Pushkin. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making better decisions. I'm Maria Kannakova and I'm Nate Silver.
Today on the show, we're talking about the super Bowl, which was a tremendously disappointing result if you don't like seeing men crying or the Kansas City Chiefs America's team losing.
But we'll talk about how that went and our belt.
Yes, and then we're going to talk about Trump, what's been going on in the last few weeks, and kind of what the important things are to focus on. Right where should we be diverting our attention, what should we be not looking at at all, because obviously there's a barrage of things that are being plung at a and it's very important, as we've said over and over, to focus.
And then how to find the Holy Grail a nice apartment in New York City.
Yes, good luck with that search tonight. And after that we will actually have a special segment for our Pushkin Plus subscribers, answering a timeless question from a listener, how do you pick a good doctor? All right, Nate, let's talk about the super Bowl.
As one of the few people rooting for the Kansas City Chiefs and betting, not necessarily for a plus CV bit, but following my heart my partners from Kansas City. I thought that game was a fucking nightmare. I have to say, I don't know. And to see I'm not anti Tom Brady, but to see Tom Brady gloating that he's going to keep his goat status for now.
Patrick, you know I've been in a situation nineteen times and Packrick, it was just fucking bunking. It was.
I rarely am bothered by sports, right, you assume you lose half the time, and this like this bug me me, Maria.
I mean, I like Philly, Philly is against City. Let's let's say that. Like I'm usually pro Philly. That region, that.
Whole Philly, Baltimore, sure, Maryland regions kind of a weird region. You know, they have interesting accents, interesting food, right, I feel like it's it's I take that region over New England.
Oh interesting. Well, as a New Englander, I actually happen to agree. I'm you know, I'm a Bostonian who's who's not a huge Boston fan. So so there you have it. But I actually have the same beef with with Philly. That I have with Boston, which is that their sports fans can be really nasty. I don't like nasty sports fans. I like people who like our sports fans, you know, and have good spirit, but don't get don't get like really mean when they win. And I don't know, Philly's
not as bad as but Boston. I think we've talked about this on the show before. Is awful. Right when the Red Sox finally won the World Series and reverse the curse, they were setting cars on fire in Harvard Square, Like what the actual fund?
I mean, you're kind of deprived of like sunlight up there, stuff much fucking sunlight in Boston in the winter.
That's very true. That's very true. But there's not much sunlight in New York right now either, So so yes, I don't like it when sports fans get really nasty. But I do like Philly, and I think that this is all good. I also don't like gloating, so I'm with you that the Tom Brady thing is a little bit off putting. Luckily, I did not listen to you. I did not put any money on the Chiefs, So I'm good, even though you advised me too.
You know, at least.
It wasn't a bat where you ever had hope, you know, the hope was immediate, I guess of that one interception in the first layer.
Yes, and by the way, dear listeners, I did watch the whole thing because first of all, I needed to watch from the beginning, because I needed to know that I want and our prop bet about crying.
Which I'm not even sure have we review the video on this, I'm not even.
Sure about this is this is so funny.
So all of the sports books have called it in my favor. And Nate and I had a text exchange at the time.
We had different terms. We had different terms.
He said a tear.
I saw tears, not crying, but I.
Saw tears and eyes and there was even someone wiping away a tear, to which Nate wrote, So this is our text exchange. I actually sorry, Nate, this is this is about to become a public record. So someone one of our you know, loyal listeners on Twitter the moment this happened, tweeted at us, at both of us, saying they just showed a player wiping away a tear during the national anthem exclamation point, and I was like, hell, yeah, I know they did, because I'm watching.
If a tear falls in the forest and no one is there to see it, it is the man crying and so and so.
I sent this to Night and Nate said, saw tears being wiped but maybe not actual tears. And I said, dude, no, And I still stand by mind, dude, no, resolute.
We're gonna have to go to a video. I mean, this is a small bit.
