Do you worry about the death at all as a young person.
Let's focus on getting the economy better, right, isn't that the best thing to do? Like, why wouldn't we build on the economic success we're enjoying right now under Joe Biden's policies and leadership, instead of stabbing ourselves in the foot and going back to Trump. You know, the best thing to pay off the debt. Let's have a great economy. Let's invest in America right, Let's succeed. That's step number one.
I would think Payvon Shroff is the press secretary of Dream for America, and that organization is lucky to have him. He is smart, articulate, dedicated, and filled with conviction about being involved in politics, about fighting to make America a better place. That's why I was so happy that he was able to come on the Warning podcast. I learned a lot from listening to him, and I hope you'll
listen to the conversation and its entirety. But I wanted to talk more directly about a couple of issues that came up during the interview. When I have these conversations, the point of them is not for me to challenge, not for me to assert my views over the guests. It's to listen, it's to provoke, it's to incite sometimes, but not to get into a debate. I offer my opinion on the podcast on the commentaries on a frequent
enough basis that everybody knows where I'm coming from. There's an issue in American life, in our politics that is extremely important, that has always been understood to be important, and every president, regardless of party, comprehended in the moment, the moral obligation to make certain the nation was never bankrupt. When the country was new in the beginning, the United States had no credit. It was extended to us by
the Dutch. The country was not wealthy. Visualize, for example, a cliff, and imagine, if you will, two ropes descending down that cliff, which is high enough to obscure the question of whether the rope is long enough to reach the bottom. Now, imagine coming across two people having a debate. The debate between them is whether they should stay where they are or descend down the ropes. And it's an
angry debate of aterperative debate. But shouldn't there be room within the debate for somebody to ask the question is the rope long enough. That's what pragmatism is in politics.
Here's how this is supposed to work with money. Objectively, both political parties, because they live in the same nation, swear an oath to the same constitution, are supposedly supposed to be able to look at out a problem, recognizing it's a shared societal issue, and come to a resolution about what measures to take to make it better as opposed to making it worse. Now, imagine that there's an
issue that needs to be addressed. The way it's supposed to work is that people with different perspectives sit around the table and decide what to do, and often that involves spending money. Now, let's say the most progressive person in the room looks at the situation and says, in good faith, I think that's going to cost a billion dollars, And the most conservative person in the room looks at the most progressive person and says, a billion. That's crazy.
I think it's a million. And sitting in the center on the center left, in the center right are two pragmatives who appreciate that everybody in the room identifies that there is a problem that must be solved, but rejects the dogma that holds it can be solved with nothing, or that every problem can be solved with the billion. Somewhere in the middle is the solution. The problem facing America in this moment that we talked about but no one thinks about, is this fundamental reality of the moment.
There has never been a society broke more deeply in debt than the United States of America has been in twenty twenty four. And we're digging deeper and deeper and deeper. What does that mean when the debt of the nation is at thirty trillion dollars, at forty trillion dollars, at fifty trillion dollars, What does it mean when a trillion is added to the debt every one hundred days. It took north of two hundred years to reach one trillion dollars in debt, and now it accumulates in piles one
trillion for every one hundred days. What is a trillion? The number gets thrown around all the time. Everybody knows what a millionaire is, and there are a thousand billionaires in the United States. There's a lot of them, but there are no trillionaires, at least not yet though there are some companies that are worth a trillion dollars, it's much easier to understand the difference between a million and
a billion than a billion and a trillion. Maybe time is an easy way to understand the incredible levels of spending in debt that are going to beggar the young people that are going to live in America for the next eighty years. What is a million seconds. Let's say you were to say to somebody, I'll see you in a million seconds. What does that mean, Well, it would mean i'll see you in twelve days. Now, let's imagine saying to somebody, I'll see you in a billion seconds.
