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talk to this person for longer. There's not enough time here. Well, here's the chance with one of our favorite guests. It's extra large because four hours simply enough. This is Armstrong and Getty extra large. Man. I don't know who that is, but that guy's got good pipes. Pipes Listen, all who
have ears, friends, romans, countrymen. Finally a chance for an extended chat with Lani j Chen, the David and Diane Stiffy research fellow with the Hoover and Such, also the director of Domestic Policy Studies and Lecture in the Public
Policy Program at Stanford University. So we've been wanting to talk to you for a long time about government and that sort of stuff and your knowledge base and uh, and not particularly about at the time we're recording this the biggest crisis of my lifetime, the coronavirus and everything else, but some of it fits together. We've been wanting to talk about bureaucracy, disease and a government this size and
whether it can react. And I don't know if you saw the breakdown in the Wall Street Journal the other day, in all the different ways the c d C and the f d A and all different organizations have not reacted to this very well. Too many regulations, too many layers, too many rules. Um, is there anything that can be done about that? Well, we get better at that, ever, or is that just the product of a growing and
growing government. Well, we can get better at it. It's going to require us to take a careful look at what needs to be there and what doesn't. So you guys have already hinted it. A few of the challenges we have. One is you just look at healthcare as an example. We've got so many different types of bureaucracy that are involved. We've got so many different agencies and
make no mistake about it. There are functions that those agencies serve which are important, so we don't want to denigrate the functions that they play, but we we do want to think about who actually has authority to do things when something happens. And that's the challenge you have when you have overlapping responsibilities. You have in healthcare, for example, an agency that's designed to approve new drugs and new
therapeutics as the FDA. You have an agency that's designed to be there to deal with the spread of disease and control the spread of disease, that's the CDC. Then you've got the Department of Health and Human Services, which is theoretically over all of them, yet those agencies are expected to operate somewhat independently. And then you have you know,
various other small agencies I'm forgetting about as well. So we've got to figure out how to streamline all of this, and it's going to take a sort of holistic approach, and someone needs to come along and say, hey, let's stop and let's do this, because what always happens in government is the urgent crowds out the importance. So a lot of steps we need to take and most certainly a lot of changes that can be made. I have a feeling there are some really fundamental forces at work here.
Our friend Tim Sandiford likes to talk about how in general and government success is punished. I mean, if you accomplish your goal having used only your budget, you have budget taken away um and and failure is rewarded. You
get a bigger budget, you get more people. And there's the question of defending turf every every Well, many bureaucrats want nothing more than budget and people and turf, and and if if that's their strongest impulse, then it's going to be really hard to tear it down and rebuild it. You're right so that that mind set is absolutely prevalent in lots of parts of the federal government and state government,
and probably even city and local government. But the challenges that how these bureaucrats measure success oftentimes is by how much budget they get to your point, how many people they have on their team, how big of a bureaucracy they can create, what kind of process they can create around that bureaucracy. And instead of measuring outcomes, we need
to be better about measuring outcomes. Our system of government has to determine what is the effective best outcome we want to get to, and then let's optimize for that instead of saying what we really want is a bigger bureaucracy. We really wanted a new government agency. I mean, I think back to how much people like Elizabeth Warren celebrated the creation of a government agency during the financial crisis,
and are there important things that that agency could be doing? Sure, protecting consumers, that's an important thing, But did they ever stop to ask for a minute, are there ways to get there in the existing structure by making it leaner and more efficient, versus, hey, let's just graft a whole new federal agency onto other federal agencies that already exists. So this kind of thinking, unfortunately, is prevalent in Washington. And it's not just Democrats and progressives who think that way.
By the way, we got a lot of people who are so called conservatives who are up there trying to do many of the same things to create more and more government. Because you get captured, you get captured by Washington and the thinking of that place, and you end up buying into the same kind of logic about what it's going to take to get something done. I'm so
pessimistic that that will ever happen, though. Can you give me an example of it ever happening in world history where a giant bureaucracy actually uh shrinks and becomes leaner and meaner and more effective unless it's forced to buy a devastating war or maybe a virus. Well, that's exactly what it is, right. There has to be some external you know, that's the fancy political science word is exogenous.
