The Optimists Have Questions…
Optimist Economy
Kathryn Anne Edwards and Robin Rauzi
4.9 • 829 Ratings
🗓️ 31 March 2026
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Fourteen questions. Zero softballs. Listeners from Tacoma to Montreal wrote in to ask about retirement savings, taxing capital gains, home-buyer assistance programs, corporate profits in the tariffs era, what one state employee can or cannot accomplish, and whether meaningful economic reform will arrive before Millennials drop dead. And more. The inbox did not disappoint.
00:00 Announcements
01:59 Is a retirement savings crisis brewing?
04:32 Tax credits for first-time home buyers… good idea?
08:10 What if tax breaks for capital gains only applied to new investments?
13:39 Explain the $1,700 tax credit scholarship program in OBBA?
16:23 Are institutional investors wrecking the housing market?
21:37 What quick policy moves could reverse worsening inequality?
27:32 Will meaningful reform arrive before Millennials retire?
30:56 Is a hotel tax the right way to fund a stadium?
33:05 Can I move the needle on labor policy from inside the system?
35:08 Why has the responsibility and risk for employment shifted onto workers?
37:50 Is fixing the care economy easier than we think?
40:47 Do rent caps work?
44:50 Can we prevent price gouging by companies?
47:53 If states roll out good policies, does the federal government need to do it too?
- Still have questions, concerns, or worries? Send them to optimist.economy@gmail.com
- Keep Optimist Economy podcasting: https://optimisteconomy.com
- See our faces on the Optimist Economy YouTube channel.
- Commune with fellow Optimists on our Substack chat.
- We’re on Instagram at @optimist_economy or TikTok at @optimist_economy.
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https://merch.ambientinks.com/collections/optimisteconomy
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're used to hearing my voice on the world, bringing you interviews from around the globe. |
| 0:07.2 | And you hear me reporting environment and climate news. I'm Carolyn Beeler. |
| 0:12.1 | And I'm Marco Werman. We're now with you hosting the world together. More global journalism with a fresh new sound. |
| 0:18.3 | Listen to the world on your local public radio station and wherever you find your podcasts. |
| 0:23.6 | Hello and welcome to Optimist Economy. I'm Catherine Ann Edwards economist. I'm editor Robin Rousey. |
| 0:40.9 | 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. |
| 0:51.9 | But this week, we're going to talk about 14 problems. |
| 0:56.6 | I mean, it was something like that. |
| 0:57.9 | We're going to get to a lot. |
| 0:59.0 | We'll see what we can get to. |
| 1:00.8 | It's our first Q&A episode of season two. |
| 1:04.2 | And thank you, everybody, for sending all of the questions in that we got and for |
| 1:08.5 | replying to my follow-up questions. It takes some time, |
| 1:13.2 | but it's really nice to correspond with everybody and see who the listeners are. And what I can |
| 1:18.5 | tell you is that you range from retirees to 20-somethings and you're writing from literally all over |
| 1:27.1 | the country. It's so affirming. We want to get |
| 1:31.0 | straight to the question so we typically don't do a lot of our front matter, but I do have to give |
| 1:34.6 | a critical update, which is that I had, I think you could tell from the last few episodes that I've |
| 1:39.5 | been a little bit salty about some of the negative feedback we've gotten and it had been |
| 1:43.9 | crushing my spirit to |
| 1:45.3 | like a not good degree but many of you wrote in and just said we love the show and it was so |
| 1:54.7 | affirming to hear from y'all and it was a reminder of why we do this in the first place, which is to connect with fellow optimist. |
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