What does that mean. What's the difference between a million and a billion, Well, it's the difference between twelve days and thirty one years. That's the difference. A billion seconds is thirty one years. What's a true seconds. That's the difference between thirty one years and thirty one thousand years. Thirty one thousand years, that's what a trillion is. That's
how incomprehensibly big the number is. And yet the money is piled on, piled on, piled on, and so now the biggest expenditure that we spend on every year is paying interest for money we already spent, which is a type of theft from young people who have to pay for the profligacy of their grandparents at the expense of their children and grandchildren. And there has never, never, ever been one generation of Americans that has done this to
the generation that has followed. So I thought this conversation was very, very interesting to hear the perspective of a young progressive. This is an urgent issue for the country. And let's understand something. America has no small government party,
it has no limited government party. There are two giant spending parties in Washington, DC, and the most irresponsible party when it comes to spending in all of human history is the Republican Party and its fascist incarnation under Donald Trump is it's a most reckless spending incarnation in all its long history of spending irresponsibility. This is an important issue. George Washington would have understood this as an important issue, and so would have John Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt would
have understood it. Every president understood this until Donald Trump. And now it seems like the train has left the tracks and it's time to start talking about this issue, have a watch. Do you think that gen Z voters can be reached on political issues that go beyond self interest? Right, that we need to come out right and vote because we're going to get something right, We're going to get
a financial we're gonna get a financial reward. Right that you know, we're for this person because this person's going to alleviate something, and that raises up, raises up, raises up a secondary issue about politics. But like, do you know what I mean by that? I do?
I do know what you mean. I kind of find it a little bit intriguing only because I view, for example, the generation of Jamie Diamond who's gonna get up at Davos and say Trump is right about China, which is delusional and a list off a bunch of other things. And to me, that comes across as a super rich guy who wants to say extra super rich and really wants to keep those TAC cuts cuts. I view it that way. Whereas I view young voters in fact, what are they motivated by. Sure, they don't want to get
shot in school? Is that selfish? Maybe? Sure, they want to be able to access, you know, healthcare. They want to be able to have women's rights, LGBT rights. I mean those are all showing up for groups allyship coalition building. I think that's what gen Z and millennials even are defined by. So I do see the student loan issue. That's one specific example, but I don't really know that. I think there's too many more that I would pin on gen Z specifically, as they're looking for, you know,
some benefit from the government. I do think, by the way, just big picture, I mean, economists suggest and we could debate this, I'm sure, but that student loan forgiveness right, raises all tides in the country. It's good for the economy, it's for us to invest in our own people. I mean that used to be something I think people could agree on that. You know, investing in Americans is a good investment. So I see the point on student loan forgiveness.
But you could say that about any type of loan forgiveness. You can say that about any type of government program, right, I mean it helps some people, not everyone.
Do you worry about the debt at all? As a young person, register with you that the country is thirty trillion dollars in debt. That and let me give a caveat for this. This has freaked me out for a long time, right, and so full caveat here. People were predicting disaster at ten trillion, fifteen trillion, twenty trillion, thirty
trillion dollars. But now right, you're at a point where because of spending that's gone, it's happened, right, The largest components of the budget every year, right are the interest payments right on the money that's already been spent. And so country's two hundred and fifty years old. Every leader in the country, regardless of party, really is a moral proposition, almost like a family business. You know, understood, we can't beggar the country. We can't steal from future generations right
to party on today. So today we're talking about all of these issues that cost money that will matter for your generation. When the largest expenditure in the federal budget is the repayment of money spent five years ago, six years ago, I mean, there are some estimates that upwards over a trillion dollars a trillion got stolen right during
the COVID relief packages, and it's in its totality. Does that issue you have any currency for you, for anybody your age does anyone ever sit around and talk about it and just look at it through the holy shit? Yeah? So yeah, studies spend in fucking money, right, that's the like like type of conversation, do they really? I do think so on a zones that the birthday party here.
