Learning Not to Trust the All-In Podcast in Ten Minutes
My coworker and I enjoy having debates about whether the American economy is in the express lane to collapse or cruising in the good times (I’m really fun at parties). For the two-and-a-half years I’ve worked at my current company, one of us has been a bull while the other has been a bear. I’ll let you guess which one is me.
Monday, November 4, when I walked into the office he brought up a podcast he had been listening to on the drive to work: All-In. I had never heard of it, but I guess it’s a group of four venture capitalists that talk about politics, current events, and the economy.
My coworker surfaced a point that the podcasters had made in the opening segment of last week’s episode: 85% of the past quarter’s economic growth came from government spending. I was stunned. I had in my mind that government spending composed something like 30%-40% of GDP thanks to Matt Yglesias’ recent tirades about how imports don’t subtract from GDP, resurfacing the macro-101 equation:
My coworker showed me the first few minutes of the podcast, where they flash this chart after noting the economy grew by 2.8% in Q3, and one of the hosts, Chamath Palihapitiya, describes what he sees as going on:
