Is the State of the Economy Really that Bad? — with Kyla Scanlon
38:40 Share

Ryan Reynolds here from Int Mobile. With the price of just about everything going up during inflation, we thought we'd bring our prices

down. So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a thing. Mint Mobile, unlimited premium wireless. I'm ready to get 30, 30, ready to get 30, ready to get 20, 20, 20, ready to get 20, 20, ready to get 15, 15, 15, 15, just 15 bucks a month. Sold! Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. $45 up front for three months plus taxes and fees. Promo rate for new customers for limited time. Unlimited more than 40 gigabytes per month. Slows. Full terms at mintmobile.com.

This podcast brought to you by Ring. With Ring cameras, you can check on your pets to catch them in the act. Izzy, drop that. Or just keep them company. Aw, I'll be home soon. Make sure they're okay while you're away. With Ring. Learn more at ring.com slash pets. Episode 304. 304 is here. It could belong into West Virginia. In 1904, the first subway line opened in New York City. My favorite fast food restaurant. True story.

I found out that my penis is not as big as a Subway sandwich. Also, I've been banned from Subway.

Welcome to the 304th episode of the Prop G Pod. 304? I don't remember any of this. Like, I have a sensation. I have a feeling around this, but I don't. If someone said, what happened in episode 285? I'd be like, geez, I just don't know. In today's episode, we speak with Kyla Scanlon, a writer, video creator, and podcaster who focuses on educating her audience about the economy and the financial markets. We hear all about Kyla's new book, In This Economy, How Money and Markets Really Work. And we're going to talk about how she's been

I love this conversation. Kyla brings a refreshing perspective that we think you'll enjoy. I'm also just inspired by these influencers, I don't know what the word is, thought leaders that weaponize or leverage new mediums. And, you know, one of the wonderful things about these new mediums, including TikTok, which is the ultimate propaganda tool and should be divested. But having said that, you do discover a lot of fascinating people. And Kyla bubbled up in my feed about

TikTok, what bubbles up on my feed? Great Danes, chiropractors aggressively adjusting other people. Who knew I'd be fascinated by that? I didn't know. And then people talking about social justice issues who also happen to be ridiculously fucking hot. I knew that one. I knew that one. Okay, what's happening?

back in London, but I'm headed to Cannes this weekend, or Cannes, whatever it's called, Nice. So Cannes Lions is a creativity festival. It's where the less cool people, but semi-cool, sort of aspirational cool people go. The true ballers go to the Cannes Film Festival. That intimidates me. I could never go to that. I'm not dialed in. I don't love movies. I would not know what to do at the Cannes Film Festival. So fortunately, I'm

No one has invited me. So the world is at peace with these decisions. Anyways, Cannes Lions used to be where ad executives would go, collect awards, and then find other jobs. And then the entire economy or the entire ad world shifted to...

to Google and Meta and all the new guys. And slowly but surely, they took over the beach or the Quosette and you get these amazing parties. The best parties are at Spotify. I don't get invited to the Meta parties. Go figure. Go figure.

I mean, I'm hoping I can go and see Sheryl Sandberg figure out a way to add scale, depress tens of millions of teenage girls. I think that would be a great event on the beach. Maybe they could do that with like a barbecue or something. Anyway, shocker they don't invite me, although I will say this, I will say this. I stay at one of my favorite hotels in the world, the Hotel Du Cap, which has $34 lattes. And I feel very European and I put on a big black pair of sunglasses and I go to that Slim Arons like beach or that pool.

And I put in an unlit cigarette in my mouth and I put on a Speedo. Not true, but anyways, I dream of putting on a Speedo. And anytime a woman walks by me, I go, I take down my glasses and I'm like, Jackie, marry me. I make you very happy, woman. That's my impression of Aristotle Anastas.

