Hi, I'm Frances Fry. And I'm Anne Morris. And we are the hosts of a new TED podcast called Fixable.

We've helped leaders at some of the world's most competitive companies solve all kinds of problems.

On our show, we'll pull back the curtain and give you the type of honest, unfiltered advice we usually reserve for top executives.

Maybe you have a coworker with boundary issues, or you want to

know how to inspire and motivate your team. No problem is too big or too small. Give us a call,

and we'll help you solve the problems you're stuck on. Find fixable wherever you listen to podcasts.

Hello and welcome to Optimist Economy.

I'm economist Catherine Ann Edwards.

I'm editor Robin Rousey.

On this show, we believe the U.S. economy can be better,

and we talk about how to get there one problem and solution at a time.

Big old problem today is the economy.

This is our inception episode where the problem we solve in the economy is the whole economy.

I'd be happy if we just, we don't have to solve it. if we can just explain it, if we can just unravel the plot here, I would be happy with that.

A couple of announcements before we get started. First, we're going to, oh, shoot. Wait, was it clear? Today we're doing a checkup on the state of the U.S. economy. This episode is just we're not going into a big policy.

We're not doing history.

It's just what on earth is going on right now.

The title for this episode,

Working title is Make It Makes Sense.

So that's what we're going to do.

But first announcements, our next Q&A episode is coming up.

We'll record it in about a month.

...