Speaker 1: Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of The
Speaker 1: Weekly Zeitgeist. These are some of our favorite segments from
Speaker 1: this week, all edited together into one NonStop infotainment laugh stravaganza. Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: without further ado, here is the Weekly Zeitgeist. Miles. This
Speaker 1: is a very special episode. Our guest today is an
Speaker 1: expert author of a book that I will just say
Speaker 1: explained a lot, explained everything about how modern America operates
Speaker 1: in a lot of aspects.
Speaker 2: And you'll even hear me admit the beginning. I'm like
Speaker 2: I was going around a lot of my adult life
Speaker 2: vaguely understanding what we're talking about, and then but hearing
Speaker 2: it properly and like reading it, have it be properly
Speaker 2: articulated by someone who's like looking at it from a
Speaker 2: legal standpoint. Oh yeah, Yo, that's fucking terrible. I mean,
Speaker 2: like I knew that broadly, but this is it gives
Speaker 2: it so much texture in a way though.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it might seem at first like a little
Speaker 1: depressing because it's like it's giving you really good texture
Speaker 1: on like why things are bad in certain ways. But
Speaker 1: I think ultimately it's kind of hopeful because it at
Speaker 1: least gives you an understanding of how things are actually operating.
Speaker 1: So we're going to talk to our expert guest, Brendan Blue,
Speaker 1: for a couple acts here for like the next forty minutes.
Speaker 1: We'll come back and close things out after that. So
Speaker 1: we will talk to you guys in a bit.
Speaker 2: Just a caveat I normally, I just I don't speak
Speaker 2: to the FEDS normally, So please don't. I don't want
Speaker 2: you guys writing in.
Speaker 1: About how I made miles doing I said, it's a
Speaker 1: it's always been fine for me. Come along, friend, let's
Speaker 1: talk to the FED. What is something from your search
Speaker 1: history that's for Tom? Yeah, he doesn't need to be
Speaker 1: arrange it.
Speaker 3: It's fine, And I'm just surprised.
Speaker 1: We have the rearranged search history has probably been first
Speaker 1: for one thousand, five hundred episodes. Is that how we've done?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 4: No, Yeah, well it's funny because it's it's last on
Speaker 4: the list of things that you send out that you're
Speaker 4: going to talk about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we like to keep you off guard so that
Speaker 1: maybe you give us your real search history, pretty search
Speaker 1: history you want people to believe.
Speaker 3: So anyway, I just know that I'm angry right off top.
Speaker 3: The last thing that I that I googled was where
Speaker 3: does band it work? M And you don't if you
Speaker 3: have a kid who's maybe just a little younger than
Speaker 3: mine or too old. What's your youngest lie?
Speaker 1: Mine is five years old.
Speaker 3: Okay, so he is in it? It's yeah.
Speaker 4: But what's funny about Blue is that they have jobs,
Speaker 4: and they have like dog jobs.
Speaker 5: Oh and wait, which one's blue?
Speaker 3: Wait?
Speaker 2: Who's bandit?
Speaker 3: Yeah he's the dad's I've seen the bluey.
Speaker 2: I've seen I definitely seen a couple of Oh so oh,
Speaker 2: Bandit is like the okay, got it? Yeah.
Speaker 4: So if you don't know, Blue is like one of
Speaker 4: the only shows that you can watch as an adult,
Speaker 4: like a kids show. I think it's like SpongeBob, you know,
Speaker 4: where it's like the jokes are good enough, you know,
Speaker 4: and it feels good enough that adults watch it anyway.
Speaker 1: Right, it feels good. It's also it can be like heartbreakings.
Speaker 1: It's it's very it can be heartbreaking.
Speaker 4: It's kind of like, uh, I look at it like
Speaker 4: a blueprint for how to interact with your kids. It's
Speaker 4: like your parents just yes and everything and explain everything,
Speaker 4: and they're just so nice.
Speaker 1: And so patient, so patient, like the they have like
Speaker 1: zen boot levels of patience with their children and that
Speaker 1: that is one of the first questions that occurs to
Speaker 1: you watching it, is like, so the dad is just
Speaker 1: like unemployed or something. What's going on? Why why is
Speaker 1: he spending an entire day?
Speaker 4: Because the show's not about their jobs, it's about you.
Speaker 4: How so, but the both the parents have dog jobs,
Speaker 4: which I think is really funny. Like he's an archaeologist,
Speaker 4: meaning that he digs up bones, okay, and the mom
Speaker 4: Chili on the sidewalk, is a sidewalk shitter.
Speaker 3: She's a bomb sniffing dog at the airport.
Speaker 1: No, yeah, wait, there's which implies the present domestic and
Speaker 1: international terrorism.
Speaker 3: But there Australia, there's not as much of a worry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Ozzie's gang. Who are Who's who's bringing bombs into
Speaker 2: your country?
Speaker 3: No one, not with Chili on the losing Wait.
Speaker 2: Do they ever do they reference? It's like, do you
Speaker 2: ever go to work with the dad and be like, oh,
Speaker 2: he's doing this, and like oh this mom is, you know,
Speaker 2: sniffing up bombs and shit?
Speaker 3: I don't know if they know she's a mom at work,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, you know, not it's not her only identity.
Speaker 4: Because women at work often face extra challenges being mothers,
Speaker 4: This is true. And some of them have really mean bosses.
Speaker 4: And now my wife actually has a very mean, mean,
Speaker 4: mean boss at her office, and it sounds horrible for her.
Speaker 4: Oh it's me, that's right. I am pretty bad.
Speaker 1: What you see not what you get with this podcast.
Speaker 1: This whole personality.
Speaker 4: Classic, hiding it in front of almost everybody every time
Speaker 4: you ever open up your mouth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's good, I'm coming for him, But because I
Speaker 1: just I think I can squeeze a little more productivity
Speaker 1: out of them with the force of my personality nick
Speaker 1: for sure, for sure, and and my hunger for conflict.
Speaker 1: Those are the two things that drive me.
Speaker 3: And you started that seven day work week, for.
Speaker 2: Which she loves.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's how the only way we'll have it.
Speaker 3: The we don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think we're fully up on Blue, or at
Speaker 1: least I don't think I've watched every episode of Blue
Speaker 1: with my kids.
Speaker 3: They do.
Speaker 1: We don't like go to work with them ever, right,
Speaker 1: is this just lower?
Speaker 4: No, you don't go to work with them. They just
Speaker 4: talk about it like sometimes, but like not enough to
Speaker 4: even like know, like, oh, I don't know their names
Speaker 4: because they don't mention it enough. It's only like if
Speaker 4: another adult they see out calls them by their first name.
Speaker 1: Yeah, bandit and Chili Yeah yeah, you know some great
Speaker 1: Australian accents, like the really really makes you fond of
Speaker 1: I guess it just makes you fond of everything that
Speaker 1: it touches.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: I was reading recently they had to change an episode
Speaker 4: that hadn't aired here just in Australia that included fat
Speaker 4: shaming because they're very worried about everything, all right.
Speaker 2: But it's when you're ascribing some kind of value to
Speaker 2: it that yeah. It's like it's like the same thing too.
Speaker 2: I've talked about like in like Asian culture, because you'd
Speaker 2: be like, hey, you're bald, or like wow, look at
Speaker 2: your pimples. Like you know, it's like a lot of
Speaker 2: cultures don't have like a there's no like you just
Speaker 2: go straight to it. There's it's very direct, and especially
Speaker 2: when you talk about someone's looks. And I was talking
Speaker 2: about that with like my wife and I was ti like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: we do that japanel time. It's like yeah, but that's
Speaker 2: like toxic and I'm like right, oh yeah, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 3: That's true. Haha, I didn't think of I feel.
Speaker 1: Like bald shaming is still pretty common, like in the
Speaker 1: US at the very least like that. Oh yeah, yeah, No,
Speaker 1: nobody's trying to speak up for the bald. Well.
Speaker 2: I think it's because it's, like, you know, because you
Speaker 2: live in such a patriarchal society. They're like, no, fuck
Speaker 2: you guys were talking about men.
Speaker 4: The only show that really talks about being bald is
Speaker 4: Curb Your Enthusiasm, right yeah, and they understand that people
Speaker 4: hate bald.
Speaker 3: People hate you, bald. Larry. You know, I just got
Speaker 3: on monoxidil.
Speaker 4: Uh huh oh you started taking hair loss pills or
Speaker 4: the or growth or whatever.
Speaker 3: Because I just got I got to the I'm not bald,
Speaker 3: but I've got enough.