I'm not gonna you know, I mean, I'm the chiefs thing already as we devastated, right, but like you know, I don't know about that.
You have to you have to embrace it.
I went. We negotiated the term was carefully.
We did, but there was a tier and it was being wiped away.
Okay, The terms were, is there a player or coach who has a tear in their eye during the national anthem? I think I think you'd have to actually see the tier, not just the implication of the tier.
But that's that's those were the terms that we carefully negotiated.
There was you could see the tier, and whenever you saw the player's eyes you could actually see them welling up, which is one of the things I said, you know, the welling up with tiers.
Okay, let me say this.
Let's say we bet that a McDonald's hamburger would be shown on the broadcast, and what you see is the residue of a big knac.
You see the rapper and some of the I don't know.
But no, we saw the big We saw the final bite of the big mac being consumed, and that would count because we saw the final bite and then someone wiping away their mouth. So I think that I won this bet. Nate clearly has some issues with it, but I will side with all of the sports books, with our loyal fans who all say they also saw tears. Nate, I think I got this one, and I think what did you? I think you lost ten bucks? Right, We're okay.
I'll buy you a beer for your tears, all.
Right, perfect. I don't drink beer, but you can buy me half a glass of wine because I don't think ten dollars is gonna do the fun. We'll do a half poor. You owe me a half poor half wine.
Ironically, the less you pay for wine, the bigger the better of the poor. It's a little secret.
Yeah. Oh. I also wanted to correct the record from last week when we were talking about the coin flip. So I actually tracked down the study that looked at this, and it's by Percy Diaconus, who does really fun work and statistics, and it turns out that the coin is slightly more likely to land on the side from which it started. So that's when it's a human person tossing it. So if it starts with heads up, it's more likely to land heads like fifty points, it's not it's less
than a half a percent. Like it's tiny, tiny, tiny, and you need thousands and thousands of tosses. But when it's a human being and not like a computer, not a simulation, it turns out that the coin is more likely to land on the side which was facing up at the start of the toss. So I just want to throw that out there for people who are doing these bets.
I think I did say tails right. Yeah, I got that right, and the chiefs got that right, and that was the only yeah.
So that was also the only.
Thing that went right over the course the entire yeah.
So the weight also matters, so we're we're both. I just wanted to make sure to put that study out there because I think it's a lot of fun and I think it's kind of cool that there's human error, right, that's introduced in the way that we the way that we toss coins.
I mean, you know, they could do rock papers so right, which adds like nielman is strategy and game theory.
Yeah, that would be fun. But they should They should get the uh A Japanese team to do this because I think they're the best at rochambo. I think they always win the championships. So they need they need like a backup team their quarterback to do the rock paper sesssor.
WSO RPS World twiir is of rochambo or rock paper anyway.
Yeah, there you go. All right, So that's the Super Bowl, Nate. I'm sorry that your team lost. I'm happy that I won our prop bet. And you know, I think we both agree that people gloating is never a good luck no.
So you know, for example, for example, you wouldn't have mentioned the prep bet five times there.
I think.
Just once in our summation of the segment, which we always do. We always sum up what we've talked about.
You're awesome bragging about a bet with you minus four hundred. I've been the sumach up tomorrow minus a million. All right, all right, all right, let's we have other things to discuss.
That is true, we have important things to discuss. So let's talk about what has been going on in the last few weeks of the Trump presidency. So he's been, you know, splashing around quite a bit, trying different things, all of these executive orders, seeing what's going to stick. And as we've said before on the show, a lot
of this is distraction, right, that is his tactic. How do you distract people from figuring out what's actually important and keep them just constantly putting out small fires so that when the big one comes along, you kind of just let it go. So let's talk about what is actually important to focus on and what we can ignore for now. So maybe as a start, Nate, let's just talk about some general heuristics, some good rules for choosing what to pay attention to. So when you try to
figure out, okay, what should I be focusing on? What comes to mind? How do you figure out orties, whether it's Trump or anything else, just in general, what am I going to pay attention to?
