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What Happens When a Country Stops Telling the Truth About Itself? — Transcript

by Platypus Economics with Justin Wolfers · 5,031 words · 746 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00Megan, you've now officially been
0:01working in new media too long because
0:03you said there's a lot of reasons for
0:05wellfounded doubts. I think you mean
0:07horseshit, and nonsense.
0:10>> I'm Megan [music] Connors.
0:11>> I'm Justin Wolfers. This is the
0:13professor is in. Think about this as
0:15office hours. Megan's walked into my
0:18office with your questions. My turn to
0:20answer.
0:23>> [music]
0:25>> You released a video earlier this week
0:27about a noncitizen voting report that
0:31was released by the Census Bureau. This
0:33report has been denounced by experts as
0:36being both politically motivated and
0:39extremely flawed. And you really dug
0:41into the wonky bit, explaining exactly
0:45how these numbers are likely explained
0:47by a combination of people matching
0:50errors and outdated citizenship records.
0:54Today, as always, I've got several
0:56follow-up questions I'd like to ask you.
0:58The first thing I want to do is talk
1:01about what might be the elephant in the
1:03room. And this is something that you
1:05didn't discuss in the video, but I think
1:07it's important to address. Even if these
1:10numbers turned out to be accurate or
1:12true, and we have a lot of wellfounded
1:15doubts about that, would they have been
1:17enough to sway the 2020 election?
1:22>> Megan, you've now officially been
1:23working in new media too long because
1:25you said there's a lot of reasons for
1:27wellfounded doubts. I think you mean
1:29horseshit, and nonsense. Also,
1:32I just want to say to folks, if you'd
1:34watched that earlier video, I probably
1:37looked really cranky. And I am. I am
1:40really cranky. I since I recorded that
1:42video, I just spent today whale watching
1:44just to calm down. And the whale has
1:46made me feel a whole lot better. In that
1:47video, let me just give folks a little
1:49bit of background. I think we tried to
1:51make two important points. one that when
1:54the Census Bureau, an official
1:55statistical organization that is meant
1:58to be independent, meant to have a
1:59nonpartisan head, that has had a a long
2:02and illustrious history of telling
2:05important truths and that has been
2:07devoted to measuring the truth and
2:09reporting the truth without fear or
2:10favor and no partisanship whatsoever.
2:12When it shifts to releasing propaganda,
2:16which it just did for the first time in
2:18its history, that's a moment. That's why
2:21I was mad. That is really, really
2:24important for folks at home to
2:26understand. I have been defending
2:28official numbers. That job just got a
2:29lot harder. I can't today say all
2:32numbers are nonsense. But what I can do
2:34is say this set was absolute nonsense.
2:37So that was the first point, which is,
2:39hey, hold on folks. Our government just
2:42moved down the same pathway as Greece
2:44and Argentina and Russia and all the
2:48tinpot dictatorships that start to have
2:50their statistical authorities become
2:52propaganda arms for the government. Hang
2:55on. Hold on to that. Care about that.
2:58Pay attention. Second thing we did in
3:00that video is I said, "Hey, this is not
3:01a trust me exercise. In fact, I'm an
3:04economics professor. I love it. It's a
3:06teaching opportunity. I can show you how
3:09numbers work so that you can see
3:12the fraud for yourself. So there's not a
3:15moment in there in which I say trust me.