Speaker 1: I'd of hair.
Speaker 3: I've got enough of a.
Speaker 2: You're starting measure trying to measure it.
Speaker 3: You're like, I can notice it.
Speaker 1: You got the calibers out and went from your eyebrow
Speaker 1: bone to your hairline, and we're like, it's past.
Speaker 4: Yeah, where I need that's the one where that's like
Speaker 4: a pencil holder slash knife that you compass. That's a
Speaker 4: that's a compass.
Speaker 1: Calibers are like.
Speaker 3: That thing is how I used it in school?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was the first you can bring to school.
Speaker 1: Yeah, was allowed allowable.
Speaker 3: And isn't the compass the ruler.
Speaker 2: That's a protractor.
Speaker 1: Pro tract that's a pro tractor wrangles and stuff.
Speaker 2: The way you said ship like like a lot, like
Speaker 2: you just fucked up majorly with them.
Speaker 1: He's just, hey, Nick, you just fucked up big time.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know what to tell you.
Speaker 4: My kids school supplies and I really got him the wrong.
Speaker 3: Thing they get. You got him a compass.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they generally don't give those too.
Speaker 3: I got him a whole orienteering set.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know that phrase.
Speaker 4: But oh that's like that's where you would have a compass.
Speaker 3: That's for like looking, you know, like tricking the woods.
Speaker 1: Nick, what's something you think is oprated? What it's something,
Speaker 1: Caitlin you think is overrated?
Speaker 6: I think that, and this might be controversial, but I
Speaker 6: think that nachos are overrated, especially the kind you get
Speaker 6: as like at a restaurant when they like load on
Speaker 6: a bunch of you know, ground beef and cheese and
Speaker 6: cream sour cream and all that stuff. I think the
Speaker 6: flavors are good, but the execution is bad because they
Speaker 6: all get the chips get soggy almost immediately. It is
Speaker 6: very hard to get a good like distribution of all
Speaker 6: the toppings onto one chip because you got one that's
Speaker 6: like nothing but beef, which is gonna be my new catchphrase.
Speaker 1: Get out of my swamp. And if you come in
Speaker 1: my swamp, there's nothing but beef here for you exactly.
Speaker 6: And the other ones it's like, you know, only sour cream.
Speaker 6: It's just I think again, poorly executed.
Speaker 2: How how would you optimize? Because my biggest you know,
Speaker 2: gripe with bad nachos at a restaurant is it's all
Speaker 2: top heavy, like yeah yeah, and then and so you
Speaker 2: have it all on top and then underneath it's just
Speaker 2: a bunch of dry chips and then you got to
Speaker 2: kind of use those to like scrape by the top.
Speaker 2: I like when people layer them. I'm not I'm not
Speaker 2: as upset about the crunchiness because for me, I just
Speaker 2: want to have just shit on every chip. Basically, it's
Speaker 2: how I look at it. But how would you optimize
Speaker 2: If we're going to get around this, I think.
Speaker 6: We just need to do and this is a this
Speaker 6: will become a surface area problem because you're going to
Speaker 6: need a big ass tray. Yeah, just like one single
Speaker 6: layer of chips and then the topics evenly distributed, so
Speaker 6: you're talking like a tray.
Speaker 2: It's going to need to be like fourteen feet.
Speaker 6: Long, three by three feet kind of thing.
Speaker 1: The best strategy I've ever wait, and as my friend
Speaker 1: Blake in high school shut up. Blake went through and
Speaker 1: would put cheese on each chip and then a dollop
Speaker 1: of salsa like on top of the cheese, and that
Speaker 1: would keep it from getting and then you put it
Speaker 1: in the microwave. It is very time intensive, but it
Speaker 1: is truly the best way to do nachos is think
Speaker 1: of each chip as its own moment, its own nacho.
Speaker 1: You are as opposed to just dumping chips out and
Speaker 1: then like kind of had them scattering toppings across.
Speaker 2: They're not just numbers on a spreadsheet, man, Yeah, they're
Speaker 2: individual chips. Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 6: Each chip is a moment. That's beautiful.
Speaker 1: Restaurant nachos are real mess, but I still love just
Speaker 1: the orchestra.
Speaker 2: I feel like I have to. There always needs to
Speaker 2: be one person's really into nachos to order nachos.
Speaker 1: Should we do the nachos, guys?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly that.
Speaker 2: I'm like, well, you know, I wasn't like because they
Speaker 2: look really good, and I'm like, fine, you get the nachos,
Speaker 2: like they always look good. Yeah, anyway, all right, but
Speaker 2: you go after nachos pretty consistently, Kaitlin.
Speaker 6: No, I avoid them for the reason that I think
Speaker 6: they're overall.
Speaker 2: So if someone said, hey, should we get them, You're like,
Speaker 2: let me just actually tell you why everyone open. Actually yeah,
Speaker 2: I promised myself I wouldn't do this today.
Speaker 6: But yeah, so I'm like, let's get whatever. I don't know,
Speaker 6: the simpler platter. Clearly, I'm only going to Applebee's like restaurants.
Speaker 6: I'm like, let's get the Manza realistics, but no nachos
Speaker 6: for me.
Speaker 1: I love to get some nachos.
Speaker 3: I like to.
Speaker 1: I have ordered nachos as a main course before. Wow,
Speaker 1: just eat eat them by sending people off with my arms.
Speaker 2: Anyway, what's the meaning it's underrated? Brandy?
Speaker 7: If you're having like I've had like a rough couple
Speaker 7: of weeks with some stuff and I decided, you know what,
Speaker 7: fuck it, I'm gonna get my car detailed because I
Speaker 7: just wanted my I just was like, if my car
Speaker 7: is nice, I'm gonna it's like a reset. And I think,
Speaker 7: like that's something that like I have not done a
Speaker 7: lot in my life. And I was like, oh shit,
Speaker 7: this actually does make me feel really really good to
Speaker 7: have like a car that just like it's clean, it's
Speaker 7: got no.
Speaker 5: Trash, there's no dust, there's no dirt. Yeah, it just
Speaker 5: feels new. It just feels nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not I'm not the best at taking care
Speaker 2: of my vehicle. Yeah on the outside, Like you know,
Speaker 2: I have a like my passenger seat is I go
Speaker 2: in the car pool lane because I have so many
Speaker 2: receipts in my passenger seat it looks like a human
Speaker 2: beings riding with me. That's rod of the state of
Speaker 2: my car at times. But now, like with a child,
Speaker 2: I've become much better at it. But the way I
Speaker 2: love going to like the fucking car wash now, yeah,
Speaker 2: like I feel the same way. I'm like I sit there,
Speaker 2: like I bring a fucking newspaper, like I'm fucking you
Speaker 2: should be like check that out, leave it for the
Speaker 2: next person. Boom.
Speaker 5: I also listen, I love I love I love a
Speaker 5: car wash.
Speaker 8: I love like going to the car washing and having
Speaker 8: them clean it and see and having to wipe it
Speaker 8: and walk around and expect it is like, hey, brother.
Speaker 5: Spot like I love that shit.
Speaker 8: I love it, but I also still love I just
Speaker 8: did this recently because I didn't have enough time to
Speaker 8: like get a real car wash, so I just went
Speaker 8: through like one of the drive through joints.
Speaker 5: Yeah, just still lovely. It's still a lovely time.
Speaker 2: How often how often do you how often do you
Speaker 2: see somebody in the self like to do it, or
Speaker 2: like the drive through ones and they're about to crash
Speaker 2: into everybody else, like like because I know someone like
Speaker 2: you have to put in neutral. Other times, people like
Speaker 2: you don't know what to do. Their shit is moving
Speaker 2: inside and like you see them shut it down and
Speaker 2: someone's got to pull somebody. I be like, you're about
Speaker 2: to fucking rear end this other car.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I feel like I see that every time I go
Speaker 2: through one of those.
Speaker 3: I the ones.
Speaker 8: The only one I've been going to recently is the
Speaker 8: like little gas station ones that show so like you
Speaker 8: just stay in place and the thing moves around you.
Speaker 8: I haven't found too many ones that like you move
Speaker 8: through a whole thing.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they have a few of those, Like in
Speaker 2: the valley that I used to go to, there's one. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like it would sometimes I've saw people with some near
Speaker 2: misses and people were getting pretty turned up. But yeah,
Speaker 2: the thing about like, you know, having a rough time too.
