1
00:00:00,280 --> 00:00:03,440
Speaker 1: Cable news is ripping us apart, dividing the nation, making

2
00:00:03,440 --> 00:00:05,880
Speaker 1: it impossible to function as a society and to know

3
00:00:05,920 --> 00:00:08,680
Speaker 1: what is true and what is false. The good news

4
00:00:08,800 --> 00:00:10,800
Speaker 1: is that they're failing and they know it. That is

5
00:00:10,840 --> 00:00:14,840
Speaker 1: why we're building something new. Be part of creating a new, better, healthier,

6
00:00:14,880 --> 00:00:17,920
Speaker 1: and more trustworthy mainstream by becoming a Breaking Points Premium

7
00:00:17,920 --> 00:00:21,520
Speaker 1: member today at breakingpoints dot com. Your hard earned money

8
00:00:21,560 --> 00:00:23,360
Speaker 1: is going to help us build for the midterms and

9
00:00:23,400 --> 00:00:27,360
Speaker 1: the upcoming presidential election so we can provide unparalleled coverage

10
00:00:27,360 --> 00:00:28,560
Speaker 1: of what is sure to be one of the most

11
00:00:28,600 --> 00:00:32,280
Speaker 1: pivotal moments in American history. So what are you waiting for?

12
00:00:32,479 --> 00:00:36,040
Speaker 1: Go to Breakingpoints dot com to help us out. So

13
00:00:36,080 --> 00:00:38,840
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of discussion about Rachel Mattow, who

14
00:00:38,880 --> 00:00:42,320
Speaker 1: is of course MSNBC by far their top rated host,

15
00:00:42,360 --> 00:00:45,879
Speaker 1: who has a very devoted following, and she went through

16
00:00:45,880 --> 00:00:48,960
Speaker 1: contract negotiations she basically was able to secure for herself

17
00:00:49,000 --> 00:00:53,440
Speaker 1: the ability to step back from her primetime nine pm

18
00:00:53,600 --> 00:00:56,520
Speaker 1: show where she has been for years and years and

19
00:00:56,880 --> 00:01:00,640
Speaker 1: move to more of a weekly role. In addition, we

20
00:01:00,640 --> 00:01:05,880
Speaker 1: have seen over the past several weeks she has actually

21
00:01:05,920 --> 00:01:09,320
Speaker 1: taken a hiatus and had her chair filled by our

22
00:01:09,400 --> 00:01:11,960
Speaker 1: range of hosts. Ali Velshi was one. I think Aman

23
00:01:12,120 --> 00:01:15,080
Speaker 1: Yaldean filled in. Sometimes they had sort of a rotating

24
00:01:15,080 --> 00:01:17,640
Speaker 1: cast characters who sat in the chair. So there's been

25
00:01:17,640 --> 00:01:20,640
Speaker 1: a lot of speculation about how exactly this is all

26
00:01:20,680 --> 00:01:23,440
Speaker 1: going to shape out. It's obviously very important for MSNBC

27
00:01:23,600 --> 00:01:25,800
Speaker 1: that basically doesn't have a single other host that actually

28
00:01:25,880 --> 00:01:30,200
Speaker 1: drives ratings. She returned to her show and addressed the

29
00:01:30,240 --> 00:01:32,640
Speaker 1: plans directly, so let's take a listen to what she

30
00:01:32,680 --> 00:01:37,080
Speaker 1: had to say. So here's the plan. I'm back. I'm

31
00:01:37,120 --> 00:01:40,839
Speaker 1: going to be here all this month Monday through Thursday

32
00:01:40,920 --> 00:01:44,560
Speaker 1: nights now for big news events, for things like the

33
00:01:44,640 --> 00:01:46,160
Speaker 1: lead up to the election. I will of course be

34
00:01:46,240 --> 00:01:50,600
Speaker 1: here more than that, but that is the general plan.

35
00:01:50,840 --> 00:01:54,440
Speaker 1: I will be here this month Monday through Thursday nights,

36
00:01:54,600 --> 00:01:58,040
Speaker 1: and then starting next month, starting in May, I'm going

37
00:01:58,080 --> 00:02:00,320
Speaker 1: to be here weekly. I'm going to be here on

38
00:02:00,480 --> 00:02:03,800
Speaker 1: Monday nights again to give myself just more time to

39
00:02:03,880 --> 00:02:05,440
Speaker 1: work on some of this other stuff that I've got

40
00:02:05,480 --> 00:02:09,440
Speaker 1: cooking for MSNBC and NBC. So Monday to Thursday nights

41
00:02:09,440 --> 00:02:13,560
Speaker 1: this month, starting next month, I will be I will

42
00:02:13,560 --> 00:02:17,880
Speaker 1: be here weekly. It's hard to overstate what a dramatic

43
00:02:17,919 --> 00:02:20,760
Speaker 1: shift in the cable news landscape this ultimately is. I

44
00:02:20,760 --> 00:02:23,240
Speaker 1: mean we talk about all the time, like putting their

45
00:02:23,280 --> 00:02:26,919
Speaker 1: ideology and your feelings about these individuals aside. Basically, Tucker

46
00:02:26,919 --> 00:02:29,000
Speaker 1: and Rachel are the only two people who really have

47
00:02:29,200 --> 00:02:31,799
Speaker 1: this sort of like committed fan base where no matter

48
00:02:31,840 --> 00:02:33,440
Speaker 1: where they are, no matter what time and day, they're

49
00:02:33,440 --> 00:02:36,000
Speaker 1: going to show up for them. So for this to

50
00:02:36,040 --> 00:02:39,680
Speaker 1: be the last month of Rachel doing her show Monday

51
00:02:39,720 --> 00:02:43,240
Speaker 1: through Thursday and going to a weekly basis, this is

52
00:02:43,360 --> 00:02:46,440
Speaker 1: a devastating situation for MSNBC. And just to put some

53
00:02:46,560 --> 00:02:49,720
Speaker 1: numbers on it, we covered this before. While she was

54
00:02:49,760 --> 00:02:54,480
Speaker 1: on leave, ratings dropped twenty six percent. Like that, just

55
00:02:54,520 --> 00:02:57,400
Speaker 1: twenty six percent of the audience disappeared because it wasn't Rachel.

56
00:02:57,800 --> 00:03:00,760
Speaker 1: She went to great lengths, by the way, and I

57
00:03:00,800 --> 00:03:03,320
Speaker 1: think this was also very telling at the beginning before

58
00:03:03,360 --> 00:03:05,560
Speaker 1: that clip that we just showed to say, ali Vel,

59
00:03:05,600 --> 00:03:07,520
Speaker 1: she did an amazing job. And we're proud. We love him.

60
00:03:07,560 --> 00:03:10,320
Speaker 1: He's great, and he's wonderful colleague, and I'm so grateful

61
00:03:10,320 --> 00:03:12,040
Speaker 1: to him. And here he is in Ukraine and all

62
00:03:12,080 --> 00:03:14,520
Speaker 1: of this stuff, which also made me wonder if he

63
00:03:14,720 --> 00:03:16,639
Speaker 1: is the one that they ultimately have in mind for

64
00:03:16,840 --> 00:03:19,080
Speaker 1: that slot. We had seen a report it might be

65
00:03:19,120 --> 00:03:22,600
Speaker 1: Alex Wagner that they fill in there, But if they

66
00:03:22,639 --> 00:03:25,040
Speaker 1: are looking in the direction of ali Velshi, like you

67
00:03:25,080 --> 00:03:28,840
Speaker 1: already know how that went well? Do well? Like yeah,

68
00:03:28,880 --> 00:03:31,960
Speaker 1: twenty six percent of your audience just poof gone right,

69
00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:34,079
Speaker 1: And that was with the expectation that she might come back.

70
00:03:34,120 --> 00:03:36,080
Speaker 1: I mean. So, Dylan Byers has a great piece in

71
00:03:36,160 --> 00:03:40,120
Speaker 1: Puck News called the Rachel Maddow Iceberg over at NBC,

72
00:03:40,480 --> 00:03:42,440
Speaker 1: and what he points to is they are paying her

73
00:03:42,680 --> 00:03:47,560
Speaker 1: thirty million dollars to basically produce some podcasts and then

74
00:03:47,640 --> 00:03:50,320
Speaker 1: come on once a week now to justify that she

75
00:03:50,360 --> 00:03:52,360
Speaker 1: has to bring in more than that in value, and

76
00:03:52,400 --> 00:03:55,000
Speaker 1: maybe that is the case, I don't know, but he

77
00:03:55,160 --> 00:03:58,240
Speaker 1: points to the real issue that an NBC management has had.

78
00:03:58,520 --> 00:04:02,200
Speaker 1: They've had almost two hundred days since that new contract

79
00:04:02,480 --> 00:04:05,880
Speaker 1: was negotiated, and their whole idea is a fourth hour

80
00:04:06,000 --> 00:04:10,840
Speaker 1: of MSNBC's Morning Joe. That was the brilliant plan. Right now,

81
00:04:11,680 --> 00:04:15,280
Speaker 1: Joe Scarborough is the star of MSNBC so much so

82
00:04:15,640 --> 00:04:18,400
Speaker 1: he's got to be on the air for four straight

83
00:04:18,560 --> 00:04:22,040
Speaker 1: hours because they haven't nobody else now in terms of

84
00:04:22,080 --> 00:04:24,320
Speaker 1: their bench, he points to the same thing. They don't

85
00:04:24,320 --> 00:04:27,000
Speaker 1: have anybody that can realistically hire because there doesn't there

86
00:04:27,040 --> 00:04:29,720
Speaker 1: isn't really anybody else who is able to do that.

87
00:04:29,920 --> 00:04:32,120
Speaker 1: You need to actually innovate within the format. They don't

88
00:04:32,120 --> 00:04:35,520
Speaker 1: actually want that, and at the same time they really

89
00:04:35,560 --> 00:04:38,320
Speaker 1: are screwed. Like what they point to is he would

90
00:04:38,360 --> 00:04:41,920
Speaker 1: probably be better off is not having news at nine

91
00:04:42,000 --> 00:04:45,400
Speaker 1: pm and just putting Shark Tank on MSNBC. That might

92
00:04:45,520 --> 00:04:47,920
Speaker 1: actually be a realistic might probably be better off for

93
00:04:47,920 --> 00:04:50,480
Speaker 1: the country. Well, back when I was at MBC, I

94
00:04:50,480 --> 00:04:53,200
Speaker 1: don't think they still do this, but they would play

95
00:04:53,240 --> 00:04:56,120
Speaker 1: that show lock Up on the weekends. You know that show.

96
00:04:56,160 --> 00:05:00,200
Speaker 1: It's like some trashy inside show, inside the prison out

97
00:05:00,240 --> 00:05:02,200
Speaker 1: of a show. They would play that on the weekends

98
00:05:02,200 --> 00:05:04,960
Speaker 1: because they didn't have like a full weekend lineup and

99
00:05:05,680 --> 00:05:12,520
Speaker 1: it would outperform Channel easily. So yeah, they're in a

100
00:05:12,560 --> 00:05:15,760
Speaker 1: real I mean, it's impossible to succeed with the model

101
00:05:15,800 --> 00:05:18,120
Speaker 1: that they have because ultimately, what are they like, It's

102
00:05:18,200 --> 00:05:23,000
Speaker 1: just Democratic Party cheerleading, and so they are totally subject

103
00:05:23,000 --> 00:05:26,159
Speaker 1: to the whims of the news cycle. You know, CNN

104
00:05:26,480 --> 00:05:28,560
Speaker 1: crushes them when it comes to some sort of breaking

105
00:05:28,560 --> 00:05:31,120
Speaker 1: news event like what's going on in Ukraine or the

106
00:05:31,120 --> 00:05:35,480
Speaker 1: beginning of COVID. CNN really sort of eats their lunch then.

107
00:05:36,000 --> 00:05:40,320
Speaker 1: And then the bunk they get is around election cycles.

108
00:05:40,360 --> 00:05:43,920
Speaker 1: So I'm sure, you know, next presidential election cycle they'll

109
00:05:43,920 --> 00:05:45,839
Speaker 1: get another bump in the ratings and all of that.

110
00:05:46,320 --> 00:05:49,640
Speaker 1: But in terms of having personalities that people are actually

111
00:05:49,720 --> 00:05:51,840
Speaker 1: like care about what they have to say and are

112
00:05:51,880 --> 00:05:53,920
Speaker 1: showing up just for that, In terms of some sort

113
00:05:53,920 --> 00:05:59,120
Speaker 1: of larger project, there's just not much there. So Rachel

114
00:06:00,040 --> 00:06:03,599
Speaker 1: understand why they threw basically whatever at her that she

115
00:06:03,839 --> 00:06:06,960
Speaker 1: asked for and whatever schedule that she asked for, because

116
00:06:07,520 --> 00:06:11,440
Speaker 1: they don't have really anything else. And I think that

117
00:06:11,520 --> 00:06:15,400
Speaker 1: they I think they know that Trump saved all of

118
00:06:15,440 --> 00:06:19,680
Speaker 1: these networks during his years. They know that the cord

119
00:06:19,720 --> 00:06:22,360
Speaker 1: cutters you hear that younger generations don't watch them, they're

120
00:06:22,400 --> 00:06:25,400
Speaker 1: increasingly sort of irrelevant to the public, and that their

121
00:06:25,440 --> 00:06:28,039
Speaker 1: business model is, you know, they're fine for now, but

122
00:06:28,120 --> 00:06:30,960
Speaker 1: it is sort of on shaky ground. They know all

123
00:06:30,960 --> 00:06:34,200
Speaker 1: of that, and they just have no answers because they

124
00:06:34,240 --> 00:06:39,640
Speaker 1: can't break out of doing the same stale, partisan friendly,

125
00:06:39,880 --> 00:06:43,120
Speaker 1: corporate advertising friendly content that their whole model is based on.

