WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 100 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.680 Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let 0:00:02.759 --> 0:00:06.400 you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode 0:00:06.519 --> 0:00:09.440 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:09.520 --> 0:00:13.280 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:15.800 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:17.720 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:19.520 there's got to be nothing new here for you. But 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:21.239 you can make your own decisions. 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:30.760 Pod Cast it's a podcast that you're listening to. It's 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:34.600 it could happen here. It's that the show where things 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:36.600 fall apart and so that you put them back together again. 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:41.599 And actually, okay, you know, I really should have checked 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:43.040 the calendar before I did it, before I tried to 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:45.240 do this introduction where I've referenced the thing that I'm 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:47.879 saying came out last week but might actually have come 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:52.400 out like no, no, no, okay, okay, I got it right. 0:00:52.400 --> 0:00:54.200 I got it right. I should never have doubted myself. 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:58.840 Last week, we did an episode about inflation, and we 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:04.160 told maybe half that story and the part of it 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:06.600 that we didn't tell, you know, we got through the 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:08.920 most of the part about like you know what what 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:12.080 this sort of theory of inflation that the people a 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:13.920 strange matter to fello up. We got through what it was. 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:18.520 What we didn't really talk about was what happened next, 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:21.640 which is a very very interesting set of sort of 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:25.480 maneuvers that happened where this theory started spreading through a 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:29.960 bunch of very disparate academic circles and you know, sort 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:34.480 of like economic circles and different political circles that usually 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:36.560 don't have anything to do with each other. But we're all, 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:40.000 i don't know, taking taking things in very interesting directions, 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:43.560 and to talk about how how how this sort of 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:47.000 supply Shaine theory of inflation like spread through the world 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:51.320 and all of this very very interesting, somewhat bizarre stuff 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:53.720 that happened. Next, we once again have Steve Mann and 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:57.360 John Michael Cologone, who are co editors as Strange Matters. Yeah, 0:01:58.200 --> 0:01:59.920 Steve jmc welcome back to the show. 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:02.760 Thanks for having us. 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:05.680 Yeah, I'm glad, glad, glad we could have YouTube back, 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:10.359 and glad we get to talk about the really really interesting, 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:16.000 somewhat strange things that happened next, which was, Yeah, a 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:21.600 lot of people started picking up your theories and starting 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:23.600 to work with them. Yeah, I was worrying if you 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:25.640 could talk a bit about I guess like how that 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:27.720 kind of first started and how people first started sort 0:02:27.760 --> 0:02:28.880 of coming to you for stuff. 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:36.560 Yeah, like last year. So last year when the first 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:39.880 of these pieces came out Notes toward e theory of inflation, 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:44.240 we got like a really good response in general from it, 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:48.359 and it was kind of provoking discussions between groups of 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:54.320 economists and like readers of econ stuff on Twitter and 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:58.000 stuff like that, who otherwise wouldn't have really been talking 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:02.840 to each other, but suddenly having a different theory of inflation, 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:05.919 one that was like a lot different than what sort 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:07.480 of like the people who thought it would be super 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:10.799 transitory or the people who thought it was like purely 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:14.600 a monetary phenomenon or something like that. Like having that 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:21.359 option sparked good conversations, and it eventually led to some 0:03:21.400 --> 0:03:25.320 writers approaching us who are sort of inspired by those conversations, 0:03:25.840 --> 0:03:30.160 and particularly a few of them really wanted to follow 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:34.200 up on like specific key like either points from the 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:40.560 paper or follow some of the implications as far as 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:44.720 they think they could take them. So one such paper. 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:48.600 Oh and by the way, just as a refresher the 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:51.160 original theory that is laid out in Part one of 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:56.360 this series that we're doing is essentially saying that inflation 0:03:56.680 --> 0:04:01.160 has a tendency to propagate a long supply chains first 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:07.600 and then through supply chain networks secondarily. And so it's 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:10.400 it's saying it's essentially that that's that's how it propagates. 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:14.640 It starts in supply chains. Things like bottlenecks along production 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:20.279 processes have give the price setters, who are people at companies, 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:25.560 socially acceptable reasons to eventually if they need to raise prices. 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:30.480 And but they but that generally pricing managers refrain from 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:34.440 raising prices unless that us like every other lever they've pulled, 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:38.440 essentially has not worked. So like people took that theory 0:04:38.560 --> 0:04:41.120 and wanted to follow up on it, and so one 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:44.960 author who did that was Alex Vaccolo who approached us 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:48.279 and he essentially wanted to do an updated version of 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:54.000 the pricing manager survey that we found really helpful in 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:59.120 writing those initial pieces. So in my piece No sort 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:04.120 of Theory of Inflation, I relied upon like a wealth 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:08.800 of pricing manager surveys that showed that where they asked 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:11.680 these pricing managers under what circumstances would you raise prices, 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:16.000 and they sort of went through each scenario of that 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:20.159 over the decades, starting in the thirties and going into 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:23.600 the nineties and two thousands. In order to not have 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:27.719 a replication crisis, like, we need more and more studies, right, 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:31.720 Like this is a that's phenomenon across social sciences and elsewhere. 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:35.320 So you want to have good replication studies. One way 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:37.520 to do that is to have an updated pricing manager 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:40.560 survey that talks to like sort of modern corporations in 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:44.240 the twenty twenties. So are they still concerned about some 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:47.800 of the same things? Are they not? Are there innovations 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:51.440 and pricing that we should know about? And so Alex Paccolo, 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:56.560 who's a financial journalist by trade, he went and interviewed 0:05:56.880 --> 0:06:03.080 some managers at Walmart and other big companies and some 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:08.320 smaller ones and found that, like, broadly speaking, a lot 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:11.440 of the same issues are at play. So companies have 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:16.400 cost plus markeut pricing as kind of their bedrock, and 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:19.839 from there they develop some innovations such as like so 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:25.720 called dynamic pricing, where they have the like if you're 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:28.760 a larger company who knows that they are viewed as 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:36.599 a price leader, you have some leeway in responding to 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:40.160 sales forecasts and changing your pricing, like Walmart does what 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:42.600 they have like everyday low prices, that type of thing. 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:47.720 And if you're a grocery store and one of your 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:51.560 competitors is Walmart, Serve on the flip side, you might 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:56.720 start developing indexes of prices set by Walmart or like 0:06:56.760 --> 0:07:00.080 one of the other big like behemoth chains, knowing how 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:04.240 important they are to the overall supply chain network and 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:08.560 knowing how important they are for the demand for groceries. 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:12.520 Like like if wherever Walmart goes, many people have no 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:15.280 choice but to follow them in terms of their pricing schedules. 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:18.120 And so that's another thing that is going on, Like 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:21.440 people are developing just entire price indices of like Walmart 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:25.080 or Costco or Sam's Club or who have you. 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:29.400 Yeah, that was something that's I think interesting in terms 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:36.080 of like the the difference between the way that like 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:38.640 economists think about sort of price, the difference between and 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:41.360 how it's actually getting set, which is like a lot 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:43.560 of it, a lot of it. Very much seems to 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:46.360 be like if you are if you are like the 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:49.680 largest company in a market, like if you are like Walmart, right, 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:53.080 you have this incredible ability to sort of like like 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:58.200 you have this ability to like like force people force 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:01.800 your like downstream or like a guess upstream suppliers to 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:04.400 like sell it to you at low at lower prices 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:06.680 because you have this enormous sort of like you know, 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:09.640 amount of buying power that like, you know, if you're 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:12.240 like if you're like a smaller thing, you don't necessarily 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:15.920 like you know, like like the same company will charge 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:19.360 like another grocery store more for like the same thing 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:21.320 because Walmart, Walmart has an ability to sell it at 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:25.200 a lower price than if I'm remembering this right, I'm 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:26.800 getting I'm gonna im getting strange looks. 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:30.480 Yeah, well it's it's it's important not to mix up 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:33.559 two separate things. One is Walmart's relationships to suppliers and 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:36.080 the other one is relationship to its competitors. Right, So 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:39.840 the supplier bit, you were totally right on the right track. 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:43.600 It's like, you know, like people who supply Walmart with 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:46.120 with products because Walmart is such a big customer. If 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:48.400 you get the Walmart contract and you're a small producer 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:51.360 or a medium sized producer, like you're set right because 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:53.560 like you know, then then you can basically just like 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:55.520 you know, they can even be your only customer in 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:58.120 many cases. But that comes at a cost, which is 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:00.920 that you sell at the price that will dictates, otherwise 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:04.400 they'll just tell you to fuck off basically. And you know, 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:07.000 it's not only price, it's also the quality. You have 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:10.040 to hit the standards. And oftentimes what these firms that 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:13.520 are like the big important firms, so called nuclear firms 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:15.640 in a supply chain do is that they set those 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:18.479 standards like very rigidly, and you have to be certified 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:20.880 with them. So McDonald's does this for example, you know, 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:24.160 like all those poultry farmers or whatever who supply the 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:25.880 chickens for the chicken mc nuggets, they have to go 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:28.839 through this extremely rigid process in order to be able 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:32.040 to qualify to be a McDonald's certified supplier or whatever, 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:34.600 because that's how they keep the product standardized even though 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:37.720 they're not in house. And then the other thing that 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:40.160 you were alluding to, which is a vocalo's piece, is 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:43.440 the relationship to competitors. So obviously Walmart's able to keep 0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:45.679 things cheap all the time, and they're famous every day 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:50.520 low prices because basically those they have economies of scale. 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:53.280 You know, there's this notion, I think common sense for 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:55.280 a lot of people, especially those who don't have a 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:58.240 lot of business experience, is that the more that you 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:00.600 make of something, the more expensive it's going to But 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:07.000 actually it's almost the exact opposite. Any firm that has survived, 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:09.800 like over a period of time being able to make 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:12.640 more and more of something has generally found ways of 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:15.120 making more and more of the same thing using fewer 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:18.360 inputs and less labor, like you know, and that's something 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:20.800 that happens through automation, but it's also something that happens 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:24.720 through administrative innovation and through and sometimes through less than 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:28.559 than nice things, right through through through you know, Amazon 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:31.560 warehouses where people aren't allowed to take bathroom breaks, or 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:34.400 through sort of like you know, coercive measures that they 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:37.200 can do because they've found a nice little spot in 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:38.960 the economy that lots of people are depending on them, 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:41.560 and they can dictate terms. But whatever it is, you know, 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:43.800 as firms get bigger, it actually gets cheaper to make 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:46.760 more of their kind of thing. So people in a 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:51.000 bodega can't match Walmart's prices for everything from like hamburgers 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:53.920 to detergent right, because for them it's more expensive to 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:57.319 produce or to acquire. So what they do instead knowing 0:10:57.360 --> 0:10:59.680 this and they're able to survive, is that they do 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:03.640 Walmart price and then they do a markup over Walmart's price. 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:05.760 So in the same way that like by themselves, they 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:08.600 would do a markup over their costs, Walmart's costs are 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:11.760 lower and they do a markup, so they do a 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:16.160 percentage over Walmart's markup, and as long as it basically 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:18.959 is something that's doable in terms of cost, they do that, 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:22.360 which means that they're basically advertising themselves to customers as 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:25.920 the slightly more expensive but more local you know, more 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:29.960 you know, more reliable or easier to get to you 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:32.240 can just walk to the corner store or whatever, you know, 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:35.200 whatever conveniences. They're kind of like justifying themselves with to 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:37.280 the customer base. And in the cities this can be 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:40.200 enough to keep you know, small to medium sized you 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:43.079 know sort of retailers in business, although in the suburbs 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:46.840 the competition is basically just all other ali gobalistic firms 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:51.280 on Walmart's scale, like you know, Wegman's or in Florida 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:53.200 it will be something like Public's you know, and that 0:11:53.280 --> 0:12:00.800 kind of thing so generally Vacola was discovering was I 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:04.560 want to just emphasize Steve's point about replication. Like, you know, 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:07.560 if a lot of the supply chain theory depends upon 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:10.600 a story about prices that most economists just don't believe in. 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:14.480 Economists believe that supply and demand are automatically adjusting based 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:17.800 on changing prices, and that those adjustments determine in turn, 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:22.120 how we spend and how we produce. You know, that's 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:25.200 that's supposedly how everything works. They believe in this thing 0:12:25.240 --> 0:12:28.559 called the price mechanism. The supply chain theory depends upon 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:30.280 a story where the vast majority of prices in the 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:34.280 economy are a markup over costs or you know, beyond 0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:37.360 that some kind of strategic decision being made in pursuit 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:42.120 of a certain strategy. But like, you know, if some 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:45.360 studies had verified that, but then other studies refuted it, 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:48.439 then you would have a situation like psychology, where you know, 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:52.720 the psychologists are always saying all human beings really have 0:12:52.920 --> 0:12:55.680 a neck fetish. But then you know, because some study 0:12:55.679 --> 0:12:58.760 of like some college students you know, said this, and 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:02.080 then six months later it'll be like, actually that failed 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:04.600 to replicate this. It turns out that human beings don't 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:06.800 have a neck fetish, you know. And I'm being rude 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:09.080 to psychology, but this is a real crisis that happened 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:12.920 there called a replication crisis. Now. Fred Lee that the 0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:16.240 economists who kind of like started us along this track 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:18.920 in his famous book post KINSI and Price Theory, found 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:22.079 seventy one pricing studies, and they form an appendix called 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:24.360 Appendix B in his book, which ought to be legendary, 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:26.080 but it's not, because all this stuff is very obscure. 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:30.360 The seventy one studies from very different book length studies 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:33.680 from very different people with very different like political and 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:36.960 economic commitments. Some of them are business school literature, some 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:39.880 of them are empirical studies commissioned by states or by 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:42.839 corporations on how corporate management works. Some of them are 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:45.199 by like Marxist economists, some of them are by neoclassical 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:48.160 economists like and they all converge, no matter what the 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:50.680 biases of the people of the people involved, upon this 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:55.040 same kind of similar cost plus administered prices model. Vocolo 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:58.679 writing now in the present day, not in the period 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:01.400 that Lee was talking about, which is roughly from the 0:14:01.440 --> 0:14:05.600 thirties to roughly the nineties, Like you know, he's talking 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:07.800 about the twenty twenties. He just went out and started 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:10.560 talking to pricing managers and capitalists and all this other stuff, 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:14.360 and lo and behold he found the exact same thing. 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:19.360 So the the evidence base, the empirical evidence base for 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:22.760 the underlying basis of the supply chain theory is very 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:26.920 very sound. The ball is in other people's court, in 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:29.680 mainstream economists court, who want to defend the supply and 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:33.920 demand bullshit and the price mechanism bullshit to prove us wrong, 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:37.560 because frankly, the weight of the evidence is so strong 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:42.400 that they're the ones who who have to prove their case, 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:45.720 not the other way around. You know that the what's 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:47.840 it called when you when you've got the you know, 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:51.320 the I think that the presumpture the burden of proof, 0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:53.680 thank you, The burden of proof is on their side. 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:54.880 Yeah. 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:56.880 And so something also I think is really interesting from 0:14:56.880 --> 0:15:01.160 that color pieces that like, you know, there is a 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:03.800 bit in there about firms that try to do this 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:07.280 sort of like like in real time reacting to supply 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:10.080 and demand stuff, and it's like uber and if you 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:12.360 look at Uber's like, okay, so uber has a couple 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:17.080 of things. One they don't have, like the thing that 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:20.680 they're like they don't really have a supply chain really 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:22.880 a B. They don't make any money. They never make money, 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:24.720 they will never make money. And the other the third 0:15:24.760 --> 0:15:26.560 thing that's really interesting about is that like that kind 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:29.880 of pricing, Like you know, if if you have some 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:32.160 people who go in ideologically and or like we're gonna 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:35.560 build an algorithm to like try to have pricing respond 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:38.240 to demand or whatever it like, it fucking sucks and 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:42.040 everyone hates it because it means that like, you know, suddenly, 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:45.760 like when you actually need a thing, it's unbelievably expensive 0:15:46.400 --> 0:15:50.120 and it pisses people off. Like most most people who 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:53.160 have to deal with actual like the normal things that 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:55.680 a business do don't do. And the only people who 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:59.000 do it are like the insane tech people who are 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:04.080 like like, I don't know, I almost want to call 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:07.320 it like intensely ideological and also assholes and also don't 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:10.360 make any money, which is just I don't know, it's 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:12.360 it's I think it's kind of a coincidence, but it 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:14.640 is just very funny to me that the people who 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:18.360 actually try to use the neoclassical like pricing theory. It 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:20.440 sucks and everyone hates them. 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:27.320 Yeah, and uh, the Colo kind of summarizes like the 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:33.640 several different uh pricing procedures that he witnessed, and to 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:39.360 just say, like on both on both determining your company's 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:43.680 costs and determining what market markup you should have, so 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:45.640 the cost plus markup you need to you need to 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:50.560 figure out both of those pieces. It's anything but automatic. Yeah, 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:54.080 it's a very manual process. And even I would I 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:56.680 would go so far as to say, like Walmart has 0:16:56.800 --> 0:17:01.640 teams of tech people, yes, but they're liaising heavily with 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:06.320 the finance department and sales and marketing to determine what 0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:10.840 is an appropriate margin based on historical like in industry 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:14.880 and sub industry trends and like what is our historical 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:18.560 cost structure for each product down to the product level. 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:21.080 And they have so many different products that they might 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:25.119 actually say, well, because we're selling everything to everyone, maybe 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:27.480 some things can just be what are called lost leaders 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:30.119 and have a negative margin because they get people in 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:31.760 the store, and then those people are there and they 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:34.400 see other things which have higher markups, and then they 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:36.600 buy those and then overall they've made more of a 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:40.440 profit because they use something's a negative margin on them. 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:44.680 And it's like it's a really complex process. And even 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:48.560 if an algorithm is being developed by say uber to 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:54.000 like dynamically priced things up and down based upon events 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:55.919 like a baseball game or something they are going on 0:17:55.960 --> 0:17:58.520 in a city so they can get more revenue, that 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:00.320 was still a people. It was a group of people 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:03.760 in a room in a very extremely manual process. Coding 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:09.040 is extremely manual still, and like lasing with like sales, marketing, 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:10.800 finance people all at once. 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:15.480 Yeah. 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:19.399 And the other thing is that it's like supply and 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:23.960 demand is a phrase that gets thrown around anytime that 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:30.919 there's any kind of interaction between like the amount of 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:34.960 people who want something and the amount of people and 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:37.760 the amount of stuff that there is, right, which is 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:42.400 a lot of different situations. But the specific supply demand 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:46.280 price theory that's at the core of neoclassical economics is 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:51.440 this price mechanism story whereby you know, companies basically all 0:18:51.480 --> 0:18:54.560 make one thing. The price of that thing is not 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:57.720 something that is really under their control. It automatically fluctuates 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:00.000 based on demand, which I guess you can roughly measure 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:04.960 as sales and like the and in turn, like what 0:19:05.040 --> 0:19:07.119 the price of that thing is determines how much they 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:10.880 produce and how much of it people buy, because people's 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:14.879 buying decisions are in some fixed functional way, and people's 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:18.280 production decisions, in some fixed functional way are tied to 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:18.800 that price. 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:20.520 Like if you. 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:24.920 Want to create an algorithm that includes as a consideration 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:28.000 doing a discount when you haven't yet sold all the 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:30.040 seats in an airplane in the hopes that you'll get 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:33.000 some last minute sales, which, by the way, statistically is 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:35.840 shown to not actually help that much those kinds of 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:39.280 last minute sales and discounts. I mean, I suppose in 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:41.600 a flight where there's a time limited thing, it might 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:44.120 work better. But for a typical product, it doesn't move 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:46.199 the dial very much in terms of sales, which is 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:49.280 why Walmart pursues an every day low price. Is strategy 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:51.720 just keeping prices down in general, so you don't do 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:54.000 sales and discounts which don't move the dial much. But 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:57.560 like you know, that's a strategic pricing decision that you've 0:19:57.640 --> 0:19:59.680 chosen to make because you think that it might move 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:02.320 the die in some way. You experiment it with it 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:05.520 and see if it works or whatever. That's not the 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:09.879 automatic lawlike functional relationship that is supposed to exist according 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:13.280 to neoclassical theory between supply demand and prices. People will 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:18.520 say that the algorithm is about supplying demand, but that's 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:22.080 not really how it works. That's it's it's not the 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:25.800 same thing as the theory, right. It's just a pricing 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:29.159 system that takes into account among many other variables and 0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:32.639 usually not as the primary thing, whether or not. For example, 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:39.400 there is available available slack in the in the you know, 0:20:39.640 --> 0:20:42.040 in what you're producing to be able to get some 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:43.840 last minute sales if you do a discount or something 0:20:43.880 --> 0:20:46.520 like that, like or like Steve was saying, like, you know, 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:48.720 there's a there's a game today, so you can do 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:51.040 surge pricing because people are gonna you know that a 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:53.159 bunch of people are going to want to get in 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:56.280 the game. So you're basically just price gouging based on 0:20:56.320 --> 0:20:59.240 this opportunistically based on this event that's happening or whatever, 0:20:59.520 --> 0:21:02.680 like like, yeah, you can do that, and you can 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:06.199 say that it's pricing that tries to take into account 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:09.800 supply and demand, but it's not the supply demand price 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:14.439 mechanism of neoclassical theory and also as McColo like you know, 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:19.480 finds out it, attempts to do this are very very 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:21.720 mixed in their success at best. 