Well?
My process is weird because I'm thinking about, like what things can I write about? So and also I have this kind of like distaining for like the daily politics crap.
Like I never watch cable.
News, right, I read the newspapers, I guess, or read the digital version of the newspapers.
But like, so you know, to.
Me to just say, like the thing that gets partisans wiled up on like X, blue sky whatever else, like don't pay attention to that generally speaking, right, because they are trying to, like you know, it's like following your the Yankees or your favorite baseball team, where it's like, yeah, there's going to be a headline every day, and like it probably isn't that important in the grand scheme of things.
Yeah, I think I think that that's actually an important thing. I to try to kind of stay away from daily news because it's really really easy to get completely kind of caught up in this attention hijacking, right, and like the culture of momentary outrage. Oh he said this, this happened. And if you're too online, I think that nothing hijacks your attention more than that, right, Like the overly like being too involved in all of this discourse and every
single thing that comes up. I think that that distracts you from bigger picture things. So something I always ask myself, is okay, you know, how important is this in the long term? What are the implications? Is this something that we're going to care about in a week? Right? Is this something that we're going to care about in a month. If the answer is yes, okay, maybe pay attention to it. If the answer is no, then I can safely avoid this particular conversation and not be a part of it.
Like if you go to like MSNBC dot com right now, right read the headlines. One's about Kanye West, one's about like Steve Bannon, and then Eric Adams. Right, one's about Rob Lagoyevitch, the former government Illinois who has got partnered or is going to get pardoned. You know, Trump's frustration with deportation numbers will likely lead to more chaos, right is the headline of one article. So it's all stuff that like is designed to get an emotional reaction out of partisans.
Yes, I can, I can. I make a confession, and I hope that they well they will take it personally, but I hope this does not affect my future career. I don't think I've ever gone to MSNBC dot com to the front page like that is just not a website that I have ever visited unless someone has given me a link to a specific article that I should
be reading for some specific reason. Right, there are places that are meant to hijack your attention, and that to me, just like Fox News like on the other side, to me, those are places that are meant to kind of filment, outrage and hijack your attention, and I just try to stay out of that, right, Like, that is not how I want to consume my news. And we'll be back
right after this. So, Nate, what are some of the things that Trump has done that are actually important, meaningful, consequential that we should actually be paying attention to.
The fact that the Trump administration seems a little bit indifferent toward separation of powers. You know, I had this article called one hundred and thirteen predictions about Trump and like le of various things go right or run, And you know, I had what's a chance that he'll disobey a Supreme Court order?
Which I had ten percent.
Which sounds low because usually it's conservaed Supreme Court, right, so it's like you would if he could. But like, but you know, we are getting more and more issues where they're like Okay, go ahead, and we're gonna do a bunch of shit that we know is illegal, and go ahead and stop us. We have first mover advantage, and then we will interpret very liberally every ambiguity and things like that. And you know, and so that whole
thrust of things. I mean, you know, people start all of a sudden saying no, this is a coup and that auto golpe is a self coup where you get in power and then destroy And like, I think the problem is that like the audience for this message are people who are like already convinced and because this is this like abstract thing, and you know, the thing is like he's targeting us aid, you know, foreign assistance, even though if you kind of look from an ev standpoint,
probably has a lot of utilitarian benefit.
Four and eight is not a very popular program, right.
A lot of the other executive worriers are doing are things and are popular enough, or they have a mandate to do based on the election, on the immigration stuff, for example, And so I don't know, I uh, what do you think, Maria?