126
00:06:43,400 --> 00:06:47,200
Speaker 1: We thought that the age of crazy Russophobia was gone,

127
00:06:47,279 --> 00:06:49,520
Speaker 1: but unfortunately, let's go ahead and put this up there

128
00:06:49,560 --> 00:06:53,560
Speaker 1: on the screen. Runners from Russia and bellar whos are

129
00:06:53,600 --> 00:06:57,920
Speaker 1: not allowed to compete in the Boston Marathon this week.

130
00:06:58,200 --> 00:07:01,080
Speaker 1: Quote we must do what we can to show our

131
00:07:01,080 --> 00:07:04,400
Speaker 1: support to the people of Ukraine, the chief of the

132
00:07:04,440 --> 00:07:08,159
Speaker 1: Boston Athletic Commission said. Now, first of all, I think

133
00:07:08,160 --> 00:07:10,880
Speaker 1: this is a very cowardly statement in order to make

134
00:07:10,960 --> 00:07:14,840
Speaker 1: on the eve of the actual race itself, because many

135
00:07:14,920 --> 00:07:18,640
Speaker 1: people who are possibly Russian in Belarussian had been training

136
00:07:18,640 --> 00:07:21,800
Speaker 1: for this. They don't say exactly how many Russian or

137
00:07:21,800 --> 00:07:25,280
Speaker 1: Belussian citizens were scheduled to run the race. But second,

138
00:07:25,720 --> 00:07:29,080
Speaker 1: to ban the people of Russia from running in a

139
00:07:29,200 --> 00:07:33,800
Speaker 1: race which has long signified the international spirit of competition.

140
00:07:33,880 --> 00:07:38,000
Speaker 1: It's routinely won by like Kenyans. It's looked at as

141
00:07:38,080 --> 00:07:42,360
Speaker 1: the top pinnacle event in the marathon sport. I just

142
00:07:42,360 --> 00:07:46,560
Speaker 1: think it's completely outrageous. Our government policy has been and

143
00:07:46,600 --> 00:07:49,360
Speaker 1: should be to punish the oligarchs and the elites of Russia,

144
00:07:49,400 --> 00:07:53,880
Speaker 1: as well as Putin's government, but actual Russian citizens here

145
00:07:54,240 --> 00:08:00,840
Speaker 1: competing in America's premier marathon competition. I think it's completely ludacris.

146
00:08:01,000 --> 00:08:04,760
Speaker 1: It's not the fault of Russian athletes like a Vetchkin

147
00:08:05,040 --> 00:08:08,280
Speaker 1: or this, you know, whoever. These people are to set

148
00:08:08,440 --> 00:08:10,680
Speaker 1: foreign policy of the nation of Russia, and I don't

149
00:08:10,680 --> 00:08:14,480
Speaker 1: want our athletes getting treated this way whenever they compete

150
00:08:14,800 --> 00:08:17,120
Speaker 1: in formed. It's not their fault. George W. Bush was

151
00:08:17,440 --> 00:08:20,840
Speaker 1: in Vaderlan torturer, for example, and they were never made

152
00:08:20,920 --> 00:08:22,960
Speaker 1: to like, you know, like with Medvedev, where they're trying

153
00:08:22,960 --> 00:08:26,160
Speaker 1: to make him to directly denounce Putin at potentially risks

154
00:08:26,200 --> 00:08:29,320
Speaker 1: for his friends and his family. I mean, I really

155
00:08:29,360 --> 00:08:33,360
Speaker 1: thought there's two things here. First of all, it's wrong morally,

156
00:08:33,440 --> 00:08:36,959
Speaker 1: as you're pointing out, it's also stupid policy because you're

157
00:08:37,000 --> 00:08:39,880
Speaker 1: playing into Putin's hands. I mean, what he's telling the

158
00:08:39,960 --> 00:08:43,600
Speaker 1: Russian people is they hate you, they hate all of us,

159
00:08:43,640 --> 00:08:46,400
Speaker 1: They want to destroy Russia. And so when you see

160
00:08:46,800 --> 00:08:51,760
Speaker 1: you know, young pianist making their debut getting canceled, and

161
00:08:51,880 --> 00:08:56,920
Speaker 1: Russian sports stars and marathon runners getting canceled, you're playing

162
00:08:56,960 --> 00:09:00,720
Speaker 1: into his hands. You are making his case that, yeah,

163
00:09:00,800 --> 00:09:03,199
Speaker 1: we just hate Russia all together, and we just want

164
00:09:03,240 --> 00:09:06,000
Speaker 1: to destroy the country writ large, and we're not distinguishing.

165
00:09:06,160 --> 00:09:08,199
Speaker 1: And you hear this a lot of times from our

166
00:09:08,200 --> 00:09:11,360
Speaker 1: politicians too, where they're really not careful in making the

167
00:09:11,400 --> 00:09:15,800
Speaker 1: distinction between Putin and Kremlin and his you know, cronies

168
00:09:15,840 --> 00:09:20,040
Speaker 1: and oligarchs and the vast majority of the Russian people,

169
00:09:20,480 --> 00:09:24,160
Speaker 1: including even you know, some who very bravely protested the

170
00:09:24,200 --> 00:09:27,280
Speaker 1: war effort and are very much in favor of peace.

171
00:09:27,320 --> 00:09:29,480
Speaker 1: So it is not only morally wrong, it is also

172
00:09:29,600 --> 00:09:32,800
Speaker 1: extremely stupid policy. And I thought doctor Tree de Parsi,

173
00:09:32,840 --> 00:09:35,120
Speaker 1: when I talked to him, said it the best. He's like,

174
00:09:35,400 --> 00:09:38,400
Speaker 1: on the one hand, we tell everybody, you know, there's

175
00:09:38,400 --> 00:09:41,680
Speaker 1: no democracy here. All that matters is Putin and his cronies,

176
00:09:41,720 --> 00:09:44,040
Speaker 1: and so it's one hundred percent, you know, their fault

177
00:09:44,120 --> 00:09:46,000
Speaker 1: and their policy and all of that. And on the

178
00:09:46,040 --> 00:09:48,640
Speaker 1: other hand, we're going to punish the broad Russian people, Like,

179
00:09:48,679 --> 00:09:51,560
Speaker 1: how does that make sense? Like if it's not a democracy,

180
00:09:51,600 --> 00:09:54,160
Speaker 1: then it's really it's not their fault at all. In fact,

181
00:09:54,200 --> 00:09:55,960
Speaker 1: you could say, you know, if you wanted to go

182
00:09:56,000 --> 00:09:58,360
Speaker 1: down this road, you could say we were more culpable

183
00:09:58,400 --> 00:10:00,240
Speaker 1: for a rock war and all of that stuff, because

184
00:10:00,240 --> 00:10:03,200
Speaker 1: at least we have some semblance of democratic representation to

185
00:10:03,240 --> 00:10:06,720
Speaker 1: punish the Russian people for the actions of Vladimir Putin.

186
00:10:07,200 --> 00:10:11,880
Speaker 1: Just there's a complete disconnect there that really it will

187
00:10:11,880 --> 00:10:15,000
Speaker 1: never stop, not only irritating me, but just saddening me

188
00:10:15,200 --> 00:10:18,920
Speaker 1: to see this level of sort of Cold war hysteria returning. Yeah,

189
00:10:18,920 --> 00:10:21,240
Speaker 1: and look at the Olympic Games. I mean, frankly, their

190
00:10:21,440 --> 00:10:26,040
Speaker 1: athletes should be banned because they're cheater, because they're Russian, Okay,

191
00:10:26,200 --> 00:10:29,240
Speaker 1: like because they're plugged, and by the way, that's I

192
00:10:29,320 --> 00:10:32,200
Speaker 1: mean not even really their fault, as I understand it.

193
00:10:32,240 --> 00:10:34,439
Speaker 1: To be a Russian athlete, you don't get a lot

194
00:10:34,440 --> 00:10:36,480
Speaker 1: to say over whether you're going to get plugged full

195
00:10:36,520 --> 00:10:38,800
Speaker 1: of test or not, or whether you know, the doctors

196
00:10:38,800 --> 00:10:40,240
Speaker 1: are like, hey, just take this, you know, and they

197
00:10:40,240 --> 00:10:42,240
Speaker 1: don't tell you what's in that, And I think that's

198
00:10:42,280 --> 00:10:46,199
Speaker 1: wrong and incredibly exploitative. But in terms of fairness, that's

199
00:10:46,280 --> 00:10:49,280
Speaker 1: why they should be banned, in terms of testing what

200
00:10:49,400 --> 00:10:52,320
Speaker 1: exactly is going on here. But instead they're being banned

201
00:10:52,360 --> 00:10:55,080
Speaker 1: for their actual identity, and I think that that is

202
00:10:55,200 --> 00:10:58,880
Speaker 1: just so screwed up. Once again, the spirit of marathoning

203
00:10:59,000 --> 00:11:02,800
Speaker 1: and running was born, born from community, from wanting people

204
00:11:02,800 --> 00:11:06,439
Speaker 1: to inspire themselves. I recently attended a race just as

205
00:11:06,440 --> 00:11:09,600
Speaker 1: a spectator, and like the feel overwhelming feeling of joy

206
00:11:09,760 --> 00:11:13,400
Speaker 1: at the end of these things is amazing. Yeah, regular

207
00:11:13,520 --> 00:11:15,480
Speaker 1: folks are just like you know, you get up early

208
00:11:15,520 --> 00:11:17,640
Speaker 1: on a Sunday or whatever and you run just to run,

209
00:11:17,880 --> 00:11:20,839
Speaker 1: feel good, and like that is what we should encourage

210
00:11:21,400 --> 00:11:24,080
Speaker 1: for all of these types of events. So it makes

211
00:11:24,120 --> 00:11:26,240
Speaker 1: me very sad in order to see this happen. And

212
00:11:26,440 --> 00:11:28,720
Speaker 1: you know, there's a sizeable Russian population who lives in

213
00:11:29,280 --> 00:11:31,240
Speaker 1: who lives in New York City as well. We were

214
00:11:31,280 --> 00:11:33,680
Speaker 1: just there. There's a lot of Russians who live there,

215
00:11:33,720 --> 00:11:35,720
Speaker 1: so you know, what are they supposed to do? It's

216
00:11:35,760 --> 00:11:38,520
Speaker 1: just not right. Yeah. Indeed, all right, guys, thanks for watching.

217
00:11:38,600 --> 00:11:42,800
Speaker 1: More for you later. We have some new reporting from

218
00:11:42,840 --> 00:11:47,280
Speaker 1: Pro Publica that explode exposes just how much income billionaires

219
00:11:47,320 --> 00:11:50,120
Speaker 1: are making according to the IRS, and also just how

220
00:11:50,240 --> 00:11:54,160
Speaker 1: little in taxes they are paying. They go really deepr

221
00:11:54,200 --> 00:11:55,760
Speaker 1: I really encourage you to read the whole report, but

222
00:11:55,840 --> 00:11:57,600
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and throw this tear sheet up on

223
00:11:57,640 --> 00:12:00,160
Speaker 1: the screen. The big takeaway, as they say in theory,

224
00:12:00,400 --> 00:12:02,400
Speaker 1: our tax system is designed to tax the rich at

225
00:12:02,440 --> 00:12:04,880
Speaker 1: higher rates than everyone else. That is not the way

226
00:12:04,880 --> 00:12:07,560
Speaker 1: it works at the loftiest incomes. The data reveals a

227
00:12:07,600 --> 00:12:11,320
Speaker 1: system where the very highest earners on average pay far

228
00:12:11,480 --> 00:12:15,000
Speaker 1: lower tax rates than the merely affluent do, and even

229
00:12:15,040 --> 00:12:17,319
Speaker 1: among the top four hundred, some groups have it better

230
00:12:17,400 --> 00:12:21,240
Speaker 1: than others. Tech billionaires in particular, pay rates well below

231
00:12:21,360 --> 00:12:25,559
Speaker 1: even other business owners. More specifics here, they say, on average,

232
00:12:25,640 --> 00:12:28,559
Speaker 1: the rate of income tax that people pay does climb

233
00:12:28,600 --> 00:12:31,800
Speaker 1: as incomes ascent. That's a progressive taxation system into the

234
00:12:31,800 --> 00:12:35,040
Speaker 1: top one percent, But when you get to the range

235
00:12:35,120 --> 00:12:39,160
Speaker 1: of two million to five million, that trend stops. The

236
00:12:39,240 --> 00:12:42,320
Speaker 1: group earning in this range, composed mostly of business owners

237
00:12:42,480 --> 00:12:45,280
Speaker 1: and workers with extremely high salaries, paid an average income

238
00:12:45,280 --> 00:12:47,880
Speaker 1: tax rate of twenty nine percent from twenty thirteen to

239
00:12:47,920 --> 00:12:51,360
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, and after that, once you get behind the

240
00:12:51,400 --> 00:12:55,040
Speaker 1: two to five million dollar range, then average tax rates

241
00:12:55,160 --> 00:12:59,360
Speaker 1: actually drop the further up in income you go. So

242
00:12:59,440 --> 00:13:02,520
Speaker 1: it's the exact opposite dynamic of what our tax code

243
00:13:02,559 --> 00:13:04,640
Speaker 1: is supposed to be. Obviously, what is supposed to be

244
00:13:04,840 --> 00:13:07,880
Speaker 1: progressive taxation system. The more income you earn, the more

245
00:13:07,920 --> 00:13:10,200
Speaker 1: you pay in taxes. What they're saying is once that

246
00:13:10,280 --> 00:13:13,319
Speaker 1: works up to a point, and then above that, the

247
00:13:13,440 --> 00:13:17,760
Speaker 1: dynamic actually reverses and it's actively regressive, and the more

248
00:13:17,840 --> 00:13:20,640
Speaker 1: that you earn, the less that you pay. Yeah, it's

249
00:13:20,679 --> 00:13:23,520
Speaker 1: completely and utterly insane. You know. I've talked about this here,

250
00:13:23,559 --> 00:13:25,360
Speaker 1: which is that one of the things that bothers me

251
00:13:25,440 --> 00:13:28,040
Speaker 1: is that top one percent really actually does miss the mark.