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:22.359 You know. 0:21:23.280 --> 0:21:26.280 Basically, people who are trying to do it are like, yeah, 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:29.240 maybe it could work, and then they try it and 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:31.600 nine times out of ten it doesn't work very well, 0:21:31.640 --> 0:21:34.080 so they go back to some variation on a cost 0:21:34.119 --> 0:21:37.520 plus model, you know, or a price leadership model or 0:21:37.560 --> 0:21:39.359 something like that. You know, the kinds of methods that 0:21:39.440 --> 0:21:40.240 Lee discusses. 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:45.680 Yeah, I mean the customer good will that you kind 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:48.560 of put at risk with these more dynamic pricing models 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:52.600 is like often a little too risky, Like even for 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:55.440 big companies like Uber, Like there's been a backlash against 0:21:55.520 --> 0:21:56.199 Uber for doing that. 0:21:57.280 --> 0:22:00.280 Absolutely the only reason they can maybe get away with 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:03.640 it has been because they have access to infinitive finance. 0:22:03.880 --> 0:22:06.040 But yeah, how long is that gonna last? Yeah? Like, 0:22:06.080 --> 0:22:08.760 and that's another thing that's interesting, Like, you know, this 0:22:08.840 --> 0:22:11.399 is this is does some except like a different economic question, 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:14.080 but like you do at some point have to ask 0:22:14.119 --> 0:22:17.080 the question, like to to what extent can you learn 0:22:17.119 --> 0:22:21.880 things about the economy based on companies that don't have 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:24.400 a revenue model, or the revenue model is they will 0:22:24.400 --> 0:22:27.359 continue to be headed piles of money by like the 0:22:27.400 --> 0:22:31.720 same seven billionaires they've conned, and that's like a I 0:22:31.760 --> 0:22:35.320 think there's an interesting interplay of how dependent you are 0:22:35.480 --> 0:22:40.639 on actually making like actually having revenue be the source 0:22:40.720 --> 0:22:43.640 of like the continuing existence of your company, and how 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:45.879 ideological you can be about running. 0:22:45.680 --> 0:22:46.360 Do you have a game? 0:22:47.880 --> 0:22:48.320 Yeah. 0:22:48.520 --> 0:22:51.080 Well, it's actually very funny that you say this because 0:22:51.160 --> 0:22:53.960 one of the people that Vocolo talks to is this 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:57.280 guy Cohen. I can't find his first name right now, 0:22:57.280 --> 0:22:59.560 and I don't want to scroll up, but somebody who's 0:22:59.640 --> 0:23:03.560 last name is Cohen is quote unquote more skeptical of 0:23:03.600 --> 0:23:06.560 the of the dynamical pricing, and he says, I think 0:23:06.560 --> 0:23:09.440 it's a sexy idea and probably it has a lot 0:23:09.440 --> 0:23:13.159 of intellectually valuable pathways, except when it crashes into the 0:23:13.200 --> 0:23:16.639 sensibility of the customer. He said, it could create a 0:23:16.760 --> 0:23:20.360 universe of very inconsistent prices across categories in time, which 0:23:20.400 --> 0:23:22.000 I don't think human beings are going to align to. 0:23:22.359 --> 0:23:25.120 These dynamic models need common sense judgment attached to them, 0:23:25.119 --> 0:23:28.000 which is not always necessarily available. Now, this is a 0:23:28.080 --> 0:23:32.520 very diplomatic statement by somebody who's formerly of Sears Canada. 0:23:32.840 --> 0:23:35.960 Now I find this very funny because there's a kind 0:23:36.000 --> 0:23:39.879 of subtext here. Vocola doesn't get into it, but Sears 0:23:40.160 --> 0:23:44.560 Canada obviously kind of related to Sears. In the nineties, 0:23:44.720 --> 0:23:48.640 Sears had a CEO who was like this ultra libertarian, 0:23:49.080 --> 0:23:51.439 you know. He basically believed that the problem with the 0:23:51.440 --> 0:23:53.479 free market is that it's not free enough, right at 0:23:53.480 --> 0:23:56.960 the height of neoliberalism. So he's really pissed off about 0:23:56.960 --> 0:24:00.000 the fact that inside the corporation there's no free market. 0:24:00.119 --> 0:24:03.359 It's all a planned economy, you know, which is is true. 0:24:03.400 --> 0:24:06.360 There's no there's no market exchanges in there, Like, it's 0:24:06.400 --> 0:24:09.200 all allocations, Like, Okay, we have this goal, so we're 0:24:09.200 --> 0:24:11.680 gonna allocate these workers to this place and blah blah 0:24:11.720 --> 0:24:14.960 blah blah. You know, and and we're and and uh 0:24:15.000 --> 0:24:16.760 and you know, anything that the company owns, they just 0:24:16.880 --> 0:24:20.600 use it to pursue their goals. He wanted everything inside 0:24:20.640 --> 0:24:24.600 the company to have a price, so that everything could 0:24:24.640 --> 0:24:26.679 just be you know. But and this is kind of 0:24:26.680 --> 0:24:30.000 like mad scientist experiment done on this like very old 0:24:30.119 --> 0:24:33.800 American corporation. But somehow. I guess it was the nineties. 0:24:33.880 --> 0:24:35.880 You know, people were coked up on this kind of thing. 0:24:36.200 --> 0:24:38.680 They tried it, and it was a catastrophic failure that 0:24:38.760 --> 0:24:41.640 actually generally seen as contributing to the end of Sears 0:24:42.000 --> 0:24:45.879 as a as a major player in retail. And it's like, like, 0:24:46.000 --> 0:24:48.000 so it shows So I think that the fact that 0:24:48.080 --> 0:24:51.280 this person very diplomatically from Sears is like maybe this 0:24:51.320 --> 0:24:54.080 doesn't work, you know, and that might be born of 0:24:54.160 --> 0:24:56.600 more experienced than than than than not. 0:24:56.840 --> 0:24:59.280 You know, yeah, okay, we have to go to an 0:24:59.320 --> 0:25:01.400 adrak before we that. I want to tell one more 0:25:01.440 --> 0:25:04.880 insane nineties Like, people in the nineties really really had 0:25:04.920 --> 0:25:08.760 market brain in a way that's like difficult to understand now. 0:25:09.080 --> 0:25:11.120 And you can even see this kind of through Obama, 0:25:11.240 --> 0:25:13.120 Like they really have market brain. And like I think 0:25:13.119 --> 0:25:16.159 the most market brain thing anyone ever did was the 0:25:16.200 --> 0:25:18.480 the the I think it was the Army joint. She's 0:25:18.480 --> 0:25:22.320 of staff brought in like a group of economists who 0:25:22.359 --> 0:25:24.480 were you know, like you were doing the whole like okay, 0:25:24.480 --> 0:25:26.800 we like, how can we make how can we use 0:25:26.840 --> 0:25:29.280 the market to make the army run more efficient? And 0:25:29.320 --> 0:25:31.200 the first polls that they put down on the table 0:25:31.359 --> 0:25:34.720 is we're going to have each part each like like 0:25:34.960 --> 0:25:37.640 each like section, like what's the type time declartim We're 0:25:37.640 --> 0:25:40.200 gonna have each branch of the military bid for control 0:25:40.240 --> 0:25:43.720 of who of who gets controlled the nuclear weapons. And 0:25:44.320 --> 0:25:46.400 there's a bunch of just like five star generals sitting 0:25:46.400 --> 0:25:47.919 at this table going like what the fuck are you 0:25:47.920 --> 0:25:50.960 guys talking about? This kid about And that was the 0:25:51.080 --> 0:25:54.240 end of like but that was like like peak absolute 0:25:54.280 --> 0:25:56.720 peak nineties brain of like these these people thought you 0:25:56.720 --> 0:26:00.320 could solve terrorism by like having futures markets on like 0:26:00.320 --> 0:26:04.200 where when terrorist attacks would happen, Like it was these 0:26:04.200 --> 0:26:07.399 people were wild. None of this stuff worked, unlike the 0:26:07.440 --> 0:26:09.760 products and services that you're gonna you're gonna now hear 0:26:09.800 --> 0:26:14.320 ads for and we're back from these fine products and services. 0:26:14.840 --> 0:26:18.320 If you're if if if the thing you were doing 0:26:18.400 --> 0:26:20.080 right now is you have your finger on the button. 0:26:20.080 --> 0:26:21.720 We are about to message Sophie about the fact that 0:26:21.720 --> 0:26:25.400 we have gold ads again, like please don't like please 0:26:25.480 --> 0:26:29.520 leave Sophie alone. Oh my god, I think we we've 0:26:29.560 --> 0:26:31.720 gotten we've gotten a little we've we've gotten sort of 0:26:31.720 --> 0:26:33.320 into the weeds of I guess like the kind of 0:26:33.359 --> 0:26:36.399 research stuff it's been produced, but I wanted to move on, 0:26:36.920 --> 0:26:39.480 I think to some of the some of the other 0:26:39.840 --> 0:26:43.680 like kinds of like I don't know, kinds of discourse 0:26:43.720 --> 0:26:45.360 and kinds of sort of work that's been produced out 0:26:45.359 --> 0:26:45.600 of this. 0:26:46.359 --> 0:26:49.360 Yeah. So the Cola's piece, I think was was very, 0:26:49.480 --> 0:26:52.960 very accomplished, and it adds to this proud tradition of 0:26:53.000 --> 0:26:56.720 pricing surveys, like you've been saying. But the the piece 0:26:56.760 --> 0:26:59.680 that I would say ended up having the biggest impact 0:26:59.720 --> 0:27:03.119 in this sense that it really kind of started getting 0:27:03.160 --> 0:27:05.439 followed up on by a lot of people and it 0:27:05.520 --> 0:27:09.960 cut a lot of attention was Tim Demetzio's piece. So 0:27:10.119 --> 0:27:14.960 a little about Tim. He's an economist based in Australia 0:27:15.000 --> 0:27:17.439 and I should remember the name of his university, but 0:27:17.480 --> 0:27:21.840 it was the University of something and it starts with 0:27:22.040 --> 0:27:25.040 W and it's a very long name there you go, 0:27:25.280 --> 0:27:32.919 University of Well. Yeah, and he's a political economist. He 0:27:32.960 --> 0:27:36.199 does a lot of stuff pertaining to kind of like 0:27:36.520 --> 0:27:40.600 international relations type stuff, but he also comes at economics 0:27:40.600 --> 0:27:43.399 from a particular perspective. So we mentioned last time that 0:27:43.400 --> 0:27:47.200 there's these the orthodoxy and economics. Is this one school 0:27:47.240 --> 0:27:49.480 called the Neoclassicals. Who believe in the supply and demand 0:27:49.520 --> 0:27:51.639 stuff and along with a whole bunch of other dogmas. 0:27:52.040 --> 0:27:54.920 Then there's a bunch of dissident heterodox schools. And there's 0:27:54.920 --> 0:27:57.439 a whole bunch of these, and one of them is 0:27:57.440 --> 0:28:00.639 called the capital as Power school, which is named after 0:28:00.680 --> 0:28:05.720 a book called Capitalist Power by these two professors called 0:28:05.720 --> 0:28:10.080 Bickler and Nitsen, and it has a lot of things 0:28:10.119 --> 0:28:13.639 to say about a lot of subjects. But so Capital's 0:28:13.680 --> 0:28:16.520 Power is a book that says a lot of things 0:28:16.560 --> 0:28:19.159 and a lot of different subjects, but at its core 0:28:20.040 --> 0:28:24.639 is the idea that what makes the capitalist system tick 0:28:24.920 --> 0:28:28.840 is the process of capitalization, and that that process of 0:28:28.880 --> 0:28:33.480 capitalization is controlled by certain people, and their control over 0:28:33.600 --> 0:28:39.760 that process is the basis of the entire economic system. 0:28:40.840 --> 0:28:43.440 That's very heavy stuff. It tends not to have to 0:28:43.440 --> 0:28:45.120 do with what we're going to be talking about, but 0:28:45.160 --> 0:28:49.120 it informs the perspective that Demutzio comes from. Now, Demuzio 0:28:49.360 --> 0:28:53.040 saw Steve's brilliant essay on the suplashing theory of inflation, 0:28:53.080 --> 0:28:55.560 was very inspired by it because there are certain affinities 0:28:55.600 --> 0:28:58.280 between the framework that we're coming from in this kind 0:28:58.320 --> 0:29:01.120 of research and the capitalist power framework. They don't agree 0:29:01.280 --> 0:29:03.120 one hundred percent on everything, but there's a lot of 0:29:03.160 --> 0:29:06.880 common ground there. So he basically hopped aboard to say, well, 0:29:06.920 --> 0:29:09.520 why don't we talk about interest rates? Because remember the 0:29:09.520 --> 0:29:13.680 main upshot of Steve's of Fred Lee's administrative crisis theory, 0:29:13.760 --> 0:29:17.160 and then and then by extension, Steve's theory about inflation 0:29:17.400 --> 0:29:20.080 is that inflation is not about money. It's about prices. 0:29:20.840 --> 0:29:23.360 And in order to understand inflation, you have to understand 0:29:23.640 --> 0:29:26.400 why people set the prices that they do, and why 0:29:26.480 --> 0:29:29.040 prices across the economy will go up at any given moment, 0:29:29.040 --> 0:29:31.280 because it's people who set prices, not the market, not 0:29:31.320 --> 0:29:33.440 the money supply, and not any of these other sort 0:29:33.440 --> 0:29:37.680 of automatic, general macroeconomic things. It's a microeconomic decision made 0:29:37.680 --> 0:29:40.760 by particular people within particular institutions, with the ability to 0:29:40.800 --> 0:29:45.160 pull the lever on particular prices. Right, So the interest 0:29:45.200 --> 0:29:49.080 rate is a price, you know, it's a very important 0:29:49.080 --> 0:29:50.440 price too, because. 0:29:50.400 --> 0:29:52.000 We should look, we should we should back off for 0:29:52.000 --> 0:29:54.320 a second and explain what when when you say the 0:29:54.360 --> 0:29:56.960 interest rate, you should explain what that is, because well, yeah, 0:29:57.360 --> 0:29:58.440 that's under explained. 0:30:00.600 --> 0:30:04.320 That's totally exactly where I was going because there's actually 0:30:04.440 --> 0:30:06.880 many interest rates out there in the economy. When we 0:30:06.920 --> 0:30:09.640 talk about the interest rate, what we tend to be 0:30:09.720 --> 0:30:13.200 talking about is the interest rate that is set at 0:30:13.200 --> 0:30:17.360 the central bank of the country that control of the 0:30:17.400 --> 0:30:23.040 currency under discussion, right. That is basically an interest rate 0:30:23.160 --> 0:30:27.560 that sets the price for credit for loans in the 0:30:27.600 --> 0:30:29.960 rest of the economy. And it's basically you can see 0:30:30.000 --> 0:30:31.520 it as a supply chain, even though it's not a 0:30:31.520 --> 0:30:35.560 physical one, and it's basically the main cost for banks 0:30:35.920 --> 0:30:39.760 that want to borrow, you know, and they then have 0:30:39.840 --> 0:30:43.880 to set a markup over that cost as the price 0:30:44.560 --> 0:30:47.200 for anyone who wants to borrow from them, which includes 0:30:47.200 --> 0:30:50.240 other banks but also includes end consumers and firms. So 0:30:50.760 --> 0:30:53.720 that's basically I mean, I'm oversimplifying and seeing probably a 0:30:54.920 --> 0:31:00.000 more nuanced version of this, but that's that's the basics. 0:31:01.240 --> 0:31:04.560 Yeah, Banks, just like any company, need to determine both 0:31:04.560 --> 0:31:07.600 their cost structure to the extent that they are able 0:31:07.640 --> 0:31:12.200 to themselves, and their markup. And the markup is they 0:31:12.360 --> 0:31:15.640 like banks, have costs just like anyone. One of their 0:31:15.680 --> 0:31:19.560 principal costs is their rate of interest that they pay 0:31:19.960 --> 0:31:23.360 on deposits of their customers in order to get them 0:31:23.480 --> 0:31:26.520 to get new customers in Like, that's one of their 0:31:26.560 --> 0:31:30.600 main services that they provide is checking checking accounts and 0:31:30.600 --> 0:31:33.600 savings accounts, and like, so, how much interest are you 0:31:34.040 --> 0:31:38.840 is a bank willing to set on its savings account 0:31:39.040 --> 0:31:42.000 is like an important decision that's like part of its 0:31:42.040 --> 0:31:46.080 cost structure. But where people if the Federal Reserve were 0:31:46.120 --> 0:31:50.120 to raise its federal it's a the federal funds rate, 0:31:50.520 --> 0:31:54.960 it's a principal policy rate up to what they have 0:31:55.120 --> 0:31:58.440 now five and a half percent or so, when it 0:31:58.600 --> 0:32:04.080 was less than one percent only a year ago, in 0:32:04.160 --> 0:32:08.000 order to compete with all of the other products which 0:32:08.040 --> 0:32:11.480 are based upon this so called risk free rate of 0:32:11.520 --> 0:32:17.640 return that the central bank offers that that governments used 0:32:17.680 --> 0:32:21.400 to like set the rate of things like treasury treasury 0:32:21.440 --> 0:32:24.719 bills and stuff like. Eventually, if you're a bank, you 0:32:24.800 --> 0:32:28.160 have to start charging higher and higher interest rates. Sorry, 0:32:28.160 --> 0:32:30.600 you have to start offering higher and higher interest rates 0:32:30.600 --> 0:32:34.920 on your savings accounts. And likewise you need to, like 0:32:35.320 --> 0:32:39.160 you need to start charging higher interest rates on the 0:32:39.200 --> 0:32:43.200 products that are your actual money makers, like mortgages and 0:32:44.040 --> 0:32:46.240 home equity, lines of credit and that sort of thing. 0:32:47.160 --> 0:32:53.280 And so like the cost so the cost structure of 0:32:53.320 --> 0:32:57.440 a bank will shift as the Federal Reserve is changing 0:32:57.440 --> 0:33:02.040 its policy rate, and so too will its margin over 0:33:02.120 --> 0:33:05.320 time as it competes with other banks, for like a 0:33:05.440 --> 0:33:10.960 narrowing pool of qualified mortgage applicants, and also for people 0:33:10.960 --> 0:33:14.440 who are willing to shop around for where to keep 0:33:14.440 --> 0:33:17.120 their deposits in a way that they previously they weren't 0:33:17.200 --> 0:33:19.960 because there was no sort of differential in interest rates 0:33:19.960 --> 0:33:22.040 at all. It was just being held steady. 0:33:24.320 --> 0:33:29.080 Yeah, absolutely, So the key thing to understand, and by 0:33:29.080 --> 0:33:30.600 the way, up to now, Steve and I have been 0:33:30.600 --> 0:33:33.560 describing what we regard as the real world. Like everything 0:33:33.640 --> 0:33:37.320 that we've just described, we can see it in action, 0:33:37.640 --> 0:33:40.600 like in the world right Like if the Fed raises 0:33:40.640 --> 0:33:43.800 this interest rate effectively, what that means is that this 0:33:44.040 --> 0:33:46.960 whole supply chain of people lending to other people, who 0:33:47.000 --> 0:33:49.200 lend to other people, who lent to other people, the 0:33:49.240 --> 0:33:53.120 cost of lending has essentially increased, which will eventually lead 0:33:53.120 --> 0:33:55.320 to a rise in the cost and the cost of 0:33:55.400 --> 0:34:00.560 lending to people downstream until for end consumers, which basically 0:34:00.600 --> 0:34:02.479 like firms and households trying to get a loan from 0:34:02.520 --> 0:34:04.880 the bank, those loans are going to be more expensive, 0:34:05.000 --> 0:34:08.359 and conversely, if the Fed's interest rate goes down, those 0:34:08.400 --> 0:34:12.000 prices will tend to go down as well, if you like. 0:34:12.320 --> 0:34:14.160 Crucially, none of it is just automatic. 0:34:14.800 --> 0:34:16.280 That's Y's absolutely true. 0:34:16.360 --> 0:34:19.600 There's even just just because it's a bank doesn't mean 0:34:19.640 --> 0:34:22.680 it's any different than the story that Facola was laying 0:34:22.719 --> 0:34:23.759 out for retailers. 0:34:25.000 --> 0:34:29.640 Mm hmm, that's exactly right. The Fed's rate is a 0:34:29.800 --> 0:34:34.720 very important rate because it's basically the first, the first 0:34:34.760 --> 0:34:37.000 one in this chain, and it's a cost for pretty 0:34:37.040 --> 0:34:40.000 much everybody who's doing business and dollars. But that doesn't 0:34:40.040 --> 0:34:42.960 mean that it in some simple way just controls everything else. 0:34:43.600 --> 0:34:46.440 You can hope that it controls if you're if you're 0:34:46.480 --> 0:34:49.239 the central banker. But of course all these firms are 0:34:49.280 --> 0:34:52.880 making their own decisions based on their own reasons, so 0:34:53.200 --> 0:34:55.440 you know, they can make all sorts of decisions based 0:34:55.440 --> 0:34:58.680 on their priorities and based on like like all sorts 0:34:58.719 --> 0:35:02.759 of things. Now, by the way, if you want the 0:35:02.800 --> 0:35:05.399 more detailed version of this story that actually talks about 0:35:05.440 --> 0:35:07.759 the different agents at each step of this process in 0:35:07.880 --> 0:35:10.560 much more detail, you should check out Perry Merling's work 0:35:10.600 --> 0:35:14.839 on this, and there's even online online lectures that kind 0:35:14.840 --> 0:35:18.440 of get into the nitty gritty which I have absorbed 0:35:18.480 --> 0:35:20.719 and then since completely forgotten the details of, so I 0:35:20.719 --> 0:35:22.440 would need to watch them again to actually be able. 0:35:22.320 --> 0:35:23.000 To name the names. 0:35:23.360 --> 0:35:27.879 But the point is that so far, so real right now, 0:35:27.880 --> 0:35:33.480 here's where things get a little bs. Remember that the 0:35:33.520 --> 0:35:38.640 mainstream theories of inflation are all basically descended in their DNA, 0:35:38.719 --> 0:35:41.520 even though they've been moving further and further away from 0:35:41.520 --> 0:35:45.160 it from the old school quantity theory of money, the 0:35:45.200 --> 0:35:49.440 idea that the amount of money in the economy basically 0:35:49.480 --> 0:35:52.799 determines the price level. More money that there is circulating, 0:35:53.080 --> 0:35:56.080 the less that money is worth because there's too much 0:35:56.120 --> 0:35:57.719 of it, so the price of it goes down, and 0:35:57.760 --> 0:36:01.200 the price of money basically determines like how much your 0:36:01.200 --> 0:36:03.719 money is able to buy. Now, people have been moving 0:36:03.760 --> 0:36:07.200 away from that towards theories that get more realistic but 0:36:07.239 --> 0:36:09.880 still retain the basic structure where the money supply is 0:36:09.960 --> 0:36:12.440 the main thing that matters, and they'll say, for example, 0:36:12.560 --> 0:36:16.640 that it's the amount of money circulating in people's pockets 0:36:16.800 --> 0:36:19.880 relative to the amount of goods being produced, such that 0:36:19.960 --> 0:36:23.719 if too much money is chasing too few goods, like 0:36:23.840 --> 0:36:26.799 there isn't enough supply to meet the demand, and that 0:36:26.880 --> 0:36:31.560 causes something, although people disagree on what, that causes prices 0:36:31.560 --> 0:36:35.320 to be bid upwards, and that's called the demand poll theory. 0:36:35.440 --> 0:36:39.480 It's the dominant theory that most economists, classical mainstream economists 0:36:39.480 --> 0:36:43.799 that you talk to today will will will pedal to you. 0:36:43.840 --> 0:36:46.720 The ones who are not orthodox monitorists, they still believe 0:36:46.760 --> 0:36:50.279 in this, which means that they still think that you 0:36:50.360 --> 0:36:52.480 have to when there's an inflationary event, you have to 0:36:52.520 --> 0:36:56.480 attack the money supply. Now from them, from their point 0:36:56.480 --> 0:36:58.080 of view, it doesn't have to do with the absolute 0:36:58.080 --> 0:37:00.080 amount of money circulating. It has to do with the 0:37:00.120 --> 0:37:02.760 amount of money in people's pockets relative to the amount 0:37:02.760 --> 0:37:05.279 of stuff that can be bought. So, if there's too 0:37:05.360 --> 0:37:07.839 much money in people's pockets, how do people use their money? 0:37:07.840 --> 0:37:10.240 They spend it on goods and services that are produced 0:37:10.280 --> 0:37:16.759 by firms. So if you reduce that amount of money, 0:37:16.880 --> 0:37:19.120 that basically the only way that you can do it 0:37:19.160 --> 0:37:21.680 is by putting people out of work, right, you know, 0:37:23.120 --> 0:37:25.520 because then they don't get the wages which they would 0:37:25.520 --> 0:37:28.120 have spent on stuff that you know, the factor is 0:37:28.160 --> 0:37:31.279 in Walmart and everything else. The agriculture and whatever, all 0:37:31.280 --> 0:37:35.239 the stuff that gets made, the goods and services. Now 0:37:36.000 --> 0:37:38.960 they think that if you raise the interest rate, it 0:37:39.000 --> 0:37:43.200 makes the cost of finance more expensive. Some firms are 0:37:43.200 --> 0:37:46.680 depending on finance, so if that cost increases for them, 0:37:47.080 --> 0:37:49.120 they're going to go under. And when they go under, 0:37:49.120 --> 0:37:52.759 people get unemployed. When people get unemployed, they have less 0:37:52.760 --> 0:37:54.879 money in their pockets, which means that they're spending less, 0:37:54.880 --> 0:37:56.840 which means that some other firms go out of business, 0:37:57.080 --> 0:38:00.440 and then those people go unemployed. Now, the of this 0:38:00.560 --> 0:38:01.960 is like the crash of two thousand and eight or 0:38:02.000 --> 0:38:05.080 nineteen twenty nine, where suddenly a whole bunch of people 0:38:05.080 --> 0:38:07.000 are unemployed and a whole bunch of companies are empty. 0:38:07.280 --> 0:38:09.120 They don't want to go all the way with that, 0:38:09.400 --> 0:38:11.440 but they want to kind of get part of the 0:38:11.480 --> 0:38:14.640 way to that. They want to put the squeeze on 0:38:14.920 --> 0:38:18.200 the economy and get some companies put out of business 0:38:18.239 --> 0:38:22.000 and some people unemployed on the dole so that people 0:38:22.040 --> 0:38:25.000 don't have money in their pockets, so that the supposed 0:38:25.120 --> 0:38:29.000 pressure of too many people spending money on goods that 0:38:29.040 --> 0:38:32.799 are not being produced enough to meet that demand, the 0:38:32.880 --> 0:38:38.840 demand pressure goes down, so therefore it equilibrates and inflation prices. 0:38:39.200 --> 0:38:42.440 Inflation ceases because prices go down too, because the idea 0:38:42.600 --> 0:38:47.760 is that there's a law like relationship between demand and prices, 0:38:47.800 --> 0:38:50.319 souch that if demand goes down, the price will go down. 0:38:50.719 --> 0:38:54.160 The actual explanation for this is will vary depending on 0:38:54.520 --> 0:38:57.000 the thing. They basically accept it as a religious orthodoxy 0:38:57.040 --> 0:38:59.840 and then different economists justified in different ways. But that 0:39:00.000 --> 0:39:03.160 that's why they're trying to raise interest rates so that 0:39:03.680 --> 0:39:07.680 basically people get thrown out of work and that'll cause 0:39:07.680 --> 0:39:11.279 prices magically to go down. Now, as we discussed, the 0:39:11.320 --> 0:39:15.680 actual cause of the inflation was an exogenous shock based 0:39:15.719 --> 0:39:19.000 on like the chip shortage, the labor shortage, and key 0:39:19.080 --> 0:39:21.719 things like agriculture, the container shortage and the war in 0:39:21.800 --> 0:39:26.919 Ukraine causing increases in grain prices that have caused cost increases. 0:39:27.280 --> 0:39:30.239 That firms tried to hold off price increases as long 0:39:30.280 --> 0:39:32.600 as they could, but then they couldn't, and then they 0:39:32.640 --> 0:39:34.880 traveled down the supply chain and a whole bunch of 0:39:34.960 --> 0:39:38.160 prices across the economy went up. So we know that 0:39:38.360 --> 0:39:41.239 because we have looked at the news stories that you 0:39:41.280 --> 0:39:44.480 know and talk to people at these different companies. We 0:39:44.680 --> 0:39:46.400 I don't mean strange matters. I mean, like you know, 0:39:46.480 --> 0:39:49.759 journalists or whatever, and like, you know, that's what they say. 0:39:51.120 --> 0:39:54.120 And yet nevertheless, they're trying to make the interest rates 0:39:54.120 --> 0:39:56.800 go up to throw people out of work and partially 0:39:56.840 --> 0:39:59.799 induce a recession in the hopes that that will drive 0:40:00.239 --> 0:40:00.520 is down. 0:40:00.960 --> 0:40:03.520 But they can't even get that right, that's right. 0:40:03.560 --> 0:40:05.720 They haven't actually haven't. 0:40:05.520 --> 0:40:07.960 Been able to get unemployment up either, So it's it 0:40:07.960 --> 0:40:10.080 doesn't work in either direction exactly. 0:40:10.360 --> 0:40:15.280 Well, and what's really funny is that Demucio basically says, Okay, 0:40:15.280 --> 0:40:17.239 why do people believe this? They believe it for a 0:40:17.280 --> 0:40:20.040 lot of reasons, but they think that it worked in 0:40:20.080 --> 0:40:22.840 the seventies. That's the myth. Right. You asked Larry Summers, 0:40:22.840 --> 0:40:24.760 why do you think this ship will work? And Larry 0:40:24.760 --> 0:40:27.120 Summers will say, well, you might not like it. And 0:40:27.120 --> 0:40:28.680 I think he actually said things like this, like a 0:40:28.719 --> 0:40:30.520 couple of weeks ago. You might not like it, but 0:40:30.600 --> 0:40:32.000 this is how we got out of the crisis of 0:40:32.040 --> 0:40:34.839 the seventies. If we hadn't done the vulgar shock, which 0:40:34.840 --> 0:40:37.000 is basically the same thing they raised interest rates through 0:40:37.239 --> 0:40:40.880 up the yazoo, you know, like like we and hadn't 0:40:40.920 --> 0:40:45.000 induced that unemployment or whatever, prices would never have come down. 0:40:45.440 --> 0:40:47.520 But you see, Demucio did something that you're not supposed 0:40:47.520 --> 0:40:49.239 to do, which is that he actually checked out on 0:40:49.280 --> 0:40:54.680 the relationship between between interest rates and prices. And what 0:40:54.760 --> 0:41:00.840 he found was that basically, there's either that I believe 0:41:00.880 --> 0:41:03.320 that I explained his essay is that there's a strong 0:41:03.440 --> 0:41:05.319 version of his argument and there's a weak version. The 0:41:05.360 --> 0:41:08.480 week version is definitely true. The strong version is speculative. 0:41:08.920 --> 0:41:12.319 So he charted it and he found that there is 0:41:12.440 --> 0:41:17.400 absolutely no inverse relationship between interest rates and prices. They 0:41:17.480 --> 0:41:19.919 raise interest rates, they raise interest rates, the prices keep 0:41:19.960 --> 0:41:23.960 going up. Then they're not coming down, right, and the 0:41:24.040 --> 0:41:27.360 prices don't start to go down until oil because remember 0:41:27.400 --> 0:41:30.359 the oil shock caused by the war in the Middle 0:41:30.400 --> 0:41:34.279 East between Israel and Weal and and Egypt and a 0:41:34.320 --> 0:41:36.440 whole bunch of other places caused opek to raise their 0:41:36.440 --> 0:41:37.319 prices in order. 0:41:37.480 --> 0:41:39.399 Yeah, it's I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I'm gonna 0:41:39.400 --> 0:41:41.560 point in a thing, which is that the actual story 0:41:41.600 --> 0:41:44.400 behind that is slightly more complicated, which is that, like, okay, 0:41:45.040 --> 0:41:47.799 so to be completely one hundred percent accurst about this, 0:41:48.160 --> 0:41:51.960 OPIK had a meeting where they decided to raise prices, 0:41:52.560 --> 0:41:56.719 and then the war started and then like like two 0:41:56.760 --> 0:42:01.040 weeks afterwards, and then they kind of ta their explanation 0:42:01.239 --> 0:42:04.880 on to the back of the price increase state already 0:42:04.920 --> 0:42:08.759 decided on. Oh okay, but yeah, so this this, this 0:42:08.840 --> 0:42:11.960 is the thing that like, I don't know there there 0:42:12.080 --> 0:42:14.239 there was a there was an oil historian who went 0:42:14.320 --> 0:42:17.359 back and like spent a bunch of time looking through 0:42:17.400 --> 0:42:19.680 the records of OPEC and shit and trying to figure 0:42:19.719 --> 0:42:23.120 out what the actual sequence of events was. But it 0:42:22.880 --> 0:42:25.440 it is true that like one of the things behind 0:42:25.560 --> 0:42:27.480 keeping OPEK together so that it could increase the price 0:42:27.520 --> 0:42:31.359 of oil was like the like what was their sort 0:42:31.360 --> 0:42:33.120 of solidarity and they faced the opposition of the war. 0:42:33.200 --> 0:42:35.279 But also it's slightly more complicated than that, And I 0:42:35.280 --> 0:42:36.480 want to I want to I want to put that 0:42:36.520 --> 0:42:40.160 on the record, just because the oil knowers will get 0:42:40.239 --> 0:42:43.879 mad at us. We Yeah, yeah, so that that that's 0:42:43.920 --> 0:42:47.080 the version of it that like like ninety nine percent 0:42:47.239 --> 0:42:51.240 of accounts will give you. It's just slightly not quite 0:42:51.280 --> 0:42:52.480 exactly what was happening. 0:42:53.160 --> 0:42:54.240 Yeah, I gotta wrote that book. 0:42:54.440 --> 0:42:56.399 Yeah, I think it was God, I remember what book 0:42:56.480 --> 0:43:01.120 I think it was in. I think was in Carbon Democracy, 0:43:02.040 --> 0:43:05.360 maybe like eighty percent. Sure, Sorry, I read like four 0:43:05.400 --> 0:43:09.719 books about oil and coal in like incredibly rapid succession, 0:43:10.400 --> 0:43:13.600 like several years ago, and sometimes I have trouble remembering 0:43:13.640 --> 0:43:17.760 exactly which one which thing is from. But yeah, although 0:43:17.800 --> 0:43:19.880 I want to say sorry, I guess I want to 0:43:19.880 --> 0:43:21.799 say one other kind of interesting thing about that that 0:43:21.840 --> 0:43:25.520 makes specifically trying to use the interest rates arguments about 0:43:25.920 --> 0:43:29.759 like I think it is it is pretty clear that 0:43:30.120 --> 0:43:33.839 raising the interest rates directly would like did not immediately 0:43:33.840 --> 0:43:36.359 did wasn't the thing that brought down prices. I think 0:43:36.400 --> 0:43:40.279 there's like an interesting there's like a weird thing going 0:43:40.320 --> 0:43:43.200 on there too, because the like almost like when when 0:43:43.239 --> 0:43:44.920 economists tend to look at this, what they tend to 0:43:44.920 --> 0:43:47.000 look at what the interest rate rises, was what was 0:43:47.000 --> 0:43:51.200 happening to the US economy and the other The other 0:43:51.239 --> 0:43:53.200 thing that the vocal shock did was it raised the 0:43:53.239 --> 0:43:56.160 interest rates on it raised it raised the interest rates 0:43:56.160 --> 0:43:59.000 in all of these audjustable rate loans that like all 0:43:59.040 --> 0:44:02.440 of these countries like all over the world had and 0:44:02.480 --> 0:44:06.040 those economies got fucking obliterated. And that actually I think, 0:44:06.320 --> 0:44:08.600 I think actually that there is an argument that like 0:44:09.680 --> 0:44:12.120 my my argument would be, I think it kind of 0:44:12.280 --> 0:44:15.480 probably prevented prices maybe from going up more, But it 0:44:15.520 --> 0:44:18.200 did that because it prevented any more opex from forming 0:44:18.520 --> 0:44:21.480 and just like absolutely annihilated any kind of political movement 0:44:21.520 --> 0:44:24.640 to like have pricing be set by like raw material 0:44:24.680 --> 0:44:29.120 producers rather than by like countries that do production. And 0:44:29.400 --> 0:44:31.000 this is a kind of like separate thing, but like 0:44:31.200 --> 0:44:33.799 this is I think, I think the moral of my 0:44:33.880 --> 0:44:35.600 story with this before we get back to sort of 0:44:35.640 --> 0:44:40.319 like the I don't know the the other arguments about 0:44:40.320 --> 0:44:44.680 this is that like that moment was such a fucking 0:44:44.719 --> 0:44:47.319 shit show. There were so many things going on, It's 0:44:47.360 --> 0:44:50.719 so complicated. It is absolutely nuts to try to base 0:44:50.800 --> 0:44:53.160 literally your entire theory about how you stop inflation by 0:44:53.200 --> 0:44:57.440 raising interest rates on one event in like probably the 0:44:57.480 --> 0:44:59.759 most complicated economic crisis, and it like we've ever had. 0:45:00.800 --> 0:45:05.080 And yeah, because like it it did, like the Vulcar 0:45:05.120 --> 0:45:09.200 shock did a lot of things that weren't what Volcar 0:45:10.080 --> 0:45:12.440 were not nottarily not what Vocal were trying to do, 0:45:12.520 --> 0:45:14.000 But it did a lot of things that aren't what 0:45:14.040 --> 0:45:17.240 economists talk about when they talk about what the Volcan 0:45:17.320 --> 0:45:20.440 shock did, like it had all of these incredibly like 0:45:20.840 --> 0:45:24.759 powerful political ramifications that they just don't put in the 0:45:24.840 --> 0:45:28.239 equations because it doesn't feel like how how do how 0:45:28.280 --> 0:45:34.239 do you mathematically model like the collapse of the like 0:45:34.239 --> 0:45:36.239 like the collapse of the non online movement and like 0:45:36.280 --> 0:45:38.799 the third world movement, Like you can't, right, and so 0:45:38.840 --> 0:45:41.960 they just sort of like wave their hands and pretend 0:45:42.040 --> 0:45:44.920 that it was just like directly it caused more unemployment, 0:45:44.920 --> 0:45:46.439 the unemployment prout inflation rate doown. 0:45:47.080 --> 0:45:49.880 Yeah, it's interesting to think of the global effects of 0:45:49.920 --> 0:45:55.920 the Vulcar's shock. It's like you have countries who are 0:45:55.920 --> 0:46:01.080 dependent upon USD finance suddenly are facing much stronger dollar. 0:46:01.400 --> 0:46:04.399 So if they didn't already have dollars, that's a huge problem. 0:46:04.760 --> 0:46:06.799 Yeah and again yeah and again also just like like 0:46:06.880 --> 0:46:09.600 just literally the interest rates on their loans like increased 0:46:09.640 --> 0:46:12.200 by like twenty percent, and that's like, you know, like 0:46:13.320 --> 0:46:16.000 you're it doesn't really matter what your economy is, you can't, 0:46:17.080 --> 0:46:19.359 I don't know, it's it's unbelievably difficult to survive them 0:46:19.360 --> 0:46:19.640 like that. 0:46:20.280 --> 0:46:24.120 Yeah, on the four x dimension and just on regular 0:46:24.200 --> 0:46:27.719 lending terms in dollar lending anyway, it's going to get 0:46:27.760 --> 0:46:32.440 way tougher. Yeah, even domestically, like to de Mitiu, superimposes 0:46:32.480 --> 0:46:36.000 the oil price onto the inflation and like the the 0:46:36.000 --> 0:46:39.360 inflationary crises of the seventies and early eighties, it was 0:46:39.400 --> 0:46:42.600 a double it was a double victim, if you remember. 0:46:43.560 --> 0:46:46.239 And so like the first time the FED chairman who 0:46:46.280 --> 0:46:51.600 proceeded Paul Voker was blamed for not raising interest rates 0:46:52.000 --> 0:46:55.799 during an inflationary crisis because of the emerging theory, said 0:46:55.840 --> 0:46:58.680 that maybe that would be a good idea, and so 0:46:58.800 --> 0:47:01.759 like the monitorists had like their one moment after that 0:47:02.120 --> 0:47:07.240 to say, like they where they became more than simply 0:47:07.239 --> 0:47:10.800 an academic movement and became like briefly hegemonic with the 0:47:11.200 --> 0:47:16.440 vulgar interest rate arise that happened to like set in 0:47:16.520 --> 0:47:19.920 nineteen seventy five or so, when the oil price was 0:47:20.160 --> 0:47:25.560 about fifteen dollars per barrel. That's when inflation and the 0:47:25.600 --> 0:47:29.279 oil price start to move closely in conjunction with each other, 0:47:30.280 --> 0:47:34.720 going into nineteen eighty, which is also when the interest 0:47:34.800 --> 0:47:39.879 rates are being raised more like give or take nine 0:47:39.960 --> 0:47:45.080 to eighteen months or so, and the economic historians, the 0:47:45.200 --> 0:47:50.360 neoclassical economic historians, will forget about the supply chain, pressures 0:47:50.440 --> 0:47:52.000 like the oil price, which has nothing to do with 0:47:52.040 --> 0:47:57.040 the FED, and like that happened in this inflationary when 0:47:57.080 --> 0:47:59.640 oil prices were up to like one ten. During our 0:47:59.680 --> 0:48:05.600 current inflationary crisis, this exact debate debate was taking place again. 0:48:06.440 --> 0:48:08.200 Yeah, which like where it's like, I. 0:48:08.160 --> 0:48:10.640 Mean there's like all of the prices that the FED 0:48:10.719 --> 0:48:13.400 has no control over. It's like, well, if you ignore 0:48:13.440 --> 0:48:16.000 those ones, then actually, our theory is like kind of 0:48:16.280 --> 0:48:17.799 getting close to being right. 0:48:18.120 --> 0:48:21.759 And the worst part, the worst part is that the 0:48:21.800 --> 0:48:28.759 interest rate correlates positively with prices. This is so like 0:48:29.239 --> 0:48:31.960 so like so like the interest rate when it's high, 0:48:32.800 --> 0:48:38.600 theory expects that prices will be low. But actually and 0:48:38.719 --> 0:48:40.719 and and and like even if you adjust for like 0:48:40.760 --> 0:48:43.719 a delay where maybe like the prices get low afterwards, 0:48:43.960 --> 0:48:48.120 like no, that's not what happens. It's like the interest 0:48:48.160 --> 0:48:52.279 rate goes up and prices go up, to prices go 0:48:52.440 --> 0:48:54.440 down and the interest rate goes. 0:48:55.040 --> 0:48:57.480 You know, like like like it's like yeah and like 0:48:57.680 --> 0:49:02.640 and Demucio is like it hurt when he eventually he 0:49:02.760 --> 0:49:05.759 super imposes oil price, Fed funds, thoral funds, rate, and 0:49:05.760 --> 0:49:08.240 inflation all in one chart. It's just like this epic 0:49:08.360 --> 0:49:11.680 wave of all three going up at once, yeah, like 0:49:12.040 --> 0:49:15.080 almost in lockstep. And then oil goes back down, and 0:49:15.120 --> 0:49:17.320 then interest rates go back down, and then prices go 0:49:17.400 --> 0:49:18.160 back down. 0:49:18.600 --> 0:49:21.000 Yeah I can't. I think prices first before interest rate. 0:49:21.120 --> 0:49:26.440 Let me see, oh yeah, yeah, like inflation cress like yeah, 0:49:26.640 --> 0:49:31.480 somewhat concurrently with the federal funds, and then the UH 0:49:32.400 --> 0:49:36.040 oil price eventually falls like like shortly thereafter. 