Speaker 2: I was just saying this on like Monday Show and
Speaker 2: having like you know, stressful shake going on whatever. But like,
Speaker 2: the thing that I always have to remind myself is
Speaker 2: when I'm feeling shitty is to not get in the
Speaker 2: pattern of telling myself don't feel shitty, like like, why
Speaker 2: you feel shitty? This is stupid, You shouldn't.
Speaker 3: Feel bad, you should feel good.
Speaker 2: Why are you doing this? And like I have to
Speaker 2: kind of be like not, okay, I'm a human, so
Speaker 2: that's normal, and then like let me just operate from
Speaker 2: that space of being like it's all good now, let's
Speaker 2: try and move totally bit by bit, because yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: such a like ruminator. Shit, the way I can get
Speaker 2: lost in my own fucking mind. Let me tell you,
Speaker 2: I look like like I'm warging from fucking Game of
Speaker 2: Thrones or some shit. The way my eyes go back thoughts.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's just good to do something good for yourself
Speaker 9: every once in a while, and like that, that's one
Speaker 9: that like I had never really thought about that. I
Speaker 9: was like, you know what, I'm in my car so much,
Speaker 9: it should it could be nice. This is a space
Speaker 9: that could also just be nice. Yeah, yeah, I wouldn't
Speaker 9: thought about it.
Speaker 2: All Right, let's take a quick break. We'll come back
Speaker 2: and we'll talk about some the Supreme Court. You know,
Speaker 2: they go back and forth. Sometimes they're fucking doing the
Speaker 2: right thing, sometimes they're just caping for white supremacy all
Speaker 2: over again. Anyway, we'll be right back.
Speaker 1: And we're back. So that that story about how their
Speaker 1: insight into staffing was to trick people into using doctors
Speaker 1: outside of their network is just one of the stories
Speaker 1: in your book that is incredibly infuriating. There's also the
Speaker 1: worst hacking disaster in US history.
Speaker 3: Do you want to talk.
Speaker 1: About how that came about in partnership with private equity.
Speaker 10: Yeah, So two private equity firms brought up the tech
Speaker 10: company Solar Winds, which provides a lot of sort of
Speaker 10: like boring it and security services to companies. Looking through
Speaker 10: the documents in Solar Wind's public filings, it appears that
Speaker 10: after it was bought by a private equity firm. Staffing
Speaker 10: f company was cut, and, at least according to their
Speaker 10: public disclosures, a lot of their engineering work was moved overseas,
Speaker 10: including to, among other countries, Belarus, which is great. Yeah
Speaker 10: in the news recently. Yeah, Oh Lucashenko, great guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 10: Whether that's causal or not, Ultimately, Solar Winds suffered what
Speaker 10: one government official called the greatest hack in United States history.
Speaker 10: I believe the Department of Defense, Treasury, State Justice, and
Speaker 10: others were all compromised, and at least it appears on
Speaker 10: sort of initial reporting that the leaders of the private
Speaker 10: equity firms may have dumped stock in advance of the
Speaker 10: public disclosure of that. Now there's an investigation going on
Speaker 10: to that at the SEC. I don't know what the
Speaker 10: outcome of it was, but it was another example of
Speaker 10: you know, you have this industry, you know sort of
Speaker 10: it security that really needs to be thinking in terms
Speaker 10: of years and really decades for how to make sure
Speaker 10: that you've got to secure product when you're working with
Speaker 10: the government and they're being bought or controlled by private
Speaker 10: equity firms that are trying to make a profit. You know,
Speaker 10: in a matter of months or a manner of years,
Speaker 10: and it's just a very different perspective for how to
Speaker 10: run these businesses.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's right. The I mean similar to the
Speaker 1: you know, getting involved in er staffing. They also took
Speaker 1: over the operation of nine to one one calls at
Speaker 1: one point, like just all these things that Yeah, it
Speaker 1: just when you read stories of businesses that become successful
Speaker 1: over the over a long period of time, like it's
Speaker 1: really about fixating on like how to do the one
Speaker 1: thing that they do for customers, like better than anyone else.
Speaker 1: And time and time again, it seems like when these
Speaker 1: private equity firms come in, like it's just like that
Speaker 1: is the third or fourth thing that they're interested in,
Speaker 1: and the most interesting thing is delivering value for themselves
Speaker 1: and get yeah, yeah, financial success.
Speaker 10: It's interesting. You know, you look at the biographies of
Speaker 10: folks that run private equity firms and it's you know,
Speaker 10: it's not a critique of them, it's not a surprise,
Speaker 10: but you know, it's generally folks that do not have
Speaker 10: experience in sales or it or engineering or marketing or logistics.
Speaker 10: It's folks with a financial background, and so when they
Speaker 10: approach these companies typically you know, not always, but typically,
Speaker 10: you know, what they're trying to make are essentially sort
Speaker 10: of financial changes to these businesses that's going to you know,
Speaker 10: get a fairly quick return.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 10: You look at the diversity of what some of these
Speaker 10: private equity firms buy into. You know, it's a plastic
Speaker 10: logistics company, it's a municipal water service, and it's that
Speaker 10: dating app bumble, you know, and it's like one person
Speaker 10: doesn't really have the expertise run all those different kinds
Speaker 10: of companies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they just know how to make line go up right,
Speaker 2: and it's sort of like, oh, what what does that mean.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, we're not gonna have enough nurses. I
Speaker 2: don't know, man. But then when I look at these projections,
Speaker 2: I like what I'm seeing, let's do that and figuring
Speaker 2: out afterwards. What's really difficult is like we hear about
Speaker 2: all this. It is so apparent to everyone, you know,
Speaker 2: Like I think at this point even everyone listening is like, right, okay, okay,
Speaker 2: pirate equity bad or like not not necessarily out here
Speaker 2: for everyone's best interest. But then you think about like
Speaker 2: a lot of the examples that you give in your book,
Speaker 2: like it's also very very hard to hold these fucking
Speaker 2: people to account because of the nature of like all
Speaker 2: of the advantages that these companies have, whether it's through lobbying,
Speaker 2: whether it's through like a revolving door of entities that
Speaker 2: have been in government that end up there and then
Speaker 2: end up lobbying people they already know on the hill
Speaker 2: and things like that, or just the amount of complex
Speaker 2: like hight like whack a mole of who owns this
Speaker 2: thing that all come together because I think a lot
Speaker 2: of the times, especially when we talk about these issues,
Speaker 2: like on our show, we're like, well, what's the problem?
Speaker 3: Why can't why can't it stop? Right? Like it's we
Speaker 3: get it. We're seeing it.
Speaker 2: Like the cost is people losing their lives, the cost
Speaker 2: is people going bankrupt, the cost is untold suffering. And
Speaker 2: then you know, to be real, it's like, hey man,
Speaker 2: we're looking at you the FEDS. What's going on? And
Speaker 2: I know you've said this too, like it's the federal
Speaker 2: Like the DOJ is not the only entity that can
Speaker 2: go after this, but like, how how do you explain
Speaker 2: Like when people talk about the frustration of like well
Speaker 2: then what like something's out of give where where will
Speaker 2: it give it.
Speaker 3: Will be Yeah.
Speaker 10: Yeah, it's a huge issue because you know, as you
Speaker 10: started off, you know, private equity, I think has been
Speaker 10: uniquely successful in lobbying. You know, if you look at
Speaker 10: who private equity firms have hired, it's former secretaries of State,
Speaker 10: Treasury defends for two former Speakers of the House, to
Speaker 10: a vice president, former chair people of the FCC, and SEC.
Speaker 10: I mean, it's a really deep bench, and that means
Speaker 10: that they have just been extraordinarily successful at sort of
Speaker 10: advancing their legislative and regulatory agenda. I think the other
Speaker 10: challenge that we've got, and I think you hit on
Speaker 10: this exactly right, is it's really hard for ordinary people
Speaker 10: to hold private equity firms accountable. We have this doctrine
Speaker 10: called corporate veil piercing, which means that it's very hard
Speaker 10: to hold an investor responsible for the actions of the
Speaker 10: company that they invest in. That makes sense for you
Speaker 10: and me, where we've got our little Vanguard account and
Speaker 10: have like one share of stock and a company, you know,
Speaker 10: we don't really have much to say over them. That
Speaker 10: doctrine doesn't necessarily make sense for a private equity firm
Speaker 10: that has a controlling stake in these businesses and can
Speaker 10: essentially tell them what to do. And then lastly, I
Speaker 10: mean I think you hit the point exactly right, which
Speaker 10: is a lot of times it's just hard to even
Speaker 10: figure out who owns what and who to sue. I
Speaker 10: talked with folks that sue nursing homes on behalf of
Speaker 10: families whose you know, parents don't or we're injured or
Speaker 10: whatever it happens to be, and they're telling me, you know, look,
Speaker 10: these guys have these really broke organizational structures where there
Speaker 10: are shifting assets across multiple shell companies and you know,
Speaker 10: sort of across different shells, and it's really hard to
Speaker 10: figure out who is responsible and who has the assets
Speaker 10: to recover. So it's a really tough problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's something that's becoming normal too, like other
Speaker 2: industries are, like you know, what kind of works is
Speaker 2: if you kind of spread it all around and no
Speaker 2: one knows how to get like seek damages.