Ask your parents. Anyways, what I also do for a total baller moment is I Google Zodiac or boat rental and I find some French guy who speaks modest English and for like 100 or 200 euros, which is a lot of money, but it's worth it. He comes in some Zodiac, usually almost always smoking a cigarette, picks me up at the Hotel du Cap and then bombs me in.

to the Croisette and I always ask him to dump me at the pier at or at the jetty if you will of either Google or Meta Beach I'm not invited either of those places they know who I am and they don't like me but I roll in like I'm fucking James Bond

in a tuxedo about to, I don't know, crash a party and kill some, I don't know, nemesis uninvited. That is how you roll at Cannes Lions. By the way, if you're at Cannes Lions and you see me, please come up and say hi. I'm desperate for other people's affirmation.

I'm actually quite friendly, but I need to warn you, I'm much less impressive in person. On this show, you're not really meeting me on this show. You're meeting a representative of me that's much more charming, interesting, smart, and funny than I am in real life. But if you're looking to meet someone who's mildly depressed and angry and quite intense and actually quite quiet, please come up and say hi. Unfortunately, I will not be with my dog. I used to take Leah almost everywhere, and now it is getting just too much to kind of cart a Great Dane around continental Europe. So the dog is staying here.

And the big dog is headed to Ken Lyons. So stop by and say hi. Okay, moving on to some news.

Apple AI is finally here, but don't call it AI. No, no, no, no, no. Call it Apple Intelligence, which will be integrated throughout Apple's ecosystem, devices, software, apps, to do everything that AI has promised. Maybe not everything. Make our lives easier and more efficient. Apple is even partnering with ChatGPT to answer user queries that Siri can't deliver. By the way, if Apple doesn't want to call it Apple AI...

And we have to call it Apple Intelligence, and I'm not calling ChatGPT ChatGPT anymore. I'm calling it what it really is, Microsoft AI. Much of Apple's forthcoming features are fairly basic when you think about the grand scheme of AI, sorting through notifications, generating images, writing tools, assisting with personal tasks, meeting schedules, et cetera. And as per usual, Apple is playing up its commitment to privacy. So let me share my thoughts. Let me share my thoughts. The

I like this. It took me a while to get here, but I've been processing here and I like this. I think this is the exact opposite. This is the zag to the zig of the mixed reality headset, which was a bunch of jazz hands. It's going to change the world. Ooh, you're going to see a train set in 3D. Who the fuck cares?

Ooh, a movie, a movie. Wow. It's a 3D movie. Well, okay. Do you really want to put on a headset to watch a movie and feel nauseous? I just don't get the whole headset thing. At what point does someone ring a bell and tell me I was right, that these headsets are ridiculously stupid and nothing but consensual hallucination between the market and Mark Zuckerberg, that he knew what the fuck he was doing and he was a true visionary around hardware. And in order to have a

call option in case he was right. Tim Cook greenlit probably a billion dollars in spending for the mixed reality headset. They will let it die a slow death, similar to the Hermes Apple Watch. Isn't that cute? Isn't that cute? Makes no fucking sense. Big press release. And then we just kind of let it go away. We let it go away. And here's the bottom line. It's the boring shit that moves shareholder value.

And I'm trying to coin a term, not generative AI, but integrative AI. What do I mean by that? You have a lot of data on your phone. You have a lot of contacts, a lot of utility, a lot of information that could be integrated into an LLM, not to enhance your media experience or answer every question, but just do the following, make your life easier. On Sunday, I was sending my dad a video and I wanted to find this great picture of me and his grandsons at the UEFA finals.

And I couldn't find the goddamn thing. And one of the things that Apple intelligence is promising is to make searching your photos much easier and also to have a huge upgrade to what is the front end of an LLM or AI, or in this case, Apple intelligence. See above Microsoft AI, not ChatGPT, is to make it much easier and to integrate a billion people's data per their permission, right? Right? Right.

