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Speaker 1: Cable news is ripping us apart, dividing the nation, making

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Speaker 1: it impossible to function as a society and to know

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Speaker 1: what is true and what is false. The good news

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Speaker 1: is that they're failing and they know it. That is

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Speaker 1: why we're building something new. Be part of creating a new, better, healthier,

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Speaker 1: member today at breakingpoints dot com. Your hard earned money

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Speaker 1: is going to help us build for the midterms and

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Speaker 1: the upcoming presidential election so we can provide unparalleled coverage

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Speaker 1: of what is sure to be one of the most

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Speaker 1: pivotal moments in American history. So what are you waiting for?

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Speaker 1: Go to Breakingpoints dot com to help us out. Join

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Speaker 1: us now for our weekly partnership segment, we have Matthew

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Speaker 1: Cunningham Cook, a wonderful reporter with lever Neews who has

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Speaker 1: a great new report out this week about some tactics

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Speaker 1: the government could use to push back against Amazon's union busting. Matthew,

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Speaker 1: Great to see you, Good to see you, matt Thanks

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Speaker 1: for having me on. Guys, appreciate absolutely our pleasure. All right,

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Speaker 1: So first off, so I don't forget the lever has

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Speaker 1: also just launched a new YouTube channel. I think we

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Speaker 1: have screen shot there. I've watched some of these videos.

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Speaker 1: Whoever is putting them together is doing a phenomenal job.

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Speaker 1: So highly recommend everybody go over and subscribe and check

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Speaker 1: out the content there. But let's get to your story.

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Speaker 1: Put the tear sheet up on the screen there, Colvin,

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Speaker 1: We've got Amazon's union busting is subsidized by the government.

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Speaker 1: The retailer's anti labor activities could be violating the terms

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Speaker 1: of multimillion subsidy deals it has scored in New York. Matthew,

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Speaker 1: go ahead and break down this report for us. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: what we found is that Amazon has received three hundred

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Speaker 1: and eighty seven million dollars in subsidies from state and

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Speaker 1: local governments in New York. That's nearly ten percent of

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Speaker 1: all of the subsidies that Amazon has received nationwide four

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Speaker 1: point one billion from state and local governments. And we

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Speaker 1: looked through the original documents and they say that Amazon

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Speaker 1: needs to be in compliance with the law to receive

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Speaker 1: these subsidies, and in most cases needs to be in

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Speaker 1: compliance specifically with labor law to receive these subsidies. And

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Speaker 1: what we've found with the NLRB investigating firings by Amazon

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Speaker 1: related to union organizing is that they aren't consistently in

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Speaker 1: compliance with labor law. And there's also tons of health

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Speaker 1: and safety violations that frequently occur at Amazon warehouses that

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Speaker 1: indicate they're not in compliance with the law. So really,

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Speaker 1: we found that the onus ultimately is on the state

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Speaker 1: Attorney General Tis James to do an investigation as to

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Speaker 1: whether or not Amazon is in compliance with the law

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Speaker 1: and then let these agencies know, these state and local

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Speaker 1: agencies know that Amazon is not in compliance with the

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Speaker 1: law clearly, and so you need to suspend these subsidies

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Speaker 1: until they can attest to compliance. Yeah, so let's go

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Speaker 1: into this again and just really measure out the scope

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Speaker 1: of this. So what are the exact levers of power

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Speaker 1: available in order to hold Amazon accountable? Yeah? If the

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Speaker 1: Attorney General launches an investigation and it can be very quick,

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Speaker 1: you know, thirty days, and then says Amazon is not

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Speaker 1: in compliance with the law and sends a letter to

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Speaker 1: these agencies, then theoretically the subsidies are supposed to stop.

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Speaker 1: So it's really a significant amount of money, a significant

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Speaker 1: amount of value added to Amazon's bottom line that democrats

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Speaker 1: in New York can stop until Amazon comes to the table,

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Speaker 1: recognizes Amazon labor Union and sits down at the table

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Speaker 1: across from Chris Malls and Derek Palmer and negotiates a

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Speaker 1: contract in good faith. There's going to be conflicts here,

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Speaker 1: you know. The Amazon has been very generous with the

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Speaker 1: Democratic Governors Association making a substainible contribution, and right after

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Speaker 1: the d GA endorsed Governor Kathy Hokeel, who despite she

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Speaker 1: faith the fact that she faces a very competitive primary

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Speaker 1: from both the right and the left, the DJA has