252
00:13:28,120 --> 00:13:31,480
Speaker 1: I'm not saying I feel deep sympathy for the doctors

253
00:13:31,520 --> 00:13:34,360
Speaker 1: and lawyers of America, right, I'm not saying that they

254
00:13:34,360 --> 00:13:39,240
Speaker 1: shouldn't pay their taxes, but it is complete bs that

255
00:13:39,320 --> 00:13:42,800
Speaker 1: they pay a far higher tax rate and have far

256
00:13:42,920 --> 00:13:46,120
Speaker 1: more on top of them than a Warren Buffett, than

257
00:13:46,200 --> 00:13:49,680
Speaker 1: a Clifford Asseness, than all the wealthy tax billionaires here

258
00:13:49,800 --> 00:13:52,720
Speaker 1: who are paying effective tax rates of twenty two percent,

259
00:13:53,080 --> 00:13:55,600
Speaker 1: largely because of the way that they carry their wealth

260
00:13:55,640 --> 00:13:58,680
Speaker 1: on stock borrow against that. Then when they need to

261
00:13:58,679 --> 00:14:01,920
Speaker 1: parry back their loans, they sell stock that they've usually

262
00:14:01,960 --> 00:14:04,079
Speaker 1: held for longer than the period and they can only

263
00:14:04,120 --> 00:14:06,400
Speaker 1: pay fifteen percent on that and then use that to

264
00:14:06,440 --> 00:14:09,840
Speaker 1: pay back they're very usually very very low interest loan

265
00:14:10,080 --> 00:14:13,880
Speaker 1: and avoid an overall actual income tax event the name

266
00:14:13,880 --> 00:14:15,520
Speaker 1: of the game for these people is to never pay

267
00:14:15,559 --> 00:14:18,160
Speaker 1: tax in the first place. Well, and let's also be clear,

268
00:14:18,559 --> 00:14:21,560
Speaker 1: it's no accident that the system is structured that way.

269
00:14:21,800 --> 00:14:24,320
Speaker 1: These people have paid to rig it so that it

270
00:14:24,360 --> 00:14:27,960
Speaker 1: is structured this way. And the wealthier you are, the

271
00:14:28,040 --> 00:14:30,680
Speaker 1: more likely you are to have influence our political system.

272
00:14:30,720 --> 00:14:33,920
Speaker 1: So that's why it's an inverse relationship when you get

273
00:14:33,960 --> 00:14:35,880
Speaker 1: to the top, where it's the more that you earn,

274
00:14:36,160 --> 00:14:38,720
Speaker 1: the more loopholes you've been able to secure. Tho are

275
00:14:38,720 --> 00:14:40,920
Speaker 1: corrupt members of Congress to make sure that you pay

276
00:14:40,960 --> 00:14:43,920
Speaker 1: next to nothing in taxes. Ultimately, I also think it's

277
00:14:43,960 --> 00:14:48,160
Speaker 1: really interesting they break down who are the top four

278
00:14:48,280 --> 00:14:51,040
Speaker 1: hundred income earners in the country, and they break it

279
00:14:51,040 --> 00:14:53,520
Speaker 1: down I mean specifically by names in a lot of cases,

280
00:14:53,520 --> 00:14:56,240
Speaker 1: but also by like how do they make their money?

281
00:14:56,960 --> 00:15:00,640
Speaker 1: Tech billionaires made up ten of the top fifteen incomes.

282
00:15:00,800 --> 00:15:03,280
Speaker 1: Their income that they have to recognize with the irs

283
00:15:03,600 --> 00:15:06,440
Speaker 1: generally comes from selling stock. About a fifth of the

284
00:15:06,440 --> 00:15:09,680
Speaker 1: top four hundred earners were managers of head funds hedge funds.

285
00:15:09,880 --> 00:15:12,200
Speaker 1: That was the largest group out of the top four

286
00:15:12,280 --> 00:15:16,080
Speaker 1: hundred was Hedge funds made up the largest group. Executives

287
00:15:16,120 --> 00:15:18,800
Speaker 1: and founders of private equity firms also stood out, and

288
00:15:18,840 --> 00:15:22,280
Speaker 1: then the other major category was airs of large fortunes.

289
00:15:22,640 --> 00:15:25,240
Speaker 1: Among the top four hundred, there are eleven heirs of

290
00:15:25,320 --> 00:15:29,120
Speaker 1: Walmart founders Sam and Bud Walton, and four of Amay

291
00:15:29,240 --> 00:15:32,120
Speaker 1: founder Richard Devas. You may know Betsy Devas, might have

292
00:15:32,160 --> 00:15:36,400
Speaker 1: heard of her before. So it's also interesting because you know,

293
00:15:36,440 --> 00:15:39,600
Speaker 1: I think people tend to have this idea of the

294
00:15:39,640 --> 00:15:42,840
Speaker 1: wealthiest among us, as like you know, a Bezos or

295
00:15:42,880 --> 00:15:47,480
Speaker 1: a Musk, who are making products and innovating and whatever. Like. Obviously,

296
00:15:47,520 --> 00:15:49,400
Speaker 1: you guys know I have issues with them as well.

297
00:15:49,760 --> 00:15:53,440
Speaker 1: But in reality, most of these people either inherited their

298
00:15:53,480 --> 00:15:57,240
Speaker 1: money from mom and dad, or they're just like you know,

299
00:15:57,640 --> 00:16:01,680
Speaker 1: engaged in financial wizardry and moving money around and not

300
00:16:01,800 --> 00:16:04,520
Speaker 1: really creating anything and oftentimes actually creating a lot of

301
00:16:04,560 --> 00:16:06,680
Speaker 1: misery among the American public. I want to focus on that,

302
00:16:06,760 --> 00:16:09,240
Speaker 1: which is that I have way less with Elon Musk

303
00:16:09,280 --> 00:16:12,600
Speaker 1: and Beef and Jeff Bezos, who created world transformational companies

304
00:16:12,640 --> 00:16:15,280
Speaker 1: which added trillions of dollars in wealth to the United States.

305
00:16:15,400 --> 00:16:17,480
Speaker 1: I still think they should both pay more, but they

306
00:16:17,480 --> 00:16:20,280
Speaker 1: are not the problem, in my opinion. The real problem

307
00:16:20,320 --> 00:16:23,440
Speaker 1: are these executive and founders of private equity companies. Private

308
00:16:23,440 --> 00:16:27,120
Speaker 1: equity adds nothing to the US economy, literally nothing. They

309
00:16:27,160 --> 00:16:29,560
Speaker 1: make money for themselves and for their already ultra high

310
00:16:29,640 --> 00:16:31,720
Speaker 1: network clients. And what they point to in the pro

311
00:16:31,760 --> 00:16:34,200
Speaker 1: public apiece is that the private equity guys are paying

312
00:16:34,200 --> 00:16:36,720
Speaker 1: the least taxes out of all of the top four hundred.

313
00:16:36,920 --> 00:16:40,240
Speaker 1: Why because they use the carried interest loophole, which if

314
00:16:40,240 --> 00:16:42,760
Speaker 1: we just close that, I think it would raise like

315
00:16:42,880 --> 00:16:46,160
Speaker 1: eight or nine hundred billion a year in tax because

316
00:16:46,160 --> 00:16:48,720
Speaker 1: they're able to use carried interests, not treat it as

317
00:16:48,760 --> 00:16:51,960
Speaker 1: regular income, treat it as interest income, and pay only

318
00:16:52,000 --> 00:16:54,760
Speaker 1: fifteen percent when they should owe thirty five to forty

319
00:16:54,760 --> 00:16:57,760
Speaker 1: percent all the way up in a progressive taxation system.

320
00:16:57,880 --> 00:17:01,760
Speaker 1: So the financiers are the people who have actually fleeced

321
00:17:01,840 --> 00:17:04,439
Speaker 1: the system more than anything, and they add nothing to

322
00:17:04,560 --> 00:17:07,840
Speaker 1: the economy, right, it's worse, so they become ultrawealthy and

323
00:17:07,880 --> 00:17:10,320
Speaker 1: then they pay even less. The other people who I

324
00:17:10,359 --> 00:17:13,919
Speaker 1: have zero sympathy for in here are the heiress, the

325
00:17:13,960 --> 00:17:16,959
Speaker 1: heirs and the heiresses, the eleven members of the Walton family,

326
00:17:17,200 --> 00:17:20,600
Speaker 1: the Devas heirs that they point to Amway's a total scam.

327
00:17:20,680 --> 00:17:23,440
Speaker 1: Look at this disgusting. The eleven descendants in the top

328
00:17:23,480 --> 00:17:27,840
Speaker 1: four hundred saved three hundred and seventy million dollars a

329
00:17:28,080 --> 00:17:32,160
Speaker 1: year due to a lower dividend tax rate three hundred

330
00:17:32,160 --> 00:17:35,399
Speaker 1: and seventy million. I actually have a ton of respect

331
00:17:35,600 --> 00:17:38,200
Speaker 1: for Sam Walton, the founder, you don't know, I don't

332
00:17:38,200 --> 00:17:41,080
Speaker 1: have a ton of respect for his grandson who is

333
00:17:41,160 --> 00:17:44,600
Speaker 1: just fleecing off of his stock. Look, it's a free

334
00:17:44,600 --> 00:17:47,520
Speaker 1: country and hereditary wealth and all of that. I'm not

335
00:17:47,520 --> 00:17:51,199
Speaker 1: saying it should be illegal, but it's ludicrous that you

336
00:17:51,240 --> 00:17:54,840
Speaker 1: should be able to be saving this level of wealth

337
00:17:55,000 --> 00:17:58,400
Speaker 1: when you did jack shit for the US economy. Yeah,

338
00:17:58,520 --> 00:18:00,840
Speaker 1: and that's the other thing that they break the system

339
00:18:00,840 --> 00:18:03,320
Speaker 1: for us to make sure that there's basically no estate tax,

340
00:18:03,480 --> 00:18:06,320
Speaker 1: so you know, by borrow die means you can pass

341
00:18:06,359 --> 00:18:09,000
Speaker 1: everything forward to your ears, nobody ever pays any taxes

342
00:18:09,040 --> 00:18:11,399
Speaker 1: on it. You end up with this, you know, truly

343
00:18:11,560 --> 00:18:15,120
Speaker 1: sort of like hardened lines of intern generational wealth transfer.

344
00:18:15,200 --> 00:18:17,960
Speaker 1: And it's not really a great thing for a democratic society.

345
00:18:18,240 --> 00:18:21,760
Speaker 1: Just to put one more statistic in here to think about,

346
00:18:21,760 --> 00:18:24,439
Speaker 1: because they crunch the numbers on this, each of the

347
00:18:24,480 --> 00:18:28,080
Speaker 1: top eleven here average over a billion dollars in income

348
00:18:28,160 --> 00:18:30,680
Speaker 1: annually from twenty thirteen to twenty eighteen. And that doesn't

349
00:18:30,680 --> 00:18:33,080
Speaker 1: even scratch the surface of what their overall wealth is.

350
00:18:33,119 --> 00:18:35,560
Speaker 1: This is just the income that they had to recognize.

351
00:18:35,960 --> 00:18:38,640
Speaker 1: The typical American would have to work for twenty five

352
00:18:39,200 --> 00:18:43,320
Speaker 1: thousand years to make one billion dollars, And they made

353
00:18:43,320 --> 00:18:46,040
Speaker 1: that much just in what they had to recognize every

354
00:18:46,240 --> 00:18:50,280
Speaker 1: single year. Astonishing, And you wonder why Biden's polster was

355
00:18:50,320 --> 00:18:53,280
Speaker 1: telling them, like why don't you lean into taxing the rich,

356
00:18:53,400 --> 00:18:55,679
Speaker 1: Like why are you you know, why are you tiptoeing

357
00:18:55,760 --> 00:18:59,480
Speaker 1: around actually telling people that these people should have to

358
00:18:59,480 --> 00:19:01,880
Speaker 1: pay their tax axes and have to pay rates comparable

359
00:19:01,920 --> 00:19:05,479
Speaker 1: to what you regular American citizen are paying. But for

360
00:19:05,520 --> 00:19:07,480
Speaker 1: some reason, they're still too scared of their own shadow

361
00:19:07,480 --> 00:19:10,200
Speaker 1: to lean into that. A fun moment on the Internet

362
00:19:10,640 --> 00:19:13,320
Speaker 1: when Jack Dorsey, the former CEO of Twitter, he's kind

363
00:19:13,320 --> 00:19:17,280
Speaker 1: of coming into his own He's no longer he's unleashed.

