Two of my favorite guests—Grace Blakeley and Kathryn Edwards (also known as Keds)—return to The Money with Katie Show today for a conversation about tariffs, trade wars, and damaged trust. Grace, a democratic socialist from the UK, and Keds, a committed optimist and self-described cold-blooded economist, weigh in on a few big-picture ideas I can’t stop thinking about:

• How there’s no national “American” interest—only class interests—which makes conversations about what’s “good for America” tricky
• Who our trade deficits benefit most (and the era of “cheap goods dominance” that may be upended)
• What most Americans don’t realize about the advanced state of Chinese manufacturing, a subject I’ve been fascinated by ever since learning about “dark factories” (named for the fact that you can mostly leave the lights off, because they’re fully robotic)

I could’ve talked to these two for days, but unfortunately we’ll have to settle for an hour.

🎙 Listen to this expansive roundtable on The Money with Katie Show.

The Hot Girl Hamster Wheel detox is going mainstream! Since February, searches for “blonde to brunette hair” and “press on nails” have gone up 17% and 10%, respectively, to which I say: Ladies, allow me to show you around! This Wall Street Journal article suggests that an intuitive pullback in women’s discretionary spending is a recession indicator, and that cutting out self-care luxuries is an obvious first step for many (see also: Chapter 1 of Rich Girl Nation, where I describe reckoning with Hot Girl Derangement Syndrome—spending 10% of my annual take-home pay on looking polished). It’s notable that the other foregone luxuries in the piece—meal delivery apps, Uber rides, Netflix—are the services that were heavily subsidized in the 2010s by venture capital firms. Now that prices reflect the actual cost, people are beginning to see them as unnecessary indulgences. Good thing we didn’t try to restructure our entire workforce according to gig economy principles or anything!

I thought the little FBI Man in my phone was trolling me when I was targeted with this article called “You’re Drowning in Debt” after what I published last week. I’d referenced a debt consolidation ad that opened with the same line and reflected on the absurdity of our financing-friendly culture. Then I saw The Cut had interviewed 102 of its readers about their debts, and my bias = ready for confirmation. The subheadline—“I don’t know anyone who isn’t in debt unless they’re a trust-fund kid or married rich.”—affirmed my thesis, though I must admit a few of the revelations therein tested the limits of my understanding. Going into debt for lip filler, Chanel shoes, and a Dyson AirWrap? It’s so over. If you need motivation to avoid carrying credit card debt, remember it’s little more than a direct wealth transfer from you (the overextended consumer) to the card issuer. Avoiding debt because it’s fiscally prudent? Boring. Avoiding debt to stick it to the man? Principled.

On that note, cheap consumer goods are the American dream, actually; at least, Amanda Mull argues for Bloomberg that they’re more important to Americans’ perception of their quality of life than Trump realizes as he tariffs the shit out of everything. The unspoken bargain established in the mid-twentieth century between citizens and policymakers was access to imported creature comforts in exchange for accepting a threadbare social safety net: “In return for consumer abundance, many middle-class Americans would take business and political leaders’ word for it when they said that the government was expensive and wasteful and that the social safety net needed to be kept lean to discourage laziness and freeloading. In return, their taxes would be low and, if they worked hard, the power of consumerism would provide the opportunity to buy whatever they wanted or needed—no bureaucrat would choose how to spend their money for them.” I guess we’re about to see what happens when the “little treat” covenant breaks down.

If you’re in the mood to spend two hours reading about the “conspiracism and hyper-partisanship in the nation’s fast-growing city,” look no further than this long read from George Packer for The Atlantic. Framing the challenges presently faced by Phoenix, Arizona as a glimpse into the future of American civilization is brilliant. Similarly worthwhile: A Sandwich Shop, a Tent City and an American Crisis in The New York Times.

🫡 Abundance coauthor Ezra Klein and I might not see eye-to-eye on everything, but his two most recent episodes—“Tom Friedman Thinks We’re Getting China Dangerously Wrong” and “The Emergency is Here”—are can’t-miss listening. His buttery smooth interview skills make me regret the day I ever ordered a Shure SM7B.

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