There's got to be some kind of external shock or external factor that changes how people do business or changes creates the predicate for people to say, you know what, this isn't working so well. And I would bet there's been. I mean even now right people are saying we need to create some kind of commission to go study you know why it is that we didn't have tests or coronavirus early on. And my thing is, you know, why
not take some organ that's already in the government. We have something called the Inspector General's office in each agency. Why not have an existing office whose responsibility is to study where things go wrong. Let's have them study it and say, really, what about this agency worked and what didn't and not be afraid to put out there. You know what they are parts of this agency that have
to get cut. There's certain people that have to get cut, and yeah, maybe there's certain other parts of the agency where we need more people and more funding. So you're suggesting a department of f ups. I could I could run that. I've got a fair and fair amount of experience. That would be I was gonna say that be every
agency of the federal government. I mean, if you went if you went through and looked at all of the ways in which part of the federal government have or have not worked, you would see you would be shocked. If we actually studied it and looked at it, you would be shocked. But we need to be doing that, right. We need to be assessing what's working and what's not, but doing it on a regular basis, not just when we have a once in a lifetime global pandemic. Now
I'm to answer Jack's question. I know several of the Nordic states that a lot of people look to as socialist paradisees have actually scaled way back on government spending since their experiments of the sixties and seventies. That might be an example, but the problem anytime you look at those states, is that they are small, they are homogeneous, and and you know it's a limited number of families. They all know each other. I mean the countries are
almost that small. Yeah, And and they have significant limits on who can come into the country. They have significantly I mean we we talk about having you know, a lot of people say, oh, we need a more open immigration system. I'm all foreign immigration system that tries to get the best and the brightest here to to help our economy and do all that sort of stuff. But you talked about these Nordic countries. Neither are not an
immigrants paradise, right. They are extremely closed societies. They have a a very strong they're guided by a strong sense of cultural and national identity. Uh so it's relatively easy for them to do the kinds of things that they do. America is I mean, we are a diverse, messy, beautiful country in that way, and and so it's gonna be a lot harder for us to do what they do,
nor do we want to do what they do. What a lot of people don't realize is the level of control that has to be exercised by the government, The level of control that has to be exercised by society. It is significant, and culturally in these countries it is more well accepted. A lot of people, for example, use Singapore as an example of a country. They have great
policy outcomes, a very efficient bureaucracy. They are extremely data and results driven, but they are essentially living in a quasi dictatorship, and people there are okay with it because it's a benign dictatorship. Right. That structure would never work in America. We have way too many people and we're
way too independent minded. And that's a good thing. It would help if anybody was ever held to account for any you know, mistakes, whether they were it was incompetence or um, you know, they did it for bad reasons. For instance, the c d C clearly misled everybody on whether or not they had the ability to test for this thing. I mean, the articles out there about this. I'll bet anybody money nobody loses their job, somebody might get reassigned to a different division. Nobody's ever held to
account for any screw ups. Well, and I'll tell you there's a political overlay here too, right, because it's easy enough to get rid of the person at the top whoever runs the agency political appointee, get rid of them. But when you start to dig into the bureaucracy, there surely are people within the bureaucracy who, to your point, did not did not act either appropriately or well enough
or efficiently in this situation. But the minute you start to dig in there, and the minute you start to think about it, you get accused of wanting to attack science or wanting to attack the civil service, when the reality is, we have to be absolutely clear about why mistakes happen, and we cannot be afraid to fix them. And uh, you know, the politics have become so toxic and so part of it in our country that any effort to do that is seen, Oh, well, you're you're
just You're just a trumper. You're just somebody out there who you know, wants to try and advance a conservative policy agenda. Look, I'm just trying to say, let's figure out what went wrong and let's fix it. I don't care who's responsible for it. Let's get to the to the core of responsibility and let's fix the problem. But it's hard to have that conversation given the politics of where we are right now. Well, I agree with you, completely that there are plenty of Republicans who want to
grow the government, just different parts of the government. Um, But it seems to me it is mostly voters on the left who seem to have this knee jerk defense of government and government programs and and maybe it's because of the lefty voters affection for unions or something like that. But it boggles the mind of a lot of us that so many people have as much faith as they do in government bureaucracies and don't see the the waste and the abuse, and the transigence and and and the
rest of it. I have you ever done a study of that, I mean, really gone into people's worldview why some are so charitable towards government, you know, misfunction. Yeah, I haven't studied it myself. Health, but I will say that that people who look at this generally conclude a
couple of things. So the first is that the belief in government is born out of a mistrust of the private sector or a belief that civil society, nonprofit institutions, churches, charitable institutions UH in addition to the private sector, are incapable or fundamentally have their UH incentives misaligned In a way, and so government is in a much better place to
