Join Matt and Jadrian with guest Brian O'Roark as they react to key economic statements from the first presidential debate of 2024 between Joe Biden and Donald Trump on June 27th. The debate has had a lot of commentary - but how did the candidates do in their economic analysis? The three of them break down economic concepts and macroeconomic conditions discussed during the debate.
In this episode, we discuss:
How much influence a president has over “the economy”
Why tariffs are a really bad idea
The impact of inflation on everyday life
Whether immigrants take jobs from African Americans
And a whole lot more!
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Watch this episode on YouTube:
Some show notes:
Instead of live streaming our reactions, we decided to wake up early to discuss what we saw the night before. Matt checked in from the office and went with a diet soda. Jadrian opted for a little Buffalo Trace Bourbon Cream to give his coffee a little jolt while Brian with a classic breakfast cocktail: the screwdriver. While the episode was twice as long as usual, the group had so much to say that they only had one glass each.
This debate had a lot of new rules designed to minimize some of the frustrations people experienced in previous debates the first time these two squared off back in the middle of the pandemic. There’s already been a ton of analysis on who won the debate, what the prediction markets think, and how much each candidate lied during the debate. If you weren’t one of the 51 million people to watch the debate, you can see the whole thing on YouTube:
We logged in the next day to discuss the economic implications behind their arguments, stances, policies, and rebuttals. It was a lot. The economy is one of the top concerns for voters, and it’s no surprise that the moderators kicked off the debate with questions about inflation. Even topics like immigration, which is another important concern for voters, have economic underpinnings. We talked about as many as we could in the 90 minutes we spent together.
Most of our data came from the St. Louis Federal Reserve’s data aggregator known as FRED. While we haven’t included all the charts, graphs, and sources in our post here, you can likely fact-check us pretty easily. If we missed something, please tell us in the comments and let us know. If you think we’re exaggerating or underselling something, we want to hear about it!
Economists React to the First Presidential Debate of 2024