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Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,

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Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of

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Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.

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Speaker 2: We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade

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Speaker 2: the studio ad staff give you, guys, the best independent.

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Speaker 3: Coverage that is possible.

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Speaker 2: If you like what we're all about, it just means

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Speaker 2: the absolute world to have your support.

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Speaker 3: But enough with that, let's get to the show.

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Speaker 4: The core position of the Democratic Party is that anybody

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Speaker 4: who wants to come to America should be able to

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Speaker 4: do so. If that's your position, you're not actually serious

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Speaker 4: about helping workers. You're basically trying to hold together a

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Speaker 4: political coalition that has very different priorities.

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Speaker 5: Why are the Trump appointees on the NLRB so consistently

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Speaker 5: voting with bosses?

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Speaker 4: You know, one of the biggest problems with unions as

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Speaker 4: they operate today is that they have become primarily political

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Speaker 4: enterprises and essentially arms of the Democratic Party. And the

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Speaker 4: problem is that that's not what workers blocked. I think

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Speaker 4: it's pretty sick to say among private sector union workers

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Speaker 4: the majority supported Donald Trump in twenty twenty.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to counterpoints today.

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Speaker 5: We're going to be joined by Oran Cass, who is

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Speaker 5: the executive director of American Compass, which is a kind

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Speaker 5: of rising what would you call it, new right organization

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Speaker 5: that is kind of reshaping the way that the kind

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Speaker 5: of right wing associates itself with previously kind of left

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Speaker 5: wing ideas like it's really important to have worker power

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Speaker 5: to raise wages, and is trying to kind of reshape

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Speaker 5: this new populism that folks like Trump are either kind

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Speaker 5: of pushing forward or drafting off of. But to explain

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Speaker 5: a little bit better than that, let's bring in my

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Speaker 5: co host Emily Dashinski as well as Orrin Cass himself.

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Speaker 3: Emily welcome, How you doing.

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Speaker 4: I'm good.

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Speaker 6: I'm in London. If people didn't watch the Wednesday show,

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Speaker 6: a second week on the job at unheard so here

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Speaker 6: I am coming to you from the UK, and maybe

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Speaker 6: we'll talk about the EU elections just a little bit.

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Speaker 6: I know Orren probably has some thoughts on them because

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Speaker 6: all of these fault lines.

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Speaker 4: Were at play. But first, Oran welcome.

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Speaker 6: You've been profiled by all kinds of different media outlets

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Speaker 6: as really one of the driving forces on Capitol Hill

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Speaker 6: of you know, the new right of putting sort of

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Speaker 6: policy meat on the bones of populism on the right.

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Speaker 6: You were a policy director for Romney's presidential campaign back

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Speaker 6: in twenty twelve, and I'm sure we can get into

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Speaker 6: some of that. You've joined us on this program before.

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Speaker 6: But first of all, welcome more thanks for being.

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Speaker 4: Here, well, thank you for having me. It's great to

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Speaker 4: see you guys.

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Speaker 6: Of course, and in full disclosure, I have involvement with

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Speaker 6: American Compass. I'm a fan of American Compass. So we'll

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Speaker 6: put that on the table while Ryan starts yelling and

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Speaker 6: Oran starts yelling.

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Speaker 4: Back, and we'll have it'll all be in good fun.

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Speaker 4: So or why don't you start just.

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Speaker 6: By telling us, you know, kind of how this populist

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Speaker 6: program is going. I know, we particularly want to get

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Speaker 6: into immigration because that's probably where there's going to be

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Speaker 6: some disagreement. But if we just sort of zoom out

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Speaker 6: thirty thousand feet and people say there might be another

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Speaker 6: Trump administration imminently, do you feel like if day one,

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Speaker 6: Donald Trump or really any Republican president were to take

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Speaker 6: office that a lot of these policy proposals, you know,

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Speaker 6: against financialization, for example, family leave, some of the.

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Speaker 4: Stuff that's on the table.

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Speaker 6: Do you feel like it would really have a shot

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Speaker 6: at passing or you know, getting the serious attention of

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Speaker 6: the President.

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Speaker 4: Well, I think absolutely. You know, I think we've seen

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Speaker 4: a real sea change in the in the set of

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Speaker 4: policy issues people are even talking about on the right

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Speaker 4: of center on Capitol Hill in Washington, and then also

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Speaker 4: the kinds of policy that moves forward, and so you know,

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Speaker 4: I think you see lots of examples of this. I mean,

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Speaker 4: one is when it comes to dealing with China with

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Speaker 4: free trade. Obviously, the old orthodoxy that you know, free

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Speaker 4: trade is good, always more reach, trade is better, Cheap

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Speaker 4: stuff is what we want. That's gone. And so whether

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Speaker 4: that's talking about restricting investment into China, whether that's talking

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Speaker 4: about raising tariffs on China, those are the things you

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Speaker 4: see Republican leaders talking about at this point. I think

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Speaker 4: you see the same thing on issues like family policy,

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Speaker 4: where there are lots of different proposals out there now

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Speaker 4: to really increase the support that we provide to working families.

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Speaker 4: You see it on industrial policy, where something like the

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Speaker 4: Chips Act can pass with bipartisan support, and you see

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Speaker 4: a host of Republicans offering other proposals to do more

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Speaker 4: of the same, and so in all these areas it's

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Speaker 4: a real shift away from the old. Well, if we

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Speaker 4: just sort of cut taxes and get out of the way,

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Speaker 4: a rising tide will whipt all ships. I think substantively

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Speaker 4: people have realized that's not true. And politically, the Republican coalition,

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Speaker 4: the people who actually support Republicans and vote Republican don't

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Speaker 4: believe that and don't want to hear it, by and large,

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Speaker 4: and so both on the substance the economics and and

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Speaker 4: on the politics, it is an old different American right

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Speaker 4: than we became accustomed to over the past decades.

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Speaker 5: It definitely is a different American right, and you know,

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Speaker 5: it has a lot of overlap with traditional kind of

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Speaker 5: left wing approaches to economic policy, whether it's uh, you know,

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Speaker 5: uh antitrust which actually has you know, strong anti trust enforcement,

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Speaker 5: has a home on the on a kind of free

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Speaker 5: market right, because you need to break up trusts if

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Speaker 5: you're going to have free markets. But you know, skepticism

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Speaker 5: of free trade, like you said in industrial policy, you know, subsidies,

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Speaker 5: support for for families and for you know, just for

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Speaker 5: raising children, et cetera. So where where though, do you

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Speaker 5: break off from kind of left wing economic orthodoxy. What

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Speaker 5: what what do you see as fundamental to kind of

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Speaker 5: a populist right economics that that wouldn't overlap with say Bernie's.

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Speaker 6: And actually, can I jump in first, because I have

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Speaker 6: I wanted to ask about this particularly and I pulled

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Speaker 6: a quote. This is from the Charting the Course policy

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Speaker 6: series that American Compass released recently. It reads, the intro reads,

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Speaker 6: the vital conservative commitment to limited government depends upon bringing

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Speaker 6: federal spending under control. Spending determined government size, its economic force,

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Speaker 6: and the cost borne by citizens, whether they agree to

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Speaker 6: over taxation or not. The higher inflation of recent years

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Speaker 6: in surging interest payments on our skyrocketing national debt both

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Speaker 6: serve as reminders that one way or another, taxpayers are

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Speaker 6: inevitably on the hook for the propaly gets spending of politicians.

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Speaker 6: So that sounds again, you were on the Romney campaign,

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Speaker 6: You're in a significant role in the Romney campaign in

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Speaker 6: twenty twelve. That sounds good to me as sort of

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Speaker 6: a traditional conservative. It sounds like something that might allay

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Speaker 6: the fears of traditional conservatives. But where does that, you know,

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Speaker 6: what ground does that leave to cooperate like someone like

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Speaker 6: a Bernie Sanders, What is the distinct between you know,

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Speaker 6: American Compass an Orange Cass and Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

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Speaker 4: Well, I, you know, I think it's an important place

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Speaker 4: to start to just recognize that these sort of definitions

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Speaker 4: of left right, progressive conservative have gotten jumbled in a

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Speaker 4: lot of confusing ways in recent decades. I mean, if

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Speaker 4: you know, if you ask what was the actual left

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Speaker 4: or Democratic Party policy agenda over the last twenty years

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Speaker 4: and you know, or thirty years when back to Bill

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Speaker 4: Clinton and then Barack Obama, you know, I'm not sure

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Speaker 4: how much you would distinguish it from basically the Wall

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Speaker 4: Street agenda. I mean, it was aggressive efforts at expanding

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Speaker 4: free trade. It was promoting you know, financial deregulation, it

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Speaker 4: was obviously trying to bring in a large number of

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Speaker 4: low age workers from other countries, and so, you know

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Speaker 4: a lot of things that Ryan was saying, like, well,

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Speaker 4: but you know, isn't this or that the position of

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Speaker 4: the left. Well, I'm not sure. I'm not sure if

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Speaker 4: it is. And so you know, if you look at

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Speaker 4: someone like Bernie Sanders, I would say, yeah, certainly there

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Speaker 4: are places where I would say Bernie has a point,

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Speaker 4: whether that's in diagnosing things that are not going well

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Speaker 4: in the economy, or you know, on an issue like antitrust,

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Speaker 4: where competition is obviously very important and has not been

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Speaker 4: promoted very effectively. The problem is that at the end

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Speaker 4: of the day, if you look at a Bernie Sanders

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Speaker 4: or Elizabeth Warren agenda, it's I would say, confused, if

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Speaker 4: nothing else. I mean, I don't know how it intends

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Speaker 4: to actually address the problems that we have in this country,

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Speaker 4: because it's not willing to, for instance, acknowledge that that

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Speaker 4: work actually matters and what we need to be doing

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Speaker 4: is promoting work and high wages for American workers. It

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Speaker 4: instead is essentially committed at this point to open borders,

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Speaker 4: which is fundamentally incompatible that even even on an issue

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Speaker 4: like labor. You know, we say that or have always

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Speaker 4: assumed that the Left is sort of the pro worker,

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Speaker 4: pro labor party. I guess that's true if you mean

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Speaker 4: they agree with with sort of union bosses and the

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Speaker 4: people who run labor unions, but it's not at all

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Speaker 4: clear that their positions align with what the workers in

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Speaker 4: those unions want, and in fact, one of the things

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Speaker 4: those workers most want is for the unions to stop

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Speaker 4: focusing on progressive political priorities. And so I think there's

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Speaker 4: this very interesting moment that we're in right now where

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Speaker 4: you've had really on both sides for a long time now,

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Speaker 4: these political leaders who focused on the kind of very

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Speaker 4: niche concerns of their highest income constituents and donors, I suppose,

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Speaker 4: and you have this huge mass of Americans who weren't

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Speaker 4: really served by either agenda, and what you're seeing right

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Speaker 4: now is a lot of folks on the right of

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Speaker 4: center are actually focusing on that and trying to respond

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Speaker 4: to it and construct kind an agenda that looks more

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Speaker 4: like what most Americans want, even as you have a

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Speaker 4: Democratic Party that sort of seems to be drifting ever

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Speaker 4: further into this kind of weird progressive bubble of among

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Speaker 4: other things, that wildly unpopular in addition to ineffective positions.

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Speaker 4: And so I think that's that's really the driving force

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Speaker 4: in our politics right now, and it's certainly creating a

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Speaker 4: lot of opportunity for conservatives to advance the things they

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Speaker 4: care about.

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Speaker 5: So to me, I think there are kind of two

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Speaker 5: different questions embedded in what you said there, and one

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Speaker 5: is the you know what is the best immigration policy

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Speaker 5: you know, for workers, for low wage workers, for medium

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Speaker 5: wage workers, or high wage workers. And there might be

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Speaker 5: different answers to to all of those different questions, and

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Speaker 5: that's something that we should spend some time talking about.

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Speaker 5: But then, but the other question is is immigration and

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Speaker 5: are immigrants kind of being used and highlighted in a

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Speaker 5: way that distracts us from a more serious confrontation with

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Speaker 5: the things that are actually driving inequality, that are actually

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Speaker 5: driving wages down, that are allowing kind of the CEOs

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Speaker 5: in the top ten or twenty percent to aggregate all

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Speaker 5: of the wealth over the last fifty years to themselves.

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Speaker 5: So I think it's sort of like two different questions, Like,

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Speaker 5: on the one hand, yes, there may be a better

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Speaker 5: or worse immigration policy, But if the focus is only

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Speaker 5: on immigration policy, are we missing the more fundamental problems

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Speaker 5: that we need to be addressing if we're going to

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Speaker 5: actually build real worker power.

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Speaker 4: Well, I think the way you just sort of focused

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Speaker 4: on worker power is exactly right. The underlying question is

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Speaker 4: what power do workers have in the labor market? Are

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Speaker 4: they going to be in a position where there is

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Speaker 4: demand for their labor where you actually have to figure

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Speaker 4: out a way to use them more productively, to create

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Speaker 4: better jobs, to build a good business. That isn't, in

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Speaker 4: essence the secret source of capitalism. I mean, going all

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Speaker 4: the way back to Adam Smith when he talks about

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Speaker 4: the invisible hand. It's not something that works by magic,

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Speaker 4: he says, it's something that works if the things that

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Speaker 4: are going to generate the most profit are also the

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Speaker 4: things that are going to yield the most output in

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Speaker 4: the country and employ the most people domestically. And so

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Speaker 4: the problem in recent decades is that we've just released

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Speaker 4: those constraints. We've said the best way is to make

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Speaker 4: a lot of money, have nothing to do with creating

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Speaker 4: good jobs for American workers, because first of all, you

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Speaker 4: can offshore and produce elsewhere. And second of all, if

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Speaker 4: you complain, oh, we have a labor shortage, then we

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Speaker 4: use that as a reason to bring in more workers.

