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I mean you can delay it. You have that power. I have no power. Charlton has the power. Charlton does have all the power. Charlton has all the power. Everybody I'm Kyle and Rizzo, welcome back to Make Me Smart where we make today make sense. Today is Friday, the 28th of June.
This was quite a week to make it through, wasn't it? I am Kimberly Adams. Thank you for joining us on our podcast and folks who are joining on the YouTube live stream. Thanks for tuning in. It is finally God Bless Friday. And that means it's time for our weekly Happy Hour episode economics on tap.
All right, we will do what we usually do. We'll do some news. Take a break and then play a game. But before we get into it, we will talk drinks. I because as Kimberly said, it has been a week who boy. I'm drinking this afternoon. I'm having a modern times Cosmic Currents. It's brewery out of San Diego, California. Double Hizi IPA 8.0 alcohol by volume. I wish I brought another one in here because it's going to be one of those days. Just say you.
I decided to like cheer myself up by making myself a for real cocktail today, but I did it as you call it the kitchen cocktails was just like what I had. And I had some rosemary, simple syrup left over from a previous recipe. I had some bourbon. I had some compari. And so I have mixed them all together. And so I have made something that is red. What I had to sit down as it tastes. It tastes good. It's a little little more bitter than my typical drinks, but it's still tasty.
When you wait, sorry, I have I have a follow up. I have a follow up. When you cook, do you just kind of wing it like you do with your cocktails or do you actually like follow a recipe? It depends on what I'm making. I don't cook all that much. And if it's something that like and the things that I do cook are like a stable of things. And I know how to make them. And so I wing it.
But when I bake, I follow directions exactly. And I'm a stress baker. And so because it makes me feel like I can make sense of the world when I know that if I do these things, something nice and delicious comes out. And so and during the pandemic, although it's funny, I usually don't want to eat what I bake after I bake it. I just like want it away. I'll give it to me.
I was just going to say, what do you do that because you live by yourself and you know, I do, but I live in a building with lots of people who generally will eat cookies. During the pandemic, I also went through a phase of like making ramen noodles from scratch, which is basically like chemistry because you have to be like weight scale exact with the measurements to get those noodles right. And so that was very satisfying for me also.
So, but with the cocktails, it's sort of I did like two parts bourbon and one part compari and it was still a little bit too much compari. So I added some more bourbon and it was still kind of bitter. And so I just added some more simple syrup and sort of just trial and error until I get something I like. And then I added some more bourbon and then I put some more bourbon in there. Anyway, we will go to the comments.
That's right. That's right. Let's see. Oh, Debbie Donovan says I bet Kimberly Adams will be doing a lot of stress baking after this week's scotus decisions. Cheryl Lindstrom is saving her alcoholic consumption for the concert. She's going to what's the concert Cheryl. Let's see. Let's see Dale Stambridge day drinking with a voodoo ranger imperial imperial IPA easy fella. Only have one or two of them. Steve from New Jersey is having a Hibiscus flavored selter with bourbon.
You know, I'm like on the edge of mixing flavored selters with various like liquors because sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Like I've tried to mix like flavored sparkling water with bourbon and it tastes weird to me for some reason. Where are you on the white claws of the world? You know, I've never actually had a white claw that doesn't seem appealing to me at all. So I wouldn't know, but I love to hear from other folks what they think of white claws.
I guess there's only really one thing for us to talk about since we kind of got all the chevron different stuff out of our system and you're sure this afternoon. But man, so I watched the debate last night in a gentrifying neighborhood in DC and Anacostia and bar and restaurant and I watched it with our former colleague Noel King. Oh, oh, fascinating.
How was Noel? She's doing great. She's doing great. Vox, the explain by the way, if you know, if we should listen to it today, explain on Vox. She's spectacular. Spectacular. I think we spent more time observing the people around us than we did the actual debate because it was such an interesting mix of people. There were like some like Biden hair people and Biden Harris t-shirts trying to get folks to sign petitions and just the decline in their morale over the course of the debate.
And then there were several, you know, folks and at various points, people were like putting their heads in their hands. People were like holding their throats like the universal sign of like protecting themselves several time. There were a couple times when just groups of people just got up and left just shaking their heads before the debate was even over. It was a wild experience.
So I have, as I think listeners this podcast now, I have four kids, 26, 23, 20 and 17, the 26 year old is home. He, this being the way the economy works now. He can basically work from his bedroom that he grew up in if he wants to come home and spend some time with the folks and he has been home for the last 10 days and it's been great having him. He's going back to DC on Saturday.