0:49:36.680 --> 0:49:39.040 Yeah, and then and this this just gives you a disaster, 0:49:39.239 --> 0:49:42.040 right because you like, okay, so the you will get 0:49:42.160 --> 0:49:44.360 neoclassical economists who are like, oh my god, oh no, 0:49:44.440 --> 0:49:47.800 all these idiots are saying that increasing the increasing the 0:49:47.840 --> 0:49:50.200 interest rate actually increases prices. It's not what happening. It's 0:49:50.239 --> 0:49:52.840 like you get into this mess. You have to figure 0:49:52.880 --> 0:49:56.839 out the new classical explanation, right, is that like, okay, well, 0:49:56.840 --> 0:50:00.000 the reason it looks like the fund rate increasing increase 0:50:00.239 --> 0:50:02.400 prices is because you do that in response to the 0:50:02.440 --> 0:50:05.200 inflation happening. Right, But like you can also just very 0:50:05.200 --> 0:50:07.520 easily look at this as like a panic index basically 0:50:08.040 --> 0:50:10.960 like where you know, it's like okay, well, prices go up, 0:50:11.000 --> 0:50:13.680 and then the Fed panics, and so they they raise 0:50:13.760 --> 0:50:17.319 their it doesn't and you know it like it's it's 0:50:17.320 --> 0:50:19.719 this is one of those things where like the neoclassical 0:50:19.719 --> 0:50:25.880 economists have invented a mechanism that like allows them to 0:50:26.040 --> 0:50:29.480 explain their own actions in a way that's plausible enough 0:50:29.560 --> 0:50:31.759 that they can call anyone that they've they've gotten a 0:50:31.840 --> 0:50:33.759 veegibility that could say anyone who says they're wrong is 0:50:33.880 --> 0:50:40.120 just like nuts, right, right, And also it's it's it's 0:50:40.280 --> 0:50:43.000 entirely possible that not only are they not right, they're 0:50:43.040 --> 0:50:44.760 literally perfectly exactly wrong. 0:50:46.320 --> 0:50:51.360 Yeah, and that yeah, they tried out the like the 0:50:51.360 --> 0:50:56.320 the econometric jargon long and variable lags, when people say, 0:50:56.520 --> 0:50:59.640 when our interest rate's gonna cause unemployments arise, when are 0:50:59.640 --> 0:51:02.200 interest it's going to cut down on inflation by themselves 0:51:02.200 --> 0:51:05.640 and not some other supply chain phenomenon, And they say, like, well, 0:51:05.680 --> 0:51:08.879 the monetary transmission mechanism has long and variable lags, which 0:51:08.880 --> 0:51:10.920 means that like ninety eighteen months from now, it will 0:51:10.920 --> 0:51:13.080 settle down and then we'll know it's from interest rates. 0:51:13.200 --> 0:51:18.360 Trust us, right, And even their purported explanations are demonstrably false. 0:51:18.480 --> 0:51:21.160 So theoretically, the mechanism by which this happens is that 0:51:21.200 --> 0:51:24.040 the monetary that the money supply will go down. 0:51:24.320 --> 0:51:25.719 Well, yeah, M. 0:51:25.640 --> 0:51:28.520 Two is our best estimate for the monetary for the 0:51:28.520 --> 0:51:31.600 money supply, and it's not even a perfect one. You know, 0:51:32.320 --> 0:51:34.839 interest rates go up, interest rates go down. M two 0:51:34.960 --> 0:51:37.080 keeps going up. And this is over the course of 0:51:37.560 --> 0:51:41.680 like from the seventies to the nineties, you know, Like, yes, 0:51:41.760 --> 0:51:43.040 another graph of the monsios. 0:51:43.400 --> 0:51:47.160 That's another important point that like the money, it doesn't 0:51:47.200 --> 0:51:49.319 even get the money supply down. 0:51:49.880 --> 0:51:53.879 Yeah. So, like it's quite questionable whether this interest rate 0:51:54.280 --> 0:51:58.400 adjustment thing even works at all on its own terms, 0:51:58.680 --> 0:52:01.880 because all the and says that there's at least and 0:52:01.880 --> 0:52:03.480 this is what I mean by the weak version of 0:52:03.520 --> 0:52:06.319 Dic's argument that all the evidence shows that there's at 0:52:06.400 --> 0:52:09.439 least no relationship between interest rates and the price level. 0:52:09.560 --> 0:52:12.960 That there is like no relationship whatsoever. It basically just 0:52:13.080 --> 0:52:15.879 is useless for controlling prices one way or the other. 0:52:17.000 --> 0:52:21.040 The uh Now, the strong version of argument is he 0:52:21.239 --> 0:52:23.960 takes the he takes the the the fact that interest 0:52:24.000 --> 0:52:27.440 rates track prices very seriously, and he's like, well, what 0:52:27.600 --> 0:52:33.680 if making finance more expensive actually raises business costs? And 0:52:33.880 --> 0:52:37.040 businesses choose to respond to it by raising their prices. 0:52:37.719 --> 0:52:40.719 You know, what if you what if you actually, by 0:52:40.800 --> 0:52:44.560 raising the interest rate, are contributing to inflation. Now, this 0:52:44.600 --> 0:52:46.799 is this is kind of how we framed the whole 0:52:46.880 --> 0:52:51.040 article in our title editors make titles, not not not 0:52:51.040 --> 0:52:54.920 not writers do interest rate hikes worsen inflation? And I 0:52:54.960 --> 0:52:56.560 remember showing this to some of my friends who were 0:52:56.560 --> 0:52:58.600 financed bros. And they were like, what what are you 0:52:58.640 --> 0:53:02.800 talking about? This is crazy idea, But like it makes 0:53:02.800 --> 0:53:04.439 a lot of sense because if you look at things 0:53:04.440 --> 0:53:07.880 as a supply chain, at the very least, rising financially 0:53:07.960 --> 0:53:10.759 rising cost of loans would be a higher cost for 0:53:10.760 --> 0:53:13.680 at least some businesses. Theoretically they could respond to that 0:53:13.680 --> 0:53:17.880 by raising their prices. Now, in actual fact, it probably 0:53:17.880 --> 0:53:20.880 at least my solo opinion is this is a small effect. 0:53:20.880 --> 0:53:23.279 If it exists at all, it's much more plausible that 0:53:23.320 --> 0:53:24.840 there is simply no relationship. 0:53:24.960 --> 0:53:27.920 Yeah, and the general price yeah, and that and that 0:53:28.000 --> 0:53:30.400 and that, Like the fact that they're correlated is just 0:53:30.560 --> 0:53:33.239 it's just a panic index on the on the on 0:53:33.280 --> 0:53:36.160 the on behalf of the fed that they just get 0:53:36.200 --> 0:53:38.759 scared and do this thing and it doesn't it has 0:53:38.800 --> 0:53:40.680 no effect. But like you know they've got to press 0:53:40.719 --> 0:53:41.480 the panic button. 0:53:42.719 --> 0:53:45.800 Yeah, I think I'm for a variety of reasons. I 0:53:46.239 --> 0:53:51.840 think I'm a weak form demusiist on this point. I think, like, like, 0:53:52.080 --> 0:53:56.640 especially these days, there's so many other like a relatively 0:53:56.719 --> 0:54:02.080 small percentage of commercial and bussiness credit is variable right 0:54:02.160 --> 0:54:04.919 to begin with. These days, more of it is fixed rate, 0:54:05.520 --> 0:54:09.200 and like especially for more well certainly for mortgages, like 0:54:09.680 --> 0:54:13.840 it's it's like eighty percent plus approaching eighty five percent 0:54:13.920 --> 0:54:17.520 even fixed rate, which will not be affected. And then 0:54:17.719 --> 0:54:21.640 businesses have other so many other means of liquidity other 0:54:21.680 --> 0:54:26.880 than loans these days, particularly the like medium large scale businesses, 0:54:27.000 --> 0:54:29.680 like the you know, you can go to the capital markets, 0:54:29.760 --> 0:54:32.760 private equity or the stock market and get the funding 0:54:32.840 --> 0:54:38.040 you need. That I'm in ways that don't don't depend 0:54:38.280 --> 0:54:41.359 upon what the federal funds rate is doing or only 0:54:41.400 --> 0:54:44.920 weekly depend upon it. So it's just like there's so 0:54:44.960 --> 0:54:48.080 many other liquidity sources, especially like in the last thirty 0:54:48.160 --> 0:54:51.319 years or so, like well since since the Vulcar shock. 0:54:51.400 --> 0:54:54.319 Basically they've like all of these like private equity and 0:54:54.440 --> 0:54:57.120 other capital markets methods for liquid you have opened up 0:54:58.000 --> 0:55:01.279 and a good deal of the debt. A good deal 0:55:01.360 --> 0:55:03.600 more of the debt as a percentage of total debt 0:55:03.760 --> 0:55:06.719 is fixed rate, so like on that basis, and like 0:55:07.120 --> 0:55:11.000 all right, well maybe it doesn't maybe it doesn't increase prices, 0:55:11.040 --> 0:55:14.440 but there is at the very least, it's like non correlated. 0:55:15.719 --> 0:55:18.439 This caught a lot of people's attention, like ONCET, once 0:55:18.520 --> 0:55:20.560 you put this paper out there, this is one of 0:55:20.560 --> 0:55:24.719 our most successful essays because it got picked up by 0:55:24.760 --> 0:55:28.960 a bunch of folks, I mean, Investipedia cited it as 0:55:29.040 --> 0:55:32.279 a source. Economy called this a blog and not a magazine, 0:55:32.560 --> 0:55:35.279 you know, like like it ended up being taken up 0:55:35.280 --> 0:55:38.880 by another capital as Power influenced economists Blair Fix, who 0:55:39.000 --> 0:55:43.000 found yet more empirical evidence that there is no relationship 0:55:43.040 --> 0:55:47.439 whatsoever between interest rates and like the general price level, 0:55:49.000 --> 0:55:51.000 you know, and to the extent that there is, it's 0:55:51.000 --> 0:55:54.279 only because you induce a recession, you know that that 0:55:54.280 --> 0:55:56.439 that puts people out of work, in which case you've 0:55:56.600 --> 0:56:00.040 basically you know, you've in order to deal with a 0:56:00.120 --> 0:56:02.520 paper cut, you've cut off your hand, right and even 0:56:02.560 --> 0:56:05.399 then like they can't they can't reliably get unemployment up, 0:56:05.640 --> 0:56:08.200 you know, by raising rates. So like what like what 0:56:08.440 --> 0:56:11.400 use is that even if you accept that mechanism. So 0:56:11.680 --> 0:56:14.320 they found more evidence and then got even more attention. 0:56:14.480 --> 0:56:17.879 Cory Doctoro, the science fiction writer and futurist and kind 0:56:17.880 --> 0:56:23.120 of left wing all around public intellectual, he found both 0:56:23.160 --> 0:56:26.160 Demusia's study and Blair Fix's study and was like really 0:56:26.239 --> 0:56:29.000 excited about it. And after that it really took off. 0:56:29.160 --> 0:56:31.480 It started getting debated all over the place. There's a 0:56:31.600 --> 0:56:35.560 heterodotsy economics international organization called Rethink Economics, which is all 0:56:35.560 --> 0:56:38.480 about like you know, inciting pluralism and the discipline. And 0:56:38.520 --> 0:56:40.880 in their Australian blog, because they're all over the world, 0:56:41.360 --> 0:56:45.520 an economist called Matthew Harris, you know, took up took 0:56:45.560 --> 0:56:49.920 up the controversy and basically sided with with Demusio, like 0:56:50.080 --> 0:56:55.440 and JW. Mason writing in Baron's also basically sided with 0:56:55.520 --> 0:56:58.319 us in an essay called the Fed Can't Fine Tune 0:56:58.400 --> 0:57:03.120 the Economy. JW. Mason's very important heterodox economists who's often 0:57:03.160 --> 0:57:04.480 on the cutting edge of a lot of these kind 0:57:04.480 --> 0:57:09.640 of theoretical developments. Interestingly, the first fellow though, Matthew Harris 0:57:10.040 --> 0:57:12.480 at Rethink Economics, he actually found a study which I 0:57:12.560 --> 0:57:14.560 was not aware of, which is why I love these 0:57:14.719 --> 0:57:17.080 When we started all these conversations all over the place, 0:57:17.080 --> 0:57:18.920 people dug up stuff that we didn't even know about. 0:57:19.280 --> 0:57:21.640 There was a study done by the National Bureau of 0:57:21.680 --> 0:57:26.040 Economic Research by two professors from the University of Chicago, 0:57:26.600 --> 0:57:30.600 but notably they were not University of Chicago economists. They 0:57:30.600 --> 0:57:34.240 were in the University of Chicago Business School. And as 0:57:34.280 --> 0:57:37.520 many people have pointed out, you know, capitalists started business 0:57:37.520 --> 0:57:40.800 schools because economists are basically just propaganda, but like, you 0:57:40.880 --> 0:57:43.240 actually also need people who know how the world actually 0:57:43.320 --> 0:57:45.400 works in order to run your companies. So that's why 0:57:45.440 --> 0:57:49.240 economics and business schools are two separate schools. 0:57:47.960 --> 0:57:51.400 Yeah, this is like a real like I remember this 0:57:51.520 --> 0:57:53.320 on campus. This is like, this is a real thing. 0:57:53.360 --> 0:57:57.080 Where like, if you're so the business school, if I'm 0:57:57.080 --> 0:57:59.400 remembering correctly, the business school is like is most I 0:57:59.400 --> 0:58:02.520 think it's I think it might only be a grad 0:58:02.520 --> 0:58:04.320 school for han So let me let me look this up. 0:58:04.840 --> 0:58:06.440 Yeah that was my memory of it. Yeah, so, so 0:58:06.640 --> 0:58:09.840 this is a real thing because because the University of 0:58:09.880 --> 0:58:14.800 Chicago doesn't have an undergrad business program, you get people 0:58:15.000 --> 0:58:18.120 who want to do business who go into ECON and 0:58:18.160 --> 0:58:21.320 the ECON people fucking hate them because they see them 0:58:21.360 --> 0:58:24.520 as like like they see them as sort of like 0:58:24.520 --> 0:58:27.120 like these like inferior like fly by night people who 0:58:27.120 --> 0:58:30.280 don't care about like the sort of deep like the 0:58:30.360 --> 0:58:33.640 deep math and like the deep sort of like you know, 0:58:33.720 --> 0:58:37.520 like intellectual like political pursuit of economics. They just want 0:58:37.560 --> 0:58:42.240 to like go be a business person. And this has 0:58:42.320 --> 0:58:46.840 really interesting effects because it means that like you know, 0:58:46.920 --> 0:58:49.080 like the business school, cause it's not like the business 0:58:49.080 --> 0:58:51.440 school is like a bastion of leftist or whatever, but 0:58:52.080 --> 0:58:57.080 they don't agree on stuff a lot because they're like 0:58:57.080 --> 0:59:01.680 like the the University of Chicago Economics program, it produces 0:59:01.720 --> 0:59:04.760 basically two things. It produces like a bunch of people 0:59:04.760 --> 0:59:07.120 who go on to be investment bankers where you don't 0:59:07.120 --> 0:59:09.000 actually need to know how a firm works at all, 0:59:10.600 --> 0:59:13.280 and then it goes on to produce a bunch of 0:59:13.320 --> 0:59:16.320 people who become economists and so like it's it's actual 0:59:16.360 --> 0:59:20.680 sort of ideological purpose is is specifically it's it's a 0:59:20.680 --> 0:59:23.600 school that trains other economists, right, it's a school that 0:59:23.640 --> 0:59:26.000 teaches like the ruling class what to think, whereas the 0:59:26.040 --> 0:59:28.520 business school is like the school that teach This is 0:59:28.520 --> 0:59:31.480 like This is a very very very explicit. It's it's 0:59:31.520 --> 0:59:35.080 something that like when you're there, you can like watch 0:59:35.360 --> 0:59:37.840 like in practice, the fact that these aren't the same thing, 0:59:37.920 --> 0:59:40.760 and the fact that like you know, they're they're they're 0:59:40.760 --> 0:59:43.480 they're going to produce different conclusions because you know, the 0:59:43.400 --> 0:59:49.520 the like because like because their actual like purpose is different. 0:59:49.560 --> 0:59:54.520 One is ideological, the other one is like making money. 0:59:54.720 --> 0:59:57.800 Yes, and and and this is a great case study 0:59:57.840 --> 1:00:01.400 of it because these folks at the business school, their 1:00:01.480 --> 1:00:07.920 names are Nil's, Nils Gormson, and Killian Huber, they actually 1:00:07.960 --> 1:00:12.560 went and asked companies what they do when credit gets 1:00:12.600 --> 1:00:15.520 more expensive. Now, according to the theory, and this is the 1:00:15.520 --> 1:00:17.600 most sophisticated theory, the theory that people at the FED 1:00:17.640 --> 1:00:19.560 will tell you, which is, you know, you might need 1:00:19.560 --> 1:00:21.360 to put a few drinks into them first, but you know, 1:00:21.400 --> 1:00:23.640 it's like we have to induce a partial recession in 1:00:23.800 --> 1:00:25.640 order to make it so that people have less spending 1:00:25.640 --> 1:00:27.560 money in their pockets and prices get bidd down. 1:00:27.920 --> 1:00:28.080 Right. 1:00:28.360 --> 1:00:30.800 Theoretically, the mechanism by which this works at the individual 1:00:30.840 --> 1:00:32.480 firm is that the firm season that the cost of 1:00:32.520 --> 1:00:35.680 capital goes up and they invest less, you know, or 1:00:35.840 --> 1:00:39.600 just outright go out of business. Right, But in fact 1:00:40.360 --> 1:00:43.520 future investment is only weekly correlated to the cost of 1:00:43.520 --> 1:00:46.880 capital because of the limited transition into discount rates, you know, 1:00:47.040 --> 1:00:50.920 in other words, like basically there's no real effect. 1:00:52.040 --> 1:00:56.160 So yeah, you go around and do business service, sorry, 1:00:56.280 --> 1:00:57.920 go ahead companies. 1:00:58.640 --> 1:01:06.400 Yeah, they do a good amount, if not perhaps most, 1:01:06.760 --> 1:01:12.439 of their capital investment from cash on hand before going 1:01:12.600 --> 1:01:14.080 before seeking out finance. 1:01:14.640 --> 1:01:16.880 Yeah, and that and that like, and that means that 1:01:16.920 --> 1:01:17.920 it doesn't have an effect. 1:01:18.240 --> 1:01:21.400 And then even if you need financing their non debt finance, 1:01:21.760 --> 1:01:25.400 there's like equity finance, either private or public, that you 1:01:25.560 --> 1:01:29.760 have as an option site alongside the debt options exactly. 1:01:30.400 --> 1:01:33.920 So we go from like a situation where we published 1:01:33.960 --> 1:01:37.640 this article in twenty twenty two, right, and it's got 1:01:37.680 --> 1:01:40.720 a title that for a mainstream economist, even a very 1:01:40.760 --> 1:01:46.200 sophisticated one, is unthinkable, like do interest rates hikes, you know, 1:01:48.120 --> 1:01:50.400 cause inflation to get worse or even just don't matter 1:01:50.440 --> 1:01:55.880 for inflation. But then suddenly, like you have a bunch 1:01:56.000 --> 1:01:58.600 once it gets taken up by a larger discussion, you 1:01:58.680 --> 1:02:01.800 have a bunch of quite rep people saying the exact 1:02:01.840 --> 1:02:05.560 same thing, citing us directly, and even in one case, 1:02:06.240 --> 1:02:09.480 six months after our article comes out. Lo and behold 1:02:09.640 --> 1:02:13.360 that a certain little known economist rights in the Guardian. 1:02:15.000 --> 1:02:17.760 In fact, raising interest rates could do more harm than 1:02:17.800 --> 1:02:20.360 good by making it more expensive for firms to invest 1:02:20.440 --> 1:02:24.560 in solutions to the current supply constraints. The US federal reserves. 1:02:24.560 --> 1:02:28.160 Monetary tightening has already curtailed housing construction, even though more 1:02:28.200 --> 1:02:30.160 supply is precisely what is needed to bring down one 1:02:30.200 --> 1:02:33.160 of the biggest sources of inflation housing costs. Moreover, many 1:02:33.200 --> 1:02:35.360 price setters in the housing market may now pass the 1:02:35.400 --> 1:02:38.480 costs of doing business onto renters. You know. So in 1:02:38.520 --> 1:02:41.160 other words, like maybe higher interest rates can actually induce 1:02:41.280 --> 1:02:43.800 price increases as the higher interest rates and do businesses 1:02:43.800 --> 1:02:46.240 to write down the future value of lost customers relative 1:02:46.280 --> 1:02:48.960 to the benefit of higher prices to be sure, a 1:02:49.040 --> 1:02:52.000 deep recession you know, parenthesis like the kind of they're 1:02:52.000 --> 1:02:55.320 trying to induce. That's my parenthesis. Back to the quote, 1:02:55.440 --> 1:02:58.480 a deeper session would tame inflation. But why would we 1:02:58.560 --> 1:03:02.400 invite that? You know, Oh, Jerome Powell and his colleague 1:03:02.440 --> 1:03:05.840 seem to relish cheering against the economy. Meanwhile, they're friends 1:03:05.840 --> 1:03:07.960 in commercial banking are making out like bandits. Now that 1:03:07.960 --> 1:03:10.760 the Fed is paying four point four percent interests on 1:03:10.800 --> 1:03:13.360 more than three trillion dollars a bankers or balances. Blah blah, 1:03:13.360 --> 1:03:16.120 blah blah. Now this little known economist writing for The 1:03:16.120 --> 1:03:20.040 Guardian is Joseph Stieglitz, who won the Nobel Prize in economics. 1:03:20.520 --> 1:03:25.240 Now does he cite our article who's talking points he's 1:03:25.280 --> 1:03:28.320 basically going through point by point. No, does he cite 1:03:28.400 --> 1:03:31.960 any of the better known places that cited us that 1:03:32.000 --> 1:03:35.280 are heaterodox. No, he basically presents it as if it's 1:03:35.280 --> 1:03:37.760 his own idea. Now, maybe he did have this idea 1:03:37.960 --> 1:03:40.000 six months after we started. 1:03:39.680 --> 1:03:43.840 Axtendid in like Stinglets has not had a single idea 1:03:43.920 --> 1:03:48.520 in like fifteen years. Like that man, Oh, that man 1:03:48.640 --> 1:03:51.520 is a transparent medium through which the stuff that he 1:03:51.600 --> 1:03:54.680 reads appears on a page. I'm going to be made. 1:03:54.960 --> 1:03:57.640 I'm I'm sick of doing this bullshit. 1:03:58.840 --> 1:04:00.600 And you know the worst part is, like, you know, 1:04:00.960 --> 1:04:04.640 this is something that happens a lot. There's an orthodoxy 1:04:04.800 --> 1:04:08.400 that says certain things that are nonsense. The heterodoxy goes 1:04:08.440 --> 1:04:10.600 through the hard work of like figuring out the reasons 1:04:10.640 --> 1:04:14.080 why it's not true and presenting an alternative model. It's 1:04:14.120 --> 1:04:19.960 denied at first, but then increasingly it's just plagiarized, you know, 1:04:20.080 --> 1:04:25.080 perhaps accidentally, probably not, you know, like like and that 1:04:25.200 --> 1:04:27.800 it's presented as if actually, this is what the theory 1:04:27.920 --> 1:04:30.680 has always been all along, you know, and like, how 1:04:30.680 --> 1:04:33.760 can anyone think differently? And it's this, it's this unfortunate 1:04:33.800 --> 1:04:37.880 thing because since the neoclassicals control the discipline, they control 1:04:37.920 --> 1:04:41.400 advancement through the ranks of the economists, so they're always 1:04:41.440 --> 1:04:44.280 wrong and never right, but they're never punished for it, 1:04:44.640 --> 1:04:46.760 and they control all the leavers of who gets to 1:04:46.760 --> 1:04:50.960 be an economist. So it's this sort of like continual, sad, 1:04:51.120 --> 1:04:54.280 unfortunate thing. But on the bright side, we were right. 1:04:54.400 --> 1:04:57.400 We were right early A bunch of people picked it up, 1:04:57.440 --> 1:05:00.000 and our talking points ended up making it too very 1:05:00.080 --> 1:05:02.439 very distant and well regarded places to the point where 1:05:02.520 --> 1:05:06.920 now it's it's a viable alternative that exists out there 1:05:06.960 --> 1:05:09.720 in the world in terms of like, you know, why 1:05:09.880 --> 1:05:12.600 keep raising rates it's not doing any good, It could 1:05:12.640 --> 1:05:14.880 even do bad. And that's the talking point that I 1:05:14.960 --> 1:05:17.440 don't think would have existed if hadn't been for Democio's 1:05:17.480 --> 1:05:20.240 research which depended entirely upon the supply chain theory of 1:05:20.240 --> 1:05:22.960 inflation framework that Steve developed out of Fred Lee's work, 1:05:23.160 --> 1:05:26.120 which is basically a research program that now the magazine 1:05:26.160 --> 1:05:29.440 has put out there in the world that and it 1:05:29.480 --> 1:05:32.880 is continuing to build up on that. That actually makes 1:05:32.880 --> 1:05:33.760 it make more sense. 1:05:34.560 --> 1:05:36.600 Yeah, And I want to just sort of like take 1:05:36.640 --> 1:05:38.880 a second to highlight like how impressive it is had 1:05:38.880 --> 1:05:42.400 this happened, because like again like like a year and 1:05:42.400 --> 1:05:45.960 a half even like like like even like even like 1:05:46.000 --> 1:05:49.320 a year ago, right for the entire time I have 1:05:49.440 --> 1:05:52.880 been alive if you tried to say that raising interest 1:05:53.000 --> 1:05:57.760 rates raises inflation, like people would have thrown bananas at you, 1:05:58.040 --> 1:06:01.240 like like volleys of tomato. Was like they they would 1:06:01.280 --> 1:06:03.040 have like you would have you would have gotten sixteen 1:06:03.080 --> 1:06:06.600 contracts to be a professional clown like this. This was 1:06:06.600 --> 1:06:08.720 the thing that like you could not you couldn't even 1:06:08.760 --> 1:06:12.720 like suggest this, and you know, like within a pretty 1:06:12.800 --> 1:06:16.280 rapid span, suddenly like Stinglets is being like, ah, I 1:06:16.320 --> 1:06:18.680 want this very real. Maybe this is a plausible thing, 1:06:18.680 --> 1:06:20.720 and it's like, oh my, like I don't know, I 1:06:21.240 --> 1:06:25.240 think it's I think it's it's really it's really impressive 1:06:25.320 --> 1:06:29.320 watching how fast I don't know, like how fast the 1:06:29.440 --> 1:06:33.600 combinations of like reality and having an explanation of reality 1:06:33.600 --> 1:06:36.479 that actually like lines up with it has been able 1:06:36.520 --> 1:06:40.000 to change, like as been able to actually just sort 1:06:40.000 --> 1:06:42.560 of like change what the discourse at like the highest 1:06:42.640 --> 1:06:45.320 levels of power and sort of like what what has 1:06:45.360 --> 1:06:49.640 actually been happening in the economy like has shifted And 1:06:49.680 --> 1:06:53.560 that's wild, Like I would not have guessed that that 1:06:53.560 --> 1:06:56.160 that was the thing that was even remotely possible, and 1:06:56.160 --> 1:06:57.600 and yet we are now here. 1:06:58.400 --> 1:07:02.640 Yeah, the Overton window has shifted so far that like 1:07:03.080 --> 1:07:05.840 the idea that interest rates just don't seem to have 1:07:05.880 --> 1:07:09.200 any discernible effect upon the price level is kind of 1:07:09.240 --> 1:07:10.560 like becoming the base case. 1:07:12.040 --> 1:07:12.440 Yeah. 1:07:12.680 --> 1:07:16.720 Yeah, so like the entire yeah, the entire spectrum has 1:07:16.720 --> 1:07:23.080 shifted like a strong form and have like I'm starting 1:07:23.080 --> 1:07:28.520 to use that phrase now, by the way, And okay, 1:07:28.560 --> 1:07:31.240 people won't be throwing a ton of they'll still throw 1:07:31.400 --> 1:07:35.160 something at you, but like it's it's like manageable now. 1:07:36.920 --> 1:07:39.040 I mean you can always point to that argument from 1:07:39.080 --> 1:07:42.840 authority but says it might be so yeah, so you 1:07:42.880 --> 1:07:43.480 know it's like. 1:07:45.000 --> 1:07:52.680 Es he won the prize, really prize to. 1:07:54.680 --> 1:07:55.840 Should say about. 1:07:58.600 --> 1:07:59.800 Want this is a whole. 1:08:02.680 --> 1:08:05.120 The so called Nobel Prize in economics is not actually 1:08:05.440 --> 1:08:09.600 the Nobel Prize in economics. It's that there's Nobel prices 1:08:09.600 --> 1:08:14.600 in science and you know, literature and all this stuff 1:08:15.200 --> 1:08:19.400 that's administered by the Alfred Nobel Organization and the fund 1:08:19.560 --> 1:08:23.920 that he left and whatever. This started in the sixties, 1:08:24.040 --> 1:08:26.120 like I think some seventy years after the Nobel started 1:08:26.200 --> 1:08:28.439 or something like that, and it was started by the 1:08:28.439 --> 1:08:31.599 Swedish Central Bank to imitate the Nobel Prize. So technically 1:08:31.720 --> 1:08:35.000 it's the Nobel Memorial Prize in economics, you see. And 1:08:35.040 --> 1:08:38.240 it's and it's just it's basically like peeling off the 1:08:38.280 --> 1:08:40.200 skin of the face of the Nobel Prize and then 1:08:40.240 --> 1:08:42.519 wearing it, you know, and saying, where we have a 1:08:42.560 --> 1:08:50.840 Nobel price too. Totally basically it's not. And you know, 1:08:50.880 --> 1:08:52.920 it puts the lotion on its skin or else it 1:08:52.960 --> 1:08:58.800 gets the hose again. You know, they did this specifically. 1:08:59.080 --> 1:09:03.920 There's a historian of of economics. Oh my god, what 1:09:03.960 --> 1:09:07.920 the hell is his name? The it's it's the it's 1:09:07.960 --> 1:09:12.800 the more heat than like guy. He's oh my goodness. 1:09:13.200 --> 1:09:16.600 I cite him in the Friendly thing and I can't Mosi. 1:09:16.680 --> 1:09:20.080 Morowski, that's the guy. Yeah, Okay, So he actually like 1:09:20.120 --> 1:09:22.760 went and like studied the origins of it, and it 1:09:22.760 --> 1:09:25.759 turns out that they specifically did it as a scheme 1:09:26.000 --> 1:09:28.120 to only give the Nobel Prize to people who are 1:09:28.120 --> 1:09:32.280 basically like neoclassical economists, and they mostly have so sometimes 1:09:32.320 --> 1:09:35.720 they've diversed, but mostly they've done it to very reactionary economists. 1:09:35.760 --> 1:09:38.360 In order to promote neoclassical economists in Europe, because it 1:09:38.400 --> 1:09:41.360 was stronger in America than it was in Europe, and 1:09:41.400 --> 1:09:43.960 in order to promote the idea of central bank independence, 1:09:44.000 --> 1:09:46.920 which is a fancy term for uh, you know, the 1:09:47.640 --> 1:09:53.680 a central bank should not need to operate under a political, 1:09:54.280 --> 1:09:59.639 uh a democratically controlled you know, legislature that says, actually, 1:09:59.640 --> 1:10:02.240 we don't want more unemployment because that would be bad, 1:10:02.320 --> 1:10:05.160 so don't do that. Like, instead, they should have independence, 1:10:05.200 --> 1:10:08.360 the independence that allows them to technocratically decide that it's 1:10:08.360 --> 1:10:10.200 time for people to get out of work, you know, 1:10:10.280 --> 1:10:13.400 and and and that kind of thing. So you know, 1:10:13.560 --> 1:10:16.479 that's that's the story of the Sokel Nobel Prize. It's 1:10:16.479 --> 1:10:18.599 really the fake Nobel, Yeah, which is I just. 1:10:18.520 --> 1:10:21.000 Call it the fake Nobel yeah, which is also really 1:10:21.040 --> 1:10:23.400 funny if you talk to other people, like specifically, one 1:10:23.640 --> 1:10:24.960 of the things that happened to me when I was 1:10:25.000 --> 1:10:26.439 in the university was like I knew a bunch of 1:10:26.479 --> 1:10:30.559 people who were like really really good at math. Like 1:10:30.600 --> 1:10:34.360 one of my friends was like like like actual genuine 1:10:34.400 --> 1:10:37.519 prodigy was doing like like was doing like like graduate 1:10:37.600 --> 1:10:39.920 level like math in high school. And if you talk 1:10:39.960 --> 1:10:42.080 to these people, and you talk to like math professors 1:10:42.120 --> 1:10:45.040 about the Nobel Prizes, they like they will like yell 1:10:45.080 --> 1:10:47.720 about it for like twenty minutes because the math is 1:10:47.720 --> 1:10:50.960 so bullshit. It's like, yeah, this guy like like the 1:10:51.000 --> 1:10:53.120 math involved in these Nobel Prizes are like they figured 1:10:53.160 --> 1:10:55.639 out too blos two weekos four and they gave them 1:10:55.680 --> 1:10:58.120 like this fucking fake Nobel prize. You look at like 1:10:58.160 --> 1:11:00.680 the fields metal and it's like, I don't know, like 1:11:00.880 --> 1:11:03.360 it's it's it's it's it's it's really nonsense. All the 1:11:03.360 --> 1:11:04.960 math people are really mad about the fact that the 1:11:05.000 --> 1:11:06.880 econ people think that they know math because they don't. 1:11:07.000 --> 1:11:09.200 And the consequence of this is you get these like that, 1:11:09.360 --> 1:11:11.599 you get people handing out Nobel prices for saying shit 1:11:11.760 --> 1:11:15.439 like the economy can't miss like the market can't miss price, 1:11:15.680 --> 1:11:18.759 like in like assets that are like the price of houses, 1:11:18.840 --> 1:11:21.720 and then the entire housing market immediately imployed because it 1:11:21.760 --> 1:11:24.479 was all miss priced. It's it's it's a disaster. It 1:11:24.520 --> 1:11:28.559 has been. I don't know. We should everyone at all 1:11:28.600 --> 1:11:32.599 times should be doing anti fake Nobeil price propaganda against 1:11:32.600 --> 1:11:36.280 the economics Nobel price, because it's it's it's fake and 1:11:36.400 --> 1:11:37.960 bad and we should all say it more. 1:11:38.360 --> 1:11:42.120 Uh, you know, there's on the heterodox side of things, 1:11:42.160 --> 1:11:46.240 there's some really promising uses of mathematical economics to create 1:11:46.320 --> 1:11:50.680 like input output matrices. Yeah, and to model, like do 1:11:50.720 --> 1:11:54.760 an io model of the economy that the math is 1:11:54.920 --> 1:11:59.000 very much subservient to empirical data that is coming in 1:11:59.240 --> 1:12:02.400 that trains them model, and it like like to so 1:12:02.479 --> 1:12:06.040 much of economics is well, data fits, data fits the model. 1:12:06.400 --> 1:12:08.720 Data fits the model, like over and over again when 1:12:08.720 --> 1:12:10.240 it should be the other way around. 1:12:11.280 --> 1:12:14.280 Yeah, absolutely, does the model fit the data, because if 1:12:14.320 --> 1:12:15.840 it doesn't, then you got to throw it out like 1:12:15.880 --> 1:12:19.679 this whole like raising interest rates is going to control prices? Bullshit? 1:12:20.439 --> 1:12:23.639 When has that even happened? Theoretically happened in the seventies, 1:12:23.640 --> 1:12:25.639 but then you look at it and yeah, it doesn't 1:12:25.680 --> 1:12:28.960 tell you that story. So you know, do they throw 1:12:29.000 --> 1:12:29.280 it out? 1:12:29.360 --> 1:12:38.519 No, like brief brief callback to Fred Lee's table table 1:12:38.560 --> 1:12:40.960 B was it? 1:12:40.240 --> 1:12:40.320 Oh? 1:12:42.080 --> 1:12:44.400 Yeah, is the Blinder study in there? I forget? 1:12:44.600 --> 1:12:47.160 Yes, Yes, that's like an instance. 1:12:47.400 --> 1:12:50.960 That's an instance where Alan Blinder is and neoclassical economists 1:12:51.000 --> 1:12:57.320 who like, he messed up and did real science and 1:12:57.400 --> 1:13:01.040 what he found was was the administer price theory. 1:13:01.280 --> 1:13:05.000 Yeah, he made the terrible mistake of thinking that his 1:13:05.080 --> 1:13:08.080 bullshit theory would be vindicated and then it turns out 1:13:08.080 --> 1:13:08.640 that it was not. 1:13:09.479 --> 1:13:14.960 Yeah, there's just like the history of intellectual thought for 1:13:15.080 --> 1:13:17.559 economics is like replete with examples where they kind of 1:13:17.560 --> 1:13:20.040 like they screw up and they actually do real science 1:13:20.040 --> 1:13:22.719 for a change, and like find things like cost plus 1:13:22.760 --> 1:13:23.599 markups happening. 1:13:25.360 --> 1:13:27.760 And he tries so hard to explain it away. You know, 1:13:27.960 --> 1:13:31.480 he's like, well, supply and demand exists. 1:13:31.800 --> 1:13:35.040 It's just that these prices are sticky because the cost 1:13:35.040 --> 1:13:39.400 of changing the price on the menu is actually too expensive, 1:13:39.920 --> 1:13:42.759 so they choose not to and that's why prices are sticky. 1:13:42.800 --> 1:13:46.360 They can't they can't change the stickers. You know, it's 1:13:46.439 --> 1:13:47.519 completely insane. 1:13:48.439 --> 1:13:52.120 The cost of admit there's a cost to administering prices themselves, 1:13:52.439 --> 1:13:56.160 and that's why they don't change prices. Like the price 1:13:56.240 --> 1:14:02.560 mechanism for neoclassical economics would suggest. 1:14:00.360 --> 1:14:03.879 To look for the stickers, and he couldn't find it. 1:14:04.080 --> 1:14:06.880 You couldn't find the costs. So he's like, well, I 1:14:06.880 --> 1:14:10.040 guess it's not sticky because of menu costs. It's like, 1:14:10.080 --> 1:14:14.680 I wonder what it could be. What a mystery? 1:14:15.680 --> 1:14:17.559 Okay, so we we should we should start wrapping up 1:14:17.560 --> 1:14:18.840 because this has been This has been a very long 1:14:18.880 --> 1:14:21.639 episode already, but I wanted to ask before we go, 1:14:22.120 --> 1:14:24.720 what what what? What are you all doing next? And 1:14:24.760 --> 1:14:29.240 what other incredibly funny economics discourses can we expect to 1:14:29.320 --> 1:14:33.679 have giant like creators punched into in the next couple 1:14:33.680 --> 1:14:34.120 of years. 1:14:34.800 --> 1:14:37.000 So one thing we've started to work on, and we've 1:14:37.320 --> 1:14:41.920 discussed a little bit on this podcast, I believe. Yeah, Well, 1:14:42.000 --> 1:14:46.719 Beck was the importance of for X foreign exchange for 1:14:47.120 --> 1:14:51.080 all sorts of microeconomic things like inflation being one of them, 1:14:51.400 --> 1:14:57.160 Like if you're a small country that that does not 1:14:57.360 --> 1:15:02.280 have hegemonic monetary authority like the US does to get 1:15:02.320 --> 1:15:04.600 people to use its currency and you have to go 1:15:04.680 --> 1:15:07.760 out and import things and some other currency. How does 1:15:07.800 --> 1:15:11.080 that affect your ability to socially provision yourself as a 1:15:11.320 --> 1:15:16.160 nation state and like do development work. And we're developing 1:15:16.200 --> 1:15:19.800 a theory of for X. Essentially that is it's a 1:15:21.200 --> 1:15:25.880 it's an extension of the chartlist framework that informs MMT, 1:15:26.760 --> 1:15:31.400 but with some important criticisms about how like the central 1:15:31.920 --> 1:15:35.519 MMT insights sort of is like you can create if 1:15:35.520 --> 1:15:40.120 you're the sovereign issuer of your own fiat currency, you 1:15:40.160 --> 1:15:43.000 can always provision enough of it to you can always 1:15:43.000 --> 1:15:45.559 spend as much of it into existence as you need 1:15:45.600 --> 1:15:50.400 to to do productive things. And yes, that's true. You 1:15:50.439 --> 1:15:53.160 can create infinity of your own money, but your own 1:15:53.479 --> 1:15:57.559 not other people's money. Yeah, so other currencies like if you're. 1:15:59.560 --> 1:16:09.160 Like, uh, really Sri Lanka for example. 1:16:08.400 --> 1:16:12.840 If you're Sri Lanka or Mexico or whoever, most of 1:16:13.080 --> 1:16:17.040 most of the world, basically you need to maintain and 1:16:17.200 --> 1:16:21.479 augment your balance of like the trading the major trading 1:16:21.520 --> 1:16:27.880 currencies US dollars, yen, the euro, to name three, and 1:16:29.600 --> 1:16:32.559 have balances of those. You need to maintain your balance 1:16:32.600 --> 1:16:37.320 of payments and your balances of specific currencies in order 1:16:37.360 --> 1:16:43.360 to meet the biophysical obligations that your whatever your development 1:16:43.400 --> 1:16:49.799 strategy necessitates, because in most instances, not all, but most, 1:16:50.320 --> 1:16:52.680 you're going to need to, like no one's going if 1:16:52.680 --> 1:16:55.840 you're Sri Lanka, no one's going to want to to 1:16:56.040 --> 1:17:01.200 transact in your currency. For major purchases of like staple goods. 1:17:01.880 --> 1:17:04.200 You're going to need to use like dollars or euros 1:17:04.280 --> 1:17:06.880 or end or are you on perhaps you know who 1:17:06.880 --> 1:17:10.280 knows exactly one of the major trading currencies. 1:17:10.920 --> 1:17:12.759 And this also raises the question of how it currency 1:17:12.760 --> 1:17:16.280 becomes a major trading currency, and that almost invariably takes 1:17:16.320 --> 1:17:20.320 you in two directions. One is which countries are powerful 1:17:20.320 --> 1:17:23.200 and able to industrialize and make capital goods that nobody 1:17:23.240 --> 1:17:26.280 else has that everybody wants a piece of. And two, 1:17:26.520 --> 1:17:29.559 which are the powerful imperialist great powers. And it turns 1:17:29.600 --> 1:17:35.440 out that those are the nexus that's created between imperialism, development, 1:17:35.920 --> 1:17:39.040 and the balance of payments. Those three things can't even 1:17:39.080 --> 1:17:43.200 be discussed independently of each other, and the politics of 1:17:43.280 --> 1:17:45.439 what is going to be used as the what Steve 1:17:45.479 --> 1:17:48.439 and I are tentatively calling the international means of payment, 1:17:48.840 --> 1:17:52.760 in other words, what you can use in international transactions 1:17:52.800 --> 1:17:56.280 across a whole region or across the entire planet. That 1:17:56.400 --> 1:17:59.599 is a hugely political question that all the major great 1:17:59.600 --> 1:18:03.080 powers in their interimperial conflict are constantly fighting over. So 1:18:03.160 --> 1:18:06.320 right now it appears that China is attempting to make 1:18:06.360 --> 1:18:08.840 a bid for a global yuon. First, they tried to 1:18:08.840 --> 1:18:11.639 do it through the digital un Now they're seemingly trying 1:18:11.680 --> 1:18:13.960 to do it through bricks by getting the other bricks 1:18:14.000 --> 1:18:16.400 countries to agree to a kind of EUON gold standard, 1:18:16.479 --> 1:18:19.679 mirroring the Breton Woods agreement that was basically the dollar 1:18:19.720 --> 1:18:23.400 piggybacking off of gold to reach global pre eminence. Will 1:18:23.400 --> 1:18:26.760 it work, will it not? Nobody really knows. It's a 1:18:26.760 --> 1:18:30.320 total mess. But in theory, that could be one way 1:18:30.600 --> 1:18:33.880 that you could suddenly have, like the yuon, at least 1:18:33.880 --> 1:18:37.040 in a certain currency zone, be used as the main 1:18:37.120 --> 1:18:42.200 way of doing imports, and if the US suddenly needs 1:18:42.240 --> 1:18:45.559 an import from that zone, which hypothetically, if it existed, 1:18:45.880 --> 1:18:49.639 right they couldn't use dollars anymore, or or maybe dollars 1:18:49.640 --> 1:18:51.920 would be at a high disadvantage, you know, in the 1:18:51.960 --> 1:18:54.479 exchange rate between dollars and that currency at that point, 1:18:54.640 --> 1:18:57.200 or maybe they would just be banned entirely from using dollars. 