Food Stamps, Grants, Loans, and Behavioral Economics with Michael Lewis

Jill on Money with Jill Schlesinger

Audacy

Education, Investing, Business, Self-improvement

4.6 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 16 November 2017

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For the second time this year we have a repeat guest on Better Off. When you have a chance to grab Michael Lewis, you grab him, and that’s what we did! In early June, Michael was on the pod to discuss his latest book, The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds. (He’s a prolific writer and chances are you’ve picked up at least one of his books, including Moneyball, The Big Short or Flash Boys.) Since the Undoing Project is now out in paperback, and Richard Thaler was just awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, it made for a perfect opportunity to revisit the topic of behavioral economics. But that was only part of this interview. The bulk of it was spent talking to Michael about his current work, which is penning articles for Vanity Fair. His latest piece, Inside Trump’s Cruel Campaign Against the U.S.D.A.’s Scientists, is a wild tale about various Department of Agriculture programs that are under siege. From food stamps to meat inspection, to grants and loans for rural development, to school lunches, these programs impact millions of Americans, though most of us have no idea what exactly the agency does. Some of the things you hear in this interview will surprise you...and maybe scare you. Stay tuned for more of Michael’s excellent work...he is unstoppable! “Better Off” is sponsored by Betterment. We love feedback so please leave us a rating or review in iTunes. "Better Off" theme music is by Joel Goodman, www.joelgoodman.com. For a recap of every episode, visit https://www.betterment.com/resources/topics/inside-betterment/better-off-podcast/ Connect with me at these places for all my content: http://www.jillonmoney.com/ https://twitter.com/jillonmoney https://www.facebook.com/JillonMoney https://www.instagram.com/jillonmoney/ https://www.youtube.com/c/JillSchlesinger https://www.linkedin.com/in/jillonmoney/ https://soundcloud.com/jill-schlesinger http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/jill-on-money http://betteroffpodcast.com/ https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/better-off-jill-schlesinger/id431167790?mt=2

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, it's Jill Schlesinger host of Better Off. The Blind Side, the Big Short, the Undoing Project, and now the USDA USDA Michael Lewis joins us. If you politicize the
0:16.2	Fed in extreme way and debase the currency which would be one way out of the
0:20.0	federal debt right it would be catastrophic but I don't see that as a real
0:24.9	threat right now the behavior seems much more moderate and considered in that
0:29.6	part of the government there are the parts of the government where I'm terrified.
0:33.0	Welcome to Better Off. We're sponsored by Betterment the largest independent online financial
0:39.6	advisor. Well, for the second time this year we've got a return guest.
0:45.0	It doesn't happen that often because why really do it unless there's something different?
0:50.0	Well, we had Michael Lewis on the program earlier in the year. He was talking about his book, The Undoing Project.
0:57.0	That was a great book actually. It told the story of Israeli psychologist Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky and it really was kind of like
1:05.3	think of them as the fathers of behavioral finance behavioral economics so now the
1:10.8	undoing project is out in paperback and also a nice chance for us to get Michael Lewis to weigh in on the recent Nobel Prize in economics being awarded to none other than Richard Thaler, a behavioral economist whose work was based on the work of who?
1:27.0	Yep, Kahneman and Tversky.
1:30.0	So we talk quickly about that in this interview, but we're really having Michael back on the show to discuss his new article and vanity fair called Made in the US DA.
1:40.0	Now, it's so wild because there's so many changes going on in this administration
1:45.2	Lewis is looking at the Department of Agriculture. This is not just an agency
1:50.7	that deals with farmers. I know that's what you're thinking. The vast
1:53.8	majority of its budget, 110 billion of 164 billion goes to feed impoverished
2:01.0	Americans.
2:02.8	That's mostly school children, pregnant women,
2:06.4	veterans, and retirees.
2:09.0	So Lewis's article, and it's a great one,
	...

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