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Speaker 4: So I absolutely agree that that the core underlying issue

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Speaker 4: is worker power. The question is, Okay, what are you

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Speaker 4: going to do about that? And what are the levers

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Speaker 4: that what has gone wrong? What are the levers you're

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Speaker 4: going to pull? And the answer there is, I think

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Speaker 4: in two parts, one globalization and offshoring and the use

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Speaker 4: of foreign workers elsewhere. And two immigration the policy of saying,

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Speaker 4: if we feel like we don't have enough workers here,

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Speaker 4: instead of telling businesses to figure it out, we're going

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Speaker 4: to bring in more workers. And I don't know how

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Speaker 4: you claim to be serious about worker power or rising

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Speaker 4: wages for the interests of workers in the long run

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Speaker 4: unless you're willing to be serious about the need to

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Speaker 4: actually enforce immigration law and have constraints on who enters

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Speaker 4: our labor market.

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Speaker 5: Do we have ex three here? So it's a famous chart,

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Speaker 5: looks like a little crocodile. It's called for those who

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Speaker 5: are just listing. Decline in union membership mirrors income gains

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Speaker 5: of the top one percent, and what you see top

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Speaker 5: ten percent, that's a top ten percent. What you say

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Speaker 5: is a surgeon union membership in the late nineteen thirties

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Speaker 5: nineteen four.

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Speaker 3: Which then.

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Speaker 5: Brings about a more egalitarian economy. In the nineteen seventies,

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Speaker 5: you start to see it diverge. In the nineteen eighties

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Speaker 5: and nineties, you have a collapse in union membership, and

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Speaker 5: at the same time, executives and others in the top

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Speaker 5: ten percent are walking away with all the gains while

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Speaker 5: everyone else is becoming a miserated So from my perspective,

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Speaker 5: obviously the number of workers who are adding to labor

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Speaker 5: supply matters, like that's what that's what we call a

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Speaker 5: tight labor market versus a loose labor market. A loose

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Speaker 5: labor market has what Carl Marks even called a reserve army.

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Speaker 5: A capitalism's reserve army is the number of kind of

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Speaker 5: unemployed people who are willing to come in and take

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Speaker 5: the jobs of workers who might get militant inside the workplace.

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Speaker 5: But throughout the twentieth century, you saw pretty steady population growth, right,

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Speaker 5: Actually in the nineteen ninety I think we had lower

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Speaker 5: population growth than we had in other decades. Yet you

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Speaker 5: yet you don't see kind of explosions in wage gains

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Speaker 5: at that point. So to me, the most important thing,

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Speaker 5: this is what Bernie Sanders would say, the most important

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Speaker 5: thing you can do for workers is to help them

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Speaker 5: organize unions. And the way that you do that in

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Speaker 5: nineteen what happened in the nineteen thirties, you know, the

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Speaker 5: federal government stepped in and created the NLRB and other

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Speaker 5: kind of pro labor mechanisms that you know, enabled workers

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Speaker 5: to actually win these contracts and win these organizing drives.

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Speaker 5: There was a lot of union organizing in the nineteenth century,

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Speaker 5: but the National Guard and the Army and the Pinkertons

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Speaker 5: and others were allowed to go in and violently crush

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Speaker 5: and otherwise crush organizing drives. But when the federal government

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Speaker 5: was brought to bear on behalf of or at least neutrally,

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Speaker 5: as a really it's workers.

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Speaker 3: Workers got real power. So how do you feel about a.

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Speaker 5: Genuine question like, how do you feel about, you know,

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Speaker 5: where does kind of union policy you fit into this agenda?

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Speaker 4: Well, I think having a much stronger and more effective

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Speaker 4: labor movement is actually an incredibly important part of the

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Speaker 4: picture here, and that's something that American Compass has focused

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Speaker 4: an incredible amount of attention on, and frankly, it's something

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Speaker 4: I think it's really encouraging to see a lot of

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Speaker 4: conservatives start to put energy behind as well. I mean,

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Speaker 4: you see you know, senators like JD. Vance and Josh

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Speaker 4: Holly literally out there on picket lines. I think I

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Speaker 4: just saw that, you know, the head of the Teamsters

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Speaker 4: union wants to address the Republican National Convention this year

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Speaker 4: because there is a recognition that that worker power is

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Speaker 4: a good thing, and that a strong labor movement is

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Speaker 4: a piece of that puzzle. I think the problem is

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Speaker 4: is if you focus only on that, and so I

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Speaker 4: think that chart that you put up is certainly a

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Speaker 4: relevant one. You could, of course, up a very similar

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Speaker 4: chart looking at instead of union membership, the massive influx

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Speaker 4: of less skilled immigrants after the nineteen sixty five immigration reform.

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Speaker 4: You could put up a similar chart looking at the

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Speaker 4: massive shift to offshoring as globalization took off. So all

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Speaker 4: of these trends are relevant, relevant. I think you can't

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Speaker 4: focus on just a labor movement and organizing in the

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Speaker 4: absence of the others, because organizing will only get you

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Speaker 4: so far if you have a loose labor market. I mean,

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Speaker 4: at the end of the day, the way that organizing

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Speaker 4: gives workers power is in part by essentially cartelizing access

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Speaker 4: to their labor. Right at the end of you do

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Speaker 4: have to have a somewhat tight labor market underlying it.

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Speaker 4: If you're going to exert power through a labor movement,

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Speaker 4: if you have sort of an unlimited number of unskilled

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Speaker 4: often not even in the country legally, workers who are

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Speaker 4: certainly not going to be an effective part of a

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Speaker 4: labor movement coming in and offering to take the jobs instead.

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Speaker 4: If you have the option of just moving the work overseas,

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Speaker 4: then your labor movement is not going to be very effective.

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Speaker 4: And so what I think is so frustrating, certainly from

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Speaker 4: my perspective, is to see on the right of center

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Speaker 4: a real willingness to acknowledge the need for sort of

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Speaker 4: an all of the above strategy and to say, yes,

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Speaker 4: absolutely a better labor movement and more power and representation

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Speaker 4: for workers as a part of that. But gosh, you

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Speaker 4: sure have to be serious about trade and immigration as well.

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Speaker 4: And then you look across the aisle to the left side,

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Speaker 4: and you just don't see that. You see the sort

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Speaker 4: of base political posturing and talking points about unions even

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Speaker 4: when those unions aren't representing workers very effectively, and no

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Speaker 4: willingness to take on the immigration element of it. And

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Speaker 4: that's what tells me you're, if that's your position, you're

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Speaker 4: not actually serious about helping workers. You're you're basically trying

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Speaker 4: to hold together a political coalition that has very different priorities.

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Speaker 6: Whilst well, I was just gonna say adversely, go ahead, no, I.

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Speaker 5: Just say interesting, speaking of holding together, political coalitions that

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Speaker 5: have very different priorities. And again another genuine question out

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Speaker 5: I gotcha, like why are the Trump appointees on the

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Speaker 5: nlrb uh so consistently voting with bosses? And is that

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Speaker 5: something that like the Hallies and the Jdvances of the

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Speaker 5: world are working on.

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Speaker 4: Well, I think there's no question that that Trump himself

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Speaker 4: is a sort of an imperfect vessel to say the

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Speaker 4: least of a lot of of this this sort of thinking.

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Speaker 4: You know, For one thing, Trump in a sense was

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Speaker 4: the dog who caught the car and and was elected

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Speaker 4: at a point where there was where there was no infrastructure,

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Speaker 4: no set of ideas, no broader set of appointees and

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Speaker 4: so forth to draw on. And that's why you see

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Speaker 4: he comes into power in twenty seventeen, and what are

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Speaker 4: the two things that actually try to do Repeal Obamacare

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Speaker 4: and PACI big tax cut, Because those were the two

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Speaker 4: things that were on the shelf. You still had Paul

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Speaker 4: Ryan in charge in Congress. And I think one thing

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Speaker 4: that would be very different in any future Republican administration,

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Speaker 4: certainly if you have a Trump administration, is when you

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Speaker 4: look down Pennsylvania Avenue to Capitol Hill and ask you know,

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Speaker 4: who's really driving the agenda there at this point. It's

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Speaker 4: not Paul Ryan. It is folks like jd Vance, Marco Rubio,

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Speaker 4: Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton, and so you know, certainly I

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Speaker 4: think you would see a different dynamic this time around.

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Speaker 6: But didn't that tax cut prevent offshoring? I mean, isn't

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Speaker 6: there an argument that it prevented offshoring?

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Speaker 4: You know, there are elements of the tax cut on

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Speaker 4: certainly on the corporate side that I think we're very

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Speaker 4: important that that encouraged reshoring, that that encouraged investment, and

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Speaker 4: and that's great as a share of the total cost

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Speaker 4: of the tax that is not where most most most

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Speaker 4: of the dollars were. And so I think that one

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Speaker 4: thing you see now also when when you hear sort

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Speaker 4: of discussion about well, what should happen to the Taest

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Speaker 4: Cut Jobs Act TIKJA as it's expiring and needs to

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Speaker 4: either be let go or renewed in parts, is you

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Speaker 4: have some folks who are saying, just renew the whole thing.

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Speaker 4: You have others saying, well, you know, wait a minute.

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Speaker 4: First of all, we can't afford to do that, but

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Speaker 4: let's talk about which parts of it actually sort of

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Speaker 4: our most important to the economic priorities. But you know,

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Speaker 4: I mean I would love to ask Ryan also again

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Speaker 4: as a genuine question, not not at gotcha, like how

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Speaker 4: do you make sense of the Democratic Party's position on

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Speaker 4: immigration at this point? Is is is there some case

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Speaker 4: that this is actually somehow good for workers or consistent

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Speaker 4: with the sort of rising wages and vibrant working in

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Speaker 4: middle class that we want, or I just I don't

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Speaker 4: even know what the argument at this point is besides

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Speaker 4: sort of what we don't want to get yelled at

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Speaker 4: by these progressive groups.

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Speaker 5: And I laugh, because how do you make sense of

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Speaker 5: a policy that is two different policies like the policy

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Speaker 5: the policy that Biden ran on in twenty twenty, which

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Speaker 5: is that, you know, Trump's immigration policy is immoral and

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Speaker 5: a stain on the fabric of our society, versus the

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Speaker 5: policy that he's implementing now, which is like, Okay, actually,

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Speaker 5: I'm going to implement Trump's policy, but I'm going to

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Speaker 5: do it in a much more gentler way, and I'm

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Speaker 5: not gonna I'm not gonna be racist about it when

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Speaker 5: I do it. So like, not only can I not explain,

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Speaker 5: you know, the rationale behind their policy.

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Speaker 3: I can't even.

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Speaker 5: Really explain what their policy is because they have because

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Speaker 5: they've fluctuated kind of all over the place in just

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Speaker 5: a matter of a couple of years. Like one of

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Speaker 5: the biggest U turns in like political history, in the

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Speaker 5: sense that it was such a salient issue Biden, you know,

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Speaker 5: running ads on, you know, on the precise issue that

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Speaker 5: he's now done like a basically a complete U turnover,

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Speaker 5: like the the the.

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Speaker 3: Bill that he tried to pass, complete U turn.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, like the build I mean the bill that he

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Speaker 5: the BIL that he tried to pass, and the executive

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Speaker 5: order is pretty much a shutdown like after you know,

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Speaker 5: what is it so after twenty five hundred encounters in

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Speaker 5: a day after that, it's shut down.

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Speaker 3: People people think people seem to think.

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Speaker 6: That people came in during his administration.

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Speaker 3: Right, yes, like there was a surge.

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Speaker 5: There was a surge, but it like is that because

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Speaker 5: Biden was trying to bring people in. You he's got

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Speaker 5: he's sending Kamala Harris down to Central America saying, uh,

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Speaker 5: don't come. He was trying to keep Title forty two

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Speaker 5: in place. He's trying like he's like it's a completely

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Speaker 5: inco he has a completely incoherent immigration policy, and he's

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Speaker 5: he's sanctioning and otherwise miserating countries or in our region,

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Speaker 5: which is you know, creating creating more push. But I

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Speaker 5: don't think because he wants to push people like say,

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Speaker 5: out of Venezuela or out of Haiti, or out of

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Speaker 5: out of Cuba, but just because it's a schizophrenic, incoherent

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Speaker 5: foreign policy that doesn't have any relation to that either.

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Speaker 3: It's just completely chaotic. But I don't. But in other words,

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Speaker 3: I don't think that.

437
00:24:30,160 --> 00:24:33,480
Speaker 5: They sat down and said, what we desperately want is

438
00:24:33,520 --> 00:24:36,760
Speaker 5: to have thousands of people a day kind of like.

439
00:24:36,680 --> 00:24:38,919
Speaker 3: Pouring over the southern border like that.

440
00:24:38,960 --> 00:24:41,119
Speaker 5: I don't that's not what you is that what the

441
00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:44,040
Speaker 5: right things that the Biden administration wanted to do.

442
00:24:45,160 --> 00:24:46,360
Speaker 3: What do you think is that?

443
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:51,360
Speaker 4: I think the Biden administration would obviously prefer, for political reasons,

444
00:24:51,400 --> 00:24:54,639
Speaker 4: to not have the liability of a border. Right. The

445
00:24:54,720 --> 00:24:57,520
Speaker 4: problem is that the core position of the Democratic Party

446
00:24:57,600 --> 00:25:00,320
Speaker 4: is that anybody who wants to come to America should

447
00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:03,320
Speaker 4: be able to do so. And that's where you know,

448
00:25:03,359 --> 00:25:05,320
Speaker 4: I think you get this fight over, like, well, is

449
00:25:05,359 --> 00:25:08,000
Speaker 4: that open borders or not? And they'll say, well, it's

450
00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:10,480
Speaker 4: not open borders because we think we should have laws

451
00:25:10,480 --> 00:25:11,960
Speaker 4: and so forth. Well, the question is what do you

452
00:25:12,040 --> 00:25:14,760
Speaker 4: think those laws should be. And that's where you see

453
00:25:15,119 --> 00:25:18,440
Speaker 4: even in the context of the so called border bill

454
00:25:19,320 --> 00:25:23,640
Speaker 4: that was supposed to limit or you know, potentially shut

455
00:25:23,680 --> 00:25:26,919
Speaker 4: down the border if you had too many illegal crossings.