1:18:57.200 --> 1:18:58.840 They have to get it in that currency, which means 1:18:58.840 --> 1:19:01.200 is suddenly the US, which has basically been able to 1:19:01.240 --> 1:19:04.479 print for X, to print the international means of payment 1:19:04.680 --> 1:19:07.719 for some fifty years now, would suddenly have to actually 1:19:07.800 --> 1:19:10.160 hold reserves of this thing. Now, if we have to 1:19:10.200 --> 1:19:11.680 hold reserves of it, that means that we have to 1:19:11.720 --> 1:19:14.760 sell something to the people who issue that currency. That 1:19:14.800 --> 1:19:18.000 means that we suddenly have to worry about which firms 1:19:18.160 --> 1:19:21.360 are the most profitable exporters. And I bet you anything 1:19:21.600 --> 1:19:24.720 that none of our listeners know what the most important 1:19:24.720 --> 1:19:30.120 company in America would become if that situation happened. Is 1:19:30.640 --> 1:19:36.680 it Uber? Is it Amazon? Is it all these like 1:19:36.720 --> 1:19:38.400 Fortune five hundred companies and whatever? 1:19:38.520 --> 1:19:38.840 No? 1:19:38.840 --> 1:19:40.439 No, I mean it's one of the Fortune five hundred, 1:19:40.479 --> 1:19:42.360 But it's not like towards the top of that list. 1:19:42.640 --> 1:19:48.559 It's Boeing. Boeing is by far our single greatest exporter firm. 1:19:48.680 --> 1:19:51.919 It would be in a situation like this, the national champion, 1:19:52.120 --> 1:19:54.800 so to speak, to use language that's usually reserved for 1:19:56.040 --> 1:19:59.719 less developed countries than the US. And this is exactly 1:19:59.760 --> 1:20:04.160 the kind of like thinking that is important, because you know, obviously. 1:20:04.200 --> 1:20:06.120 The other thing that would happen if dollar hegemony ended 1:20:06.200 --> 1:20:08.120 is that it would be a huge economic crash in 1:20:08.160 --> 1:20:11.360 the US, Like suddenly the import the costs of importing 1:20:11.400 --> 1:20:14.280 anything that we're in that zone would skyrocket, and it 1:20:14.280 --> 1:20:17.120 would mess up, you know, our ballance of payments, and 1:20:17.160 --> 1:20:19.719 it would cause inflation, depending on how quickly it happens 1:20:19.720 --> 1:20:22.160 and how how little, how much or how little time 1:20:22.240 --> 1:20:25.599 firms have to adjust their supply chains and stuff like that. 1:20:25.920 --> 1:20:28.760 So it's, uh, this is exactly what you need in 1:20:28.840 --> 1:20:31.040 order to understand everything from the decline and fall of 1:20:31.080 --> 1:20:35.519 the Roman Empire to current geopolitics today. And and and 1:20:35.560 --> 1:20:38.439 I'm hoping that that Steve and I, through developing the theory, 1:20:38.479 --> 1:20:41.240 will create a general framework that can be used to 1:20:41.320 --> 1:20:44.360 tie discussions that people usually have in purely political terms 1:20:44.800 --> 1:20:49.000 about interimperial conflict into economic questions, so that there's no 1:20:49.040 --> 1:20:53.600 longer a kind of division of labor between between economics 1:20:53.640 --> 1:20:56.000 which denies the existence of imperialism. And then the people 1:20:56.000 --> 1:20:58.880 who study imperialism as historians or political scientists. 1:20:58.600 --> 1:21:04.679 Or whatever, stay stay tuned for more theories dropping at 1:21:04.720 --> 1:21:05.920 some point in the future. 1:21:07.800 --> 1:21:10.680 Oh and we should do our marketing pitch. If you 1:21:10.800 --> 1:21:13.519 like the stuff that you hear, you should seriously consider 1:21:14.160 --> 1:21:16.439 checking out the magazine which is at Strange Matters dot 1:21:16.479 --> 1:21:18.960 co op. And also please consider if you have the 1:21:19.000 --> 1:21:23.559 ability to subscribe or donate subscription storty five dollars. And 1:21:23.600 --> 1:21:27.639 it really, uh, it really helps because all the money 1:21:27.680 --> 1:21:29.400 that we get that doesn't just go to our capitalist 1:21:29.479 --> 1:21:32.160 overlords for basically like you know, paying for the services 1:21:32.200 --> 1:21:33.760 that we use to keep the website going and the 1:21:33.800 --> 1:21:36.000 magazine going. All of it goes to our writers, and 1:21:36.000 --> 1:21:37.479 we try to pay them a both market rate for 1:21:37.520 --> 1:21:41.240 little magazines of our size. So if you want to 1:21:41.280 --> 1:21:45.400 see more of this stuff and more arts, philosophy, anthropology, history, 1:21:46.000 --> 1:21:48.800 all the other kind of stuff poetry that we publish, 1:21:49.200 --> 1:21:50.599 definitely please consider. 1:21:51.280 --> 1:21:53.120 Yeah, well we'll we'll put we'll put a link to 1:21:53.240 --> 1:21:56.760 the magazine and the description. Yeah, Steve GenZ, thank you 1:21:56.800 --> 1:21:58.479 so much for thank you so much for being on 1:21:58.520 --> 1:22:04.120 the show and for yelling at the kind of opriced 1:22:04.160 --> 1:22:04.479 with me. 1:22:07.560 --> 1:22:08.400 It's been a pleasure. 1:22:08.920 --> 1:22:10.240 It's been great MANA thank you. 1:22:10.760 --> 1:22:13.880 Yeah, and you can find us at it could happen here, 1:22:14.120 --> 1:22:18.240 but that happened here pod on Twitter and Instagram. Yeah, 1:22:18.280 --> 1:22:21.120 we have a website where we post our sources. It's 1:22:21.120 --> 1:22:22.880 schools on media dot Com. There's other stuff there. You 1:22:22.880 --> 1:22:27.280 should go there and yeah, go into the world and 1:22:27.320 --> 1:22:47.760 make life worse for mainstream economists. It could happen here. 1:22:47.880 --> 1:22:50.840 It's the podcast that's called it could Happen here. I 1:22:50.880 --> 1:22:53.040 think things fall apart and put them back together again, etcetera, 1:22:53.040 --> 1:22:55.479 et cetera. We're slightly rushing this intro because Garrison have 1:22:55.560 --> 1:22:59.639 to leave in like ten minutes, not ten minutes, but yeah, 1:22:59.680 --> 1:23:02.880 we're with the way. Yeah. So we've spent a lot 1:23:02.920 --> 1:23:05.840 of time covering the sort of various aspects of the 1:23:05.840 --> 1:23:08.439 transgend aside we haven't The aspect of the angle we 1:23:08.479 --> 1:23:12.160 haven't covered that much is The New York Times. And 1:23:12.360 --> 1:23:15.720 partially that's my fault because if I every time I 1:23:15.840 --> 1:23:17.400 try to write something about New York Times, it has 1:23:17.439 --> 1:23:20.160 devolved into about seven hours and me reading every single 1:23:20.160 --> 1:23:21.800 time The New York Times wrote an article that was 1:23:21.840 --> 1:23:26.640 pro Hitler. So you know, it's difficult to be what 1:23:26.640 --> 1:23:29.439 you would describe as reasonably objective when you're talking about 1:23:29.479 --> 1:23:32.759 these people and not just start yelling about the Iraq War. However, 1:23:33.000 --> 1:23:35.160 coma other people have done a very very good job 1:23:35.200 --> 1:23:38.320 about this, and things have developed in the sort of 1:23:38.439 --> 1:23:45.479 world of the New York Times printing just incredibly bizarre 1:23:46.400 --> 1:23:51.879 transphobic articles. And to talk about one of these things 1:23:52.000 --> 1:23:55.840 and some developments on one of their stories, we are 1:23:55.880 --> 1:23:58.160 talking to Evan erk Hard of Assigned Media, who has 1:23:58.320 --> 1:24:03.840 published a very very good story about some real nonsense 1:24:03.960 --> 1:24:06.599 that the New York Times and their journalists have gotten 1:24:06.640 --> 1:24:08.679 up to. So Fa, welcome to the show. 1:24:09.360 --> 1:24:12.200 Yeah, thanks for having me. Always glad to talk about nonsense. 1:24:12.880 --> 1:24:16.439 Yeah, it's been it's it's been a real time. Also, 1:24:16.479 --> 1:24:22.840 here is Garrison. Yeah. So I guess, okay, I think 1:24:22.920 --> 1:24:25.880 the place to start with this is getting people caught 1:24:25.960 --> 1:24:29.360 up with the incredibly bizarre story of Jamie Reid. So 1:24:29.400 --> 1:24:31.280 I guess I wanted to start there, of can you 1:24:31.520 --> 1:24:34.080 talk a little bit about who Jamie Reid is and 1:24:34.160 --> 1:24:36.160 how the New York Times and a bunch of other 1:24:36.360 --> 1:24:40.000 very less reputable somehow newspapers got involved with this. 1:24:41.360 --> 1:24:44.720 Yeah. So, I mean there are certainly reputable newspapers that 1:24:44.840 --> 1:24:49.439 have looked into the allegations of former Gender Clinics staff 1:24:49.840 --> 1:24:56.040 member in Saint Louis, Jamie Reid, and those organizations including 1:24:56.280 --> 1:25:01.200 local papers, have found that her allegations didn't hold up. 1:25:03.560 --> 1:25:03.960 This was. 1:25:05.640 --> 1:25:08.000 Months ago, kind of the beginning of the year, I believe. 1:25:09.080 --> 1:25:12.200 She kind of came forward with great fanfare and an 1:25:12.280 --> 1:25:19.000 alliance defending freedom lawyer and said that the gender clinic 1:25:19.080 --> 1:25:23.920 she once worked at was harming children. They weren't engaging 1:25:24.080 --> 1:25:28.280 in informed consent. They were pressuring parents to go along 1:25:28.439 --> 1:25:33.280 with these harmful treatments, horrifying stuff that if true, would 1:25:33.280 --> 1:25:39.080 be just a major, major scandal if true. And the 1:25:39.400 --> 1:25:45.200 allegations fell apart pretty quickly. Numerous parents and patients came back, came, 1:25:45.439 --> 1:25:48.240 you know, forward saying this is nothing like what we've experienced. 1:25:50.120 --> 1:25:52.960 Some of that was pretty directly refuting things that she said, 1:25:53.160 --> 1:25:56.479 such as, you know, kids never got any therapy. They 1:25:56.560 --> 1:25:59.840 just saw a therapist for an hour and an undercanologist 1:25:59.920 --> 1:26:03.160 for an hour and were immediately approved for hormones. And 1:26:03.200 --> 1:26:05.679 so people came forward saying, I did six months of therapy, 1:26:05.720 --> 1:26:06.360 I did nine months. 1:26:07.240 --> 1:26:10.960 I wish you could do that. Like no, like right. 1:26:11.240 --> 1:26:11.559 I mean. 1:26:12.439 --> 1:26:19.639 It was very wild and very discredited. And then, for 1:26:19.680 --> 1:26:23.320 some reason, apparently back in May, as Ing Graashi of 1:26:23.400 --> 1:26:26.799 the New York Times started looking into this story, and 1:26:28.439 --> 1:26:30.559 she didn't find anything different. I mean, if you look 1:26:30.600 --> 1:26:33.200 at her reporting, if anything, she found even more evidence 1:26:33.240 --> 1:26:35.400 that Jamie Reid is not accurate and not on the 1:26:35.479 --> 1:26:37.400 up and up. But the story that she came out 1:26:37.400 --> 1:26:39.080 with is really really weird. 1:26:39.640 --> 1:26:41.880 And and I think the thing, the thing that that 1:26:42.000 --> 1:26:46.719 is the most at least before the most recent round 1:26:46.960 --> 1:26:52.720 of incredibly bizarre stuff, the thing that's the most infuriating 1:26:52.720 --> 1:26:55.000 to me about the sort of Jamie Reid's story is 1:26:55.040 --> 1:26:58.800 that the thing that had come out by the time 1:26:58.800 --> 1:27:00.559 The New York Times is writing about it was that 1:27:00.680 --> 1:27:04.760 it looked a lot like if you look at the 1:27:04.800 --> 1:27:06.800 stuff that Jamie Reid had been doing and people talking 1:27:06.800 --> 1:27:08.800 about their experiences with her, it looked like she was 1:27:08.840 --> 1:27:13.080 trying to sabotage kids getting healthcare because she personally didn't 1:27:13.080 --> 1:27:13.679 believe in it. 1:27:14.960 --> 1:27:17.920 I talked to a parent, a parent who was also 1:27:18.000 --> 1:27:21.559 talked to by The New York Times, who had really 1:27:21.600 --> 1:27:24.479 just wanted like an educational visit for her like eight 1:27:24.560 --> 1:27:27.759 year old, and Jamie Reid said, we can't do anything 1:27:27.800 --> 1:27:33.400 for you. Sorry. You know, we can only bring you 1:27:33.439 --> 1:27:36.360 in if your child is an adolescent ready to go 1:27:36.400 --> 1:27:39.599 on hormone therapy. And so after the allegations came out, 1:27:39.640 --> 1:27:42.439 this parent got in touch with the clinic Jamie Reid 1:27:42.479 --> 1:27:44.080 had left, and they were like, what are you talking about. 1:27:44.160 --> 1:27:47.040 We do educational appointments all the time. Come in. They 1:27:47.080 --> 1:27:50.240 spent you know, almost two hours talking to the family 1:27:50.240 --> 1:27:52.599 about the different you know, medical possibilities in the far 1:27:52.840 --> 1:27:55.640 future and just you know, trying to help educate the 1:27:55.720 --> 1:27:58.519 kid about their body and their options years and years 1:27:58.520 --> 1:27:59.799 before they never did anything. 1:28:00.560 --> 1:28:03.559 Yeah, which is really infuriating because like the actual story 1:28:03.600 --> 1:28:06.840 here is that you know, even even clinics that are 1:28:06.840 --> 1:28:09.559 like trying to do the right thing wind up with 1:28:09.800 --> 1:28:14.479 just incredibly deranged CIS people who basically can at every 1:28:14.520 --> 1:28:16.879 point in the process act as a gatekeeper and decide 1:28:16.880 --> 1:28:20.160 that like you don't get to get treatments, and that's 1:28:21.600 --> 1:28:24.120 awful and is one of them. I mean, you know, 1:28:24.680 --> 1:28:27.920 even even in place, even even in parts of the US, 1:28:27.960 --> 1:28:30.200 at clinics that are good, that is the thing that 1:28:30.200 --> 1:28:32.240 can just happen to you is you get the sort 1:28:32.280 --> 1:28:36.479 of gatekeeper stuff. But instead of doing that, instead of 1:28:36.640 --> 1:28:39.839 again covering the story they had been handed about someone 1:28:40.280 --> 1:28:43.920 trying to keep kids from getting health care, they did 1:28:44.000 --> 1:28:46.360 this they you know this, This turned into this like 1:28:46.360 --> 1:28:52.840 like full court press against Wait, Gary, you you're right. 1:28:55.000 --> 1:28:57.519 I closed my door because the air conditioner is way 1:28:57.520 --> 1:29:02.080 too loud. Only now the cats start screaming at the door. 1:29:02.439 --> 1:29:04.320 But now I open the door. They and they don't 1:29:04.320 --> 1:29:07.000 want to come in. They're just like all the threshold, 1:29:07.080 --> 1:29:09.639 just like staring at me, like make a choice, come 1:29:09.680 --> 1:29:10.400 in or come out. 1:29:11.000 --> 1:29:12.880 And I think we're leaving this in. 1:29:13.200 --> 1:29:20.439 This's great content. They're out, They're gone. They had their chance. 1:29:21.160 --> 1:29:25.479 They blew it. Yeah, what happens instead is is this 1:29:25.520 --> 1:29:28.680 sort of like full court press with a bunch of 1:29:29.439 --> 1:29:31.760 you know, starting in sort of conservative media and then 1:29:31.800 --> 1:29:34.960 moving into sort of liberal media, like using this story 1:29:35.000 --> 1:29:36.960 as an example of like why why we have to 1:29:36.960 --> 1:29:40.160 like stop like we have to shut down clinics and 1:29:40.160 --> 1:29:41.240 stuff while. 1:29:41.160 --> 1:29:47.639 Children's hospitals are getting bomb threats, Yeah, constantly, mostly due 1:29:47.640 --> 1:29:51.000 to kind of prodding by ghouls the Daily Wire who 1:29:51.040 --> 1:29:54.040 are hunting for clicks. And yeah, there's also a big 1:29:54.080 --> 1:29:58.760 part of this is like this tactic of attacking like 1:29:58.840 --> 1:30:01.800 healthcare centers and clinics proved to be a pretty good 1:30:01.840 --> 1:30:05.720 recipe to go viral. That's what the Daily Wire discovered. 1:30:06.040 --> 1:30:09.200 And that's something that New York Times certainly took notice 1:30:09.200 --> 1:30:11.600 of as well, is that, hey, this is this is 1:30:11.600 --> 1:30:16.200 a way to drive a lot of attention towards our website. 1:30:16.479 --> 1:30:19.679 That is just another another angle about this, this sort 1:30:19.720 --> 1:30:22.920 of thing which also like it leads to real world consequences, 1:30:22.960 --> 1:30:26.040 not just in terms of healthcare getting restricted, but also 1:30:26.080 --> 1:30:29.879 like threats of violence against doctors. The right has historically 1:30:29.920 --> 1:30:32.559 been completely willing to carry out acts of violence against 1:30:32.880 --> 1:30:37.040 healthcare workers and let alone you know, trying threatening to 1:30:37.080 --> 1:30:38.200 bomb a children's hospital. 1:30:39.080 --> 1:30:43.679 Yeah, and the exact allegations were were really devastating for 1:30:44.080 --> 1:30:48.280 these families. I mean, I love to Heidi, who's you know, 1:30:49.200 --> 1:30:55.320 her daughter's personal medical history was misrepresented, shared with the world, 1:30:55.880 --> 1:31:00.599 shared in a million articles, and used to to fuel 1:31:00.720 --> 1:31:03.160 gender firm and care bands, you know. I mean that 1:31:03.320 --> 1:31:06.599 is like really damaging for a like seventeen eighteen year 1:31:06.600 --> 1:31:09.559 old who's just trying to like live her life in 1:31:09.600 --> 1:31:10.719 kind of a conservative town. 1:31:11.960 --> 1:31:15.160 Which also and this is another aspect of this, is 1:31:15.240 --> 1:31:20.240 like she is sharing the private medical history of patients 1:31:20.280 --> 1:31:23.400 at a clinic, which you are not allowed to do. 1:31:24.040 --> 1:31:26.479 That is a which is very funny for people who 1:31:26.560 --> 1:31:29.720 rant about these all of these people all the time. 1:31:30.160 --> 1:31:33.439 We finally got one, we finally got an actual hippo violation, 1:31:33.680 --> 1:31:36.120 and h yeah. 1:31:35.880 --> 1:31:38.800 I think the hippa thing has been I mean, you know, 1:31:38.960 --> 1:31:41.760 as Zingeration could have gotten that story, I feel, I mean, 1:31:41.800 --> 1:31:45.240 I think it's been really undercovered. My understanding is that 1:31:45.280 --> 1:31:49.240 healthcare workers are not supposed to have to share information 1:31:49.320 --> 1:31:52.320 that's identifiable to the patient. And we have a patient 1:31:52.400 --> 1:31:55.320 saying I could tell this was my story. And so 1:31:56.000 --> 1:31:59.000 again I'm not a lawyer, but I think that people 1:31:59.040 --> 1:32:02.120 have underestimated the extent to which real families could look 1:32:02.160 --> 1:32:06.840 at these allegations and say, this is me, twisted, distorted, 1:32:07.000 --> 1:32:10.200 used to hurt my family and other families like mine, 1:32:10.439 --> 1:32:13.280 and there's kind of no outrage about that. It's kind 1:32:13.320 --> 1:32:15.439 of this neglected backwater of this story. 1:32:16.600 --> 1:32:18.200 Yeah, and I mean, I mean, the thing it reminds 1:32:18.240 --> 1:32:21.400 me the most of is the is the original like 1:32:21.520 --> 1:32:25.160 vaccines cause autism story where you have someone who is 1:32:25.200 --> 1:32:30.320 incredibly politically motivated, who is incredibly unreliable, who's demonishrably unreliable, 1:32:30.320 --> 1:32:32.800 who is not someone who's you know, who's someone who 1:32:32.920 --> 1:32:35.200 in the field. Everyone's like, what is going on here. 1:32:35.200 --> 1:32:38.040 This is complete nonsense who like misrepresents and just straight 1:32:38.080 --> 1:32:42.000 up lies about about like about about their patients. And 1:32:42.040 --> 1:32:45.599 then also it turns out like has abused their patients 1:32:45.640 --> 1:32:47.280 or in this case is not has abuse of patients 1:32:47.320 --> 1:32:51.439 in this case case like has successfully like stopped parents 1:32:51.439 --> 1:32:53.800 from being able to talk to the clinic about what 1:32:53.840 --> 1:32:56.800 the options for their kids are. But the media sort 1:32:56.840 --> 1:33:00.160 of doesn't care about that all. All they all they 1:33:00.200 --> 1:33:02.519 see is sort of this story and they they just 1:33:02.520 --> 1:33:04.599 sort of latch onto it, and then they spread all 1:33:04.640 --> 1:33:06.839 of this stuff and it's like, you know, it reminds 1:33:06.920 --> 1:33:08.760 it reminds me a lot of that where like, wait, 1:33:08.920 --> 1:33:11.600 we're still dealing with the consequences of just the completely 1:33:11.680 --> 1:33:16.080 fake bullshit about like vaccism, vaccines supposedly causing autism, which 1:33:18.120 --> 1:33:20.360 and again like that that's stuffing that never that never 1:33:20.439 --> 1:33:23.120 would have gotten mainstreamed if the media hadn't picked it 1:33:23.200 --> 1:33:25.200 up and ran with it. And yet you know, every 1:33:25.240 --> 1:33:28.519 single time one of these absolute like politically motivated frauds, 1:33:29.400 --> 1:33:31.720 it gets up on the stands, like there there's the 1:33:31.760 --> 1:33:34.360 New York Times doing doing their article about it, and 1:33:34.720 --> 1:33:35.360 and like. 1:33:35.680 --> 1:33:38.200 This used to be like Glenn Beck's territory, who would 1:33:38.240 --> 1:33:40.800 like bring out like a chalkboard and make like a 1:33:40.960 --> 1:33:45.599 make like a crazy wall with yarn and string. And 1:33:45.680 --> 1:33:48.479 now it's it actually has been relegated to the New 1:33:48.520 --> 1:33:51.040 York Times, the sort of the sort of coverage that 1:33:51.120 --> 1:33:54.799 they're doing over these types of like moral panics around healthcare. 1:33:55.520 --> 1:33:58.320 I think if you look at like Fox News twenty 1:33:58.400 --> 1:34:01.559 years ago, this was the type of stuff that they 1:34:01.560 --> 1:34:04.280 did for a long time before it was actually a 1:34:04.320 --> 1:34:06.960 little bit too insane and they had to like fire 1:34:06.960 --> 1:34:07.519 Glenn Beck. 1:34:09.040 --> 1:34:09.880 And it's this. 1:34:09.960 --> 1:34:12.720 It's the same sort of stuff now that's propagated by 1:34:12.760 --> 1:34:15.120 people like The Daily Wire and then picked up on 1:34:15.280 --> 1:34:17.440 by even more kind of mainstream publications. 1:34:18.400 --> 1:34:22.200 I mean, I think what's so insidious about this story 1:34:22.200 --> 1:34:24.479 in particular and some of the other New York Times 1:34:24.479 --> 1:34:28.120 stories is that they represent this as being their deep 1:34:28.160 --> 1:34:31.439 investigative journalism. They represent this as being the finest that 1:34:31.520 --> 1:34:35.200 the Times produces. And here is you know, the mother 1:34:35.240 --> 1:34:38.040 of a trans girl who went to the reporter and said, 1:34:38.439 --> 1:34:40.559 I can prove to you I have medical records, I 1:34:40.600 --> 1:34:43.760 have emails to prove to you that what is in 1:34:43.800 --> 1:34:47.960 this allegation is about my family. And isn't true. The 1:34:48.040 --> 1:34:50.880 reporter takes that and kind of sticks it in at 1:34:50.880 --> 1:34:53.439 the end, you know, like that it's not lying, but 1:34:53.520 --> 1:34:57.400 it is so totally distorting the truth that it feels 1:34:57.439 --> 1:34:59.320 like lying. It feels worse than lying almost. 1:34:59.360 --> 1:35:02.240 Yeah, especially because there's like like thousands of people who 1:35:02.280 --> 1:35:04.160 will just read the headline. They're not going to scroll 1:35:04.200 --> 1:35:06.400 to the bottom of the thing and read a little disclaimer, 1:35:06.479 --> 1:35:07.599 being like haha, JK. 1:35:08.320 --> 1:35:13.280 If there's a line on everything, that's not good enough. Yeah, 1:35:13.280 --> 1:35:15.439 And I think this gets into the part they So 1:35:15.640 --> 1:35:19.400 you very recently talked to uh, the mother of one 1:35:19.439 --> 1:35:21.559 of the girls who was you know who who to 1:35:21.800 --> 1:35:23.760 read has been lying about and. 1:35:25.439 --> 1:35:28.800 To three of the parents who who a zine had 1:35:28.800 --> 1:35:29.080 talked to. 1:35:30.280 --> 1:35:34.240 Yeah, and you discovered some very disturbing and incredibly bizarre 1:35:34.320 --> 1:35:39.520 stuff that a zine was doing to get parents to 1:35:39.760 --> 1:35:42.920 stay in the story after reads and like this was 1:35:42.960 --> 1:35:45.400 in her follow up story, after a bunch of people 1:35:45.400 --> 1:35:50.360 came out and were like, hey, this is like not correct, 1:35:50.560 --> 1:35:53.880 this person has in fact been lying about this. Yeah, 1:35:53.880 --> 1:35:56.679 So could you could you go into what you found 1:35:56.720 --> 1:35:57.120 about this? 1:35:57.720 --> 1:35:57.880 Yeah? 1:35:57.920 --> 1:36:01.880 It was truly truly bizarre. I mean I going in 1:36:02.320 --> 1:36:05.280 there were some parents that contacted me because they'd spoken 1:36:05.400 --> 1:36:08.920 to a Zene Grashi and they were really upset about 1:36:08.920 --> 1:36:11.799 the story. And you know, I went into it thinking 1:36:12.320 --> 1:36:13.960 I'm going to do them a favor. I'm going to 1:36:14.000 --> 1:36:16.559 let them feel heard. They feel disappointed about the story. 1:36:16.600 --> 1:36:19.640 This kind of happens in journalism. I was not expecting 1:36:20.400 --> 1:36:25.560 what I got. So this parent had been very suspicious 1:36:25.760 --> 1:36:30.479 of a zine because of a zine's previous writing about 1:36:30.479 --> 1:36:34.160 trans issues, and so I think she and her family 1:36:34.280 --> 1:36:37.160 kind of were very cautious and very savvy, and they said, 1:36:37.160 --> 1:36:38.920 we don't want to be part of a story that's 1:36:38.960 --> 1:36:41.719 going to be negative on this clinic that we feel 1:36:41.960 --> 1:36:45.160 saved our daughter's life. So you know, I'm willing to 1:36:45.160 --> 1:36:47.240 talk to you, I'm willing to give you this information 1:36:47.320 --> 1:36:49.960 about this person who lied about our daughter's history, but 1:36:50.000 --> 1:36:51.639 if you're going to turn that into a hit piece 1:36:51.680 --> 1:36:53.880 on the clinic, we don't want to be part of it. 1:36:54.520 --> 1:36:58.920 And a Zene, you know, reassured her, calmed her fears, 1:36:59.360 --> 1:37:02.400 and so you know, they were going forward but cautiously. 1:37:03.320 --> 1:37:06.960 And then this mother sees a zine at a courthouse 1:37:06.960 --> 1:37:11.200 where Jamie Reid was testifying about the allegations in Missouri 1:37:12.280 --> 1:37:17.639 and just sees the warm relationship between a Zine and 1:37:17.800 --> 1:37:22.120 Jamie Reid, and she thinks something isn't right here. I 1:37:22.320 --> 1:37:24.519 helped her catch this person in a lie, but they're all, 1:37:24.640 --> 1:37:28.880 you know, buddy, buddy, that seems weird. So she, you know, 1:37:28.920 --> 1:37:31.880 she first went up to Jamie Reid and confronted her. 1:37:31.920 --> 1:37:35.920 She said, I'm liver toxicity mom, and you know, she 1:37:35.960 --> 1:37:38.479 again noticed that Jamie Reid is kind of saying how 1:37:38.479 --> 1:37:40.040 can I help you? What do you want and like 1:37:40.080 --> 1:37:42.679 looking to a zine like save me from this crazy person. 1:37:43.600 --> 1:37:46.679 And so that's when the mother said, we're out. We're 1:37:46.720 --> 1:37:48.360 not We're not going to be part of the story. 1:37:48.880 --> 1:37:56.960 And a Zene did not take that for a Yeah, 1:37:57.360 --> 1:38:01.400 it's nuts. She followed them to their car as they're 1:38:01.439 --> 1:38:04.400 trying to leave, She stood in the car door so 1:38:04.400 --> 1:38:07.799 they couldn't drive away, saying, you know, please keep talking, 1:38:07.880 --> 1:38:10.800 to keep talking. You know, I don't know exactly what 1:38:10.800 --> 1:38:12.559 she's saying, but like I need you in the story. 1:38:13.240 --> 1:38:16.720 And you know, the mom says like no, Azine, we're out. 1:38:17.000 --> 1:38:19.559 Could please step away from the car and they drove away, 1:38:19.680 --> 1:38:23.160 and then Azine called them and called them, and they 1:38:23.200 --> 1:38:25.760 picked up and A zine managed to convince them to 1:38:25.880 --> 1:38:28.240 let her come over to their hotel room. This is 1:38:28.960 --> 1:38:33.120 the night before the New York Times article published. And 1:38:33.160 --> 1:38:37.479 so now Heidi and her husband and Zene are in 1:38:37.560 --> 1:38:40.479 this hotel room and A zine is going paragraph by 1:38:40.520 --> 1:38:43.360 paragraph telling her everything that's in the story, trying to 1:38:43.400 --> 1:38:45.639 convince her that it's not a hit piece on the clinic, 1:38:46.120 --> 1:38:48.040 and the family isn't buying it at all. The family 1:38:48.120 --> 1:38:50.360 is like, no, you're describing a hit piece on the 1:38:50.400 --> 1:38:55.599 clinic where Yeah, But they're left with this horrible, horrible 1:38:55.640 --> 1:38:59.080 conundrum because if they actually pull out of the article, 1:38:59.120 --> 1:39:01.920 which as far as I can tell, they really did 1:39:01.920 --> 1:39:04.120 have this agreement. Again, azine wouldn't talk to me, so 1:39:04.200 --> 1:39:06.720 like it's a little unclear what the agreement was or 1:39:07.320 --> 1:39:10.920 exactly what's going on here. But in the end they decided, 1:39:10.960 --> 1:39:13.479 you know, there's no evidence that this woman lied if 1:39:13.520 --> 1:39:15.320 we pull out of the story. So they felt that 1:39:15.360 --> 1:39:17.920 they had kind of no choice. Even though they felt 1:39:17.920 --> 1:39:21.200 completely betrayed, completely devastated that their story was going to 1:39:21.240 --> 1:39:23.360 be used in this way, they felt they had no 1:39:23.439 --> 1:39:24.280 choice but to stay in. 1:39:26.200 --> 1:39:28.200 Yeah, And then like the and the way that like 1:39:28.320 --> 1:39:31.400 it ends the article like is is basically like the 1:39:31.479 --> 1:39:34.719 article is like completely supportive of Jamie Reid, even though 1:39:34.720 --> 1:39:37.719 again demolishably in the article she is lying. 1:39:38.160 --> 1:39:40.880 Such a weird article. You find someone's lying, but you're 1:39:40.920 --> 1:39:43.800 still spending all of your words saying, well, so she's 1:39:43.800 --> 1:39:45.960 sort she lied this one time, but she's basically credible. 1:39:46.040 --> 1:39:46.680 Just bizarre. 1:39:47.400 --> 1:39:49.719 Yeah, and then you know, and the New York Times 1:39:49.760 --> 1:39:51.759 is response to this is like the piece you're referring 1:39:51.800 --> 1:39:54.200 to was rigorously a reporter and edited and thoughtful and 1:39:54.240 --> 1:39:57.040 sensitive to the moment. The time stands behind his publication. 1:39:57.080 --> 1:39:59.439 I'm reservedull It's like, well, yeah, of course, of course 1:39:59.479 --> 1:40:02.280 it meets the New York Times like incredibly demanding standards 1:40:02.280 --> 1:40:05.280 for journalism. These are the people who published like these 1:40:05.280 --> 1:40:08.080 are the people who published the yellow Cake Uranium story, 1:40:08.640 --> 1:40:12.840 like these people like these people have published things that 1:40:13.280 --> 1:40:16.400 like a a like these are these people have published 1:40:16.479 --> 1:40:20.120 off about the Iraq War that like British tabloids wouldn't publish. 1:40:20.240 --> 1:40:23.120 So like, yeah, it's it's not it's not I don't 1:40:23.120 --> 1:40:26.479 I don't think it's that surprising to me that, like 1:40:26.520 --> 1:40:28.920 the New York Times was like this passion editorial standards. 1:40:28.920 --> 1:40:31.879 But that's because again the New York Times backed Hitler 1:40:32.360 --> 1:40:36.960 and like deliberately good forth the entire country. You're starting 1:40:37.000 --> 1:40:39.360 a war by straight up lying about a bunch of 1:40:39.520 --> 1:40:40.639 stuff they knew was fake. 1:40:41.280 --> 1:40:43.360 Let me take a moment and say, there are a 1:40:43.400 --> 1:40:45.439 lot of reporters who work for the New York Times 1:40:45.520 --> 1:40:49.400 who do really great work, very very occasionally it's even 1:40:49.400 --> 1:40:52.040 about trans issues. But like it is certainly not a 1:40:52.080 --> 1:40:57.200 monolith of ridiculous nonsense. It's just all of the good 1:40:57.200 --> 1:41:00.479 work kind of camouflages the ridiculous nonsense. And them get 1:41:00.520 --> 1:41:02.679 it through when they when they go on a tear, 1:41:02.720 --> 1:41:06.519 when they go on a crusade against you know, against someone. 1:41:08.120 --> 1:41:12.040 Yeah, and I mean it's it's they. I don't know, 1:41:12.920 --> 1:41:18.800 New York Times. They they pick, they pick their moments 1:41:18.840 --> 1:41:22.639 to get incredibly ideological about this, and then they hide 1:41:22.720 --> 1:41:25.880 behind the more normal reporting they do in order to 1:41:25.920 --> 1:41:29.080 sort of like disguise the fact that again there's sort 1:41:29.120 --> 1:41:32.840 of this person knows that their sources lie is demonstrably 1:41:32.960 --> 1:41:35.800 lying to them. I just I don't know, it's it's 1:41:36.640 --> 1:41:38.719 the thing that was interesting to me about the story too, 1:41:38.760 --> 1:41:41.240 is that a zen as someone who up until this 1:41:41.320 --> 1:41:44.799 point like seems to it like like from from everything 1:41:44.840 --> 1:41:48.840 I had been aware of, A zine from. 1:41:48.280 --> 1:41:51.880 Asinine did really good me too, reporting, I believe. Yeah, 1:41:52.120 --> 1:41:54.120 the science astronomy. 1:41:53.640 --> 1:41:57.679 Community in astronomy, which I like. The thing I don't 1:41:57.680 --> 1:42:00.280 talk about enormously was that I did astronomy for a 1:42:00.320 --> 1:42:02.920 little bit. I didn't do very much astronomy, but there 1:42:02.960 --> 1:42:04.680 was a there was a small amount of time where 1:42:04.680 --> 1:42:07.320 I wanted to do astronomy, and so like I knew 1:42:07.360 --> 1:42:09.920 a bunch of the people like in that scene, as 1:42:09.960 --> 1:42:12.519 he had a very very good rep there, as like 1:42:12.560 --> 1:42:16.439 the person you could go to to talk about like 1:42:16.439 --> 1:42:19.280 like to do a B two story, which makes it 1:42:19.360 --> 1:42:22.200 even more weird that, you know, I guess this is 1:42:22.360 --> 1:42:25.479 just I don't know, I'm hesitant to just brush this 1:42:25.520 --> 1:42:28.680 off as sort of like trans brain, where like some 1:42:28.880 --> 1:42:31.080 like a sister reporter starts covering trans stuff and just 1:42:31.080 --> 1:42:34.080 completely loses their mind. But you know, it's it's a 1:42:34.200 --> 1:42:39.679 really startling and disturbing like shift from this person who 1:42:39.840 --> 1:42:43.280 had a very very good rep on yes, like as 1:42:43.320 --> 1:42:46.280 someone you could go to to like her standing in 1:42:46.360 --> 1:42:49.280 someone's car door trying to stop a family from driving 1:42:49.320 --> 1:42:52.040 away because they want because they don't want to be 1:42:52.080 --> 1:42:54.439 involved in a story where she's lying about them. 1:42:54.560 --> 1:42:57.280 Who who could have thought that a radical feminist could 1:42:57.280 --> 1:43:04.080 be trans exclusionary. It's just crazy people. 1:43:05.040 --> 1:43:07.519 People are complicated. It I think has to do with 1:43:07.600 --> 1:43:11.320 who she feels sympathy for, and women in science are 1:43:11.360 --> 1:43:13.360 maybe people that she feel sympathy for and who she 1:43:14.400 --> 1:43:17.160 or I have no idea what reason doesn't And like 1:43:17.640 --> 1:43:20.679 innocent parents of trans youth are apparently people she doesn't 1:43:20.720 --> 1:43:23.000 really have that empathy for, have. 1:43:23.000 --> 1:43:25.560 That ability to or the kids themselves apparently. 1:43:27.960 --> 1:43:30.280 I mean, as a transperson, I never expect a reporter. 1:43:30.080 --> 1:43:31.519 To have empathy for me. 1:43:31.960 --> 1:43:36.240 But these white parents, these middle class white parents, please, 1:43:36.400 --> 1:43:38.040 you must take them seriously. 1:43:41.400 --> 1:43:43.320 The other thing I think I wanted to talk about 1:43:43.520 --> 1:43:47.760 was the impact that this reporting has had on the 1:43:47.800 --> 1:43:50.320 broader So we we allude to this a little bit, 1:43:50.520 --> 1:43:53.120 but yeah, I wanted to talk a little bit about 1:43:53.240 --> 1:43:57.040 the way that right wing sort of right wing lawyers 1:43:57.120 --> 1:44:01.639 like right wing politicians have been using specifically this coverage 1:44:02.120 --> 1:44:06.120 and also sort of like the fear mongering around gender 1:44:06.160 --> 1:44:09.560 clinics as something they're using to support, like health to 1:44:09.600 --> 1:44:11.960 support healthcare bands, on trans youth. 1:44:13.160 --> 1:44:18.200 Yeah, Jamie Read's allegations directly resulted in a ban on 1:44:18.320 --> 1:44:23.440 gender affirming care in Missouri. You know, there were families 1:44:23.520 --> 1:44:27.400 that were going to the legislature week after week and 1:44:27.479 --> 1:44:30.720 we're keeping it at bay, and then these allegations came 1:44:30.720 --> 1:44:34.599 out and it fell apart and the care ban was passed. 1:44:34.840 --> 1:44:39.120 And you know, it would be bad enough if they 1:44:39.120 --> 1:44:43.360 found a bad clinic, but you know, there's nothing miraculous 1:44:43.360 --> 1:44:46.800 about doctors who treat trans people that makes them incapable 1:44:47.080 --> 1:44:49.680 of being an ethical you know, like it would have 1:44:49.680 --> 1:44:51.519 been devastating if it was the truth, but for it 1:44:51.560 --> 1:44:54.200 to have been, you know, all based on lies, is 1:44:54.400 --> 1:44:55.639 it's just a really tough blow. 1:44:57.080 --> 1:44:59.439 Yeah. I mean, like, you know, like I have friends there, 1:44:59.680 --> 1:45:04.240 and it's it's like it's bleak right now, and I 1:45:04.640 --> 1:45:08.599 think I've been really you know, I mean, I don't 1:45:08.600 --> 1:45:10.920 know why I would I expected these people to sort 1:45:10.920 --> 1:45:14.760 of like even remotely feel a single emotion about the 1:45:14.760 --> 1:45:19.000 fact that directly the stuff, the actions that they did 1:45:19.080 --> 1:45:22.160 led directly to a bunch of kids losing their health care. 1:45:22.640 --> 1:45:25.679 But you know, there's been no there's been no reckoning 1:45:25.720 --> 1:45:28.320 with this. Right as best I can tell neither the 1:45:28.320 --> 1:45:30.840 New York Times nor any of the journalists, involve, any 1:45:30.840 --> 1:45:32.560 of the editors, any publishers, none the people seem to 1:45:32.600 --> 1:45:35.519 care at all about the fact that they're about their 1:45:35.560 --> 1:45:38.519 work directly is leading to the suffering and possibly death 1:45:38.520 --> 1:45:43.519 of children. And I don't know, like I I this 1:45:43.600 --> 1:45:47.040 is one of those things where like either either something 1:45:47.080 --> 1:45:50.680 about this changes and you know, we get to a 1:45:50.720 --> 1:45:52.920 point where it's unacceptable to sort of do this kind 1:45:52.920 --> 1:45:55.200 of stuff, or we just you know, we wait for 1:45:55.240 --> 1:45:58.759 the next rounds of journalists to like find some absolute 1:45:58.880 --> 1:46:02.120 crank who they like dug out of some like Derain 1:46:02.160 --> 1:46:06.160 super Room MC mansions somewhere to like push push another 1:46:06.200 --> 1:46:09.519 one of these stories. Because right now, like this is 1:46:09.600 --> 1:46:11.880 this is disappears to just be an established path that 1:46:11.960 --> 1:46:14.200 you can use to sort of like you know, but 1:46:14.360 --> 1:46:16.120 from from both ends, right, the thing you can use 1:46:16.160 --> 1:46:17.960 the journalist's advantage career. It is the thing you can 1:46:18.120 --> 1:46:20.680 use as like a crank to be suddenly on the 1:46:20.680 --> 1:46:22.240 talk shows start going to get a bunch of money. 1:46:22.240 --> 1:46:26.360 It's just lying about all of this stuff, yep. 1:46:26.479 --> 1:46:30.600 And I mean, you know, you try to inject some accountability, 1:46:30.640 --> 1:46:33.720 but you can't make people listen. Yeah, this is what 1:46:33.760 --> 1:46:36.680 I do every day, and I'm going to keep doing it. 1:46:37.000 --> 1:46:39.760 But I'm under no illusions that since people are necessarily 1:46:39.760 --> 1:46:43.479 going to start listening, it's just you got to put 1:46:43.520 --> 1:46:44.000 it out there. 1:46:45.360 --> 1:46:45.599 Yeah. 1:46:45.640 --> 1:46:47.240 So, I guess two more things I wanted to ask 1:46:47.280 --> 1:46:50.120 about before we sort of wrap up. One is, Okay, so, 1:46:50.720 --> 1:46:53.679 on the off chance that there are SIS journalists listening 1:46:53.720 --> 1:46:57.760 to this, what kinds of things would you recommend to 1:46:57.840 --> 1:47:01.559 them to, like to to make sure you a don't 1:47:01.600 --> 1:47:03.679 fall down this rabbit hole, and b to make sure 1:47:03.680 --> 1:47:05.960 that if you are attempting to write a story that 1:47:06.120 --> 1:47:08.400 is good, that you get things right. 1:47:09.439 --> 1:47:13.479 Yeah. So, the trans Journalist Association recently published an updated 1:47:13.520 --> 1:47:18.200 style guide, which I would absolutely suggest people check out 1:47:18.200 --> 1:47:21.040 because it's much more in depth than anything that I 1:47:21.080 --> 1:47:26.400 can say. But I think that the biggest pitfall people 1:47:26.479 --> 1:47:31.240 have is thinking that they understand more than they do so, 1:47:32.720 --> 1:47:37.200 and I think that the kind of connected pitfall is 1:47:37.200 --> 1:47:39.720 is just a wow, there's smoke, there's fire, like, well, 1:47:39.760 --> 1:47:44.200 there must be more to the skeptical side than there 1:47:44.240 --> 1:47:48.000 really is. So while I, you know, always try to 1:47:48.280 --> 1:47:50.519 butter journalists up by saying you can make up your 1:47:50.560 --> 1:47:53.120 own mind and you know, look at the evidence. Like, 1:47:53.280 --> 1:47:56.519 really engage with trans people who are not just telling 1:47:56.560 --> 1:48:01.680 their stories, but who are science porters themselves, like myself. 