00:00Let's talk about something that's, well, it's pretty wild when you think about it.
00:04It's this paradox at the very heart of the American economy.
00:08In a country that has so much, why does it feel like we're always running out of things?
00:13I mean, it sounds kind of crazy, right?
00:15The U.S. is a powerhouse of innovation, with more Nobel Prizes than almost anywhere else.
00:20And yet, we seem to struggle with the basics.
00:22So, what's the deal?
00:24And look, this isn't some abstract economics lecture.
00:27We've all felt this stuff.
00:28Remember trying to find face masks in 2020, or COVID tests the next year, or that terrifying baby formula shortage?
00:35It goes way beyond the pandemic, too, hitting huge things like affordable housing, finding a doctor in huge parts of
00:41the country, and even building clean energy projects.
00:44The story of America right now is a story of manufactured scarcity.
00:48Okay, so to get to the bottom of this, we first have to ask, why are the most important things
00:53in our lives getting so ridiculously expensive?
00:56You know the drill.
00:57The political debate on this gets stuck in the same old rut.
01:01One side says, we just need to spend more money to help people afford stuff.
01:05The other side yells, no, we're spending too much, and that's causing all the inflation.
01:09But what if they're both missing the real story?
01:12Okay, now this chart, this is where it gets really interesting.
01:15It basically splits our whole economy in two.
01:18Look at those blue lines going down.
01:20For physical goods, things like TVs, cell phones, toys.
01:23We're amazing at making them cheaper and better.
01:26But then look at the red lines going up, and I mean way up.
01:30For essential services like healthcare, college, and housing, the costs have just exploded, soaring past inflation and any wage growth.
01:37So here's the kicker.
01:38This isn't really a money problem at its core.
01:41You can't just throw subsidies at a housing crisis if nobody's allowed to actually build more apartments.
01:46The real issue is a national failure of supply.
01:49We've simply stopped getting better at providing the things we need the most.
01:53Which brings us to the next big question.
01:56Why?
01:57Why did we get so slow at making things and providing essential services?
02:01Well, a lot of it boils down to this one kind of wonky but super important word, vitocracy.
02:08It describes a system where it's just way, way easier to stop something from happening than it is to get
02:13something built.
02:14We've created a world of endless veto points where all kinds of groups and individuals can just say no, leading
02:20to total gridlock.
02:21Housing is the perfect and maybe most frustrating example of this.
02:26You see the signs in the front yard.
02:28All are welcome here.
02:29But then you look at the backyard policies.
02:31The zoning laws that ban apartments.
02:33The years of permit delays.
02:34The lawsuits designed to block new construction.
02:37It all adds up to this.
02:39Our wealthiest, most productive cities have made it almost impossible to build new homes.
02:44And believe me, this isn't just about houses.
02:47Think about this for a second.
02:48In the early 1900s, New York built its first 28 subway stations in four years.
02:55Four.
02:56Fast forward a century and it took 17 years.
03:0017 to build just three new stations.
03:03Our muscle for building big, important things has just atrophied.
03:08All right, let's switch gears to health care.
03:10And wow, this chart is just, it's staggering.
03:14For a full 25 years, while the U.S. population grew by 60 million people, the number of new doctors
03:20we trained every year basically stayed flat.
03:23This wasn't some accident.
03:24It was a choice.
03:25And it directly created the doctor shortages we're dealing with today.
03:28So what we've done is we've basically designed a system that creates a shortage of doctors.
03:33Medical school in the U.S. is the longest and most expensive in the developed world.
03:37We've capped the number of residency slots, which are essential for training.
03:41We make it incredibly hard for doctors trained overseas to practice here.
03:44And we even stop highly skilled nurses from providing more care.
03:48We have literally chosen to have less health care.
03:51Okay, so if the problem is that we're making things scarce, what's the fix?
03:55Well, that brings us to a whole new way of thinking about this.
03:59It's called the Abundance Agenda.
04:01And the idea is actually pretty simple, but it's also revolutionary.
04:05Instead of endlessly fighting over how to slice up a small and shrinking pie,
04:09why don't we focus all our energy in just making the pie way, way bigger?
04:12Let's make housing, clean energy, and health care plentiful and cheap
04:16by systematically taking down all the barriers that hold back supply.
04:19I love this quote from the entrepreneur Saul Griffith
04:22because it just nails the whole vibe of this agenda.
04:25It's optimistic.
04:26It's not about making do with less.
04:28It's about building a future that is, you know, awesome.
04:31A future that is genuinely better for everyone.
04:33And this is a really, really important point.
04:36We always think progress is about waiting for the next big invention, right?
04:40That big eureka moment.
04:42But our problem right now isn't a shortage of good ideas.
04:45It's that we're failing to actually implement the brilliant ideas
04:49we already have.
04:50You want to see a perfect example of this?
04:51Just look at the story of solar power.
04:53American researchers invented the modern solar cell.
04:56Back in the 80s, we were leading the world in funding the research.
04:59But then what happened?
05:00We completely failed to build the industries and policies to deploy it.
05:04Other countries took our invention, ran with it,
05:06and now they're leading the world.
05:07We're great at inventing, but we get stuck in this valley of death
05:10between having the idea and actually making it happen at scale.
05:13So, this all leads to the final piece of the puzzle.
05:17To really fix this, it's not just about changing policies.
05:20We need to change our whole mindset.
05:23Think about it.
05:24For so long, the message, especially on things like the environment,
05:27has been about scarcity.
05:28You know, reduce, reuse, recycle.
05:30It's a mindset of sacrifice, of living with less.
05:33The abundance mindset just flips that script entirely.
05:36It says, let's build, let's deploy, let's electrify.
05:39We can have a future with amazing things, powered by clean energy that's everywhere.
05:44It's about progress, not punishment.
05:46And that's really what it all comes down to, isn't it?
05:49We have proven, time and again, that America is world-class at inventing the future.
05:54But progress doesn't end in the lab.
05:56The real question now is whether we can rediscover the will to actually
05:59build the future we've already invented.
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