3:17What I didn't do is address the
3:19politics. Maybe I should have. So great
3:22question. I'm happy to answer it. First
3:23of all, where does politics come from in
3:25this? This is a report written by a
3:28bunch of partisan hacks were brought
3:29into the Census Bureau. The Census
3:31Bureau put its logo on it. This is not a
3:33report about something apolitical like
3:37the number of new businesses started in
3:39Southeast Michigan in the fourth
3:40quarter. This is a report on the extent
3:43of voter fraud in the 2020 election. The
3:46other thing it's not is a forensic
3:47analysis where you actually find people
3:50who've done anything. It's a statistical
3:51exercise and it was published because of
3:54course the president is obsessed by his
3:56own lies about the 2020 election. And so
3:59the commerce secretary who runs the
4:01Census Bureau and the White House
4:03trumpeted this report as proof that we
4:05have widespread fraud in the 2020
4:08election. Even if it were true, and if
4:10anyone watches the video, they will
4:11know. There's no evidence that it is
4:14true, but even if it were true, this
4:16report made a claim that there were
4:1724,000 non-citizens who voted. As we say
4:20in the video, the reality is probably
4:22closer to zero, although there may be a
4:25handful of cases that the courts have
4:26found. How was that anywhere near enough
4:28to determine the 2020 election? Biden at
4:31one level won that election by I think 7
4:34million votes if you look at the popular
4:35vote. Uh and so 24,000 going to do some
4:38math, 24,000 is smaller than 7 million.
4:42Uh the other way that people count by
4:44how much you won the election was they
4:45look at the specific swing states. And
4:47so the important swing states in 2020
4:49were Arizona where Biden won by 10,000
4:53votes. And this report reckons that it
4:55found,00
4:57fraudulent votes. Georgia that Biden won
4:59by 12,000 votes. This report reckons 400
5:02of them were fraudulent. And Wisconsin
5:04that Biden won by 21,000 votes. This
5:06report reckons that 500 of them were
5:08fraudulent. The point is the claim which
5:11is audacious and outrageous that 24,000
5:14people voted who shouldn't is wrong.
5:16Even if it were true, the president's
5:18lie that any of this mattered at all in
5:21the 2020 election is nonsense.
5:24>> Thank you. I think that context is
5:25really helpful, particularly for people
5:26who may have not caught that other
5:28video. So, next I want to ask you if you
5:32think that there even is a responsible
5:36version of this report that could have
5:40come out, could have existed, and if so,
5:42what would it look like? So you can
5:44think about what the report's trying to
5:46do as actually being a sort of sub field
5:49of economics that I've been involved in
5:51that you might call forensic economics
5:53which is when there's wrongdoing
5:55sometimes it leaves footprints in the
5:57data. A very famous form of this is
5:59Steven Levit of freconomics fame found
6:01that sumo wrestlers were consistently
6:04cheating in some of their bouts letting
6:05their mates win when it mattered more to
6:07their mate than it does for them. If
6:08from sports, you might be aware of
6:10evidence that at the end of the season,
6:11if your team does badly enough, it gets
6:13higher draft picks and so basketball
6:15teams have a tendency to tank. That's
6:17not in the spirit of the game, but it
6:19leaves footprints in the data. I wrote a
6:21paper earlier in my career that showed
6:22that it looked like college basketball
6:25players were involved with point
6:26shaving. They would win the game, but by
6:28enough that if you bet against them, you
6:30would lose. So there's actually a
6:32respectable tradition of um Ray Fistman
6:35has a paper where he looks at exports to
6:37and from Hong Kong and if you look in
6:39one data set there's a lot and if you
6:41look at another data set there's not
6:42very much and it looks like tax evasion.
6:44So it's a very long and respectable
6:45history of saying when there is
6:47consistent widespread across the board
6:49cheating that leaves footprints in the
6:51data let's go look. So there's a way if
6:54one thought that there was a real risk
6:56that there was widespread voter fraud
6:58that one could go and look. The way one
7:00would have done that actually would have
7:02looked a lot like what the Census Bureau
7:03did, which is you would have found a
7:05bunch of people who voted and you would
7:07have tried to figure out how many of
7:08them show up on the citizenship records
7:10as being non-citizens. That's what the
7:12census report did. The problem in the
7:14census report is a very very well-known
7:16statistical problem which is when you go
7:18looking for very very rare events, you
7:20move from incredibly accurate to staring
7:22at the subset where the inaccuracy may
7:25turn out to be really really
7:26problematic. That's an example of this.
7:28And so what you would have had to have
7:29done is not only do this analysis where
7:31you say this person voted. Let me try to
7:33figure out whether they're a citizen.
