What starts as a travel recap turns into a wide-ranging conversation about manufacturing, geopolitics, surveillance, and the quiet signals of national confidence.

Sean is back stateside after several weeks in China and Japan, where he was auditing suppliers and rethinking what tariffs, supply chains, and "reshoring" actually look like on the ground. From panda diplomacy and traffic that "flows like water," to EV adoption, special economic zones, and cashless surveillance states, the conversation moves quickly from observation to implication.

Along the way, Dan and Sean explore why China's manufacturing base keeps getting stronger even as the U.S. talks about bringing jobs home, how switching costs quietly drive de-industrialization, and why blocking progress at every turn may be the most expensive policy choice of all.

The discussion expands outward—touching on AI, misinformation, drone warfare, Taiwan, chips, and why history often feels utopian only in retrospect. If Rome, Athens, or Florence were messy while they were happening, maybe that's the real lesson: we're living in history right now.

Pandas, it turns out, make excellent diplomats. They're calm, patient, and impossible to rush. Maybe there's something in that.

• What supply chain audits in China actually look like

• Tariffs, switching costs, and why April changed everything

• EV adoption, license plate incentives, and urban policy

• Special economic zones as policy experiments

• Cashless convenience vs centralized surveillance

• AI translation, misinformation, and "the only way out is through"

• Drone warfare, Taiwan, and fragile chip supply chains

• Civic pride, cleanliness, and the tragedy of the commons

• Why America struggles to build—and what that costs

• Rome wasn't utopian either

After an unintended "summer break" that didn't feel much like one, Dan and Sean are back at the mics. This episode ranges from the personal to the global: burnout, survivor's guilt, therapy culture, and the constant tug-of-war between staying informed and staying sane.

On the business and economics front, they dive into tariffs, reshoring, and whether Intel should be nationalized. From semiconductor foundries to data center booms, robots that work for $5 an hour, and the inevitability of bubbles, the conversation traces how global systems reconfigure under pressure.

Books and ideas also surface: Abigail Shrier's Bad Therapy, Lanny Bassham's With Winning in Mind, Robert Anton Wilson's Prometheus Rising, and Hans Rosling's Factfulness. The through-line? How to balance inner chatter, community, and coping strategies in a time when, as Dan puts it, "we are moving from an age of thinking into an age of feeling."

Along the way:

• Why over-therapy might be counterproductive

• Gen Z and the "lost rites of passage" (driving, dating, drinking)

• Corn subsidies, Eli Lilly, and the high-fructose dilemma

• What Clarkson's Farm gets right (and wrong) about farming

• How cultural norms shape family, community, and loneliness

It's part catch-up, part forecast, and part reckoning — a reminder that sometimes the best strategy is just to "keep your head above water and ride the wave."

This week, Dan and Sean dive into the deep end of economic uncertainty—from the philosophical origins of "the economy" to the lived reality of layoffs, inflation, and shifting trade routes. Why do oil rigs in North Dakota matter to the price of cheese? Are we witnessing demand destruction or just another panic? And what does "creative destruction" really look like when the grenades are turning into landmines?

Along the way: internal combustion nerdery, fourth turning fatigue, and a fair bit of macroeconomic exasperation.

If you're feeling off-balance in today's economy, you're not alone. We're all just trying to stay afloat in choppy waters—and sometimes the best you can do is keep your head up and wait for the next swell.

Books Discussed:

• In This Economy? – Kyla Scanlon

• A Splendid Exchange – William J. Bernstein

• Amusing Ourselves to Death – Neil Postman

• The Fourth Turning – William Strauss and Neil Howe

• The Siege – Ben Macintyre

• The Fifth Risk (and a new companion) – Michael Lewis

Podcasts Referenced:

• Odd Lots

• Hidden Forces (Grant Williams + Demetri Kofinas – The Hundred Year Pivot)

• The Fed Guy (Joseph Wang)

Quote of the Week:
"They're not grenades anymore—they're landmines we've set for ourselves."

Chapters:
00:00 – Weekend work and the managerial grind
01:00 – Oilfield layoffs and sour vs. sweet crude
04:00 – Why internal combustion is still the apex of engineering
06:00 – What does "economy" actually mean? (spoiler: it's Greek)
10:00 – Sheep barons, trade routes, and the roots of specialization
14:00 – Consumer sentiment vs. reality: is the mismatch getting worse?
18:00 – Tariffs, inflation, and the risk of stagflation
24:00 – Layoffs, rate cuts, and the Fed's boxed-in dilemma
30:00 – Budget gaps, fake fixes, and the math that doesn't math
34:00 – The future of global trade (with or without us)
39:00 – Will the Fed move fast enough—or too late again?
45:00 – NIH cuts and the role of scientific "waste"
51:00 – A fresh read from Michael Lewis + other book recs
56:00 – The fourth turning isn't over: the ecpyrosis continues
59:00 – Swimming, surfing, or just floating through it all
1:04:00 – Walmart's margins and the myth of "just eating" tariffs
1:10:00 – Median income, optionality, and the meaning of wealth
1:13:00 – Outro: shifting sands and the promise (or threat) of change