No, I mean, I totally agree with you that like number one issue, which underlies a lot of what's going on is a lack of regard for separation of power. And I don't think that this is just Trump. I think that this is also kind of Congress lacking a backbone and not being like, hey, you're taking away powers that should be ours, right, instead of doing that and being like, hey, guys, like this is ours. We're the ones who who control the purse strings, right, We're the
ones who do these allocations the budget committee matters. Instead they're like being Okay, you know you gave us, you gave another executive order. Okay, that's cool, Like it's what we want, so it's fine. But I think that it's very short term thinking, and I think that's incredibly dangerous. Right, So that to me is very worrisome because we want a government that does check each other, that you know, that is responsive, and we do want a judicial system
that is listened to. Like it's actually going to be very scary if Trump just flat out defies a judicial order, right, Like, what's going to happen? Then is the rest of government going to grow a spine or not? So I agree with you that that is very important, and I also but there are other issues that I think are part of this that I think are also worth paying attention.
I actually think that cutting the funding to USAID is is a major issue and not good because you can obviously frame it and oh, like we only care about America, right, America first. But if you think about what AID is actually being cut, right, people are not getting life saving medications, like you actually have a body count, right, you will have people who will die without access to these medications, without access to some of these programs, And so I
think that's a huge deal. And people are just looking the other way and saying, well, I don't care, it's not me, it could be you, right like that that's actually incredibly important.
Look, it could be an opportunity for private charitable organizations, which are sometimes more efficient than the government, to step up.
But yeah, like you almost can kind of like the equilibrium research that you know, it probably is pretty good from utilitarian standpoint, because it's unpopular, right for America to do something that doesn't help us directly, and of course, you know, having more stability in the world can help us directly, can help us, but like it kind of has to be good in order for us to tolerate it.
You know, exactly.
The third thing that I would say, though, since I do come from academia and I am very well aware of the importance of research, I'm actually very worried about the NIH funding as well, which is part of you know what Trump has been trying to do over and over and over, Like, he has tried to do this repeatedly, and I think that it's really going to if it holds right, because people are actually trying to protest this, then capping the indirect cost at fifteen percent is going
to be a huge blow to research in the United States, to innovation in the United States, to the number of people who can and will stay here. And I think it's actually something that will make us a whole lot less competitive on the global arena than we currently are. Like,
it's a big fuck you to research. By the way, this is from someone who has written about and talked about the fact that there's tons of administrative bloat in academia, right, this ain't the way to get rid of it, and this is aiming at something very different despite what the rhetoric might say.
Yeah, I mean, this is also one of the you know, I've had enough fights with enough like woke academics over the years and criticisms over the politicization and research and just not politicized but just kind of crappy research that's you know, p hacking and things like that. You know, look, the good news is all over, and I might make all this more popular again, but like we're only three weeks in, and I understand that people feel overwhelmed.
Yeah, and as you say, like it is showing a disdain for a very real public good, right for things that help both the United States and people individually, for really crucial research. And you know, I was I was talking to my sister who is an mdphd who runs a lab who's fund to get is getting cut who you know, it doesn't know if the NAH grant that she was supposed to get is actually going to come through.
And she's doing like life saving work with infants and infant health and all of these different things, and we were just talking about it, and I was trying to calm her down because obviously, like she's very upset. And I was like, look like, you know, if this makes him unpopular enough, if he tries to do too much, then in two years, you know, Democrats should be able
to win the midterm elections and blah blah blah. She's like, yeah, but two years could actually be enough to kill a lot of crucial research programs and to get people to leave the United States right to get some research, to go to Europe, to go to Asia, to go to places that will actually be able to carry out the types of work that they need to be carrying out.
And so I think that in general we've seen both for Milan and from Trump, this like anti anti public good but also anti science stance that is really playing out here and it affects not just science.
Right.
One of the reasons that I that the NIH was so important was because the federal funding actually helped a lot of other research go forward that wouldn't have otherwise been able to go forward because private corporations tend to give a lot less money and tend to have a lot lower limits on that overhead. And that's in the universities were able to kind of make up the shortfall
because they had NAH funding. And this helped funding in the arts right, funding in areas in the humanities that won't otherwise get funding because there ain't much money for them.
I mean, look, maybe forcing people to be more efficient isn't such a bad thing.