That's a key consideration here. I mean, they've done so much right here as I think about it. First off, they've said, okay, the AI brand has gotten weird and

and dangerous and oh it's going to kill us oh it's going to save us oh it doesn't know what it's doing oh these answers make no goddamn sense oh wait scarlet there's just so much weird shit surrounding ai oh this person who supposedly knows ai says it's going to kill us it just feels kind of oh how am i using it i don't know i'm not using it but i'll buy more nvidia the whole space is getting i don't know it feels like you read too much about ai you kind of want to shower or kill yourself or

find a time machine and go back in time such that you can find yourself, kill yourself, and then do sort of like a murder-suicide. Is that dark? That's pretty fucking dark, isn't it? Anyway, anyway, how do I use AI? I use it to plan weekends with my 13-year-old son. So what are we doing this weekend? And we type in this crazy prompt to try and find something fun to do in London. And I got to be honest, I think it does an amazing job. I also love

Adobe Firefly, the AI that has taken a different approach on this is smart. They have licensed all of the content or it's their own content so they don't have to worry about what happened at, I think it was, I don't know if it was Google or Lama or, you know, Joey Bagadonitz AI where they typed in a prompt and it literally brought a verbatim, a Forbes article. And it's like, well, okay, are you paying Forbes? No, they're not.

They're not. So they've said, we need to get away from this brand, make it more about privacy, make it more about utility, make it more about incremental change, make it friendlier, upgrade Siri, which is arguably one of the worst brands in tech from Apple or sub-brands, if you will, and make it more, I don't know, make it more util, so to speak. Of course, Elon Musk had to weigh in and say that he's not going to use it. Who knows?

It was down 2% and then it was up 5% today. So I don't know exactly what that means. I think people are starting to figure out that the second mouse here or the biggest second mouse in history is Apple. What do I mean by that? Innovation is actually a terrible shareholder strategy.

That's right. That's right. You heard it here. My colleague at NYU is now at Dartmouth at the Tuck School did breakthrough research that would just open my eyes that it's not the innovator that makes money. It's the second or the third company that comes in and lets them spend a ton of money and waste a ton and then says, oh, OK, you spent a ton of money trying to come up with an MP3 player. We'll now come in and make it easier to use. Oh, graphic user interface, Xerox PARC. Thanks very much. This works great. You don't know how to use it. We'll commercialize it and make a shit ton of money.

So that, I think, is what Apple is trying to do here. They've been thoughtful. They've been kind of laying in the reeds. And they said, okay, we're ready. This is what's good about AI. This is what's bad about AI. And they come in and said, okay, what's bad about it is the brand. What's bad about it is promising or over-promising and under-delivering. We're going to start small and go incremental. The absolute opposite of the mixed reality headset. I like this. I think it makes sense. Keep in mind, keep in mind, it's the boring stuff that makes you money. It's the mundane stuff that moves shareholder value.

We'll be right back for our conversation with Kyla Scanlon.

The IKEA Business Network is now open for small businesses and entrepreneurs. Join for free today to get access to interior design services to help you make the most of your workspace, employee well-being benefits to help you and your people grow, and amazing discounts on travel, insurance, and IKEA purchases, deliveries, and more. Take your small business to the next level when you sign up for the IKEA Business Network for free today by searching IKEA Business Network.

This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Forget the frustration of picking commerce platforms when you switch your business to Shopify, the global commerce platform that supercharges your selling wherever you sell. With Shopify, you'll harness the same intuitive features, trusted apps, and powerful analytics used by the world's leading brands. Sign up today for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash tech, all lowercase. That's shopify.com slash tech.

Welcome back. Here's our conversation with Kyla Scanlon, a writer, video creator, podcaster, and author of In This Economy, How Money and Markets Really Work.