364
00:19:17,320 --> 00:19:19,680
Speaker 1: He's a free man. Yeah, he's a rann on all

365
00:19:19,720 --> 00:19:21,399
Speaker 1: kinds of stuff. He's always been a very you know,

366
00:19:21,440 --> 00:19:23,720
Speaker 1: he's always been a very eclectic person. I guess he's

367
00:19:23,720 --> 00:19:25,920
Speaker 1: just had a leashed around it or a noose around

368
00:19:25,960 --> 00:19:28,960
Speaker 1: his neck, be given the Twitter board and all of that. Well,

369
00:19:29,359 --> 00:19:31,920
Speaker 1: this was a fun one. So CNN's Brian Stelter, let's

370
00:19:31,920 --> 00:19:34,280
Speaker 1: put this up there on the screen. He says, Tucker

371
00:19:34,320 --> 00:19:37,120
Speaker 1: Carlson is always selling the same thing. The Washington Post

372
00:19:37,119 --> 00:19:41,199
Speaker 1: says he's selling doubt. Some of that is true, but

373
00:19:41,320 --> 00:19:44,800
Speaker 1: Jack replies, oh, and you all are selling hope to

374
00:19:44,920 --> 00:19:48,840
Speaker 1: which got five thousand retweets on here forty thousand likes.

375
00:19:49,080 --> 00:19:52,080
Speaker 1: And somebody replies, every single broadcast news channel is selling

376
00:19:52,119 --> 00:19:56,199
Speaker 1: the same thing ad viewership. Jack responds, yep. But what

377
00:19:56,320 --> 00:19:58,879
Speaker 1: I especially love, Crystal, is that the author of the

378
00:19:58,960 --> 00:20:03,480
Speaker 1: Washington Post piece got really upset with Jack for going

379
00:20:03,520 --> 00:20:06,560
Speaker 1: after him, and he says that really what it is

380
00:20:06,560 --> 00:20:10,119
Speaker 1: is that it's ludicrous for him to attack him, and

381
00:20:10,119 --> 00:20:14,280
Speaker 1: that it's basically his response. Philip Bump to the Jack

382
00:20:14,320 --> 00:20:17,719
Speaker 1: Dorsey kind of subtweet says, in this context, that is

383
00:20:17,760 --> 00:20:21,600
Speaker 1: not the alternative, but I appreciate your sharing your thoughts. Jack,

384
00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:25,880
Speaker 1: What does that even mean in this context? So you're

385
00:20:25,920 --> 00:20:28,880
Speaker 1: being a critic, you're selling doubt and Jack goes, oh, yeah,

386
00:20:28,920 --> 00:20:30,680
Speaker 1: you guys are selling hope and He's like, well, whoa,

387
00:20:31,040 --> 00:20:34,000
Speaker 1: that's not the alternative. It's what we're just calling out

388
00:20:34,600 --> 00:20:37,280
Speaker 1: something what we see right well, which is fair, But

389
00:20:37,720 --> 00:20:41,120
Speaker 1: he's responding directly to Brian Stilter. So that's why this

390
00:20:41,160 --> 00:20:43,560
Speaker 1: is about CNN. This is about CNN, and this is

391
00:20:43,600 --> 00:20:46,600
Speaker 1: about the fact that this entire system is bullshit and

392
00:20:46,680 --> 00:20:51,440
Speaker 1: it's all built on engagement to keep up a dying business,

393
00:20:51,440 --> 00:20:54,280
Speaker 1: which is cable. I don't know why people can't own

394
00:20:54,359 --> 00:20:56,680
Speaker 1: up to that. And it also is why CNN and

395
00:20:56,800 --> 00:21:00,920
Speaker 1: MSNBC critics of Fox, they'll never turn the mirror upon themselves.

396
00:21:01,240 --> 00:21:04,120
Speaker 1: It's like, no a pox on all your houses. We're

397
00:21:04,200 --> 00:21:08,040
Speaker 1: all bad. We played that extremely weirdly awkward segment of

398
00:21:08,200 --> 00:21:12,280
Speaker 1: Stelter with the Yale researcher who you know he what

399
00:21:12,440 --> 00:21:15,720
Speaker 1: he did is he had paid Fox News viewers to

400
00:21:15,760 --> 00:21:20,639
Speaker 1: watch CNN and then evaluated how their opinion shifted. And

401
00:21:20,920 --> 00:21:23,680
Speaker 1: of course CNN loved to seize on this to basically

402
00:21:23,720 --> 00:21:26,200
Speaker 1: look and be like, we look class. You know, viewers

403
00:21:26,240 --> 00:21:28,879
Speaker 1: are being lied to and their brains are being washed. True,

404
00:21:29,240 --> 00:21:32,439
Speaker 1: totally true. But what they didn't want to talk about

405
00:21:32,480 --> 00:21:34,040
Speaker 1: was the other part of the study that said that

406
00:21:34,119 --> 00:21:36,879
Speaker 1: also CNN is doing engaged in a lot of the

407
00:21:36,920 --> 00:21:39,200
Speaker 1: same sort of partisan filtering tactics, but they just show

408
00:21:39,240 --> 00:21:42,440
Speaker 1: you things that are convenient to their team and whatever

409
00:21:42,560 --> 00:21:46,280
Speaker 1: narrative they ultimately want to push. And so this he

410
00:21:46,400 --> 00:21:49,320
Speaker 1: had Stelter had this Yale researcher on to break down

411
00:21:49,359 --> 00:21:52,959
Speaker 1: the data and was faced with the uncomfortable moment of

412
00:21:53,000 --> 00:21:55,879
Speaker 1: the researcher telling him to his face like you know,

413
00:21:56,000 --> 00:21:58,560
Speaker 1: you guys do this too, by the way, right, and

414
00:21:58,600 --> 00:22:01,240
Speaker 1: Stelter gets all flustering his life. That feels like what

415
00:22:01,359 --> 00:22:06,480
Speaker 1: about ism? Just like what do you mean like this?

416
00:22:07,720 --> 00:22:10,880
Speaker 1: But yeah, he does. That's already leaves in like this anyway.

417
00:22:11,480 --> 00:22:13,359
Speaker 1: The fact of the matter is, look, they have the

418
00:22:13,359 --> 00:22:17,000
Speaker 1: same business model. It is true, like Fox was built

419
00:22:17,800 --> 00:22:21,720
Speaker 1: directly as a political project. CNN and MSNBC were just

420
00:22:21,760 --> 00:22:24,880
Speaker 1: built as money making ventures. So there is sort of

421
00:22:24,920 --> 00:22:28,719
Speaker 1: like something different at their DNA. We could certainly debate,

422
00:22:28,880 --> 00:22:31,480
Speaker 1: you know, who goes further, which is more damaging, which

423
00:22:31,560 --> 00:22:33,760
Speaker 1: is worse, et cetera, et cetera, But ultimately the model

424
00:22:33,800 --> 00:22:36,120
Speaker 1: is basically the same. The person was like, it's all about,

425
00:22:36,320 --> 00:22:39,200
Speaker 1: you know, making people hate each other and like stick

426
00:22:39,240 --> 00:22:43,320
Speaker 1: around for ad dollars. That's really it. The programming is

427
00:22:43,400 --> 00:22:47,440
Speaker 1: not the actual product that CNN is selling. These are

428
00:22:47,440 --> 00:22:49,320
Speaker 1: all ways to just get you to stick around for

429
00:22:49,359 --> 00:22:52,439
Speaker 1: the next commercial break. That's that's it. And so anyone

430
00:22:52,440 --> 00:22:56,320
Speaker 1: who doesn't recognize this the water that they themselves are

431
00:22:56,320 --> 00:22:59,000
Speaker 1: swimming in, you know, is not going to be proticul

432
00:22:59,040 --> 00:23:01,359
Speaker 1: Their commentary is not going to be particularly useful. I

433
00:23:01,359 --> 00:23:05,359
Speaker 1: guess I would say, I am sure that you are

434
00:23:05,400 --> 00:23:08,239
Speaker 1: aware that tax Day has just come and gone, and

435
00:23:08,280 --> 00:23:11,200
Speaker 1: there is a story that is very important and very

436
00:23:11,240 --> 00:23:13,640
Speaker 1: relevant to your lives that we wanted to talk about here,

437
00:23:13,880 --> 00:23:16,520
Speaker 1: which is the way that you are being screwed over

438
00:23:16,840 --> 00:23:19,439
Speaker 1: by turbo tax and by Itch in our block and

439
00:23:19,480 --> 00:23:23,240
Speaker 1: these other tax filers, and also by a corrupt federal government.

440
00:23:23,240 --> 00:23:25,040
Speaker 1: All right, so let's talk about all of this. Let's

441
00:23:25,040 --> 00:23:27,720
Speaker 1: put Tarek Thompson's piece up on the screen here. First.

442
00:23:27,760 --> 00:23:29,320
Speaker 1: He wrote this a couple of years back, but it

443
00:23:29,400 --> 00:23:31,160
Speaker 1: is still very much the case. He says, the ten

444
00:23:31,200 --> 00:23:34,400
Speaker 1: second tax return. Letting the government do its citizens taxes

445
00:23:34,480 --> 00:23:38,080
Speaker 1: is cheap, efficient and accurate. Naturally, the United States won't

446
00:23:38,119 --> 00:23:41,520
Speaker 1: do it. We take it as given in this country

447
00:23:41,760 --> 00:23:44,919
Speaker 1: that tax preparation and tax filing has to be a

448
00:23:44,960 --> 00:23:51,040
Speaker 1: complete and utter nightmare, annoying, time consuming, stressful, anxiety inducing,

449
00:23:51,240 --> 00:23:55,440
Speaker 1: often expensive. None of that actually has to be the case.

450
00:23:55,640 --> 00:23:58,919
Speaker 1: In fact, in other countries, if you are a wage earner,

451
00:23:59,240 --> 00:24:03,440
Speaker 1: like the over majority of Americans are, the government already

452
00:24:03,560 --> 00:24:07,439
Speaker 1: has your information. Employers are required to submit what your

453
00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:10,920
Speaker 1: wages are and what you've learned. So in Sweden, for example,

454
00:24:11,040 --> 00:24:13,359
Speaker 1: the vast majority, he writes, of taxayers don't do battle

455
00:24:13,359 --> 00:24:16,440
Speaker 1: of tax documents and fine print question about itemized deductions.

456
00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:20,240
Speaker 1: They literally get a document from the government with everything

457
00:24:20,480 --> 00:24:23,679
Speaker 1: already filled out, and all they have to do is

458
00:24:23,760 --> 00:24:29,120
Speaker 1: respond yes to that document and it's done. It literally

459
00:24:29,200 --> 00:24:32,840
Speaker 1: takes like five seconds. So you might ask yourself, well,

460
00:24:32,880 --> 00:24:35,720
Speaker 1: why haven't we done this in our country? Saga And

461
00:24:35,800 --> 00:24:38,800
Speaker 1: as always, follow the money. The bottom line is, and

462
00:24:38,840 --> 00:24:42,280
Speaker 1: I'll get into the specifics here, that these tax prep

463
00:24:42,359 --> 00:24:46,400
Speaker 1: companies H and R block into a TurboTax. They make

464
00:24:46,600 --> 00:24:50,480
Speaker 1: big bank on forcing you to go through this incredibly

465
00:24:50,560 --> 00:24:53,919
Speaker 1: painful process. And so it was a live issue a

466
00:24:53,960 --> 00:24:56,440
Speaker 1: while back back in two thousand and three to actually

467
00:24:56,520 --> 00:24:58,879
Speaker 1: move in the direction of Sweden and other nations of

468
00:24:58,920 --> 00:25:01,919
Speaker 1: the world and have the government have an easy file

469
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:04,560
Speaker 1: solution where things are filled out for you. It's simple,

470
00:25:04,600 --> 00:25:07,720
Speaker 1: it's straightforward, and the overwhelming majority of taxpayers could have

471
00:25:07,800 --> 00:25:11,479
Speaker 1: their taxes done like this. But guess what that would

472
00:25:11,600 --> 00:25:14,680
Speaker 1: hurt those companies and it would take away their cash cow.

473
00:25:15,200 --> 00:25:19,280
Speaker 1: So they lobbied the government. They funneled all kinds of money,

474
00:25:19,440 --> 00:25:22,760
Speaker 1: mostly to Republican legislators, and so what they got written

475
00:25:22,760 --> 00:25:26,439
Speaker 1: into law instead is rather than the government coming up

476
00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:29,880
Speaker 1: with their own free and easy to file solution, where

477
00:25:29,920 --> 00:25:31,879
Speaker 1: the end goal is just to make things simple for

478
00:25:31,920 --> 00:25:33,639
Speaker 1: people and for the government, by the way, would then

479
00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:36,800
Speaker 1: collect a lot more taxes than they do now too. Instead,

480
00:25:36,920 --> 00:25:40,840
Speaker 1: they entered into this corrupt partnership with those companies and said,

481
00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:44,880
Speaker 1: you all are going to participate in this free file system.