7:34You would then say the next step which
7:36is given the possibility of mistakes in
7:39that linkage
7:41which would lead me to overstate it. If
7:44I made a range of statistical
7:46assumptions about those imperfections
7:48and how they played out, what would my
7:49conclusion look like? The Census Bureau
7:51doesn't give doesn't do that exercise.
7:53It just says 24,000 non-Americans voted.
7:56doesn't give enough background to do
7:58that exercise and they show no sign of
8:00having done that exercise. I can do that
8:02sort of roughly in my head for you. This
8:04is not a statistical estimate. This is
8:06experience and thinking about all of
8:08this. I think we learn from this
8:10analysis that somewhere between minus
8:15300,000
8:17and plus 400,000
8:19nonitizens voted. I think we know it
8:22couldn't have been a negative number. So
8:23therefore, we know it's between zero and
8:25a very large number. But I also want to
8:27remind you before this exercise, you
8:29knew it couldn't be lower than zero. And
8:31you knew you couldn't be certain no one
8:32was doing it. So when you do that
8:34exercise,
8:36honestly, you probably would have
8:37learned, and I want to be clear, those
8:39numbers were, you could either call them
8:41judgment or made up, but you very
8:44quickly learned that the entire exercise
8:45is uninformative.
8:47>> Yeah. There's a tradition that if what
8:49you do is you figure out something
8:50didn't happen, it's a it's good practice
8:52to publish the paper, but if you learn
8:54that there was no point writing the
8:56paper because the data is basically
8:57uninformative,
8:59you have to lead with that.
9:01>> Leading census statisticians
9:05study the data and realize there's no
9:07way that the available data could answer
9:09the question the president has. That's
9:11the responsible headline.
9:13>> And hopefully it would have at least one
9:16name on it. It would have an author.
9:18>> It would have reviewers. And the
9:20reviewers, if the authors messed up any
9:22of the things I just said, they would
9:24have insisted they put that stuff on.
9:26And those people would have been proud
9:27to be in the public domain having
9:29produced a sophisticated statistical
9:31product that helps the world, helps
9:33America understand itself a little more.
9:35So, another really interesting part of
9:37your video, it kind of comes closer to
9:39the end, is when you compare what
9:42happened here with what had happened
9:45earlier at the Bureau of Labor
9:47Statistics when they fired the BLS
9:50director a little over a year ago. And
9:52you note that the BLS guard rail that
9:54ultimately held, but this one at the
9:57census seems to have failed. Do you have
9:59any theories about what was maybe
10:02different in this case or what that
10:05tells us about how to go forward and
10:08protect other agencies?
10:10>> Yeah. And actually, it gets to a theme
10:11that we've talked about a lot at
10:12Platypus Economics, which is the
10:14importance of institutions. In order to
10:16get to that part of the story, I
10:17probably need to rewind because not
10:19everyone follows statistical melodramas
10:21at the level that you and I do, Megan.
10:23>> No,
10:24>> I mean a lot do. I know among your
10:26friends that's all anyone's talking
10:28about. Megan was a I I met Megan as a
10:31masters of public policy students. Let
10:34me explain the previous melodrama so we
10:36understand that the system did hold. One
10:38day the employment report comes out.
10:40Trump literally doesn't like the numbers
10:43so fires the commissioner in charge of
10:45the whole process not because the
10:47numbers were wrong but because he didn't
10:49like them. Now those numbers had already
10:51been published. So how should you
10:52interpret this? They think you
10:53understand this as a warning to everyone
10:55across the government that unless you're
10:57loyal and make sure nothing bad is ever
11:00published about the president, your
11:01job's at risk. That made front page news
11:03everywhere. And actually, I want to
11:04pause on that because
11:07the Bureau of Labor Statistics never
11:09actually was compromised, never produced
11:11a false number. What happened last week
11:13that made me so mad and the reason I
11:15made that video and the reason we're
11:16back here today is this hasn't been on
11:18the front page of any newspaper. This is
11:20actually worse. This is the system
11:23broke. This is our official statistical
11:25agency. There's not a hint of
11:26exaggeration in saying this is now
11:29producing propaganda for the president.