I mean, you know what I mean.
It's like, this is an efficiency. It's already incredibly efficient, is what I was telling you. Even though even though, like I said, no academia has bloated, like we started this conversation, I am very anti academic bloat. But this isn't the way. This is like taking a hammer and being like, let me just crush academia. And I think you agree with that, as opposed to saying like, okay,
let's figure out where inefficiencies are. It's the opposite of what we talked about last week with the FAA and like how you were saying, well, just throwing more money at it, and I was like, no, don't throw more money at it. Try to figure out how the money's allocated. How do we do this more efficiently. Here, it's the exact opposite. It's just saying, well, let's just take money away. There are entire universities that actually cannot have a research
program without this. You know, sure, like a Harvard, a Yale will will probably be fine, even though the research is going to get worse, because they can figure out how to deal with the shortfall. But schools that aren't like that are not going to be able to.
When the church and students was it eighty thousand? You know, I mean use that money.
Hey, they do, That's the thing they use. They do.
They have way more money than indowments than they needs. Start actually using those endowmonds. You don't need. You don't need to be a little hedgephone.
So I'm saying Harvard and Yale will be fine, but what about everywhere else? Those aren't the only two schools where research happens.
All I'm saying is like, is like you have to because there's so much you're trying to cut costs. There's so much like special leading, right, you can always make an exception for this program or that program. And so I think strategically like the notion of like ripping the band aid off, and you know, if you're trying to.
Like this isn't This isn't ripping the band aid off. This is cutting off the arm. And I think we will see that if this actually holds, I am willing to bet that research in the US, advancements in the US, the US as an innovator in any field of science is going to just go away.
Well, we're innovators because of the private sector. Mostly No, we're in.
But you forget how much of the private sector is done by academics who went into academia who have that knowledge. People are going to stop. But if you know you can't get funding and you can't do your research, why in the world would you go into a PhD program? Why would you run a lab? Right? People go from academia to industry. Where does industry get its superstars from academia? Where is that pipeline going to go? If we don't
have fund they are going to go abroad. They are going to places where they can do their work and they can do their research. So I think that you need to think more strategically, more long term about this. And I think you actually agree with me because you agreed with me at the beginning and right now you're just disagreeing with for the hell of it, which is never a good reason to disagree with.
Yeah, Like I think there's like I mean, a big guy who people believe we're in mean reversion, right, And like I don't think you can like take these three weeks, which have been dramatic and have been in some ways very effective for Trump, far more well planned from an effectiveness standpoint than his first turn.
I know you feel like extractl like that forward, right.
Well I hope not. I hope not. But so, like I said, like, it would be great if this were temporary, you know, if we can't extrapolate it forward. But I'm just saying, our question is what should people focus on what's actually important and not distraction. I think that this is important and not distraction. Right. People actually need to focus on this so that it will reverse, right, so that it will revert so that people realize that this is an important issue, unlike a lot of other things.
So what we're talking about right now is how to set priorities, how to focus on the things that actually matter. And I think we both agree that this is something that actually matters. Once again, the easier thing to do, the lazier thing to do, is just look at the talking points and be like, yeah, I agree with that, yeah, cut bloat, yeah, like yeah, this is all good.
Right.
That's that's just a very lazy, intellectually way to look at it, To look at the talking points that are being thrust at us and just be like okay, yeah that makes sense, of course, right, that's the that's the point of talking points. So I think that as we prioritize, as we think about what should we pay attention to of the last three weeks, separation of powers, USAID, NIH
and other science funding. I think these are three things that actually matter, and there are a bunch of things that don't matter or that won't matter, or that will be reversed. Like I don't actually think that the birthright citizenship is that important because that's going to get blocked, right, like that is. And if it doesn't get blocked, like holy shit, then we have much bigger problems, right because that's unconstitutional.
Yeah.