Kyla, where does this podcast find you? I'm in New York City right now. And you're at a WeWork with a fan in the background. Where's Adam Neumann? Yeah. Oh, he's not involved anymore. He's focused on real estate now, right? Yeah, I've heard he's doing flow or something right about this. Okay. So we're making an effort to bring in young influencers. I have a tendency to find people my age, boomers who are on CNBC. So you're one of our first outreach to someone we found. I think we found you on TikTok. Anyways,

Your new book, In This Economy, explores how money and markets really work. Walk us through what you believe are the biggest misconceptions about the U.S. economy.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's the issue is that a lot of everything's kind of misconception right now. I think a lot of people have a frustration with how the economy is functioning, like the labor market, inflation, etc. A lot of people think that inflation going down means that prices should go down. But we've been dealing with the pressure of inflation, so everybody wants prices to go down. There's rolling recessions in tech and finance, so people extrapolate that to the broader labor market as well.

So I think there's like a lot of misconceptions. And the goal of the book is just to be a toolbox to understand the economy, everything that you need to know about inflation, GDP, like all the terminology and how it applies to you without, you know, all the theory that goes into it.

What do most people get wrong about money in the markets? One of my favorite charts is the chart from the Federal Reserve. It's called the Distribution of Financial Assets. And it shows that the bottom 50% have all of their wealth inside of real estate and the top 10% have their wealth inside of stocks and business ownership.

And so I think a lot of people think that homeownership is sort of the path to wealth. And I think historically it could have been, but we kind of need to rethink what homeownership means, right? It's very confusing to have a house be both a speculative investment and then also a place that you need to live. And so I think that's kind of, it's not necessarily what people get wrong about the economy, but I think it's the thing that is most harmful is we view housing as the way to wealth when maybe it really shouldn't be.

But it's in housing to a certain extent. I've been thinking a lot about how to build wealth. And one of the features of observations I would have is that it is very difficult for people to build wealth with anything they can get their hands on. What do I mean by that? 99% of people, I believe, will spend everything within their grasp.

And that's why these forced savings programs or options where you get one big lumpy hit or you sell a company, the big hits you weren't expecting because regular cash in your hand is very hard to hold on to given all the temptations that's offered by in a capitalist society. And to a certain extent, isn't housing sort of forced savings because people don't want to be evicted. So it forces them to make that kind of investment, some of which goes into equity in the home.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think housing is definitely one path to that. I think if you look at that chart, though, like the clear answer to how to build wealth, if you just are following the path of like what rich people have already done, is some form of stock ownership and some form of building a business, whether that be employee stock option programs or just actually building your own business. So I think housing is great in terms of like the forced savings aspect, as you've mentioned.

But we have this expectation that house prices always go up. But from 1860 to 1960, home prices went up by 0.06%. And so I think we just kind of have a messy conception. And then it creates a lot of economic foreboding when people feel like they can't achieve the quote-unquote American dream because it's the only way they know how to build wealth.

I think that's a great point. Actually, Philip Schiller, the Kay Schiller Index says if you take into account maintenance, that the housing market has not been nearly the asset class that people claim it is. In the book, you write, people are not static entities, but dynamic beings with evolving needs and aspirations and growing economies should reflect that.

When you look at our economy, what areas do you think need the most attention right now? I mean, I think that we've done a really, really good job at focusing on manufacturing. The CHIPS Act, the IRA, the IAJA, all of those have really invested in American manufacturing and have enabled, like, you know, fab factories to be built in Arizona. But I think, like, the big thing, and you've done a very good job talking about this, is like,

Sort of putting young people on a path. I think that a lot of people feel stuck in their jobs or feel like they're not able to pursue, as you would say, their talent. But I think that's kind of where we need help is that we have a whole generation of people that are stuck. And the labor market is sort of funny. Like there are these rolling recessions in tech and finance. And so I think it's just, it's a reallocation of capital that'll enable new jobs to come out. I think that's what...

needs to be done. Yeah. You coined this great term, vibe session. What is it and are we experiencing it?

A vibe session is a disconnect between consumer sentiment and economic data. And I wrote this piece back in July 2022, and it turned into a New York Times opinion piece. And everybody kind of latched on to it because, you know, the economic data was really good during that time. Like GDP was improving, the labor market was strong, inflation was going down, but people were still feeling really bad if you looked at sentiment metrics. And so that term is meant to capture people's

that idea. And since then, it's evolved to recognize structural affordability issues. We have a housing crisis. Childcare costs have gone up 32% since 2019 or something like that. Eldercare is $10,000 a month. Education costs are sky high.