482
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:46,919
Speaker 1: You're going to create the product that people are going

483
00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:50,520
Speaker 1: to use. Well, you can guess what happened next. Yes,

484
00:25:50,560 --> 00:25:54,360
Speaker 1: those companies technically created those systems. They buried them, made

485
00:25:54,359 --> 00:25:57,320
Speaker 1: them impossible to find so consumers couldn't find them. They

486
00:25:57,320 --> 00:26:00,480
Speaker 1: made them intentionally difficult to use. This all, by the way,

487
00:26:00,480 --> 00:26:02,879
Speaker 1: there was the subject of a great investigation and legal

488
00:26:02,920 --> 00:26:06,000
Speaker 1: action against these companies. Made them intentionally difficult to use

489
00:26:06,040 --> 00:26:08,600
Speaker 1: so that people couldn't figure out how it was done,

490
00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:11,439
Speaker 1: to incentivize them to move into the paid products, and

491
00:26:11,480 --> 00:26:14,199
Speaker 1: then even worse than that, they would sort of funnel

492
00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:17,439
Speaker 1: people into paying for this without people even realizing that

493
00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:21,600
Speaker 1: they were being funneled into the paid product. So perfect

494
00:26:21,640 --> 00:26:26,800
Speaker 1: story of a good idea which becomes completely corrupted and captured,

495
00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:29,920
Speaker 1: and these companies are builking the American taxpayer for millions

496
00:26:29,920 --> 00:26:33,439
Speaker 1: of dollars. The latest development here with this tax season

497
00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:37,359
Speaker 1: is Elizabeth Warren and a number of other legislators actually

498
00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:41,600
Speaker 1: wrote a letter to the makers of TurboTax, calling them,

499
00:26:41,600 --> 00:26:43,359
Speaker 1: ount let's go ahead and throw this piece up on

500
00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:47,040
Speaker 1: the screen. They say, were this part that they're focused

501
00:26:47,040 --> 00:26:49,440
Speaker 1: on now is that in addition to all of this,

502
00:26:49,680 --> 00:26:54,040
Speaker 1: TurboTax has now hired all of these former government officials

503
00:26:54,280 --> 00:26:57,440
Speaker 1: to lobby an influence pedal in Washington, And so they're

504
00:26:57,440 --> 00:27:01,440
Speaker 1: demanding answers about exactly who all they have hired and

505
00:27:01,520 --> 00:27:04,200
Speaker 1: what they are doing to try to influence their government.

506
00:27:04,240 --> 00:27:07,840
Speaker 1: One of the people she calls out is apparently they

507
00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:10,960
Speaker 1: hire paid an undisclothed sum to John Friedman, a former

508
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:15,480
Speaker 1: member of President Obama's National Economic Council to influence Pedal

509
00:27:15,520 --> 00:27:18,560
Speaker 1: in Washington. So it really is a disgusting story of

510
00:27:18,880 --> 00:27:21,399
Speaker 1: corruption and something that should be easy and simple and

511
00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:24,720
Speaker 1: painless being made like excruciating for American taxpayers every year.

512
00:27:24,800 --> 00:27:26,960
Speaker 1: Go ahead and put Helene Owen's piece up on the

513
00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:28,879
Speaker 1: screen because she points to the same things. We spend

514
00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:31,200
Speaker 1: hours and hours preparing our taxes. We just shouldn't have

515
00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:32,879
Speaker 1: to do that. And look, Krystal, you and I are

516
00:27:32,920 --> 00:27:35,880
Speaker 1: small business. We have had to spend tens of thousands

517
00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:38,880
Speaker 1: of dollars in order to prepare our business taxes because

518
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:42,080
Speaker 1: we make money on the internet across different states because

519
00:27:42,119 --> 00:27:45,280
Speaker 1: of a Supreme Court ruling as well as we talked

520
00:27:45,320 --> 00:27:48,159
Speaker 1: previously about storing our merchandise. I want people to know this,

521
00:27:48,359 --> 00:27:51,919
Speaker 1: like in terms of is it easy, No, it's actually not.

522
00:27:52,080 --> 00:27:54,240
Speaker 1: You literally have to hire somebody in order to figure

523
00:27:54,280 --> 00:27:57,280
Speaker 1: out this complex tax code and it's all like a

524
00:27:57,320 --> 00:28:02,320
Speaker 1: guessing game of estimating income different states, and it's nuts.

525
00:28:02,359 --> 00:28:06,439
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we're spend we're spending time, energy

526
00:28:06,680 --> 00:28:09,800
Speaker 1: and effort on taxes when we should be on content,

527
00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:12,359
Speaker 1: on hiring more people and adding value. I mean, this

528
00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:15,920
Speaker 1: is a boomer libertarian argument but it's true. Well, I mean,

529
00:28:15,920 --> 00:28:17,719
Speaker 1: but it's not what you look at like, I mean,

530
00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:19,800
Speaker 1: look at who is involved this. Katie Porter and Elizabeth

531
00:28:19,800 --> 00:28:22,760
Speaker 1: Waitight is pushing this because basically what they're saying is, look,

532
00:28:22,760 --> 00:28:25,120
Speaker 1: they're not saying people shouldn't pay taxes or the tax

533
00:28:25,200 --> 00:28:27,760
Speaker 1: rates should be eliminated, or happy like that. Taxes. We're

534
00:28:27,760 --> 00:28:30,280
Speaker 1: happy to pay. It's the problem is that it has

535
00:28:30,359 --> 00:28:35,200
Speaker 1: been intentionally made complicated to fatten the goose of the

536
00:28:35,320 --> 00:28:40,400
Speaker 1: multi billion dollar tax preparation industry. And for the overwhelming

537
00:28:40,440 --> 00:28:44,320
Speaker 1: majority of Americans, like seventy percent of Americans that earn

538
00:28:44,680 --> 00:28:49,120
Speaker 1: that are wage earners, this could be so simple and painless,

539
00:28:49,120 --> 00:28:52,760
Speaker 1: and instead, because of this corrupt bargain that has been made,

540
00:28:52,880 --> 00:28:56,080
Speaker 1: it is like painful every single year for no reason.

541
00:28:56,240 --> 00:28:59,640
Speaker 1: So we wanted to remind you that your legislators and

542
00:28:59,640 --> 00:29:03,760
Speaker 1: you're like leaders and in combination with these corrupt corporate goals,

543
00:29:03,800 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 1: are making things painful for you every year, and they

544
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:07,920
Speaker 1: don't have to. It didn't have to be this way.

545
00:29:08,040 --> 00:29:11,280
Speaker 1: The folks over at Fox News Is the Five decided

546
00:29:11,320 --> 00:29:14,800
Speaker 1: to tackle the debate over a shorter four day work

547
00:29:14,840 --> 00:29:19,520
Speaker 1: week with reason somewhat hilarious results let's take a listen

548
00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:21,920
Speaker 1: to what they had to say for krats in California

549
00:29:22,080 --> 00:29:25,640
Speaker 1: trying to cancel hard work. Here's their idea. State reps

550
00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:28,920
Speaker 1: are proposing a four day work week for companies with

551
00:29:28,960 --> 00:29:32,440
Speaker 1: more than five hundred employees. That's right, they're proposing shortening

552
00:29:32,480 --> 00:29:35,920
Speaker 1: your office work week from forty hours to just thirty

553
00:29:35,960 --> 00:29:39,000
Speaker 1: two hours. But get this part, your salary stays the same.

554
00:29:39,480 --> 00:29:41,680
Speaker 1: So it's thirty two hours of work for forty hours

555
00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:44,200
Speaker 1: of pay. And if you want to work more than

556
00:29:44,240 --> 00:29:46,520
Speaker 1: thirty two hours, you have to get paid time and

557
00:29:46,520 --> 00:29:49,240
Speaker 1: a half for overtime. And remember this is happening in

558
00:29:49,240 --> 00:29:53,000
Speaker 1: the midst of an alarming labor shortage in America. Employers

559
00:29:53,040 --> 00:29:57,200
Speaker 1: cannot find workers. That's somewhere around ten million jobs unfilled

560
00:29:57,480 --> 00:30:01,760
Speaker 1: in this country right now. Are they this generation judge,

561
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:04,240
Speaker 1: is that what it is? Or or have they figured

562
00:30:04,240 --> 00:30:08,360
Speaker 1: out life is short? We've been taught to work so hard.

563
00:30:08,480 --> 00:30:10,960
Speaker 1: You waste your whole life working. You could be taking

564
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:15,120
Speaker 1: it easy and get over time. It's destroying my social life.

565
00:30:15,480 --> 00:30:17,760
Speaker 1: And that's when when it starts, When it starts hurting me,

566
00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:19,840
Speaker 1: I care. But you know what I think they realized.

567
00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:22,400
Speaker 1: They realized in a forty hour week. Forty hour week,

568
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:25,560
Speaker 1: maybe at most you work thirty two hours. You know

569
00:30:25,600 --> 00:30:28,320
Speaker 1: what the thing is, there's a lot of inefficiency built

570
00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:31,840
Speaker 1: in the in the workplace, including even coming and going

571
00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:34,480
Speaker 1: to work having a lot. I never understood a lunch hower.

572
00:30:34,520 --> 00:30:36,280
Speaker 1: But then again, I don't have kids. I don't need

573
00:30:36,280 --> 00:30:38,600
Speaker 1: to run to the you know, to do errands. So

574
00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:40,880
Speaker 1: I just sit around and I always have, you know,

575
00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:43,000
Speaker 1: my assistant. I full of jesse and have my assistant

576
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:45,400
Speaker 1: to do everything. But you know what this is gonna be.

577
00:30:45,560 --> 00:30:48,160
Speaker 1: This is gonna end up turning us into a virtual

578
00:30:48,200 --> 00:30:52,440
Speaker 1: reality cocoon. Everybody's just gonna evolve and just staying home.

579
00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:54,440
Speaker 1: They're gonna get everything they need at their house. They're

580
00:30:54,440 --> 00:30:57,920
Speaker 1: gonna get really large, and the only people that are

581
00:30:57,920 --> 00:30:59,640
Speaker 1: going to be in the outside world are the people

582
00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:03,160
Speaker 1: who can afford the inside world that we can't help California.

583
00:31:03,360 --> 00:31:06,400
Speaker 1: They have to help themselves. Like France they do have,

584
00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:08,480
Speaker 1: but not ours. It's funny that you say that I

585
00:31:08,480 --> 00:31:10,440
Speaker 1: wrote France right here on my favorite because if you

586
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:13,560
Speaker 1: want to be more like France, there, eat more croissants.

587
00:31:14,080 --> 00:31:16,280
Speaker 1: Don't go this route. The other thing is they did

588
00:31:16,320 --> 00:31:18,720
Speaker 1: in France. If you look at their economy, they're terrible.

589
00:31:18,720 --> 00:31:20,560
Speaker 1: But also for a while they were like, well, we

590
00:31:20,560 --> 00:31:22,960
Speaker 1: don't really want to put our defense money in a

591
00:31:23,040 --> 00:31:24,960
Speaker 1: NATO because it's like we want to spend money on

592
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:27,800
Speaker 1: the time and we don't have enough. Okay, I'm not

593
00:31:27,800 --> 00:31:32,080
Speaker 1: trying to do a French accent. You're not allowed the

594
00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:35,760
Speaker 1: employer is not allowed to contact you on the weekend.

595
00:31:35,760 --> 00:31:38,320
Speaker 1: It is illegal for an email to be sent to

596
00:31:38,360 --> 00:31:41,000
Speaker 1: you on the weekend in France, for example. And here's

597
00:31:41,040 --> 00:31:43,080
Speaker 1: the other thing. If a company thinks that they can

598
00:31:43,120 --> 00:31:45,240
Speaker 1: attract more talent by saying you're going to work thirty

599
00:31:45,240 --> 00:31:47,480
Speaker 1: two hours a week at this salary, great, but the

600
00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:50,200
Speaker 1: government shouldn't tell people to do that. So they hit

601
00:31:50,240 --> 00:31:54,080
Speaker 1: a lot of highlights. There was wow, Yeah, I like

602
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:57,840
Speaker 1: when she brings up NATO just randomly, like what So.

603
00:31:57,920 --> 00:32:00,959
Speaker 1: First of all, the framing is like this is just

604
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:04,320
Speaker 1: being lazy, and they try to frame it in this

605
00:32:04,520 --> 00:32:08,360
Speaker 1: like populist way, and then it devolves into Greg Guttfeld

606
00:32:08,360 --> 00:32:11,200
Speaker 1: talking about like his assistant and how this is gonna

607
00:32:11,360 --> 00:32:14,440
Speaker 1: hurt him personally in her social life. Look, Guttfeld, you

608
00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:16,920
Speaker 1: work at five o'clock and at eleven o'clock. Dude, you're

609
00:32:16,960 --> 00:32:20,200
Speaker 1: probably chilling like most people in media. All day. You

610
00:32:20,240 --> 00:32:22,800
Speaker 1: get to run your errands and do basically whatever you

611
00:32:22,840 --> 00:32:24,560
Speaker 1: want and show up to the office at like two

612
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:27,760
Speaker 1: to three o'clock, have all your meals catered, You get

613
00:32:27,800 --> 00:32:30,120
Speaker 1: paid a fat salary, and you don't actually have to

614
00:32:30,120 --> 00:32:32,800
Speaker 1: deal with any of the vagaries of normal everyday life. Right.