1:48:02.080 --> 1:48:05.080 Really engage with experts who are not trans, but who 1:48:05.240 --> 1:48:08.679 understand this medical information and are representatives of a mainstream 1:48:08.680 --> 1:48:13.320 medical consensus, and really try to, you know, understand that 1:48:13.360 --> 1:48:15.439 the experts are experts for a reason, and the mainstream 1:48:15.479 --> 1:48:17.840 consensus is a mainstream consensus for a reason. And don't 1:48:17.840 --> 1:48:21.080 be so quick to just assume that a bunch of 1:48:21.080 --> 1:48:24.559 activists and cranks know something that everyone else is trying 1:48:24.560 --> 1:48:27.200 to keep from you, because that is a conspiratorial mindset 1:48:27.280 --> 1:48:30.760 that is below you as a mainstream cisgender journalist, and 1:48:30.800 --> 1:48:34.080 that you wouldn't be falling into with you know, masks 1:48:34.360 --> 1:48:37.679 or anti vacs or whatever. And it's just because trans 1:48:37.720 --> 1:48:40.040 people are marginalized that I think people are kind of 1:48:40.040 --> 1:48:41.559 falling for this crap and getting rolled. 1:48:42.360 --> 1:48:44.679 You are not a conspiratorial thing. 1:48:44.880 --> 1:48:46.560 Yeah, well, and this is this is something, This is 1:48:46.600 --> 1:48:49.400 some thing I'm going to talk about at length more 1:48:49.760 --> 1:48:54.599 in one day. The like sixty five thousand word thing 1:48:54.640 --> 1:48:56.760 that I've been writing about, the lab leak stuff is 1:48:56.800 --> 1:48:59.479 going to come out and you know, one of the 1:49:00.120 --> 1:49:05.160 god I have spent so many hours talking to epidemiologists. 1:49:05.200 --> 1:49:07.880 You have no idea, but one of the things that 1:49:07.920 --> 1:49:09.479 you know comes up there, and it comes up also 1:49:09.600 --> 1:49:13.400 just in general science, conspiratism is if someone like people 1:49:13.479 --> 1:49:19.000 who actually do normal science do not start yelling about 1:49:19.000 --> 1:49:22.840 how they're being censored by the scientific establishment and like 1:49:23.000 --> 1:49:25.400 there's a giant conspiracy to stop them from talking about 1:49:25.400 --> 1:49:29.880 their work, even people who legitimately are being like actually 1:49:29.880 --> 1:49:32.519 screwed over by scientific establishment, right, people who have been abused, 1:49:32.520 --> 1:49:35.519 people you know, like people of color, people from marginalized backgrounds, 1:49:35.520 --> 1:49:38.000 who like like, I know these people, right, I grew 1:49:38.040 --> 1:49:39.920 up with a bunch of these people. They don't talk 1:49:40.120 --> 1:49:43.720 like this about that. The only people who talk like 1:49:43.760 --> 1:49:46.880 this are absolute cranks. And it would be really great 1:49:47.040 --> 1:49:55.800 if journalists realized that actual scientists don't talk about science 1:49:56.479 --> 1:49:59.520 in a way where they're like, ah, the medical establishment 1:49:59.560 --> 1:50:01.880 is sensor me. I would I would love for that 1:50:01.960 --> 1:50:02.400 to happen. 1:50:02.560 --> 1:50:03.400 I don't know. 1:50:03.439 --> 1:50:07.280 I'm skeptical that it will happen because it's I mean, 1:50:07.640 --> 1:50:08.519 it's a great story. 1:50:09.280 --> 1:50:11.760 Everyone knows that there are times when the medical or 1:50:11.760 --> 1:50:16.040 when the medical or scientific establishment is wrong, You, as 1:50:16.080 --> 1:50:18.679 a lay journalist, are probably not going to be able 1:50:18.680 --> 1:50:21.880 to tell I am sorry which times those are so 1:50:22.520 --> 1:50:28.000 slow your role. Don't envision pulitzers and get grounded on 1:50:28.640 --> 1:50:31.400 you know what the basics are, instead of thinking that 1:50:31.600 --> 1:50:34.080 you kind of know better than the people who spend 1:50:34.120 --> 1:50:38.800 their lives researching. This is my entreaty to journalists who 1:50:39.160 --> 1:50:41.599 maybe don't realize how transphobia might be playing a role 1:50:41.680 --> 1:50:43.280 in there wanting to believe certain things. 1:50:45.320 --> 1:50:47.280 Yep, and I guess the last thing I wanted to 1:50:47.320 --> 1:50:49.960 ask you about. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about 1:50:49.960 --> 1:50:52.559 the trans Data Library because I'm very excited about this. 1:50:52.560 --> 1:50:53.640 This sounds rad. 1:50:54.200 --> 1:50:58.120 Yeah, So you know, a few months ago I started 1:50:58.160 --> 1:51:02.360 working and you know, with some other people in the 1:51:02.400 --> 1:51:06.360 trans community, most of whom are you know, staying anonymous 1:51:07.000 --> 1:51:12.600 on a resource to try and help people who you know, 1:51:12.640 --> 1:51:14.920 we've really envisioned people who are in good faith, but 1:51:15.000 --> 1:51:16.840 trans issues are not their main thing, you know what 1:51:16.880 --> 1:51:20.720 I mean? So like not somewhat not as Ingoatie, but 1:51:20.760 --> 1:51:23.640 maybe a Zingerashi of five years ago, you know what 1:51:23.680 --> 1:51:26.000 I mean, the person who's a journalist who wants to 1:51:26.000 --> 1:51:28.840 get the story right, but there's so much misinformation out there. 1:51:28.880 --> 1:51:31.400 There's so many groups with so many different names. They're 1:51:31.520 --> 1:51:35.640 very skilled sometimes as presenting themselves as you know, legitimate. 1:51:37.400 --> 1:51:41.240 So this is the trans Data Library upcoming hopefully by 1:51:41.280 --> 1:51:44.240 the end of the month, is going to be a 1:51:44.360 --> 1:51:50.760 kind of you know, Wikipedia for the user, not Wikipedia 1:51:50.920 --> 1:51:53.840 and not like edible by the community, because that's very 1:51:53.960 --> 1:51:58.519 bad idea for trans stuff. I mean, a resource on 1:51:58.840 --> 1:52:01.880 what are these groups, who are these activists, what have 1:52:01.920 --> 1:52:03.760 they done in the past. It is intended as a 1:52:03.800 --> 1:52:07.720 journalistic resource, not an activist resource, which just means, you know, 1:52:07.840 --> 1:52:10.519 if someone is there isn't anyone like this. But if 1:52:10.520 --> 1:52:13.080 someone is a Nobel Prize winning scientist, we're not going 1:52:13.160 --> 1:52:14.559 to pretend they didn't, you know what I mean. If 1:52:14.560 --> 1:52:17.720 someone has legitimate potentials, you will find that out. If 1:52:17.720 --> 1:52:21.120 someone has said things that are discrediting, you'll find that out. 1:52:21.120 --> 1:52:23.200 But it isn't just a list of the most discrediting 1:52:23.240 --> 1:52:27.479 things someone has said, and we are going to, you know, 1:52:27.600 --> 1:52:31.880 directly try to get this out to journalists, local journalists, 1:52:31.960 --> 1:52:35.479 particularly people again who have decent coverage, not people who 1:52:35.479 --> 1:52:38.080 are you know, already on a tear and to democratic 1:52:38.120 --> 1:52:41.920 politicians who similarly are you know, sympathetic but might need 1:52:41.960 --> 1:52:48.720 an extra source of information, and yeah, it is, it 1:52:48.800 --> 1:52:51.320 is coming. I want people to be aware of it 1:52:51.400 --> 1:52:53.840 so that they can start spreading it and sharing it 1:52:53.880 --> 1:52:55.800 when it does, so that we can hopefully try to, 1:52:57.360 --> 1:52:59.840 you know, just get some basic information into the hands 1:52:59.880 --> 1:53:01.920 of people who I think desperately need it. They may 1:53:01.960 --> 1:53:05.080 not know that they desperately need it, but desperately need 1:53:05.120 --> 1:53:07.519 basic information on some of these groups and some of 1:53:07.560 --> 1:53:08.560 these bad actors. 1:53:09.160 --> 1:53:12.240 I think that's definitely a good thing because there is 1:53:12.280 --> 1:53:15.280 a lot of information out there on the connections between 1:53:15.880 --> 1:53:17.680 you know, the sort of right wing grifters who come 1:53:17.720 --> 1:53:20.400 out of the woodworks talking about this stuff, and you know, 1:53:21.400 --> 1:53:26.519 they're they're they're they're they're sort of demonstrable links to 1:53:27.280 --> 1:53:30.760 far right extremist groups, to the Proud Boys, to you know, 1:53:30.920 --> 1:53:36.360 sort of right wing think tanks. But that's stuff that like, 1:53:38.160 --> 1:53:41.439 the the subset of trans people who spend their time 1:53:41.600 --> 1:53:44.760 doing this are all very well aware of, but the 1:53:45.600 --> 1:53:49.080 reporters who are sort of venturing into the space for 1:53:49.120 --> 1:53:53.360 the first time don't know about it all. And yeah, 1:53:53.479 --> 1:53:56.040 having having a thing we can put into their laps 1:53:56.120 --> 1:54:00.439 being like, hey, this is these are all the people 1:54:00.479 --> 1:54:03.439 who are like getting paid by the lines depending freedom 1:54:04.680 --> 1:54:07.240 yeah stuff, Yeah. 1:54:07.160 --> 1:54:10.560 Yeah, that's what I'm hoping to make. So the u 1:54:10.640 --> 1:54:13.439 RL is probably going to be trans Data Library dot org. 1:54:13.640 --> 1:54:15.840 It is a little broken right now. Go to a 1:54:15.920 --> 1:54:20.200 signedmedia dot org. You follow me, follow my Twitter, follow 1:54:20.240 --> 1:54:23.040 my project, and watch that space for the trans Data 1:54:23.120 --> 1:54:26.240 Library because I'm hoping it can do some good. 1:54:28.040 --> 1:54:33.160 Yeah, I'm I'm I'm excited for it. And yeah, do 1:54:33.280 --> 1:54:34.640 you have anything else do you want to say before 1:54:34.720 --> 1:54:35.240 we close up? 1:54:36.320 --> 1:54:38.000 I think that's it for me. Thank you so much 1:54:38.040 --> 1:54:41.200 for having me on. This was really fun and uh. 1:54:41.600 --> 1:54:44.960 Yeah yeah, thanks for coming and thanks thanks for reporting 1:54:45.000 --> 1:54:47.880 on the story, because lord knows, the rest of the 1:54:48.000 --> 1:54:49.280 media wasn't going to do it. 1:54:50.480 --> 1:54:51.640 That's why I started doing it. 1:54:54.280 --> 1:54:55.760 All right, this has been It can happen here. You 1:54:55.800 --> 1:54:58.080 can find us on Twitter, Instagram. It happened here, pods 1:54:58.400 --> 1:55:02.640 and yeah, go into the world and be better about 1:55:02.720 --> 1:55:04.280 this than The New York Times, which is not an 1:55:04.400 --> 1:55:07.240 enormously high bar, but it's a bar they consistently failed across. 1:55:07.720 --> 1:55:12.360 So you too could be superor have superior journalistic ethics. 1:55:12.760 --> 1:55:13.520 The New York Times. 1:55:14.040 --> 1:55:15.560 Ah, this is what I tell myself every day. 1:55:32.080 --> 1:55:35.240 Welcome everyone back to it could happen here a podcast 1:55:35.440 --> 1:55:40.600 about things falling apart, and sometimes stuff that's slightly less 1:55:40.640 --> 1:55:43.840 depressing than that, but not today. Today we're talking about 1:55:44.280 --> 1:55:47.840 the falling apart sort of thing, and are our you know, 1:55:48.000 --> 1:55:50.600 continuing coverage of what we like to call the crumbles. 1:55:50.640 --> 1:55:54.320 Here today leads us to a little state called New Mexico, 1:55:54.440 --> 1:55:58.880 and specifically a little city in New Mexico called Albuquerque. 1:56:00.040 --> 1:56:03.880 If you have been kind of casually skimming the news 1:56:04.280 --> 1:56:07.000 about the American Southwest, you might be aware that the 1:56:07.160 --> 1:56:11.160 governor of New Mexico has recently announced a ban on 1:56:11.480 --> 1:56:17.280 citizens carrying openly or concealed with a license, firearms within 1:56:17.480 --> 1:56:21.920 the county that contains Albuquerque. The justification for this is 1:56:22.000 --> 1:56:26.040 a recent surge in gun violence in the state, most 1:56:26.080 --> 1:56:30.080 of which is centered on Albuquerque. And this is there's 1:56:30.120 --> 1:56:33.160 a been a pretty over the last specifically the last year, 1:56:34.000 --> 1:56:38.360 a pretty dramatic increase in the number of shootings from 1:56:38.440 --> 1:56:41.040 twenty twenty one to twenty twenty two. The number of 1:56:41.080 --> 1:56:45.000 shootings in Albuquerque or murders, I should say, most of 1:56:45.040 --> 1:56:48.040 which are shootings, also about eighty four percent the number 1:56:48.080 --> 1:56:50.800 of murders in Albuquerque almost doubled. I think it's and 1:56:50.880 --> 1:56:53.040 I think still you know, it's gone down a little 1:56:53.040 --> 1:56:55.880 bit this year, but there's still about fifty percent higher 1:56:56.440 --> 1:57:01.040 than the normal rate. Now, as you might guess from 1:57:01.120 --> 1:57:04.640 the fact that you've probably watched Breaking Bad fifteen years 1:57:04.680 --> 1:57:08.920 ago or whatever, the drug trade, drug trafficking, drug deals 1:57:08.920 --> 1:57:11.280 gone bad have something to do with this. 1:57:11.440 --> 1:57:12.400 But I think this year. 1:57:13.120 --> 1:57:16.400 About seventeen something like that, seventeen twenty percent of the 1:57:16.960 --> 1:57:20.320 homicides in Albuquerque are drug related, but a much higher 1:57:20.400 --> 1:57:24.560 number above seventy percent. The police have given the kind 1:57:24.560 --> 1:57:29.920 of primary cause as individual disrespect. Now what does that mean, Well, 1:57:30.000 --> 1:57:32.000 it means kind of what you think of it. People 1:57:32.160 --> 1:57:34.600 getting into shit with each other and somebody pulls a gun. 1:57:34.760 --> 1:57:34.880 Right. 1:57:35.760 --> 1:57:38.960 A lot of these have been traffic related, and in fact, 1:57:39.080 --> 1:57:43.720 the shooting that kind of most directly inspired the governor's 1:57:44.160 --> 1:57:49.360 controversial legal measure was a road rage incident. About what 1:57:49.560 --> 1:57:53.480 was this, Yeah, on September ninth, I think it was. 1:57:54.520 --> 1:57:56.880 An eleven year old boy was shot and killed in 1:57:56.960 --> 1:57:59.400 a road rage incident as his family was leaving a 1:57:59.480 --> 1:58:03.080 minor league baseball game. It looks like his aunt cut 1:58:03.160 --> 1:58:07.919 off another driver. The driver followed them and fired seventeen 1:58:07.960 --> 1:58:11.320 shots into the car. The eleven year old boy was 1:58:11.600 --> 1:58:15.600 killed and his aunt is still in the hospital in 1:58:15.680 --> 1:58:20.320 the unstable condition at least last I checked after this shooting. 1:58:20.520 --> 1:58:22.600 And this is, by the way, you know, prior to this, 1:58:22.720 --> 1:58:24.480 there was another case where a little kid, I think 1:58:24.480 --> 1:58:27.160 a four year old was killed in another road rage 1:58:27.280 --> 1:58:30.840 shooting incident. We don't know who shot the kid in 1:58:30.960 --> 1:58:32.880 this instance. We don't know if it was a for example, 1:58:32.920 --> 1:58:37.240 a citizen legally carrying a firearm or somebody. Although in 1:58:37.400 --> 1:58:40.880 the state of New Mexico you are allowed to carry 1:58:41.920 --> 1:58:44.840 a loaded firearm in your vehicle. You're not allowed to 1:58:44.880 --> 1:58:47.080 walk around with it concealed without a license, but you're 1:58:47.080 --> 1:58:49.600 allowed to conceal it in your vehicle. The shooting that 1:58:49.840 --> 1:58:52.840 preceded this one, the road rage shooting, wasn't illegal shooting. 1:58:52.880 --> 1:58:54.760 It was because the guy was a drug dealer. He 1:58:54.840 --> 1:58:57.600 had illegal drugs on him, all that stuff. But yeah, 1:58:57.640 --> 1:59:04.280 it's messy. So really, in response to the governor's proclamation, 1:59:05.160 --> 1:59:08.440 there have been quite a bit of people have gotten angry, 1:59:08.560 --> 1:59:12.400 in part because the Supreme Court ruled fairly recently that 1:59:12.640 --> 1:59:16.200 you have a right to carry a concealed firearm. There 1:59:16.240 --> 1:59:18.879 are some barrier states can set up in terms of licensing, 1:59:18.960 --> 1:59:21.560 but you can't stop people from carrying, like you have 1:59:21.720 --> 1:59:25.040 to have a legal avenue for people to carry concealed firearms. 1:59:25.080 --> 1:59:26.920 That's something that the Supreme Court has said you have 1:59:26.960 --> 1:59:29.720 a right to do, and governors do not have the 1:59:29.840 --> 1:59:34.040 right to overrule that sort of thing on public health grounds. 1:59:34.120 --> 1:59:37.560 So this has become an increasingly contentious issue. We're going 1:59:37.640 --> 1:59:39.160 to talk about some of the things that have followed 1:59:39.200 --> 1:59:41.200 from this, but I want to bring on our source 1:59:41.280 --> 1:59:44.520 for the day, Lucas Herndon. Lucas is a New Mexico 1:59:44.680 --> 1:59:49.200 based activist, someone we've had on the show before as 1:59:49.280 --> 1:59:50.600 well as a gun owner. 1:59:50.680 --> 1:59:54.560 Lucas, Welcome to the program, Thanks Robert. Good to be back, 1:59:55.000 --> 1:59:57.360 sort of as always. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is 1:59:57.400 --> 2:00:00.480 a messy one. Yeah. 2:00:00.800 --> 2:00:03.800 So that was a good a good summary of of 2:00:04.240 --> 2:00:10.960 of what got us here this the the executive order 2:00:11.280 --> 2:00:17.880 was dropped Friday afternoon, and I immediately went to my 2:00:17.920 --> 2:00:20.120 work chat and said, hold on, y'all, this is going 2:00:20.160 --> 2:00:23.440 to be a wild weekend. And as you can imagine, 2:00:23.480 --> 2:00:28.240 it was. There has been incredible responses from sort of 2:00:28.360 --> 2:00:33.680 everybody on just sort of yeah, despite political ideologies. 2:00:34.160 --> 2:00:38.360 The responses have been swift and ranging in their. 2:00:40.600 --> 2:00:41.080 Loudness. 2:00:41.200 --> 2:00:44.960 Let's say, uh, and it's created uh yeah, national buzz. 2:00:45.520 --> 2:00:48.320 A number of right wing talking heads from the state 2:00:48.440 --> 2:00:52.280 have now you know, been brought into national talking spaces. 2:00:53.240 --> 2:00:58.880 We have seen the news bounce around the far right blogosphere. 2:00:58.200 --> 2:00:59.280 And you know, it's made it to. 2:01:00.800 --> 2:01:02.960 Alex Jones and that kind of ilk. 2:01:03.960 --> 2:01:04.160 Yeah. 2:01:04.200 --> 2:01:06.200 But then of course, you know, and so obviously there's 2:01:06.280 --> 2:01:09.040 there's that far end of the spectrum, and you know, 2:01:09.120 --> 2:01:11.640 then there's the response here in the state, which is 2:01:12.120 --> 2:01:16.440 you know, ranging from supportive, too indifferent, to angry. 2:01:16.280 --> 2:01:18.200 To all you know, all the different things you can 2:01:18.240 --> 2:01:20.840 think of. Yeah, one of the things people may be 2:01:20.960 --> 2:01:22.560 kind of confused about this. One of the things that's 2:01:22.600 --> 2:01:25.120 problematic about this is specifically the fact that it is 2:01:25.720 --> 2:01:29.880 restricting citizens who have concealed carry permits from continuing to 2:01:29.960 --> 2:01:34.480 carry in the county. States have a right to at 2:01:34.600 --> 2:01:37.440 least currently the Supreme Court has not you know, ruled 2:01:37.640 --> 2:01:39.880 counter to that. Currently have a right to restrict people 2:01:39.880 --> 2:01:42.320 from open carrying, and you have a right to restrict 2:01:42.360 --> 2:01:45.600 people from doing stuff like have unlicensed carrying a handgun 2:01:45.640 --> 2:01:48.240 in your car. Right in the state of Oregon, for example, 2:01:48.360 --> 2:01:51.120 you cannot carry a loaded weapon in your vehicle without 2:01:51.120 --> 2:01:54.080 a concealed carry permit. As far as I'm aware, there's 2:01:54.120 --> 2:01:56.560 not been any sort of constitutional challenge to that. There 2:01:56.640 --> 2:01:59.880 may be in the future, but the Supreme Court, you know, 2:02:00.080 --> 2:02:04.400 has ruled very differently on the issue of concealed firearms, 2:02:04.520 --> 2:02:07.720 and so that's a problem because, you know, regardless of 2:02:07.800 --> 2:02:10.040 what you think about how the law on concealed carry 2:02:10.040 --> 2:02:15.680 of firearms should be, the idea of a governor overturning 2:02:15.960 --> 2:02:18.280 a right like that, access to a right like that 2:02:18.480 --> 2:02:21.600 based on what they call the public health emergency is 2:02:21.920 --> 2:02:24.480 deeply concerning, you know, which is why you've had, you know, 2:02:24.600 --> 2:02:27.240 a surprising people come out against this, including David Hogg, 2:02:27.280 --> 2:02:29.680 who's one of the Parkland kids, and a gun control 2:02:29.720 --> 2:02:33.040 advocate who said, you know, the govenor simply doesn't have 2:02:33.120 --> 2:02:34.680 the right to do this, which is kind of more 2:02:34.800 --> 2:02:35.680 or less where I land. 2:02:36.800 --> 2:02:39.960 Yeah, and you know, and just to be clear, right, 2:02:40.360 --> 2:02:43.600 I'm not an attorney, but yeah, I am a gun 2:02:43.680 --> 2:02:47.600 owner and have exercised that right since I was legally 2:02:47.640 --> 2:02:50.280 allowed to do so. At eighteen, which was very long 2:02:50.320 --> 2:02:53.440 ago at this point. So, yeah, I've been I have 2:02:53.560 --> 2:02:56.000 been a New Mexico gun owner paying attention to things 2:02:57.080 --> 2:02:59.960 and how those laws affect me for quite a while. 2:03:00.000 --> 2:03:00.160 Well. 2:03:01.960 --> 2:03:04.000 One of the yeah, one of the interesting things about 2:03:04.040 --> 2:03:07.080 the executive order, and you sort of touched on it, 2:03:07.600 --> 2:03:10.920 is that the in in the in the order, it 2:03:11.080 --> 2:03:17.280 specifically limits having a firearm in your vehicle to traveling 2:03:17.680 --> 2:03:21.760 to any excluded place that she listed in the executive order. Right, 2:03:21.800 --> 2:03:25.080 So so there's there's a there's a ban on you know, 2:03:25.240 --> 2:03:27.360 carrying unless you're going to like X, Y or Z 2:03:27.520 --> 2:03:31.640 specific places, and that then is furthered that you can 2:03:31.720 --> 2:03:34.240 only have a firearm in your vehicle if you're traveling 2:03:34.280 --> 2:03:38.160 to one of the said places. So yeah, that's that 2:03:38.440 --> 2:03:44.080 is in direct contradiction to existing law because New Mexico, 2:03:44.800 --> 2:03:49.160 in ostensibly your home or your car is an extension 2:03:49.200 --> 2:03:52.800 of your home. You don't there is there There basically 2:03:53.000 --> 2:03:56.680 is no law about having a car firearm in your car, 2:03:58.560 --> 2:04:01.480 which has led to some weird things because so for instance, 2:04:02.120 --> 2:04:04.680 you can get a dui on a bicycle and so 2:04:04.960 --> 2:04:07.200 that law has actually been used that you can carry 2:04:07.280 --> 2:04:10.680 a concealed firearm like in a backpack on a bicycle, 2:04:10.960 --> 2:04:12.840 but the second you step off the bicycle, now you're 2:04:12.880 --> 2:04:15.480 in violation of the law unless you have a permit. So, 2:04:15.720 --> 2:04:20.240 you know, those specific pieces of gun law and her 2:04:20.280 --> 2:04:24.800 executive order, even in the state are at odds, let alone, 2:04:24.920 --> 2:04:29.160 whatever the maybe you know, the federal implications are yeah, 2:04:29.520 --> 2:04:30.480 and I. 2:04:30.560 --> 2:04:31.560 Think you know. 2:04:32.200 --> 2:04:34.160 One of the things that is kind of concerning about 2:04:34.200 --> 2:04:37.520 this to me is and that should be concerning about 2:04:37.520 --> 2:04:41.360 these people, is that I don't see how I can 2:04:41.440 --> 2:04:45.000 see an argument for saying we want to restrict the 2:04:45.200 --> 2:04:48.800 unlicensed carry of firearms in vehicles, right, because not a 2:04:48.880 --> 2:04:52.000 significant number of these shootings seem to have involved that. 2:04:52.080 --> 2:04:54.400 Although it is a little bit unclear. We don't know 2:04:54.480 --> 2:04:57.520 who carried out the most recent road raid shooting, so 2:04:58.000 --> 2:04:59.760 we don't know if that person was legally allowed to 2:04:59.800 --> 2:05:01.800 pass as a firearm. Right, we know that in at 2:05:01.880 --> 2:05:04.000 least one of the recent shootings that killed a kid, 2:05:04.440 --> 2:05:07.720 the person was, you know, had a dealing amount and 2:05:08.000 --> 2:05:10.800 what appeared to be a dealing like setup of you know, 2:05:11.040 --> 2:05:14.640 it was parceled out into baggies marijuana on him, which 2:05:14.720 --> 2:05:16.800 is illegal. I'm not making a moral statement about that 2:05:16.880 --> 2:05:18.920 I don't think it should be illegal to but it is, 2:05:19.120 --> 2:05:21.400 it is illegal, right Like, he was not carrying within 2:05:21.440 --> 2:05:25.760 the bounds of federal law. But restricting people from carrying 2:05:25.840 --> 2:05:30.200 licensed concealed handguns does not seem I mean, number one, 2:05:30.280 --> 2:05:33.080 I haven't seen evidence that like that's a major driver 2:05:33.240 --> 2:05:37.520 of gun violence. But number two, if a decent number 2:05:37.560 --> 2:05:41.200 of these shootings are people acting outside of the bounds 2:05:41.240 --> 2:05:43.720 of the law, which they appear to be, I don't 2:05:43.760 --> 2:05:48.080 see how restricting people from lawfully carrying a weapon is 2:05:49.920 --> 2:05:53.160 something that can that's going to make the problem better, 2:05:53.240 --> 2:05:56.160 right Like, it seems like you're kind of striking at 2:05:56.240 --> 2:06:00.000 this in an ineffective way that's going to galvanize resils 2:06:00.000 --> 2:06:02.680 distance to any kind of gun control, as opposed to 2:06:03.480 --> 2:06:06.400 going out with kind of a more limited and surgical 2:06:06.560 --> 2:06:09.360 approach to try and actually tackle the causes of the problem. 2:06:10.080 --> 2:06:13.560 Yeah, I mean, I think one of the reasons why 2:06:14.520 --> 2:06:17.440 being on your show to talk about this is worth 2:06:17.680 --> 2:06:20.680 thinking about. The last time I was on was, you know, 2:06:20.760 --> 2:06:25.480 earlier in the year when there we discovered that there 2:06:25.560 --> 2:06:28.760 was a GOP operative who had committed acts of violence 2:06:29.240 --> 2:06:33.320 in the form of shooting at Democrats elected Democrats up 2:06:33.440 --> 2:06:37.560 in the Bernoleo County area as an act of political 2:06:37.640 --> 2:06:42.680 violence and worth thinking about is that, you know, he 2:06:43.080 --> 2:06:47.440 was charged with firing a firing a firearm from a 2:06:47.520 --> 2:06:49.240 moving vehicle, which is a crime, like. 2:06:49.280 --> 2:06:54.880 It's a specific crime, which and also like very valid crime. 2:06:54.920 --> 2:06:57.480 You should not be you should never shoot from a 2:06:57.560 --> 2:06:58.360 moving vehicle. 2:06:58.640 --> 2:07:03.840 Like that's correct, that's press so the right, so we 2:07:04.080 --> 2:07:08.040 you know again yeah again not a lawyer, however, it 2:07:08.240 --> 2:07:11.280 seemed duplicative to have a law on the books that 2:07:11.360 --> 2:07:13.280 already there. 2:07:13.480 --> 2:07:15.240 It is a crime to fire your gun from a 2:07:15.320 --> 2:07:17.000 car already h. 2:07:17.440 --> 2:07:21.040 And people who have, people who have committed heinous acts 2:07:21.120 --> 2:07:25.120 of violence by violating that law could be and should 2:07:25.160 --> 2:07:28.000 be charged under that law. First of all, let me 2:07:28.080 --> 2:07:30.080 just say, like, if we believe in a car serial state, 2:07:30.080 --> 2:07:32.960 because that's a whole other moral question. However, if for 2:07:33.080 --> 2:07:36.720 the purposes of this conversation, however, if somebody is just 2:07:36.800 --> 2:07:38.640 driving down the street and has a gun in their car, 2:07:39.000 --> 2:07:41.560 does that create you know, are they are you know, 2:07:41.640 --> 2:07:47.040 are they committing a crime that feels conflicting and harmful? 2:07:48.160 --> 2:07:52.880 Yeah, And it's you know, as you there's a couple 2:07:52.880 --> 2:07:55.520 of things we should talk about here. I think one 2:07:55.600 --> 2:07:57.680 of them is what I what I consider to be 2:07:57.840 --> 2:08:01.400 a kind of a dishonest anti gun control argument that 2:08:01.480 --> 2:08:03.400 comes out from time to time, which is the idea 2:08:03.920 --> 2:08:07.880 that you shouldn't restrict access. You can't restrict access to 2:08:07.960 --> 2:08:11.520 firearms because criminals won't obey those laws. It's true, criminals 2:08:11.560 --> 2:08:14.200 don't obey like people who are committing gun crimes, are 2:08:14.280 --> 2:08:17.520 not obeying the law by definition the people who are 2:08:17.560 --> 2:08:23.640 committing gun crimes. But increased availability access to firearms makes 2:08:23.720 --> 2:08:25.720 it easier for people who are going to be bad 2:08:25.800 --> 2:08:28.800 actors to acquire firearms. Right regardless of what you think 2:08:28.880 --> 2:08:31.680 the legal remedy to that situation is, that is a 2:08:32.400 --> 2:08:36.160 pretty undeniable situation. I consider this to be quite different, 2:08:36.200 --> 2:08:38.000 because what you are saying in this instance is we 2:08:38.080 --> 2:08:41.960 are restricting We have people who are not acting legally 2:08:42.080 --> 2:08:44.600 with firearms they already own, So we are going to 2:08:44.960 --> 2:08:47.760 restrict people who are acting within the bounds of the 2:08:47.880 --> 2:08:51.040 law with firearms they own from behaving in a certain way, 2:08:51.800 --> 2:08:53.640 which I have a serious issue with. But I do 2:08:53.720 --> 2:08:56.280 think that there is a difference between those two kind 2:08:56.320 --> 2:09:00.680 of situations on a pretty fundamental level. I would agree 2:09:00.920 --> 2:09:06.560 and and and the disingenuous, knee jerk response from the 2:09:06.640 --> 2:09:11.920 far right over this, while completely expected, that's exactly what 2:09:12.080 --> 2:09:14.800 you know, that's exactly what they're doing, right, They're equating 2:09:15.640 --> 2:09:20.320 this ill informed, uh poorly worded however you want to say, 2:09:20.760 --> 2:09:23.760 they're they're they're taking this thing and using it as 2:09:23.840 --> 2:09:29.400 a pretense for all their uh far right propaganda extremes, 2:09:30.240 --> 2:09:33.160 you know, calling to impeach the governor because she's you know, 2:09:33.360 --> 2:09:36.240 intending to violate the constitution or some silliness like that, 2:09:37.560 --> 2:09:41.160 which is yeah, which is just yeah, it's that's just 2:09:41.840 --> 2:09:46.000 far right conspiracy mastormation, in my opinion, and it has 2:09:46.160 --> 2:09:50.040 galvanized them. Right, there's been an open carry protests already, 2:09:50.800 --> 2:09:53.960 and the sheriff saying or one of the sheriffs in 2:09:54.000 --> 2:09:56.360 the area saying like, I'm not going to we will 2:09:56.440 --> 2:09:57.920 not be enforcing this law. 2:09:58.600 --> 2:10:00.960 Well and and yeah, and I think that that's actually 2:10:01.000 --> 2:10:05.000 maybe something that for this podcast and for for your audience, 2:10:05.200 --> 2:10:08.840 for those longtime listeners who who followed this show, that 2:10:09.160 --> 2:10:11.919 to me is actually one of the most maybe interesting 2:10:12.120 --> 2:10:16.400 and like crumbles oriented parts of this Yes, yes, absolutely, yeah, 2:10:17.240 --> 2:10:21.080 so yeah. So yesterday the berno Leo County sheriff, who 2:10:21.800 --> 2:10:24.800 is an elected official and it is his county that 2:10:24.920 --> 2:10:29.000 the that this executive order effects, came out and said 2:10:29.000 --> 2:10:32.440 that he would not enforce it. He said that the 2:10:33.440 --> 2:10:35.880 uh he'd got he'd barely gotten a heads up from 2:10:35.960 --> 2:10:38.800 the governor, but he did admit that. You know, she 2:10:39.320 --> 2:10:41.200 she sort of like reached out to him, said hey, 2:10:41.240 --> 2:10:43.000 I'm gonna do this thing. I know you probably won't agree, 2:10:43.040 --> 2:10:45.080 and he's like, yeah, I don't agree, and she's like, okay, 2:10:45.160 --> 2:10:46.440 well we'll figure it out. 2:10:46.520 --> 2:10:52.000 And he was like, okay, I guess we will anyway. Uh. Yeah, 2:10:52.080 --> 2:10:54.320 So this he came out, made this announcement he's not 2:10:54.360 --> 2:10:58.920 going to enforce it. The the chief of police from 2:10:59.000 --> 2:11:03.360 the Albuquerque depart has more or less made the same intonation, 2:11:04.160 --> 2:11:09.760 with support from the very progressive Democratic mayor of Albuquerque, 2:11:10.120 --> 2:11:13.320 who hasn't necessarily outright said he disagrees, but has said 2:11:13.360 --> 2:11:16.560 that he's more concerned about his officer's safety. And that 2:11:16.680 --> 2:11:19.520 brings up an interesting point that like, oh yes, like 2:11:19.840 --> 2:11:22.760 like cops trying to enforce this law like that sounds 2:11:22.840 --> 2:11:25.200 like a recipe for disaster, which is which is why 2:11:25.360 --> 2:11:29.600 you didn't see any cops enforcing the the order at 2:11:29.640 --> 2:11:33.840 the protest on Sunday. Yeah, and it is one of 2:11:33.920 --> 2:11:37.880 those like why why would you write like that's such 2:11:37.960 --> 2:11:38.560 a yeah. 2:11:39.200 --> 2:11:39.400 Yeah. 2:11:39.800 --> 2:11:42.040 So the most recent thing this afternoon is that the 2:11:42.840 --> 2:11:46.920 the state's attorney attorney general, whose whose job it is 2:11:47.080 --> 2:11:50.800 to defend the state or you know, officers of the state, 2:11:51.680 --> 2:11:55.440 has announced that he will not defend the governor in 2:11:55.560 --> 2:11:59.640 his official capacity from the three current lawsuits that have 2:11:59.680 --> 2:12:04.920 all right been filed since Friday. So so yeah, there 2:12:05.080 --> 2:12:08.720 there basically seems to be this complete lack of support 2:12:08.920 --> 2:12:13.000 from the from the parts of government that are supposed 2:12:13.040 --> 2:12:18.120 to do the things you know, yeah, absolutely, and and 2:12:18.480 --> 2:12:21.480 you know, it begs the yeah, it for those of 2:12:21.600 --> 2:12:25.960 us that think about these things, it begs the question of, yeah, 2:12:26.040 --> 2:12:28.640 how far does this go? What is the next you 2:12:28.720 --> 2:12:33.080 know thing that a sitting governor attempts to pass using 2:12:33.280 --> 2:12:36.440 administrative power and then isn't enforced, And what does that mean? 2:12:36.520 --> 2:12:38.880 And how do we care about this one but not 2:12:39.040 --> 2:12:41.480 other things or you know whatever? So those are those 2:12:41.520 --> 2:12:44.000 are the questions that that we're all asking ourselves here 2:12:44.080 --> 2:12:47.000 in New Mexico, And as somebody who works in this 2:12:47.160 --> 2:12:49.680 field professionally, like we've spent a lot of time in 2:12:49.720 --> 2:12:52.360 the last forty eight hours, like asking ourselves those questions. 2:12:52.920 --> 2:12:55.000 It's tough, it's there, there is a there isn't an 2:12:55.040 --> 2:12:55.920 easy answer. 2:12:55.720 --> 2:12:56.160 On this one. 2:12:57.280 --> 2:12:59.400 And this is something by the way, that is I 2:12:59.440 --> 2:13:03.400 think pretty directly relevant to everybody listening because one of 2:13:03.560 --> 2:13:07.320 the stories probably under reported stories. We've talked about it 2:13:07.360 --> 2:13:09.720 from time to time here, you know, it was something 2:13:09.760 --> 2:13:12.680 that kind of was in the DNA of the original 2:13:12.920 --> 2:13:15.240 you know, run of it could happen here, but probably 2:13:15.360 --> 2:13:17.240 we could stand to talk about it a lot more. 2:13:17.440 --> 2:13:20.960 Is the rise of the most common term these guys 2:13:21.040 --> 2:13:23.760 use for themselves as constitutional sheriffs, right, And there is 2:13:23.840 --> 2:13:26.280 this this is a long standing belief on the far right. 2:13:26.360 --> 2:13:28.920 It comes out of really the seventies and eighties is 2:13:28.960 --> 2:13:31.320 when a lot of this stuff started cooking. But this 2:13:31.640 --> 2:13:35.880 belief that has kind of formed over you know, particularly 2:13:36.000 --> 2:13:40.640 the last twenty years, that the sheriff constitutionally is the 2:13:40.760 --> 2:13:45.560 highest law of the land, basically, right. And so you 2:13:45.680 --> 2:13:49.800 can have sheriffs who refuse to particularly and this is 2:13:49.800 --> 2:13:52.360 where it comes in most often refuse to enforce gun 2:13:52.760 --> 2:13:57.800 control laws, right. And this has sort of you've got 2:13:57.840 --> 2:13:59.120 a lot, you know, a lot of some of this 2:13:59.280 --> 2:14:01.320 came got sort of like mixed in with a lot 2:14:01.360 --> 2:14:05.520 of the election bullshit on the right, where like you 2:14:05.600 --> 2:14:08.320 had a lot of sheriffs, you know, there was a 2:14:08.360 --> 2:14:10.640 lot of concern as to how they would respond to 2:14:11.280 --> 2:14:15.080 states and the federal government sort of enforcing, you know, 2:14:16.920 --> 2:14:20.120 or stopping, you know, the Trump administration from doing certain 2:14:20.160 --> 2:14:22.200 things around the counting of votes. You know, there was 2:14:22.240 --> 2:14:24.600 a lot of real concern about that. And I think 2:14:24.640 --> 2:14:26.400 this is something that is going to continue to be 2:14:26.440 --> 2:14:27.720 more and more of a problem because a lot of 2:14:27.800 --> 2:14:32.280 these sheriffs departments are completely out of fucking pocket, right 2:14:32.400 --> 2:14:35.920 these are. And by the way, with sheriff departments, not 2:14:36.120 --> 2:14:40.000 that being part of a police hierarchy in a traditional 2:14:40.120 --> 2:14:45.000 sense provides much restraint, But sheriffs are completely fucking out 2:14:45.080 --> 2:14:47.640 there right like they are there are not It does 2:14:47.760 --> 2:14:49.960 vary from state to state, but there's not any sort 2:14:50.000 --> 2:14:52.800 of like central requirement about like what it takes to 2:14:52.920 --> 2:14:55.040 be a sheriff or a sheriff's deputy. A lot of 2:14:55.080 --> 2:14:57.800 them are just dudes, right Like That's why you had 2:14:58.280 --> 2:15:00.640 it was either in New Mexico or Arizona, like a 2:15:00.680 --> 2:15:04.160 small sheriff's department basically selling to like celebrities. You can 2:15:04.240 --> 2:15:07.040 become a sheriff's deputy here like work a week and 2:15:07.080 --> 2:15:08.920 a year, and then you can carry a concealed handgun 2:15:09.000 --> 2:15:12.960 wherever because cops get that, right, you know, right right, yeah. 2:15:13.600 --> 2:15:16.560 Yeah, So I just want to be clear because what 2:15:16.680 --> 2:15:19.440 you're talking about and how it pertains to New Mexico 2:15:20.320 --> 2:15:23.480 is both one hundred percent correct and has and has 2:15:23.640 --> 2:15:29.120 and has happened here, it could happen here is But 2:15:29.240 --> 2:15:32.920 in the case of this issue right now, bring up yeah, yeah, 2:15:33.000 --> 2:15:35.760 bernal Leo County sheriff took office this year. 2:15:36.080 --> 2:15:38.840 He is a Democrat. He's a man of color. 2:15:39.440 --> 2:15:39.920 Uh not. 2:15:40.440 --> 2:15:43.040 This is not me making excuses for cops, cuse, but 2:15:43.240 --> 2:15:44.800 I just to be clear about this. 2:15:45.520 --> 2:15:49.280 And he is generally disliked by the right and has 2:15:49.360 --> 2:15:52.280 been seen as you know whatever, soft on crime and stuff, 2:15:52.280 --> 2:15:55.320 which he hates and has tried. He's tried real hard 2:15:55.360 --> 2:16:01.920 to sort of buck that position, and and so and 2:16:02.120 --> 2:16:05.120 and that, which which makes this all the maybe worse 2:16:05.320 --> 2:16:08.920 right that that Yeah, yeah, a Democrat elected in a 2:16:09.040 --> 2:16:13.560 democratic county with a you know, the city, the state's 2:16:13.640 --> 2:16:17.720 largest democratic municipality, right, like, for that guy to be 2:16:17.840 --> 2:16:19.800 like yeah, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna do this. 2:16:20.680 --> 2:16:23.880 And and I also there's something that needs to be 2:16:23.960 --> 2:16:29.920 said here. You you cited some great, well tragic statistics 2:16:29.920 --> 2:16:34.840 about my state and specifically about Albuquerque earlier, and and 2:16:35.000 --> 2:16:38.400 this is a public health crisis, right gotten by absolutely yeah. 2:16:38.280 --> 2:16:38.640 It's out. 2:16:39.160 --> 2:16:42.720 When you're seeing the number of homicides basically double, you 2:16:42.800 --> 2:16:44.680 know in the space of a fucking year, that that 2:16:44.879 --> 2:16:47.439 is a that's a crist Something needs to be done. 2:16:47.360 --> 2:16:48.360 Right, right right. 2:16:48.879 --> 2:16:52.360 And and so one of one of one of the 2:16:52.440 --> 2:16:55.720 big things that hasn't I don't think been said loud 2:16:55.840 --> 2:17:00.520 enough is that if if we you know, you know, 2:17:01.080 --> 2:17:03.360 if we all agree that it is a crisis, a 2:17:03.640 --> 2:17:07.400 thirty day ban is not gonna it's not going to 2:17:07.480 --> 2:17:09.480 do anything, and it's certainly not going to address the 2:17:09.560 --> 2:17:14.560 root causes. And I actually, very reluctantly have to hand 2:17:14.600 --> 2:17:17.440 it to the sheriff for his statements yesterday, because, as 2:17:17.520 --> 2:17:21.920 he put it, he has enough crime to deal with, 2:17:22.560 --> 2:17:25.000 He's got enough going on that his deputies have to 2:17:25.320 --> 2:17:28.840 have to deal with right now to then go and 2:17:29.040 --> 2:17:33.400 enforce this arbitrary rule or you know order. It's not 2:17:33.480 --> 2:17:35.480 a it's not a lot, it's but you know what 2:17:35.560 --> 2:17:38.880 I mean. So so that's another thing, right, like, this 2:17:39.040 --> 2:17:42.120 is your You're we're dealing with a public health crisis 2:17:42.200 --> 2:17:45.480 by putting the impetus on law enforcement, which is the 2:17:45.520 --> 2:17:48.520 whole problem with you know, the way that this country 2:17:48.600 --> 2:17:53.400 deals with you know, the quote unquote drug problem. And 2:17:53.800 --> 2:17:56.600 and let's be very clear here, when the governor issued 2:17:56.640 --> 2:18:00.400 her order on Friday, she issued two orders. One is 2:18:00.520 --> 2:18:03.920 called the one with the one with dealing with guns, 2:18:04.400 --> 2:18:07.199 is declaring state of Public Health Emergency due to gun violence. 