And so like there are reasons that people feel bad. But then there's this poll that came out sort of detailing, you know, that 55% of people think that we're in our session. 49% of people think that the stock market is at all time lows or is down on the year and that

49% also think that unemployment is at ultimate lows. And so like there's this aspect of the vibe session where, okay, yes, there is an actual disconnect between consumer sentiment and economic data. And some of that can be explained by structural affordability. And then I think another component of it is explained by

a lack of media literacy. Like the stock market is up 12% on the year. Unemployment is at a record low. We're not in a recession. I do think we are in a vibe session just because it's a rather tense time. There's a lot of uncertainty. We're going into an election. It's really hard to have quote unquote good vibes during that.

I think another thing that I've been sort of thinking about is like there's this gap between online discourse and then offline discourse. So like air travel hit an all time high over Memorial Day weekend. Like everybody's flying everywhere. People are out there spending money. You can see it in the consumer spending metrics. But if you go online, the discourse is negative. People are feeling very bad. And that's kind of the other thing, too, is like there's this bifurcation between actual reality and then perceived reality through the online sphere.

There really is a disconnect. And then I look at people shitposting America, you know, lowest inflation, biggest growth. The factors are strongest growth. And some of the factors that you talked about, do you think our discourse has become more coarse? Or do you think as someone who's just understands of your generation, what do you think is causing this? Is it a move to online where we have bots, trolls, a lack of civility, right?

Do you think it's kids are more prone to, I don't know, being depressed or anxious because of helicopter parenting and social media? But what has created a situation where 55% of people my age feel very proud to be American, but it's only 18% of people...

under the age of 25. It's really sad. And I think that that poll, and of course, you have to take all surveys with a grain of salt, but that poll where, you know, people think we're in a recession when we're not. They think the stock market is down when it's not. They think unemployment is really high when it's not. It's just like, what's happening? And so I think a big part of it

is the media that people consume. So younger people get a lot of their news from TikTok. There's a lot of surveys pointing that out, a lot of data sources. And like TikTok, the algorithm totally incentivizes you to post negative things. Like if you are saying that the world is ending, you're much more likely to get a million views than if you're like, everything's perfect and good and you should be fine. I also think there's a pressure to be anxious.

And I think anxiousness is very normal. We do have a lot of information flow. But if you're not freaking out, it means that you don't care.

And so there's almost this performative anxiety that comes up, and that's a loaded term, but I do think that's what it is. Because I get yelled at in my comments, too, for not caring about the state of affairs. But there's an element of truth that you have to recognize when you talk about the economy. You can't say the stock market is down when it's not. But if you're saying that things are good, people are like, well, you just don't care about anything. You're just lying to us.

And it really creates this strange environment. So I think it's media, the consumption of certain types of media, and then how you have to be perceived in the online world is in a state of anxiety.

What you're talking about, I'm naturally, fits me like a glove because I'm a glass half empty kind of guy and, you know, sort of from anger and depression. So I feed right into this, guys. But whenever I talk about, you know, just the exceptional performance of a stock or the markets touching all time highs, I was like, well, typical boomer who, you know, most the real economy, most of us, Scott, don't get to invest in stocks. It's like you get shamed, right?

And you're sort of perceived as non-empathetic if you're not catastrophizing all the time and talking about the worst possible outcome for everybody. Speaking of this type of looking through the world with gray-colored glasses, talk a little bit about dollar-doomerism.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of people think that the U.S. dollar is no longer going to be the reserve currency. That discourse hasn't been as popular over the past few months as the U.S. is kind of being traction and manufacturing and has been able to pass legislation finally. But yeah, people are kind of like betting on the downfall of the U.S. by saying that the U.S. dollar won't be reserve currency anymore. So you saw a lot of that kind of like post-COVID, the

the first few years after the pandemic, there was a paper from the IMF that refuted that. It was like, no, it's not going to switch over to China or Russia as being the reserve currency of the world. It's probably just going to be, if anything, a basket of mixed currencies. But yeah, I mean, it's sort of going back to what you asked about with why do young people feel so bad about why are they not proud to be American? You can kind of see that through people being like, the dollar is not going to be the reserve currency. That's a bet against the United States.

You brought up something or you're aware of something that we talk a lot about here, and that is inflation and a lack of prosperity, we believe, can be reverse engineered partially to concentration and the sort of oligopolization of our economy. Four companies control 85% of the U.S. beef market. Four companies control 80% of the soy market. Three companies, 70% of pasta. Three companies, 72% of the cereal market.

I mean, this is more a comment than a question. I think you agree. But it appears that people aren't focusing enough on this. How else should we be thinking about this as it relates to inflation? Yeah, I mean, Dr. Isabel Weber has written a really great research paper on this, sort of like how companies might be passing costs off to consumers through higher prices. And monopolies are like the key way to do that, right? Like if you don't have any competition, it's much easier to push prices through.

And I think, like, to counter that example, we're kind of seeing that, you know, McDonald's is lowering the prices on their food. Like, they're finally offering a $5 meal because companies like Domino's have had reward programs that people have been flocking to. And so that shows that if you do have competition within the corporate space, like, companies are going to respond and therefore lower their prices. But I think a lot of the pain of the consumer has been through companies like Kraft Heinz raising prices, just putting...

a lot of like Nestle raising prices because they're able to. People have to buy the things that like Nestle and more or less have to buy. P&G, they have to buy like paper towels and toothpaste. And so those companies I do think are responsible for some elements of inflation that we're experiencing. And then I think they're also responsible for the quote unquote bad vibes. Like when you like I go to the grocery store and I'm like, whoa, OK, like that was an expensive trip. And I don't feel great about that. And it sucks.

And that, like, the grocery bill that you get and then the gas price that you pay are the two main ways that consumers interact with the economy. And so if corporations are able to, you know, raise prices and do it without any thought other than profit, it can be very harmful to the consumer.

I'm just, I love, just as we wrap up here, we're trying to be, we're purposefully, or I would say I'm personally trying to be a little bit more optimistic. And I write a lot about the challenges facing young people and how it warrants more attention and more investment, but also believe that as kids come out of, you know, commencement, that they do have agency.

And I want to bring on more people like yourself that have demonstrated that type of agency. When I was getting out of college, I knew I was interested in finance and economics. You could either go to an investment bank and get into an analyst program, which is exceptionally competitive. You could become a stockbroker. I got my series seven and basically being a stockbroker was calling all of your friends' parents and asking them to buy stocks through your ridiculous fees. Or you could go back to graduate school and try and become an economist. I mean, there really weren't that many on ramps.

to having influence in the markets. Can you talk a little bit about how you kind of your path and how you found agency and became, I hate to use the word influencer, became someone who is a strong voice in this and appears to be making a nice living and has developed a rewarding career. Talk about your backstory and your path to how you got where you are now.

Yeah, I grew up in Kentucky and I thought I'd be stuck in Kentucky forever. And it's not a bad place to be. It just, you know, there wasn't the opportunities that I wanted there. And so I went to school in Kentucky for the scholarship program that I was on. And

All throughout college, you know, I tutored in economics and had a blog talking about my options trading. And so I'd always been sort of in the online sphere. And then I went on to Capital Group in Los Angeles and worked on the buy side for about a year and a half. But six months after I graduated, COVID happened.