456
00:25:27,240 --> 00:25:29,960
Speaker 4: Even then, as as Center Chris Murphy famously said, the

457
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:33,200
Speaker 4: border is not closed. The goal was to instead expand

458
00:25:33,320 --> 00:25:38,119
Speaker 4: the rate at which we could essentially grant people temporary

459
00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:42,280
Speaker 4: status while having asylum claims adjudicated through ports of entry.

460
00:25:42,359 --> 00:25:46,000
Speaker 4: I think you saw, you know, recently MAJORCIS was talking

461
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:49,280
Speaker 4: about even sort of opening offices in other countries to

462
00:25:49,640 --> 00:25:53,240
Speaker 4: help people more effectively make these claims. Obviously, you have

463
00:25:53,320 --> 00:25:56,800
Speaker 4: the CBP one app that is designed to you know,

464
00:25:57,080 --> 00:25:59,679
Speaker 4: let you schedule when to show up and assert your

465
00:25:59,680 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 4: asside and claim and come into the country. And then

466
00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:06,760
Speaker 4: once you have people who who are here, you have

467
00:26:06,840 --> 00:26:10,760
Speaker 4: the bid administration not only sort of catching and releasing them,

468
00:26:10,800 --> 00:26:14,080
Speaker 4: but then also trying to stretch you know, what are

469
00:26:14,200 --> 00:26:17,960
Speaker 4: supposed to be very limited authorities like parole into essentially

470
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:23,760
Speaker 4: indefinite legal status with work permits and so That's the

471
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:26,359
Speaker 4: core question is is you know you can have all

472
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:28,320
Speaker 4: these fights about who did what with Title forty two,

473
00:26:28,520 --> 00:26:30,880
Speaker 4: and at what threshold do you or don't you shut

474
00:26:30,920 --> 00:26:34,560
Speaker 4: down the border between ports of entry? The question is

475
00:26:34,600 --> 00:26:37,199
Speaker 4: what's your actual goal and what's your orientation. Are you

476
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:42,240
Speaker 4: willing to recognize that a healthy American labor market requires

477
00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:47,240
Speaker 4: very firm constraints on entry, particularly into the lowage side,

478
00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:51,159
Speaker 4: or are you're going to say no, anybody, anybody who

479
00:26:51,240 --> 00:26:54,440
Speaker 4: wants to come should be able to come, and I'd

480
00:26:54,440 --> 00:26:56,280
Speaker 4: be interested you disagree, But it seems to me that

481
00:26:56,320 --> 00:26:59,959
Speaker 4: the Democrats position and everything they do is very clearly

482
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:02,399
Speaker 4: we're entered round the position that anyone who wants to

483
00:27:02,440 --> 00:27:06,120
Speaker 4: come should be able to come, and that every policy

484
00:27:06,160 --> 00:27:10,280
Speaker 4: they pursue and position that they take is as a result,

485
00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:15,199
Speaker 4: not actually supporting the interests of the legal workers who

486
00:27:15,240 --> 00:27:17,960
Speaker 4: are here, both both native and of course the many

487
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:22,479
Speaker 4: prior generations of immigrants who, if they are here legally

488
00:27:22,800 --> 00:27:25,800
Speaker 4: and are in many cases now American citizens, deserve exactly

489
00:27:25,840 --> 00:27:28,880
Speaker 4: the same consideration and are often the most harmed by

490
00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 4: this sort of policy.

491
00:27:32,760 --> 00:27:35,879
Speaker 6: Let's talk about sanctions as worker policy, then, because I

492
00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:38,320
Speaker 6: think we're in maybe some people on the right, those

493
00:27:38,359 --> 00:27:41,040
Speaker 6: of us on the right, have rethought whether or not

494
00:27:41,240 --> 00:27:43,800
Speaker 6: some of those demands a different policy in Central America

495
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:48,159
Speaker 6: and South America. So would you support lifting sanctions on

496
00:27:48,200 --> 00:27:51,240
Speaker 6: places like Venezuela that a lot of new workers into

497
00:27:51,240 --> 00:27:53,159
Speaker 6: the country of the course, the Biden administration had been

498
00:27:53,200 --> 00:27:57,040
Speaker 6: Venezuela and they have been Cuban. Would you support lifting sanctions?

499
00:27:57,080 --> 00:27:59,439
Speaker 6: Would you support lifting the embargo in Cuba? How do

500
00:27:59,440 --> 00:27:59,960
Speaker 6: you think about them?

501
00:28:00,280 --> 00:28:02,600
Speaker 4: It's an interesting question. I won't claim to be an

502
00:28:02,640 --> 00:28:05,919
Speaker 4: expert on the sort of foreign policy and sanctions element

503
00:28:05,960 --> 00:28:10,359
Speaker 4: of our policy with respect to Cuba and Venezuela. I

504
00:28:10,400 --> 00:28:13,560
Speaker 4: do think the important sort of core premise here, though,

505
00:28:13,640 --> 00:28:17,760
Speaker 4: is that it is not America's obligation to be the

506
00:28:17,800 --> 00:28:20,760
Speaker 4: country of last resort for the rest of the world.

507
00:28:21,359 --> 00:28:24,960
Speaker 4: And so this sort of attempt to establish this linkage.

508
00:28:25,040 --> 00:28:26,920
Speaker 4: You know, you also hear like, oh, well, the US

509
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:28,800
Speaker 4: did this or that, and you know the nineteen fifties

510
00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:31,840
Speaker 4: or nineteen sixties, therefore we have to do X today.

511
00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:36,680
Speaker 4: The reality is that that's not feasible and it's also

512
00:28:36,760 --> 00:28:40,959
Speaker 4: not consistent with what the American people want. And I

513
00:28:40,960 --> 00:28:43,720
Speaker 4: think that's where the rubber really has to meet the

514
00:28:43,840 --> 00:28:46,479
Speaker 4: road on a lot of this is that, you know,

515
00:28:46,840 --> 00:28:49,200
Speaker 4: so many people are making this collection a sort of

516
00:28:49,480 --> 00:28:54,320
Speaker 4: referendum on democracy and democratic norms, and yet you have

517
00:28:54,360 --> 00:28:59,240
Speaker 4: an administration and a democratic party that is steadfastly unwilling

518
00:28:59,800 --> 00:29:03,760
Speaker 4: to to pursue and implement the will of the American people,

519
00:29:03,800 --> 00:29:09,640
Speaker 4: who overwhelmingly reject this notion that people who want to

520
00:29:09,640 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 4: come to America should just be able to come to America.

521
00:29:12,400 --> 00:29:17,320
Speaker 4: They want to see certainly a generous, orderly, legal immigration system,

522
00:29:17,840 --> 00:29:20,960
Speaker 4: but that that has to be the game. And so

523
00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:24,560
Speaker 4: if we're not willing to do that, if leaders aren't

524
00:29:24,560 --> 00:29:27,160
Speaker 4: willing to take that seriously and pursue that course, they

525
00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:29,360
Speaker 4: should not be surprised if they get thrown out on

526
00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:29,800
Speaker 4: their ear.

527
00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:32,880
Speaker 5: I think the problem comes in when we said I

528
00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:34,640
Speaker 5: think Democrats will be happy. You said, Okay, we're going

529
00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:38,440
Speaker 5: to have a generous kind of legal, orderly immigration system.

530
00:29:38,920 --> 00:29:39,240
Speaker 3: All right.

531
00:29:39,240 --> 00:29:41,800
Speaker 5: Now, We're going to sit down and in Congress, we're

532
00:29:41,800 --> 00:29:46,320
Speaker 5: going to rewrite our immigration laws, which haven't been drafted

533
00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:49,600
Speaker 5: or redrafted since the nineteen eighties. We're going to modernize them.

534
00:29:49,600 --> 00:29:51,360
Speaker 5: We're going to make this much more efficient. We're going

535
00:29:51,440 --> 00:29:55,000
Speaker 5: to aim it in a logical direction. I think democrats

536
00:29:55,040 --> 00:29:58,640
Speaker 5: be happy to do that. Nobody is willing. Nobody nobody

537
00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:02,200
Speaker 5: can in our current systems it down and rewrite immigration policies,

538
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:05,320
Speaker 5: so you end up having this hodgepodge of executive orders,

539
00:30:06,040 --> 00:30:11,360
Speaker 5: illegal crossings, uh, you know, total chaos, lawsuits, and you know,

540
00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:14,400
Speaker 5: nobody can you know, point one in one direction or another.

541
00:30:14,560 --> 00:30:17,520
Speaker 5: I think it's it might be easier to just you know, say,

542
00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:22,800
Speaker 5: forget about Democrats, Like I'll just argue that like in general,

543
00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:26,440
Speaker 5: like more more immigration is actually better for workers more

544
00:30:26,760 --> 00:30:28,840
Speaker 5: more broadly, and we can just kind of take it

545
00:30:28,880 --> 00:30:31,680
Speaker 5: from there, like forget it, forget about forget about what

546
00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 5: democrats believe in one. One kind of issue that I

547
00:30:35,840 --> 00:30:40,280
Speaker 5: have with with the way that you present your your

548
00:30:40,360 --> 00:30:43,480
Speaker 5: labor work over at Americ compasses around the kind of

549
00:30:43,520 --> 00:30:47,320
Speaker 5: market what seems like market fundamentalism around the around the

550
00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:50,760
Speaker 5: labor market. Like it feels like an idea that you know,

551
00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:54,320
Speaker 5: supply and demand drives everything, and that if you can

552
00:30:54,560 --> 00:30:57,840
Speaker 5: kind of come in and you can just restrict supply

553
00:30:58,680 --> 00:31:01,960
Speaker 5: of labor, then you're going to then then you're going

554
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:04,720
Speaker 5: to solve the problems that you're trying to solve you're

555
00:31:04,720 --> 00:31:07,160
Speaker 5: gonna you're gonna you're going to raise the real wages

556
00:31:07,840 --> 00:31:10,760
Speaker 5: for workers. And the reason I think that that's at

557
00:31:10,840 --> 00:31:15,120
Speaker 5: best incomplete because it doesn't emphasize enough the need to

558
00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:19,640
Speaker 5: do actual union unionizing, which gives workers real power, is

559
00:31:19,680 --> 00:31:22,600
Speaker 5: that if you don't change the structural power, and all

560
00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:25,040
Speaker 5: you do is kind of tilt the needle a little

561
00:31:25,040 --> 00:31:27,840
Speaker 5: bit by tightening, uh, by by creating a little bit

562
00:31:27,880 --> 00:31:31,800
Speaker 5: of a shortage, by not allowing people in, what you're

563
00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:33,680
Speaker 5: going to get is that the people at the top

564
00:31:33,800 --> 00:31:37,160
Speaker 5: still have the power, still have the power, and any

565
00:31:37,640 --> 00:31:41,440
Speaker 5: any changes then are are going to any any profits

566
00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:43,240
Speaker 5: from that are going to flow up to them.

567
00:31:43,280 --> 00:31:44,400
Speaker 3: They're going to make that work.

568
00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 5: And you saw so for example, you saw this happen

569
00:31:47,040 --> 00:31:50,640
Speaker 5: in the pandemic. It was a real example of like

570
00:31:50,840 --> 00:31:54,560
Speaker 5: all of a sudden, companies and particularly like you know,

571
00:31:54,640 --> 00:32:00,400
Speaker 5: restaurants elsewhere like really needed to raise wages because there

572
00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:03,440
Speaker 5: was a huge labor shortage. Not only did we have

573
00:32:03,760 --> 00:32:07,640
Speaker 5: basically immigrations sealed down at the border, lots of workers just.

574
00:32:08,480 --> 00:32:10,120
Speaker 3: Weren't willing to weren't willing to work.

575
00:32:10,160 --> 00:32:12,200
Speaker 5: Some of them were just complete We're just locked out

576
00:32:12,440 --> 00:32:16,720
Speaker 5: so they couldn't find enough workers. And so the first

577
00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:19,040
Speaker 5: part of your theory came true. Like you did see

578
00:32:19,520 --> 00:32:23,320
Speaker 5: nominal wage growth. You know, jobs that used to pay

579
00:32:23,760 --> 00:32:27,520
Speaker 5: thirteen dollars an hour, we're now paying sixteen seventeen.

580
00:32:27,080 --> 00:32:27,720
Speaker 3: Dollars an hour.

581
00:32:28,120 --> 00:32:31,560
Speaker 5: But what you also saw was the economy starting to

582
00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:34,440
Speaker 5: completely buckle, and you saw it on a micro level.

583
00:32:35,160 --> 00:32:38,680
Speaker 5: You'd go, you'd see restaurants that were used to be

584
00:32:38,720 --> 00:32:41,080
Speaker 5: open all day. Now they're only open half the day

585
00:32:41,280 --> 00:32:44,400
Speaker 5: because they couldn't get enough workers to come in, or

586
00:32:44,880 --> 00:32:47,200
Speaker 5: if they were open at all, they would only have

587
00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:49,440
Speaker 5: one section open because they only had you know, this

588
00:32:49,600 --> 00:32:52,640
Speaker 5: number of people who were able to come in and

589
00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:57,680
Speaker 5: that you know, blasted. And then as a result, the

590
00:32:57,720 --> 00:32:59,760
Speaker 5: price of everything goes way up. You start to see

591
00:32:59,760 --> 00:33:04,440
Speaker 5: this have you spike and inflation. And so while nominal

592
00:33:04,440 --> 00:33:09,320
Speaker 5: wages went up during the pandemic, real wages actually went down.

