You're listening to How to Be a Better Human.

I am your host, Chris Duffy.

Today's episode is a bit of a departure for us.

We're going to be covering a topic that is a little different than what we normally

discuss on this show, which is international finance and the global economy.

Not the typical How to Be a Better Human topic.

Now, we're going to be talking about the big picture of

money stuff, and we're going to be talking about that with Matt Levine, the author of the

popular financial newsletter and podcast that is called appropriately enough, Money Stuff.

There are a couple of reasons why I really wanted to have Matt on our show. And the first

is that I enjoy Money Stuff a lot. I think his writing is so funny. Matt makes me laugh and I learn about things that I would have never thought about otherwise.

But the bigger reason that I wanted to have Matt on the show is that I think too few of us

have a deep understanding of the financial forces at play in our world and society.

It is such a tiny, tiny percentage of people who actually understand the decisions,

motivations, and structural forces that affect businesses and governmental policies and our individual

financial lives. And yet, money plays an outsized role in how we're able to live our lives,

how we're able to take care of our friends and families, how we're able to make decisions in our community and in our world. If we know more, we can be more empowered, more

confident, and more informed. So I want to know, and I want everyone else to know, the answers to

questions like, why do prices go up? How and why do banks make money? What even is a dollar or a peso or a euro? What do they

represent? And what I love about Matt is that he explains the answers to questions like that.

He explains how money actually works by making me laugh. As an example, here's a clip from his

podcast where he and his co-host, Katie, are answering a listener question about whether Matt

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