He and I were watching on the couch and he was doing all those things that those people you just were watching described. It was just unbelievable. I was texting with my 23 year old who also lives in Washington, DC and he texted me as soon as Biden started, he texted me and he said he's speaking very softly.
And I texted him back and I said he's very old. And then about 15 minutes later, I texted him one more time and I said, so what do you think? And he says, oh, I turned it off after the first question. So because Noel and I are both come from an audio background. At first, we thought there was a problem with his mics. We were like, did they mic him wrong?
Because he sounded so muffled and then we realized that was just him. But in terms of your son, tuning out, I got data. There's this programmatic media company that I talk to sometimes and they track data about what people are watching over like streaming platforms and other kind of through like your two bees and your firesticks and like all these different smart TVs and all these different ways to track how people are watching stuff through smart TVs and over the airs.
So I'm going to read you what they sent me this morning. Meq tracked viewership trends for 5.97 million households who tuned into the debate last night on CNN. And the average total watch time per household was 44 minutes and only 28% of viewers watch the presidential debate in its entirety. 48% of the audience drop off was seen in the first 15 to 30 minutes of the debate. 35% of the viewers were Republican, 40% were Democrat, 24.6% were nonpartisan. And here's no surprise.
The District of Columbia, South Carolina, New Jersey, Florida, and Georgia had the higher highest viewership penetration of the debate. Obviously DC. That's what everybody's doing. It was not a good night for the Democrats. And the other thing I noticed and I've been covering presidential elections in some way, shape, or form since the 2000 race and more actively probably for the last four cycles.
And one of the things that happens during a debate is you get fundraising appeals. You'll get emails. You'll get, and more recently, you'll get day-looged with text messages. And one of the things I noticed during the debate was I got no text messages from the campaigns asking for money.
Yeah, I didn't get the, because usually when there's like a zinger or a quote or something, you'll get like a ping and be like, ah, blah, blah, blah. I didn't get anything from the, I think I got one text from the Trump campaign last night and another one this morning.
I didn't hear any, I got one message from the Biden campaign and it was the most generic boilerplate thing. And then this morning, it, no, not even this morning, like mid-morning towards the afternoon, it was basically the same boilerplate message. Like I've never seen so much Malarkey, but with almost no other language. And you could tell they were scrambling with how to message this thing.
What to say, yes, they were trying to figure out what to say. So he had his Biden had a rally this afternoon and they basically took that language to use. And I want to read you a little bit about what they finally sent at 312 this afternoon in a fundraising text. Hey folks, it's Joe last night. I spent 90 minutes debating on a stage with a guy who has all the morals of an alley cat.
I know I'm not a young man. I don't walk as easily as I used to. I don't speak as smoothly as I used to. I don't debate as well as I used to. I also know how to tell the truth. I know right from long setter, etc. etc. Please give me money. This is their angles to try and own it. Right. Right. Well, but yes, I agree they are now belatedly trying to own it. Honestly, what they should have done was whatever the first question was last night from from Jake Taper and then a bash.
Biden's first line should have been whatever the short answer to that question is for 15 seconds. And then what he said today, right. And that would have disarmed the whole bleep in thing because now they have an enormous problem. And these conversations are happening and momentum is real. And let me just say here for the record, I am on the record as saying Donald Trump is a threat to the public and Joe Biden is too old to campaign for this job.
I'm not saying he's too old to do it. He's told to campaign for it, which is a different thing. But the Democrats now earn a world of hurt. Right. And so what I didn't have. Sorry, sorry, one very quick last thing. He had this rally today that you mentioned in North Carolina. And he got up on stage and it was like a different guy. He was relaxed. He was present.
I think this is pure subjective supposition. I think he had a little bronzer on because he looked tanned and fit and rested. His suit fit perfectly. He had no tie. It was open a little bit. He looked great. And he gave an incredibly energetic speech. And what's going to happen now, I think, is the conversations that started last night after that debate, which on a scale of 0 to 100, Biden scored a 0 on.
Right. The conversations that started, I think you're going to be slowed a little bit and everybody's going to go, OK, here's Joe. He's back. And that's going to be really challenging for the Democrats. I don't know. So one of the key differences then versus last night is teleprompters. And totally, totally, totally, absolutely. Sure.
But look, wait, he, he, sorry, he for sure could have memorized a 20 second. I'm not a young man. I don't debate as well. I speak less clearly, but I know right from wrong. I mean, come on. There are a lot of things that could have been done differently, but what I think is going to be the most interesting is after the weekend when it's were out of the first 24 hour media cycle.