593
00:33:09,400 --> 00:33:13,600
Speaker 5: And that's because you didn't structurally change who had power

594
00:33:13,760 --> 00:33:16,800
Speaker 5: within the political economy, and so all of the kind

595
00:33:16,800 --> 00:33:20,440
Speaker 5: of all of these price movements.

596
00:33:20,240 --> 00:33:22,880
Speaker 3: Just kind of flowed to the very top.

597
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:24,840
Speaker 5: And so my argument would be, if you don't have

598
00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:29,600
Speaker 5: unions who were able to then fight back against that

599
00:33:30,600 --> 00:33:34,360
Speaker 5: whatever ability you have of pushing up nominal wages is

600
00:33:34,400 --> 00:33:37,360
Speaker 5: just going to lead to inflation across the economy and

601
00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:39,360
Speaker 5: then more profits for the top ten percent.

602
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:43,840
Speaker 4: Well, I guess I have a little bit of trouble

603
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:46,800
Speaker 4: in following that story, because it seems to me that

604
00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:50,520
Speaker 4: that is also what a lot of labor economists would

605
00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:54,840
Speaker 4: not incorrectly worry unions would do. I mean, if what

606
00:33:54,920 --> 00:33:59,120
Speaker 4: you're saying is that when workers have power and push

607
00:33:59,160 --> 00:34:02,720
Speaker 4: for higher wages, is that just forces up prices and

608
00:34:03,200 --> 00:34:07,400
Speaker 4: the result is inflation. I mean, fair enough. Maybe we

609
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:12,120
Speaker 4: have a very long conversation about what was actually going

610
00:34:12,120 --> 00:34:15,400
Speaker 4: on during the pandemic, But I don't see how the

611
00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:18,719
Speaker 4: story is different if it's your union contract driving up

612
00:34:19,400 --> 00:34:22,560
Speaker 4: those wages. If your theory is that higher wages are

613
00:34:22,600 --> 00:34:26,960
Speaker 4: just going to translate to higher prices and therefore no

614
00:34:27,040 --> 00:34:31,720
Speaker 4: real wage gains, than then unions don't really get you anything.

615
00:34:31,760 --> 00:34:33,440
Speaker 4: In fact, a lot of people would say that's exactly

616
00:34:33,480 --> 00:34:36,080
Speaker 4: what unions were doing in the nineteen seventies, that that

617
00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:37,120
Speaker 4: drove stag plation.

618
00:34:38,080 --> 00:34:42,319
Speaker 5: The Well, the idea is that the idea is that

619
00:34:42,480 --> 00:34:47,160
Speaker 5: unions and more worker power, which would also translate into

620
00:34:47,640 --> 00:34:51,359
Speaker 5: more power for politicians who represented workers would be able

621
00:34:51,360 --> 00:34:56,160
Speaker 5: to then intervene and make sure that the richest of

622
00:34:56,200 --> 00:34:58,680
Speaker 5: the rich don't pull out those wages. You get a

623
00:34:58,719 --> 00:35:03,360
Speaker 5: line in your in your compass essay. Was it called

624
00:35:04,160 --> 00:35:06,560
Speaker 5: jobs that Americans do or jobs Americans won't do?

625
00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:09,920
Speaker 4: Yeah? Jobs Americans would do, would would do?

626
00:35:10,080 --> 00:35:10,319
Speaker 3: Yes?

627
00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:12,520
Speaker 5: So you had one line that has said, you know,

628
00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:15,279
Speaker 5: windshield installers are paid what they are because that is

629
00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:18,600
Speaker 5: what must be offered to employ the required number.

630
00:35:19,160 --> 00:35:21,800
Speaker 3: The same is true of marketing executives.

631
00:35:22,360 --> 00:35:25,000
Speaker 5: What's interesting about that line is that that's not actually

632
00:35:25,040 --> 00:35:28,480
Speaker 5: my experience. So I had this bizarre experience where I

633
00:35:28,560 --> 00:35:32,480
Speaker 5: used to work for the Huffington Post, which was bought

634
00:35:32,520 --> 00:35:34,359
Speaker 5: by after I'd been there for a couple of years,

635
00:35:34,400 --> 00:35:37,240
Speaker 5: it was bought by AOL, and then several years after

636
00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:41,480
Speaker 5: that it was bought by Verizon. And so because I

637
00:35:41,600 --> 00:35:45,240
Speaker 5: was kind of a senior person at the Huffington Post

638
00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:49,680
Speaker 5: and they'd never really owned media before, I wound up

639
00:35:49,719 --> 00:35:53,880
Speaker 5: being kind of categorized in an executive level at like

640
00:35:54,040 --> 00:35:59,759
Speaker 5: AOL and Verizon, even though like it didn't make any sense,

641
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:02,520
Speaker 5: which is kind of a but it put me in

642
00:36:02,520 --> 00:36:06,640
Speaker 5: in orbit of all of these basically vice presidents or

643
00:36:07,040 --> 00:36:10,840
Speaker 5: marketing executives and all these types at these corporations, And

644
00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:13,919
Speaker 5: so I was able to get a window into how

645
00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:16,600
Speaker 5: that world operated. And what you saw was this just

646
00:36:16,880 --> 00:36:21,680
Speaker 5: wildly corrupt kind of backscratching going on. And so while

647
00:36:22,040 --> 00:36:24,520
Speaker 5: you might have to pay a windshield wiper x amount

648
00:36:24,640 --> 00:36:28,719
Speaker 5: to get them to come do winshe winshield installers, you

649
00:36:28,760 --> 00:36:31,400
Speaker 5: might have to pay them a particular amount, it was

650
00:36:31,640 --> 00:36:35,120
Speaker 5: actually marketing executives who were deciding what their friends were

651
00:36:35,120 --> 00:36:38,160
Speaker 5: getting paid. It wasn't a question of what do we

652
00:36:38,280 --> 00:36:41,200
Speaker 5: have to pay this person to get them to.

653
00:36:41,160 --> 00:36:41,880
Speaker 3: Do this job.

654
00:36:42,400 --> 00:36:45,279
Speaker 5: It was a question of basically how much can we

655
00:36:45,320 --> 00:36:48,840
Speaker 5: get away with stealing from shareholders here, Like what is

656
00:36:48,880 --> 00:36:51,719
Speaker 5: the most amount that I can pay you and that

657
00:36:51,760 --> 00:36:55,239
Speaker 5: you in the next executive compensation committee will agree to

658
00:36:55,360 --> 00:37:00,480
Speaker 5: pay me, and you just extract all the shareholders wealth

659
00:37:01,000 --> 00:37:03,560
Speaker 5: that way. Not because you had to pay them that

660
00:37:03,600 --> 00:37:05,680
Speaker 5: there were other people who would have done a job cheaper.

661
00:37:06,040 --> 00:37:11,040
Speaker 5: But it's this clubby crony kind of backscratching corporate world

662
00:37:11,360 --> 00:37:14,720
Speaker 5: which is just living off the backs of the workers

663
00:37:14,719 --> 00:37:19,080
Speaker 5: and the shareholders because they have the power, because there's no,

664
00:37:19,280 --> 00:37:22,440
Speaker 5: there are no politicians backed by workers who are cracking

665
00:37:22,680 --> 00:37:26,640
Speaker 5: down on them. There's no union at these companies. Verizon

666
00:37:26,640 --> 00:37:29,520
Speaker 5: did have one, AOL didn't have one. I'm talking more

667
00:37:29,560 --> 00:37:34,200
Speaker 5: about AOL here, And so you wind up with this

668
00:37:34,280 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 5: corporate culture that just siphons wealth off of the top.

669
00:37:39,600 --> 00:37:43,719
Speaker 5: And if you don't undo that, just shrinking the number

670
00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:47,719
Speaker 5: of people who are able to apply for thirteen dollars

671
00:37:47,719 --> 00:37:49,400
Speaker 5: an hour jobs is what I'm saying, isn't going to

672
00:37:49,520 --> 00:37:50,520
Speaker 5: change things structurally.

673
00:37:52,719 --> 00:37:55,839
Speaker 4: I guess I feel like we've gone on a little

674
00:37:55,880 --> 00:37:58,320
Speaker 4: bit of a detour here. I mean, I don't disagree

675
00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:01,160
Speaker 4: there are all sorts of problems with THEIG executive compensation,

676
00:38:01,480 --> 00:38:06,000
Speaker 4: but as you noted, I mean other things, Rising is unionized.

677
00:38:06,160 --> 00:38:12,200
Speaker 4: You know, cracking down on stupid employer compensation schemes isn't

678
00:38:12,360 --> 00:38:16,520
Speaker 4: what unions do. And so I think we really do

679
00:38:16,600 --> 00:38:19,120
Speaker 4: need to focus on this question of you know, when

680
00:38:19,160 --> 00:38:21,920
Speaker 4: we talk about worker power, what do we mean, what

681
00:38:21,960 --> 00:38:25,040
Speaker 4: do we think it's going to accomplish, whether it's unionized

682
00:38:25,120 --> 00:38:27,560
Speaker 4: or not. What we think it's going to accomplish that

683
00:38:27,600 --> 00:38:31,480
Speaker 4: could be good? Is it actually focuses companies on investing

684
00:38:31,480 --> 00:38:34,239
Speaker 4: in productivity, growth, at the end of the day, if

685
00:38:34,280 --> 00:38:36,879
Speaker 4: we want real wages to grow in the long run,

686
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:40,520
Speaker 4: if we want greater prosperity for typical workers, we need

687
00:38:40,560 --> 00:38:44,319
Speaker 4: their productivity to be rising. And businesses are only going

688
00:38:44,360 --> 00:38:48,120
Speaker 4: to have an interest in making investments in their productivity

689
00:38:48,160 --> 00:38:52,799
Speaker 4: rising if they are restricted in part by by type

690
00:38:52,840 --> 00:38:58,320
Speaker 4: labor markets, potentially by a more formal organizing movement in

691
00:38:59,520 --> 00:39:01,640
Speaker 4: who they can higher and how much they have to pay.

692
00:39:02,719 --> 00:39:06,840
Speaker 4: So again, I don't think there's any disagreement that labor

693
00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:10,520
Speaker 4: unions can play a constructive role here. The problem, and

694
00:39:10,760 --> 00:39:14,279
Speaker 4: I mean we've jumped so many steps over it's worth

695
00:39:14,280 --> 00:39:18,520
Speaker 4: remembering back where we started, is the question of whether

696
00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:23,560
Speaker 4: we think it matters if we have a huge influx

697
00:39:23,640 --> 00:39:26,840
Speaker 4: of less skilled workers or or if we prefer a

698
00:39:26,880 --> 00:39:31,279
Speaker 4: situation where there are actually many fewer workers. And it

699
00:39:31,360 --> 00:39:34,560
Speaker 4: is especially interesting to see now in the sort of

700
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:38,279
Speaker 4: post pandemic tight labor market environment, that all of the

701
00:39:38,320 --> 00:39:41,080
Speaker 4: economists who used to argue that immigration doesn't have an

702
00:39:41,120 --> 00:39:44,680
Speaker 4: effect on wages have now completely turned around on this,

703
00:39:44,800 --> 00:39:47,680
Speaker 4: I mean everybody. And again you have the Biden administration

704
00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:49,839
Speaker 4: out there on this as well, trying to make the

705
00:39:49,840 --> 00:39:53,160
Speaker 4: case that somehow you know, we need to bring that

706
00:39:53,280 --> 00:39:57,960
Speaker 4: upward pressure on wages down by expanding labor supply. And

707
00:39:57,960 --> 00:40:00,600
Speaker 4: that's our new case for why we need high levels immigration.

708
00:40:01,360 --> 00:40:05,360
Speaker 4: And that's just insane. I'm sorry. You can't take seriously

709
00:40:05,400 --> 00:40:09,120
Speaker 4: the idea of worker power and wanting to see workers

710
00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:11,200
Speaker 4: benefit in the long run. If you're then going to

711
00:40:11,239 --> 00:40:13,440
Speaker 4: turn around and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, it looks like

712
00:40:13,680 --> 00:40:17,160
Speaker 4: actually workers are starting to actually sort of gain the

713
00:40:17,239 --> 00:40:20,160
Speaker 4: upper hand here and be able to demand higher wages.

714
00:40:20,640 --> 00:40:24,960
Speaker 4: Let's bring in lots more workers to prevent that from happening.

715
00:40:25,719 --> 00:40:27,759
Speaker 4: You just can't do that. What you have to do

716
00:40:27,800 --> 00:40:31,640
Speaker 4: instead is tell the business community, look, we do see

717
00:40:31,640 --> 00:40:34,960
Speaker 4: that you're under pressure without a lot of workers available.

718
00:40:35,320 --> 00:40:37,160
Speaker 4: You know what, it sounds like you'd better do find

719
00:40:37,200 --> 00:40:39,520
Speaker 4: a way to make those workers more productive. And if

720
00:40:39,520 --> 00:40:41,560
Speaker 4: you do that, you're going to be successful in the market.

721
00:40:41,640 --> 00:40:43,520
Speaker 4: Your profits are going to go up, et cetera, etc.

