The U.S. Treasury is running out of cash

Make Me Smart April, 25 2023 Transcript

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Kai Ryssdal 

Drew I’m ready if you’re ready, if Kimberly’s ready. If we’re all ready?

Kimberly Adams 

Yep.

Kai Ryssdal 

I’ll take that for a yes. Also the music started.

Kimberly Adams 

Hello, I’m Kimberly Adams. Welcome back to make me smart where we make today make sense. It is Thursday, May the 25th. Towel day for you… what’s the… oh gosh I can’t believe. I got it. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fans. Yes.

Kai Ryssdal 

Really? May 25th is towel day?

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, yeah, I saw it. I saw it on the Discord. Yeah.

Kai Ryssdal 

Well I’m showing my unawareness. You’re supposed

Kimberly Adams 

to wear a towel so you can be ready to you know, navigate the galaxy.

Kai Ryssdal 

Anyway

Kimberly Adams 

Because you can’t travel the galaxy without a towel.

Kai Ryssdal 

I tried to move on. Okay. Thursday. Y’all know the drill: a little news, little smile, and then and then we will be on our merry way. What do you got Kimberly Adams?

Kimberly Adams 

Well, it’s a little bit of a hard pivot. Obviously, everybody by now has heard the news about the passing of Tina Turner, rock and roll queen. And, you know, there’s so many tributes to her, all of them great. And, you know, I could pile on to that. But I wanted to pick out this piece in Rolling Stone that talks about how the fact that she was so open about the domestic violence that she experienced and the abuse that she experienced at the hands of Ike Turner, empowered so many other women to take action, to speak up, and to get themselves out of situations. Because if it could happen to her, it took away some of the shame for a lot of people. And you know, there’s a quote in here where one of the women said, “you know, if this can happen to the beautiful, strong, wonderful black woman who has all these things going on, for her, it can happen to any of us.” And that person later went on to leave an abusive marriage. And, you know, Tina Turner’s music is obviously amazing and is an astonishing legacy along with her just performances, that I’ve been watching YouTube videos of her dancing. It’s just like, wow, look at her go. But this is another one of her legacies. And I think that that’s pretty amazing how many people she helped out of abusive relationships just by doing what she did.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yep, totally agree. Totally agree. Extraordinary story, extraordinary guts that she had.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, yeah. I was watching a story in from a local Dallas, Dallas TV station where the hotel that she fled to the night that she left Ike Turner because she basically walked across a highway to escape him and hid out in this hotel for like three nights. And they, the hotel, is still there, and the room that she stayed in, they’ve they it’s like a Tina Turner themed room now and it’s called Escape.

Kai Ryssdal 

Oh, that’s great. That’s great.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, it’s a very, like, I think it’s a pretty respectful treatment. But you know, it’s acknowledgement of that’s where she went. So that was number one. Number two is the latest example of businesses just really struggling to navigate the social and cultural moment that we are in right now. So Target had all of these new products out for Pride Month, and they’ve done this before, but one particular designer prompted this backlash amongst conservatives, and they pulled this whole line of products from transgender designer Erik Carnell. And, you know, because of this conservative backlash. Now, on the other hand, ever since Target has pulled these designs, supporters of this person have gone to their Etsy site and just ordered so many things that there’s a backlog. But, you know, businesses are really it in a tough spot these days, because especially after Black Lives Matter and Me Too, the you know, the country kind of asked businesses to stand up and take a side. And now when they do that, because we are so polarized as a nation, you’re going to really, really upset a chunk of the country, and probably a very vocal chunk of the country. And, you know, Budweiser discovered this, and Target, and Disney has discovered this, and now Target is discovering this. And it’s gonna be really interesting to see how businesses continue to try to navigate this this space, because there… it yeah, I don’t know. It’s rough.

Kai Ryssdal 

Well, and I think I think the key is not just that, that people who don’t want to recognize, in this specific instance, trans people or trans rights. There’s not just the vocal, right, it’s that in the last, I don’t know, 18 months, two years, two and a half years, they’ve become really empowered by what they see happening at the very highest levels of of the not the party because it’s not all Republicans, but but it’s the very highest levels of yeah, in some cases, state governments, right who are going against trans rights, but also it’s, you know, it has its genesis in really high profile political actors who are not necessarily political actors anymore, although some of them are candidates for president United States. I mean, you know what I’m trying to say. Right several of them are. And they and the people who will oppose trans rights and many other things feel empowered. And that that is the that is the corporate challenge, you know.

Kimberly Adams 

Also the backlash isn’t just limited to sort of shareholders and it hitting a stock price, you know. People are taking this anger to, you know, workers at a store who have, people who have nothing to do with these decisions. And, you know… it’s really… I don’t agree with what Target has done here. But on the other hand, if you look at it from a business position, what are you going to do if your responsibility is to protect your employees? Right? It’s a bad situation.