2:18:07.480 --> 2:18:10.000 But at the same time, she issued one saying declaring 2:18:10.040 --> 2:18:13.640 State of Public Health Emergency due to drug abuse. And there, 2:18:13.720 --> 2:18:17.280 you know, for her, these things are related, and and 2:18:17.400 --> 2:18:22.280 she's you know, she's trying to time together. And I 2:18:22.360 --> 2:18:26.080 think we all know that given the last forty years 2:18:26.120 --> 2:18:30.640 of American history dealing with drugs via you know, law 2:18:30.760 --> 2:18:34.560 enforcement has not done anything to help the problem. And 2:18:36.080 --> 2:18:39.240 so that it just again, this is one of those 2:18:39.240 --> 2:18:43.720 things where it feels counterintuitive for a governor who you know, 2:18:44.000 --> 2:18:48.600 generally the Democrats of this state support, who has won 2:18:48.640 --> 2:18:51.920 by fairly large margins in both of her elections and 2:18:52.200 --> 2:18:55.480 and has a Democratic majority in her legislature. 2:18:56.760 --> 2:19:02.240 That for her then to issue this order and put 2:19:02.400 --> 2:19:06.960 more requirements on her law enforcement that she's expecting to 2:19:07.160 --> 2:19:09.520 you know, also then carry it just doesn't it doesn't 2:19:09.520 --> 2:19:14.560 make sense, right, And so that's where we're all scramblings. 2:19:15.040 --> 2:19:17.520 There's a couple of things that make this so dangerous. 2:19:17.560 --> 2:19:21.080 One is that it's this unnecessary own goal, right, you know, 2:19:21.320 --> 2:19:23.720 as you stated, this is not this and I didn't 2:19:23.760 --> 2:19:25.760 want to be sort of intimating that he was. That 2:19:25.920 --> 2:19:30.360 this sheriff is not particularly tied in directly to some 2:19:30.480 --> 2:19:34.320 of these longer standing weird constitutional sheriff things, but it 2:19:34.440 --> 2:19:38.920 does tie into this this pattern of sort of conservatives 2:19:39.280 --> 2:19:44.520 backing sheriffs against state power and against federal power that 2:19:44.640 --> 2:19:47.240 they dislike. And in this case, one of the things 2:19:47.280 --> 2:19:49.400 that makes this so toxic is they have a point, right, 2:19:49.560 --> 2:19:54.240 this order is not constitutional, and giving them ammunition like 2:19:54.360 --> 2:19:58.800 that is number one. It strengthens right wing organizing in 2:19:58.920 --> 2:20:01.760 a way that is you know, dangerous, but also it's 2:20:01.879 --> 2:20:05.840 completely unnecessary, It's completely it does not address the problem, 2:20:05.920 --> 2:20:09.680 and the problem is is very like, extremely serious, and 2:20:09.760 --> 2:20:14.920 so I find this kind of distracting from realistic solutions here, 2:20:15.120 --> 2:20:17.840 you know, which which by the way, can can you know, 2:20:18.000 --> 2:20:23.480 probably do to some extent involve restricting you know, uh 2:20:23.879 --> 2:20:27.400 certain the ability of people to carry in certain situations, 2:20:27.480 --> 2:20:29.440 to carry in certain ways in certain situations. 2:20:29.520 --> 2:20:32.320 I think one of the yeah, oh yeah, no, no, 2:20:32.520 --> 2:20:34.600 you have well I was just gonna I just want to, 2:20:34.680 --> 2:20:37.560 you know, for for folks interested in, you know, what 2:20:37.760 --> 2:20:40.960 New Mexico has done. Things that have happened in the 2:20:41.440 --> 2:20:44.920 under this administration, are there are There have been some 2:20:45.120 --> 2:20:48.640 advancements that as a gun owner I support. One was 2:20:48.760 --> 2:20:52.280 closing private sales as a thing. You know, I grew 2:20:52.400 --> 2:20:58.280 up buying guns out of the backs of cars. Uh wild, 2:20:58.480 --> 2:21:01.000 I have some wild stories about that, but that was 2:21:01.040 --> 2:21:03.080 a fully legal thing to do. We had private sales 2:21:03.240 --> 2:21:05.160 in this in the state. I've bought a lot of 2:21:05.280 --> 2:21:05.840 car guns. 2:21:06.640 --> 2:21:10.160 Yeah, yeah, And it is fun, but we should probably 2:21:10.920 --> 2:21:16.840 probably that's not probably should be probably probably and and 2:21:17.440 --> 2:21:21.320 and especially for those of us that don't have anything 2:21:21.480 --> 2:21:24.840 restricting us from by purchasing firearms, there's no reason to 2:21:24.959 --> 2:21:25.720 not just anyway. 2:21:26.400 --> 2:21:28.600 So so that being said, so the New Mexico did 2:21:28.879 --> 2:21:32.480 did end private sales, So that's one thing, and then 2:21:32.560 --> 2:21:37.480 this last year we instituted It's not a full safe 2:21:37.520 --> 2:21:41.000 storage law, but it goes a long way into instituting 2:21:41.040 --> 2:21:45.640 a safe storage law. It specifically creates a situation where 2:21:45.879 --> 2:21:49.440 if a minor gets access to a gun that was 2:21:49.480 --> 2:21:51.600 not secured and then commits a crime with it, then 2:21:51.840 --> 2:21:54.400 the per the owner of that firearm, is then held liable. 2:21:55.600 --> 2:21:59.520 And it has been used now twice and two fairly 2:21:59.600 --> 2:22:03.640 high pro file tragic shootings in the state. I should 2:22:03.680 --> 2:22:06.480 note here a decent number of the recent spike and 2:22:06.560 --> 2:22:11.440 homicides have been children getting access to firearm zoned by adults, 2:22:11.879 --> 2:22:16.760 either accidentally or purposefully using them to shoot and kill people. Right, yeah, 2:22:16.800 --> 2:22:19.400 so as you yeah, the law, the laws. The law 2:22:19.480 --> 2:22:22.600 is called the Benny Hargrove Act, which was named in 2:22:23.040 --> 2:22:25.039 honor of a of a young man who was killed 2:22:25.080 --> 2:22:27.720 at a middle school by a fellow middle schooler with 2:22:27.840 --> 2:22:29.560 a gun that the guy got off of. You know 2:22:29.680 --> 2:22:31.440 that the kid got out of a you know, a 2:22:31.520 --> 2:22:35.640 bedside drawer. And uh yeah, And as again, as a 2:22:35.720 --> 2:22:38.920 firearm owner, like I'm sitting across from my safe right now, 2:22:39.080 --> 2:22:43.280 I keep my guns locked up. So there are there 2:22:43.360 --> 2:22:47.040 are practical solutions here, yes, And and I know that 2:22:47.160 --> 2:22:49.400 this country has a hard time talking about guns without 2:22:49.440 --> 2:22:53.320 it getting out of pocket very quickly. But there are 2:22:53.480 --> 2:22:57.680 practical solutions we have. You know, one of the interesting 2:22:57.760 --> 2:23:02.040 responses from Democratic lawmakers in the state over the last 2:23:02.200 --> 2:23:05.520 you know, three days has been a call for a 2:23:05.560 --> 2:23:08.320 special session of our legislature to discuss what some of 2:23:08.360 --> 2:23:11.160 those things might be. The trouble with that is that 2:23:11.440 --> 2:23:13.760 in everybody's got this like knee jerk thing and everybody 2:23:13.840 --> 2:23:16.560 wants to talk about crime. I'm using big air quotes 2:23:16.600 --> 2:23:22.680 crime and and which is in direct counter you know, 2:23:22.800 --> 2:23:25.279 counterance to the idea that this is a public health crisis. 2:23:25.800 --> 2:23:28.600 So you know, we have a lot of reservations about 2:23:29.080 --> 2:23:31.680 what what might come out of a session like that. 2:23:32.920 --> 2:23:34.080 We would have to do a lot of work to 2:23:34.160 --> 2:23:38.000 protect you know, some of the things we've we've you know, 2:23:38.040 --> 2:23:42.360 we've done a lot to protect people from the car 2:23:42.480 --> 2:23:45.880 cerial system in this state, which is hell a predatory, 2:23:47.040 --> 2:23:49.000 and so those are protections we want to keep, you know, 2:23:49.120 --> 2:23:51.640 keep in place. But it's easy for the right of 2:23:51.720 --> 2:23:54.640 course to blame like that's the reason, the reason, the 2:23:54.720 --> 2:23:58.240 reason why shootings have increased is because we let people 2:23:58.680 --> 2:24:02.560 who've been arrested for you know, petty theft or something 2:24:02.640 --> 2:24:06.320 out of out of jail, and for some reason that's 2:24:06.440 --> 2:24:08.760 why crime is up. I don't know, it doesn't make sense, 2:24:08.800 --> 2:24:12.160 but anyway, so you know, it's even even with the 2:24:12.280 --> 2:24:16.760 solutions come more problems. But but yeah, there does seem 2:24:16.840 --> 2:24:21.680 to be this the the unintended consequences of this order 2:24:22.200 --> 2:24:25.600 seem to be the not just the backlash, but then 2:24:25.640 --> 2:24:28.720 the sort of non support from folks who would otherwise 2:24:28.760 --> 2:24:29.440 be supporting her. 2:24:29.600 --> 2:24:33.080 So I kind of want to close probably by talking 2:24:33.120 --> 2:24:34.840 about and thank you for that, by the way, for 2:24:34.920 --> 2:24:37.720 that context for talking about what I think is the 2:24:37.920 --> 2:24:40.960 underlying A big part of the underlying cause you that 2:24:41.080 --> 2:24:43.560 is also a big part of a surge and violence 2:24:43.600 --> 2:24:46.480 in a number of states nationwide, which is that like 2:24:47.720 --> 2:24:50.720 people are a lot of a significant chunk of this 2:24:50.879 --> 2:24:56.280 country has become unhinged since COVID. I kind of suspect 2:24:56.320 --> 2:24:57.840 that has a lot to do with it. But you 2:24:57.959 --> 2:25:01.119 are seeing in a number of states a significant amount 2:25:01.160 --> 2:25:07.440 of like anti social violence, violence that occurs because somebody 2:25:07.480 --> 2:25:10.320 cuts somebody off in traffic, somebody gets into an argument 2:25:10.440 --> 2:25:12.640 at a store, you know, somebody gets into an argument 2:25:12.720 --> 2:25:14.720 at a parking lot. There have been a number of 2:25:14.800 --> 2:25:17.720 shootings as a result of this, it's happened. You know, 2:25:17.959 --> 2:25:19.760 this is a big part of the rise and gun 2:25:19.840 --> 2:25:22.600 violence in Texas, which is also tied I think, to 2:25:22.680 --> 2:25:25.320 permitless carry to an extent, but like it is broader 2:25:25.360 --> 2:25:28.599 than that too, Right, this is not purely a access 2:25:28.720 --> 2:25:31.200 to guns, is why a lot of these crimes involved guns. 2:25:31.560 --> 2:25:35.959 But there's just been this rise in anti social violence, 2:25:36.040 --> 2:25:39.160 a lot of which comes out of arguments or perceived 2:25:39.240 --> 2:25:42.040 disrespect between one person and a group of people or 2:25:42.080 --> 2:25:45.720 two people or whatever. And I think this is probably 2:25:45.920 --> 2:25:48.320 tied into with a lot of the you know, increase 2:25:48.360 --> 2:25:50.560 in political violence we've seen, because a decent amount of 2:25:50.600 --> 2:25:52.960 it does arise out of that. And this is part 2:25:52.959 --> 2:25:55.200 of what I think is kind of disheartening about the 2:25:55.240 --> 2:25:57.520 governor's response here, is that this is a very serious 2:25:57.600 --> 2:26:02.280 problem and the kind of knee jerk reactions don't help it. 2:26:02.440 --> 2:26:06.280 But also, like I don't know what does right. You 2:26:06.360 --> 2:26:10.360 can deal with aspects of this problem, Right, maybe if 2:26:10.400 --> 2:26:12.720 people aren't just able to throw a gun in their 2:26:12.800 --> 2:26:16.080 pants and legally be carrying, there will be less of 2:26:16.160 --> 2:26:21.000 these shootings, But that doesn't deal with all of the 2:26:21.160 --> 2:26:26.200 underlying problem. And I don't really know what does this 2:26:26.400 --> 2:26:30.320 kind of like increased willingness of Americans to resort to 2:26:30.480 --> 2:26:34.000 violence in interpersonal conflicts is a real issue. 2:26:34.600 --> 2:26:36.680 Yeah, oh man, you said enough. 2:26:39.760 --> 2:26:44.160 Yeah, I think that, you know, I'm thinking of I'm 2:26:44.200 --> 2:26:47.920 thinking about the first time I was able to go 2:26:48.240 --> 2:26:53.760 to a school function of my daughters after after COVID 2:26:53.840 --> 2:26:58.080 orders were lifted. And I remember I was was with 2:26:58.160 --> 2:27:01.040 a family member and they were, you know, they were 2:27:01.440 --> 2:27:05.359 the commenting on sort of people's bad behavior in the auditorium, 2:27:06.200 --> 2:27:07.760 and you know, and I had to remind them. I 2:27:07.879 --> 2:27:13.240 was like, you know, the these people have not been outside, yeah, 2:27:14.320 --> 2:27:17.320 in a year and a half, and you know, and 2:27:17.560 --> 2:27:20.400 like specifically, like some of these little kids that are 2:27:20.440 --> 2:27:23.760 running around, they maybe have never been to a function 2:27:24.000 --> 2:27:26.080 like this, you know what I mean. Like by the time, 2:27:26.440 --> 2:27:28.200 by the time most three or four year olds have 2:27:28.600 --> 2:27:30.360 are going to i don't know, like a baseball game 2:27:30.480 --> 2:27:32.680 or a band concert, you know, they've at some point 2:27:32.720 --> 2:27:34.080 it's the first time, but you know, they get used 2:27:34.080 --> 2:27:36.160 to it, they start to understand the rules of things. 2:27:37.000 --> 2:27:39.120 But yeah, like after you know, if you grow up 2:27:39.200 --> 2:27:40.800 and you're all of a sudden, you're five and you've 2:27:40.840 --> 2:27:42.280 never been to something like this like you don't know, 2:27:42.320 --> 2:27:44.160 you're supposed to sit down and be quiet, listen to 2:27:44.240 --> 2:27:46.000 the thing, right, like you're just just sitting on your 2:27:46.040 --> 2:27:47.320 phone anyway. 2:27:47.640 --> 2:27:51.440 So yeah, I definitely agree with you. I think in 2:27:51.600 --> 2:27:53.640 New Mexico we're not. 2:27:53.760 --> 2:27:56.440 Isolated from other states in the sense that we have 2:27:56.720 --> 2:28:01.600 arise in drug use and related We're not isolated in 2:28:01.640 --> 2:28:03.360 the sense we have a rise in you know, our 2:28:03.400 --> 2:28:06.840 houseless population, uh in in lack of job or at 2:28:06.920 --> 2:28:11.320 least good jobs, and and all of those things come 2:28:11.360 --> 2:28:14.160 together to make life hard, you know. And when life 2:28:14.240 --> 2:28:17.560 is hard, it it impacts people and they make, you know, 2:28:17.680 --> 2:28:22.879 bad decisions. The thing that I think does hurt New 2:28:22.959 --> 2:28:26.280 Mexico and and and is maybe what makes New Mexico 2:28:26.920 --> 2:28:30.000 unfortunately sort of stand out from some of its issues 2:28:30.160 --> 2:28:33.480 is you know, we are a very rural state. We 2:28:33.560 --> 2:28:36.920 have one fairly large city in Albuquerque, but even then, 2:28:37.560 --> 2:28:39.760 the surrounding parts of Albuquerque, just like the rest of 2:28:39.840 --> 2:28:43.879 the state, are very rural, and there's a certain amount 2:28:44.080 --> 2:28:46.720 of you know, we just as a state, we are 2:28:46.800 --> 2:28:49.160 lacking resources and always have you know, we rely so 2:28:49.240 --> 2:28:53.800 heavily on one industry and without without the systems in 2:28:53.920 --> 2:28:57.600 place to ensure that people have a place to live 2:28:57.760 --> 2:29:00.400 or you know, a meal to get ob to go 2:29:00.560 --> 2:29:03.760 to recreation, that they can afford things like that. 2:29:03.959 --> 2:29:07.200 I mean, it is tough. It is just tough out there. 2:29:07.400 --> 2:29:10.560 And I'm I'm privileged and I get to you know, 2:29:10.760 --> 2:29:13.400 I'm I'm raising my daughter in a home that you know, 2:29:13.480 --> 2:29:17.720 we want for very little. But I see it even 2:29:17.800 --> 2:29:19.879 in my in my peer group, I see people who 2:29:19.879 --> 2:29:22.600 are struggling all the time. And yeah, it's just tough 2:29:22.640 --> 2:29:23.039 out there, you. 2:29:23.080 --> 2:29:26.040 Know, it is, it is, And I honestly, you know, 2:29:27.520 --> 2:29:30.040 New Mexico and Oregon are similar in a lot of ways, 2:29:30.160 --> 2:29:32.400 and that they're both very low popular. I think we're 2:29:32.440 --> 2:29:34.760 both at around four million people if I'm not mistaken. 2:29:35.120 --> 2:29:37.080 Oh New Mexico is only like two million. Oh you're 2:29:37.080 --> 2:29:37.560 two millions. 2:29:37.560 --> 2:29:40.360 So yeah, even even less so low population states that 2:29:40.520 --> 2:29:44.160 have one big city that kind of dominates politics, but 2:29:44.240 --> 2:29:46.400 a very conservative kind of rural area in a lot 2:29:46.400 --> 2:29:49.840 of ways outside of that, and in both cases, that 2:29:50.000 --> 2:29:53.880 urban area has seen recent massive spikes in interpersonal violence 2:29:54.040 --> 2:29:57.320 and in you know, fatal issues due to drug use. 2:29:57.440 --> 2:30:00.680 Right yeah, now, one of the think obviously, one of 2:30:00.680 --> 2:30:02.680 the things Oregon has coming through it is because of 2:30:02.760 --> 2:30:05.240 all of the retire recent stuff here, like a much 2:30:05.320 --> 2:30:09.080 higher tax base, right, so there's theoretically more resources, although 2:30:09.120 --> 2:30:11.800 I tend to argue very incompetently applied, so most of 2:30:11.879 --> 2:30:14.560 us don't actually get out, but you do have this 2:30:14.720 --> 2:30:17.039 kind of this This is one of these places where 2:30:17.080 --> 2:30:22.160 this urban rural divide is both a lot stricter and 2:30:22.360 --> 2:30:25.359 where this state that is the majority of the population 2:30:26.720 --> 2:30:29.879 and is dealing with such severe issues is also kind 2:30:29.920 --> 2:30:33.000 of the political center or the city is also the 2:30:33.040 --> 2:30:34.199 political center of the state. 2:30:34.920 --> 2:30:37.440 Well, yeah, that and just yeah, you absolutely hit on 2:30:37.520 --> 2:30:42.080 something there. You know, Albuquerque has been historically, you know, 2:30:42.280 --> 2:30:47.560 decentralized due to gentrification for the last generation because of 2:30:47.600 --> 2:30:50.400 exactly what you said, which is that retirement community, you know, 2:30:50.920 --> 2:30:54.119 outside of oil and gas, and then the federal government 2:30:54.240 --> 2:30:56.880 in terms of like the labs and the universities and 2:30:56.920 --> 2:31:01.640 things like that, like retire ease are basically our third 2:31:01.720 --> 2:31:06.400 high miss genera you know, generative avenue agriculture probably in 2:31:06.440 --> 2:31:07.880 there too, but you know what, you get what I'm saying, 2:31:07.879 --> 2:31:10.880 they're a very high portion. And yeah, and and you 2:31:10.959 --> 2:31:12.840 know the Albuquerque that I grew up going to visit 2:31:12.879 --> 2:31:16.320 all of my family in and like going you know, 2:31:16.400 --> 2:31:19.920 going downtown, going you know, down to the International District, 2:31:20.879 --> 2:31:24.840 going near the university. You know, it never felt it 2:31:24.959 --> 2:31:28.160 never felt I hate to use the word dangerous, but 2:31:28.200 --> 2:31:30.199 it never felt dangerous, right, it never it never felt 2:31:30.200 --> 2:31:32.800 that way at all to me. Not that it does 2:31:32.959 --> 2:31:36.039 not that I feel danger to my to my person 2:31:36.840 --> 2:31:40.680 as a you know, as a white sis. He had 2:31:40.760 --> 2:31:43.320 dude with a beard like walking around like I usually 2:31:43.400 --> 2:31:44.680 feel pretty safe in my person. 2:31:45.120 --> 2:31:46.760 But yeah, I can't say that. 2:31:46.840 --> 2:31:47.160 I would. 2:31:47.360 --> 2:31:49.520 I have reflect that from everybody that I know that 2:31:49.600 --> 2:31:51.880 lives there. And people make choices about where they go, 2:31:52.000 --> 2:31:54.040 what time of day, et cetera, et cetera. And a 2:31:54.120 --> 2:31:56.360 big part of that is because of the gentrification that 2:31:56.400 --> 2:32:01.320 has pushed the the you know, native population of Albuquerque 2:32:01.440 --> 2:32:04.600 out into these more rural places. It makes it harder 2:32:04.640 --> 2:32:07.840 to get to you know, get to groceries, get to jobs, 2:32:07.879 --> 2:32:11.360 get to transportation. Yeah, all of those are factors in this. 2:32:11.720 --> 2:32:14.000 And it's and it's not just a one size fits 2:32:14.000 --> 2:32:14.480 all solution. 2:32:15.040 --> 2:32:15.240 Yep. 2:32:16.720 --> 2:32:18.520 Well, Lucas, is there anything else you wanted to get 2:32:18.560 --> 2:32:19.039 into today? 2:32:19.600 --> 2:32:19.760 Oh? 2:32:19.879 --> 2:32:21.640 I mean there's always something, but no, this was this 2:32:21.800 --> 2:32:24.760 was great, thank you. Yeah, yeah, I appreciate you giving 2:32:24.840 --> 2:32:27.840 us the opportunity. It's you know, I'm a I'm a 2:32:27.920 --> 2:32:31.400 longtime listener of this show, and when this issue came up, 2:32:31.680 --> 2:32:36.040 I really was thinking about some of those topics you 2:32:36.080 --> 2:32:38.280 brought up, you know, way back in the first run 2:32:38.360 --> 2:32:41.240 of It could Happen Here, and thinking about the that 2:32:41.440 --> 2:32:45.680 conflict that exists between state entities and you know, passing 2:32:45.760 --> 2:32:48.000 laws and enforcing laws and who does that and who 2:32:48.080 --> 2:32:49.560 doesn't and what does it mean if they don't. 2:32:50.160 --> 2:32:56.280 Yeah. Yeah, So this will continue to be a topic of. 2:32:58.400 --> 2:33:01.120 Vibrant discussion. So I'm sure we'll well, we'll have you 2:33:01.280 --> 2:33:02.560 back in the very near future. 2:33:03.760 --> 2:33:04.800 Yeah, happy to come back for that. 2:33:05.360 --> 2:33:05.560 Yep. 2:33:05.959 --> 2:33:09.400 All right, everybody, this is the This has been an 2:33:09.440 --> 2:33:12.320 episode of It Could Happen Here? You know, go go, Yeah, Lucas, 2:33:12.360 --> 2:33:14.080 you have any pluggables to plug before we're all out 2:33:14.120 --> 2:33:14.280 of here? 2:33:14.720 --> 2:33:16.760 Oh yeah, sure me. If you are interested, I'm on 2:33:16.800 --> 2:33:18.080 Twitter at Lucas Herndon. 2:33:18.320 --> 2:33:21.960 And if you're curious about you know, New Mexico politics, 2:33:22.320 --> 2:33:25.000 progress now New Mexico on all the socials. 2:33:25.800 --> 2:33:29.359 Most excellent. All right, everybody, Uh, this has been an episode. 2:33:29.560 --> 2:33:50.280 Go home, Family, with. 2:33:56.200 --> 2:34:01.119 Hi everyone, It's me James, and I'm joined by and Robert. 2:34:01.160 --> 2:34:02.880 Today we're going to be talking about the border, which 2:34:03.000 --> 2:34:05.320 is where that audio you heard at the start was 2:34:05.800 --> 2:34:07.080 recorded yesterday. 2:34:07.959 --> 2:34:12.880 Hi Sheren and Robert, Hi James. Hello James, thank you, Robert, 2:34:13.160 --> 2:34:15.600 Thank you Serene. It's lovely to have this for one 2:34:15.680 --> 2:34:16.480 introduction time. 2:34:17.720 --> 2:34:17.959 Okay. 2:34:18.080 --> 2:34:20.039 So yeah, we're gathered here to go to talk about 2:34:20.040 --> 2:34:23.160 the border. And the reason we are talking about the 2:34:23.200 --> 2:34:26.640 border is because border patrol are doing their thing, the 2:34:26.760 --> 2:34:29.280 thing that they like to do tiemingly like on a 2:34:29.360 --> 2:34:33.119 quarterly basis actually exactly three months after the last time, 2:34:33.520 --> 2:34:36.480 which is to hold people out in the open in 2:34:36.560 --> 2:34:40.920 between the two board defenses in Santi Seddo, just about 2:34:40.959 --> 2:34:45.480 fifteen minutes south of where I live. It's probably worth 2:34:46.320 --> 2:34:50.080 grounding this discussion in the various claims and counterclaims. So 2:34:50.120 --> 2:34:53.360 there are about two hundred people in between the two 2:34:53.400 --> 2:34:56.760 border defenses right now. People I spoke to were from Azerbijan, 2:34:57.080 --> 2:35:02.920 Turkmenistan and Zbekistan, Turkey, Vietnam, Hondoors, Guatemala. 2:35:03.080 --> 2:35:06.000 Yeah. Like, the reason that sometimes. 2:35:05.680 --> 2:35:07.800 These lists of people sound like, you know, you're singing 2:35:07.920 --> 2:35:11.640 Washington bullets is because these are all countries that we 2:35:11.879 --> 2:35:15.440 have destabilized in one way or another, saying we qua 2:35:15.800 --> 2:35:18.800 the United States, not we as call zone media, we 2:35:18.920 --> 2:35:20.720 were spirectually stabilized regimes. 2:35:21.920 --> 2:35:26.480 We've only destabilized two or three countries. Yeah, and we're 2:35:26.480 --> 2:35:27.920 proud of it. Yeah we don't. 2:35:28.120 --> 2:35:28.680 Yeah, we don't. 2:35:28.760 --> 2:35:30.160 Uh, we don't hide it. 2:35:30.879 --> 2:35:34.640 But yeah, we took our shot at Canada, you know. Yeah, yeah, 2:35:34.720 --> 2:35:37.320 but we've taken a good couple of swings in a Tamadore. 2:35:37.320 --> 2:35:40.800 I think we land some punches, but who knows, time 2:35:40.879 --> 2:35:43.879 will tell. So, yeah, it's people from like I think 2:35:43.959 --> 2:35:47.760 often the migration is constructed as quite unquoite Mexican, which 2:35:47.840 --> 2:35:50.840 is definitely not the case. I spoke to one family 2:35:51.440 --> 2:35:54.080 from Mexico yesterday. But like, even if you look at 2:35:54.160 --> 2:35:57.959 border patrol statistics, about four thousand out of fifteen thousand 2:35:58.040 --> 2:36:00.840 people apprehended in the San Diego sector in July this 2:36:01.000 --> 2:36:03.640 year of Mexican nationality. 2:36:03.640 --> 2:36:05.560 That's laura than I would assume, to be honest. 2:36:06.080 --> 2:36:09.440 Yeah, I mean, it's just a number of things, right, Like, 2:36:09.600 --> 2:36:13.680 it's these countries, Like climate change is definitely getting worse, 2:36:13.720 --> 2:36:15.280 so migrass is happening from there. 2:36:15.600 --> 2:36:17.359 I see a lot of people from Vietnam. 2:36:18.400 --> 2:36:21.640 I don't have the language skills to speak to them 2:36:21.800 --> 2:36:24.040 in depth, like I was speaking to someone when We'll 2:36:24.040 --> 2:36:28.040 get onto this through Google Translate from Vietnam. But hard 2:36:28.080 --> 2:36:30.720 to conduct a full interview, especially when folks are guarding 2:36:30.760 --> 2:36:33.560 their phone charge, which they are because exactly the same 2:36:33.560 --> 2:36:36.120 as last time, they need the phone to do CBP one. 2:36:36.680 --> 2:36:39.120 They need the phone to interact with their families, let 2:36:39.160 --> 2:36:42.480 them know they're safe. Some of their families, I guess 2:36:42.520 --> 2:36:46.000 don't know that they're traveling. I was helping people charge 2:36:46.080 --> 2:36:46.879 phones yesterday. 2:36:47.000 --> 2:36:48.959 So we can talk. 2:36:49.080 --> 2:36:50.720 Let's talk a little bit about the mutual aid response, 2:36:50.760 --> 2:36:52.320 and then we'll get onto the border patrol, you know. 2:36:53.600 --> 2:36:56.000 So there are two groups down there right now, and 2:36:56.040 --> 2:36:58.160 I think it's very impressive the services they're able to 2:36:58.240 --> 2:37:01.320 provide because because border Patrol all claim these people are 2:37:01.400 --> 2:37:05.360 not detained, that means that they are therefore not obliged 2:37:05.440 --> 2:37:09.480 to provide any services to them. Right So that would 2:37:09.480 --> 2:37:10.959 mean they don't have to give them water, they don't 2:37:11.000 --> 2:37:12.320 have to give them food, they don't have to give 2:37:12.320 --> 2:37:18.400 them shelter or like salitation, which salitation is the one 2:37:18.440 --> 2:37:20.720 that's really hard to cover because everything has to go 2:37:20.800 --> 2:37:24.840 through a fist sized gap in the fence. So that's 2:37:24.920 --> 2:37:28.480 still like an unmet need. But these two groups free 2:37:28.520 --> 2:37:33.400 Ship Collective, they're a free Ship pebe on Twitter, and 2:37:33.760 --> 2:37:37.560 also American Friends Service Committee. I've spoken about them before. 2:37:37.640 --> 2:37:41.320 They're a Quaker group that they're really great, like in 2:37:41.480 --> 2:37:43.800 terms of turning up and helping people who need help. 2:37:43.840 --> 2:37:46.600 They're constantly there and they they're a good place to 2:37:46.640 --> 2:37:49.040 send your money even if you're not a Quaker yourself, 2:37:49.160 --> 2:37:50.640 like check out their Twitter. 2:37:50.680 --> 2:37:50.720 Like. 2:37:50.720 --> 2:37:52.840 Actually, they're probably aligned with a lot of people who 2:37:52.879 --> 2:37:54.720 listen to show on a lot of things. I think 2:37:54.720 --> 2:38:00.040 they're prison abolitionists. So those two groups were there and 2:38:00.120 --> 2:38:02.920 they would At first there was myself, one person from 2:38:02.920 --> 2:38:06.120 American French Service Committee, and two older volunteers who had 2:38:06.200 --> 2:38:09.320 come in about one hundred and fifty to two hundred people. 2:38:09.480 --> 2:38:11.840 So most of the ideas kind of helped because I 2:38:11.920 --> 2:38:14.680 think in that situation is more important out than necessarily 2:38:14.879 --> 2:38:18.640 get the best audio for your podcast. So we handed 2:38:18.680 --> 2:38:23.640 out water, handed out food, handed out those emergency survival blankets, and. 2:38:25.200 --> 2:38:26.199 It was about all we had. 2:38:26.080 --> 2:38:29.080 At first, some like medical stuff people had medical and 2:38:29.240 --> 2:38:33.320 a bit later free ship people came and Xavier came. 2:38:33.800 --> 2:38:36.240 I'm not sure what Zavier's org is, but I will 2:38:36.280 --> 2:38:37.800 tweet it when I find it. I'll put it in 2:38:37.879 --> 2:38:41.040 the show notes to He's great. I've spoken at his 2:38:41.160 --> 2:38:43.160 events before that he holds down by the Border. We 2:38:43.200 --> 2:38:46.200 had a border media round table. He turned up with 2:38:46.280 --> 2:38:48.720 a massive generator, so that was great. We're able to 2:38:48.920 --> 2:38:53.480 charge phones. And what's really I think like notable is 2:38:53.600 --> 2:38:57.880 how much the people in between the fences are able 2:38:57.959 --> 2:39:02.240 to participate in distribution of goods and helping each other. 2:39:02.360 --> 2:39:05.440 So like they have a person who volunteers to be 2:39:05.640 --> 2:39:08.600 the coordinator for the water distribution, and one who volunteers 2:39:08.640 --> 2:39:12.520 to coordinate for the organizing people into lines and making 2:39:12.520 --> 2:39:14.280 sure people don't cut the line right, and then one 2:39:14.360 --> 2:39:16.880 person who was the phone captain who was doing like 2:39:17.520 --> 2:39:20.680 an incredible job of they'd get the cell phone right 2:39:20.800 --> 2:39:22.959 right the name of the person and then sign them 2:39:23.000 --> 2:39:24.960 a number in the line, and that person would also 2:39:25.000 --> 2:39:27.240 have that name and number written on their hand, and 2:39:27.280 --> 2:39:29.000 it's written in duct tape that's taped to them and 2:39:29.040 --> 2:39:31.840 taped to the phone. And then when their turn to 2:39:31.959 --> 2:39:34.640 charge comes, he would shout the name of the number. 2:39:34.760 --> 2:39:36.680 They would come from wherever they were in between the walls. 2:39:36.720 --> 2:39:38.760 They'd come and we would charge the phone, and then 2:39:38.760 --> 2:39:41.240 once they've got above fifty sixty percent, we'd switch it 2:39:41.280 --> 2:39:42.720 out and he'd call them again and they come get 2:39:42.760 --> 2:39:45.360 their phone. So lots of that is stuff that was 2:39:45.480 --> 2:39:49.640 learned in May and has been like implemented again much 2:39:49.800 --> 2:39:52.360 more like. It's less chaotic than it was before, and 2:39:52.560 --> 2:39:54.800 fewer people are able to provide better help, which is 2:39:54.879 --> 2:39:58.360 really good that it doesn't mean that those people don't 2:39:58.440 --> 2:40:01.120 need like donations, because they do. I know, the free 2:40:01.160 --> 2:40:03.600 ship people came with dozens of blankets, but there weren't 2:40:03.640 --> 2:40:07.720 enough blankets for everybody, so we were prioritizing families with 2:40:07.840 --> 2:40:11.240 children and pregnant women to have a blanket. It was 2:40:11.280 --> 2:40:14.080 cold yesterday, it was raining, and people didn't have anything 2:40:14.120 --> 2:40:17.200 to shelter under. There were a few tarps, but not 2:40:17.440 --> 2:40:20.560 very many, and it's a pretty like there were very 2:40:20.640 --> 2:40:23.280 young babies there. Right, it's a pretty difficult place to 2:40:23.320 --> 2:40:25.879 sleep with like, people were very keen to get their 2:40:25.920 --> 2:40:28.200 hands on cardboard boxes to lie down on to sleep. 2:40:29.680 --> 2:40:33.400 That gives you a sense of how kind of underserved 2:40:33.440 --> 2:40:36.240 they are. There's obviously no toilet facilities because you're just 2:40:36.320 --> 2:40:40.000 in a dusty kind of desert area by the border. 2:40:40.120 --> 2:40:44.440 So if people are familiar with Las Americas, the Discount Moll, 2:40:45.120 --> 2:40:48.200 we're like maybe a mile west of there along the 2:40:48.240 --> 2:40:52.960 dirt road and it's just kind of dusty field, so 2:40:53.200 --> 2:40:56.200 very rocky, very difficult people to sleep, very exposed to 2:40:56.280 --> 2:40:58.920 the elements. Right, it was hot today, like I was 2:40:58.959 --> 2:41:01.520 out earlier, and it's ninety one, so they won't be 2:41:01.640 --> 2:41:02.600 having any shade today. 2:41:03.080 --> 2:41:05.199 They didn't have any shelter from the rain or or ways. 2:41:05.080 --> 2:41:07.440 To keep warm last night. They're not allowed to start 2:41:07.520 --> 2:41:10.520 fires either, even if they have them means to do so. 2:41:11.240 --> 2:41:16.680 So the situation of these people I think is something 2:41:16.800 --> 2:41:20.840 worth discussing because it's not exactly super duper clear what 2:41:21.120 --> 2:41:25.200 role this plays in the immigration process. And there were 2:41:25.240 --> 2:41:26.960 a couple of examples to illustrate that. So I was 2:41:27.000 --> 2:41:32.280 able to talk to one person. They presented themselves from 2:41:32.520 --> 2:41:35.240 like they came into the parking lot walking and they 2:41:35.240 --> 2:41:38.440 looked looked very concerned, and so I approached him as, hey, 2:41:38.879 --> 2:41:39.560 do you need anything? 2:41:39.640 --> 2:41:40.200 Can we help you? 2:41:40.800 --> 2:41:45.000 And they had experienced some kind of medical condition and 2:41:46.040 --> 2:41:50.800 been taken to hospital, which Customs and Border Protection will 2:41:50.879 --> 2:41:52.360 do that, right, Like, if those people are there and 2:41:52.400 --> 2:41:54.920 they're having an emergency, they'll open the gate, take that 2:41:55.000 --> 2:41:59.440 person out and transport them to hospital somewhere in San Diego. 2:42:00.280 --> 2:42:03.960 That person had then been released from hospital to a taxi, 2:42:04.040 --> 2:42:06.600 which hospitals in San Diego have a habit of doing this. 2:42:07.200 --> 2:42:08.520 They'll dump homeless people. 2:42:08.640 --> 2:42:08.760 Right. 2:42:08.840 --> 2:42:11.200 If you anyone in San Diego will have seen this, 2:42:11.280 --> 2:42:13.440 you'll be familiar with like people dumped out of hospital 2:42:13.480 --> 2:42:16.840 in Hillcrest wearing a hospital gown and maybe having very 2:42:16.879 --> 2:42:22.640 little other possessions. Maybe it's every single day this happened. Unfortunately, 2:42:22.680 --> 2:42:25.640 people have passed away on being released by the hospital 2:42:25.720 --> 2:42:30.880 before in Hillcrest. So they release these folks and I 2:42:30.920 --> 2:42:32.680 guess they often give them a bus pass or they 2:42:32.720 --> 2:42:34.160 pay for a taxi. In this case, they paid for 2:42:34.240 --> 2:42:37.920 this person's taxi. They asked for a taxi to the border. 2:42:38.000 --> 2:42:40.520 The command of English was pretty limited, so they asked 2:42:40.520 --> 2:42:44.120 for a taxi to the border. They were taken to 2:42:44.360 --> 2:42:46.480 like the formal border crossing at Seni Shudur, which is 2:42:46.600 --> 2:42:49.120 a mile and a half east of where we were. 2:42:49.200 --> 2:42:51.520 And then they walked down the dirt road to where 2:42:51.560 --> 2:42:55.200 we were. But obviously because there was a fence in 2:42:55.320 --> 2:43:00.400 between us and the people being quite detained, then they 2:43:00.400 --> 2:43:04.520 weren't able to access that area, right. So that leaves 2:43:04.560 --> 2:43:06.280 them in a conundrum, right that they're now in the 2:43:06.360 --> 2:43:11.640 United States without without any status, they were able to 2:43:11.959 --> 2:43:15.040 want Body of Troll agent advise them to return to Mexico. 2:43:15.120 --> 2:43:18.560 Obviously that would constitute an entry to Mexico in between 2:43:18.600 --> 2:43:22.360 ports of entry. Right, you'd be illegally entering Mexico. It's 2:43:22.440 --> 2:43:24.320 not Bord of Patrol's job to enforce Mexican laws. But 2:43:24.959 --> 2:43:27.840 that person was in the United States and presented a 2:43:27.920 --> 2:43:28.720 claim for asylum. 2:43:28.840 --> 2:43:28.920 Right. 2:43:29.720 --> 2:43:34.240 They had a cell phone and they were using Google Translate, 2:43:34.320 --> 2:43:37.480 and they literally I could see it. It was like, 2:43:37.720 --> 2:43:40.279 I'm afraid to go back to my country. I'm afraid 2:43:40.320 --> 2:43:41.880 I will be hurt if I go back there, which 2:43:42.040 --> 2:43:44.000 is like a pretty textbook asylum claim. 2:43:44.520 --> 2:43:45.840 I would like to claim asylum. 2:43:46.080 --> 2:43:46.200 Right. 2:43:46.520 --> 2:43:50.800 And on making that claim, a Border of Patrol agent 2:43:50.920 --> 2:43:54.160 returned them to the area in between offenses, right, which 2:43:54.200 --> 2:43:57.120 would suggest that like this is a holding facility to 2:43:57.160 --> 2:44:01.000 Border Patrol for people. I just want to read the 2:44:01.080 --> 2:44:06.840 statement that Border Patrol made to me this morning. This 2:44:07.080 --> 2:44:09.240 was like a couple of hours to one recording this, 2:44:09.360 --> 2:44:13.560 recording this on Tuesday. CBP has built and retrofited facilities 2:44:13.560 --> 2:44:16.480 along the Southwest border to enhance our capabilities in this regard. 2:44:16.640 --> 2:44:19.879 CBP has also significantly increased the number of medical personnel 2:44:19.879 --> 2:44:23.279 along the Southwest border and those providing other wrap around services, 2:44:23.879 --> 2:44:27.000 all to better support ensuring getting people appropriate care as 2:44:27.040 --> 2:44:30.480 quickly as possible. Border Patrol has prioritized the quick transportation 2:44:30.560 --> 2:44:34.000 of migrants encountered in this environment, which is partially dangerous, 2:44:34.320 --> 2:44:37.680 particularly dangerous uring current weather conditions, to border patrol facilities 2:44:37.680 --> 2:44:40.360 where individuals can see medical care, food, and water. It 2:44:40.480 --> 2:44:42.640 is important to note that migrants who are between the 2:44:42.720 --> 2:44:45.920 border barriers are not in border patrol custody and are 2:44:46.000 --> 2:44:49.160 at liberty to return to Mexico if they desire. We 2:44:49.280 --> 2:44:52.400 have some audio of border patrol addressing the migratine between defenses. 2:44:52.440 --> 2:44:53.880 So Daniel's going to drop in right after this. 2:45:04.320 --> 2:45:12.840 Bracelet listen. We take as soon as we can. Well, 2:45:12.879 --> 2:45:14.520 so there's too many of you. 2:45:14.959 --> 2:45:16.160 We can't do this fast. 2:45:17.360 --> 2:45:19.520 Why sit here and talk to you the last time 2:45:19.600 --> 2:45:24.119 we have to take people we're not designed to take 2:45:24.240 --> 2:45:28.240 hundreds of people working as first as we can be patient. 2:45:28.120 --> 2:45:28.920 And I can tell you. 2:45:31.000 --> 2:45:33.560 This, they're shouting at them. They're shouting at them in English. 2:45:35.120 --> 2:45:38.080 They're not really giving any clue. So the people obviously 2:45:38.160 --> 2:45:40.840 have questions. Right they've entered, lots of them have been 2:45:40.879 --> 2:45:44.000 given bracelets when he's talking about the bracelets, and people 2:45:44.040 --> 2:45:45.360 will have heard that in the intro to that they 2:45:45.400 --> 2:45:47.880 were taking people with white bracelets. Those have a day, 2:45:48.120 --> 2:45:51.440 right the day that you entered, so like it might 2:45:51.520 --> 2:45:55.120 say Monday or Sunday or today. Obviously it's Tuesday, so 2:45:55.120 --> 2:45:57.160 they would get a bracelet which has a color and 2:45:57.560 --> 2:46:03.400 a day, and they proscess people in order of priority. 2:46:03.959 --> 2:46:06.040 The people who arrived on Monday. First sale process on 2:46:06.080 --> 2:46:10.959 accompanied miners. I didn't see any obviously, some eighteen year 2:46:10.959 --> 2:46:13.160 old people. It could be hard to tell how exactly 2:46:13.240 --> 2:46:15.600 old they are, but seventeen whatever, But I didn't see 2:46:15.640 --> 2:46:18.240 any people that young on their own. After that, they 2:46:18.280 --> 2:46:23.840 will process single mothers with children, sat a few of those, 2:46:23.920 --> 2:46:26.160 quite a few of those. After that, they will process 2:46:26.400 --> 2:46:30.640 like a family, which they defined to consist of a 2:46:30.800 --> 2:46:34.040 man or women and children. After that, they will process 2:46:34.800 --> 2:46:37.200 men on their own. I guess women on their own, 2:46:37.240 --> 2:46:40.600 then men on their own. They had initially separated people. 