And so like the way that I thought about work was it changed quite a bit because, you know, all of a sudden you're faced with death and you're like, oh, well, what do I really want to be doing? And for me, it was education, specifically economics education. And so I started making videos around GameStop. And, you know, a lot of things sort of influenced like why I wanted to focus on economics education. Number one is because I don't think

we give people a fair shake at all when it comes to understanding the economy. It's something that we all exist in. I bought a coffee this morning. That's an economic transaction. The jobs that we have are economic interfaces. Everything that we do is tied to the economy somehow, but we pretend that we don't need to understand it. We pretend that we don't need to know what the Fed does and how it influences interest rates. And we don't need to know the depth of it, but we need to at least understand how it could impact us

I think that it creates a lot of confusion and a lot of anger when people live in a system that they don't understand. And so I kind of set off, you know, partly because I felt like I wanted younger Kyla to have access to this stuff. And, you know, if there's younger Kyla out there, I want to help her. But then I just think it's really important that we understand how the economy works and functions. And that's why I wrote the book and make the videos is because I think it's just, I think it's super important.

So what advice would you have for someone, whether it's in economics or another domain, they want to get kind of this flywheel going that you have books, videos, what has surprised you to the upside? If you were advising yourself two or three years ago, you leave the capital group, you're not working for a corporation, trying to build your own brand, your own small media company, if you will. What advice hacks would you give to somebody who says, all right, I really want to get into, I want to be an influencer or make money in child psychology?

And what hacks, what advice can you give to people? I mean, I think the biggest hack is caring a lot. That sounds so silly, but you have to care. I actually get stopped by my friends if I talk about the economy too much because it's something that I'm really passionate about. And so if we're out to dinner, I'll just be like, did you all see the Fed today? And they're like, not right now. And so I do think you have to have a deep care for what you're talking about. And you have to really want it.

Like, you know, it's really bumpy starting your own business and it's really scary. Like if this didn't work out for me there, you know, I would have failed and like there was nowhere to go.

um and so i think there's an element of drive that you have to have and you have yeah yeah yeah fear is a big part of it i was scared i was scared silly i mean it's like funny now looking back on it because everything worked out but i can think of exact moments where i could have quit and like could have stopped and could have given up and you just have to push through that and i would say that that would be the biggest advice is like caring a lot and um

Working through fear the best you can. What about tactically? What platforms have made money for you? Where have you gotten the greatest return on investment in terms of raising awareness? Which platforms have had the lowest ROI?

So Twitter, previous Twitter before the new owner came in was where I got a lot of traction because there's a lot of amazing finance and economics people on there. And Instagram has been very good with Reels and Discovery. I'm really known for TikToks, but I actually don't have that big of a platform on TikTok. And I think that TikTok is dying. And then I have a newsletter. You think TikTok is dying? Yeah, I think it's just going to be legislated away.

I think somebody is going to buy it maybe. But I think that, you know, we're slapping tariffs on China. There's no way they're going to let that app continue to exist. I think it'll be a post-election thing, like depending on who gets elected. But yeah, yeah, I think that that's going to go away. So I'm off of Twitter just because I don't I don't want to paint that guy's fence. What has happened for you at Twitter?

It's been sad. I really loved Twitter and I still learn a lot on there, but I work more than I post now. They're still like really amazing economists and like really great thinkers. But you can see the influence of Elon on the platform. And, you know, the algorithmic incentives are toward doomerism and like the bad kind where people are, you know, questioning reality and painting all sorts of colors on stuff that maybe shouldn't be.

painted, whatever. But yeah, I think that's a, it's been sad to watch the decay of a platform, but it makes sense. And then turn at age, everything turns over so quickly that good times can only last for so long on certain places.

It's interesting. I tell people I would have naturally gone to TikTok as a place to overinvest. And it's interesting to hear your perspective. If someone was going to pick one platform to overinvest in right now to try and build a big brand footprint, what platform would you suggest?

I mean, I think TikTok still has the discoverability, but Reels is now trying to compete with TikTok in a really big way. And I think their discoverability has improved tremendously. So I think Instagram actually has become a very good app to build a following on.

