Prologue

This American Life producer Nancy Updike talks with a man, Eric Molinsky, about a weirdly heated argument he got into with a good friend, over corporate tax loopholes. Midway through, they both stopped to think: Why were they getting so upset over an issue they didn't really care about that much? And then they realized: Eric's ex-girlfriend was a political activist, and Eric's friend's ex-boyfriend was a hedge fund manager. Eric and his friend had had a 20-minute proxy argument on behalf of their exes. Host Ira Glass also talks about how a lot of his opinions about TV are just proxy opinions that he holds on behalf of his wife. (5 minutes)