2:46:40.879 --> 2:46:42.760 They had people just like they had last time, right 2:46:43.000 --> 2:46:45.680 in like families and those with children, and then single 2:46:45.720 --> 2:46:47.520 men were somewhere else. But it seemed like people were 2:46:47.560 --> 2:46:50.120 able to come to travel in between the fences down 2:46:50.160 --> 2:46:52.440 to the place where I was, because that was the 2:46:52.520 --> 2:46:55.000 only place that they were able to access services, right, 2:46:56.520 --> 2:46:58.240 And I guess the claim of border patrollers that these 2:46:58.280 --> 2:47:01.000 people could go back to Mexico. So I'm not sure 2:47:02.200 --> 2:47:06.600 how because obviously that they're in between these thirty foot 2:47:06.680 --> 2:47:09.880 walls right right, you could go around the end. 2:47:09.959 --> 2:47:11.080 That's how people come north. 2:47:11.840 --> 2:47:15.240 But that's quite a hike, especially if you haven't got 2:47:15.280 --> 2:47:18.680 any water and food and stuff. So yeah, it's this 2:47:18.840 --> 2:47:22.000 is what they've claimed. It's worth noting that like Border Patrol, 2:47:23.360 --> 2:47:28.400 a number of representative from the Hispanic Caucus like requested 2:47:28.720 --> 2:47:32.600 Border Patrol clarify this after what happened in May, and 2:47:32.680 --> 2:47:36.040 their letter they noted that the conditions violate agency guidelines 2:47:36.200 --> 2:47:39.040 for detention, which they do, and that Border Patrol isn't 2:47:39.040 --> 2:47:40.640 supposed to hold people in its own custody for more 2:47:40.680 --> 2:47:42.640 than seventy two hours, which some people were held for 2:47:42.720 --> 2:47:45.960 longer than that in May, and CBP responded, I'll just 2:47:46.040 --> 2:47:48.480 read it out. The individuals in question had not made 2:47:48.520 --> 2:47:51.400 contact with US Border Patrol personnel and were not constrained 2:47:51.440 --> 2:47:54.120 from further movement. At the time of this incident, the 2:47:54.280 --> 2:47:57.800 US Border Patrol San Diego sector facilities were experiencing capacity 2:47:57.879 --> 2:48:01.560 issues and some transportation challenges which have thinks been remediated. 2:48:01.840 --> 2:48:04.640 Border Patrol agents encountered and apprehended these migrants as soon 2:48:04.680 --> 2:48:08.240 as there's operationally feasible to do so. Again, like they 2:48:08.320 --> 2:48:12.160 were dropped off in May by Border Patrol vehicles in 2:48:12.280 --> 2:48:15.440 the place where they were being detained, And it's simply 2:48:15.560 --> 2:48:18.560 not factually correct to suggest that they had not come 2:48:18.600 --> 2:48:19.959 into contact with Border Patrol. 2:48:21.480 --> 2:48:25.240 I have video of it. I've published video over on Twitter, 2:48:25.600 --> 2:48:27.600 We've used audio of it on the podcast. I think 2:48:27.680 --> 2:48:31.080 it's just not true. So Border Patrol. 2:48:30.879 --> 2:48:35.560 Essentially are claiming that this isn't happening when it continues 2:48:35.600 --> 2:48:38.560 to happen, right, and this time they've taken that to 2:48:38.720 --> 2:48:41.760 it's like they've already doubled down on that status. I 2:48:41.840 --> 2:48:47.039 guess because they're not providing any services, which is probably 2:48:47.120 --> 2:48:50.879 a good time for us to hear from some products 2:48:50.920 --> 2:48:56.840 and services. Oh yeah, fucking magic. Look at that taking 2:48:56.879 --> 2:49:01.600 a factory lap. I'm quitting now, gust again. I enjoy 2:49:01.760 --> 2:49:02.440 these adverts. 2:49:03.640 --> 2:49:06.080 Yeah it's me, I'm back. Everyone else is still here too. 2:49:06.800 --> 2:49:09.320 Now we're talking about the mutual aid response to what's 2:49:09.360 --> 2:49:12.600 happening at the border, right And as I said, a 2:49:12.640 --> 2:49:14.200 border patrol arn't providing anything. 2:49:14.320 --> 2:49:15.560 And as I said, at least. 2:49:15.440 --> 2:49:17.840 When I left, I left after it got dark, quite 2:49:17.840 --> 2:49:19.400 a long time after it got dark last night. It 2:49:19.440 --> 2:49:22.160 was there for probably seven six or seven hours, and 2:49:22.240 --> 2:49:24.080 I saw more and more people arriving in that time, 2:49:24.480 --> 2:49:28.440 and it was a really wide dispersed group of people. 2:49:29.959 --> 2:49:32.200 I would say maybe the majority was Spanish speaking, but 2:49:32.280 --> 2:49:34.400 a lot of people with Vietnamese. I was speaking to 2:49:35.120 --> 2:49:38.760 some Francophone African people at various nationalities right before I left, 2:49:40.160 --> 2:49:44.600 Like I said, lots of people from Tadjikastan, Azbekistan, as Abijan, 2:49:44.680 --> 2:49:49.199 places like that. Those people were pretty prominent. So it's 2:49:49.360 --> 2:49:51.760 fairly hard for volunteers to communicate with all of them. 2:49:51.800 --> 2:49:55.520 And they don't have any information right about what's happening 2:49:55.640 --> 2:49:57.760 to them. Can they expect to be separated? In some 2:49:57.879 --> 2:50:01.440 cases they can I can they expect how long can 2:50:01.440 --> 2:50:02.400 they expect to be there? 2:50:02.640 --> 2:50:04.240 We don't really know, right. 2:50:04.320 --> 2:50:06.920 I heard one Border Patrol agent saying that some of 2:50:06.920 --> 2:50:08.920 the people who arrived on Monday could expect to be 2:50:09.000 --> 2:50:11.480 taken out maybe by Wednesday, So that's at least two 2:50:11.560 --> 2:50:16.480 hours two days, right. So all of the services they're 2:50:16.600 --> 2:50:20.440 being provided, they're being provided through mutual aid right now, 2:50:20.520 --> 2:50:23.960 which is exactly the same thing that happened last time. 2:50:24.040 --> 2:50:26.480 Right Sometimes, Border Patrol last time gave them a granola bar. 2:50:27.160 --> 2:50:29.920 We haven't come back with their granola bars this time. 2:50:30.280 --> 2:50:33.600 And I think it's really worth us like taking a 2:50:33.680 --> 2:50:38.360 moment to consider the scale of what like two hundred 2:50:38.400 --> 2:50:40.680 people is not that many people, but it was more 2:50:40.760 --> 2:50:43.480 than two thousand people in May, and that was provided 2:50:43.520 --> 2:50:45.240 for by mutual aid. And I think it's a really 2:50:45.360 --> 2:50:48.800 good like getting off point for maybe us to have 2:50:48.840 --> 2:50:52.400 a talk here about how we do mutual aid, because 2:50:54.360 --> 2:50:57.480 the only thing that enabled like little babies to have 2:50:58.080 --> 2:51:02.080 like a blanket is some one messaging someone else on 2:51:02.160 --> 2:51:04.360 signal and being like, hey, this is happening again. 2:51:05.040 --> 2:51:06.280 Do you have stuff? Can you come down? 2:51:06.480 --> 2:51:09.920 And someone who I don't know, weeks ago I guess 2:51:10.040 --> 2:51:11.440 was like, Oh, these people are doing nice things, let 2:51:11.480 --> 2:51:14.360 me send them some money, because without that, those people 2:51:14.400 --> 2:51:16.560 would just be sleeping in the in the in the dust. 2:51:16.720 --> 2:51:21.040 I think it's really it's it's admirable, I think, And 2:51:21.120 --> 2:51:25.360 it's something that like, I don't know how to say this, 2:51:26.879 --> 2:51:29.200 that we should take into consideration when we're discussing things 2:51:29.280 --> 2:51:32.840 like religion and then like doing discourse, and like it 2:51:32.920 --> 2:51:34.560 could be really easy to get like into a like 2:51:34.640 --> 2:51:36.040 full readit atheist mode. 2:51:36.160 --> 2:51:39.200 I'm not a person who believes in religion particularly, but like. 2:51:41.000 --> 2:51:45.240 The only people who are helping at some point are 2:51:46.160 --> 2:51:48.240 people who are at least part of religious organizations. 2:51:48.959 --> 2:51:54.240 Look, I think that the perfectly consistent stance to have 2:51:54.560 --> 2:51:58.199 is that like, if someone is showing up and providing 2:51:58.320 --> 2:52:04.600 people with necessary assistance and not not asking for anything 2:52:04.720 --> 2:52:08.240 in return, including the ability to prostlytize, then I don't 2:52:08.240 --> 2:52:10.800 give a shit what right, Like, I don't care if 2:52:10.800 --> 2:52:12.400 they're from a church. I don't care if it's like 2:52:12.879 --> 2:52:15.200 you know, some week, like, as long as they are 2:52:15.280 --> 2:52:18.240 showing up and helping people in desperate need and not 2:52:19.240 --> 2:52:22.680 demanding some sort of something from them, including like you 2:52:22.760 --> 2:52:25.720 know them listen to a spiel. I don't really you know, 2:52:26.440 --> 2:52:28.120 it could be a church. Who gives a fuck, right, like, 2:52:28.640 --> 2:52:30.880 I'm glad they're there, you know, yeah, totally, it can 2:52:30.920 --> 2:52:33.360 be a church. There were mosques there last time. I'm 2:52:33.440 --> 2:52:37.520 sure that they were like synagogues, and yeah, fucking kudos 2:52:37.600 --> 2:52:40.000 to those people, right, yeah, you know, like that's good, 2:52:40.320 --> 2:52:40.959 glad they're there. 2:52:41.920 --> 2:52:45.080 Yeah, those Yeah, those people are doing anarchism too, even 2:52:45.120 --> 2:52:48.000 if they wouldn't call it that or whatever. Like, you know, 2:52:48.080 --> 2:52:51.120 the more we can create networks that look after each 2:52:51.120 --> 2:52:54.000 other without trying to control each other, then the better 2:52:54.160 --> 2:52:55.560 of a place we make the world. And that's what 2:52:55.640 --> 2:52:58.000 those people are doing, and we should all celebrate that 2:52:58.120 --> 2:53:01.960 and support them however we can. And I guess so 2:53:03.280 --> 2:53:07.360 as of today, there are still people there, and they 2:53:07.400 --> 2:53:10.959 still seem to be putting people in there. I think 2:53:11.000 --> 2:53:13.040 it's not supposed to be too hot this week, like 2:53:13.080 --> 2:53:16.520 we had triple digit days last week. I think over 2:53:16.600 --> 2:53:17.720 the weekend was pretty hot. 2:53:17.800 --> 2:53:18.200 Yeah it was. 2:53:18.520 --> 2:53:21.280 It was very hot of the weekend. So like the 2:53:21.360 --> 2:53:24.240 possibility for this to get much worse is still there, right, 2:53:24.360 --> 2:53:29.039 the possibility for people to get the person I spoke 2:53:29.080 --> 2:53:31.640 to you who had to go to hospital, had become dehydrated, 2:53:31.720 --> 2:53:35.720 Like that's how they needed because you don't when people 2:53:36.160 --> 2:53:38.320 were when we first at least when I first got there, 2:53:38.320 --> 2:53:40.680 people were very hungry and very thirsty and like really 2:53:40.760 --> 2:53:44.119 desperate for a drink of water because often they'd come 2:53:44.160 --> 2:53:46.960 from some of those other holding areas and like walked 2:53:47.040 --> 2:53:49.640 down because this was the only place where they could 2:53:50.000 --> 2:53:54.840 access stuff. So like, yeah, I guess the potential for 2:53:54.920 --> 2:53:59.279 this to turn into something as sad and completely unnecessary 2:53:59.320 --> 2:54:01.440 as what happened May is there again. 2:54:02.280 --> 2:54:05.040 Yeah, so you mentioned that there's no shade, like no 2:54:05.160 --> 2:54:08.120 shaded areas, So when it's triple digits, like there are 2:54:08.240 --> 2:54:13.120 kids and babies and everyone's outside, Yes, that is just 2:54:13.920 --> 2:54:16.320 I mean, it's terrible regardless, but like that in particular, 2:54:16.400 --> 2:54:17.039 that's like brutal. 2:54:17.680 --> 2:54:20.800 Yeah, I mean I think I've shared these pictures with 2:54:20.879 --> 2:54:24.199 you guys before, but like in Hacumber in May, people 2:54:24.280 --> 2:54:27.120 were making little kind of a frames and lean to's 2:54:27.280 --> 2:54:30.640 and out of osuitillos and cacti and stuff just trying 2:54:30.680 --> 2:54:33.160 to get out of it. It was very hot then 2:54:33.280 --> 2:54:33.640 out there. 2:54:34.640 --> 2:54:35.440 I mean the photos you. 2:54:35.440 --> 2:54:38.240 Sat recently, there's like a there's a photo you sat 2:54:38.280 --> 2:54:42.440 with the child's hand, like coming out of the the fence. 2:54:42.480 --> 2:54:43.560 That have made me emotional. 2:54:44.280 --> 2:54:47.240 Yeah, it makes me emotional, honestly. Like I think I've 2:54:47.320 --> 2:54:49.400 said this before, like in interviews, and I did an 2:54:49.440 --> 2:54:52.520 interview with Roy Pecktrest about this, but like I would 2:54:52.720 --> 2:54:56.640 rather go somewhere dangerous and have dangerous things happen, and 2:54:56.800 --> 2:55:00.160 then see a little kid have to be cold, not 2:55:00.240 --> 2:55:02.880 be able to help them, or like just be sad, 2:55:03.080 --> 2:55:06.760 like it's not a fun place for children, And that 2:55:06.920 --> 2:55:08.280 fucks me up in a way that like. 2:55:08.800 --> 2:55:09.959 That's yeah, I would. 2:55:10.080 --> 2:55:13.960 I would so much rather be like physically uncomfortable or 2:55:14.040 --> 2:55:17.280 in danger than like be in a perfectly safe place 2:55:17.480 --> 2:55:19.160 where you're watching kids suffer. 2:55:19.360 --> 2:55:20.320 Like that's the rough thing. 2:55:20.400 --> 2:55:23.360 I've been to a lot of refugee camps, and it's 2:55:23.400 --> 2:55:27.920 always like, you know, it's weird because I've also seen 2:55:27.959 --> 2:55:31.480 a lot of kids like in active combat zones. And 2:55:32.879 --> 2:55:34.960 don't take the wrong thing out of this, but like 2:55:35.959 --> 2:55:39.039 the the kids who have been stuck in a camp 2:55:39.360 --> 2:55:43.520 with like no chance of ever getting out seem like 2:55:43.760 --> 2:55:45.959 more depressed in a lot of ways than the kids 2:55:46.000 --> 2:55:48.800 who every day you know they're they're in you know, 2:55:48.959 --> 2:55:50.920 part of the city, even though like the city is 2:55:51.120 --> 2:55:54.440 a dangerous place to be. They they're they're moving around, 2:55:54.480 --> 2:55:57.520 they're usually doing stuff. Obviously it's a much more worse 2:55:57.600 --> 2:56:00.560 situation in a lot of ways. But like the degree 2:56:00.640 --> 2:56:05.440 to which being in this limbo messes with their heads 2:56:05.640 --> 2:56:11.640 and depresses them and traumatizes them is And again I'm 2:56:11.680 --> 2:56:13.720 not saying like it's better for kids to be in 2:56:13.800 --> 2:56:16.240 an act of war zone, but like that is trauma 2:56:16.360 --> 2:56:17.959 as well, and I think in a lot of ways 2:56:18.000 --> 2:56:20.920 an equivalent trauma. Even though the danger to their body 2:56:21.080 --> 2:56:24.200 is less, the trauma they face being stuck in a 2:56:24.320 --> 2:56:27.640 place and not having any idea what the future is 2:56:27.720 --> 2:56:30.200 and not having any ability to influence it. Really right 2:56:30.240 --> 2:56:32.320 being you know, these kids up at this fence are 2:56:32.400 --> 2:56:35.840 totally they have no control over their future or their lives. 2:56:35.920 --> 2:56:39.640 Really, I think that's the really like it strips people 2:56:39.680 --> 2:56:43.000 of their agency, which is a really degrading thing to do. 2:56:43.240 --> 2:56:43.360 Right. 2:56:43.600 --> 2:56:48.200 You're forcing these people they can do everything right. That 2:56:49.160 --> 2:56:52.880 person presented every perfect affirmative asylum claiming you know, and 2:56:54.600 --> 2:56:57.000 yeah it doesn't matter. And I think that's very hard, 2:56:57.160 --> 2:56:59.320 especially I imagine it's very difficult. I'm not a parent, 2:56:59.400 --> 2:57:02.760 but I imagine that, Like if you are a parent's dad, yeah, 2:57:03.320 --> 2:57:05.000 you know, you just want your kids to have a 2:57:05.040 --> 2:57:08.320 safe place to grow up. And like, I don't know, 2:57:08.800 --> 2:57:11.840 it's the first time I ever realized that I was 2:57:11.920 --> 2:57:14.240 having a trauma response, and it was not a good one. 2:57:14.520 --> 2:57:17.960 Was in twenty eighteen with the migrant caravan, when like 2:57:18.440 --> 2:57:20.360 I had been there was one little child where I 2:57:20.360 --> 2:57:22.840 speak about a lot, but like, she was obsessed with 2:57:22.959 --> 2:57:25.080 my hair. If people haven't seen paces of me have 2:57:25.160 --> 2:57:28.440 long hair, and like wanted to braid my hair every 2:57:28.600 --> 2:57:30.840 time I went there. And so she'd come and she'd 2:57:30.879 --> 2:57:32.920 sit on my shoulders and I would just do shit, 2:57:33.280 --> 2:57:34.880 and she would braid my hair while I was you know, 2:57:35.560 --> 2:57:37.560 handing out water bottles or you know. 2:57:37.680 --> 2:57:39.040 Talking to people, doing what I could do. 2:57:39.200 --> 2:57:42.480 And like I saw that girl every day for months, right, 2:57:42.600 --> 2:57:44.800 And then I remember once coming back to a Christmas 2:57:44.840 --> 2:57:47.360 party and just wanting to fucking scream at everyone. It's 2:57:47.400 --> 2:57:51.800 a juxtaposition from being seeing this little kid like deprived 2:57:51.840 --> 2:57:53.960 of so many things that chord should have warmth and 2:57:54.080 --> 2:57:56.640 shelter and good food and a safe place to be, 2:57:57.400 --> 2:58:01.279 and then going home, you know, twenty it drive across 2:58:01.320 --> 2:58:05.119 the border drive home and see people just like going 2:58:05.160 --> 2:58:10.320 about their lives. It's it's a really challenging yeah, duality. 2:58:11.920 --> 2:58:13.720 We can't stop it, right, Like it's not in our 2:58:13.760 --> 2:58:16.480 power to stop this, but like, and it is in 2:58:16.560 --> 2:58:18.400 our power. One of the things I hate people being 2:58:18.520 --> 2:58:20.480 like it's like welcome to America. Like it's a pretty 2:58:20.520 --> 2:58:24.960 fucked up way to be welcome to America, right, But like, like, 2:58:25.080 --> 2:58:27.640 I'm an immigrant. My my arrival here was very different, 2:58:28.840 --> 2:58:31.720 Like Sharin, you came here when you were younger, right, 2:58:32.640 --> 2:58:32.920 I was. 2:58:33.160 --> 2:58:36.400 I didn't immigrate myself. I was born here a month old, 2:58:36.520 --> 2:58:38.080 moved back from my parents, immigrated. 2:58:38.240 --> 2:58:38.400 Yeah. 2:58:38.560 --> 2:58:40.760 So you can be president, that's important. 2:58:40.920 --> 2:58:42.080 Oh yes, I can be president. 2:58:42.160 --> 2:58:44.600 You can be president, but not James, which is which 2:58:44.680 --> 2:58:45.480 is good? Which is good? 2:58:46.160 --> 2:58:46.360 Yeah? 2:58:48.560 --> 2:58:54.560 Yeah, in general that is my goal for you, James. Yeah, 2:58:54.680 --> 2:58:56.560 I can see. I'd really crush it in that round. 2:58:57.080 --> 2:59:00.000 I do love a good law Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 2:59:00.360 --> 2:59:03.200 Charene can take out Ted Cruz who you can. You 2:59:03.280 --> 2:59:07.400 can be Charene's John Mitchell. Wow, it's a fun little 2:59:07.440 --> 2:59:12.920 water gate ya for every I will be hiding Karen's 2:59:12.959 --> 2:59:13.680 secret meetings. 2:59:14.320 --> 2:59:17.480 I'm hoping for Haldoman myself. That's the Oh, that's the 2:59:17.600 --> 2:59:18.040 guy to be. 2:59:18.240 --> 2:59:20.400 Yeah, I want to go back for like further than that, 2:59:20.480 --> 2:59:23.320 you know, like when presidents were chads and like Roosevelt 2:59:23.400 --> 2:59:27.960 got shot five times. I can see Scharene having that 2:59:28.080 --> 2:59:33.240 kind of energy. Sure, yeah, we're all in on Charen 2:59:33.400 --> 2:59:36.600 maybe best too, Yeah, don't choose Serene. 2:59:38.160 --> 2:59:41.760 A book was enough for Teddy Roosevelt people. It's changed. 2:59:44.160 --> 2:59:48.520 Return no jokes aside, Like I came to America very 2:59:48.560 --> 2:59:53.160 differently from this, and like, uh, I recently became a 2:59:53.240 --> 2:59:57.080 citizen after a long time, and like you always feel 2:59:57.120 --> 2:59:59.760 very precarious when you live here and you're not, so 3:00:01.320 --> 3:00:03.480 I just want Like one thing that I noticed was 3:00:03.520 --> 3:00:06.000 that so many of the folks down there at one point, 3:00:06.000 --> 3:00:07.520 all of us one point I don't know, were also 3:00:07.640 --> 3:00:11.600 people who had come here themselves and like had different 3:00:11.640 --> 3:00:13.840 stories and we talked about. Like another thing I think 3:00:13.959 --> 3:00:16.920 is really important, actually it's like just because people are 3:00:16.959 --> 3:00:19.240 in a shitty situation doesn't mean that they are not 3:00:19.760 --> 3:00:21.920 like people. Like sometimes it can be really easy to 3:00:21.959 --> 3:00:23.959 be like bottle of water, by bottle of water, hego, 3:00:24.000 --> 3:00:26.760 bottle of water, chairs, like let's want to fucking talk 3:00:26.840 --> 3:00:29.040 to you, and like how is your day, or like 3:00:29.120 --> 3:00:30.440 what's your favorite football team? 3:00:30.720 --> 3:00:34.160 Like like that can be a really valuable way of. 3:00:34.240 --> 3:00:37.279 Being like, look, I understand that the government is treating 3:00:37.360 --> 3:00:41.680 you like shit right now, and that's not with my consent, 3:00:41.959 --> 3:00:43.520 Like I are. 3:00:43.560 --> 3:00:46.320 Human connection because they aren't treated like humans. So it's 3:00:46.360 --> 3:00:48.119 like nice to remember that's like, oh, I'm. 3:00:49.080 --> 3:00:52.880 Like yeah totally, someone seeing me, yes exactly, and just 3:00:52.959 --> 3:00:56.120 being like we're in community, like we are here to 3:00:56.200 --> 3:00:57.640 do whatever we can to make this a little bit 3:00:57.720 --> 3:01:00.440 less fucking barbaric. Like I always think I should buy 3:01:00.520 --> 3:01:03.080 like soft toys for the kids. I've spent a lot 3:01:03.080 --> 3:01:04.760 of money on soft toys for kids over the years. 3:01:04.800 --> 3:01:09.000 But remember one time we cleared out at Costco in Tiuan, 3:01:09.600 --> 3:01:11.760 Like I had them morning the bed of a pickup 3:01:11.800 --> 3:01:13.440 truck and they were like trying to fly out as 3:01:13.480 --> 3:01:14.440 we drove down the freeway. 3:01:14.520 --> 3:01:15.800 It was a good time. 3:01:16.959 --> 3:01:20.160 But yeah, it's I think that common humanity is super 3:01:20.240 --> 3:01:23.440 important if people have language skills and they want to help, 3:01:23.680 --> 3:01:27.600 Like there are always organizations to help migrants, so American 3:01:27.640 --> 3:01:30.480 Friends Service Committee is a really good one. I don't 3:01:30.520 --> 3:01:32.640 think they would care if you were not a person 3:01:32.680 --> 3:01:34.480 of faith. I think lots of the people helping out 3:01:34.520 --> 3:01:36.320 with them are not They're just nice people. 3:01:37.200 --> 3:01:40.840 So there are so many languages apparently that need translating, 3:01:40.920 --> 3:01:42.360 Like it's not just Spanish. I think a lot of 3:01:42.400 --> 3:01:44.480 people assume it would just be like I don't know Spanish, 3:01:44.640 --> 3:01:47.160 I'm not going to go. But so many other languages 3:01:47.200 --> 3:01:47.879 that would be helpful. 3:01:48.400 --> 3:01:52.880 Yeah, Like I speak French, and I honestly spent as 3:01:52.920 --> 3:01:54.840 much time at the board of speaking French as Spanish. 3:01:55.920 --> 3:01:58.520 I have like passable communication in Haitian creole, and they 3:01:58.600 --> 3:02:01.520 can sort of if some people speak like more formal French, 3:02:02.280 --> 3:02:04.280 who a Haitian, so I can speak to them, But yeah, 3:02:04.480 --> 3:02:07.720 I don't speak Taiji, ko Uzbek or Russian or Vietnamese, 3:02:08.720 --> 3:02:11.560 so like, yeah, those people are therefore it's harder for 3:02:11.680 --> 3:02:16.040 them to access solidarity right and to talk to people 3:02:16.080 --> 3:02:17.800 and to be seen, Like we can try our best 3:02:17.840 --> 3:02:22.480 with cell phone apps. The person who had been taken 3:02:22.520 --> 3:02:26.760 to a hospital was Vietnamese and was just doing a 3:02:26.959 --> 3:02:29.840 star Wark job of like obviously they were to the 3:02:30.040 --> 3:02:33.160 north of the border, so among the volunteers basically, and 3:02:33.760 --> 3:02:36.000 we were using our phones to talk and they were 3:02:36.000 --> 3:02:38.560 helping us distribute shit right, and then helping explain to 3:02:38.640 --> 3:02:41.560 the Vietnamese people, hey, like you have to be in 3:02:41.640 --> 3:02:43.160 this line if you want this, at this line if 3:02:43.200 --> 3:02:46.440 you want that, and like, so that was nice, and 3:02:46.600 --> 3:02:50.800 it's always like great to see like people empowered by 3:02:50.840 --> 3:02:53.840 that process, Like they're not just like asking for stuff, 3:02:53.879 --> 3:02:55.959 they're also helping get other people stuff, and I think 3:02:56.040 --> 3:03:00.280 that that helps both parties. So like this is means 3:03:00.320 --> 3:03:03.000 of like I guess like people call mutilated solidarity not charity, 3:03:03.000 --> 3:03:06.520 which I think that illustrates really well. You know, like 3:03:06.600 --> 3:03:08.560 all these people are there to be in solidarity with 3:03:08.640 --> 3:03:10.840 people who they consider to be members of their community, 3:03:10.920 --> 3:03:14.000 not not to like gain some carmic reward or whatever 3:03:14.160 --> 3:03:18.040 like people, And I think that's a really laudable thing. 3:03:18.160 --> 3:03:20.160 It's something we should all participate in if we can. 3:03:20.879 --> 3:03:24.160 I understand that everyone's near the border, but like, yeah, 3:03:24.280 --> 3:03:26.520 we can't change this that we're all supposed to vote 3:03:26.520 --> 3:03:28.160 for Joe Biden because he wouldn't be a piece of 3:03:28.160 --> 3:03:30.680 shit to migrants, and he's been a complete piece of 3:03:30.720 --> 3:03:33.600 shit to migrants for the entirety of his time in office, 3:03:33.640 --> 3:03:36.560 and I sincerely believe he will be a piece of 3:03:36.600 --> 3:03:40.680 shit to migrants if he is elected again. So you 3:03:40.760 --> 3:03:44.800 can't fucking change this by voting for someone. 3:03:44.840 --> 3:03:45.360 I wish you could. 3:03:45.400 --> 3:03:47.240 I wish it was that easy, but like I sadly, 3:03:47.280 --> 3:03:51.879 it requires your active participation. And yeah, I'm just constantly 3:03:52.120 --> 3:03:56.600 impressed by people who will. Like the people from Free 3:03:56.600 --> 3:04:00.680 Shiit Collective, they bought their entire family right them a message. 3:04:01.280 --> 3:04:03.360 They were like, yeah, we're on our way, what do 3:04:03.440 --> 3:04:06.800 you need blankets? Okay, we have like one hundred blankets 3:04:07.480 --> 3:04:11.680 and a generator. And within an hour at least some 3:04:11.800 --> 3:04:13.600 of those people, I had a warmer place to sleep. 3:04:13.760 --> 3:04:15.760 Right before that, I was giving out the blankets I 3:04:15.840 --> 3:04:18.039 had for camping in my truck. But I have two 3:04:18.080 --> 3:04:19.040 sleeping bags in my truck. 3:04:19.120 --> 3:04:19.680 It's not enough. 3:04:20.920 --> 3:04:22.720 So yeah, I think that's something we can all do 3:04:22.840 --> 3:04:27.440 in our own communities. But right now, again, I guess 3:04:28.360 --> 3:04:30.760 Biden's administration are back on the bullshit at the border, 3:04:30.879 --> 3:04:32.119 and it's. 3:04:31.959 --> 3:04:33.800 Important that people just pay attention to it. 3:04:34.000 --> 3:04:37.080 Right I guess you could write your Congress people, but 3:04:37.680 --> 3:04:39.440 they didn't do shit last time, they won't do shit 3:04:39.520 --> 3:04:43.000 this time. But people can show sort of diarity in 3:04:43.040 --> 3:04:44.920 any way or lend their language skills. I think now 3:04:44.959 --> 3:04:46.160 it's a really important time to do that. 3:04:48.600 --> 3:04:53.040 Yeah, it's SIT's frustrating because the border in general just 3:04:53.120 --> 3:04:56.199 becomes like a political talking point, right, like Biden uses 3:04:56.280 --> 3:04:58.959 it for his benefit and then it's like I'll pick 3:04:58.959 --> 3:05:01.360 it up when I needed to get Yeah, whatever it is, 3:05:01.520 --> 3:05:02.920 it's pretty infuriating. 3:05:03.600 --> 3:05:04.480 It's fucking not. 3:05:04.680 --> 3:05:06.880 Yeah, it's incredibly infuriating for me to see like a 3:05:06.959 --> 3:05:08.840 guarantee you, I was stand there yesterday when no other 3:05:08.959 --> 3:05:12.360 media folks will be there today. Folks who haven't been 3:05:12.400 --> 3:05:15.080 there since May will roll up again, right, who haven't 3:05:15.120 --> 3:05:18.240 covered the border, who don't have a working knowledge of 3:05:19.160 --> 3:05:21.280 like what's happened since Title forty two, which is the 3:05:21.400 --> 3:05:25.000 apprehensions have dropped, by the way, like travel across the 3:05:25.040 --> 3:05:26.960 border has got a lot lower since Title forty two, 3:05:27.000 --> 3:05:29.040 which is what we were told that to opposite of 3:05:29.120 --> 3:05:31.480 what every op ed told us was going to happen, 3:05:32.400 --> 3:05:35.200 because people maybe should not be righting about the border 3:05:35.240 --> 3:05:36.160 when they live in DC. 3:05:36.120 --> 3:05:36.560 Or New York. 3:05:37.360 --> 3:05:39.880 But yeah, Biden will come back to the border next 3:05:39.920 --> 3:05:44.560 time he gets attacked by Republicans on boarder stuff. And 3:05:44.720 --> 3:05:48.400 until then, like these people will be treated as if 3:05:48.400 --> 3:05:50.680 they're numbers or if they don't matter, and like each 3:05:50.760 --> 3:05:52.959 of them has a story and a reason for being here, 3:05:53.320 --> 3:05:59.400 and they're not just numbers, they're all people. And every 3:05:59.440 --> 3:06:01.640 time someone dies trying to come to this country to 3:06:01.680 --> 3:06:03.959 be safe, it's a tragedy, and it's a preventable tragedy. 3:06:05.360 --> 3:06:08.040 And it's one that the Democrats are just as complicit 3:06:08.120 --> 3:06:12.120 as Republicans in. Yeah, you know, we've spoken a lot 3:06:12.160 --> 3:06:14.520 about groups you can you can go to, right, Like 3:06:15.080 --> 3:06:19.720 we spoke about border Kindness, we spoke about Borderlands Relief Collective. 3:06:20.200 --> 3:06:22.119 Like there are a million and one ways to help. 3:06:22.160 --> 3:06:25.400 I won't detail them all now, but yeah, it's something 3:06:25.680 --> 3:06:30.240 that like we can't erase the Like I feel genuinely 3:06:30.280 --> 3:06:32.240 ashamed every time I'm down there, you know, to be 3:06:32.760 --> 3:06:36.560 American now. But it's just hard when people are like, hey, 3:06:36.920 --> 3:06:38.400 what's going to happen, you have to be like, well, 3:06:38.800 --> 3:06:41.000 we don't know, but like you might be separated from 3:06:41.000 --> 3:06:43.200 your family, you might be detained. They're probably going to 3:06:43.240 --> 3:06:45.280 take most of your clothes. They might take your belt off. 3:06:45.360 --> 3:06:47.480 You know, you can wear one jacket, one shirt, your pants, 3:06:47.560 --> 3:06:51.400 and your shoes. They might take your shoelaces and venues 3:06:51.440 --> 3:06:53.879 go into the fucking abyss of processing. 3:06:53.959 --> 3:06:54.080 Right. 3:06:54.120 --> 3:06:55.640 There might be years till you get your core date 3:06:55.640 --> 3:06:57.959 and you might not have a right to work until then. 3:06:58.560 --> 3:07:01.240 But it might cost you twelve grand to get a 3:07:01.280 --> 3:07:03.119 lawyer to represent you. How do you get that money? 3:07:03.160 --> 3:07:03.480 Fucked you? 3:07:03.600 --> 3:07:08.200 I know, you know, And yeah it's deep. I feel 3:07:08.240 --> 3:07:11.040 really ashamed, but yeah, all we can do is just 3:07:11.120 --> 3:07:12.160 try and help however we can. 3:07:13.000 --> 3:07:18.680 Yeah, yeah, all right, Yeah, sorry that was really depressing, 3:07:18.800 --> 3:07:21.640 was that? No, No, it's good. 3:07:23.520 --> 3:07:26.320 I really admire that instead of like kind of wallowing 3:07:26.360 --> 3:07:28.160 in the shame, You're like, I actually want to do 3:07:28.280 --> 3:07:30.160 something and it's okay that I feel shame. 3:07:30.240 --> 3:07:30.800 That's valid. 3:07:31.120 --> 3:07:33.920 It's both things can be true. I can be helpful 3:07:33.959 --> 3:07:36.360 and I can also have perspective on it. 3:07:36.560 --> 3:07:40.200 So yeah, yeah it helps to help helps me. It 3:07:40.240 --> 3:07:43.560 helps other people to feel active, not like acted upon. 3:07:44.400 --> 3:07:47.080 And that's why folks on who are migrants want to 3:07:47.120 --> 3:07:50.440 also participate in migrant aid right, like even folks are 3:07:50.480 --> 3:07:52.400 in between the war right now, like organizing that the 3:07:52.720 --> 3:07:56.000 phone charging queue because it helps to not just feel 3:07:56.040 --> 3:07:57.879 acted upon and remove the agency. 3:07:58.480 --> 3:08:00.680 Yeah, so yeah, do you. 3:08:01.200 --> 3:08:02.520 Mutual aid if you can? 3:08:03.240 --> 3:08:03.440 Yeah? 3:08:04.120 --> 3:08:07.760 Be nice? Yeah, be nice. Buck the border patrol. 3:08:08.320 --> 3:08:08.760 Mm hmm. 3:08:09.160 --> 3:08:11.120 I think that that more or less covers it. 3:08:11.360 --> 3:08:15.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's our message, that Sharin's 3:08:15.040 --> 3:08:15.880 presidential slogan. 3:08:16.080 --> 3:08:17.840 Yes, that's my campaign. 3:08:21.040 --> 3:08:21.600 I'll work on that. 3:08:21.800 --> 3:08:22.400 Okay, yeah. 3:08:23.040 --> 3:08:42.440 Five, it's it's another union episode of Vick had happen 3:08:42.520 --> 3:08:45.960 here in the podcast where we do a lot of things, 3:08:46.000 --> 3:08:48.040 but one of one of which is talking about unions, 3:08:48.040 --> 3:08:50.640 one of which is not doing great intros, it's me 3:08:50.760 --> 3:08:54.200 and Mia Wong and today I'm here to talk about 3:08:54.320 --> 3:08:57.440 a union and a strike and a bunch of other stuff. 3:08:57.800 --> 3:08:59.920 And with me to talk about this is Tyler Fellini, 3:09:00.080 --> 3:09:02.640 he was an organizer with Portland Jobs with Justice and 3:09:02.680 --> 3:09:05.440 also a former New Seasons worker. And Alex Gage, who 3:09:05.480 --> 3:09:07.920 was an organizer in store rep for the New Season's 3:09:08.000 --> 3:09:12.360 labor union shop in ourber Lodge. Yeah both YouTube, Welcome 3:09:12.400 --> 3:09:15.480 to the show. Yeah, thanks for having us, happy to 3:09:15.520 --> 3:09:17.720 be here. Yeah, I'm glad, glad to talk with you too. 3:09:17.800 --> 3:09:20.320 So I guess before we get into the sort of 3:09:20.440 --> 3:09:23.840 current stuff, I wanted to talk a bit about how 3:09:24.879 --> 3:09:28.880 how the certain New Seasons union was formed and you 3:09:28.959 --> 3:09:32.160 know what that sort of process looked like and how 3:09:32.240 --> 3:09:33.440 it's been going since then. 3:09:34.280 --> 3:09:35.400 Yeah, I can speak to that. 3:09:36.160 --> 3:09:40.880 So the initial unionizing effort started at the store that 3:09:40.959 --> 3:09:44.240 I was working at, seven Corners, and we actually the 3:09:44.360 --> 3:09:49.200 first conversation we had was April first, the same day 3:09:49.240 --> 3:09:52.000 that Amazon labor union went public and won their electional 3:09:53.160 --> 3:09:56.000 so there's like a really inspiring moment for us. That 3:09:56.240 --> 3:09:59.680 spurred a conversation on the shop floor with a couple coworkers, 3:10:01.280 --> 3:10:04.120 which quickly escalated to six of us meeting in a 3:10:04.160 --> 3:10:07.280 nearby co workers backyard. We talked about the issues, and 3:10:07.320 --> 3:10:09.440 we were all hitting the same things, you know, Like 3:10:09.520 --> 3:10:12.320 we were all upset with the tenants policy, the way 3:10:12.360 --> 3:10:14.560 that New Seasons was treating us and had been treating 3:10:14.640 --> 3:10:17.440 us during COVID. We're also upset with our pay, which 3:10:17.520 --> 3:10:19.160 is obscene and does not keep up with the cost 3:10:19.200 --> 3:10:21.879 of living in Portland, organ which is a very expensive city. 3:10:23.400 --> 3:10:26.080 So and we were also really upset with the healthcare 3:10:26.160 --> 3:10:28.240 that we have offered and how it's kind of deteriorated 3:10:28.280 --> 3:10:31.200 over the years, especially for New Seasons as a company 3:10:31.240 --> 3:10:32.760 that has a lot of people who've been there for 3:10:32.879 --> 3:10:35.000 years and so there were a lot of people who've 3:10:35.040 --> 3:10:39.080 seen just the downward decline. So those early meetings went 3:10:39.160 --> 3:10:43.199 really well. We talked to coworkers on the floor discreetly 3:10:43.400 --> 3:10:46.920 and everybody was resonating with what we were saying. We 3:10:47.040 --> 3:10:49.880 made a lot of progress really fast, and then we 3:10:50.000 --> 3:10:53.400 had a meeting at a local bar here in Portland, 3:10:53.440 --> 3:10:57.040 Workers Tap, which huge shoutout of them. They are an 3:10:57.040 --> 3:11:01.000 amazing space for a lot of burgeoning independent unions to 3:11:01.040 --> 3:11:03.160 have some of their early meetings. So we met there 3:11:03.560 --> 3:11:06.560 with more members at our store, the Seven Corners location, 3:11:07.520 --> 3:11:09.040 and I think we had like thirty people there, which 3:11:09.080 --> 3:11:10.600 is a huge turnout for a. 3:11:10.680 --> 3:11:11.960 First showing of a meeting. 3:11:12.040 --> 3:11:13.199 Yeah. Yeah. 3:11:13.760 --> 3:11:17.440 And then from there we moved pretty fast to getting 3:11:18.240 --> 3:11:22.400 cards signed for showing of interest, and so in less 3:11:22.440 --> 3:11:24.600 than two months we were actually filing our petition with 3:11:24.640 --> 3:11:26.400 the NLRB, which is unheard of. 3:11:26.560 --> 3:11:30.400 Yeah, that's amazing, especially for a grocery store union. That 3:11:30.520 --> 3:11:31.119 is wild. 3:11:32.000 --> 3:11:32.200 Yeah. 3:11:32.560 --> 3:11:32.760 Yeah. 3:11:33.280 --> 3:11:35.600 As soon as we went public, workers at all these 3:11:35.640 --> 3:11:38.320 other stores reached out to us. Our Instagram blew up. 3:11:38.920 --> 3:11:41.280 People were excited but wanted to figure out how to 3:11:41.320 --> 3:11:43.560 do it at their store. So we were kind of 3:11:43.720 --> 3:11:47.320 simultaneously trying to balance the plates of like keeping our 3:11:47.360 --> 3:11:50.760 store going and also helping other stores go and you know, 3:11:50.840 --> 3:11:52.800 by the end of the summer we rolled into we 3:11:52.879 --> 3:11:55.160 had our election, I want to say in September, and 3:11:55.240 --> 3:11:57.199 by the end of the summer there were multiple stores 3:11:57.240 --> 3:11:58.959 that had gone public and announced. 3:11:59.080 --> 3:11:59.680 And here we are. 3:11:59.800 --> 3:12:03.800 You know, it's barely been a year since our first 3:12:03.840 --> 3:12:05.720 election win. It's barely been a year since then, and 3:12:05.920 --> 3:12:08.840 we have over nine hundred members, almost a thousand members 3:12:08.879 --> 3:12:10.080 in this very new union. 3:12:10.600 --> 3:12:14.520 That's incredible. That gets into another thing I'm interested about, 3:12:14.640 --> 3:12:18.880 which is Portland's the city that has been in the 3:12:19.000 --> 3:12:20.880 last I mean, I would say probably the last five years, 3:12:20.920 --> 3:12:23.600 but especially in like the last couple of years, it's 3:12:23.600 --> 3:12:27.080 been really really active in terms of in terms of 3:12:27.160 --> 3:12:30.240 union organizing, in terms of sort of especially especially independent unions, 3:12:30.240 --> 3:12:33.440 there's been an enormous number of them. The actual number 3:12:33.480 --> 3:12:36.520 of workers being organized is really high. And yeah, I 3:12:36.600 --> 3:12:39.480 mean you talked about having like having this bar as 3:12:39.480 --> 3:12:42.000 a sort of space you could do meetings. Has there 3:12:42.080 --> 3:12:46.240 been any other stuff, I mean, from from other independent unions, 3:12:46.360 --> 3:12:47.959 from other I mean, just from the fact that there's 3:12:48.000 --> 3:12:50.720 so many like things happening that have like changed the 3:12:50.800 --> 3:12:54.320 dynamics of how these union organization drives have been going. 3:12:55.959 --> 3:12:59.280 Yeah, So early on, you know, we were weighing our 3:12:59.320 --> 3:13:01.640 options as far as like did we want to join 3:13:01.760 --> 3:13:03.880 an existing union or go independent? 3:13:04.240 --> 3:13:05.360 Like what did we want to do there? 3:13:05.560 --> 3:13:08.119 And a lot of that information is hard to find 3:13:08.160 --> 3:13:11.040 if you don't know the language that you're looking for, 3:13:11.200 --> 3:13:14.680 it's not really accessible to the average worker. But we 3:13:14.760 --> 3:13:18.320 found a lot of solidarity in folks who had been 3:13:18.360 --> 3:13:21.800 involved in other independent union efforts. Specifically, we met with 3:13:22.080 --> 3:13:25.080 Mark and Luis at a Burgerville workers union. They offered 3:13:25.160 --> 3:13:27.800 a top Yeah, they were great. They were some of 3:13:27.840 --> 3:13:30.760 the early folks to reach out and help us. We 3:13:30.840 --> 3:13:32.360 were also able to talk to some of the folks 3:13:32.400 --> 3:13:36.400 at ILW Local five that represents palasworkers and many others 3:13:37.280 --> 3:13:41.080 and get some support there. Portland is definitely a labor town, 3:13:41.600 --> 3:13:45.120 uh And the solidarity that we felt kind of across 3:13:45.160 --> 3:13:47.560 the board was great, you know, especially like early on 3:13:47.760 --> 3:13:49.640 when we had a lot of questions and we didn't 3:13:49.680 --> 3:13:52.240 have any answers and we didn't have many resources to 3:13:52.720 --> 3:13:54.320 you know, hire a lawyer and ask them. 3:13:54.640 --> 3:13:58.160 Uh. So I want I wanted to go back a 3:13:58.240 --> 3:14:01.200 little bit to talk about sort of the influence of 3:14:03.240 --> 3:14:06.920 the sort of influence of the news about the Amazon 3:14:07.040 --> 3:14:10.320 labor union going wide and how that sort of worked. 