722
00:40:44,320 --> 00:40:47,399
Speaker 4: And that's the set of incentives you need. And policymakers

723
00:40:47,400 --> 00:40:50,880
Speaker 4: who are committed to creating that set of incentives that dynamic,

724
00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:53,680
Speaker 4: I think should be credited with being pro worker. And

725
00:40:53,760 --> 00:40:56,520
Speaker 4: policymakers who are not interested in that dynamic and are

726
00:40:56,560 --> 00:40:59,400
Speaker 4: instead interested in parating the corporate line that help we

727
00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:02,879
Speaker 4: need more workers should not be credited with, within any

728
00:41:02,920 --> 00:41:04,280
Speaker 4: serious way, being pro worker.

729
00:41:04,680 --> 00:41:08,200
Speaker 6: And I'm putting myself in the shoes of somebody on

730
00:41:08,280 --> 00:41:10,719
Speaker 6: the left right now listening to this, thinking, all right,

731
00:41:10,760 --> 00:41:16,040
Speaker 6: so is orange cast then pro worker if he doesn't support,

732
00:41:16,280 --> 00:41:18,840
Speaker 6: for example, and Ryan, you can add to this, you know,

733
00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:24,000
Speaker 6: significant tax cuts, tax increases on the wealthy, maybe even

734
00:41:24,040 --> 00:41:26,360
Speaker 6: in the middle class, like European style tax system. And

735
00:41:26,400 --> 00:41:28,399
Speaker 6: I know, actually you've been debating people on the right.

736
00:41:28,480 --> 00:41:31,480
Speaker 6: You think the rights a version or allergy to tax

737
00:41:31,560 --> 00:41:35,319
Speaker 6: increases is wrong. But you know, let's say the sort

738
00:41:35,320 --> 00:41:37,160
Speaker 6: of Occupy Wall Street.

739
00:41:38,320 --> 00:41:38,880
Speaker 4: Agenda.

740
00:41:40,239 --> 00:41:43,480
Speaker 6: You know, if you don't support that, then are you serious?

741
00:41:43,640 --> 00:41:45,440
Speaker 6: I know this is funny probably for you, because a

742
00:41:45,440 --> 00:41:47,520
Speaker 6: lot of people on the right will attack you and

743
00:41:47,600 --> 00:41:50,840
Speaker 6: compass for taking money from sort of left wing people

744
00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:54,440
Speaker 6: and they think you're the secret socialist. But if I'm

745
00:41:54,600 --> 00:41:58,560
Speaker 6: sort of a populist, disaffected maybe person on the left

746
00:41:58,600 --> 00:41:59,120
Speaker 6: watching this.

747
00:42:00,160 --> 00:42:01,760
Speaker 4: Why is or in task pro worker?

748
00:42:01,920 --> 00:42:04,520
Speaker 6: Is he actually willing to sort of take the steps

749
00:42:04,560 --> 00:42:09,120
Speaker 6: that Ryan mentioned that would structurally change the economy or

750
00:42:09,200 --> 00:42:12,560
Speaker 6: are these just you know, fun talking points that mask

751
00:42:13,560 --> 00:42:17,000
Speaker 6: something that's really just warmed over conservatism.

752
00:42:18,440 --> 00:42:21,600
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, I think in general I'm in favor

753
00:42:21,880 --> 00:42:24,080
Speaker 4: of pursuing all of these angles. I mean, to Ryan's

754
00:42:24,080 --> 00:42:27,080
Speaker 4: point about sort of executive compensation and so forth. You know,

755
00:42:27,120 --> 00:42:29,719
Speaker 4: American Compass has done a ton of work on excesses

756
00:42:29,719 --> 00:42:33,719
Speaker 4: of Wall Street, mismanagement of corporations, et cetera. I think

757
00:42:33,760 --> 00:42:36,719
Speaker 4: getting specifically at that question of sort of who controls

758
00:42:36,719 --> 00:42:40,239
Speaker 4: and sets employee compensation is a particularly difficult one. But

759
00:42:40,440 --> 00:42:42,400
Speaker 4: I'd be the first to acknowledge it's a problem and

760
00:42:43,000 --> 00:42:46,319
Speaker 4: them all ears on what to do about it. I

761
00:42:46,320 --> 00:42:49,320
Speaker 4: think likewise, when you talk about the tax issue, you know,

762
00:42:49,360 --> 00:42:52,520
Speaker 4: American Compass has just put out this work saying this

763
00:42:52,640 --> 00:42:56,440
Speaker 4: idea that we should only ever cut taxes and our

764
00:42:56,480 --> 00:43:00,080
Speaker 4: budget only has a spending problem is just not true.

765
00:43:00,440 --> 00:43:02,719
Speaker 4: Now the flip side, I think it's also important to

766
00:43:02,760 --> 00:43:05,919
Speaker 4: say it's not like tax increases are good for workers, right,

767
00:43:06,040 --> 00:43:07,799
Speaker 4: Like I think it would be wrong to out there

768
00:43:07,840 --> 00:43:10,719
Speaker 4: and say the way we solve these problems for workers

769
00:43:10,920 --> 00:43:14,160
Speaker 4: is to is to raise taxes on somebody else. And

770
00:43:14,200 --> 00:43:16,480
Speaker 4: I think that's where the sort of occupy Wall Street,

771
00:43:16,760 --> 00:43:18,680
Speaker 4: like we just need to sort of if we punish

772
00:43:18,680 --> 00:43:22,480
Speaker 4: the one percent somehow, that will benefit somebody. I'm just

773
00:43:22,520 --> 00:43:26,160
Speaker 4: not sure what the logical chain is there. I think

774
00:43:26,200 --> 00:43:28,439
Speaker 4: the two things we need to focus on much more

775
00:43:28,480 --> 00:43:31,879
Speaker 4: strongly than a lot on the in the Republican Party

776
00:43:31,920 --> 00:43:37,120
Speaker 4: have historically. One is that that budget deficits matter now. Right.

777
00:43:37,360 --> 00:43:39,839
Speaker 4: It's not just a matter of accumulating debt that's going

778
00:43:39,880 --> 00:43:43,640
Speaker 4: to promote some you know, cause some future crisis. Budget

779
00:43:43,680 --> 00:43:47,240
Speaker 4: deficits are are a form of imbalance in the economy

780
00:43:47,239 --> 00:43:50,360
Speaker 4: that has all sorts of consequences that crowd out better

781
00:43:50,440 --> 00:43:54,400
Speaker 4: private investment, that drive up trade deficits and encourage offshoring.

782
00:43:55,000 --> 00:43:57,200
Speaker 4: And so saying actually, we need to get our budget

783
00:43:57,239 --> 00:43:59,600
Speaker 4: deficit under control and that will be a good thing

784
00:43:59,640 --> 00:44:03,000
Speaker 4: for work, I think is really important. And then the

785
00:44:03,000 --> 00:44:04,719
Speaker 4: second piece of it is to acknowledge that, you know

786
00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:06,719
Speaker 4: a lot of the things we spend money on that

787
00:44:08,040 --> 00:44:11,399
Speaker 4: Republicans of historically said well, let's just cut those things

788
00:44:11,440 --> 00:44:15,000
Speaker 4: are really popular with and important to workers. And so

789
00:44:15,160 --> 00:44:18,600
Speaker 4: whether you're talking about you know, the safety net, certainly

790
00:44:18,640 --> 00:44:23,120
Speaker 4: if you're talking about entitlements, you know, your typical working

791
00:44:23,200 --> 00:44:28,319
Speaker 4: family isn't interested in seeing those things cut now Obviously

792
00:44:28,800 --> 00:44:31,759
Speaker 4: there are trade offs in life. Either you have to

793
00:44:31,760 --> 00:44:34,160
Speaker 4: reduce spending or you have to pay more taxes to

794
00:44:34,200 --> 00:44:38,080
Speaker 4: cover the spending. But what we've said is the appropriate

795
00:44:38,080 --> 00:44:40,920
Speaker 4: pro worker view here is number one, you do have

796
00:44:41,000 --> 00:44:43,080
Speaker 4: to close the budget deficit. You have to be willing

797
00:44:43,120 --> 00:44:45,839
Speaker 4: to pay for the government you have. And number two,

798
00:44:45,880 --> 00:44:47,239
Speaker 4: the way to do that is going to have to

799
00:44:47,280 --> 00:44:50,760
Speaker 4: be through real compromise that yes, does bring down spending,

800
00:44:50,880 --> 00:44:53,840
Speaker 4: including in some painful ways, but yes, also it's going

801
00:44:53,880 --> 00:44:56,640
Speaker 4: to have to raise some more revenue in some painful ways.

802
00:44:56,800 --> 00:45:01,160
Speaker 4: And so that's that's the position that we've taken. Again,

803
00:45:01,200 --> 00:45:03,120
Speaker 4: I think it's one very interesting thing that you start

804
00:45:03,160 --> 00:45:06,160
Speaker 4: to see conservatives taking. You know, we just put out

805
00:45:06,200 --> 00:45:10,400
Speaker 4: a podcast where we spoke with both Congressman Rocanna, the

806
00:45:10,400 --> 00:45:14,840
Speaker 4: progressive Democrat, and Congressman Jody Errington, the conservative Republican who's

807
00:45:15,360 --> 00:45:18,080
Speaker 4: chair of the House Budget Committee. And it's very interesting

808
00:45:18,080 --> 00:45:21,719
Speaker 4: to see, you know, Congressman Arrington. Chairman Arrington is more

809
00:45:21,760 --> 00:45:24,239
Speaker 4: than happy to emphasize, yes, they're going to have to

810
00:45:24,280 --> 00:45:27,600
Speaker 4: be compromises here. We can't just do the Republican tax

811
00:45:27,640 --> 00:45:30,560
Speaker 4: cutting thing. Revenue has to be on the table because

812
00:45:30,600 --> 00:45:33,439
Speaker 4: we do have to close this budget deficit, and that's

813
00:45:33,480 --> 00:45:37,280
Speaker 4: exactly the place I want to see conservatives going. Franklin,

814
00:45:37,280 --> 00:45:39,440
Speaker 4: It's very frustrating on the other side of the conversation

815
00:45:39,600 --> 00:45:41,799
Speaker 4: to try to ask progressives, you know, to say, like, look,

816
00:45:41,840 --> 00:45:43,640
Speaker 4: we think there could be some revenue on the table,

817
00:45:44,360 --> 00:45:46,240
Speaker 4: what's the spending that we're going to put on the table,

818
00:45:46,680 --> 00:45:50,560
Speaker 4: and the answer being well, you know, essentially nothing. I mean,

819
00:45:50,640 --> 00:45:52,839
Speaker 4: I mean, you look at the Biden budget. Biden takes

820
00:45:52,840 --> 00:45:55,359
Speaker 4: spending up further over the next ten years while making

821
00:45:55,400 --> 00:45:59,919
Speaker 4: no attempt to pay for it, and that's just not real.

822
00:46:00,200 --> 00:46:02,000
Speaker 4: We're going to have to get past that if we're

823
00:46:02,000 --> 00:46:04,120
Speaker 4: actually going to make the progress that I think you're

824
00:46:04,120 --> 00:46:08,880
Speaker 4: starting to see pro worker conservatives open to open to pursuing.

825
00:46:11,120 --> 00:46:13,440
Speaker 5: One last point on kind of unions and worker power

826
00:46:13,440 --> 00:46:17,520
Speaker 5: before we move back to the question of immigration, the

827
00:46:17,520 --> 00:46:20,799
Speaker 5: economy or worker power. There is that to your point

828
00:46:20,840 --> 00:46:24,560
Speaker 5: about that unions at a micro level, you know, can

829
00:46:24,600 --> 00:46:26,839
Speaker 5: have the same effect of you know, they drive up

830
00:46:27,120 --> 00:46:29,000
Speaker 5: they drive up wages, and then they might drive up

831
00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:33,160
Speaker 5: prices and can have some you know, inflation as a

832
00:46:33,200 --> 00:46:35,640
Speaker 5: result of that. What I'm also talking about, though, is

833
00:46:35,680 --> 00:46:39,240
Speaker 5: the way that union density and a big labor movement

834
00:46:39,600 --> 00:46:41,400
Speaker 5: changes the entire political economy.

835
00:46:41,400 --> 00:46:43,520
Speaker 3: And I think if we can put up Ex.

836
00:46:44,000 --> 00:46:46,600
Speaker 5: Four here, I believe it is or any any of

837
00:46:46,600 --> 00:46:49,160
Speaker 5: these charts that I grabbed kind of show the picture

838
00:46:49,760 --> 00:46:54,279
Speaker 5: that you know, so this is basically the way that

839
00:46:54,320 --> 00:46:57,000
Speaker 5: you're seeing all of the gains flow to, you know,

840
00:46:57,200 --> 00:47:01,239
Speaker 5: very high wage earners. Happens to co inside precisely with

841
00:47:01,280 --> 00:47:05,120
Speaker 5: the time that union power is collapsing. You know, as

842
00:47:05,239 --> 00:47:09,400
Speaker 5: union power is surging in the forties, fifties and sixties,

843
00:47:09,760 --> 00:47:13,600
Speaker 5: you know, the political economy is structured kind of toward workers,

844
00:47:13,640 --> 00:47:18,600
Speaker 5: and eventually these big companies are able to kind of

845
00:47:18,600 --> 00:47:22,000
Speaker 5: beat back the labor movement, to break the back of unions,

846
00:47:22,800 --> 00:47:27,680
Speaker 5: and as a result, the kind of entire political structure changes.

847
00:47:27,719 --> 00:47:29,600
Speaker 3: And so I think we have ex.

848
00:47:29,680 --> 00:47:32,520
Speaker 5: Five here which shows right at the time that unions

849
00:47:32,520 --> 00:47:36,080
Speaker 5: are broken before you break the unions. So it's not

850
00:47:36,320 --> 00:47:39,840
Speaker 5: just that the union in micro negotiations with the company

851
00:47:40,400 --> 00:47:42,839
Speaker 5: are what are producing the effect that you're seeing on.

852
00:47:42,800 --> 00:47:43,319
Speaker 3: The chart there.