What about YouTube? YouTube's hard. I haven't even really figured out YouTube, actually. I think that you have to kind of play to the rules of the algorithm. MrBeast is, like, very good at this, which is why he has such a big platform. But you have to have, like, the right titles and the right thumbnail and...

I think that long form is just very hard to capture people within. And they are investing a lot in YouTube shorts, and you can post shorts that I think do pretty well. But yeah, I think long form is just hard to get discovered on. So, Kyla, you know why we invited you on this podcast? Why was that? Because you're very impressive. Oh, thanks. I thought to myself, we have all these financial experts on, and they all are the same goddamn person. They're all old guys on CNBC. Yeah.

And I think it's great that you've managed to establish this following. And when I hear you speak, I'm like, gosh, this person just gets it. So we're hoping that you're going to come back on and be a regular guest. But you really are. I was really inspired when I saw your content. I just thought it was so puncturing and

I don't know, down to earth and relatable. So well done. Thank you. Yeah, that's the whole goal is to make accessible content. Like that was the goal of the book. Like there's 60 illustrations in there. Like it doesn't need to be as complicated as we make it. And I think that makes it so scary is like we make it so scary. And it is really just like nice, I think, to have somebody talking at you, I guess, about like economy. There isn't a lot of that because there's a lot of gatekeeping, as you know.

And yeah, I'm glad that it is helping people. I think it is. Kyla Scanlon is a writer, video creator, and podcaster who focuses on educating her audience about the economy and the financial markets. Her debut book, In This Economy, How Money and Markets Really Work, is out now. She joins us from a WeWork in, are you in New York? Are you in Brooklyn? Where are you? No, I'm in New York City, Manhattan. Oh, nice. Well, it's great to be here. And thanks for your good work, Kyla. Yeah, thank you so much. We'll be right back.

Algebra of happiness, kissing. I grew up in a household that had very little affection. Occasionally, my mom literally couldn't help herself, and she would hug me and occasionally kiss me, but they were both raised with an absence of affection. They're European, and there just wasn't a lot of that in my household. And my dad, who was out of the house and gone when I was eight after my parents split up, he was never very affectionate. Occasionally, when he felt good about me, he'd mess up my hair, and he'd

which was his way of being affectionate. And I don't resent him for it because I think he grew up in a household with actually not only a lack of affection, his sister told me later in life that he was actually physically abused by his father pretty severely. And I thought to myself, Jesus Christ, he never brought it up to me. Can you imagine the person you're supposed to trust the most is supposed to be your protector abuses you? Anyway,

Back to kissing. I kiss my boys. I try to kiss my boys every day. My youngest still lets me. My oldest does not. That's fine. He's going through puberty. He doesn't want his dad kissing him. But there's so many benefits to kissing. The act of kissing inspires the body to produce endorphins, which is kind of the happiness hormone, meaning that both the kisser and the kiss feel happy and relaxed. Kissing also helps to reduce the body's cortisol levels, thus indirectly reducing

reducing stress. And they're even saying now there's evidence showing that married couples who kiss each other whenever they see each other and say goodbye are much less likely to

to get divorced are much more likely to stay together. Now, whether it's correlation or causation, who knows? Maybe the people want to kiss each other, stay together longer. But I'm trying to lean into that. I've actually been kissing some of my male friends. I kiss them on the cheek and they're a little taken aback, but I think they understand the gesture and that I'm just trying to say, I really like you. So anyways, kiss your children as long as you can. Kiss your partner as often as you can.

But I'm going to take back affection. Men aren't supposed to kiss. What bullshit? It's good for you. It's good for them. It says, I love you. It says, I care about you. It says, I want to express affection and regard that you're singular. I don't kiss a lot of people, but I choose you. I choose to kiss you.

This episode was produced by Caroline Shagrin. Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer. And Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the PropG Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice, as read by George Hahn. And please follow our PropG Markets Pod wherever you get your pods for new episodes every Monday and Thursday. Please, if you can right now and you enjoyed the show, go to PropG Markets and subscribe.