do it. I mean. A perfect example of this are all of the people on the left who have embraced single payer health care, who have embraced Medicare for all, And what do you always hear them saying? You get them saying we cannot trust the insurance companies. We cannot trust private sector entities to deal with our health care system. We cannot trust doctors who are who are out there for their own profit, in their own gain. We have
to socialize all of this because government knows better. It is just a It goes to a misunderstanding of what has made America great. Not I mean not to get this political. I don't. I don't mean to put it in the Trump fame, but literally, what has made America great over these years has been the existence of a system that has lifted more people out of poverty and more people out of a lack of opportunity than any other economics, a system in the history of mankind, and
sort of saying we don't want that system. Instead, we want to go to a system where government controls the means of production, government controls how resources are allocated. And I think it's born out of a genuine belief guys,
that that works better than the private sector. And that's why I think a lot of people on the left do have a instinctive answer for everything, which is, well, if only the government would get involved, and only the government would be in charge, if only you bureaucrats and people who are quote dispassionate arbiters would be involved. I've heard this over and over again, but but it just blies a understanding of of really what is made America prosperous,
the end of human nature. I don't know what their world experiences that has led them to believe this, because my world experience has led me a different direction. Well, it's the it's the world experience that leads people like Bernie Sanders to say we need a Cuban style education system, right. I mean, it is a It is either a misapprehension of history or a wilful, deliberate effort to subvert an understanding of history in favor of of of a particular agenda.
I mean, that's the only thing that can explain it. Either you just don't don't know the history, don't understand it, or don't want to. Oh yeah, it's wishful thinking. It's a no, I'm sure we can get it right this time. I'm sure this will work. That I think is just ridiculous.
But I wonder if it's this fundamental. A lot of these questions comes down to the difference between people who believe there should be equality of outcome versus those of us who believe there should be equality of opportunity, and and and if you know, because you're never going to get equality of outcome out of the private sector, out or out of any natural function of life. But why why is that? Just as simple as you have you been to the post office? Have you been to FedEx?
Have you noticed how they bust their acid fed x to make sure you're a happy customer because you're a happy paying customer. Have you noticed how at the post office you regularly run into place They don't care if you never come back. It doesn't make any difference to them. In fact, they prefer you did leave. That means eloquent. Is Lincoln's Gettysburg address and shorter? We only experience you need, isn't it. Yeah? Well right, And so this is also
like the d m V, the perfect example of that. Right, Why do people pay for triple A, ton't have to wait in the line of the d m V. Right, and and not that not that the triple A is a is a paragon of efficiency and effectiveness, but compared to the d m V and en sure does look like it, right, I mean so so so it's a great point, which is, if we believe in a society where resources have to be distributed equally, if we believe in equality of outcome, the folks who are in favor
of socialism or in favor of a communist system, you know, they've got it right. That probably is the only way
to ensure the exact equivalent distribution of goods. And it seems to me that there are some on the left now who are more openly embracing that point of view, who are saying, look, actually, yeah, we we we we do need equality of outcome as opposed Yeah, I mean, whereas if you look at if you look at at the history of our country, and you look at what the founders and what great political theorists over the years have talked about, what you see is is a is
a coherence around wanting to have to ensure that people have the same shot at success which is why you put in place rules. Right, the only reason we have laws and regulate that the only reason, one of the biggest reasons you have laws and regulation is to make sure that people are playing by the same rules. And are we angry when people don't play by those rules? Absolutely? Are we angry when there's croniasm, Yes, and we should be.
But but the answer has always been, let's give people a fair shot to compete and then let's see what happens. And that, by necessity, is going to mean that we're going to have differences in outcome and and and is it sad that there are differences in outcome? I don't know that it's sad. I think it's reality. I think it's the reality of the system we have, and I think it's the best economic system that mankind has ever seen. Yeah,
I don't know. You know, I have two kids. If one of them ends up making twice as much money as the other one, I don't I'm not going to feel like that's sad for the one who makes less. It's just that the direction they went with the talents they had in life decisions, right, Yeah, And I mean you know that that that you know should when should government act? Right, And the answer is, there are times when government has to act because the uh, you know,
because the rules aren't fair. Okay, sure, government should act to change the rules to make sure they're fair. Uh. In times when the system gets overburdened by some things that we haven't expected, and we expect our government to step in. Why with the coronavirus situation, government steps in and says, Okay, we're gonna put in place some regulations
to help keep people safe. That makes sense. But the notion that in the everyday functioning, what we really need is more government, I just fundamentally disagree with that notion. And I just think history suggests that that will not lead and not lead us to a great place. Well, let's get back to the question of bureaucracy and dysfunction
and bloat in transigence and all that. There obviously need to be a new There needs to be a new set of incentives and disincentives laid over government or sprayed into the buildings or something some sort of fumigation. Um. What just on a basic level, if you were you know, president or advisor to a president and and that president decided, and my god, I'd vote for him for a third term. If they did this, they said, listen, my main mission is going to make is to make the federal government lean.
