Speaker 1: Let's go next to Miguel. From the country of Peru. Miguel, bienvenido.
Speaker 3: Could I have died? How you doing? Speaker 1: I'm doing well now. You're not on a
on a on a speakerphone, are you? You would never do that.
Speaker 3: I would never do it. I have headphones on right now. Beautiful.
Great. A lot of conversations about empanadas. I think Peru has a lot to contribute to the
conversation. But I am for a reason. But I will ask a more substantive question before we talk
about that, please. So about inflation. It's a big issue not only in the U.S. but all over the world.
And I've had a lot of conversations about if CPI or percentage change of CPI, which
is how we measure inflation, is really the best way to reflect the increase of cost of living,
especially between different socio demographic groups. So my question to you would be is there
a better way or anything that has been proposed to understand the cost, the increase in cost
of living in different sociodemographic groups? Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, you're absolutely correct
that CPI, meaning the Consumer Price Index, which is often how we look at inflation, does
not capture every situation and every population equally. If I understand correctly, it's mostly
urban centers and they're looking at food and beverages, housing, apparel, transportation,
medical care, recreation. You know, it's a it's a bunch of different things. You're completely
right. It's not perfect. And it doesn't capture maybe at low middle and higher incomes what the
change has been. And of course, the other thing to remember is that for lower incomes, a 5% increase
is much more meaningful than a 5% increase at higher incomes. So no metric is perfect. And
I mean, I think the issue would be, okay, so let's propose something else and I'm not sure
what that would be, but it's not a perfect metric. Speaker 3: Agreed. Agreed. I have a quick another
question. I'm half-Jewish, but I'm not very connected with with that part of my heritage.
What would be some Jewish foods and in particular are Jewish foods in the U.S., mostly Eastern
European? Because I kind of feel like that's kind of what's going on when I eat Jewish food
in the US. Is there American Jewish food versus Eastern European Jewish food versus Middle Eastern
Jewish food? What does that look like? Speaker 1: I don't I can't say too much
about American Jewish food, but basically when people are talking about so-called Jewish food,
you've got the Eastern European stuff, which has a lot of overlap with Russian and Ukrainian and
Polish food as well. And then you have what we would consider more the Israeli foods, which
have a lot of overlap with other Middle Eastern countries. So, you know, in your Eastern European
kind of area, you've got your matzo ball soup. Of course, you've got pastrami on rye with mustard,
you have knishes. You know, you have kind of like that world chocolate babka, things like
this on your Middle Eastern, more Israeli type Mediterranean side. There's a lot of overlap with
other Middle Eastern countries, even a little bit with places like Greece, etc.. And so there you're
talking about falafel or falafel, as some like to say, stuff like that. I don't know about like
American Jewish food. I think it's just a kind of either of the two things I just mentioned.
Speaker 5: Right. I was just thinking about. Speaker 3: Pastrami sandwiches when like a
Jewish diner kind of thing. Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess that
is more American. So. So I guess I'll go back. Like, the idea of brisket is
more of an Eastern European thing because it used to be really cheap and you know,
it wasn't very good and you had to cook it all day for it to be remotely tender. Now,
brisket is is is very hip. But I think if we talk about, you know, places like Katz
Deli in New York, that would be more the Americanized Eastern European Jewish food.
Speaker 3: Great pleasure talking to you. Speaker 1: All right. My pleasure. There
is Miguel from Peru. Very powerful declarations that he made about food.
Let's take a very quick break. If you're holding we're coming right back to the phones,
so don't go anywhere. Let's go right back and hear from some members of the audience.