I'm Charlie Sykes. Welcome back to the To the Contrary podcast and congratulations on making it through

another week, more billionaires bending the knee, more craziness. The other day I just mentioned that

it was just a couple of weeks ago we were all worried about invading Greenland. We thought that was

kind of peak crazy. Since then, it's gotten even crazier. So we have, again, as usual, lots of questions.

We have some questions about two things.

About the economy, where we are, where we're going, and what's with rich people these days?

Stay tuned.

All right, joining me on the podcast again, and it's been too long.

The People's Economist, Justin Wolfers, from the University of Michigan, senior fellow with the Brooking Institution and just like guy all around town.

How are you, Justin?

Charlie, I've missed you, mate.

Can we just talk about a little bit of a metaphor here? Sure. First of all, I just want to warn people that we might be interrupted because I'm kind of here in the basement, just so you know, but there's a window right up above me. And a few minutes ago, right before we began, I started hearing some pounding, like somebody was outside, scratching and pounding and tapping on the window, which is really bizarre because I wasn't expecting anybody, and I live in the woods.

So I stand up, look out the window, and there's this gigantic turkey looking in the window,

like staring right at me, apparently feeling that I have not been feeding him sufficiently. We feed the turkeys,

we feed the birds. I'm going to pose you right here, Charlie, because you've got the metaphor.

This, my friend, is what we immigrants feel like. Really? We're peacefully at home. We hear a pounding

and a scratching at our door. And what do you know? you look at the front, freaking turkeys.

Those guys are turkeys. Yeah. And they're big and they're hungry and they're voracious and

they're greedy, which brings me to this. Could you explain this? I wouldn't want to get into,

you know, what's going on with the economy, with the stock market, with manufacturing, consumer

confidence, the future of the Fed, all that stuff that you know

something about. But I want you to help explain billionaires to me, okay? Can you do that?

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