Look, I mean there's a you know, so I would say that, you know, Trump has some degree of mandate on immigration stuff and DEI stuff, and so that stuff's not that's a president. It doesn't even be generating that much outrage. Even some of the you know, tran stuff seems to have a relatively muted reaction. I mean, I
don't know who's wrecking to anything really, right. It's heart because there are these issues that are like cultural touchstones that like you can read some mandate and have the electorate voted, then you have these things that are like these abstract, very bad things that people like you and I might say, are the highest ev concerns marrier, right, And then there's like a third bucket of like distractions like the Elon Musk like.
Nazi or Italian where we're calling it.
Solute and just like the stupid shit Trump says from day to day and the owning the lib stuff and like you know, and it's like the problem is like the most you know, the terroriffs are like.
Important economically, but.
Like the terrorists are like okay, if you want to be ma Familian about it, then like let Trump do. Let these terrorists and like fucking cause inflation, and fine, you're gonna lose popularity, right, So it's like not like, you know, I don't know if you want people like marching in the streets against tariffs exactly.
It's hard to know.
I think they're playing I think they're playing a pretty effective tactical game of like not giving Democrats things that are like.
Oh absolutely, they're crushing it big.
I mean, there are things that they're on the wrong side of public opinion, but there are things that are abstract and hard to actualize, right, and then things that are right that are reached democrats. But it's just kind of I don't know, it's been, it's been. You know, what I would say for Demcrats is like it will get worse for Trunk, It may get worse for people who don't like the things Trump's doing. But like, you know, he starts out less popular than any president except for
his first turn. Now it's a little bit of an exception because like he was president before. It's kind of being a continuation. So he is more popul I mean, he is net popular now, right, but like that probably won't be true in six months, nine months and having little patience, you know, I mean, you know, I don't think publishing like blame Trump for like planes literally falling out of the sky two weeks into his term, but they might two years into his turn. And like that's
a reasonable heuristic. It's actually pretty smart that, like, yeah, the day you take over, it's probably not your.
Fault, but you know, after that it might be.
And so I don't know, he is spending his political I mean, went less of Democrats is like spending have a fucking game plan for the first one hundred days. But although even then, right, a lot of things Biden did in the first hundred days was like through both policy and rhetoric, kind of open up the border a lot more, and you know, pass a lot of executive orders that included environmental regulations and racial equity regulations and things like that later made the stimulus package is harder
to implement and slower. So like a lot of things that were kind of hidden from the public eye wound up costing Biden and Harris down the road. And so maybe Democrats can take like a little bit of a lesson from that, right that Trump is pushing a lot of buttons, not knowing we're all about leads and the consequences might not be clear until a year or two year, four years from now.
But like he's running a lot of liability.
Okay, So it seems like we're both agreed that, you know, the single most important thing is that the separation of powers is eroding, is not being honored, and that this is the thing that could actually wind up if it goes too far, being very difficult, I'm not going to say impossible, but very difficult to kind of roll back unravel. This is the thing that if you are going to pay attention to one thing, it's this right that we need the separation of powers to be honored, USAI, d
NAH funding. All these things also important, but separation of powers. If we're if we're gonna say one thing to focus on, it's going to be that.
I agree, And then you know, in terms of like what not to focus on. I mean, Trump has always been very good at having distractions. I think some battles were lost in public opinion with restection, like immigration and things like that, and the goal there is probably to try to rebuild public opinion from the ground.
Uh. But like, if there's any issue on which Trump like had amendate, it's immigration and inflation, which is actually kind of fucking up by implementing teriffs.
That is absolutely true. Also, egg prices are not doing anyone any favors. Let's take a break and talk about housing.
Nate.
Last time we spoke, you were looking for an apartment in New York City. First of all, wow, like I never thought you would leave your apartment, So, so talk us through that decision, how it's going.
Both of My landlord isn't listening to this. My partner and I have always had these kind of unusual, funky spaces, like about the Midwest. You're like kind of like having our space, right, But like it's often in buildings that like where the space is oddly laid out or where the amenities aren't aren't great.