And the talking heads have kind of dialed back. And what's going to happen and what's probably already happening is the Dems are going to be going to their top donors. Because those voices are going to matter a lot. Because those here, and believe less. Yeah.
And what it's going to be very interesting to hear the kind of conversations they have with the down ballot folks, the governors, the members of the House and the Senate who are in difficult races, who are really going to be there's going to be some kind of polling in swing states and in these tight races to see how bad this was for those races.
How much of a liability does Biden become for the governors for the state houses and for the House and the Senate because that's I think where you're really going to see the establishment willing to push him harder. If it looks like he becomes a liability, just like in the midterms, a lot of people, despite not wanting to speak publicly about Trump on the Republican side, they did not want to campaign with him.
And they were very glad that he was not sharing a ballot with them on the midterms because they felt like Trump was a liability. And that was also a concern a little bit in 2020, but more so in the midterms. And if Biden becomes a liability for some of those people in the risky seats, then I think this conversation is going to get more intense. But I think we'll learn more about that after the weekend.
I really agree. One more quick thought for me. It's so for, let's see, when was 2015, nine years ago, for nine years, never Trumpers and some of the Democratic party have been saying to Republicans to support Trump, open your eyes. How do you deny what you see that he is completely unfit? And it's really challenging now for Democrats to say, oh, you didn't see what you saw last night. You know, there's a logical inconsistency that becomes for the Democrats, I think, a problem. I don't know.
You know, what I was thinking about last night is for all we know, Biden could have been up the previous evening working through some sort of top secret classified national security matter. You know, and that, you know, could be one of the reasons, like not trying to make excuses or anything like that. But there's so much we don't know about what happens behind the scenes in these situations.
But that's part of the job. Someone mentioned in the chat, why isn't Kamala a part of this conversation? I think she is a part of this conversation. She went on CNN after that debate and made the points better than either the folks on stage and Anderson Cooper said so. And and he's a little bit too. He pushed her right. And he was like, come on, man, we saw what we saw.
The logistics of trying to switch gears at this point are going to be what I don't think it's a forget it. I think there are serious people having serious conversations about what it would take to switch gears at this point. And it is it possible? Yes. Would it be extraordinarily challenging, litigated and make a lot of people angry? Absolutely. But this is not a conversation that we were having two days ago.
And it reminded me of you and I. We've had a couple of rounds of discussion about the value of debates. And I think it's hard to say that this was not a valuable debate. No, I'd agree. But I totally agree. And you're absolutely right. And we can talk about debates another time. But this was a terrible. It was a terrible debate. Terrible debate. Sorry. One guy was lying his ass off. Right. And the other guy didn't have it in him to be quick enough to counter.
It was terrible debate. Because this is what we talked about the other day that it was going to be on Biden to fact check his to call out his lies and to do that, which he was not able to do. He was not capable of doing absolutely. Totally. All right. I'm sure that everybody in the audience is over hearing about this debate. But what I will say, there's lots of there's lots going on in the chat. I'm just saying people. I don't know what's going on in the chat.
Well, there's just lots of comments and lots of like three or four line comments as opposed to, you know, the one or two. So I mean, this is a big deal. It's a very big deal. It's a huge deal. And I would just really encourage folks to avoid the temptation to check out because. Yes. Yeah. This is particularly the moment when regardless of what party you're in or which side of this year on.
The people in power making the decisions about what's happened, what happens next are paying very close attention, very close attention to what regular folks are saying and thinking and doing. They're going to pay very close attention to how well they're able to fundraise off of these messages about him not being as young as he used to be.
They're going to pay very close attention to what happens at, you know, the rallies and what kind of energy is there they're going to pay very close attention to social media conversations. And so if this is something that you care about, this is the time to share your thoughts with the people you know or your representatives or your members of Congress or whatever in terms of what you think should happen next. Because this is when people are paying the closest attention.
Totally. I would just like to say before you before we move on, you and I each have one vote for president Jamie Geary text president Rizdal. So that's one and Susanna Romagge says I would vote for Kimberly Adams. So there you go. Oh, thanks. I would not want that job. Not to waste it. Yeah, I would be if I liked it. I will not serve. That's it for the news. Such as it was. We are going to take a quick break and then have full effort. You guys know the drill. Be right back.
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They'll look at your full financial picture and help you create a flexible strategy that considers things like market conditions and health care expenses. So you can stop worrying about the future and enjoy whatever comes next. Visit Fidelity.com slash income planning. Investment minimums of five Fidelity brokerage services member NYSESIPC. Hey everyone, it's Rima Chrase. Host of this is uncomfortable. Here to let you all know about our summer book club.