And mean, what sort of incentives and disincentives would you suggest? What would that look like? Yeah, you know, I always think it's great to go back to first principles. So you start with the basic question, which is what do we want government to do and where we where do we want it to act? And set out a set of priorities and goals and figure out how to assess success against those goals, figure out how you need to
staff a team to reach those goals. And then take a look at the reality and see what you have and compare X with Y, and I guarantee you they'll look nothing alike when you're talking about the US government. Yeah, they they're not. You know, you're not going to see a similarity between what's needed and what actually exists. And then go out there and actually begin to make those changes. And now part of the challenges, you know, we got all sorts of rules in place about civil service protections
and who can and can't be fired. And I understand we got all of that, and that part of it might be we need to take a serious look at civil service rules. Yes they are we really promoting the best in the bright Yeah, that's that That's probably an easy question. An I'm with FDR on that question. That's one of the few questions i'm with him on. He believed it was an athema to efficient. When you're ready to ride Metro, we want you to know we're ready
for you. Here are just a few of the people at Metro to tell you how we're doing our part to keep riders safe. We're cleaning like Nevil before half builded greatly. You're a found han sanitizing, no mask, no Metro need one. We have a few extras at Metro. We're doing our part to keep the DC area moving. Find out more at well mata dot com slash doing our part for all your foodies out there. I'm unwrapping a McDonald steak, egg and cheese bagel. Look at this
steak and the juice running down the side. Get a little bit on a wrapper here, m and then the fluffy egg and real cheese folded over the side, looking just so good. Mmm mmm, griled onions and about a bagel too. Thumbs up. A McDonald steak, egg and cheese bagel for breakfast. Love it m more bump up. I
participate in McDonald's government governance. But anyway, and I'll tell you another challenge we have, which is beyond the civil service rules, we have public sector employee unions in the United States, which to me, uh, you know, I think you talk. We can have a conversation about unions and and the good that they've done in our society. And surely there was a point at which they were being
very productive and important. And I think in the private sector, I can understand the desire to represent a set of workers and have that relationship be governed by a set of rules. But why is it that we have such a huge role for public sector unions. We are essentially saying that we have developed a system so that the people who are working for the government can bargain against
the government. You've got people who are in there essentially represented with interests that are that are adverse to the taxpayer interests. That to me makes no sense at all. The power and the scope and the reach of public sector unions is has reached a point of the US. But we've got to address it well, particularly because in California, is a great example of this that the diffuse interests of the voters are are are not nearly as powerful
in the actual hearing rooms as the union representatives. And so you have the best and brightest and smartest there in the hearing room arguing like crazy for one point of view, and then there's just this vague no you know, the idea that the voters really want to get their
pocketbooks protected, and there's just an imbalance. And then as it gets even worse in California, you have union lawyers supported by the government unions, the public employee unions, winning the offices and then negotiating with the people they replaced for the public employee union deals. It's just it's it's
mobbed up. Yeah, well that's I mean, this is exactly the challenge you you've identified it, which is that you get this incestuous system that comes into place and it's not clear who's actually representing the interests of the representative right, because you have public officials who get captured by interests
like like the public sector unions. So if public sector unions are a huge donor to Democrats in California for state wide office, what do you end up with you end up with statewide office holders who are remarkably uh responsive the union bosses, but not particularly responsive to the taxpayer.
And that to me is a huge problem, right when you're talking about people who are supposed to When you ask who is supposed to protect the interests of taxpayers, the answer is the people who are the people who are elected by taxpayers, but they're not doing their job. We have a big problem here. We have a system that essentially is perpetuating itself. And to get back to the original issue, you guys raise around bureaucratic bloat and around why it is that our bureaucracy doesn't function better.