Kai Ryssdal 

It’s totally messy. Okay, so mine will be the debt limit. It’ll be a quickie, because we all know about the debt limit. I just do want to point out two things. Number one, an article in the Wall Street Journal today talking about what you were talking about a number of days and or weeks ago, Kimberly, and that is the Treasury Department getting ready to prioritize payments in the event that House Republicans keep demanding policy changes in return for lifting the debt limit. So this Treasury Department is in fact, making plans, has plans, and is dusting them off, I think is what the piece says, to prioritize payments, right? Who gets paid first? Is it veterans? Is it Social Security recipients? Is it bondholders and the interest in the service on the debt? So that is happening. Number two, just wanna make sure that everybody saw this yesterday. And we talked about this a little bit on the radio show today. Fitch now, one of the big three ratings agencies, has said, “Yeah, political dysfunction in the United States is a credit risk.” And so we are putting you guys on notice. So entirely expected to be honest with you, and I’m sure you know, other ratings agencies are thinking the same thing. So that’s item number two. Item number three and really the reason I wanted to mention this is because of a tweet this afternoon by Kailey Leinz, who works for Bloomberg Television, and I hope I’m pronouncing that name right. It might be “Lens”. But anyway, here’s what she points out… and Bloomberg obviously has the terminal which has aggregates of all kinds of data. And they have one that will tell you how much cash on hand the United States government has. The US Treasury cash balance on Wednesday, that is to say yesterday, was $49.5 billion. 49 and a half billion dollars for the entire United States government. That’s what we’ve gotten in the bank account. And when you think about the trillions and trillions of dollars that go in and out of the US bank account on an annual basis, that’s just scarily scarily close to zero. And as Kailey points out in her tweet, in case anyone was wondering, there are 24 individuals on the Bloomberg Billionaires list who have more money than the Treasury does right now. Come on, man! This is the stupidest way to run an economy in the history of economies. That’s all I’m saying.

Kimberly Adams 

Wow. Wow.

Kai Ryssdal 

I mean come on

Kimberly Adams 

…don’t cry. Since we’re laughing in despair anyway, let’s get over to the smiles. I’m confused how that’s gonna go be a smile.

Kai Ryssdal 

Well, here’s here’s the thing. So let’s remember the premise of this. The premise of this is something that makes me smile, not you. Not all y’all out there, not Courtney and Marissa and Bridget and not anybody who’s listening. It makes me smile. There’s a piece in The Wall Street Journal today, the headline of which is “half empty a year ago, cruises are now packed like sardines.” And I just had to put that in there because every time I think of cruises, I think of my co-host on this podcast, Kimberly Adams and her family’s predilection for cute cruises. And it just made me smile. That’s all I’ve got. That’s all I’ve got.

Kimberly Adams 

You know, what’s wild? Is that my sister is like actively planning to more cruises.

Kai Ryssdal 

I’m sure she is. It’s like practically genetic in your family. Except you. I think you lost it but you have to go along all the time anyway.

Kimberly Adams 

No, no, I’ve told them I’ve told them no cruises for me. Yeah, I mean, I rarely use the word “never.” But let me just say it’s gonna take a lot to get me back on a cruise ship. It just like, there’s, there are so many other places I want to go and things I want to do, and being trapped on a boat with 1000s of other people is just not not not it for me. I was reading some op-ed… I was reading some op ed. I’m I don’t know if it was in the Journal or the Post or something. But it was someone who was a boomer complaining about all the millennials on cruises with them. And the guy was like, “I am ashamed of myself for being an old person on a cruise. What are you all doing here? Have you given up already?” Yes, yes we have. Okay.

Kai Ryssdal 

There you go.

Kimberly Adams 

Well, I guess this is tangentially related to travel and cruising and ships, but… I mean, really tangentially related. There is new research out about technology that has the potential, maybe, one day, down the road to help us in long haul spaceflight. So researchers have discovered, have run these tests where they put little hats, little little ultrasound caps on the heads of mice. And they were able through ultrasound pulses to put the mice into sort of a torpor like state, like a mini hibernation. And so and I’m going to read here from The Guardian, “the advance is seen as significant because the technique was effective in animals that do not naturally hibernate. This raises the prospect that humans may also retain a vestigial hibernation circuit in the brain that could be artificially reactivated.” And so if this proves feasible, down the road, you know, you can imagine a situation very similar to in science fiction, where you know, you put a cap on somebody, or put somebody in a chamber that triggers you into a hibernation like state or even just a reduced energy consumption state that allows you to, you know, last longer on a flight with fewer resources to travel. Yeah! So yay, science.

Kai Ryssdal 

Super cool. But there’s a teensy little bit of what could possibly go wrong floating around in my head. That’s all I’m saying.

Kimberly Adams 

I mean, that’s everything though.

Kai Ryssdal 

Especially now. Yes

Kimberly Adams 

There was the article I dropped in either the Tech Slack channel or the “now reading” Slack channel about how they’re working on another Terminator movie, but they’re holding off on writing it to see how AI actually affects us.

Kai Ryssdal 

Oh, yes. Totally. Yeah, totally. Absolutely. I get that. Yeah.

Kimberly Adams 

Let’s see what how bad it actually gets. What could go wrong? Oh my goodness.

Kai Ryssdal 

All right, we’re done. We’re out of here. Tomorrow it’s Friday economics on tap. We’re gonna be on the YouTube live stream 6:30 Eastern, 3:30 out here on the west coast. Join us for more news, a game and some drinks too.

Kimberly Adams 

And speaking of drinks, if you want to get a sneak peek at what we’ll be having for happy hour or you just want some recommendations for cocktail recipes, beer recommendations, wine recommendations, you can check out our make me smart newsletter where Kai and I are sharing some of our favorite drinks and if we pull ourselves together enough what we’re planning on drinking the next day. You can sign up at marketplace.org/newsletters

Kai Ryssdal 

My bad I didn’t get to Ellen. I want to have a beer of some kind. My mother in law’s coming so I may have a beer, or two. Anyway, Make Me Smart is produced by Courtney Bergsieker. Today’s episode was engineered by Drew Jostad. Our intern is Antonio Barreras.

Kimberly Adams 

Ellen Rolfes writes our newsletter. Marissa Cabrera is our senior producer. Bridget Bodnar is the director of podcasts. And Francesca Levy is the executive director of Digital. And don’t forget your towel.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, I knew nothing about that towel day.

Kimberly Adams 

Neither did I until like a couple of hours ago.

Kai Ryssdal 

There you go.