Speaker 3: Right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You tell us one really memorable story about Ashford, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, a Franciscan University of the Prairies is what
Speaker 1: it's called, but it's like a really small college run
Speaker 1: by nuns. And then it gets taken over and turned
Speaker 1: into Ashford University, which becomes this you know, Phoenix University
Speaker 1: like adjacent thing, and it's really this like outraging thing.
Speaker 1: And then you also mentioned that like the private acqua
Speaker 1: firm that now runs it is Warburg Pinkus, which is
Speaker 1: run by Obama's former Treasury Secrety Secretary Tim Geitner. And
Speaker 1: it's just like you just see that over and over again,
Speaker 1: like the amount of people from positions of power who
Speaker 1: like know how things work better than anybody, you know,
Speaker 1: most people listening to this and like know how things
Speaker 1: really work behind the scenes, are are going into private equity,
Speaker 1: and it just really feels like a eluding, a plundering
Speaker 1: that's happening.
Speaker 10: I yeah, I heard this third hand, so I don't
Speaker 10: know how true it is. But there was a senior
Speaker 10: government official who ended up doing some work for a
Speaker 10: private equity firm, and somebody was chiding them and they said, look,
Speaker 10: you know, it's not who's working for private equity, it's
Speaker 10: who isn't working for private equity right now. So it's
Speaker 10: it's pretty extraordinary the breadth of their success.
Speaker 2: Right And just like the greed, how it compounds itself.
Speaker 2: You know, because now it seems like you're almost incentivized
Speaker 2: to get into private equity because of how little repercussions
Speaker 2: people face. And I'm curious, like when you have a
Speaker 2: case like like the ones we've talked about, when it's like, yeah, man,
Speaker 2: like they own this company and they basically started throttling
Speaker 2: back their level of care which led to someone losing
Speaker 2: their life. Okay, well, then tell me who owns this
Speaker 2: and that person's responsible, Like when these cases get like
Speaker 2: dismissed the things is that the cynical part of like
Speaker 2: I think the cynical shorthand version of someone who believes
Speaker 2: in how like cronyism works and things like that believe
Speaker 2: that like, oh, the judges are in on it too.
Speaker 2: Everybody's in on this, that's why it's happening. But I
Speaker 2: think you've also raised the point that it's not necessarily
Speaker 2: like like there's there's a huge barrier to get over,
Speaker 2: which is informing people of how this even works too,
Speaker 2: and like having enough public pressure like around this idea
Speaker 2: or this industry of private equity that gets people to
Speaker 2: sort of be on the same page to understand the issues.
Speaker 10: Yeah, you know, I think one of the challenges that
Speaker 10: we've got is exactly what you're saying is education. And
Speaker 10: that's not just educating you know, sort of your listeners
Speaker 10: or you know people, and you know, you know, people
Speaker 10: that are just generally interested in this topic. It's also
Speaker 10: informing judges, people in government, you know, what private equity
Speaker 10: is and what the practical consequences are. One of the
Speaker 10: challenges that I think people who are critical of the
Speaker 10: private equity business model have is, you know, private equity
Speaker 10: firms have an enormous amount of money to lobby and
Speaker 10: to litigate their issues, and the other side, you know,
Speaker 10: just has a fraction to do the same thing. You know,
Speaker 10: one of the cases was over this obscure sort of
Speaker 10: retirement law issue, and at stake was like four point
Speaker 10: five million dollars for the private equity firm. It was
Speaker 10: essentially a rounding error. They spent ten years litigating the
Speaker 10: case in order not to have to pay out because
Speaker 10: they have the resources to do it and they wanted
Speaker 10: to set the precedent that they could. And so, you know,
Speaker 10: we've got to inform people, and we've also got to
Speaker 10: figure out how to sort of power activists and folks
Speaker 10: that want to work on this stuff so that they
Speaker 10: can do this work for the long term, right, can.
Speaker 1: We can we just list some of the industries where
Speaker 1: people might have seen their work, because it's just going
Speaker 1: back to that initial statement about like we have an
Speaker 1: anecdotally everyone seems to have a feeling that things are
Speaker 1: getting worse. But you know, it's kind of hard to
Speaker 1: we don't have much to compare it to. But there,
Speaker 1: you know, there's presence in the dental industry, veterinary I
Speaker 1: think you mentioned grocery stores at one point that you know,
Speaker 1: there's one of the reasons they're like two grocery stores
Speaker 1: in the in the country that didn't used to be
Speaker 1: the case.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 10: Yeah, So private equity is you know, I don't want
Speaker 10: to overstate the case, but they they're active in you know,
Speaker 10: most most every industry that you can think of, whether
Speaker 10: you're talking about sort of retail things we were talking
Speaker 10: about toys, r us and stuff earlier, or grocery stores.
Speaker 10: As you say, when we're talking about healthcare, it's not
Speaker 10: just emergency rooms and ambulances. It's ordinary sort of opgyn
Speaker 10: and urgent care clinics buying up literal insurance companies, you know,
Speaker 10: life insurance claims worker compensation companies to things like manufacturing infrastructure.
Speaker 10: In some places, private equity firms literally bought up the
Speaker 10: municipal water services that you might use to drink, you know,
Speaker 10: water from your tap.
Speaker 1: How'd that work out for them?
Speaker 10: Unfortunately, it didn't work out terribly well. So the private
Speaker 10: equity firm operated with as a joint venture ultimately dramatically
Speaker 10: raised the price for users to such an extent that
Speaker 10: local reporters were saying that people quote unquote became water nazis,
Speaker 10: would time their family members in the shower and would
Speaker 10: only buy flowers that didn't require a lot of water. So, unfortunately,
Speaker 10: that's a contract that those two cities are now going
Speaker 10: to have to sit with for the next thirty years
Speaker 10: or so because of how it is negotiated. But to
Speaker 10: the extent you're interested in these things and you're concerned
Speaker 10: about a business, you know, private equity firms rarely advertise
Speaker 10: their ownership. So what you should do is google the
Speaker 10: company name and just add private equity and see what
Speaker 10: comes up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, chances are it's almost like what industries aren't they
Speaker 2: involved in? It might be an easier question. Yeah, it's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: they're not behind the push for medicare for all. I'll
Speaker 2: tell you that they don't have they don't have a
Speaker 2: dog in that fight unless it's on the other side
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I don't think they're active on that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Interesting, how do you talk about it? Like, I've there's
Speaker 1: been in a couple of social settings since reading your
Speaker 1: book and just been like, yeah, it's crazy, but like
Speaker 1: unable to like really fully you know, put into words,
Speaker 1: because it's the problems like so big and so cute.
Speaker 1: But like, how do you usually introduce the idea of
Speaker 1: your book to people, Like when you're just like talking
Speaker 1: to them at a cocktail party or something.
Speaker 10: I always explain the basic business model, and I say
Speaker 10: that private equity is going to transform the country in
Speaker 10: this decade the way that big tech did in the
Speaker 10: last decade and subprime lenders did in the decade before that.
Speaker 10: And I say, what, the three basic problems are short termism,
Speaker 10: a lot of dead and fees, and insulation from liability.
Speaker 10: And if we can fix those three things, we can
Speaker 10: basically solve the problem.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And that's kind of another thing I want to time
Speaker 2: solving the problem because again, a lot of the times
Speaker 2: it's easy to fall into the nihilism of being like,
Speaker 2: well this is it, Like I don't know, like I
Speaker 2: don't even know, we don't even know who to sue.
Speaker 2: You've talked about how like again, activists have helped to
Speaker 2: like you know, offset or alleviate the cost of like
Speaker 2: phone calls from prisons, you know, like actually have made
Speaker 2: headway there, and like that's a victory. What are some
Speaker 2: other like is what are some other specific areas where
Speaker 2: we are seeing some bit of the climing back of
Speaker 2: the fuckery as it were.
Speaker 10: So I think the prison area is really encouraging. So,
Speaker 10: you know, private equity firms bought up prison phone companies,
Speaker 10: started charging extremely high rates for these short, fifteen minute calls.
Speaker 10: This was a many year effort to sort of make
Speaker 10: progress here. Ultimately, you know, they were able. Activists were
Speaker 10: able to get legislation passed in cities New York and
Speaker 10: San Francisco capping rates for phone calls, then passed state
Speaker 10: legislation in Connecticut, and ultimately pass federal legislation. So they
Speaker 10: were really really effective working on this specific issue. Beyond that,
Speaker 10: there's been really good work on for instance, you know,
Speaker 10: we were talking about nursing homes. There's rulemaking going on
Speaker 10: right now at the Department of Health and Human Services
Speaker 10: to try to establish national standards from minimum staffing criteria
Speaker 10: for nursing homes, which will be absolutely transformative. So I
Speaker 10: think when activists have chosen really specific issues where the
Speaker 10: effect on people is clear, I actually think that they've
Speaker 10: been really successful. You know, private equity firms have the money,
Speaker 10: but activists have the people on their side, and I
Speaker 10: think they've shown that they've been actually able to get.
Speaker 3: A lot done.
Speaker 2: Right. So rather than being like when you're going to
Speaker 2: pass the down with private equity bill, it's like about
Speaker 2: kind of getting a little more specific in a way
Speaker 2: that connects to people. Because again, like like we're saying
Speaker 2: at the top, just saying the word it becomes nebulous
Speaker 2: and abstract and I'm like, I don't even know I
Speaker 2: had to name, yeah, versus shouldn't there be a number,
Speaker 2: like a minimum number of staff in a nursing home
Speaker 2: so someone doesn't like like needlessly lose.
Speaker 5: Their life and be like yeah, yeah, yeah, yah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: That part. But then again is there is there is
Speaker 2: there a similar thing that gets at the accountability part,
Speaker 2: because I think that's the part that really like frustrates
Speaker 2: me is how easily they can walk and hide behind
Speaker 2: being like I don't know, I don't own it. I
Speaker 2: just tell these funds what to do in the mathain
Speaker 2: that that's that's where it ends. So I don't know
Speaker 2: where the buck stops. What are is there? Like where
Speaker 2: can people put their energy in terms of like finding
Speaker 2: that part out or at least making that augmenting that
Speaker 2: movement a bit.
Speaker 10: Yeah, No, I think that's a really good question. And
Speaker 10: you know, you're talking about private equity being a boring term,
Speaker 10: like they're we're going to make it even more boring.
Speaker 10: A lot of the leading firms now I don't even
Speaker 10: call themselves private equity firms anymore. There are alternative asset managers,
Speaker 10: so be on the lookout for those.
Speaker 3: Cool.
Speaker 10: Yeah, so interesting.
Speaker 2: So what is it where like it wears flannel and
Speaker 2: has a nosering and like has dock Martins, Like yeah,
Speaker 2: like the alternative rock movement, but all.
Speaker 10: Asset management actually sort of inheriting a grunge style on
Speaker 10: fund just kind of like being an all band in
Speaker 10: the nineties exactly. So they you know, in terms of
Speaker 10: sort of the deeper sort of accountability issues Obviously, Congress
Speaker 10: is one sort of avenue, and there's important legislation, you know,
Speaker 10: sort of being proposed there. But I actually think that
Speaker 10: there are a lot of levers of power here, whether
Speaker 10: you're talking about federal regulators like the SEC, Treasury, Fed,
Speaker 10: and so forth, but also states and localities. You know,
Speaker 10: we're talking about some of these tactics that I think
Speaker 10: can be harmful for companies in the long term, you know,
Speaker 10: sale lease backs, dividend recapitalizations. States could just simply say,
Speaker 10: you know, we're going to legislate to say, if the
Speaker 10: company's headquartered in our district, you know, in our jurisdiction,
Speaker 10: you can't do some of these tactics, or if you
Speaker 10: do them and the company goes bankrupt, the workers are
Speaker 10: going to get paid first. And I actually think that
Speaker 10: there really is interest at the state level on this.
Speaker 10: But we've got to you know, folks need to draft
Speaker 10: up the legislation and there needs to be the push
Speaker 10: for it. I think that's where the real change is
Speaker 10: going to happen in the next few years.
Speaker 1: Towards the end of your book, you talk about different
Speaker 1: scenarios that the country could take, and some people financially
Speaker 1: think it's like Japan and the eighties and nineties, like
Speaker 1: heading for a financial fall, and some people think it's
Speaker 1: like whymar Germany, and but you kind of say, there's
Speaker 1: also this hopeful possibility that it's like America at the
Speaker 1: turn of the twenty, like nineteen oh three, and you know,
Speaker 1: emphasize that we generally today don't recognize how bad it
Speaker 1: was at that time and how like incremental the changes were.
Speaker 1: We just see, oh, in the early twentieth century, the
Speaker 1: New Deal happened, so must have been must have been good.
Speaker 1: There were Gatsby parties, and then the New Deal came
Speaker 1: through in response to how lavish the Gatsby parties were.
Speaker 1: But it was generations of people working on very specific changes, right,
Speaker 1: that got us out out of that very similar situation
Speaker 1: where it was just unregulated capital running roughshot over the country.
Speaker 10: Yeah, the Gilded Age worked wonderfully for a select few people,
Speaker 10: but was a miserrating for you know, so many. Whether
Speaker 10: it was the movement to stop the labor movement to
Speaker 10: use the antitrust laws to actually break up labor unions
Speaker 10: but protect monopolies, the movement actually to rescind suffrage for
Speaker 10: working class people in New York and the institution of
Speaker 10: Jim Crow in the South that.
Speaker 1: Was endorsed by the New York Times.
Speaker 10: I think you said, right, yeah, yeah, the New York
Speaker 10: Times endorsed, yeah, rescinding suffrage for I think working class
Speaker 10: white men and so but you know, in some ways
Speaker 10: it was it was a politics or an economy that's
Speaker 10: very similar to ours. The trusts of the early twentieth
Speaker 10: century legally are very similar to how private equity firms work.
Speaker 10: And a century ago we managed to constrain the trust
Speaker 10: you know, we created the first you know, you know,
Speaker 10: the most robust anti trust laws. We created the Federal
Speaker 10: Trade Commission. We passed labor laws, environmental laws, passed women's
Speaker 10: suffrage and so forth. It was a time that was
Speaker 10: really really transformative for the country and ultimately, you know,
Speaker 10: sort of set the stage for sort of the greatest
Speaker 10: moment in American middle class history, you know, the nineteen
Speaker 10: forties and fifties. And so if we've done it once,
Speaker 10: we can do it again. We just need to have
Speaker 10: the patience and the will to do.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, yeah, and a way to offset all the
Speaker 2: lobbying efforts, which I'm sure if the state starts saying
Speaker 2: things like, yeah, we're thinking about enacting some laws that
Speaker 2: would really constrain private equity. You're just going to start
Speaker 2: seeing as like, don't vote for this because we're going
Speaker 2: to leave your state and you're going to be broke,
Speaker 2: so don't even think about it, and then off we go.
Speaker 2: Then I think part of that is for people to
Speaker 2: really understand the threat that this sort of untethered greed
Speaker 2: operates and how it affects us in ways that are
Speaker 2: just so tangible, but yet we think are like again,
Speaker 2: like for me, I was like, there's just so nebulous.
Speaker 2: I'm like, it's just part of this vast thing of
Speaker 2: all the money moving in one direction versus also very
Speaker 2: specific groups of people looking at it in this way,
Speaker 2: and we're just sort of experiencing the lack of investment
Speaker 2: on the other side. I wonder how many triangle shirtwaist
Speaker 2: fires it'll take for us to wake up out of
Speaker 2: this one, because I feel like we're averaging like one
Speaker 2: a day.
Speaker 10: Yeah, it's it's really interesting. I mean you sort of
Speaker 10: look at the number of legal tragedies that are happening
Speaker 10: in private equity portfolio companies, and yet the private equity
Speaker 10: firms you know, are rarely held accountable. I will say
Speaker 10: just you know, as a as a workaday, you know, bureaucrat,
Speaker 10: I will say that, don't underestimate your power and influence
Speaker 10: as a person outside of government. People inside a government
Speaker 10: listen to complaints and you know, if you're saying this
Speaker 10: is a broken system, this is not working, it really
Speaker 10: empowers people in a bureaucracy to try it, you know,
Speaker 10: who want to do the right thing, to feel like
Speaker 10: they've got people on their side. So I felt that personally.