The answer is because no one's holding them to account, certainly no one that's supposed to be holding them to account. We send the same old people in California, for example, back to Sacramento. But you can go to any state capital, or you can even go to Congress and see this. We send the same people back over and over again, and they are insistent on preserving the status quo, which clearly is not working. I got a question out of nowhere, um, and we have this opportunity with the podcast to ask
you this. I like asking smart people this question because I like to read, but I want to read the right stuff. What are a couple of your favorite, like all time books? Um, to make a person smarter about all this sort of stuff, government, society, culture or whatever. You know. It's funny my my kids make fun of me because they say I don't read that much, because they don't want to see me reading books, because I'm always reading, you know, news or stuff that comes up online.
I'm always have to tell my son, I'm staring at my phone. I'm reading a book. I just want you to know that because you know, because I grew up. You know, you see your parents reading books, and you're gonna maybe become a reader. They see me staring at my phone. I could be on Facebook, I could be playing candy, but I'm I'm I'm reading. But anyway, back to your book. Yeah, I you know, um, there are pieces of fiction over the years that have been very
influential in my life. And I'll tell you I don't want to freak anyone out, but my favorite book growing up was a book called four by George Orwell, which everybody you know, hopefully everybody's read, right, And the reason why it's so important to have read that book is because it gives you a sense of just how overwhelming government can be. And I, by the way, people will will I often get the question, how did you become a conservative or how did you decide that you were
conservatively disposed? And a lot of it has to come with reading that book and reading more and more about societies where where government does play a big rule. And uh so that book was actually quite influential. So four is one. It's not it's not a particularly tough read, but I think it's a really important read. Uh and uh and it's one that's been influential well. And it's fairly depressing too, So if you're feeling overly cheery that it's a good one. Yes, yes, no, no, no, I
I completely agree. Um. I've also recent I'll just say recently, I've gotten quite a to a theologian named Dallas Willard, who, uh, you guys may or may not be familiar with him, but he's somebody who you know is a is a theologian who has been very influential in uh in a certain line of a Protestant thinking, in particular now Presbyterian thinking. Uh And and he has had a whole bunch of really interesting books over the years. Some of them are
quite dense. He's quite a dense writer. But one that I've really enjoyed recently is called Life Without Lack, which talks about, uh, you know, essentially, how to lead life fully and how to feel full when we can oftentimes look around us and think, gosh, I'm missing that, or I don't have this, I don't have that or the other. Uh and and and and so that one in particular
has has stuck out recently. But and you know, he got my attention with that one because I'm in that world a lot, and I don't know that name, so I'll check that out. Yeah, we appreciate the recommendation. Hey, if I can just circle back to orwell real quickly. Um And in comment that, I was probably twelve when I read Animal Farms somehow or other, I think I came across it. There was a neat illustration of a pig on the front, and so I thought a story about pigs, but talking pigs. Um. It was like a
religious awakening for me. I mean it just I still can feel the electricity, um that ran through my veins as I read this thing. And I wondered if you read a Brave New World. Of course, Yeah, I had a feeling you had I think about you know, it's a it's a classic question who got it more right or Well or Huxley. I think China is a pretty good example of a regime taking just enough from more
Well and just enough from Huxley. You know, the point of Brave New World is that people weren't really oppressed so much as they were drugged and amused into apathy and cooperation. Um that there's you know, it takes both to oppress a society unless you're going to go full on, you know, oppressive regime. Yeah, that is a that is an amazing observation. Actually, and let me tell you why China is a great, great example of what you're talking about. The the thing that is most noticeable to me about
where China is now. And you know, we'll put coronavirus aside for a minute, because I think coronavirus was was a little bit of a blip in terms of where China is going were broadly, but the story that they've told people, and I think this is a story that people genuinely believe that economic prosperity and the listing of people out of poverty in China is enough to justify the oppression the government has put in place. In other words, the deal that the Chinese government has with people is
this deal. You can be a little bit more prosperous, and you can have food on your table, and you can have a society that looks modern and has all the comforts of modern society. But the only way you can have that is if you're willing to deal with what the government has put in place in terms of rules and regulations and requirements. And in China, those rules include things like constant monitoring. They include things like, um, the government being able to see and know what you're
doing all the time. They include things like not being able to access a lot of the internet right And people have been willing to take that deal, and they feel like, well, you know, my government is taken care of me. I'm doing a little bit better now, and so maybe they're right. The only way that I can be this way is if they have complete control over
over every part of my life. And I think it's a really good observation that it's it is a it is a mix in some ways between the four World and the Brave New World world, because it because it's this deal that that and these government is put in place. One question on the news of the day that I hope doesn't age poorly. I don't think it will when people hear this in the future. We're right in the midst of the biggest stimulus bill in the history of the world. I don't know what's gonna end up being
somewhere close to two trillion dollars. Should we be horrified that people are stuffing in all kinds of of things that have nothing to do with coronavirus and business, or should we just accept it as just part of the way the system works. I don't think we should accept it. I think we should be willing to call it out. I think we should be willing to say that this is not an opportunity to jam in there your pet project.
