: So there’s nuance to these definitions, but in the broadest stroke possible, all right? If you are or desire to be gainfully employed, in what we call the marketplace, then you are in the labor force. So, self-employed --- doing odd jobs, even trading crypto would, because I would consider those individuals in the labor force.
Stitzel: So, let's talk about that. That actually transitions to the next thing that I wanted to say very neatly, right? Melodia makes the statement:
“First, America's historical and continued reliance on unpaid care workers drives women’s wages down throughout the economy.”
I think this highlights a real disconnect between economists and non-economists, because oftentimes, you know, we're looking at wages or something like that, and then we say: well, there's this gap here. And to economists, this is a measurement issue. To people that are new to economics, or not in economics, they look at that kind of thing and they put some kind of moral value proposition on it, right? But the point here is that there's a lot of work in what we would call an underground market. There's lots of work that happens, that has lots and lots of value, that isn't captured in some kind of transactional way, that can be neatly put into our measurements, right? So, I would disagree with, at least the way that this is phrased, right, unpaid care of children is an extremely valuable thing…
Mattson: Yeah.
Stitzel:…and the fact that we don't put that into GDP doesn't make that.
Pjesky: It's…
Stitzel:…a bad thing.
Pjesky: I mean, it's an unbelievable --- unbelievably valuable thing. And at this point in the article, the author just goes into “word salad.”
Mattson: Yes.
Pjesky: Or at least to an economist, it's “word salad.” Maybe to somebody else, that maybe to somebody else, it wouldn't be. But that doesn't really have any bearing on any discussion at all that would be fruitful in my mind, because I’m, you know, an unpaid lawnmower person, right? So, I mean, I will probably this Saturday mow my lawn, and no one will pay me for that, all right? It’s --- I need to do it. I, you know, could pay somebody else, but to have a policy that would somehow facilitate me having somebody else mow my lawn as its own goal --- just so I don't have to mow myself because that's unpaid labor --- is a really odd thing for me. Everybody's life is a puzzle that they have to put together. So, you know, if you have children, [then] they have to be cared for. If you have a lawn, [then] it has to be mowed. You know, you have to eat, right? So, I'll go home tonight, and I will also be an unpaid chef. So, I will cook food for me and my wife, and anybody else who’s kind of in my --- I've got kids, so, you know, there's odd people --- in my house from time to time. So, I'll go cook something for supper tonight, and no one will pay me for that. And that's just how I'm putting my life together. You know, now childcare is different in this context, because that is a very difficult puzzle to put together. And I don't think anybody would deny that. So, there are massive gains that could be made with changing policies in how we provide and finance childcare in the United States. That is absolutely true. And in that sense, I agree with the author here. But you would --- one of the motivations to do that from my perspective, would not be just simply that a lot of childcare work is unpaid. That makes no sense to me, right? We have limits to our market. We do some things for ourselves. And we do some things --- we pay other people for other things. So, there's massive numbers of things that each one of us does every day for ourselves that's unpaid. So, and it would to the point of ridiculousness. I mean, I combed my own hair this morning too.
Mattson: But let's assume then we do get paid for all those things. Let's take those people and let’s actually, I don't know, give them a wage. Let's wave a wand and say: O.K., you guys now have a wage for this. You have a higher wage for this. You have the wage that we feel is justified for this. That is going to be inflationary, because you are raising people's wages. When you raise people's wages, you raise their spending. Aggregate demand is going to shift out. So, even if we run this policy, this is not an inflation fighting policy. Assuming it's big enough, it would actually be inflationary. So, just like with the minimum wage argument, I'd say that --- one, I'm not sure it's big enough; two, I'm not sure it's short run enough; and three, even if it's successful we'd get the opposite of what the article is suggesting. We'd get higher inflation as opposed to lower inflation.
Stitzel: So, we're coming up on our time constraint here. I'm gonna say one more thing. I’m going to get your reaction. I --- we've got more to go through here. So, I'd like to ask both of you back for a follow-up episode. We'll make this a two-parter. And we'll put both of those up, [but] probably not [at] the same time. [I will] put this one up and then put the next one up. So, if you both will be gracious enough to give me a little bit more of your time, we'll finish this up. Let me make this comment, get your reaction, [and] we'll bring this in for our landing here. In the same way that we said (the very first person who said) we should engage in national re-industrialization is not a good idea, because of the top-down structure of that that ignores many of the incentives and forces that should be in play, in the way that industries should grow or contract. What this author is arguing is we should nationally re-industrialize childcare, [and] that would have those same problems. O.K., give me your thoughts on that, and we’ll bring this in for a landing.
Pjesky: I mean, I think the --- I'll go first so Ryan can have the last word in his own class. So, this is neither my class nor my podcast. So, others should get the last word. But I think this is exactly the same argument as the first author that we read. So, this is a policy to try to better industrialize childcare in the United States. And it would suffer from the same problems that I said would hamper the efforts to industrialize, you know, the entire economy. So, healthcare is a --- I’m sorry, not healthcare, but childcare is very individualized thing. Everybody's circumstance is slightly different. People work different schedules. They have, I mean, just everybody's job is different. Everybody's family is different. So, everybody's childcare needs are going to be different. This is one of the reasons why it's incredibly important in these kinds of situations to be fully open to assessing the problems that actually exist, as opposed to assessing the problems as we would like them to exist. Those are two very different things. So, if you have a society filled with (for lack of a better word) traditional families --- whatever that, you know, means to you, just fill in the blanks there --- [then] that is an entirely different problem. That presents an entirely different child rearing problem than a society that was filled with non-traditional households and families. Again, fill in your own definitions for those words if you like. You've got, “A” and “Not A” here. Those are different things. And this --- the optimal policy solutions to address those two different things are going to be different. So, if you're not even open to the possibility of thinking about the problem in these terms, then you’re almost not certainly going to be able to have a good policy at the back end.
Mattson: My concern with this kind of argument is that if you're going to say that we will beat inflation by improving childcare policy, when we don't get the inflation gains or non-gains that we want to see, people are going to discredit this argument. And I think that childcare policy is an extremely important argument [that] needs to be made on its merits. But if we make that argument on inflation, something which I think it has nothing to do with, then we'll measure our success based on if inflation goes up or goes down. And then it discredits the people who do want to argue for, really, I guess industrialization of childcare, or expansion of support for families, however you want to characterize it. So, if we don't see inflation going down, then suddenly we no longer have support for this childcare. At least people can argue against it.
Stitzel: My guests today have been Dr. Ryan Mattson and Dr. Rex Pjesky. Gentlemen, thank you for joining us on the EconBuff. Thank you for listening to this episode of the EconBuff. You can find all previous episodes on YouTube at EconBuff Podcast. You can check out our website at www.econbuffpodcast.wixite.com. That's w-i-x-s-i-t.com you can contact us at econbuffpodcast@yahoo.com.
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