11:32There is no simple source of truth
11:34anymore. That is a profound
11:38shift in how democracies operate. Okay,
11:41so that's the first difference.
11:43Actually, this one happened the Census
11:44Bureau happened in the shadows,
11:46>> right?
11:47>> What happened over in the BLS is hit the
11:49front page of every paper. Then the
11:51president doubled down and nominated an
11:53absolute clown, a partisan hack by the
11:56name of EJ Anton whose only claim to
11:58fame is he knows nothing about bureaus
12:00labor or statistics. So they put him in
12:02charge of the Bureau of Labor
12:03Statistics. Well, they tried, but that
12:06position is a Senate confirmed position.
12:08Now all the uproar happened and still
12:10the Trump administration wanted to put a
12:12partisan hack who literally wouldn't
12:13have been able to be employed as an
12:15entry-level person within that
12:16organization. probably had applied and
12:18been rejected as a younger fellow. Trump
12:21persisted. Eventually, Lis, that's a
12:24Senate confirmed job. Eventually, Lisa
12:25Macowski, the senator from Alaska, sort
12:27of said, "Hey, man, this is nonsense.
12:29I'm not voting in favor of it." And
12:31Trump quietly withdrew the nomination.
12:34So, what mattered there is Senate
12:36confirmation and a less partisan
12:40senator, Macowski. So not one of the
12:44foaming at the mouth I will do whatever
12:46the president says types. She's one of
12:47the small number who's independently
12:49minded. That was enough. And
12:51subsequently and this didn't get
12:53reported enough though we did some a lot
12:55on the platypus economics. The
12:57administration realized the only way
12:58forward was to appoint someone who's
13:00serious and they appointed Brett
13:01Matsumoto who's a career statistician
13:03and exactly the sort of person who
13:05should be BLS commissioner and I believe
13:06he was actually confirmed last week. So
13:08the system held, but actually it only
13:11held because one senator was willing to
13:14stand up and say no. We have other cases
13:17where the system didn't hold. I might
13:19argue that appointing an antivaxer head
13:22of health and human services is at least
13:25as problematic. And I don't mean that in
13:27a partisan sense. I mean that in a I'm
13:30someone who believes in ground truth and
13:32that bloke doesn't. He likes to do cold
13:34plunges wearing jeans. So, Macowski made
13:37a difference. Senate confirmation made a
13:38difference. What didn't we have here?
13:40Well, Congress has actually said the
13:42Bureau of Labor Statistics must be
13:43headed by a statistical expert who has
13:46experience running, sorry, the Census
13:47Bureau must be headed by a statistical
13:50expert who has expertise and experience
13:52running large scale organizations. The
13:53last one resigned and they haven't
13:56appointed anyone. And if you don't
13:58appoint anyone, you don't need to go
13:59through Senate confirmation. So they put
14:01a partisan hack who is not a statistical
14:04expert but uh is a political appointee
14:07in charge of the census bureau. And so
14:09that's the end run around the Senate
14:11which is the White House now runs the
14:14Census Bureau. Now there's another layer
14:16of protection which is our public
14:18servants are good and serious people who
14:21have and particularly our statisticians.
14:23They're interested in truth rather than
14:24partisan nonsense. I know many many
14:26government statisticians. I don't
14:28actually know how any of them vote.
14:30might be the same as me, might be
14:31different, doesn't matter to them. What
14:33they care about is x-prime x inverse
14:35xprime y. They are deeply devoted to
14:39statistical truths. So, none of them
14:42would work on this report. None of them
14:44would sign it. But the acting census
14:47bureau director just brought in outside
14:48think tank hacks to write this nonsense.
14:51And my guess is the career staff stayed
14:54back. I was surprised. So, I didn't
14:56actually receive any calls from career
14:57staff, but they left plenty of clues
15:00that this was not business as usual.