Speaker 10: I know others people do do too, So I know
Speaker 10: that can be a somewhat frustrating thing to hear, but
Speaker 10: it really does make a difference for folks.
Speaker 1: And yeah, just not having it happen quietly and visibly
Speaker 1: like that when you just tell this story, it is
Speaker 1: the sort of story that people respond to. It is
Speaker 1: an all out war being waged on the lives of
Speaker 1: people who aren't extremely wealthy by people who are extremely,
Speaker 1: extremely wealthy. Like it's just it is that simple. It's
Speaker 1: they they are taking away comforts and you know, things
Speaker 1: that people rely on and getting rich.
Speaker 3: Off of it.
Speaker 1: It's pretty pretty straightforward, and I'm glad you told this
Speaker 1: story in your book. I'm hoping more more and more
Speaker 1: people kind of continue to tell it. So and thanks
Speaker 1: for coming on and talking less about it.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I got to say, normally I don't talk
Speaker 2: to the Feds, but this has been fantastic.
Speaker 10: Well, thank you guys so much for the time. I
Speaker 10: really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, where can people well, ca you remind us the
Speaker 1: name of the book and where people can read it
Speaker 1: and that good stuff.
Speaker 10: It's plunder private equities, plans to pillage America and you
Speaker 10: can buy it anywhere you might buy a.
Speaker 2: Book, perfect or Barnes and Noble also private equity, I
Speaker 2: think they might have been.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Brendan Blue, thanks for coming on.
Speaker 10: Appreciate it, Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: All Right, that was.
Speaker 1: Our interview with Brendan Man. I learned a lot from
Speaker 1: this book. I feel like, you know how, when I
Speaker 1: read a New Yorker article, I'll like reference it at
Speaker 1: least five times over the course of the next week,
Speaker 1: like this is it's own for fore you hos, Like
Speaker 1: this is all I'm going to be referencing from now on.
Speaker 2: Wait, so is this going to push out cold gas
Speaker 2: study Havana syndrome?
Speaker 1: So those are just the those are the keepers, those
Speaker 1: are the ones that.
Speaker 2: Those are like that try you and God of your mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly, Yeah, those will not be usurped. But yeah, again,
Speaker 2: I think it's it's so helpful to like be able
Speaker 2: to be like that's why these certain things got shitty, yeah.
Speaker 1: You know, or like again like toy store. The toy
Speaker 1: store really fucking did it for me. Man. That was
Speaker 1: the one where I was like, oh, yeah, there's no
Speaker 1: reason there shouldn't be Like kids still, yeah, I can
Speaker 1: speak kids really still fucking like toys, I can tell
Speaker 1: you that much. Now we just have the toy section
Speaker 1: of Target and there are no toy stores. And I
Speaker 1: remember at the end of the Toys r us run
Speaker 1: like going to Toys r Us to like for a
Speaker 1: kid's birthday party, get get a toy, and it was
Speaker 1: just wildly understaffed and it looked and like it looked
Speaker 1: like Sears did when it was going out of business,
Speaker 1: you know, like they're the floors are kind of torn up,
Speaker 1: like think they're just like boxes of like palettes laying
Speaker 1: around because they just are totally understaffed. And it makes
Speaker 1: total sense that they just you know.
Speaker 2: Privact that these workers are lazy, right exactly, which is
Speaker 2: what I was yelling. But you know what, but that
Speaker 2: is the kind of shit older people was saying. Of course,
Speaker 2: they were like, I don't know what the hell happened here?
Speaker 2: These people are so lazy. And then you're like, no,
Speaker 2: it's being like sucked the life sucked out of it
Speaker 2: from the inside financially, and what you're seeing is like
Speaker 2: the husk of a once operating business.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is the fact that this is like
Speaker 1: like a an epidemic that is across the entire economy,
Speaker 1: like more people are being asked to do more work
Speaker 1: or fewer people are being asked to do more work,
Speaker 1: like just everywhere, and so yeah, everybody's going to be
Speaker 1: like immiserated, as you know, like I think he used
Speaker 1: that word. And really, you know, both on the customer
Speaker 1: side and on the employee side, these companies absolutely spread
Speaker 1: misery as part of their business model. Yeah, and become
Speaker 1: the billionaires.
Speaker 2: That's the wild part too, is like you get you know,
Speaker 2: we talk about all the time how like human life
Speaker 2: gets reduced to like a number figure on a spreadsheet. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's truly how these people are looking at it. When
Speaker 2: you have only guys who have finance brain being like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I can help operate a healthcare provider. Watch this, snip
Speaker 2: snip snip, and then you know, we just continue to
Speaker 2: talk about the the ongoing movement of privatization and how that's.
Speaker 1: Only going to lead to fucking disaster.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It also made me realize too, like when I was
Speaker 2: lobbying for for profit colleges, like how like.
Speaker 1: A for profit college section is really wild.
Speaker 2: I mean, that was the thing that helped loosen my
Speaker 2: brain to be like I don't I can't be doing this,
Speaker 2: Like I can't be consulting like this at all. But
Speaker 2: then really, even then, the private equity part was a
Speaker 2: little bit abstract to me, like I was only.
Speaker 1: Just the company levels the company.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, anyway, I'm stupid and that's easy to
Speaker 2: say now.
Speaker 1: But we yeah, we're we're all part of this system
Speaker 1: that has just been attacked invisibly. And this is the
Speaker 1: first time I've just seen somebody say it out let,
Speaker 1: you know, in print, just be like, this is the company,
Speaker 1: this is what they're doing. It is like the most
Speaker 1: deeply anti I don't know, it's just it's it's so
Speaker 1: clear cut. It just seems wild that nobody said it
Speaker 1: out loud up to this point. Yeah, people probably have been.
Speaker 1: It's wild that I haven't read it to this point,
Speaker 1: and it's probably because the phrase private equity made my
Speaker 1: brain go to sleep.
Speaker 2: I also blame the New Yorker from not making a
Speaker 2: cartoon about it.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Understand, all right, we're gonna take one more break.
Speaker 1: We're going to come back and hear from a reader
Speaker 1: who has some job experience that is somewhat related to this.
Speaker 1: It seems like it's operating the same principles.
Speaker 2: With one the industries we're just talking about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll be right back, and we're back. And the
Speaker 1: uns annual World Drug Report, which I hadn't been paying
Speaker 1: attention to but now will anticipate every year when it
Speaker 1: comes out, was released. The biggest mover this year. You
Speaker 1: guessed it, folks, It's cocaine the charts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I guess. Traditionally the main markets
Speaker 2: were North America, Western Central Europe. Now in this report,
Speaker 2: they're like it's fucking everywhere now, like it's people are
Speaker 2: starting to use it more in Africa, Southeast Asia, Southeastern Europe.
Speaker 2: Use is at an all time high, like sometimes they
Speaker 2: would see like it EBB and flow. Now they're just
Speaker 2: like it's all upward arrows, consumption's up, productions up, and
Speaker 2: it's it's the eighties. Baby, there's cocaine everywhere, And I
Speaker 2: guess traditionally no, I'm sorry, Like, even though production has
Speaker 2: at an all time high, they're also saying seizures are
Speaker 2: actually outpacing production. So you know, mark one up for
Speaker 2: the drug war. But yeah, apparently this has only led
Speaker 2: the like to like the drug traffickers to go next
Speaker 2: level with the chemistry. Now. In my mind, the last
Speaker 2: time I was like watching drug documentaries, it was like
Speaker 2: probably about like like eighties or nineties, where people just
Speaker 2: like smuggling them in little chotchkeis and stuff, or like
Speaker 2: on a janky submarine. But they've stepped the game up.
Speaker 2: Traffickers are now quote increasingly smuggling cocaine based by dissolving
Speaker 2: it into plastic and charcoal objects because it's much harder
Speaker 2: to detect. Then they set up super labs in Europe
Speaker 2: where they extract the cocaine base out of those materials
Speaker 2: and turn it into powder.
Speaker 1: I feel like this is going to be huge for
Speaker 1: pusha T's next album, like he has so much material
Speaker 1: to work with. Oh yeah, like we are into charlastic
Speaker 1: and charcoal objects.
Speaker 2: Right, Scanners, X rays and canines usually can't detect cocaine
Speaker 2: that's been muggled in this manner. And they said that
Speaker 2: there are clandestine chemists can use certain chemicals to quote
Speaker 2: lock the cocaine into the carrier products, making it impossible
Speaker 2: to retrieve the drug without knowing which chemical to use.