You know, I think it's interesting because you kind of mentioned that other generations understood this, but here we are, so they obviously didn't understand it too well. And I think that, you know what, I at least and this could be the liberal indoctrination they're talking about happening on college campuses. But I did study economics at Brown, and I went to business school at Yale, And really, honestly, I think the message is it doesn't matter. That is
I think what a lot of leading economists think. And I think to your point, right, how many times has that been the conversation, And it doesn't seem like it's mattered, And especially when you are talking about the more urgent issues of gun violence, taking away people's human rights, all of these other things. People can't feed themselves, So you know, let's focus on getting the economy better, right, isn't that
the best thing to do? Like, why wouldn't we build on the economic success we're enjoying right now under Joe Biden's policies and leadership, instead of stabbing ourselves in the foot and going back to Trump. You know the best thing to pay off the debt. Let's have a great economy. Let's invest in America.
This is how I would see this issue, right. And I get part of some politics, right, I get. I get campaign politics. I've spent a long time in political campaigns. But the reality is is why do people think the economy is bad? Right when the stock market is performing and YadA YadA, YadA, YadA, YadA on all the on all the metrics. And the answer to that question is because forty percent of the country, right, doesn't have four
hundred dollars of cash available. Right, You have an enormous percentage of people are dissociated from the concept of upward mobility, from the American dream. Thanks to Jamie Diamond, right who when you look at the key leaves, right, you kind of what powers this fascist movement. One of the things that's fueled by a cynicism, right, and the cynicism of the bankers is necessary for the fascist movement to take power. They're not a leading indicator, they're a lagging one. So
those comments in Davos right have meaning? Right? But right? What is it right that you know a person who, for example, is unbanked, an enlisted person who is in the court has to get usery banking rates. The twenty seven year old woman who's arrested for discarding the miscarriage remains in the toilet. You have a fundamental question. Does she live in a democracy? She doesn't live in a democracy.
The question about the economy, right, is in an environment we have forty percent of the people that don't have forty percent. I'm all for somebody go giving a speech like pr gave about launching a new progressive error. I'm entirely supportive, right of you know, somebody laying out the contours of a vision about what we're gonna do as
a society. When right, the AI and computers and robots takeaway enormous percentages of jobs in a country where the number one living wage job for a working class white guy is driving something to somewhere. Right, So there's all this stuff falls under an umbrella of like what are we gonna do? Sure, I don't hear a lot of talk in either party, none in none in one one is one party is just it's completely off the wall. It's no symmetry, but the only party that's left. Right,
I don't hear it, right, I don't. The accomplishments that he has I think are fine. I think he's been a good president, right. I think this year is just like warming up on the national security stuff. But respond to that, because when you talk about the next twenty years, right, do you believe really the foundation of that is the
Biden agenda? Right? Or are you waiting right for the first like forty two, forty three, three, forty four year old candidate, first candidate who has real currency, real resonance with your generation, a Clinton figure, a JFK figure, right, you know who can connect like I've just talked to me about that.
Yeah, well, I think I think of it in two parts. So number one on why isn't Biden getting credit for the economy that you notice strong? I mean that four hundred dollars statistic It was true under the Trump administration. So we can't explain that by talking about Joe Biden or his policies. I think we can explain it by talking about the media ecosystem. Frankly, that does seem antagonistic towards this administration, and I think we're seeing the same
twenty sixteen playbook unfold. But what I'm excited to see is I do think that people are hip to that it's not going to be but her emails again, because we live through but her emails, So people are going to call it out now, not in twenty twenty five, and say, oh, looking back, we really should have said the New York Times was doing a bad job. And I do think I give Biden credit a lot of flak for saying that the media should cover the economy
more fairly. But what happened a few weeks after he made that comment, They did finally point out that the economies are doing pretty well. And then what followed, of course, some perception changed and Americans started to see that it
is doing well. But I think on the future vision, the future project can actually you know, I'm not a fan of his presidential bid, but Cornell West was a professor of mine, and he would constantly talk about, which I agree with, this idea that American democracy, the beauty of it was, this idea of experimentation and being creative with policy ideas, and we don't do that anymore that often.
We don't have states trying out awesome, cool programs. I think part of that is because we're drowning right now. We just have to stabilize. We have to push out the MAGA movement. We have to fend off Donald Trump before we can actually build and invest in. I think Joe Biden's tried to do that.