15:02That's why there was no author, there
15:04was no reviewer. Normally, when you
15:06release a report, it's part of a report
15:08series. It was not one of those blah
15:10blah blah blah blah blah blah. I think
15:11what those two stories show you is the
15:13fragility of our institutions. In some
15:16sense, we were lucky that Macowski got
15:18in the way in this time. We were unlucky
15:20that the previous Census Bureau
15:21resigned. And Trump appears to have
15:23figured out or Howard Lutnik appears to
15:25have figured out he can have them
15:27manufacture propaganda as long as they
15:29don't actually put a serious
15:30statistician up who meets the
15:32legislative requirement. And again, the
15:34legislative requirement is independence,
15:37expertise, experience, none of which
15:39this blog has.
15:40>> I wonder if there's anything I don't
15:41know. I also feel like our news cycle is
15:45primed to give the BLS a lot of
15:46attention, right? Maybe it's because of
15:48just how regularly we get data from
15:50them, how many different Wall Street but
15:53other organizations are kind of always
15:55looking toward that. And I love the
15:57Census Bureau and I get excited
16:00[laughter] when the every 10 years the
16:02Census comes out and the you know the
16:04ACS, but I do think it's a little bit of
16:07a like unloved stepchild sometimes. I
16:10think that's right and it's a really
16:11important thing which is the
16:11unemployment numbers and the employment
16:13numbers come out every month
16:15>> that puts financial markets around the
16:16world staring at the Bureau of Labor
16:17Statistics. It puts the front page of
16:19New York Times and the Wall Street
16:20Journal reliably on the bureau. It means
16:23every financial and economics journalist
16:24is dealing with the bureau. The Census
16:26Bureau actually does the phone calls
16:29that lead to the unemployment rate. The
16:31bureau BLS pays them to do that. So
16:34actually a lot of the real work's going
16:35on at the Census Bureau. I love the fact
16:38that you love the Census Bureau. Megan,
16:40do you want to, you know, say a few
16:42words about your favorite? What is your
16:44love letter to the Census Bureau?
16:46>> I when I taught human geography, it is
16:49like the number one quantitative data
16:51source for human geographers. It was
16:54usually like the first week of lessons.
16:57We learned about what the census was. I
17:00remember in when I was in grad school
17:02for teaching, I was sent the American
17:05Community Survey, which is only sent out
17:06to like I don't know the percentage, but
17:08a certain number of people.
17:10>> Yeah. Okay. And it's the off years of
17:12the census. And I was
17:13>> the baby census.
17:14>> I was so excited. I was had two other
17:17roommates at the time and I was like
17:19forced them to do it. I felt so honored.
17:21But yeah, I just love how like both
17:23simple it is and how fundamental it is
17:25to basically every other data and
17:29statistic that we have to rely on in
17:31this country and our government and our
17:33businesses and everyday people um are
17:36able to look to it and rely on it.
17:39>> So I think that's right and actually it
17:40has an important constitutional role
17:42which is the counts how many people are
17:44in each state and therefore how many
17:46congressional representatives are in
17:47each state. So if it can't be trusted to
17:50tell the ground truth, our democracy is
17:52based on falsehoods.
17:53>> That's why we have defended this
17:56institution so stoutly for literally a
17:58couple hundred years. It is the
18:01foundation of our democracy and that's
18:04built upon truth and trust. And to see
18:08it subjugated this way. If they're going
18:11to lie today about whether citizens
18:13voted, are they going to lie tomorrow
18:15about how many congressional
18:17representatives should come out of
18:18Texas? And if that's the case, then are
18:20we back to being in a situation in which
18:22people in different states have to
18:24fight, use that word carefully, fight to
18:27get adequate representation
18:29in our United States. That's not a joke.
18:33That's what these wars are often about.
18:35Who gets what in the new country we
18:37elect to form together. And if you start
18:40to subvert some of that, you raise some
18:42very, very big and very expensive
18:44issues.
18:45>> That's basically my last question for
18:47you, but maybe you want to add something
18:49else. What is or are the long-term
18:53consequences you're most concerned about
18:56when it comes to this sort of
18:57manipulation and politicization of
19:00statistical institutions?