I know, we just had like I mean, the elevator in our building.
Is broken half the time, and I don't want to say where I live, but I'm not sure it's totally up to code.
Right, we have the water out for.
Three days in the middle of February where the pipe is froze and things like that, and like it just someone of my big gto theories is like you are paying for everything involved in your apartment bundle, whether you like use it or not. Right, So like if you were paying a big premium to have like a large space and you don't need all that space, then then
you probably wanted to downsize. Either you're saving money or you know, in our case, I don't think the goals save money, but just to have like to stop creating all these amenities for for a space because.
Ourmenities are not very good.
And also just like there's shit like the fact that like because the building is pre war and old, like our heating bill is really freaking expensive because it's like very inefficient to like heat and cool the building and things and things like that. Right, if you have days where the water isn't working for to stay in hotel, I mean, you can deduct that from your rent, right, But like that's that's a big so. And also like we feel like having a new neighborhood is exciting. There's
like some degree of diminishing returns. We've been in like the same place for gosh twelve years now, and like New York's a big city, right, neither of us work at a permanent location, and so therefore, like you know, that should make you relatively indifferent toward where you live
within reason. I mean literally, like I kind of like I just like made like a little math of like you know, fifteen points that we visit often, right, from like friends places in Brooklyn, to like our favorite restaurants like the Dentists, to like, you know, sports arenas. The airport's really important. I travel a lot, and so like, sure, are you more convenient to at least one or two of the three major metro area airports in New York.
That kind of thing is important, and we kind of discover that like actually, like basically anywhere within the lower half of Manhattan is kind of equally convenient to the places we need to go, and so therefore go ahead and like tack the neighborhood that you might find interesting. We've been gravitating a little bit toward the east side. I don't want to jinx anything by saying properties that we may or may not be in the midst of applying to now.
And this is just for a rental, by the way, we're not buying.
But yeah, it's trying to figure out what things do we actually value and then and then what things do
other people value that we don't value as much? Right, Like we looked like one place in cell See it's like this ground floor apartment kind of this brown stone that has like very attractive dining living room area with like an outdoor courtyard, right, and then you go down to the base where the bedroom's are office hour and it's kind of dreary, right, But you can imagine like for a certain type of person that like likes to have a lot of like house parties, right, And like
we've arrived in a certain kind of perfect Chelsea flat for this like exact purpose, but it's not as nice in terms of like the living areas and things like that.
Which is kind of where we spend most of our time.
So it's like, if that's someone else's dream, you know, you don't want to pay for someone else's dream because it's factored into like the market.
Pridace.
Now that makes sense, I think. I think it's a really important point to say, like what are my most important things? What do I want to pay for? What do I not care about paying for? Otherwise you might end up in uh, you know, nightmare situations or paying for an apartment that you don't really that you're not happy in.
You know.
Another example is, you know, we thought briefly about like looking at a place in Miami. This is kind of during the COVID era where Miami kind of came back online before and now I'm mostly positive with somewhat able feelings toward Miami, but we were into you know, Miami things like a lot of middle aged gains, I guess, you know.
And at first we.
Had a friend who lives in Coconut Grow, which is a very nice community, right, but like it's very desirable because like it has by far the better school options in terms of think both public and private schools and other parts of Miami.
So if you don't have kids in school, then like it's huge. You really really really would have.
To love Coconut Grove in order to like to pay this premium for a service that you don't need, Right.