Speaker 4: Wow, I was whoa, Yeah, I mean this is this
Speaker 4: is like my Cheach and Chong made their whole van
Speaker 4: out of the weed.
Speaker 1: Right, can't arrest us if the.
Speaker 2: Nice try ass sole this whole van's weed, let us go.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean it's again, this is just like
Speaker 2: some next level trafficking thing I didn't realize, But yeah,
Speaker 2: I feel like it the the use of cocaine is
Speaker 2: I feel like like where was I recently? I was
Speaker 2: traveling somewhere and like people were talking about cocaine in
Speaker 2: a way that I was like, what the fuck? Like
Speaker 2: in my mind, cocaine users were like city folk, right,
Speaker 2: just getting off a break from you know, the trading
Speaker 2: floor at Wall Street, and now it's in all the
Speaker 2: corners of the earth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the guy when you're like checking out at the
Speaker 1: gas station is like, you're do you want some cocaine
Speaker 1: or do you have any cocaine that I could I
Speaker 1: noticed you seem to be from the city.
Speaker 4: Right right, right, So they put all like they got
Speaker 4: scientists working on you know, it's breaking bad, and they
Speaker 4: got like, you know, they're they're spending weeks, you know,
Speaker 4: putting all the formulas together. And then they have a
Speaker 4: secret formula you know that turns it into a plastic bottle.
Speaker 4: And then you've got to have a secret formula that
Speaker 4: turns it back into And then as soon as it
Speaker 4: get gets into some dealer's hand, he's like, why didn't
Speaker 4: I shake a little baby potter in here?
Speaker 2: Right right?
Speaker 3: It's a little fentanyl, and like it seems.
Speaker 2: Like just like some laxative, it all works.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I get some pencil shavings.
Speaker 1: The real question is where do these chemists get all
Speaker 1: the energy to come up with this stuff?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like what what's the arc of that chemist?
Speaker 4: Too?
Speaker 2: Like is like a chemist who is super promising. And
Speaker 2: then it's like, I also got a bad coke problem, man,
Speaker 2: So I think I'm gonna switch gears. A start works
Speaker 2: for them.
Speaker 1: Yet work and uh yeah, yeah by joining my drug dealer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's it makes sense overall, given like
Speaker 1: what we're dealing with, you know, giving what we in
Speaker 1: our special Interview Expert episode yesterday, like what private equity
Speaker 1: is doing, where they're just like taking over every business
Speaker 1: in the country and cutting staffing so that everybody just
Speaker 1: has to work like twice as hard. It makes sense
Speaker 1: that the drug of the moment would be something that
Speaker 1: gives people the energy to keep up with this.
Speaker 2: Shit as we all just become like husks of a
Speaker 2: human existence and it's like, ohout this for a little animation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but yeah, it's back.
Speaker 2: In a big way, folks, big way.
Speaker 4: So you know that ventanyl is the leading cause of
Speaker 4: death for men between eighteen and forty nine.
Speaker 3: Leading lead big That's incredible.
Speaker 1: That's horrible. Yeah, I mean that's the other thing that
Speaker 1: fucking like this story, Like a lot of people I've
Speaker 1: known people who died from trying to do cocaine and
Speaker 1: they're being fentanyl in it. Like that's happening a lot now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and again I think also like to your point
Speaker 2: about we've talked about like just deaths of despair, that's
Speaker 2: like a whole category of death that like we're not
Speaker 2: actually reckoning with. And yeah, just again like adding to
Speaker 2: this feeling of oh, societies creeping into like this weird
Speaker 2: like stop in a weird way. But you know when
Speaker 2: you look at the like again, I hate to keep
Speaker 2: talking about private equity, but like when you think about
Speaker 2: how much job loss and access to wealth or things
Speaker 2: that are cut off from these kinds of like business
Speaker 2: moves and the effects it has on people, especially people
Speaker 2: who like you know, like need to work to survive.
Speaker 2: All adding to like this this background hum of.
Speaker 1: Like, but what about the teenagers? Guys? How do the
Speaker 1: young teenagers keep up in this world if they don't
Speaker 1: have access to co ok? How are they to keep
Speaker 1: up in this world where private equity is?
Speaker 3: Are you?
Speaker 1: I am? Uh? Well, there's that, but what if you
Speaker 1: can't get access There is a shortage of that. And
Speaker 1: that's where my good friend Logan Paul comes in. I
Speaker 1: want to tell you guys about Prime Oh God. Prime
Speaker 1: Hydration is a beverage that Logan Paul launched last year
Speaker 1: with Ksi and other YouTuber and it became like the
Speaker 1: tickle me Elmo of last year, like it was just
Speaker 1: there weren't enough of it, and people were there were
Speaker 1: there are reports of people having a bottle, keeping the
Speaker 1: empty bottle and then like charging people one hundred dollars
Speaker 1: to take a picture with the empty bottle for social
Speaker 1: media purposes because you just like couldn't get access to
Speaker 1: the drink. The so dystopian for sure, it's the drink
Speaker 1: has the legally, I have to think this is the
Speaker 1: maximum legal amount of caffeine that you can put in
Speaker 1: something two hundred milligrams of caffeine. That seems to be
Speaker 1: where every like highly caffeinated drink or product max is
Speaker 1: out at at two hundred milligrams. But that is what
Speaker 1: they're giving children in like kind of small doses.
Speaker 2: I know you're the like the caffeine fact God, what
Speaker 2: how does that rank? Because I like every time we
Speaker 2: talk about caffeinated drinks, I was like, how many milligrams?
Speaker 2: Because you have an idea, what like what's a celsius?
Speaker 1: Is the other one that is maxed out at two
Speaker 1: hundred hundred? Nothing has more than two hundred as far
Speaker 1: as I know, And even like caffeine pills have two
Speaker 1: hundred milligrams?
Speaker 3: What's a coca cola.
Speaker 1: Got uh, Coca cola is like in the thirties usually
Speaker 1: I think called forties. I think diet coke is in
Speaker 1: the sixties and and even and like Mountain Dew. I
Speaker 1: don't think it even cracks a hundred. But yeah, these.
Speaker 2: Are twice as much as Red Bull.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, Okay, it's cool.
Speaker 2: Have you seen the videos though, where people like to
Speaker 2: your point about how like it's become the most sought
Speaker 2: after thing, Like people are stunting on TikTok with how
Speaker 2: much fucking like Prime they have in their fridge. No, yes,
Speaker 2: like this kind of shit. Peop were like, well, what's
Speaker 2: in my fridge? All Prime bro Like it.
Speaker 11: Looks like for my grab and goes for my kids
Speaker 11: if they don't have time to make a protein drink
Speaker 11: or an electrolyte drink before they leave for their practices
Speaker 11: for their sports they play. I like these Prime drinks
Speaker 11: because if you look at they don't have any artificial colors.
Speaker 11: They're naturally flavored. They have bcaa's, they also have electrolytes
Speaker 11: that come from coconut water, and they only have two
Speaker 11: grams of sugar.
Speaker 2: But two hundred milligrams of fucking caffeine anyway. So like
Speaker 2: there's I've seen so many videos like this where there's
Speaker 2: like families being like we got the icy pop, we
Speaker 2: got cherry, and it's like you think people are doing
Speaker 2: like a money phone type thing with the amount of prime.
Speaker 1: Body, Yeah, this is the new money phone. It is
Speaker 1: just having a fucking prime.
Speaker 4: So this is like, uh, you know, you throw some
Speaker 4: vodka in there, some whiskey in there and heart failure, right,
Speaker 4: that's yeah.
Speaker 3: But that's like with.
Speaker 1: People, they don't they don't fuck with alcoholic beverages.
Speaker 3: They just they got all the good pills. You're right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: they're just slamming borgs. Dude. God, young people laugh at
Speaker 3: us with how we try to get high.
Speaker 2: Yeah, young, oh yeah, because they're like these motherfuckers are dead,
Speaker 2: like they're trying to die. Like look at how they
Speaker 2: partied in the fucking I.
Speaker 3: Get hide through this weird music I listened.
Speaker 2: To right, Like, I don't get high if my headphones
Speaker 2: run out of batteries. That's when I'm in a bad way.
Speaker 2: You've got the fucking shakes.
Speaker 3: I get high from getting my friend's pronouns.
Speaker 1: Right, thank you boom, thank you, sir, you honor You're welcome.
Speaker 3: I nailed you both.