3:14:10.800 --> 3:14:13.880 Have you seen a sort of similar thing with other 3:14:14.640 --> 3:14:18.119 like not just sort of not not just New Seasons shops, 3:14:18.160 --> 3:14:20.320 but have you seen other shops that sort of like 3:14:20.400 --> 3:14:23.039 decided to start organizing after y'all came out. 3:14:23.640 --> 3:14:27.440 I think that there is a general energy among the 3:14:27.520 --> 3:14:31.480 rank and file, right that some of the old ways 3:14:31.800 --> 3:14:35.560 that unions are organizing were not the most representative of 3:14:35.640 --> 3:14:39.080 the workers, which is in part you know, the eighties, right, 3:14:39.200 --> 3:14:41.440 and so kind of why we've seen sort of union 3:14:41.480 --> 3:14:44.959 representation stagnant. But we're seeing a major shift, right. We've 3:14:45.000 --> 3:14:48.840 got a lot of educated workers doing low wage jobs, 3:14:49.480 --> 3:14:52.520 which that condition existed in the nineteen thirties and led 3:14:52.560 --> 3:14:55.600 to a major explosion in militant unions. So I think 3:14:55.640 --> 3:14:58.080 there's a major parallel there, and it's not just Amazon 3:14:58.160 --> 3:15:00.800 liber unions. Also, you know the Starbucks workers know campaign 3:15:01.160 --> 3:15:04.240 it's huge, right, and those are workers who service workers, 3:15:04.320 --> 3:15:09.000 restaurant workers historically have been left out of labor or underrepresented, 3:15:09.080 --> 3:15:13.640 similar to healthcare workers and just care workers generally, And 3:15:13.760 --> 3:15:16.480 that I think is kind of the stereotype of like 3:15:16.720 --> 3:15:19.240 the working class as like a trad white guy in 3:15:19.320 --> 3:15:22.840 a factory and we're seeing that severely upended right now, 3:15:22.879 --> 3:15:23.720 which is really exciting. 3:15:24.240 --> 3:15:26.440 Yeah, but that's that's a That's another dynamic I think 3:15:26.520 --> 3:15:29.920 is really is really interesting, particularly in Portland, is that 3:15:30.640 --> 3:15:32.680 it seems to be a lot of independent unions. And 3:15:32.760 --> 3:15:36.480 it seems to be I think partially because even in 3:15:36.560 --> 3:15:38.720 the midst of the fact that like very clearly people 3:15:39.200 --> 3:15:42.000 want to organize, there's been a lot of conservatism on 3:15:42.879 --> 3:15:45.480 the part of the sort of like larger distant unions. 3:15:45.520 --> 3:15:48.560 You don't really want to like throw an enormous amount 3:15:48.560 --> 3:15:51.320 of money into these organizing drives, which means, you know, 3:15:51.480 --> 3:15:54.400 if if the stuff is going to happen, it's it's 3:15:54.520 --> 3:15:58.840 it's the independent unions. And yeah, I don't know, like 3:15:58.959 --> 3:16:01.360 I I think I think your point about sort of 3:16:02.080 --> 3:16:03.640 I think your point about the sort of both both 3:16:03.640 --> 3:16:08.560 the highly educated workers thing and the way that you know, 3:16:08.680 --> 3:16:11.760 sort of what's constitutionally considered a worker and what unions 3:16:11.760 --> 3:16:15.120 are willing to sort of throw money at or tied together. 3:16:15.200 --> 3:16:18.000 Because yeah, I mean, you know, like the shops that 3:16:18.080 --> 3:16:21.000 you're working in, the shops are getting organized just aren't 3:16:21.040 --> 3:16:25.800 the kind of thing that anyone's been organizing for like ever, 3:16:26.879 --> 3:16:28.360 it's very at least not since like the eighties. 3:16:29.480 --> 3:16:33.160 Yeah, and I think it makes sense why they don't organize. 3:16:33.200 --> 3:16:36.560 It's freaking hard. It's a lot of work, and there's 3:16:36.560 --> 3:16:40.320 a lot of turnover, and you don't see those same faces. 3:16:40.440 --> 3:16:45.480 That's why we can get from having our first meeting 3:16:45.640 --> 3:16:48.960 to filing for election in two months, because if it 3:16:49.040 --> 3:16:51.440 doesn't happen in two months, it's never going to happen. 3:16:52.040 --> 3:16:53.879 And we get it done, we get it done fast, 3:16:54.680 --> 3:16:58.760 and then we see all these other like as a 3:16:58.840 --> 3:17:03.840 grocery store, we get deliveries from Bigger Union, you know, 3:17:04.080 --> 3:17:07.240 drivers and such, and we've seen what's happened with their 3:17:07.360 --> 3:17:13.080 campaigns where if they're not like totally invested, they can 3:17:13.120 --> 3:17:19.119 get decertified within a matter of weeks. But we haven't 3:17:19.200 --> 3:17:20.279 had any of that yet. 3:17:20.920 --> 3:17:23.680 Yeah, which is really impressive. And you know, that's another 3:17:23.760 --> 3:17:26.240 thing I'm interested. I've been asking a lot of people 3:17:26.320 --> 3:17:28.640 because turnover is one of the big things that's been 3:17:28.959 --> 3:17:32.320 sort of you know, it's it's been the wall that 3:17:32.720 --> 3:17:35.040 the existing units hit and we're like, this is too hard, 3:17:35.120 --> 3:17:38.080 We're going to go do something else. And I've been 3:17:38.160 --> 3:17:41.280 I'm wondering how y'all have been dealing with the turnover problem, 3:17:41.360 --> 3:17:44.560 because it's I mean, it is definitely something that's difficult 3:17:44.640 --> 3:17:50.320 to deal with, but you know, it's it's not something 3:17:50.360 --> 3:17:52.360 that makes it impossible. It's just hard, and I'm yeah, 3:17:52.360 --> 3:17:55.640 I'm interested in what your sort of strategies to manage. 3:17:55.320 --> 3:17:55.800 It have been. 3:17:57.160 --> 3:17:58.600 I think it's a matter of passion. 3:17:58.760 --> 3:18:02.160 I think Tyler is a great example, like is no 3:18:02.400 --> 3:18:06.640 longer a member, but sees this as like the way 3:18:06.840 --> 3:18:09.840 that we can move our society forward in general, Like 3:18:09.959 --> 3:18:14.600 the labor struggle is the struggle, Like there's no war, 3:18:14.720 --> 3:18:18.200 black class war. If we don't do this, what are 3:18:18.240 --> 3:18:21.879 we doing here? So wait, we stick around and we're 3:18:21.920 --> 3:18:24.200 doing this for free. We're not getting paid for it. 3:18:24.320 --> 3:18:26.240 We're doing it because it's the right thing to do. 3:18:29.200 --> 3:18:32.480 When our lodge in Grant Park had their walkouts on 3:18:32.640 --> 3:18:35.240 Labor Day weekend, there was a customer at Grant Park 3:18:35.280 --> 3:18:37.720 who called out to us that, you know, we should 3:18:37.760 --> 3:18:39.840 just go open up our own workers co op, And 3:18:39.920 --> 3:18:41.680 my response to him was that, you know, if we leave, 3:18:42.280 --> 3:18:43.960 there's just another batch of workers that are going to 3:18:44.000 --> 3:18:45.840 go through these conditions. Like the goal is not that 3:18:45.959 --> 3:18:47.280 like I wanted to be great for me, like I 3:18:47.280 --> 3:18:49.640 don't even work in new seasons anymore. I wanted to 3:18:49.680 --> 3:18:51.600 be great for my former coworkers who are still there, 3:18:51.680 --> 3:18:53.000 and for the people that I don't know who are 3:18:53.000 --> 3:18:53.760 going to come behind them. 3:18:53.800 --> 3:18:56.320 And that's that's how you get around the high. 3:18:56.120 --> 3:19:00.120 Turn over pieces like the passion and dedication and I 3:19:00.240 --> 3:19:02.400 have to make conditions better for the people coming after you, 3:19:02.680 --> 3:19:07.920 which is really antagonistic to the way capitalism wants us 3:19:07.920 --> 3:19:10.320 to be very individual like oriented, right, Like we just 3:19:10.360 --> 3:19:13.080 care about ourselves and our day to day. But that's 3:19:13.120 --> 3:19:15.280 the really great thing with like the worker power, right, 3:19:15.400 --> 3:19:18.280 is that you know, collectively we are so much stronger. 3:19:18.360 --> 3:19:21.520 Collectively we can actually stand up to the boss and win, right, 3:19:21.600 --> 3:19:24.280 And and that means just reorienting how we think about 3:19:24.280 --> 3:19:26.480 the world, right, Like, like this job sucks. 3:19:26.320 --> 3:19:28.120 How can I make this job better? I can just 3:19:28.240 --> 3:19:29.400 quit and go get a better job. 3:19:29.800 --> 3:19:32.200 But if I change this job, then the people who 3:19:32.240 --> 3:19:35.040 are still here also get better working conditions. 3:19:36.200 --> 3:19:38.040 Yeah, And I think that there's kind of there's there's 3:19:38.080 --> 3:19:40.080 a kind of flip side of that too, right, which 3:19:40.160 --> 3:19:42.600 is that you know, even if you like you know, 3:19:42.840 --> 3:19:46.240 like turnover just is inevitable to some extent, even even 3:19:46.280 --> 3:19:48.760 if you have people who like want to stay and fight, right, like, 3:19:48.800 --> 3:19:50.880 people are just going to have to leave. But on 3:19:50.920 --> 3:19:52.440 the other hand, you know, if you if you're if 3:19:52.440 --> 3:19:54.800 you're in a unionized workplace, and if you're pecifically if 3:19:54.800 --> 3:19:56.960 you're if you're in if you're in a union that 3:19:57.040 --> 3:19:59.160 has the sort of militant culture, what you're doing is 3:19:59.200 --> 3:20:02.000 you're you know, you're changing the actual like class itself, 3:20:02.080 --> 3:20:04.080 right because you know, like now now you're worker who 3:20:04.200 --> 3:20:05.640 like you know, I don't know, is moving to Arizona 3:20:05.760 --> 3:20:09.280 or something. Right, they're they're they are now also much 3:20:09.320 --> 3:20:11.560 more built and have have this sort of experience of 3:20:11.720 --> 3:20:15.400 organizing that they made that they may not have had before. 3:20:15.440 --> 3:20:19.520 And this, you know, it's like you're the any any 3:20:19.560 --> 3:20:22.320 any individual movement you're doing in one place is building 3:20:22.360 --> 3:20:23.199 up the entire class. 3:20:25.240 --> 3:20:28.120 Yeah, and we can see that we've like been attracting 3:20:28.240 --> 3:20:32.360 people who are interested and becoming involved in a movement. 3:20:32.720 --> 3:20:37.160 And you know, whether they just graduated from college or 3:20:37.400 --> 3:20:41.760 they had some sort of distant relative who was in 3:20:41.840 --> 3:20:45.400 a union, they come to new seasons thinking, oh, I 3:20:45.520 --> 3:20:48.120 want to get in on the beginning of this, and 3:20:48.320 --> 3:20:52.360 we've seen like a big push of that recently, and 3:20:52.480 --> 3:20:56.439 people who leave they want to go, you know, organize 3:20:56.480 --> 3:20:59.600 their next workplace, you know, regardless if they were fired 3:20:59.760 --> 3:21:00.560 or whatever. 3:21:00.879 --> 3:21:02.280 They they want to. 3:21:02.440 --> 3:21:05.280 Keep it going. So and I think to build on 3:21:05.360 --> 3:21:05.640 that too. 3:21:06.680 --> 3:21:09.640 You know, salting is a practice that traditional unions typically 3:21:09.680 --> 3:21:13.360 do to kind of change a workforce. And when you salt, 3:21:13.760 --> 3:21:15.680 usually you're paid by the union to go in there, 3:21:15.720 --> 3:21:17.440 and so you're getting paid by the employer to be there, 3:21:17.480 --> 3:21:20.200 and the union is paying you to organize. But we've 3:21:20.200 --> 3:21:22.600 seen a shift now where people are voluntarily salting. Right, 3:21:22.640 --> 3:21:24.440 People come like out that to get a job, they 3:21:24.480 --> 3:21:27.760 don't need the money motivator. They just want to function 3:21:28.000 --> 3:21:30.080 up right, They want to change things and like be 3:21:30.120 --> 3:21:32.760 antagonistic towards the boss. And I think to me, to 3:21:32.840 --> 3:21:34.320 go back to an earlier thing you asked about, like 3:21:34.480 --> 3:21:36.720 kind of like why Portland, right, Like, I think one 3:21:36.760 --> 3:21:40.080 thing about Portland is people in Portland love a protest, right, Like, 3:21:40.160 --> 3:21:42.320 we don't need much of a motivation to go through some. 3:21:42.440 --> 3:21:44.320 Rocks at popped, Right, That's kind of in the culture 3:21:44.360 --> 3:21:44.840 of Portland. 3:21:45.280 --> 3:21:49.120 And so there is this this orientation towards struggle that 3:21:49.280 --> 3:21:52.120 does exist, and right now that energy you know, we 3:21:52.360 --> 3:21:55.800 we went through the George Floyd uprising and a lot 3:21:55.840 --> 3:21:58.840 of energy has been funneled into labor, and it's been 3:21:58.959 --> 3:22:01.680 new voices in labor. It's not the same like you know, 3:22:01.879 --> 3:22:04.360 ten people now kind of talking. It's all of this 3:22:04.480 --> 3:22:09.040 new energy. And for the most part, most of Portland 3:22:09.120 --> 3:22:11.440 labor is being very accommodating and making room for those 3:22:11.440 --> 3:22:13.680 people to get in there and be heard because folks 3:22:13.760 --> 3:22:16.080 recognize that they're on their way out right, you know, 3:22:16.120 --> 3:22:19.640 Folks in their fifties or sixties, like they're they're towards retirement, right, 3:22:19.640 --> 3:22:21.600 and so it's as younger folks coming in that are 3:22:21.640 --> 3:22:22.320 going to change. 3:22:22.160 --> 3:22:22.440 It, you know. 3:22:24.200 --> 3:22:27.879 Yeah, And I think there's an interesting dynamic with this too, 3:22:28.000 --> 3:22:30.440 which is that, you know, okay, one of the one 3:22:30.480 --> 3:22:34.320 of the sort of conditions of the last sort of 3:22:34.440 --> 3:22:37.360 like forty fifty years of capitalism, like is this sort 3:22:37.400 --> 3:22:40.840 of high total turnover rates? And also is this, you know, 3:22:41.320 --> 3:22:43.760 is this thing where you are, like you as an 3:22:43.760 --> 3:22:48.040 individual worker are shifting jobs really really quickly, and that 3:22:48.680 --> 3:22:50.680 you know, that's in some sense an issue. But that 3:22:50.760 --> 3:22:52.680 also means that like I don't know, like if you 3:22:52.760 --> 3:22:55.880 have a bunch of people who you know, spent like 3:22:56.480 --> 3:22:59.440 spent one hundred days fighting the Feds and you know 3:22:59.680 --> 3:23:02.200 still still may like have have developed just like the 3:23:02.240 --> 3:23:04.560 sort of bilted hatred of the cops and you know, 3:23:04.600 --> 3:23:07.680 I've developed sort of and into capitalist politics. Yeah, you 3:23:08.080 --> 3:23:10.280 get more of the sort of salt stuff you're talking about, 3:23:10.320 --> 3:23:13.800 because like, you know, screw like you know, you're if 3:23:13.800 --> 3:23:15.920 you're gonna be working like a ship job anyways, you 3:23:16.000 --> 3:23:18.560 might as well like go work one where you're saulting 3:23:18.600 --> 3:23:21.160 and starting a union because there's not actually like I 3:23:21.160 --> 3:23:22.840 don't know's it's not. It's not it's not like you're 3:23:22.920 --> 3:23:29.360 like getting career advancement in the service job, right, And yeah, 3:23:29.400 --> 3:23:32.920 I mean that seems to be driving like at least 3:23:32.959 --> 3:23:35.520 some of the sort of of how this kind of 3:23:35.600 --> 3:23:40.920 like how the independent union union organizing in Portland's been moving. Yeah. 3:23:41.000 --> 3:23:43.240 I think I'd also like to point out though that 3:23:43.560 --> 3:23:49.280 like a lot of people for our union, specifically New 3:23:49.360 --> 3:23:55.360 Seasons has always been like the progressive business and you've 3:23:55.400 --> 3:23:59.480 always had a reputation of like being a great place 3:23:59.600 --> 3:24:05.680 to work. They're really inclusive or whatever. So that's what 3:24:05.920 --> 3:24:09.800 attracts like a certain crowd of people, and when they 3:24:09.879 --> 3:24:12.920 get there and they realize that, like they're getting screwed over, 3:24:13.120 --> 3:24:16.000 just like any other place that they've ever been at, 3:24:18.000 --> 3:24:21.680 that like fosters this new feeling of like, well, I'm 3:24:21.840 --> 3:24:24.760 vulnerable no matter what I do, Like there's no where 3:24:24.840 --> 3:24:30.480 I can turn to trust my employer, and how do 3:24:30.640 --> 3:24:34.080 I preserve what little dignity that I do have at 3:24:34.160 --> 3:24:38.840 this workplace? Because generally speaking, like our jobs are pretty 3:24:38.959 --> 3:24:43.840 okay minus like the corporate business side of things, like 3:24:44.680 --> 3:24:50.920 most people enjoy going to work, maybe, but they they 3:24:51.040 --> 3:24:55.320 want to enjoy going to work. So having that like 3:24:56.480 --> 3:25:00.400 kind of double edged sword has been a cat for 3:25:00.560 --> 3:25:02.400 us to just built. 3:25:02.200 --> 3:25:02.959 On what Alex said too. 3:25:03.000 --> 3:25:05.040 I think it's really interesting that a lot of the 3:25:05.920 --> 3:25:09.160 surge in new like independent union stuff has been you know, 3:25:09.800 --> 3:25:14.640 new seasons, Starbucks to a degree, Rii, Trader Joe. It's 3:25:14.680 --> 3:25:18.240 all these places, these progressive workplaces, right, And what's happened 3:25:18.360 --> 3:25:22.280 is that so often we've had interactions with customers where 3:25:22.280 --> 3:25:24.440 they go, wow, I assumed that the prices were so 3:25:24.560 --> 3:25:26.840 high because your wages were high, and really, dude, like 3:25:28.000 --> 3:25:29.920 most of us can't afford to live in the city, right, 3:25:29.959 --> 3:25:34.240 most of us are using Yeah, and it's just not 3:25:34.560 --> 3:25:37.680 it's not true, right, And so you know, it's workers 3:25:37.720 --> 3:25:40.280 who get jobs at these progressive places that drank the 3:25:40.320 --> 3:25:42.959 similar social kool aid that the customers drink. But assuming 3:25:43.000 --> 3:25:46.160 that these businesses have good business practices, and what's happening 3:25:46.240 --> 3:25:48.280 is that they're just getting greedy, right, This is the 3:25:48.400 --> 3:25:49.199 case everywhere. 3:25:49.480 --> 3:25:50.039 It just hits a. 3:25:50.000 --> 3:25:52.600 Little bit different when your employer pretends your friends and 3:25:52.680 --> 3:25:53.800 then stabs you in the back. 3:25:54.240 --> 3:25:54.440 Yeah. 3:25:55.160 --> 3:25:57.840 Not all workplaces have this kind of like oh, we're 3:25:57.920 --> 3:26:01.560 like progressive sort of vibes. But I feel like businesses 3:26:01.600 --> 3:26:04.560 that have that reputation are also more just more vulnerable. 3:26:04.600 --> 3:26:08.720 It's not just that like their workers like realize howyocritical 3:26:08.760 --> 3:26:10.320 it is. It means that they're It means that they're 3:26:10.480 --> 3:26:13.040 more vulnerable to sort of like damage to their reputation 3:26:13.120 --> 3:26:15.200 when people find out that, like oh my god, hold on, 3:26:15.560 --> 3:26:19.959 you're making how much money? Like yeah, and I think, yeah, 3:26:20.360 --> 3:26:23.080 I don't know, I'm interested, like how how effective has 3:26:23.160 --> 3:26:24.960 that been for you? Sort of like leveraging that. 3:26:26.320 --> 3:26:27.680 I think it's been really effective. 3:26:27.879 --> 3:26:29.480 I mean, you know, and not just as I think 3:26:29.560 --> 3:26:32.360 a really good example of exactly what you're talking about, right, 3:26:32.480 --> 3:26:35.080 is the shareholders of Starbucks are holding Howard Schultz accountable 3:26:35.120 --> 3:26:38.840 because he is wrecking that company, right. And so with 3:26:39.040 --> 3:26:41.320 New Seasons, what it means is that they play a 3:26:41.440 --> 3:26:43.840 very sneaky game. They fight us in the back room. 3:26:43.959 --> 3:26:46.360 They make sure it's not public facing anything we can 3:26:46.400 --> 3:26:49.600 do to attack their public image, like it hurts. I 3:26:49.720 --> 3:26:51.760 will say too that you know, we're kind of standing 3:26:51.800 --> 3:26:54.760 on the shoulders of Burgerville Workers Union here where Burgerville 3:26:55.040 --> 3:26:57.320 was built on this reputation of like local friendly, like 3:26:57.400 --> 3:27:02.480 we're the alternative to like corporate fast food, and they 3:27:02.600 --> 3:27:07.400 had security guards and strikebusters literally fighting with picketers in 3:27:07.520 --> 3:27:09.160 the past and it tanked the reputation. 3:27:09.240 --> 3:27:10.480 And so New Season's. 3:27:10.160 --> 3:27:13.160 Management has clearly looked at what Burgerville management did and 3:27:13.240 --> 3:27:15.080 been like, we're not going to do that. It doesn't 3:27:15.080 --> 3:27:17.680 stop them from being pitty. They're just they're more polite 3:27:17.720 --> 3:27:19.680 when they're pretty to us. They're still just as shitty. 3:27:19.800 --> 3:27:23.160 They're just they smile while they stab us in the back. Yeah, 3:27:23.200 --> 3:27:25.200 So on the subject just of stebbing us in the back. 3:27:25.360 --> 3:27:28.400 So there's been a bunch of stuff going on recently. 3:27:28.400 --> 3:27:30.800 I was wondering if you could talk about like the 3:27:31.520 --> 3:27:35.320 I don't know, the recent unrest question mark need to 3:27:35.320 --> 3:27:36.600 figure out a better way to phrase this. 3:27:36.760 --> 3:27:40.560 But yeah, yeah, so yeah, we've been building up. We have, 3:27:41.800 --> 3:27:44.840 i mean since day one of bargaining, which started back 3:27:44.920 --> 3:27:47.120 in like December or January. 3:27:48.280 --> 3:27:49.359 It started in January. 3:27:50.560 --> 3:27:56.440 Yeah, So we we've known that eventually it's going to 3:27:56.480 --> 3:27:58.200 get to a point where we're going to need to 3:27:58.320 --> 3:28:02.120 show some force. So, you know, we go in there 3:28:02.760 --> 3:28:06.360 with good faith, and little by little we find out 3:28:06.520 --> 3:28:12.120 that the smallest ask is going to be impossible, and 3:28:12.280 --> 3:28:14.800 we find out that they're going to do whatever they 3:28:14.879 --> 3:28:18.680 can get away with every time they can. So they 3:28:18.760 --> 3:28:22.119 started with I mean, they did all kinds of things, 3:28:22.200 --> 3:28:27.760 but the one catalyst is they changed the attendance policy 3:28:29.000 --> 3:28:30.519 for non union. 3:28:30.280 --> 3:28:34.840 Workers and non union stores to. 3:28:34.959 --> 3:28:39.200 Make it more lenient, which was one of the issues 3:28:39.320 --> 3:28:43.440 that we campaigned on was the attendance policy because it's 3:28:43.560 --> 3:28:47.880 ridiculous and people get fired all the time. So we 3:28:48.440 --> 3:28:52.680 demanded the bargain. They didn't have a response. We brought 3:28:52.720 --> 3:28:56.000 it up in bargaining at the bargaining table. They said 3:28:57.120 --> 3:29:02.000 that they would work on something that we could implement 3:29:02.320 --> 3:29:05.600 before we ratify the contract, but they had to put 3:29:05.640 --> 3:29:11.160 it through their DEI lens and they had to yeah, yeah, 3:29:11.800 --> 3:29:15.000 and you know all the things that corporations say to 3:29:15.600 --> 3:29:18.280 delay it and kick the can down the road. So 3:29:18.600 --> 3:29:23.760 we're Dylan good faith saying like, okay, you know, go ahead. 3:29:23.840 --> 3:29:28.120 So then we did a petition where all the stores 3:29:29.240 --> 3:29:33.760 individually had people sign a petition. We got hundreds of signatures, 3:29:34.400 --> 3:29:37.840 and then we did a march on the boss asking 3:29:37.920 --> 3:29:42.640 them to sign this MoU that a memorandum of understanding 3:29:42.800 --> 3:29:47.039 saying you will give us that same policy. We filed 3:29:47.040 --> 3:29:52.040 a ULP saying like this is illegal, it's obvious discrimination, 3:29:53.520 --> 3:29:58.160 and then they just kept saying, Okay, we're working on it. 3:29:58.240 --> 3:29:59.800 We're working on it, We're working on it. 3:30:00.000 --> 3:30:01.160 So they never did. 3:30:01.400 --> 3:30:04.400 Then we did a rally and we showed up at 3:30:04.480 --> 3:30:10.080 the headquarters with I don't know, probably two hundred of 3:30:10.240 --> 3:30:15.320 us hell yeah, and marched up to the office and 3:30:15.800 --> 3:30:20.920 chanted and made a scene and told them they have 3:30:21.040 --> 3:30:24.360 one more chance to sign the MoU. They didn't sign it. 3:30:25.720 --> 3:30:29.400 So then we organized the strikes at the two stores 3:30:30.480 --> 3:30:35.119 and gave them one more chance to sign the MoU. 3:30:35.240 --> 3:30:38.040 They didn't sign it. We already knew they weren't going 3:30:38.120 --> 3:30:41.760 to So yeah, we shut down those stores for the 3:30:41.840 --> 3:30:45.520 rest of the day at Grant Park and for one 3:30:45.680 --> 3:30:47.279 hour at ourbor Lodge. 3:30:48.480 --> 3:30:50.000 And it was powerful. 3:30:50.160 --> 3:30:53.440 We had a lot of support, a lot of people 3:30:53.520 --> 3:30:53.959 showed up. 3:30:55.680 --> 3:30:58.640 Yeah, and to build on that too. 3:31:00.360 --> 3:31:02.960 You know, there's things coming up that we can't talk 3:31:02.959 --> 3:31:06.320 about yet, but I would say that, Alex, do you 3:31:06.360 --> 3:31:07.879 want to talk about the practice picketing? 3:31:08.240 --> 3:31:09.520 I feel like we could talk about. 3:31:09.280 --> 3:31:13.320 That, Okay, so we actually can talk about We've just 3:31:13.480 --> 3:31:17.800 filed a ULP, yeah, last night for bad faith bargaining. 3:31:18.320 --> 3:31:20.240 Yeahs an unfair labor practice. 3:31:20.959 --> 3:31:23.440 Yes, thank you. I get caught up in the jargon. 3:31:24.000 --> 3:31:26.760 So we just filed that last night for bad faith 3:31:26.800 --> 3:31:32.199 bargaining yep, because they gave us the most ridiculous policy 3:31:33.360 --> 3:31:39.359 for attendance. It's basically regressive bargaining, which is totally unfair. 3:31:39.879 --> 3:31:41.600 Yeah, do you want to explain what that is? 3:31:42.440 --> 3:31:46.920 Basically, the NLRB, the National Labor Relations Board. They oversee 3:31:47.160 --> 3:31:50.680 unions and the relationship between unions and employers. They demand 3:31:50.760 --> 3:31:54.400 that both sides come in good faith, basically like don't 3:31:54.400 --> 3:31:56.240 screw around, don't waste each other's time. 3:31:57.720 --> 3:32:00.480 The goal is to move towards some sort of comp and. 3:32:00.520 --> 3:32:05.440 An agreement, and regressive bargaining is when you backpedal and 3:32:05.560 --> 3:32:07.720 you offer something that is worse than what was offered. 3:32:08.200 --> 3:32:11.160 The attendance policy is, in my opinion, definitely worse. 3:32:11.720 --> 3:32:12.560 It is no better. 3:32:13.000 --> 3:32:15.560 I think it frankly takes the shittiest things of the 3:32:15.600 --> 3:32:18.720 past two policies and put them together. So it seems 3:32:18.760 --> 3:32:21.080 pretty clear to us that it's regressive. And then we 3:32:21.160 --> 3:32:23.480 can argue that New Seasons is not acting in good faith. 3:32:23.520 --> 3:32:26.400 They are acting in bad faith, which is illegal according 3:32:26.400 --> 3:32:28.200 to the NRB. And so what we are allowed to 3:32:28.240 --> 3:32:32.760 do is file an unfair labor practice, which basically, you know, 3:32:32.840 --> 3:32:37.439 it doesn't hold a lot of weight materially, however, symbolically 3:32:37.520 --> 3:32:40.720 it looks really bad. And so again going back to 3:32:40.920 --> 3:32:42.320 like Mia, what you were saying about kind of like 3:32:42.400 --> 3:32:46.080 their image, right, Like these kind of progressive corporations, they 3:32:46.120 --> 3:32:49.000 don't want to look like the bastards they are. 3:32:49.560 --> 3:32:52.240 And a ULP makes it pretty clear, Hey, this person's. 3:32:51.920 --> 3:32:53.560 Being a jerk, this company is being a jerk. So 3:32:53.959 --> 3:32:56.720 the more ulps that we get filed that like, we win. 3:32:56.840 --> 3:32:59.240 On the bigger case. We can paint that New seasons 3:32:59.280 --> 3:33:00.920 is actually being really unfair to us. 3:33:01.720 --> 3:33:01.920 Yeah. 3:33:02.080 --> 3:33:09.440 So then based on that, we're getting strike ready. We're 3:33:10.360 --> 3:33:16.280 making sure everybody can show up and be ready to 3:33:16.640 --> 3:33:21.000 assert our stance. We're not going to just lay back 3:33:21.080 --> 3:33:25.520 and let them take over. So we're going to do 3:33:25.640 --> 3:33:30.480 some practice pickets. And I'm sure even hearing that a lot, 3:33:30.720 --> 3:33:34.039 which is great for I mean, and if you want 3:33:34.080 --> 3:33:37.400 to bring it back to like the higher turnover rate 3:33:37.640 --> 3:33:41.240 and like, you know, the general apathy that you see 3:33:41.560 --> 3:33:46.440 in any union, people are just kind of afraid to 3:33:47.040 --> 3:33:50.720 be active. So we're looking at practice pickets as a 3:33:50.760 --> 3:33:57.040 way to get people involved in a really low risk activity. 3:33:57.320 --> 3:34:00.200 Can you explain how that works? Yeah, So what we're 3:34:00.240 --> 3:34:00.600 going to do. 3:34:00.800 --> 3:34:05.600 Is each store will do a picket, but that picket 3:34:05.680 --> 3:34:06.920 will not be a strike. 3:34:07.200 --> 3:34:08.520 That picket will not. 3:34:10.240 --> 3:34:16.040 Encourage shoppers to leave or discourage shopping in any way. 3:34:17.840 --> 3:34:22.560 We're not calling for a boycott. We're just simply doing logistically, 3:34:22.879 --> 3:34:25.720 what does it look like if we do a picket 3:34:25.800 --> 3:34:30.200 at each store in the most peaceful way possible, and 3:34:30.320 --> 3:34:33.840 then we do that at every store and we kind 3:34:33.879 --> 3:34:36.520 of gauge, like, you know, how ready are we. 3:34:38.280 --> 3:34:40.680 And by doing that too it's a show of force 3:34:40.800 --> 3:34:42.960 to the company, right, Yeah, it's not We're not doing 3:34:43.000 --> 3:34:46.879 anything illegal. It's effectively an informational picket. So legally there's 3:34:46.920 --> 3:34:48.600 nothing that New Seasons can do to any of the 3:34:48.640 --> 3:34:49.800 workers who participate in it. 3:34:50.120 --> 3:34:52.640 However, they will absolutely see that we are prepared. 3:34:52.320 --> 3:34:55.880 To do it. The team Staris recently did this for ups. 3:34:56.760 --> 3:34:59.640 A lot of teachers' unions have done similar things. It's 3:34:59.680 --> 3:35:01.840 a really can go a force to kind of leverage 3:35:02.080 --> 3:35:04.800 your people power and show the management that you're ready. 3:35:06.160 --> 3:35:08.880 Yeah, and it has another it has another effect too, 3:35:09.040 --> 3:35:13.680 which is something that you know, the the kind of 3:35:13.879 --> 3:35:17.960 basic cultural understanding of you know, what unions are, how 3:35:18.040 --> 3:35:21.280 they function, what you need to be doing any given scenario, 3:35:21.400 --> 3:35:23.680 like me just physically, how to like do picketts, what 3:35:23.760 --> 3:35:26.440 you logistically need to do. That stuff has all sort 3:35:26.480 --> 3:35:29.680 of faded from like the height of union sort of 3:35:29.920 --> 3:35:32.959 culture in like the sixties and seventies, and that's something 3:35:33.000 --> 3:35:35.560 that you have to rebuild because you know, and and 3:35:35.680 --> 3:35:38.080 and then and this is this is something that's both 3:35:38.320 --> 3:35:41.200 both in terms of the people in the union. That 3:35:41.280 --> 3:35:43.640 sort of knowledge isituitional knowledge has to be rebuilt, and 3:35:43.680 --> 3:35:45.879 it also has to be rebuilt in the public because 3:35:45.879 --> 3:35:48.720 people sort of just don't you know, like you support 3:35:48.760 --> 3:35:52.119 for unions is really high, uh, but people don't understand 3:35:52.680 --> 3:35:56.720 exactly what like you know, people, people don't understand exactly 3:35:56.879 --> 3:35:59.160 what a union is doing any given time, or like 3:35:59.240 --> 3:36:01.360 how it functions and things like that. 3:36:01.520 --> 3:36:02.560 And you know, then this is this. 3:36:02.560 --> 3:36:05.840 Seems like a really good way to like, you know, like, hey, 3:36:05.920 --> 3:36:07.760 this is a picket. This is what happens when there's 3:36:07.760 --> 3:36:09.600 a picket. This is an informational picket. We're gonna give 3:36:09.600 --> 3:36:12.400 you information. And yes, it seems like a good thing 3:36:12.480 --> 3:36:14.640 for building up that kind of culture on both ends. 3:36:15.840 --> 3:36:18.680 And it's a really good opportunity to talk to customers 3:36:19.600 --> 3:36:22.080 get them involved. That's the thing that's that you know, 3:36:22.959 --> 3:36:25.600 New Seasons kind of tagline as the friendliest store in town. 3:36:26.000 --> 3:36:27.680 And then the way that they built that, Yeah, the 3:36:27.760 --> 3:36:30.440 way that they built that reputation though, was by really 3:36:30.600 --> 3:36:35.280 encouraging workers to develop deep relationships with customers. And so 3:36:35.959 --> 3:36:38.520 we're using that to leverage against the company now and 3:36:38.600 --> 3:36:39.560 saying like hey, like you. 3:36:39.600 --> 3:36:41.720 Know you like me, like you know me by name, 3:36:41.760 --> 3:36:42.640 and I know you by name. 3:36:42.720 --> 3:36:45.360 You don't know the CEO by name, like let's talk 3:36:45.560 --> 3:36:47.800 Let's talk about like what we're asking for and what 3:36:47.920 --> 3:36:50.280 you as a customer can do to support us in 3:36:50.360 --> 3:36:53.200 a way that doesn't feel antagonistic. Right, Like like when 3:36:53.240 --> 3:36:55.480 we had the when we had the walkouts on Labor 3:36:55.520 --> 3:36:58.600 Day weekend, you know, we did a debrief and we're 3:36:58.640 --> 3:37:00.200 kind of like, how do we, like, how do we 3:37:00.280 --> 3:37:02.680 engage with people where we can hold onto our values 3:37:03.080 --> 3:37:07.120 and still feel like we're being effective. And Randy, a 3:37:07.200 --> 3:37:10.280 worker at our lodge, his solution instead of calling people 3:37:10.280 --> 3:37:12.280 who cross the picket line scabs and like you know, 3:37:12.360 --> 3:37:15.360 harassing that way, you know, he was like, I just said, like, hey, 3:37:15.400 --> 3:37:18.280 I'm disappointed in you, and I think that like like yeah, 3:37:18.360 --> 3:37:20.280 like let's just like we're gonna just like if you're 3:37:20.280 --> 3:37:21.520 going to cross the picket line, I don't need to 3:37:21.600 --> 3:37:23.320 hurl insults at you. I'm just going to guilt trip 3:37:23.360 --> 3:37:25.680 you and let you know that like I'm disappointed in 3:37:25.760 --> 3:37:28.040 you and like you will feel bad as you're shopping. 3:37:28.640 --> 3:37:30.680 And I think that like that's sort of how we 3:37:30.840 --> 3:37:34.000 can align the progressive values that attracted people to New 3:37:34.040 --> 3:37:36.039 Seasons to work there in the first place with how 3:37:36.080 --> 3:37:38.320 we do actions while still being militant, right, we don't 3:37:38.320 --> 3:37:38.879 want to be soft. 3:37:39.240 --> 3:37:41.280 We just got to make sure that like it vibes 3:37:41.320 --> 3:37:42.920 with what we're about, you know. 3:37:45.480 --> 3:37:47.760 Yeah, and that's that's another you know, I think this 3:37:47.879 --> 3:37:49.920 this also gets back to the sort of culture part 3:37:49.959 --> 3:37:53.320 of it, which is like, yeah, like rebuilding the standard 3:37:53.440 --> 3:37:55.720 of do not cross a picket line is a thing 3:37:55.800 --> 3:37:58.480 that has to be done because that's again that's another 3:37:58.560 --> 3:38:01.400 thing that has sort of faded. And yeah, like guilt 3:38:01.440 --> 3:38:05.120 tripping people is a good way to do it because yeah, 3:38:05.160 --> 3:38:08.600 you know, like sort of especially especially sort of like 3:38:08.640 --> 3:38:12.320 middle and upper middle class progressive people, like really really 3:38:12.440 --> 3:38:14.000 there are a lot of their politics is about wanting 3:38:14.040 --> 3:38:19.199 to feel good about themselves and you know, make make. 3:38:19.120 --> 3:38:22.560 You they can see Yeah, I think if they can 3:38:22.720 --> 3:38:27.760 see themselves in us too, they will relate and they 3:38:28.959 --> 3:38:33.680 they won't want to go against their own values, which 3:38:34.440 --> 3:38:39.080 is our values, because that's the culture of Portland generally speaking. 3:38:40.160 --> 3:38:41.880 Did you have anything else that you want to make 3:38:41.920 --> 3:38:43.320 sure to get in before we wrap up? 3:38:44.480 --> 3:38:47.520 Yeah, we would love to push our gofund me. 3:38:47.879 --> 3:38:48.080 Yeah. 3:38:48.520 --> 3:38:51.760 That can be found at our website, which is really 3:38:51.840 --> 3:38:52.560 hard to find. 3:38:53.360 --> 3:38:57.800 Is it a slut or but yeah, you have to 3:38:57.959 --> 3:38:58.440 type it in. 3:38:58.640 --> 3:38:59.680 You can't just google it. 3:39:00.080 --> 3:39:01.959 Okay, well we'll put it. We'll just we'll just put 3:39:01.959 --> 3:39:03.720 a link to it in the okay, cool. 3:39:04.240 --> 3:39:05.359 Yeah, yeah. 3:39:06.720 --> 3:39:06.920 Yeah. 3:39:07.040 --> 3:39:10.160 If anybody you know we're out here being independent union. 3:39:10.280 --> 3:39:14.760 We have no money. We're just looking for maybe some 3:39:14.920 --> 3:39:18.120 sort of strike fund for those in need when we 3:39:19.240 --> 3:39:24.560 are strike ready, and also you know, materials, whatever people 3:39:24.680 --> 3:39:26.200 can donate would be amazing. 3:39:26.959 --> 3:39:28.560 Final notes I would say too, is that you know 3:39:29.680 --> 3:39:32.960 when we started this, I mean, we're an independent union 3:39:33.000 --> 3:39:34.040 of grocery workers, right. 3:39:34.440 --> 3:39:36.080 We did all of this in our volunteer time. 3:39:36.560 --> 3:39:39.000 None of us are lawyers, none of a lot of 3:39:39.120 --> 3:39:41.800 us had never been in a union before or had 3:39:41.920 --> 3:39:45.080 very limited experience. We build this all from the ground 3:39:45.200 --> 3:39:48.600 up with tons of volunteer hours of our own time 3:39:48.680 --> 3:39:52.200 after work. And we have gone toe to toe with 3:39:52.640 --> 3:39:55.120 Ogle Tree Deacons, who is one of the largest anti 3:39:55.240 --> 3:39:57.800 union law firms in the country. That's who New Seasons 3:39:57.959 --> 3:40:01.640 has retained. We've gone toe to toe with them. We 3:40:01.760 --> 3:40:05.400 have a lawyer now who is really graciously kind of 3:40:05.600 --> 3:40:07.640 letting us write her in IOU for the time being, 3:40:08.480 --> 3:40:10.959 But even before her, we were still able to hold 3:40:11.000 --> 3:40:14.160 her own against a major anti union law firm. Right, 3:40:14.480 --> 3:40:18.640 there is power in workers coming together collectively. It's not 3:40:19.840 --> 3:40:21.920 as easy as it should be to find that information, 3:40:22.440 --> 3:40:24.760 but it is out there and there are people who 3:40:24.840 --> 3:40:26.480 want to share it, and I would say that, like, 3:40:28.000 --> 3:40:30.760 for me, the labor movement has been a really empowering 3:40:30.800 --> 3:40:32.800 place to come into. You know, I have a lot 3:40:32.840 --> 3:40:35.560 of experience with sort of like leftists, like street activism, 3:40:36.600 --> 3:40:39.360 but I think that for anybody who wants to be 3:40:39.440 --> 3:40:42.120 involved in the struggle and is also like looking for 3:40:42.240 --> 3:40:42.879 ways to make. 3:40:42.840 --> 3:40:45.200 In rigs and develop community like. 3:40:45.320 --> 3:40:47.360 Labors where it's at right, I mean, we all work 3:40:47.520 --> 3:40:49.080 and to a degree, we all hit our jobs and 3:40:49.120 --> 3:40:51.160 have something to complain about, and like that's a commonality 3:40:51.200 --> 3:40:55.520 that stretches across the aisle and allows for a lot 3:40:55.560 --> 3:40:59.600 of solidarity in a way that the culture war really 3:40:59.640 --> 3:41:03.640 doesn't want and really, like you know, it's by design, right, 3:41:03.680 --> 3:41:07.080 the capitalists want us fighting against each other, and the 3:41:07.160 --> 3:41:08.920 labor movement is a way for the working class to 3:41:09.040 --> 3:41:11.520 unite because it's it's about class far. 3:41:11.720 --> 3:41:19.280 You know, yeah, here here, yeah, and you know this 3:41:19.480 --> 3:41:24.040 this should go without saying. I'm going to say it anyways, 3:41:24.600 --> 3:41:27.560 you also listener at home can do this too. There 3:41:27.640 --> 3:41:29.920 is you know, there there there there. There is nothing 3:41:29.959 --> 3:41:32.280 sort of magical or special about the people who do 3:41:32.400 --> 3:41:34.440 union organizing other than the fact that they decide to 3:41:34.560 --> 3:41:37.160 organize a union. So you can do this too. You 3:41:37.200 --> 3:41:39.400 can form an independent union and yeah, you can go 3:41:39.520 --> 3:41:42.480 hand your bosses a fucking gass and get better, you know, 3:41:42.520 --> 3:41:45.200 get better working conditions and get better things for you 3:41:45.440 --> 3:41:47.320 and your entire class in the process. 3:41:48.040 --> 3:41:48.280 Yeah. 3:41:49.000 --> 3:41:51.280 I would say Labor Notes is a great resource for 3:41:51.360 --> 3:41:55.240 early information. The Coalition of Independent Unions is on Instagram 3:41:55.400 --> 3:41:57.440 and workers from around the country have reached out to 3:41:57.480 --> 3:42:01.360 them for advice. You know, on Instagram you can ask 3:42:01.480 --> 3:42:05.200 us questions. Reach out to independent unions and ask them questions. 3:42:05.480 --> 3:42:07.480 This is a labor movement made up of the workers 3:42:07.720 --> 3:42:10.400 for the workers. We want more workers to organize. 3:42:11.040 --> 3:42:13.760 Yeah, and I think on that note, Yeah, this has 3:42:13.800 --> 3:42:17.360 been Nike to happen here. Go into the world and fight. Yeah, 3:42:17.520 --> 3:42:19.240 thank you, thank you so much. 3:42:19.320 --> 3:42:25.560 Maya Hey, We'll be back Monday with more episodes every 3:42:25.600 --> 3:42:27.800 week from now until the heat death of the universe. 3:42:28.400 --> 3:42:30.760 It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media. 3:42:31.000 --> 3:42:33.640 For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 3:42:33.720 --> 3:42:35.880 cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the 3:42:35.959 --> 3:42:39.360 iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts, 3:42:39.800 --> 3:42:41.879 you can find sources for It could happen here, Updated 3:42:41.959 --> 3:42:46.000 monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.