853
00:47:43,360 --> 00:47:48,359
Speaker 5: It's also that both parties then are you know, are

854
00:47:48,400 --> 00:47:52,640
Speaker 5: heavily influenced by workers because unions are organized and they're

855
00:47:52,640 --> 00:47:55,800
Speaker 5: able to get out the vote based on their material

856
00:47:55,840 --> 00:48:01,680
Speaker 5: economic concerns, and so they then implement legislation that makes

857
00:48:01,680 --> 00:48:04,240
Speaker 5: it more difficult for people to accumulate that sort of wealth.

858
00:48:04,239 --> 00:48:07,600
Speaker 5: What happens in the seventies and eighties is that you

859
00:48:07,640 --> 00:48:11,000
Speaker 5: see that marginal tax rates just start to collapse, and

860
00:48:11,040 --> 00:48:15,360
Speaker 5: you ask, you know, what to do about this crazy

861
00:48:15,480 --> 00:48:19,040
Speaker 5: corrupt executive compensation. The answer is quite simple, you tax it.

862
00:48:19,320 --> 00:48:23,040
Speaker 5: Like back in the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties, when

863
00:48:23,080 --> 00:48:27,319
Speaker 5: you had very high marginal tax rates, there just wasn't

864
00:48:27,400 --> 00:48:31,040
Speaker 5: the incentive for executives to go out and do all

865
00:48:31,040 --> 00:48:34,439
Speaker 5: of this stuff. Now, the counter argument to that ninety

866
00:48:34,480 --> 00:48:37,600
Speaker 5: percent tax rate, people often say, well, actually nobody ever

867
00:48:37,640 --> 00:48:41,640
Speaker 5: paid the ninety percent, so it's kind of a myth

868
00:48:41,680 --> 00:48:44,279
Speaker 5: that we ever even had it. But my argument would

869
00:48:44,280 --> 00:48:49,000
Speaker 5: be the point wasn't to collect revenue. It was social policy.

870
00:48:49,080 --> 00:48:53,320
Speaker 5: It was policy aimed at discouraging the type of activity

871
00:48:53,640 --> 00:48:56,160
Speaker 5: that would accumulate that much wealth. So, in other words,

872
00:48:56,719 --> 00:48:58,880
Speaker 5: a corporate rate or a private equity group might be

873
00:48:58,880 --> 00:49:02,080
Speaker 5: able to look at a kmart and say, we could

874
00:49:02,200 --> 00:49:04,560
Speaker 5: bankrupt this pension fund and steal all the money. We

875
00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:09,040
Speaker 5: could break the union, we could sell the land out

876
00:49:09,080 --> 00:49:11,000
Speaker 5: from under it and just keep all the money, but

877
00:49:11,080 --> 00:49:14,239
Speaker 5: at ninety percent tax rate, Like, what's even the point

878
00:49:14,239 --> 00:49:16,839
Speaker 5: of doing it. So we're just going to go to

879
00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:20,239
Speaker 5: try to find things that we can do that are

880
00:49:20,280 --> 00:49:23,640
Speaker 5: actually kind of useful to society, which, to your point,

881
00:49:23,920 --> 00:49:26,400
Speaker 5: and to Adam Smith's point that you quoted in the essay,

882
00:49:26,880 --> 00:49:30,480
Speaker 5: like capitalism works if you're directing people towards socially useful

883
00:49:30,880 --> 00:49:34,920
Speaker 5: projects rather than socially destructive ones. And so what I'd

884
00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:38,440
Speaker 5: say is, like, by reorganizing the political economy so that

885
00:49:38,520 --> 00:49:42,000
Speaker 5: workers have power again, what those workers will do is

886
00:49:43,200 --> 00:49:47,760
Speaker 5: produce policy that produce federal policies that then make it

887
00:49:47,920 --> 00:49:50,840
Speaker 5: very difficult for the top one percent to continue to

888
00:49:50,880 --> 00:49:53,759
Speaker 5: gobble up all of the wealth. And I just don't

889
00:49:53,800 --> 00:49:55,600
Speaker 5: think that's the kind of thing that you can do

890
00:49:56,560 --> 00:49:59,520
Speaker 5: just by say, tightening immigration down at the border.

891
00:50:01,080 --> 00:50:04,000
Speaker 4: Well again, I don't think we disagree that that a

892
00:50:04,080 --> 00:50:08,600
Speaker 4: stronger labor movement is important as well. We'd have to

893
00:50:08,600 --> 00:50:12,520
Speaker 4: have a longer conversation about this ninety percent tax bracket issue.

894
00:50:12,800 --> 00:50:16,520
Speaker 4: It's important to understand that that it would not have

895
00:50:16,680 --> 00:50:19,239
Speaker 4: back then, and anything you would do today would not

896
00:50:19,520 --> 00:50:24,200
Speaker 4: hit your sort of Huffington Post marketing executive and and

897
00:50:24,280 --> 00:50:26,759
Speaker 4: so when you start and conversely, when you start to

898
00:50:26,800 --> 00:50:30,200
Speaker 4: talk about the profits that you're making from from you know,

899
00:50:30,280 --> 00:50:33,880
Speaker 4: taking over in bankrupting Kmart, you know those are typically

900
00:50:33,920 --> 00:50:37,480
Speaker 4: coming through capital gains and if they're even realized and

901
00:50:37,760 --> 00:50:41,440
Speaker 4: being steered into to wealth and other forms. So you know, look,

902
00:50:41,480 --> 00:50:43,840
Speaker 4: American comments has said, there's from with all this stuff,

903
00:50:43,880 --> 00:50:45,960
Speaker 4: we should be we should be trying to make policy

904
00:50:45,960 --> 00:50:49,399
Speaker 4: that addresses it. I would not agree that a ninety

905
00:50:49,440 --> 00:50:54,160
Speaker 4: percent top tax rate is really going to do those things,

906
00:50:54,480 --> 00:50:56,960
Speaker 4: but I do think the point about the political economy

907
00:50:56,960 --> 00:51:00,680
Speaker 4: of labor unions is really important, and maybe we're spending

908
00:51:00,719 --> 00:51:02,719
Speaker 4: just another minute on because I think, you know, one

909
00:51:02,760 --> 00:51:06,760
Speaker 4: of the biggest problems with unions as they operate today

910
00:51:06,840 --> 00:51:11,480
Speaker 4: is that they have become primarily political enterprises and essentially

911
00:51:11,600 --> 00:51:14,279
Speaker 4: arms of the Democratic Party, certainly in the way that

912
00:51:14,280 --> 00:51:16,879
Speaker 4: they spend their money, and the problem is that that's

913
00:51:16,920 --> 00:51:21,160
Speaker 4: not what workers want. I mean, the data is a

914
00:51:21,200 --> 00:51:23,399
Speaker 4: little hard to tease out, but I think it's pretty

915
00:51:23,440 --> 00:51:26,800
Speaker 4: safe to say among private sector union workers, the majority

916
00:51:26,880 --> 00:51:30,360
Speaker 4: supported Donald Trump in twenty twenty, and almost certainly be

917
00:51:30,400 --> 00:51:33,600
Speaker 4: the case in twenty twenty four, and so you have

918
00:51:33,760 --> 00:51:37,680
Speaker 4: this problem. You know, if nothing else, American workers don't

919
00:51:37,719 --> 00:51:42,680
Speaker 4: look politically very different from just Americans generally. And so

920
00:51:42,800 --> 00:51:45,520
Speaker 4: the idea that we're going to sort of use union

921
00:51:45,680 --> 00:51:49,440
Speaker 4: power and sort of organize workers and exert political power

922
00:51:49,520 --> 00:51:54,279
Speaker 4: through them in a way that advances the Democratic Party's priorities,

923
00:51:55,840 --> 00:51:57,920
Speaker 4: it just doesn't make any sense. And in fact, the

924
00:51:58,000 --> 00:52:00,520
Speaker 4: continued effort to try to do that is probably the

925
00:52:00,600 --> 00:52:04,680
Speaker 4: number one obstacle to organizing today. I mean, we've done

926
00:52:04,680 --> 00:52:06,960
Speaker 4: a lot of survey work. One of the things you find

927
00:52:07,040 --> 00:52:09,440
Speaker 4: is that among the significant share of workers who have

928
00:52:09,480 --> 00:52:11,879
Speaker 4: no interest in unions, that the number one thing they

929
00:52:11,920 --> 00:52:15,279
Speaker 4: dislike about them is the politics. And that goes for

930
00:52:15,320 --> 00:52:18,279
Speaker 4: whether you're a Democrat or a Republican. And if you

931
00:52:18,360 --> 00:52:22,000
Speaker 4: ask workers would they prefer an organization representing them focused

932
00:52:22,000 --> 00:52:25,520
Speaker 4: only on workplace issues or both workplace issues and national

933
00:52:25,520 --> 00:52:29,200
Speaker 4: political issues, They'll they'll choose only workplace issues by almost

934
00:52:29,239 --> 00:52:32,120
Speaker 4: three to one. So I guess I would sort of

935
00:52:32,560 --> 00:52:34,640
Speaker 4: pose the question back to you because this is something

936
00:52:34,680 --> 00:52:37,520
Speaker 4: that we've posed to a lot of folks on the

937
00:52:37,560 --> 00:52:39,640
Speaker 4: left of center who we'd love to work with on

938
00:52:39,680 --> 00:52:43,320
Speaker 4: this issue of labor reform of building better work organizations.

939
00:52:43,680 --> 00:52:46,160
Speaker 4: How do you feel about a system that really does

940
00:52:46,560 --> 00:52:49,800
Speaker 4: strengthen the ability to organize, create more and better forms

941
00:52:49,800 --> 00:52:53,719
Speaker 4: of worker power, but also quite explicitly says these are

942
00:52:53,760 --> 00:52:56,759
Speaker 4: not for use in national politics. I mean, almost the

943
00:52:56,800 --> 00:52:58,719
Speaker 4: way you know American compass as a five toh one

944
00:52:58,800 --> 00:53:02,640
Speaker 4: C three, we limit what nonprofits can do in the

945
00:53:02,640 --> 00:53:06,200
Speaker 4: political realm. Would you be comfortable with a model that says, yes,

946
00:53:06,239 --> 00:53:07,640
Speaker 4: we're going to do it a lot more to give

947
00:53:07,680 --> 00:53:10,640
Speaker 4: workers a lot more economic power in the labor market,

948
00:53:10,760 --> 00:53:15,200
Speaker 4: representation in the workplace, but those entities cannot be ones

949
00:53:15,280 --> 00:53:17,680
Speaker 4: that are then turning around and trying to be political

950
00:53:18,200 --> 00:53:20,759
Speaker 4: in ways that workers don't actually want. Is that a

951
00:53:20,800 --> 00:53:22,040
Speaker 4: deal you're interested in or not?

952
00:53:22,400 --> 00:53:25,279
Speaker 5: I think I'd happily agree to it if billionaires were

953
00:53:25,280 --> 00:53:28,160
Speaker 5: also kept out of politics, if corporate America was kept

954
00:53:28,160 --> 00:53:32,080
Speaker 5: out of politics, if corporate corporations couldn't fund super PACs,

955
00:53:32,120 --> 00:53:35,000
Speaker 5: if billionaires couldn't fund super PACs, and basically you just

956
00:53:35,040 --> 00:53:37,840
Speaker 5: I guess you then publicly financed campaigns.

957
00:53:37,840 --> 00:53:41,600
Speaker 3: But I think that the history of giving people.

958
00:53:43,320 --> 00:53:48,080
Speaker 5: Economic rights without giving them political rights doesn't pan out well.

959
00:53:48,800 --> 00:53:50,560
Speaker 3: Like you need both.

960
00:53:51,000 --> 00:53:54,719
Speaker 4: Because and they would still have political rights, they just

961
00:53:55,200 --> 00:53:58,680
Speaker 4: among their I mean, they just would not be using unions,

962
00:53:58,680 --> 00:54:01,600
Speaker 4: which are representing a group of workers that don't agree

963
00:54:01,600 --> 00:54:04,680
Speaker 4: on politics, to exert them. I should say I highly

964
00:54:04,719 --> 00:54:07,400
Speaker 4: agree with you on the corporate point. I would like

965
00:54:07,480 --> 00:54:10,560
Speaker 4: to see us address citizens united one way or another.

966
00:54:10,800 --> 00:54:13,560
Speaker 4: I think getting that out of politics as well would

967
00:54:13,560 --> 00:54:16,920
Speaker 4: be very constructive. At American Compass, we continue to look

968
00:54:16,960 --> 00:54:18,760
Speaker 4: for a partner on the left who would be willing

969
00:54:18,800 --> 00:54:22,880
Speaker 4: to take this exact deal and go out there and say, look,

970
00:54:23,200 --> 00:54:25,640
Speaker 4: workers would be better served, our political system would be

971
00:54:25,640 --> 00:54:28,880
Speaker 4: better served if we reduce both the role of unions

972
00:54:28,880 --> 00:54:32,000
Speaker 4: and corporations in our politics. We have yet to find

973
00:54:32,040 --> 00:54:34,319
Speaker 4: anyone on the left of center willing to agree with

974
00:54:34,360 --> 00:54:37,200
Speaker 4: that premise or write about it. If you were your

975
00:54:37,280 --> 00:54:41,040
Speaker 4: listeners know of any such groups, please do let us know,

976
00:54:41,080 --> 00:54:43,319
Speaker 4: because I think that's absolutely the direction to move.

977
00:54:43,719 --> 00:54:43,919
Speaker 2: Yeah.