615
00:32:32,880 --> 00:32:35,360
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that I necessarily like to hold you

616
00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:39,120
Speaker 1: that like, oh, these people are just so lazy or

617
00:32:39,160 --> 00:32:42,040
Speaker 1: I can't help themselves. We live a good life. That's cool. Well,

618
00:32:42,080 --> 00:32:44,400
Speaker 1: you know, like here's the other thing. I liked the

619
00:32:44,440 --> 00:32:47,440
Speaker 1: setup too, from Heraldo, who was trying to do it

620
00:32:47,480 --> 00:32:50,720
Speaker 1: in this almost like scare mongering voice of like, you're

621
00:32:50,760 --> 00:32:53,320
Speaker 1: only gonna work thirty two hours, but you're gonna get

622
00:32:53,360 --> 00:32:56,800
Speaker 1: paid the same thing. Isn't that terrible? Of course, what

623
00:32:56,880 --> 00:32:59,280
Speaker 1: they never bring up is any of the actual researchers

624
00:32:59,280 --> 00:33:03,000
Speaker 1: statistics around on this, which shows that, you know, when

625
00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:05,360
Speaker 1: they've tried four day work weeks in other parts of

626
00:33:05,360 --> 00:33:10,800
Speaker 1: the world, productivity actually increased, Businesses saved on cost, workers

627
00:33:10,840 --> 00:33:14,920
Speaker 1: had more work life balance, and productivity actually went up.

628
00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:17,240
Speaker 1: Because the only person who made a decent point there

629
00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:20,920
Speaker 1: Gutfeld about how like, really, when you're working the forty

630
00:33:20,920 --> 00:33:23,080
Speaker 1: hour week, are you really working forty hours or are

631
00:33:23,120 --> 00:33:26,040
Speaker 1: you You know, that's actually true. And so when people

632
00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:28,000
Speaker 1: have a more limited time, they know like I have

633
00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:30,000
Speaker 1: this much time, I got to get it done, their

634
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:32,280
Speaker 1: productivity goes up. They'd get the same amount of work

635
00:33:32,280 --> 00:33:33,800
Speaker 1: done in a lesser time. And I think we saw

636
00:33:33,840 --> 00:33:36,600
Speaker 1: that during the pandemic too, when people had more flexibility

637
00:33:36,880 --> 00:33:38,840
Speaker 1: and there wasn't as much and they were you know,

638
00:33:38,920 --> 00:33:42,040
Speaker 1: white collar workers were working from home. There wasn't enough

639
00:33:42,160 --> 00:33:44,200
Speaker 1: like let's have a coffee and bullshit. It was more

640
00:33:44,320 --> 00:33:45,680
Speaker 1: just like let me get the work done and then

641
00:33:45,760 --> 00:33:47,520
Speaker 1: let me actually live my life. Well, I think the

642
00:33:47,600 --> 00:33:50,400
Speaker 1: other problem is that this isn't entirely a white collar phenomenon.

643
00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:52,560
Speaker 1: You know, work factory workers don't work. They don't have

644
00:33:52,600 --> 00:33:54,520
Speaker 1: the luxury of work from home, like you know, like, yes,

645
00:33:54,600 --> 00:33:58,480
Speaker 1: we'd be much better off, right, focusing on actual conditions

646
00:33:58,680 --> 00:34:03,800
Speaker 1: that most working class folks at grocery stores factories, working

647
00:34:03,840 --> 00:34:06,120
Speaker 1: as a cashier or something, this is not an issue

648
00:34:06,160 --> 00:34:09,560
Speaker 1: to their day to day right. Well, but the legal

649
00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:13,520
Speaker 1: what is legally considered a full time work week matters

650
00:34:13,560 --> 00:34:15,640
Speaker 1: a lot for working class tis Oh yeah, yah, I

651
00:34:15,680 --> 00:34:19,000
Speaker 1: mean benefits. The union movement is what set the standard

652
00:34:19,040 --> 00:34:22,520
Speaker 1: at forty hours, and so yeah, if you change it

653
00:34:22,560 --> 00:34:24,920
Speaker 1: to thirty two, that means anything that you're having to

654
00:34:24,960 --> 00:34:27,319
Speaker 1: work above and beyond that you're required to get time

655
00:34:27,320 --> 00:34:29,319
Speaker 1: and a half. So it matters a lot actually for

656
00:34:29,360 --> 00:34:31,920
Speaker 1: working class people, more so even than office workers who

657
00:34:31,960 --> 00:34:35,000
Speaker 1: are salaried and who. You know, if you're working in

658
00:34:35,040 --> 00:34:36,799
Speaker 1: a job where you've got to like track your time

659
00:34:36,800 --> 00:34:41,160
Speaker 1: for clients or whatever, that's one thing. But most office workers,

660
00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:45,399
Speaker 1: you know, they're either putting in already less than forty hours,

661
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:47,440
Speaker 1: they're putting in way more than that because they have

662
00:34:47,480 --> 00:34:49,840
Speaker 1: a totally insane, out of whack work life balance. I

663
00:34:49,840 --> 00:34:52,279
Speaker 1: also happen to love the law in France that they

664
00:34:52,320 --> 00:34:55,799
Speaker 1: were freaking out about that says basically, like, there is

665
00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:58,360
Speaker 1: a work time and there is also life outside of work.

666
00:34:58,600 --> 00:35:01,680
Speaker 1: I think that having as Americans, like, one of the

667
00:35:01,719 --> 00:35:05,040
Speaker 1: things that we actually sort of tiptoed into during the

668
00:35:05,080 --> 00:35:08,680
Speaker 1: pandemic was the understanding that there are things outside of

669
00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:12,480
Speaker 1: the workspace that matter, and that people are valuing things

670
00:35:12,520 --> 00:35:15,359
Speaker 1: like family time and you know, living in a more

671
00:35:15,440 --> 00:35:19,880
Speaker 1: sort of like affordable and comfortable environment and having that

672
00:35:20,000 --> 00:35:22,120
Speaker 1: kind of balance between what they're doing in the office

673
00:35:22,200 --> 00:35:26,440
Speaker 1: and what the rest of life actually looks like. Hi.

674
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:29,480
Speaker 1: I'm Maximilian Alvarez. I'm the editor in chief of the

675
00:35:29,480 --> 00:35:32,800
Speaker 1: Real News Network and host of the podcast Working People,

676
00:35:33,280 --> 00:35:35,239
Speaker 1: and I couldn't be more excited to be teaming up

677
00:35:35,239 --> 00:35:37,400
Speaker 1: with the Breaking Points crew to bring you all the

678
00:35:37,480 --> 00:35:41,520
Speaker 1: latest updates on workers struggles in the labor movement and

679
00:35:41,600 --> 00:35:44,719
Speaker 1: to provide what I hope will be information and analysis

680
00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:47,399
Speaker 1: that you can use to take back power in your

681
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:52,800
Speaker 1: workplace and beyond. This is the art of class war. Today,

682
00:35:52,840 --> 00:35:54,560
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about one of the

683
00:35:54,560 --> 00:35:58,120
Speaker 1: greatest weapons the ruling class has in its arsenal, a

684
00:35:58,160 --> 00:36:00,759
Speaker 1: weapon it has always known how to affec actively used

685
00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:05,880
Speaker 1: to keep working people down. Time At the most fundamental level,

686
00:36:06,480 --> 00:36:10,439
Speaker 1: working for a wage, working to survive means trading your

687
00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:14,759
Speaker 1: labor and your time to another for compensation. That is

688
00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:17,600
Speaker 1: time out of your day, out of your week, out

689
00:36:17,600 --> 00:36:21,480
Speaker 1: of your life, that is specifically reserved for work, where

690
00:36:21,480 --> 00:36:24,800
Speaker 1: the average person spends at least a third of their lives.

691
00:36:25,560 --> 00:36:28,280
Speaker 1: That is also time that is surrendered to the control

692
00:36:28,480 --> 00:36:33,279
Speaker 1: of someone else, someone or some entity or some algorithm

693
00:36:33,640 --> 00:36:37,279
Speaker 1: that determines what your work schedule is, how much that

694
00:36:37,360 --> 00:36:41,040
Speaker 1: schedule changes, and how much advanced notice you get about

695
00:36:41,080 --> 00:36:44,880
Speaker 1: said changes, What you do during that time on the clock,

696
00:36:45,480 --> 00:36:48,400
Speaker 1: the pace at which you do it, the length of

697
00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:51,640
Speaker 1: your work day, when your breaks and days off are,

698
00:36:52,040 --> 00:36:54,840
Speaker 1: and even the age at which you get to retire,

699
00:36:55,520 --> 00:36:59,760
Speaker 1: if you ever get to retire. Amazon workers are surveilled

700
00:36:59,800 --> 00:37:04,640
Speaker 1: too orwellian extents, getting docked for quote time off task,

701
00:37:05,280 --> 00:37:07,799
Speaker 1: some resorting to pissing in bottles so as not to

702
00:37:07,880 --> 00:37:12,879
Speaker 1: fall behind delivery quotas. Truck drivers, train conductors, and flight

703
00:37:12,920 --> 00:37:16,760
Speaker 1: attendants pump their bodies full of caffeine or whatever works

704
00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:21,360
Speaker 1: to keep them awake on long haul trips. Gig companies

705
00:37:21,840 --> 00:37:25,440
Speaker 1: tout the rates workers earn on the job while conveniently

706
00:37:25,480 --> 00:37:32,520
Speaker 1: omitting uncompensated time spent driving between orders. Understaffed hospital workers

707
00:37:32,640 --> 00:37:37,080
Speaker 1: have to serve more patients with less support, staying as

708
00:37:37,200 --> 00:37:40,600
Speaker 1: late as needed to properly log every single bit of

709
00:37:40,680 --> 00:37:47,040
Speaker 1: information about patients, tests, cross department communications, and routine tasks

710
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:53,000
Speaker 1: in their internal computer systems. Teachers with packed class loads

711
00:37:53,480 --> 00:37:58,760
Speaker 1: struggle to find time, often uncompensated time for sufficient prep.

712
00:37:59,719 --> 00:38:03,080
Speaker 1: Red tail and service workers can hardly plan their lives

713
00:38:03,160 --> 00:38:07,000
Speaker 1: outside of work or get other jobs when their shifts

714
00:38:07,120 --> 00:38:12,360
Speaker 1: change sporadically week to week, while many are deliberately underscheduled

715
00:38:12,440 --> 00:38:16,440
Speaker 1: as a cost saving measure or a disciplinary measure, or both.

716
00:38:16,800 --> 00:38:19,960
Speaker 1: Last year, many of the strikes and other labor actions

717
00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:23,560
Speaker 1: we saw involved workers at jobs that, during the COVID

718
00:38:23,640 --> 00:38:29,560
Speaker 1: nineteen pandemic experienced record demand, record profits, record increases in

719
00:38:29,640 --> 00:38:35,560
Speaker 1: revenues or endowments, from Kellogg's, Freedo, lay Nabisco and Smithfield

720
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:40,960
Speaker 1: Port Processing to Heaven's Hill Distillery, John Denaire Desserts, Saint

721
00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:46,319
Speaker 1: Vincent Hospital, John Deere, and even Columbia University. At many

722
00:38:46,360 --> 00:38:50,360
Speaker 1: of these jobs, workers reported being pushed into forced overtime

723
00:38:50,440 --> 00:38:54,880
Speaker 1: to meet the increased demand, getting less time with their families,

724
00:38:55,360 --> 00:39:00,719
Speaker 1: less time to rest, less time to heal, while bosses, executives,

725
00:39:00,719 --> 00:39:04,680
Speaker 1: and shareholders were practically swimming in pools of money like

726
00:39:04,719 --> 00:39:09,799
Speaker 1: Scrooge McDuck. In so many ways, labor's struggle is the

727
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:13,440
Speaker 1: struggle for time. Along with our bodies, it is the

728
00:39:13,480 --> 00:39:17,719
Speaker 1: most precious and finite resource we have to offer. This

729
00:39:17,880 --> 00:39:21,879
Speaker 1: is why, as historians frequently point out, the fight over

730
00:39:21,920 --> 00:39:25,920
Speaker 1: the workday is perhaps the most common denominator connecting the

731
00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:29,799
Speaker 1: different strands and iterations of the labor movement. This is

732
00:39:29,840 --> 00:39:33,160
Speaker 1: why we rightly celebrate things like the weekend and paid

733
00:39:33,239 --> 00:39:37,680
Speaker 1: leave as worker won victories. This is why we still

734
00:39:37,719 --> 00:39:41,560
Speaker 1: remember the refrain eight hours for work, eight hours for rest,

735
00:39:42,080 --> 00:39:45,640
Speaker 1: eight hours for what we will, even though the merciless,

736
00:39:45,760 --> 00:39:50,000
Speaker 1: insatiable drive of modern capitalism has made it increasingly impossible

737
00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:54,200
Speaker 1: for working people today to realize that century's old dream

738
00:39:55,560 --> 00:39:58,720
Speaker 1: workers know the value of their time. That is why

739
00:39:58,760 --> 00:40:01,759
Speaker 1: so many continued to fight for it, and that is

740
00:40:01,800 --> 00:40:05,120
Speaker 1: why this fight has brought and will keep bringing divided

741
00:40:05,160 --> 00:40:09,560
Speaker 1: segments of the working class together. One particular example that

742
00:40:09,640 --> 00:40:13,800
Speaker 1: has been unforgivably ignored or barely covered by corporate and

743
00:40:13,920 --> 00:40:16,880
Speaker 1: right wing media, but that has thankfully been featured on

744
00:40:16,960 --> 00:40:20,920
Speaker 1: Breaking Points many times, along with outlets like The Real News,

745
00:40:21,440 --> 00:40:24,720
Speaker 1: Labor Notes, and The Valley Labor Report, is the Warrior

746
00:40:24,760 --> 00:40:29,200
Speaker 1: met Coal strike. As of April first, eleven hundred striking

747
00:40:29,320 --> 00:40:32,600
Speaker 1: union mind workers and their families in Alabama have been

748
00:40:32,640 --> 00:40:36,680
Speaker 1: on strike for over a year, holding the line under

749
00:40:36,760 --> 00:40:41,680
Speaker 1: great duress, great financial strain, violence from scabs on the

750
00:40:41,680 --> 00:40:46,560
Speaker 1: picket line and business friendly courts stripping their federally protected

751
00:40:46,640 --> 00:40:51,439
Speaker 1: rights to picket again. If we're talking about time, think

752
00:40:51,440 --> 00:40:56,120
Speaker 1: about how long a year actually is. This time last year,

753
00:40:56,600 --> 00:40:59,960
Speaker 1: all eyes were on the first Amazon union vote in Bessemer, Albai.