Every other week, we're going to recommend a book that our team loves that gets at some uncomfortable topic around money, class, or relationship to work. We'll feature a wide range of rucks, including classics like EM Forsters, a passage to India, page turning novels like Naomi Alderman's The Future, and personal finance books like Paco D'Lion's Finance for the People. Join this is Uncomfortable's book club by signing up for our newsletter.
Be sure to sign up today at Marketplace.org slash book club. Maybe we need to change the poll to see which one of us would win for president. Oh no, don't do that. Oh no, I don't know. Oh no, I'm sorry, I should have said it out loud. Okay, we were back. Time to play half full half empty. I vote for our special guest host today, Marketplace Tech producer Daniel Shin. Hello, go Daniel. Starting with number one this week, Nova Sappho on Marketplace Morning Report Explored.
How some states are trying to lure sports franchises to their state by building new shiny sports stadiums, which are almost always funded by taxpayer dollars. Are you half full or half empty on taxpayers, putting bills for new sports stadiums? I cannot possibly be more empty. Oh my gosh, just stop it. I am going to reopen the wound of the Rams and that whole drama like St. Louis, where I am originally from in case anybody missed it, is a very big sports town.
And we support like all of the teams with energy. Like I cannot tell you the number of like sports team themed birthday parties and graduation parties I have been to in my life. Like we care. And the Rams got so much money to come to the city. They got a new stadium. They were going to get even more stuff and ran away from more money. All the way empty on the stuff. And I hope you're enjoying them where you have them.
I am in fact and and their new stadium is very nice, but look, here's the deal. All those stadiums never work out economically for the town or the city that spends taxpayer money in the form of credits or actual expenditures to build on it. Just the dynamics and the economics don't work. And yet it keeps happening. And yet it keeps happening because I know I know and it's bananas. Because money just make it happen. Okay, so we're going to get all of us all upset about this.
Next. Next Google removed its continuous scroll feature on search. That's basically where you get endless results without having to click through to a next page. They did say that this was done to deliver faster results. But are you half full or half empty on Google ending continuous scroll? I'm half empty because I enjoy the continuous scroll. It saves me another click in a world of clicks.
Also, there's got to be some mechanism here by which it turns out to be remuneratively positive for Google. They're not just doing it for the hell of it. I don't know what it is. Make them Ricardi Grino did the story for us actually on the show. I'm half empty. I think it's bogus. I'm going to say half full because I think there may be some environmental consequences here. Oh, is that what it is? All right.
I'm just assuming because if it's safe, if it makes it load faster, that means it's taking up less computing time. If it's taking up less computing time, it's running those servers less. It's a teeny, tiny discount of energy in the individual sense. But scaled over Google, I have to imagine that makes a good environmental impact. I've been seeing a lot of comments on social media where people are like, oh, everyone's saying, don't turn your AC up past 79 in a heat wave.
But it's fine to have chat GPT create like shrimp Jesus and use up all of the electricity. Right. Totally. So that was a half full. Fair enough. All right. All right. Yep. Next headline. Unfortunately, the website MTV news.com appears to have gone down. After MTV seems fully pulled down the site. And it's nearly 20 years of content there. Are you have full ref empty on MTV news.com? You didn't have that. That was unnecessary. What the 20 years point? We're not that far apart.
And age can really I remember those days too. Shut up the both of you. Shut up the both of you. Any who. I'm half empty just on principle. And all y'all can go to hell. That's all I'm saying. Oh my god. I'll go and have half empty in solidarity with Jinx. Next. Jesus Christ. All right. Moving on. Moving on. Next headline. Fourth of July. Right around the corner. Transportation Security Administration say they expect record breaking numbers of flyers today. And next July third.
Are you have full or have empty on traveling around for the fourth of July holiday? Empty because I have to be on a plane on Sunday. Do you? I do. I'm coming your way. I'm going out. I was just going to say business of pleasure. And then I remember that you're coming here. Yeah. You know, I mean, look, air first down a little tiny bit since 2023, which probably explains part of it. But airlines also just need to put more flights on because planes are really crowded, man.
Well, let's remember the state of plane manufacturing in the world right now. Well, yeah, no totally. Not just Boeing, but Airbus as well. Yeah, no total. Yeah, exactly, exactly. All right. We got to get out of here because Skystart is wet. I am. Can you tell? I'm a little like red and whatever. It's like a thousand degrees. I would open the door, but people are outside and it would be loud. Anyway. So we're coming up to the pole. Let's jump to the pole. All right.