This is not an opportunity to say, hey, you know what, maybe we should put restrictions on what kinds of people can be named to the board of directors of companies. I've seen that that's something you know that Elizabeth Lawn wants. I mean, this is not an opportunity to get every straight cat and dog in this is an opportunity to make sure it goes back to the original conversation we're having, guys, which is what's our goal. What are we trying to do here? Who are we trying to help? Let's help
those people, and then let's get out. Let's stop talking about the rest of this stuff, because this is what always ends up happening. And then you've got people on the outside who are self proclaimed fiscal conservatives saying, hey, three trillion, four trillion, we need more stimulus. Now, it just does not make any sense to me that you would that you would have a UM. People never want to waste the crisis. I guess as rama Manuel has said,
and that's precisely what you're seeing here. But it doesn't make it right. Well, I thought there were crisis is big enough that you wouldn't have time to think about that. But maybe I was wrong. Yeah, you underestimated people. Uh. Hey, I believe it or not, these things are not scripted. So I'm gonna ask jack Um, do you have more on that you want to talk about or can I ask on here a little bit about his his gig at Stanford. Um the uh, it's a truism at this
point that American universities lean way way left. And you see a lot of attitudes among college kids that I find at uh you given what you believe? Are you just a pariah at Stanford? Do you have to run from doorway to doorway and and fend off blows? Or how how are the youngsters these days? Are they open to uh hearing opposing viewpoints? What's what's a snapshot of
the college experience for you these days? Yeah? You know, for me at least, it's pretty um, it's always a pretty good set of experiences, because what I find is that, well, let's start with the students. I mean, the students clearly are very left and they have some very out there
points of view. But if they're going to come and take a class of mind, they understand that they're probably going to be introduced to some concepts that other members of the faculty won't introduce them to, and some come seeking that out. So I end up with with some students in my classes who are deliberately looking for that alternative point of view. I have some who are looking for a good argument, which I'm always happy to have.
I have some who just come because they're curious in the subject matter, but aren't particularly politically inclined one way or the other. And and so I end up with a pretty good diversity of students that I end up with pretty good conversation in my classes. In particular. More broadly, I will say the challenge I have that I see
on campus is not so much with the students. It's with the other faculty, and that there are a number of folks around the university who are an important positions, who you know, who deal with students all the time, who have a very strong point of view and don't believe that any alternative point of view holds any any merit. Now, I'm not speaking about everybody there. Lord, how can you get to a to a position of education at that
level and have that attitude. Well, they're they're they're so deeply steeped and they're so good at what they do that they don't necessarily believe that there's any alternate possibility an explanation right there. That they've been in what they're doing for so long that they just subscribe to that point of view, and they automatically. I mean, what bothers me is not so much people have strongly held believes
I'm all for that. What bothers me is when they when they say, look, you feel differently from me, and I'm going to ascribe bad intentions to you that essentially, I'm going to say, the reason that you disagree with me is because you don't believe in science, or you're a bad person just in general or right correct, or you're heartless, or yeah, you're a racist. Sure, I mean what which which I always find humorous when when you know, when when I hear that, but I you know, that's
that's where it's a little bit tougher for me. And I feel like that is something I see I'm seeing more and more of on campus, which is people who are so deeply set in their views that they're unwilling to consider that there might be an alternative. Sorry, no, no, I as to say, I've I've I've got a lot of colleagues who are are quite left and as I said, we're willing to entertain the alternative, and we have great conversations.
But it's the ones who are so set in their views that those are the one that I find more difficult. I read a contemporary wise person say the other day, and I have a feeling this wisdom goes back to the ancient Greeks or beyond that. When you lose your capacity to say, but I might be wrong, you've lost an incredibly important part of your humanity, and that's those people scare me. Yeah. Well, I mean, this is the problem with with with American colleges and universities more broadly,
is that you do have a lot of people. I mean just look at Twitter, right that back and forth you see over Twitter on on on things, and you've got people who are absolutely a hundred percent convinced that they are right and and and they will never be wrong. Now, in some areas, if they're talking about something they've researched for their whole life, I believe that they're probably right.