19:02>> So, I just gave one version of the
19:04story. It's not absurd to believe that
19:07once you start fiddling with these
19:08numbers, you start fiddling with
19:10congressional representation and the
19:12union itself unravels. That's I'm
19:16totally serious about it would be a long
19:18process. It would require immense
19:20distrust, but it fosters distrust as if
19:22the stakes didn't feel high enough.
19:24Secondly, I don't know any way any other
19:28way to say this, Megan, other than there
19:31is a truth in the world and I believe in
19:34it. Maybe one day I'm going to get old
19:36and adult and I'll start believing all
19:37sorts of fancible things about the
19:39world. But I do hope no one lets me run
19:41the country when I do that. And you know
19:43whatever world I happen to invent in my
19:46own head might be quite lovely. But I do
19:48hope we don't use that to make public
19:49policy. The point is there's no
19:51foundation other than truth. You can't
19:54solve a problem unless you can describe
19:56it truthfully.
19:58You can't fix something unless you know
20:01what a thing is. And our political
20:03discourse has become unmed from truth.
20:06And this is yet another symptom of that.
20:09So all of the good work that people like
20:11you do, Megan, as a former public policy
20:13student, as a former teacher, as a
20:15future policy maker, it only works if
20:17you start with the truth. Otherwise, all
20:19you're doing is feeding your own
20:20imagination and you're not actually
20:22helping anyone. And I think each of us
20:23is born in this world with a deep
20:25obligation to help others around. This
20:26really makes me mad. I'm now going to
20:29put the economist hat back on and just
20:31make the case a different way. We can
20:33list the club of countries where the
20:36leader points to the chief statistician
20:38and says, "Hey, you know what? Could you
20:40just make up some nonsense for me
20:42because I want to fool the electorate."
20:44And this again gets to the point. These
20:46statistics are fundamentally about
20:47democratic accountability. If in fact we
20:50did have high levels of illegal voting,
20:53we should fire the secretaries of state
20:55who allowed that. But if we didn't, we
20:59shouldn't because we want to keep
21:00highquality elections continuing in our
21:03future. So the quality of our elections
21:05is on the line. But let's think about
21:07the club of countries. So Argentina has
21:10falsified its inflation statistics for
21:12years. Who wants to invest money in
21:14Argentina when you don't know what the
21:16inflation rate actually is? Who wants to
21:18buy inflation index bonds from the US
21:21government, which is an important source
21:22of funding of our enormous national
21:24debt? If today they're lying about the
21:27election, tomorrow they could lie about
21:28the inflation rate. Greece blew up in
21:32our memories during the financial
21:34crisis. It blew up because its budget
21:36documents were basically being
21:38falsified. And at some point, everyone
21:40figured it out and said, "We don't want
21:41to hold Greek debt anymore." foreign.
21:43Greece had a wrenchingly painful
21:47depression. Russia does this. Tinpot
21:50dictators do it. So at the simplest
21:52level, just like list the club of
21:54countries that do this, Russia and
21:55Argentina and Zimbabwe and Greece and
21:58ask yourself, do you want to walk down
21:59that path and discover if we can be the
22:01only ones who get out of it? Okay. It
22:04seems pointless and dumb and like this
22:06is where Oh, you got me ranting now,
22:08Megan. But I'm going to admit something.
22:10I've become a small C conservative. I
22:12mean that I think the foundations of
22:15American prosperity are in the strength
22:16of our institutions. And if we were
22:18doing terribly, that would give us a
22:20really strong argument for let's rip
22:21everything apart, let's fire everyone at
22:23the Census Bureau, let's redraw the
22:25election districts, blah blah blah. But
22:27if instead we're the most prosperous
22:28country in the history of the world,
22:31then the chances that if we rip
22:32everything down, we end up better. That
22:34seems like a really bad bet. Look, I
22:36apologize to folks at home. I never want
22:37to rant about politics. I never want to
22:39tell you what your politics are, but I
22:41do want you to be aware of the dangers
22:43that this present moment give us all.
22:46You got anything to You must have
22:48thoughts here, mate.
