Brian Lehrer Weekend: National Debt; Elements & Climate Change; Dry January
The Brian Lehrer Show
WNYC
4.6 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 6 January 2024
⏱️ 71 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Three of our favorite segments from the week, in case you missed them.
Paul Krugman on the national debt (First) | Five essential elements and climate change (Starts at 27:10) | Listener calls on going without alcohol in January (Starts at 57:06)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi Brian Lehrer here, up next Brian Lehrer weekend. |
| 0:02.9 | Three of our favorite segments from the week, packaged together for you to listen to on the weekend. |
| 0:07.5 | So enjoy and I'll see you back on the radio Monday at 10 a.m. on WNYC and WNYC.org. It's the Brian Laird Show on WNYC. Good morning again everyone and happy |
| 0:38.8 | New Year again everyone. Happy 2024 and happy year of the 34 trillion dollar United States government debt. |
| 0:47.0 | That figure has been in the news since New Year's but with very little context about how to process such a mind-numbingly big number, is $34 trillion |
| 0:56.3 | a red flag data point, a normal acceptable figure considering the size of our overall economy, |
| 1:02.4 | does it portend trouble ahead for Medicare and Social Security |
| 1:06.1 | and inflation and devaluation of the dollar? |
| 1:09.4 | Or just a big round but not that bad number for Republican politicians to |
| 1:14.7 | take aim at in an election year as a scare tactic. We will get a take on this now |
| 1:18.6 | from none other than New York Times columnist and Cuny Kuni Graduate Center professor, |
| 1:23.4 | Paul Krugman. |
| 1:24.4 | He's known as an economic progressive |
| 1:26.6 | who takes no prisoners when it comes to Republican |
| 1:29.2 | truth twisting. |
| 1:30.5 | But he also did write a column in October called Why We Should but Won't |
| 1:35.5 | reduce the budget deficit. So let's see what he thinks. Dr. |
| 1:38.4 | equipment always good to have you on the show. Welcome back to WNYC. |
| 1:41.3 | Hi, good to be back on. |
| 1:44.2 | So first let me ask you to put that $34 trillion figure in perspective, open-ended question. |
| 1:49.8 | How do we begin to process what that kind of number with so many zeros means in human terms. |
| 1:56.0 | Okay, first thing to say is, you know, this is America. Everything about America is |
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