But when it comes to questions around uh, you know what the best way is for society to move forward, or questions about where we are politically, those get a little grayer for me. And I'm more been happy to admit that I may not know the right answer. If I can a lot of situations, I probably don't know the right answer, and I'm doing my best to guess. But I always try to tell people that, and I always try to say, look, I believe very well. I could could be right, could be wrong, and you're right.
I think when we lose our capacity to do that, it's a sad thing. It's a very sad day. You know the problem with smug contemptuousness is that it's kind of fun, all right, it's a good time, and if you're surrounded by other people who agree with you, can they can feel really good? Oh yeah, it can snowball
too until you can't stop yourself. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, maybe someday we can talk about the future of college education, because that is a really interesting topic to all of us, particularly as I pay for my third kid to get through that process. And this is not the classic sitcom
level humor about you know, writing checks. It's the idea that the dissemination of knowledge costs, you know, thirty to sixty dollars per year and you have to go to a big place with brick buildings seem is fairly ridiculous to me at this point in history. Not that there is no role for you know, a socratic seminar type thing, and intellectual leadership by a learned human and directing learning.
I think that's all incredibly important, But I just it's become something ridiculous, partly because of the flood of government money. But again, maybe that's a for another time. And we didn't even touch on the presidential campaign, which seems to be completely on hold, at least at the time we're recording this in the middle of the comic virus thing going on. But uh, Joe Biden, it's it's gotta be good news for Joe Biden, right that he gets to
hunker down and not have to talk very much. I think it's good news, but it's not going to be good news, uh once we once a couple of weeks passes, because people are going to forget about it, right, And I think staying out of the public light, being able to kind of prepare a message or you know, rest or do whatever he wants to do. I don't know. I think those are positives. But I think you're seeing a little bit of consternation from his camp that he
can't get more involved in this coronavirus conversation. Right. He's trying to get out there, and we've seen as a little bit as we record this, where he's trying to get out and and and appear almost like the shadow president who's got his own ideas and got his own thoughts. It just it's just not been effective. He just has
not been able to put himself into the conversation. And I suspect that while it's nice to be able to lay low for a little bit, once this continues to go on, as we drag into April and May, he's going to want to figure out ways to get into the limelight. And I think that's going to be something he's gonna want to do because it's easy to forget
we've got a presidential campaign what we do. Yeah, it's funny how the universe it seems cycle after cycle says no, the election is going to be about this, and it's almost like you're on some sort of game show. What was that cooking show where they told you the last second the secret ingredient you had to Yeah, it's very much like the Iron Chef. McCain and Obama were set up to be an argument about the Iraq War, than the crisis happens and it's got nothing to do with
it anymore. Yeah. Yeah, it seems to happen every time a lot he it's always stimulating. We don't want to steal too much of your time. But I hope we can do it again. Absolutely thankful guys, our pleasure. A little too smart for my taste, Yeah, oh yeah, I'll ask him to dumb it down next time. Well, we covered so much ground. I have a feeling he could go deep quite a few of the I'm sure, Oh yeah, especially when I asked him a question. But uh, stop it. Um,
I would love to. I could maintain, I think, a lifelong interest in the question of how do you rearrange incentives and disincentives to make government perform more efficiently? I couldn't because I'm too pessimistic about it. I just I just can't imagine. Well, I would die better, No, no question about that. I just just from being in in private bureaucracies, big companies and seeing the government. It just
I've never seen it go the other way. It just it grows and grows and gets more centralized and gets thicker and slower, less responsive. Yeah. I'm thinking about the trends in media with a lot of consolidation and and and thinning the workforce and the rest of it. But I'm not sure it's that's not the model we're looking for. That's that's that's starvation, not stuff about increasing efficiency, reforming
the rules of civil service. If you don't start there, then that I'm walking out of the room, because if that's not on the table, it'll never happened until people can lose their jobs. Well, and serious reform of public employee union rules too. Yeah, if we don't have those two, we have nothing nothing. You're right, it's an excellent point, extra large. When you're ready to ride Metro, we want you to know we're ready for you. Here are just a few of the people at Metro to tell you
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