978
00:54:44,120 --> 00:54:45,640
Speaker 5: I think the reason you're not going to find that

979
00:54:45,680 --> 00:54:47,719
Speaker 5: is because I don't think anybody believes that kind of

980
00:54:47,760 --> 00:54:49,879
Speaker 5: corporate power and the power of the rich is ever

981
00:54:50,000 --> 00:54:52,560
Speaker 5: actually going to be taken off the political playing field.

982
00:54:52,560 --> 00:54:56,560
Speaker 5: And so just if you take what's left of union

983
00:54:56,600 --> 00:54:58,880
Speaker 5: power away and you take away the ability for unions

984
00:54:58,880 --> 00:55:02,520
Speaker 5: to grow, to grow and then and to become what

985
00:55:02,600 --> 00:55:06,640
Speaker 5: you know gall Braith calls the countervailing force, like without that,

986
00:55:06,840 --> 00:55:11,680
Speaker 5: without that countervailing force of UH of labor unions, I

987
00:55:11,680 --> 00:55:15,520
Speaker 5: think corporate power just becomes too too dominant. So that's why, yeah,

988
00:55:15,560 --> 00:55:18,279
Speaker 5: what what? What kind of reaction have you gotten? Has

989
00:55:18,320 --> 00:55:20,480
Speaker 5: anybody come close? I find it hard to believe that

990
00:55:20,480 --> 00:55:22,279
Speaker 5: anybody would even come close to agreeing to that.

991
00:55:22,360 --> 00:55:25,759
Speaker 4: On the left, well, typically the dynamic is exactly what

992
00:55:25,760 --> 00:55:28,360
Speaker 4: we've seen in this discussion, where the person on the

993
00:55:28,480 --> 00:55:31,600
Speaker 4: left are presented here by you, attempts what they think

994
00:55:31,680 --> 00:55:34,239
Speaker 4: is the gotcha of well, sure, i'd be open to

995
00:55:34,280 --> 00:55:36,439
Speaker 4: that if we could also do something. If you're opening

996
00:55:36,600 --> 00:55:39,040
Speaker 4: saying about proper power, and then we say, yes, that's great,

997
00:55:39,040 --> 00:55:41,040
Speaker 4: we would love to do something about corporate power, and

998
00:55:41,080 --> 00:55:45,000
Speaker 4: then they immediately retreat as you just have back. Now, well, now,

999
00:55:45,080 --> 00:55:47,360
Speaker 4: never mind, I guess I don't think it would actually work.

1000
00:55:48,000 --> 00:55:49,280
Speaker 3: Right, because how are you going to do that?

1001
00:55:49,480 --> 00:55:53,160
Speaker 1: I mean, I brought it up right if you didn't

1002
00:55:53,160 --> 00:55:55,919
Speaker 1: think it was realistic or plausible, like right, like, everyone

1003
00:55:55,960 --> 00:55:57,799
Speaker 1: on the left spends all their time talking about how

1004
00:55:57,800 --> 00:56:01,080
Speaker 1: we should absolutely do something about Susan's United and so forth.

1005
00:56:01,360 --> 00:56:03,640
Speaker 4: So if I say like, yes, great, lets and you

1006
00:56:03,680 --> 00:56:05,520
Speaker 4: immediately turn around and say, oh, why bother is not

1007
00:56:05,560 --> 00:56:09,120
Speaker 4: going to accomplish anything, then why why are you talking

1008
00:56:09,160 --> 00:56:10,000
Speaker 4: about it? Yeah?

1009
00:56:10,040 --> 00:56:11,520
Speaker 3: It was because it was It was a it was

1010
00:56:11,520 --> 00:56:12,719
Speaker 3: a joke. It was a joke.

1011
00:56:13,120 --> 00:56:14,000
Speaker 4: Really wasn't a joke.

1012
00:56:14,560 --> 00:56:16,280
Speaker 3: Absolutely right, because.

1013
00:56:16,080 --> 00:56:16,440
Speaker 6: You could do it.

1014
00:56:16,480 --> 00:56:20,239
Speaker 5: Look, if you could do public financing, then then all right,

1015
00:56:20,320 --> 00:56:24,600
Speaker 5: then then maybe then maybe that works. I don't think

1016
00:56:24,760 --> 00:56:29,160
Speaker 5: just limiting corporate and top one percent kind of power

1017
00:56:29,560 --> 00:56:31,560
Speaker 5: is enough. You also have to you have to empower

1018
00:56:31,680 --> 00:56:35,960
Speaker 5: somebody who stands up for people. So is public financing

1019
00:56:36,000 --> 00:56:39,719
Speaker 5: in your in your deal, this hypothetical deal that's out there.

1020
00:56:40,280 --> 00:56:42,200
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm certainly open to the idea of it. I

1021
00:56:42,239 --> 00:56:44,879
Speaker 4: think you know how you how you do it well

1022
00:56:45,000 --> 00:56:48,279
Speaker 4: is of course a massive challenge. And I also think

1023
00:56:48,320 --> 00:56:52,920
Speaker 4: you don't want to exclude the role of of individuals

1024
00:56:53,120 --> 00:56:55,640
Speaker 4: as donors. I think there's a lot of benefits in

1025
00:56:55,680 --> 00:56:58,480
Speaker 4: the in the campaign system to that as well. But

1026
00:56:58,560 --> 00:57:01,360
Speaker 4: building a model that that does has reduced the influence

1027
00:57:02,080 --> 00:57:06,000
Speaker 4: on both sides, I think is exactly the right one.

1028
00:57:06,200 --> 00:57:08,560
Speaker 4: And so I think as we've seen. You know, what

1029
00:57:08,600 --> 00:57:11,000
Speaker 4: I think this discussion is sort of emphasized generally, is

1030
00:57:11,040 --> 00:57:14,080
Speaker 4: that what you see is the more sort of populist

1031
00:57:14,160 --> 00:57:18,640
Speaker 4: conservative view that is I think fair to say ascendant

1032
00:57:19,000 --> 00:57:23,120
Speaker 4: on the right within the Republican Party, really does jumble

1033
00:57:23,160 --> 00:57:24,680
Speaker 4: a lot of these things. I think it puts a

1034
00:57:24,720 --> 00:57:27,959
Speaker 4: lot of pressure on progressives and areas where they sort

1035
00:57:27,960 --> 00:57:30,800
Speaker 4: of conveniently pretended to be a lot more pro worker

1036
00:57:30,840 --> 00:57:33,600
Speaker 4: than they actually are. But it also creates a lot

1037
00:57:33,640 --> 00:57:36,440
Speaker 4: of space for actual progress. I mean, you've had the

1038
00:57:36,480 --> 00:57:40,280
Speaker 4: sort of trench warfare of Democratic and Republican Party of

1039
00:57:40,320 --> 00:57:43,560
Speaker 4: the last thirty years, neither of whom budging on anything

1040
00:57:43,680 --> 00:57:46,280
Speaker 4: and anything that could get worked out having already been

1041
00:57:46,360 --> 00:57:50,480
Speaker 4: worked out. As you see both parties, but especially the

1042
00:57:50,520 --> 00:57:54,120
Speaker 4: Republican parties shift in its coalition and its emphasis, that

1043
00:57:54,680 --> 00:57:57,640
Speaker 4: does create new ground for progress. And so that is

1044
00:57:57,880 --> 00:57:59,560
Speaker 4: something we're very interested in pursuing.

1045
00:58:00,160 --> 00:58:01,160
Speaker 3: No, I do think it is.

1046
00:58:01,560 --> 00:58:05,120
Speaker 5: It is genuinely interesting where the where the Republican Party

1047
00:58:05,200 --> 00:58:05,479
Speaker 5: is headed.

1048
00:58:05,520 --> 00:58:08,040
Speaker 3: I'm curious to see kind of where that continues to go.

1049
00:58:08,600 --> 00:58:11,480
Speaker 5: There's a bill and on the question of individual donors

1050
00:58:11,520 --> 00:58:13,880
Speaker 5: is I'm sure you know the bill by John Sarbines,

1051
00:58:14,520 --> 00:58:18,960
Speaker 5: which basically matches every contribution that somebody makes up to

1052
00:58:18,960 --> 00:58:23,680
Speaker 5: two hundred and fifty dollars by six. So it turns

1053
00:58:23,720 --> 00:58:27,840
Speaker 5: like small, small, to even medium size two hundred fifty

1054
00:58:27,880 --> 00:58:31,160
Speaker 5: dollars contributions from individuals who choose who they're going to support,

1055
00:58:31,360 --> 00:58:34,560
Speaker 5: and so it still leaves a role for individual donors.

1056
00:58:35,080 --> 00:58:38,800
Speaker 5: Then it multiplies them by six with federal financing, and

1057
00:58:38,840 --> 00:58:41,480
Speaker 5: they have a clever scheme where it's not taxpayer money,

1058
00:58:41,840 --> 00:58:44,640
Speaker 5: it's actually money that the I think the SEC or

1059
00:58:44,680 --> 00:58:48,600
Speaker 5: the CFPB or somebody collects from, like you know, corrupt corporations.

1060
00:58:49,040 --> 00:58:52,000
Speaker 5: So those fines would go into a pool that would

1061
00:58:52,040 --> 00:58:55,840
Speaker 5: then be used to support public financing. But do you

1062
00:58:55,920 --> 00:58:58,320
Speaker 5: want to ask, do you want to get yours? And

1063
00:58:58,360 --> 00:59:00,240
Speaker 5: I don't know if I'm representing the left or what here.

1064
00:59:00,600 --> 00:59:03,360
Speaker 5: It's a minority view in general to say that immigration

1065
00:59:03,480 --> 00:59:06,920
Speaker 5: is actually good for the country and good for good

1066
00:59:07,000 --> 00:59:09,440
Speaker 5: for workers. But I'm sure you saw the report from

1067
00:59:09,480 --> 00:59:14,280
Speaker 5: the Congressional Budget Office which revised up its GDP forecasts

1068
00:59:14,760 --> 00:59:18,120
Speaker 5: and said that something that over the next decade there

1069
00:59:18,160 --> 00:59:22,440
Speaker 5: would be an additional seven trillion dollars in economic growth

1070
00:59:23,480 --> 00:59:28,520
Speaker 5: because of the higher rate of immigration that that we're seeing,

1071
00:59:29,120 --> 00:59:33,400
Speaker 5: and that the reason that inflation has been actually tamed,

1072
00:59:33,840 --> 00:59:37,840
Speaker 5: not not not tamed completely, but why inflation is growing

1073
00:59:37,880 --> 00:59:40,760
Speaker 5: less than it was of the pandemic was that the

1074
00:59:43,280 --> 00:59:46,760
Speaker 5: that immigration has fueled economic growth to the extent that

1075
00:59:46,800 --> 00:59:52,480
Speaker 5: it's you know, just spreading generally and having the American economy,

1076
00:59:52,720 --> 00:59:55,840
Speaker 5: you know, drive the American economy grow faster, uh and

1077
00:59:55,880 --> 00:59:58,959
Speaker 5: with lower inflation than basically any other economy in the world.

1078
00:59:59,080 --> 01:00:00,919
Speaker 5: So I'm sure you've seen this a whole bunch of times.

1079
01:00:00,920 --> 01:00:05,440
Speaker 5: What's your what's your response to just the general idea

1080
01:00:06,000 --> 01:00:11,800
Speaker 5: that you need workers to grow the economy and that

1081
01:00:11,840 --> 01:00:14,440
Speaker 5: if you're not, if you're not growing the economy, simply

1082
01:00:14,480 --> 01:00:18,280
Speaker 5: restricting the labor supply only ends up in the end

1083
01:00:18,400 --> 01:00:20,760
Speaker 5: hurting workers and they as they say that real wages

1084
01:00:20,800 --> 01:00:22,800
Speaker 5: go down even if their nominal wages go up.

1085
01:00:24,800 --> 01:00:27,160
Speaker 4: Well, I think there's two things to say. One is,

1086
01:00:27,600 --> 01:00:30,320
Speaker 4: again the report that you're talking about is talking about

1087
01:00:30,400 --> 01:00:34,360
Speaker 4: GDP and not GDP per capita. It's i think one

1088
01:00:34,400 --> 01:00:37,440
Speaker 4: of the sillier math tricks in all of economic policy

1089
01:00:37,520 --> 01:00:40,760
Speaker 4: to say, well, immigration is good for the economy because

1090
01:00:40,800 --> 01:00:45,080
Speaker 4: GDP goes up well, of course it does. If you

1091
01:00:45,200 --> 01:00:50,200
Speaker 4: have more people, there will be more economic output. But

1092
01:00:50,280 --> 01:00:53,480
Speaker 4: when we talk about the actual prosperity of the typical

1093
01:00:53,520 --> 01:00:56,840
Speaker 4: American worker, we're not interested in overall GDP. We're interested

1094
01:00:56,840 --> 01:01:01,280
Speaker 4: in GDP per capita UH, and report, I believe, quite

1095
01:01:01,280 --> 01:01:04,760
Speaker 4: notably does does not predict that this is increasing GDP

1096
01:01:04,880 --> 01:01:08,480
Speaker 4: per capita or even more importantly, sort of media and

1097
01:01:08,520 --> 01:01:12,840
Speaker 4: GDP per capita the median wages of a typical worker,

1098
01:01:13,560 --> 01:01:17,040
Speaker 4: because immigration wouldn't wouldn't do that. So let's let's first

1099
01:01:17,040 --> 01:01:19,000
Speaker 4: of all be clear about what we are and aren't

1100
01:01:19,040 --> 01:01:23,200
Speaker 4: talking about with respect to this idea that you know,

1101
01:01:23,280 --> 01:01:26,920
Speaker 4: if you have constraints on the labor market, then then

1102
01:01:26,920 --> 01:01:31,120
Speaker 4: you're not going to see real wages rise. Again, the

1103
01:01:31,520 --> 01:01:33,840
Speaker 4: driver of whether or not real wages rise is whether

1104
01:01:33,880 --> 01:01:37,800
Speaker 4: productivity is growing UH and and particularly whether, if you're

1105
01:01:37,800 --> 01:01:41,400
Speaker 4: talking about median wages particular workers, whether the productivity of

1106
01:01:41,440 --> 01:01:45,160
Speaker 4: the typical worker is growing. A lot of things need

1107
01:01:45,200 --> 01:01:48,920
Speaker 4: to happen for that productivity to grow, but in general,

1108
01:01:48,960 --> 01:01:52,360
Speaker 4: I do think it is it is reasonable to say

1109
01:01:53,040 --> 01:01:55,360
Speaker 4: that if you want to see a focus on growing

1110
01:01:55,360 --> 01:01:59,320
Speaker 4: productivity and investment in that, you need to make that

1111
01:01:59,400 --> 01:02:04,160
Speaker 4: a imperative you need to make that key to business success.