754
00:41:00,960 --> 00:41:03,600
Speaker 1: A coup had just taken place in me and Mark

755
00:41:04,040 --> 00:41:07,560
Speaker 1: and Joe Biden was two months into his presidential term.

756
00:41:08,320 --> 00:41:11,000
Speaker 1: The Warrior Met coal strike is already one of the

757
00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:14,279
Speaker 1: longest in the country's history, and is suspected to be

758
00:41:14,320 --> 00:41:18,520
Speaker 1: the longest strike in Alabama's history, and every single day

759
00:41:18,719 --> 00:41:21,919
Speaker 1: has been a struggle to mark the one year anniversary

760
00:41:21,960 --> 00:41:25,160
Speaker 1: of the day the Warrior Mets strike began. The United

761
00:41:25,200 --> 00:41:28,200
Speaker 1: mind Workers of America held a rally earlier this month

762
00:41:28,280 --> 00:41:31,640
Speaker 1: in Tannehill State Park for the Real News, the brilliant

763
00:41:31,680 --> 00:41:35,040
Speaker 1: journalist Kim Kelly, who is hands down covered this strike

764
00:41:35,200 --> 00:41:39,600
Speaker 1: more consistently and with more compassion and dedication than anyone

765
00:41:39,600 --> 00:41:42,439
Speaker 1: else in the country. Went to the rally to talk

766
00:41:42,480 --> 00:41:45,759
Speaker 1: to workers about their year of struggle and why they

767
00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:49,040
Speaker 1: won't back down. Here's a bit of Kim's interview with

768
00:41:49,120 --> 00:41:52,359
Speaker 1: Greg Pilkerton, a mine worker who has been injured by

769
00:41:52,400 --> 00:41:55,600
Speaker 1: company goons on the picket line who talks about his

770
00:41:55,640 --> 00:42:01,960
Speaker 1: fight after really around to see what's going on. Because

771
00:42:03,120 --> 00:42:08,600
Speaker 1: I'm a coal miner and I'm not set up to

772
00:42:08,640 --> 00:42:13,080
Speaker 1: be the Amazon worker or the or the Walmart worker.

773
00:42:13,360 --> 00:42:15,600
Speaker 1: You know, it takes them people to do their job,

774
00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:18,560
Speaker 1: and it takes me to do mine. So if it's

775
00:42:18,600 --> 00:42:21,560
Speaker 1: not over this time next year and we do an interview,

776
00:42:21,560 --> 00:42:25,960
Speaker 1: I'll still be standing here. Bere to be longer, but

777
00:42:39,080 --> 00:42:46,200
Speaker 1: I'm still here. That's as important. Thank y' all, Thanks

778
00:42:46,200 --> 00:42:51,879
Speaker 1: for everybody that's done everything that they've done. It means

779
00:42:51,920 --> 00:42:56,120
Speaker 1: a ton. I can't not honor my dad's legacy and

780
00:42:56,239 --> 00:42:59,040
Speaker 1: the u NWA's legacy, and my family legacy and my

781
00:42:59,280 --> 00:43:04,280
Speaker 1: rest of my cold legacy. Too much has been given

782
00:43:04,280 --> 00:43:07,120
Speaker 1: and it has been fought too hard for So we

783
00:43:07,160 --> 00:43:11,640
Speaker 1: are going nowhere this time. Last year, when the strike began,

784
00:43:12,400 --> 00:43:16,520
Speaker 1: workers repeatedly stressed that time was one of the most

785
00:43:16,560 --> 00:43:20,239
Speaker 1: central issues in their fight against the company. After the

786
00:43:20,280 --> 00:43:23,640
Speaker 1: previous contract was forced on the union because the previous

787
00:43:23,680 --> 00:43:27,240
Speaker 1: owner of the mind went bankrupt, workers reported not only

788
00:43:27,320 --> 00:43:32,200
Speaker 1: drastic changes to their pay and benefits, but to their schedules,

789
00:43:32,239 --> 00:43:35,239
Speaker 1: along with the additional hours spent just getting to the

790
00:43:35,360 --> 00:43:38,120
Speaker 1: job site, driving out to the mines in the middle

791
00:43:38,120 --> 00:43:42,200
Speaker 1: of nowhere and descending deep into the earth. Workers describe

792
00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:44,839
Speaker 1: being required to work six days a week, with their

793
00:43:44,880 --> 00:43:48,680
Speaker 1: one day off never really being predictable. Sometimes it was

794
00:43:48,719 --> 00:43:52,080
Speaker 1: a Tuesday, sometimes it was a Friday, and for many

795
00:43:52,560 --> 00:43:56,279
Speaker 1: seven days a week was the norm. They also described

796
00:43:56,280 --> 00:44:00,560
Speaker 1: a draconian four strike attendance policy, leading worker to get

797
00:44:00,600 --> 00:44:05,280
Speaker 1: fired or risk termination for any excused or unexcused absence,

798
00:44:05,760 --> 00:44:10,240
Speaker 1: including visiting a spouse in the hospital. As coal miners

799
00:44:10,320 --> 00:44:13,080
Speaker 1: wives also described to Kim Kelly at the Real News,

800
00:44:13,640 --> 00:44:16,840
Speaker 1: many of them have gotten used to having quote absentee

801
00:44:17,160 --> 00:44:22,479
Speaker 1: spouses since the news schedules changed. Unable to meaningfully live

802
00:44:22,600 --> 00:44:26,280
Speaker 1: and plan their lives outside of their grueling work, miners

803
00:44:26,280 --> 00:44:30,600
Speaker 1: felt deep in their bones how every day spent thousands

804
00:44:30,600 --> 00:44:33,880
Speaker 1: of feet underground is a day lost as their children

805
00:44:34,000 --> 00:44:37,800
Speaker 1: grow and their parents' age above ground. What I have

806
00:44:37,920 --> 00:44:41,560
Speaker 1: heard over and over again from Warrior met coal workers

807
00:44:41,680 --> 00:44:45,600
Speaker 1: is as heartbreaking as it is simple. Quote we just

808
00:44:45,680 --> 00:44:50,560
Speaker 1: want to see our families end quote. The Umwa motto,

809
00:44:50,800 --> 00:44:54,400
Speaker 1: which has become something of a mantra for strikers, is

810
00:44:54,480 --> 00:44:59,080
Speaker 1: one day longer, one day stronger, meaning however long the

811
00:44:59,120 --> 00:45:02,560
Speaker 1: company holds out, workers keep saying that they just need

812
00:45:02,600 --> 00:45:07,440
Speaker 1: to hold out one day more. This strike embodies one

813
00:45:07,440 --> 00:45:11,560
Speaker 1: of labour's most enduring and defining struggles, the struggle to

814
00:45:11,600 --> 00:45:15,359
Speaker 1: control our own time. The fight over the working day

815
00:45:15,480 --> 00:45:18,520
Speaker 1: and who gets to control the majority of a worker's life,

816
00:45:18,680 --> 00:45:22,279
Speaker 1: has been perhaps the most consistent and common driver of

817
00:45:22,320 --> 00:45:25,600
Speaker 1: the labor movement, and has been a strong unifying force,

818
00:45:25,719 --> 00:45:31,279
Speaker 1: bringing people from different jobs, sectors, trades, races, genders, and

819
00:45:31,360 --> 00:45:35,239
Speaker 1: all other walks of life together. As Philip Phoner and

820
00:45:35,320 --> 00:45:38,600
Speaker 1: David Rodeger write in their book Our Own Time, A

821
00:45:38,719 --> 00:45:42,200
Speaker 1: History of American Labor in the Working Day, Contrary to

822
00:45:42,239 --> 00:45:44,920
Speaker 1: the varied fights by different trades and different types of

823
00:45:44,920 --> 00:45:49,440
Speaker 1: workers for better wages and working conditions, quote, the reduction

824
00:45:49,560 --> 00:45:52,880
Speaker 1: of working hours constituted the prime demand in the class

825
00:45:52,920 --> 00:45:57,839
Speaker 1: conflicts that spawned America's first industrial strike, its first citywide

826
00:45:57,880 --> 00:46:02,560
Speaker 1: trade union councils, its first labor party, its first general strikes,

827
00:46:03,080 --> 00:46:08,360
Speaker 1: it's first organizing uniting skilled and unskilled workers, its first

828
00:46:08,400 --> 00:46:12,000
Speaker 1: strike by females, and its first attempts at regional and

829
00:46:12,160 --> 00:46:17,280
Speaker 1: national labor organization. Reduction of hours became an explosive demand,

830
00:46:17,400 --> 00:46:21,760
Speaker 1: partly because of its unique capacity to unify workers across

831
00:46:21,800 --> 00:46:27,799
Speaker 1: the lines of craft, race, sex, skill, age, and ethnicity

832
00:46:28,360 --> 00:46:32,319
Speaker 1: end quote. So what is different now is these age

833
00:46:32,360 --> 00:46:35,719
Speaker 1: old struggles are still happening, but they are happening in

834
00:46:35,800 --> 00:46:40,560
Speaker 1: a techno dystopian twenty first century in which the mechanisms

835
00:46:40,600 --> 00:46:45,480
Speaker 1: for tracking, surveilling, and controlling our time are more sophisticated

836
00:46:45,520 --> 00:46:49,320
Speaker 1: than ever. They are also happening in a hyper mediated

837
00:46:49,520 --> 00:46:52,440
Speaker 1: environment in which we have all been conditioned to have

838
00:46:52,520 --> 00:46:57,120
Speaker 1: the long term memories of goldfish. That's what makes us

839
00:46:57,160 --> 00:47:03,080
Speaker 1: such loyal participants in a digital ecosystem where we become

840
00:47:03,320 --> 00:47:07,120
Speaker 1: eager data producers for an attention based economy that needs

841
00:47:07,200 --> 00:47:11,239
Speaker 1: us clicking and staring at our screens as much as possible,

842
00:47:12,160 --> 00:47:15,160
Speaker 1: but that bleeds over into other parts of our brains

843
00:47:15,200 --> 00:47:18,799
Speaker 1: and our hearts too. It eats away at our capacity

844
00:47:18,880 --> 00:47:22,120
Speaker 1: for long term commitments. It makes it harder for us

845
00:47:22,160 --> 00:47:26,480
Speaker 1: to sustain our attention and our solidarity and our compassion

846
00:47:26,520 --> 00:47:30,480
Speaker 1: for struggles that take time, like the Warrior met coal strike.

847
00:47:31,600 --> 00:47:35,560
Speaker 1: In this way, the attention economy is a labor issue,

848
00:47:36,080 --> 00:47:39,080
Speaker 1: because if we continue being the kind of people corporate

849
00:47:39,120 --> 00:47:42,640
Speaker 1: captured technology makes of us. If we allow it to

850
00:47:42,760 --> 00:47:46,200
Speaker 1: erode our capacity for commitment without putting up a fight,

851
00:47:46,680 --> 00:47:52,000
Speaker 1: we will lose. Because difficult campaigns will require years long

852
00:47:52,040 --> 00:47:55,319
Speaker 1: battles to make an impact. We have to be in

853
00:47:55,360 --> 00:47:59,560
Speaker 1: it for the long haul. Commitment, as writer Pete Davis

854
00:47:59,560 --> 00:48:02,719
Speaker 1: would say in his book Dedicated, is the thing we

855
00:48:02,800 --> 00:48:06,359
Speaker 1: most need if we're going to start fixing this broken world.

