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S1: This ad free podcast is part of your Slate plus membership.

S2: Hello and welcome to the riches of this land, Ed. This leaked money or guide to the business and finance news of the week, I’m Felix Salmon of Axios.

S3: I’m here with Anna Shamansky of Breaking News. Hello. And we are also here with Jim Tankersley from The New York Times. Who are you and what is your book?

S4: Jim Tankersley I cover tax and economic policy for The New York Times. My book is called The Riches of this Land The Untold True Story of the American Middle Class.

S3: We have a great episode this week. We are going to talk to Jim about his book. Of course, we’re going to learn all about the middle class and how it got to where it is. We are going to talk about China and whether Tick-Tock is going to be banned or whether the tick tock is going to wind up being merged into LinkedIn, which would be quite a thing. We are going to talk about the digitization, the virtualization of the American economy, whether that’s going to last. And we are also in Slate plus going to talk about Donald Trump and what kind of credit he can claim or blame we can lay at his feet for the state of the economy. All of that coming up on Slate money. So, Jim, you’ve written a whole book about the American middle classes, and it’s a book full of people and a lot of the people in your book, as with a lot of Americans, had generally positive experiences up until a certain date. And then since that day, they have had generally not so positive experiences. So what is the middle class and when did things start going sideways?