Organized Money

Michigan's Senate race between Republican Mike Rogers and populist Democrat Abdul El-Sayed is shaping up to be a proxy for the midterm elections as a whole. El-Sayed's message of Money in Your Pocket and Medicare for All has clearly resonated with the season's most energized voters, while his anti-corporate bonafides led him to victory over the more establishment Democrat, Haley Stevens in the primary. 
Today on the show, Matt and David sit down with El-Sayed to discuss markets and his anti-monopoly platform, how Medicare for All will create more competition, the uselessness of PBMs, the way big agriculture bullies Michigan's cherry farmers, beef and meatpacking regulation, the AI bubble, and the importance of Democrats actually doing something if and when they retake congress.

One of Trump’s staunchest constituencies, cattle ranchers (and their congressional representatives) are in revolt. You might think rising beef prices might be good for ranchers, but in fact, most ranchers have little say in how much their stock sells at market, and see little return on what consumers pay. It’s because of a complex, but highly concentrated system of ranchers, feeders, packers, and processors which squeeze the little guy—now exacerbated by weak herds, tariff shenanigans, and an unpopular Trump-backed scheme to import mystery beef. 

Today on the show, Matt and David are joined by Mike Callicrate, owner of Ranch Foods Direct and rancher advocate to help explain how beef gets from the ranch to plate, the ways the system exploits independent ranchers, and why ranchers have finally had enough of Trump’s beef policy, despite their usually-unwavering loyalty. We also discuss the incentives the big meat producers have to push people away from beef and towards chicken and pork, Mike's incredible class action case against Tyson, and legislative and community solutions for a more equitable food ecosystem.

This week, a solo-David is joined by Dan Jacobs, chef, restaurant owner, and active member of the Independent Restaurant Coalition to discuss a looming threat to neighborhood restaurants: the proposed merger between the food giant Sysco, and the cash-and-carry Restaurant Depot. 

Restaurants already operate on thin margins, but this merger threatens to cut off a major source of restaurant bargaining power and a competitive check on the market. As a result, this merger could reverberate through the restaurant industry and local economies, forcing limited menus, thinner margins, and even closures. We also discuss how restaurants are being squeezed by post-pandemic changes in food prices and the labor market, child care needs, and credit card swipe fees. We also get into the value of small restaurants organizing and potential legislative solutions to help keep local dining thriving. 

Finally, we end on another edition of Makan' Fun, our now-regular segment on the ongoing drama surrounding the Paramount Warner Bros. merger.

We've discussed the financial aspects of the AI boom and bubble in previous episodes, but today we're trying to demystify the technology itself. 
This week we're joined by Gary Marcus, scientist and author of many books about AI and the Marcus On AI Substack. We discuss how chatbots like ChatGPT work, how they've advanced in recent years by harnessing large language models to more traditional symbolic AI systems, and also how the technology still feels stuck in the mud. 
We also discuss the economic problems these technologies have to overcome, whether there's really demand for AI compute, get into recent the hype for AI "hacks" and math breakthroughs, and finally get into regulatory solutions, based on Gary's congressional testimony on AI.

Of all New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's campaign promises, his plan for government-subsidized grocery stores has resulted in the strongest, and sometimes strangest, ire. Critics have called it bad policy, bad business, and even the tipping point on our slide towards Venezuelan socialist oblivion, oh no!  

Today on the show, we have one of the experts who consulted with the mayor on his grocery plan: Errol Schweizer, grocery consultant, host of the Grocery Nerds podcast, and writer at the The Checkout Grocery Update newsletter. Errol argues that far from an untested policy, many Americans already love government-run grocery stores; they just don't realize it. Errol also dismantles much of the criticism the pilot program has received as we discuss the logistics of scale and how the private sector will actually run the stores. Among many things, we get into how the subsidies will work, grocery policy at large, and get a very frank assessment of what to make of the criticism coming from think tanks like The Manhattan Institute.