This comes from National Geographic discussing how fourth of July drone shows are actually becoming more popular. Over traditional fireworks shows, or you have full or have empty on July 4th drone light shows. All right. Let me tell you a little story. So my oldest son, who as I've said before is home, is a huge Dodgers fan. So we went last week to last Friday to the Dodgers game. And on Fridays at Dodgers stadium, they used to do a big fireworks thing.
But now it has become a drone light show and like at the fifth inning, and this is like now, you know, eight, thirty nine o'clock at night. Remember I get up at four o'clock in the damn morning, right? Sorry I'm getting us an e and i. I apologize for swearing, right? But my wife, so it's me and my wife and my oldest son because all the other kids have bailed. They've come in a separate car and they're leaving. So it's a three of us.
And my wife says, oh, and a thing flashes on the scoreboard that says, drone light show after the ninth inning. And our experience when the kids were a little, we used to take them to Dodger games and it used to be fireworks. And it would take like 45 minutes after the last out to get the light, the, the fireworks show going. And so by the time the fireworks show started and this is before the new pitch clock and all that jazz and major league baseball, it was like 10, 30 quarter, 11 and night.
And I'm like number one, the kids are a little number two. I've been up since bleep freaking track, bleep of dawn. And I'm tired. I don't want to go home. Anyway, so sorry, this is more than you need to know about my family dynamic. But my wife, Leanne's over and says, I'd really like to see the drone light show. And I kind of look at her and I'm like, okay, honey. So we stay for the drone light show. I mean, as one does, right? Because there's no alternative response.
So the state of the drone light show. And while interesting in a mechanical kind of way, it was really underwhelming. I mean, there were a couple hundred drones and they made this formations. And since it's the West Coast in Santa Monica and blah, blah, blah. They had like a surfer guy on a surfboard with drone lights. And then they had a skyline of Los Angeles. And after about five minutes, my wife was like, okay, I'm done. We can go. So that lets you know how I feel about it.
So I have two drone stories to share very quickly. First of all, I don't know if you remember after Biden, was it after he got the nomination or after you won the big drone show? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They did a drone show. I think for that kind of stuff and for weddings and for baseball games, like it's actually a good thing when it's something that's happening relatively often. And you can like not waste so much stuff and make a lot of noise.
Like I live near a place where sometimes people who have a lot of money to spend on their weddings set off fireworks. And I'm just like, hmm, great. Yeah. But I like the sustainability component of it. Also, I was very entertained by a video I saw and I'll have to look it up online and share it in the show notes where somewhere in Texas somebody like did this drone show and they created a QR code in the sky. Oh, that's great.
With their drones and anybody who put the QR code and into their phone, like they held up their phone to get the QR code, you got Rick World. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I mean, that's kind of great. That's kind of amazing. I'm so classic. Fourth of July. Look, I live in Washington, DC. I happen to live in a place that has a great view of the fireworks and national mall. I love it. I want to keep it. I'm going to say half empty on the drone shows for Fourth of July.
But half full, more broadly for drone shows. And I think let's see what does a poll say. 80% half full. I feel like we've got a good like sustainability crowd in here. Half empty, 90% 173 votes. Good stuff. All right. That is it for us on this Friday at the midpoint of the year back on Monday. And meanwhile, you know how to get a whole of us. 508 UB Smart UBSMART. Email us if you like. Make me smart at marketplace.org. Make me smart is produced by Courtney Bergseeker.
Today's episode was engineered by our own firecracker Charlton Thorpe. Oh my god. If only people knew Charlton Thorpe. Anyway, I'm going to have a cute, Jimmy LaHuxable. And it's when I brought to a Friday game, Mariska Berra. He's the senior producer of this podcast. Bridge of Bonner is in charge of podcasts. Sierra Marketplace, Francesca Levy is in charge of everything else. Indigital and on weight demand. Hey, everyone. It's Rima Chrase. Host of This is Uncomfortable.
Here to let you all know about our summer book club. Every other week, we're going to recommend a book that our team loves that gets at some uncomfortable topic around money, class, our relationship to work. We'll feature a wide range of rucks, including classics like EM Forsters, a passage to India, page turning novels like Naomi Alderman's The Future, and personal finance books like Paco D'Lion's Finance for the People. Join This is Uncomfortable's book club by signing up for our newsletter.
Be sure to sign up today at Marketplace.org slash book club.