1112
01:02:04,680 --> 01:02:11,120
Speaker 4: And when you have a massive untapped pool of lower skilled,

1113
01:02:11,200 --> 01:02:15,720
Speaker 4: low wage labor available, investing in productivity is not going

1114
01:02:15,720 --> 01:02:18,560
Speaker 4: to be especially important. I mean, it's also really important

1115
01:02:18,600 --> 01:02:21,800
Speaker 4: to keep in mind that we do have a fairly large,

1116
01:02:23,560 --> 01:02:27,120
Speaker 4: in effect natural experiment on this point, because we went

1117
01:02:27,160 --> 01:02:29,800
Speaker 4: through all we have gone through long periods in American

1118
01:02:29,880 --> 01:02:35,880
Speaker 4: history of both rapid immigration and significantly constrained immigration. And

1119
01:02:36,240 --> 01:02:38,960
Speaker 4: I'm pretty sure that in the post war period when

1120
01:02:39,280 --> 01:02:42,880
Speaker 4: the US had very low levels of immigration, there is

1121
01:02:42,920 --> 01:02:44,120
Speaker 4: at a whole lot of evidence that that was a

1122
01:02:44,120 --> 01:02:46,480
Speaker 4: bad thing for the labor market. That seemed to have

1123
01:02:46,720 --> 01:02:51,600
Speaker 4: coincided just fine with rapid productivity growth, economic growth, increases

1124
01:02:51,640 --> 01:02:57,720
Speaker 4: in output per worker, rising real wages. So yes, more immigrants,

1125
01:02:57,760 --> 01:03:01,560
Speaker 4: more people means a bigger economy. But that is one

1126
01:03:01,600 --> 01:03:05,840
Speaker 4: of the cardinal mistakes that policy makers made in recent

1127
01:03:05,920 --> 01:03:08,600
Speaker 4: decades of focusing on that and not focusing on what

1128
01:03:08,640 --> 01:03:11,520
Speaker 4: actually matters, which is the well being of the typical worker.

1129
01:03:12,400 --> 01:03:14,800
Speaker 5: But how far would you take it in the opposite direction,

1130
01:03:15,000 --> 01:03:19,840
Speaker 5: Like if if more electricians is bad, I would argue

1131
01:03:19,840 --> 01:03:22,520
Speaker 5: the more you know, actually, right now, in this economy,

1132
01:03:22,520 --> 01:03:25,080
Speaker 5: I think we don't have enough electricians, like we need

1133
01:03:25,320 --> 01:03:28,840
Speaker 5: we need to produce more electricians, and sometimes you need

1134
01:03:28,880 --> 01:03:31,960
Speaker 5: policy beyond just a price signal, Like I think one

1135
01:03:32,040 --> 01:03:34,560
Speaker 5: mistake that economists make is that they is that they

1136
01:03:34,920 --> 01:03:38,000
Speaker 5: live in kind of an imaginary land where you know,

1137
01:03:38,080 --> 01:03:43,320
Speaker 5: prices dictate supply and demand, just without realizing that there

1138
01:03:43,320 --> 01:03:46,400
Speaker 5: are also there's also a real economy. There's a real world,

1139
01:03:46,600 --> 01:03:50,560
Speaker 5: Like you can the price for wheat can be whatever

1140
01:03:50,600 --> 01:03:52,360
Speaker 5: you want it to be. But if there's if it's

1141
01:03:52,400 --> 01:03:54,240
Speaker 5: not raining and you've got a complete drought in a

1142
01:03:54,240 --> 01:03:55,880
Speaker 5: particular area, like you're not going to be able to

1143
01:03:55,880 --> 01:04:00,240
Speaker 5: grow wheat, Like, you still need real things. The price

1144
01:04:00,280 --> 01:04:03,880
Speaker 5: that you can be paying for nurses in you know,

1145
01:04:04,040 --> 01:04:07,680
Speaker 5: West Virginia could be quite high, but if there aren't

1146
01:04:07,680 --> 01:04:11,120
Speaker 5: any people there who are trained and willing to work

1147
01:04:11,200 --> 01:04:15,160
Speaker 5: in that area, uh, You're you're not going to You're

1148
01:04:15,200 --> 01:04:17,840
Speaker 5: not going to be able to just solve the problem

1149
01:04:17,960 --> 01:04:20,560
Speaker 5: just by raising prices. And if you do raise it

1150
01:04:20,640 --> 01:04:23,919
Speaker 5: high enough that you're able to pull nurses away from

1151
01:04:23,960 --> 01:04:26,240
Speaker 5: other areas, now you don't have enough over there. In

1152
01:04:26,240 --> 01:04:29,200
Speaker 5: other words, you need need more nurses. You have to

1153
01:04:29,480 --> 01:04:31,080
Speaker 5: you have to produce more of them. That would be

1154
01:04:31,120 --> 01:04:35,240
Speaker 5: my uh argument, How far would you take the counter argument?

1155
01:04:35,360 --> 01:04:37,959
Speaker 5: Like if let's say you're if you want to raise

1156
01:04:37,960 --> 01:04:42,000
Speaker 5: the wages of nurses, why not go beyond shutting the

1157
01:04:42,000 --> 01:04:45,160
Speaker 5: border down? Like would we say, Okay, for the next year,

1158
01:04:45,200 --> 01:04:49,560
Speaker 5: we're not going to graduate anybody from nursing school because

1159
01:04:49,560 --> 01:04:56,040
Speaker 5: that's going to tighten the labor pool around around nursing. Uh,

1160
01:04:58,040 --> 01:05:00,640
Speaker 5: trying to like if because if your poles lever is

1161
01:05:00,720 --> 01:05:03,240
Speaker 5: labor supply, why stop that immigration?

1162
01:05:05,040 --> 01:05:08,760
Speaker 4: Well, because the policy goal is the well being of

1163
01:05:09,120 --> 01:05:14,560
Speaker 4: American workers, right, So the countervailing interest here would be

1164
01:05:14,920 --> 01:05:17,800
Speaker 4: people in the United States who do want to be nurses.

1165
01:05:19,000 --> 01:05:21,280
Speaker 4: And so I mean, I guess you could say, like, arbitrarily,

1166
01:05:21,360 --> 01:05:23,760
Speaker 4: let's tell a bunch of people they can't work, and

1167
01:05:23,800 --> 01:05:27,960
Speaker 4: that would I guess, tighten the labor supply, but at

1168
01:05:28,320 --> 01:05:33,080
Speaker 4: obviously the very serious expense of the Americans who you

1169
01:05:33,120 --> 01:05:36,720
Speaker 4: would be telling can't work. So I think what you're

1170
01:05:37,000 --> 01:05:40,640
Speaker 4: trying to solve for is the healthiest possible labor market

1171
01:05:40,800 --> 01:05:47,200
Speaker 4: serving the interests of American workers. And that is sort

1172
01:05:47,200 --> 01:05:51,840
Speaker 4: of how I would would try to evaluate the policy proposals.

1173
01:05:52,240 --> 01:05:55,360
Speaker 4: I would say just again focusing on the nurse example

1174
01:05:55,360 --> 01:05:57,800
Speaker 4: a little more, It's worth keeping in mind that one

1175
01:05:57,880 --> 01:06:01,200
Speaker 4: thing you would expect to see if you have a

1176
01:06:01,240 --> 01:06:05,600
Speaker 4: shortage of nurses, and compensation for nurses therefore starts to

1177
01:06:05,680 --> 01:06:08,240
Speaker 4: rise significantly. It's not just a matter of sort of

1178
01:06:08,600 --> 01:06:11,440
Speaker 4: moving nurses from one place to another. It's a matter

1179
01:06:11,480 --> 01:06:15,480
Speaker 4: of having more nurses over time. And one of the

1180
01:06:15,480 --> 01:06:17,560
Speaker 4: things I think we get wrong, and also in sort

1181
01:06:17,600 --> 01:06:21,040
Speaker 4: of blaming the tight labor market for inflation in recent years,

1182
01:06:21,720 --> 01:06:23,960
Speaker 4: is that if you have a tight labor market, especially

1183
01:06:24,000 --> 01:06:28,040
Speaker 4: at the bottom, what you're doing is affecting relative prices.

1184
01:06:29,040 --> 01:06:32,760
Speaker 4: You're you're forcing people to drive up wages for one

1185
01:06:32,880 --> 01:06:37,120
Speaker 4: set of workers. There are other workers who don't benefit

1186
01:06:37,160 --> 01:06:40,960
Speaker 4: from that, and in particular would be the high skilled workers,

1187
01:06:41,320 --> 01:06:45,200
Speaker 4: the higher wage workers, whose labor market is not getting tighter.

1188
01:06:45,760 --> 01:06:47,400
Speaker 4: And so in a sense, what you are talking about

1189
01:06:47,440 --> 01:06:51,680
Speaker 4: at the macro level is a fairly significant shift over time,

1190
01:06:52,000 --> 01:06:54,760
Speaker 4: and one that I think would be very important. And

1191
01:06:54,800 --> 01:06:58,800
Speaker 4: that's where that windshield white you know, windshield installer versus

1192
01:06:59,360 --> 01:07:03,680
Speaker 4: marketing is to example, ultimately comes down. Is that if

1193
01:07:03,720 --> 01:07:07,280
Speaker 4: if you move toward an economy in which we really

1194
01:07:07,360 --> 01:07:10,520
Speaker 4: need a lot more. Uh, and and to treat a

1195
01:07:10,520 --> 01:07:13,800
Speaker 4: lot better and to create better jobs for those workers

1196
01:07:13,840 --> 01:07:17,640
Speaker 4: who have been left behind. That's that's also going to

1197
01:07:17,680 --> 01:07:21,240
Speaker 4: have a blowback effect on those who have benefited most

1198
01:07:21,400 --> 01:07:24,080
Speaker 4: from from this model in a way that I think

1199
01:07:24,080 --> 01:07:26,680
Speaker 4: would be very healthy for the society. And so I

1200
01:07:26,720 --> 01:07:31,040
Speaker 4: think that's something that certainly makes some people very uncomfortable,

1201
01:07:31,120 --> 01:07:33,960
Speaker 4: But is the direction we're going to have to go

1202
01:07:34,080 --> 01:07:35,920
Speaker 4: if if we want to address a lot of a

1203
01:07:35,960 --> 01:07:40,120
Speaker 4: lot of the problems we have eye plagues. Actually, I

1204
01:07:40,200 --> 01:07:44,240
Speaker 4: have to depart, so we should wrap up. But this

1205
01:07:44,280 --> 01:07:45,720
Speaker 4: has been a terrific conversation.

1206
01:07:46,760 --> 01:07:49,240
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, Emily had to draw I don't know if

1207
01:07:49,280 --> 01:07:51,600
Speaker 5: she mentioned it. Emily had to drop off earlier, she

1208
01:07:51,640 --> 01:07:54,280
Speaker 5: had she had to run, you know, a lot lot

1209
01:07:54,320 --> 01:07:57,320
Speaker 5: more to talk about here. And I think like as

1210
01:07:57,400 --> 01:08:00,880
Speaker 5: long as we're as long as we're talking about growing

1211
01:08:00,920 --> 01:08:05,320
Speaker 5: worker power through a strong a strong labor movement, then

1212
01:08:05,360 --> 01:08:08,360
Speaker 5: I think I think the left and the left and

1213
01:08:08,440 --> 01:08:13,800
Speaker 5: the populist right can certainly negotiate around a sane immigration policy.

1214
01:08:13,840 --> 01:08:17,920
Speaker 5: I don't think that has to make or break that potential.

1215
01:08:17,439 --> 01:08:22,599
Speaker 3: Coalition there, I hope. So all right, well, there we go.

1216
01:08:23,520 --> 01:08:28,040
Speaker 5: Orn Cass, executive director at American Compass and the visionary

1217
01:08:28,080 --> 01:08:29,840
Speaker 5: for the new populist Right.

1218
01:08:30,600 --> 01:08:32,360
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for joining us here.

1219
01:08:33,120 --> 01:08:34,000
Speaker 4: This was great. Thank you.

1220
01:08:34,439 --> 01:08:36,679
Speaker 5: That was oron Cass, and normally Emily and I would

1221
01:08:36,720 --> 01:08:39,160
Speaker 5: go over the interview at this point, Emily had to

1222
01:08:39,520 --> 01:08:41,320
Speaker 5: drop off a little bit earlier, so we'll.

1223
01:08:41,200 --> 01:08:41,880
Speaker 3: Do that next time.

1224
01:08:41,920 --> 01:08:46,679
Speaker 5: We promise we'll do a review of that conversation and

1225
01:08:47,200 --> 01:08:51,400
Speaker 5: definitely have cast on again. These are interesting things to

1226
01:08:51,520 --> 01:08:55,280
Speaker 5: tease out until next time. These counterpoints we'll see soon.

1227
01:09:01,360 --> 01:09:01,559
Speaker 1: Three