22:49>> No, I mean, I think you I think you
22:50captured all of it. I think uh I I I I
22:54think we don't know, right? I almost
22:55can't imagine. It's just bad. I know
22:58it's going to be bad. Um
23:00>> you just want to wrap the whole thing in
23:01caution tape and say don't do this.
23:04>> Yeah. And and again, I mean, I think
23:05I've said this before, but it's like at
23:07a time when so many people want to be
23:10improving things, it feels like we're
23:11just gonna work have to work so hard to
23:13get back to where we were. So, so much
23:16repair. And I agree that this is one of
23:17the kind of scarier inflection points
23:21>> in a road full of them.
23:22>> Well,
23:22>> Megan, maybe you can tell me something
23:23really happy just to just to brighten us
23:26both up. [laughter]
23:28>> I can I'm going to share some
23:30statistics. This is from a census. I was
23:33on my whale watch today and I saw
23:35between 19 and 20 whales. And if folks
23:38at home have never been on a whale
23:40watch, the marvel, the the wonder of
23:43these amazing creatures, the beauty and
23:47the sense of our insignificance and the
23:50beauty of the world around us. Get
23:52yourself on a whale watch and rediscover
23:55your sense of wonder.
23:56>> And if you're at all seasick like me,
23:59make sure you bring some Dramamine. But
24:01I agree. I've been well I've been well
24:04watching. It is It is probably one of
24:06the most wondrous things you can see and
24:09do. That's for sure.
24:11>> And maybe our homework is each of us can
24:13discover a little bit of wonder in our
24:16own lives.
24:17>> You know, you go outside, you see the
24:18dandelion, and you realize every single
24:20one of them is a work of art. Now,
24:21Megan, I think you might have some news
24:23for us.
24:24>> I do. So, before we go, I wanted to
24:27share some news. This is actually my
24:30final episode of the professor is in. I
24:33have absolutely loved working with
24:36Justin helping get Platypus Economics up
24:39and running. I'm also really excited
24:42about some of our new team members,
24:44including one of our wonderful new
24:46producers, Augusta, who's going to be
24:47joining Justin with a series starting
24:50next week. I am going to be returning to
24:52my roots in education. Speaking of the
24:56importance of democratic institutions, I
24:59have long believed that America's public
25:01schools are one of its backbones of its
25:05democracy and its prosperity. And I'm
25:08actually going to be working with local
25:09public schools in my hometown of
25:12Jacksonville, Florida.
25:13>> I was so sad when Megan told me she was
25:16leaving. She's been part of Platypus. I
25:18just want to share this with the friends
25:19at home. Megan began this journey. She
25:22started working with me when she was a
25:23master's student and then we we met for
25:25coffee and we started plotting this
25:27crazy idea that became platypus
25:28economics and she's been there every
25:30step of the way and I did have a little
25:32cry when she told me she was leaving but
25:34the thing that made it okay is that
25:38you're off to make the world a better
25:39place and do the things you believe in
25:41and um Megan the hundreds the thousands
25:44of people the tens of thousands of
25:45people who've enjoyed having you as a
25:47part of this I get to channel everything
25:50they might feel and say just an enormous
25:53enormous thank you. You're an incredible
25:56talent. You're going to do amazing
25:57things for the world and um our
26:00community just wants to say a big thank
26:01you.
26:03>> Thank you. Thank you, Justin. Thank you
26:06to our audience and letting me join
26:09along for this. [music] Um I hope that
26:11you have enjoyed our episodes. I hope
26:13you have learned something.
26:16And I would be remiss as a producer if I
26:19didn't remind you to like and subscribe
26:22to Justin and Platypus Economics
26:25everywhere you can find us. We just hit
26:28100,000 subscribers [music]
26:29on YouTube. Very exciting there. And a
26:33thousand subscriber paid subscribers
26:34[music] on Substack. But if you'd prefer
26:37an audio only format, you can also find
26:39us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever
26:43you listen to podcasts. Big thank you to
26:46the platter pals at home. [music] Huge
26:47thank you to you, Megan. And just a
26:49reminder, folks, stay curious. I'll see
26:52you next time.

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