Yeah, No, I think that that's really important and something that people, by the way, underestimate how much of a toll it takes emotionally psychologically. There's a lot of research on this. To commute long distances, right, it's actually very not good for So that is something that I would absolutely say, like, especially somewhere like New York, do you
take that into account? Schools are huge. So the apartment, we looked at apartments I won't say the exact neighborhood where I live, but we looked at apartments that are literally a block apart, but they're in two different school zones. And the price difference was insane, right, Like it was an order of magnitude, and we don't have kids, Like it doesn't really matter. I was like screw this, right, like I do that, but it's one block apart, literally,
same size, same everything. And so I think that things like that are actually quite important and can be game changers if you're looking at an apartment in a smart way I have had. I don't know if you've had any nightmare apartments, but I've had one nightmare apartment where should have known, right, if something is priced in a way that makes no sense, there's probably something that you don't realize. So I was able to rent two floor garden duplex parlor garden duplex in the West Village on
West eleventh Street within my budget. Like I was like, holy shit, right, Like, you can never you can never afford something like this. It turns out that the building was basically condemned. That we there were mice in the walls and just like running everywhere. There was no insulation. So in the winter, like the wind just like literally
went through the apartment. There was mold everywhere. So we did an air quality check and like realize that, holy shit, like the stuff we're breathing in is really not good. And then the building ended up being gutted after you know, we and our neighbors left. This was before I wrote the Confidence Game. But if something is too good to be true, it probably is, so.
Do your due diligence.
Yeah, and in the reverse, but I mean, sometimes people print something on the market and just overreesumate the demand for it, so you can have things that are priced the rationally high, but like there's not really bargains relative to the overall demand function of the city.
Absolutely, and I think that it's also the case where you're probably not going to be able to time the market right. You will either get lucky or unlucky, because, especially in New York, places don't sit around. Sometimes they do right. It could be in a really horrible market, but oftentimes the best case is to just go for it.
My two best rental apartments that were both tiny, but like they were just ridiculous deals that enabled me to live in parts of New York that I never would have been able to afford as a twenty one year old moving to the city. I saw them before they hit the market. Literally, I was the first person to see both of them. One the guy reached out to me because I had posted on Craigslist. This was back in the day when Craigslist was a big thing. I
was a senior in college. Made a posting saying, hey, like, I'm does anyone know of a you know, studio apartment in the West Village. This is my budget, and this guy just reached out. He's like it's not on the market yet. But and I ended up getting a bus, like the Chinatown bus from Boston to New York to see this apartment and just gave him money right away and ended up signing a lease that was, you know,
started two weeks before I needed it to start. But like I never the apartment was one thousand dollars a month in the West Village fifty in the West Village, in the West Village. Yes, it was on Perry Street. The guy who actually it was, yeah, Perry, and like it was premium. It was between Bleeker and Hudson, Like just absolutely premium location. It was the parlor floor, so huge windows. It was tiny, It was less than one
hundred square feet. It was ninety square feet payoff. Yes, it was ninety square feet, so that was the trade off. I lived in a glorified walk in closet, but man, I was happy to wake up in that walk in closet every single day. Yeah, my bed was lofted right under the ceiling. And I had like this rickety ladder that I had to climb up to make it up, like.
A capsule hotel as I called them.
In Asia, exactly exactly. But I had a full bathroom. It had a little kitchen like it wasn't. It was all in the one room right like it's it was a mini fridge, you know, it wasn't. But it had a stove that had like, it had everything I needed. And I was you know, I was twenty one years old and I was in the West Village and I was so thrilled to be able to have that apartment.
You're baking in the bread catches on fire.
I mean, but look if if you don't need space and don't pay for space and.
Like, And at that point, I was still working in an office. I wasn't working from home.
Right.
This is when I was working in advertising as a copywriter, and I was very not happy at my job. But hey, I had a great launch pad. Good luck night. I hope that you are able to get one of the apartments that you want to and I look forward. I would look forward to a housewarming in a wonderful neighborhood that you are excited about and that you get to to explore. Absolutely, Maria, let us know what you think of the show. Reach out to us at Risky Business
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Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kanakova.
And by me Nate Silver. The show is a co production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia. This episode was produced by Isabel Carter. Our associate producer is Gabriel Hunter Chang. Sally Helm is our editor, and our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein. Mixing by Sarah Bruger.
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