Speaker 1: So I mean you you are count on teenagers to
Speaker 1: consume like one of these a day, which I just
Speaker 1: can't imagine that's going to happen. And there's all sorts
Speaker 1: of laws in place, or like that, people have tried
Speaker 1: to put laws in place, like in twenty seventeen in
Speaker 1: South Carolina, a teenager died due to caffeine induced cardiac event,
Speaker 1: causing a probable arrhythmia. Countries like Lithuania and Latvia already
Speaker 1: have active bands on energy drinks that have this much
Speaker 1: caffeine in him. But here in the US, back in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty, the FDA attempted to crack down on caffeine
Speaker 1: and soda, but the soda companies, who you might recognize
Speaker 1: as having a little bit more money than the FDA,
Speaker 1: argued caffeine wasn't actually a psychoactive drug and therefore subject
Speaker 1: to regulation. Rather, caffeine is a flavor enhancer. I'm a
Speaker 1: tell me what exactly does caffeine taste?
Speaker 3: Like? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Like, is there some like a soda semelia who was
Speaker 2: like hm, oh wow, finishes very strongly with caffeine like
Speaker 2: they did, they were they even able to say like
Speaker 2: it enhances this flavor. They're just saying, No, it's it's
Speaker 2: in the category of flavor. Answer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're just lying. I think.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Surge had sixty eight by the way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sixty eight not even shit, that's more than this
Speaker 1: one says more than Mountain Dew. Yeah, I think Mountain
Speaker 1: Dew has crept up into the seventies. But I could
Speaker 1: be wrong.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is fifty four, but I don't know. I
Speaker 3: just got two different numbers for Surge also, so I
Speaker 3: don't know.
Speaker 2: It's hard to know.
Speaker 1: Is a Caffeine Informer that's the that's my go to?
Speaker 2: No, I'm using that's my website.
Speaker 1: Google Google, Okay, yeah, csp i net. But anyway, you
Speaker 1: have to get an annual subscription to Caffeine Informer to
Speaker 1: really know that for sure.
Speaker 3: No, I had my dad's log in. Okay.
Speaker 1: But so stimulant medication with caffeine has to include warnings.
Speaker 1: But energy drinks, which have far more caffeine, are somehow
Speaker 1: free to market themselves with no warnings at all, or
Speaker 1: were for a long time. I think that might be changing.
Speaker 1: A Senate investigation began looking into these drinks and specifically
Speaker 1: how they market their products to teenagers like Monster and
Speaker 1: rock Star, and decided that their products were actually foods,
Speaker 1: not dietary supplements after all. Oh okay, so Prime didn't
Speaker 1: originate the problem. But it's like really at the outer
Speaker 1: limits of how much caffeine you can put it in
Speaker 1: a product and how much you can market yourself to teenagers.
Speaker 2: They're doing that too, So like when kids drink it,
Speaker 2: they're like, oh, this sheep is fucking hit, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, Because like, as you have access to
Speaker 2: like Red Bull or fucking Monster and shit, but then
Speaker 2: you come through with something with twice that the thing.
Speaker 2: It feels like the intention is to also to get
Speaker 2: the consumers to talk about how this new fucking bag
Speaker 2: is just hidden Oh of course, yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you're not getting it and just drinking one
Speaker 4: right like you're probably gonna like try to, you know,
Speaker 4: to get somewhere.
Speaker 3: To get somewhere.
Speaker 1: Man, I want full personality change. I want to have
Speaker 1: a different personality after I'm done.
Speaker 3: Drink that I'm on fentanyl. It's wild.
Speaker 2: It's like it's just yesterday. KSI and Logan Paul were
Speaker 2: in like Copenhagen promoting the drink and a lot of
Speaker 2: people suspect it may have been like set up kind
Speaker 2: of marketing because a bunch of like their fans just
Speaker 2: started throwing Prime at them. Oh wow, like like they
Speaker 2: were getting doused with it, and like even on TMZ
Speaker 2: they're like like who knows about historyonics like and it
Speaker 2: could just be a very clever way to get us
Speaker 2: talking about this because here we are. It was kind
Speaker 2: of the literal like what was written in the article.
Speaker 2: So I don't know, but yeah, they it's fucking everywhere
Speaker 2: like Europe, it's really popular. They KSI is like a
Speaker 2: huge Arsenal fan and somehow Arsenal got them, Like there's
Speaker 2: like Prime branding around the football club and.
Speaker 3: I'm like, this is fucking bad, dude.
Speaker 1: It truly seems like just taking a like no dose
Speaker 1: caffeine pill and water but with branding added on to it.
Speaker 2: Right, tell me if you think this is real. This
Speaker 2: is them at their Prime tour and they're getting somehow
Speaker 2: suddenly the crowd turns on them. They're getting doused, but
Speaker 2: everyone's like laughing, like the security is even like all right,
Speaker 2: that was a good bit. I know, nothing bad is
Speaker 2: actually happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't bring European Security and on your bits.
Speaker 3: Come on, it's hard to connect with your like idols,
Speaker 3: and sometimes the only thing you can do because the
Speaker 3: distance is just hit them with something and then be
Speaker 3: like me and Loug and Paul hung out today.
Speaker 1: Yeah we had a laugh. Yeah, been a nice little Yeah.
Speaker 2: Wow. People keep throwing it at them. There's like multiple
Speaker 2: things I wouldn't prime. Just turns people into fucking animals.
Speaker 2: And they're like, do you.
Speaker 4: Know anything like you give the fans on like whatever
Speaker 4: day at the ballpark is gonna end up on the field,
Speaker 4: on the field, Yeah, yeah, this is a bobblehead, right yeah,
Speaker 4: right right, because that that'll end up on eBay.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's it's weird how like you can go to Dodger
Speaker 2: gaming like if it's if it's a bad night, these
Speaker 2: are going on the field. Other things You're like, they're
Speaker 2: never throwing bobbleheads.
Speaker 1: The snowstorm of inflatable bets.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Oh, speaking of dropping your baby, I didn't at Dodger Stadium,
Speaker 4: but I regret it because I had this moment. I
Speaker 4: had a Sports Center moment and I failed.
Speaker 2: Oh to like catch a fly ball.
Speaker 3: I had my baby in my arms. Yeah.
Speaker 4: The fly ball came directly towards me. Yeah, I put
Speaker 4: out my right hand. It hit me in the palm
Speaker 4: and I dropped it. If i'd had two hands catch.
Speaker 2: And you told your you told your son that, right.
Speaker 3: I will.
Speaker 4: I'm waiting until can understand me, but I'm gonna fucking
Speaker 4: ream him out. So the ball dropped and I went
Speaker 4: for it, but some lady scooped it up beforehand. Again,
Speaker 4: I still have the kid in my arms. So then
Speaker 4: the lady heard my story. Kids first baseball get yeah,
Speaker 4: gave us, gave us the ball as good of a
Speaker 4: story as it could be.
Speaker 2: That doesn't you know that doesn't that doesn't make you
Speaker 2: a man, right because you should have You would have
Speaker 2: caught that ship.
Speaker 3: I don't care, buddy, I mean I know. That's why
Speaker 3: I can't tell the story without like it being sad.
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna you just lie to your son. What
Speaker 2: about this baseball? Oh you should have seen it?
Speaker 3: He caught it?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Well yeah, that I was gonna say. It would be
Speaker 1: like a hyper like extreme prime version of the like
Speaker 1: choose the ball or choose death scene from You know,
Speaker 1: you got to catch those ball, kid.
Speaker 4: Because it's public too. It didn't get on TV, but
Speaker 4: I had a friend in the stadium who saw it.
Speaker 3: Why that was in front of me that I just
Speaker 3: found out about two days ago.
Speaker 1: There must have been a collective like holding of breath
Speaker 1: when people saw a foul ball speeding at you while
Speaker 1: you were holding a baby, right, Like, was there a.
Speaker 3: D to gauge?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, like yeah, they were all relieved when I
Speaker 3: just dropped it.
Speaker 1: Yeah good, Well that's you would have been the wrong
Speaker 1: kind of on Sports Center if you had chosen otherwise. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would have made it to the real I commend you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, that's gonna do it for this week's weekly Zeitgeist.
Speaker 1: Please like and review the show.
Speaker 10: If you like.
Speaker 1: The show means the world to Miles. He he needs
Speaker 1: your validation.
Speaker 3: Folks.
Speaker 1: I hope you're having a great weekend and I will
Speaker 1: talk to youm Monday.
Speaker 10: By singing