856
00:48:07,040 --> 00:48:10,920
Speaker 1: And here's the thing. Workers fighting for the respect and

857
00:48:10,960 --> 00:48:15,440
Speaker 1: dignity and treatment and compensation and safety that they deserve

858
00:48:15,640 --> 00:48:19,160
Speaker 1: is part of that fixing. It's a big damn part

859
00:48:19,440 --> 00:48:24,359
Speaker 1: that requires sustained commitments. Because once we start going Umatherman

860
00:48:24,480 --> 00:48:28,240
Speaker 1: and we start wiggling that big toe, once working people

861
00:48:28,360 --> 00:48:33,120
Speaker 1: start building power, and as Sarah Nelson says, once workers

862
00:48:33,160 --> 00:48:36,839
Speaker 1: start taking hold of the power they already have, once

863
00:48:36,880 --> 00:48:40,560
Speaker 1: we stop fighting each other and start fighting for each other,

864
00:48:41,320 --> 00:48:44,200
Speaker 1: once we come together in the struggle to make life

865
00:48:44,320 --> 00:48:48,920
Speaker 1: better for Once that power grows from the shop floor

866
00:48:49,200 --> 00:48:52,720
Speaker 1: to the statehouse. Working people's power to shape the world

867
00:48:52,840 --> 00:48:56,920
Speaker 1: grows when we are in the struggle together. If we

868
00:48:57,000 --> 00:48:59,680
Speaker 1: want to be part of that change, if we want

869
00:48:59,719 --> 00:49:02,520
Speaker 1: to be a part of the labor movement, and if

870
00:49:02,520 --> 00:49:05,160
Speaker 1: we want to help grow the movement for working people

871
00:49:05,200 --> 00:49:08,399
Speaker 1: to have more power in this world. Then we have

872
00:49:08,480 --> 00:49:11,759
Speaker 1: to stay committed to these struggles. And this is exactly

873
00:49:11,800 --> 00:49:15,400
Speaker 1: what the bosses and the ruling class in general desperately

874
00:49:15,440 --> 00:49:19,040
Speaker 1: want to prevent. This is why they use time as

875
00:49:19,040 --> 00:49:22,520
Speaker 1: a weapon. This is why the go to strategy for

876
00:49:22,600 --> 00:49:25,920
Speaker 1: Warrior met Cole and its Wall Street investors is to

877
00:49:26,000 --> 00:49:29,520
Speaker 1: weight the strikers out, regardless of how much money they

878
00:49:29,560 --> 00:49:33,680
Speaker 1: lose in the process. They have seen time and again

879
00:49:34,200 --> 00:49:37,840
Speaker 1: how effective that strategy can be, especially in the twenty

880
00:49:37,880 --> 00:49:41,239
Speaker 1: first century, and not just in the realm of labor politics.

881
00:49:41,280 --> 00:49:45,160
Speaker 1: And I'll just give one example. In August of twenty nineteen,

882
00:49:45,719 --> 00:49:49,360
Speaker 1: Democrats around the country were on every major news network

883
00:49:49,480 --> 00:49:53,080
Speaker 1: calling for then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to push

884
00:49:53,120 --> 00:49:56,640
Speaker 1: through a Senate vote on HR eight, a bill that

885
00:49:56,680 --> 00:49:59,759
Speaker 1: had passed the House with bipartisan support in February of

886
00:49:59,800 --> 00:50:03,480
Speaker 1: that that year, which would require universal background checks for

887
00:50:03,560 --> 00:50:07,040
Speaker 1: all firearm sales in the country. Now, the increased pressure

888
00:50:07,080 --> 00:50:10,680
Speaker 1: from Democrats at the time, which was itself a response

889
00:50:10,760 --> 00:50:15,399
Speaker 1: to increased pressure from scared and pissed off constituents, came

890
00:50:15,440 --> 00:50:17,879
Speaker 1: in the wake of two mass shootings that occurred within

891
00:50:18,080 --> 00:50:22,480
Speaker 1: one day of each other. In the first, Patrick wood Crusius,

892
00:50:22,520 --> 00:50:25,920
Speaker 1: a white supremacist terrorist, went on a shooting spree at

893
00:50:25,920 --> 00:50:29,920
Speaker 1: a Walmart supercenter in El Paso, Texas, killing twenty three

894
00:50:29,960 --> 00:50:34,160
Speaker 1: people and injuring dozens more. Then, the very next day,

895
00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:37,880
Speaker 1: Connor Betts shot and killed nine people and wounded seventeen

896
00:50:37,920 --> 00:50:41,800
Speaker 1: others in Dayton, Ohio. At that point in twenty nineteen,

897
00:50:42,400 --> 00:50:46,320
Speaker 1: the US Chamber of the Senate was in its August recess.

898
00:50:46,920 --> 00:50:49,319
Speaker 1: In the days and weeks after the Dayton in El

899
00:50:49,360 --> 00:50:54,720
Speaker 1: Paso shootings, Congressional Democrats breathlessly called for McConnell to recall

900
00:50:54,760 --> 00:50:59,000
Speaker 1: the Chamber and put HR eight to a vote. He didn't.

901
00:50:59,360 --> 00:51:02,479
Speaker 1: Then another other deadly shooting took place in the West

902
00:51:02,520 --> 00:51:06,720
Speaker 1: Texas cities of Midland and Odessa on August twenty ninth,

903
00:51:07,200 --> 00:51:11,200
Speaker 1: and pressures continued to mount. McConnell said that he would

904
00:51:11,239 --> 00:51:14,240
Speaker 1: only bring HR eight to a vote if then President

905
00:51:14,280 --> 00:51:18,960
Speaker 1: Trump supported it. He didn't. The bill became another rotting

906
00:51:19,120 --> 00:51:23,880
Speaker 1: legislative corps on McConnell's desk at the time. Don Bayer,

907
00:51:24,560 --> 00:51:29,560
Speaker 1: Democratic Representative for Virginia's eighth congressional district, actually some things

908
00:51:29,640 --> 00:51:34,400
Speaker 1: up quite pointedly. Quote Mitch McConnell isn't doing anything about it.

909
00:51:34,880 --> 00:51:37,680
Speaker 1: That isn't because he doesn't know about the problem or

910
00:51:37,680 --> 00:51:40,640
Speaker 1: how to solve it. We know precisely why Mitch McConnell

911
00:51:40,719 --> 00:51:43,760
Speaker 1: isn't here. He is waiting for the outrage to die down,

912
00:51:44,239 --> 00:51:47,080
Speaker 1: for the headlines to change, and people to turn the

913
00:51:47,120 --> 00:51:52,920
Speaker 1: page and go on. It's what he always does. End quote. Now,

914
00:51:53,040 --> 00:51:55,040
Speaker 1: I want to be very clear that this is not

915
00:51:55,239 --> 00:51:58,640
Speaker 1: a segment about Mitch McConnell and the Republicans, nor is

916
00:51:58,680 --> 00:52:01,800
Speaker 1: it about Democrats and the endless debate about gun control

917
00:52:02,040 --> 00:52:06,200
Speaker 1: and mass shootings in America. I'm bringing up McConnell because

918
00:52:06,280 --> 00:52:10,880
Speaker 1: he is probably the most recognizable practitioner of the ruling

919
00:52:10,960 --> 00:52:15,640
Speaker 1: class serving weaponization of time. He can sit there and

920
00:52:15,719 --> 00:52:18,279
Speaker 1: take the hits and just wait us out, and it

921
00:52:18,480 --> 00:52:21,960
Speaker 1: just keeps working. But the point here is that this

922
00:52:22,160 --> 00:52:26,520
Speaker 1: tactic is a staple for employers and shareholders looking to

923
00:52:26,600 --> 00:52:32,279
Speaker 1: break strikes, wear down unionization efforts, and demoralize workers. And

924
00:52:32,360 --> 00:52:36,000
Speaker 1: you can find other examples all over the place. Kellogg's

925
00:52:36,440 --> 00:52:40,359
Speaker 1: tried to sweat out fourteen hundred striking workers using the

926
00:52:40,400 --> 00:52:44,720
Speaker 1: looming holidays and the cold weather as an additional demoralizing agent.

927
00:52:45,480 --> 00:52:50,520
Speaker 1: Tenant Healthcare, the company that owns Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts,

928
00:52:50,960 --> 00:52:55,040
Speaker 1: tried to starve out its striking nurses for almost a year,

929
00:52:55,840 --> 00:52:58,879
Speaker 1: and Warrior Met Cole is doing the exact same thing

930
00:52:59,400 --> 00:53:03,280
Speaker 1: to the strike miners. They are banking on us forgetting

931
00:53:03,280 --> 00:53:07,319
Speaker 1: about them. They are banking on our attention waning and

932
00:53:07,400 --> 00:53:12,319
Speaker 1: our outrage dissipating. Don't prove them right, don't let them win.

933
00:53:13,360 --> 00:53:16,000
Speaker 1: What I'm saying is we all have a role to

934
00:53:16,040 --> 00:53:18,920
Speaker 1: play here, but it's going to take work. It's going

935
00:53:19,000 --> 00:53:22,520
Speaker 1: to take fighting against the forces that turn time against

936
00:53:22,600 --> 00:53:25,880
Speaker 1: us and that in turn lead us to turn away

937
00:53:26,239 --> 00:53:30,359
Speaker 1: from each other. We can't just keep excitedly jumping from

938
00:53:30,400 --> 00:53:35,360
Speaker 1: strike to strike, to unionization to unionization. Supporting all facets

939
00:53:35,360 --> 00:53:39,400
Speaker 1: of this movement is essential. Sharing the news is important,

940
00:53:39,840 --> 00:53:43,000
Speaker 1: but we also have to commit. We have to see

941
00:53:43,200 --> 00:53:46,440
Speaker 1: them through. We have to be there when it counts,

942
00:53:47,000 --> 00:53:50,600
Speaker 1: not just when it's trending online. I don't care if

943
00:53:50,640 --> 00:53:54,240
Speaker 1: it's raising money or just bringing coffee to a picket line.

944
00:53:54,840 --> 00:53:57,560
Speaker 1: Imagine you're a striking coal miner on the empty back

945
00:53:57,640 --> 00:54:02,000
Speaker 1: roads outside Warrior Met Coal in Alabama. Every single sign

946
00:54:02,120 --> 00:54:05,480
Speaker 1: that you are not alone in this, that other working

947
00:54:05,560 --> 00:54:08,760
Speaker 1: people are with you, is enough to keep you going

948
00:54:09,000 --> 00:54:13,400
Speaker 1: one day longer, one day stronger. No one has to

949
00:54:13,440 --> 00:54:17,960
Speaker 1: do everything here, but everyone can do something, even if

950
00:54:17,960 --> 00:54:22,040
Speaker 1: it's just continuing to demand justice for the railroad workers

951
00:54:22,080 --> 00:54:25,880
Speaker 1: who are suffering under their own abusive working and scheduling

952
00:54:25,960 --> 00:54:29,600
Speaker 1: conditions and who had their strike blocked by the company

953
00:54:29,760 --> 00:54:33,160
Speaker 1: and the courts, as was covered before on breaking Points,

954
00:54:33,920 --> 00:54:37,000
Speaker 1: and even if it's just making sure that we never

955
00:54:37,080 --> 00:54:43,800
Speaker 1: forget names like Evan Seifried, Jennifer Bates, Darryl Richardson, Christian Small's,

956
00:54:44,239 --> 00:54:49,640
Speaker 1: Angelica Maldonado, Marie Cruz Mesa and Carmen Angiano, Amanda and

957
00:54:49,760 --> 00:54:55,279
Speaker 1: Jeff Frankel, Betos Sanchez and Nebretta Harden Hayden and Braxton Wright,

958
00:54:55,719 --> 00:54:59,960
Speaker 1: and so so many more. This isn't just about us

959
00:55:00,120 --> 00:55:04,320
Speaker 1: being excited that workers are rising up, asserting their humanity

960
00:55:04,760 --> 00:55:08,600
Speaker 1: and demanding what they deserve. This is about us helping

961
00:55:08,640 --> 00:55:11,279
Speaker 1: one another climb out of the pit that we've been

962
00:55:11,320 --> 00:55:16,239
Speaker 1: put into by those in power. The labor movement has

963
00:55:16,320 --> 00:55:19,240
Speaker 1: to be in it to win, because that is damn

964
00:55:19,239 --> 00:55:21,680
Speaker 1: sure what the other side is trying to do with

965
00:55:21,840 --> 00:55:25,600
Speaker 1: much deeper pockets and control over powerful institutions that they

966
00:55:25,640 --> 00:55:29,399
Speaker 1: can use at their disposal. If we are going to win,

967
00:55:30,239 --> 00:55:33,160
Speaker 1: it is up to us to carry on labors, enduring fight,

968
00:55:33,800 --> 00:55:36,560
Speaker 1: and to take up each other's fights as our own.

969
00:55:37,600 --> 00:55:40,480
Speaker 1: We have to fight for our time, and we have

970
00:55:40,560 --> 00:55:43,960
Speaker 1: to fight against the way that time is being weaponized

971
00:55:44,000 --> 00:55:48,000
Speaker 1: against us, and we have to do it now, because,

972
00:55:48,000 --> 00:55:50,879
Speaker 1: as is always the case for every single one of us,

973
00:55:51,600 --> 00:55:55,120
Speaker 1: time is running out. The days that we are here

974
00:55:55,239 --> 00:55:59,560
Speaker 1: are not just abstract units of time passing by. They

975
00:55:59,600 --> 00:56:03,200
Speaker 1: are vicious moments of being on this earth during the

976
00:56:03,200 --> 00:56:08,319
Speaker 1: one life that we get. Use them well. Thank you

977
00:56:08,360 --> 00:56:11,600
Speaker 1: for watching my debut segment with breaking Points, and be

978
00:56:11,640 --> 00:56:13,879
Speaker 1: sure to subscribe to my news outlet, the Real News

979
00:56:13,920 --> 00:56:17,600
Speaker 1: Network with links in the description. See you soon for

980
00:56:17,640 --> 00:56:21,799
Speaker 1: the next edition of the Art of Class War Solidarity

981
00:56:21,800 --> 00:56:22,160
Speaker 1: Forever