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Speaker 1: endorsed her. Amazon's pumped money, uh. And there they've pumped

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Speaker 1: money into the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which is chaired

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Speaker 1: by Andreas Stewart Cousins, who's the Senate majority leader in

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Speaker 1: New York State. So this is really uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: any any type of action against Amazon is going to

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Speaker 1: run up against some really powerful interests. And that's what

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Speaker 1: I think really underscores the importance of independent media like

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Speaker 1: you guys Krystal and Sauger, And what we do with

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Speaker 1: the lever is, uh, there really needs to be sustained,

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Speaker 1: consistent attention devoted to these massive subsidy deals that legacy

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Speaker 1: media has not devoted substantial attention to UH to be

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Speaker 1: able to ensure that this issue continues to stay in

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Speaker 1: the public consciousness and is addressed in Albany like it

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Speaker 1: needs to be. Yeah, I think that's really well said.

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Speaker 1: And the last one I have to mention here is

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Speaker 1: you surface also that Jessica Schumer, the daughter of Chuck Schumer,

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Speaker 1: is a registered lobbyist for Amazon in New York too,

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Speaker 1: So just goes to your point of They definitely have

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Speaker 1: some powerful friends, Jay Carney, you know, being there former

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Speaker 1: Press secretary to Barack Obama, now head of Amazon Worldwide Communications.

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Speaker 1: So they definitely have their tentacles in all of these places.

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Speaker 1: They will be using their money and influence and bullying

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Speaker 1: tactics whatever they can to make sure that they still

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Speaker 1: are getting the benefit of these subsidies and these massive contracts.

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Speaker 1: But listen, it should be very simple. If you are

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Speaker 1: in violation to law, you don't get taxpayer money. And

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Speaker 1: so you all are doing wonderful work pointing that out

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Speaker 1: and giving legislators who are sympathetic like Ron like Bernie

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Speaker 1: Sanders the tools that they need to be able to

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Speaker 1: make the case within their legislation. So thank you so much.

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Speaker 1: Matthew's great to see you. Thanks matt thanks for having

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Speaker 1: me on. Guys appreciate it always our pleasure, and thank

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Speaker 1: you guys so much for watching. We're gonna have more

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Speaker 1: for you later. Some interesting news in the podcast, Realm.

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Speaker 1: Let's put this up there on the screen. The Obamas

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Speaker 1: are leaving Spotify after they were unable to secure a deal,

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Speaker 1: and by that I mean whenever their contract came up

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Speaker 1: with their production company, Crystal, Spotify declined to make an offer,

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Speaker 1: essentially passing on the exclusive content that they had had.

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Speaker 1: And inside the story here is really interesting, which is basically,

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Speaker 1: the Obamas wanted a multi million dollar Spotify deal without

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Speaker 1: actually doing that much work. They only wanted to be

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Speaker 1: on their podcasts like eight times and the rest of

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Speaker 1: a year, by the way, and the rest of the

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Speaker 1: time they were like, well, well, we want to build

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Speaker 1: up a community like Highlight diverging voices, and Spotify was like,

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Speaker 1: we're not paying you for that. Also, your podcast is

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Speaker 1: not even that good. I mean, the one with Bruce

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Speaker 1: Springsteen was a disaster from internally in the company. And

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Speaker 1: you can just look at the charts internally within Spotify

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Speaker 1: in order to determine that I mean a lot of

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Speaker 1: these Spotify deals like Harry and Megan who have yet

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Speaker 1: to work since like December, despite signing some one hundred

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Speaker 1: million dollar deal or whatever, have not been good for

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Speaker 1: the company, and the company is learning, which is that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know who drives views and or who drives downloads,

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Speaker 1: Joe Rogan, Tim Dillon, Andrews. I mean all of these

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Speaker 1: people who are online natives with real audiences. These fake

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Speaker 1: big names like Obama on them. It maybe give you

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Speaker 1: a pop in the beginning, but you got to do

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Speaker 1: that stuff consistently. Yeah, and the Obamas simply don't want

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Speaker 1: to put in the work, so now they're taking their

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Speaker 1: podcast elsewhere. I think there's also in terms of how

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Speaker 1: people feel about the Obamas, there's no doubt that there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of like a reservoir of goodwill towards back

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Speaker 1: and towards Michelle. But in terms of being like media

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Speaker 1: personalities where people really want to, like, you know, show

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Speaker 1: up to listen to them every single week, I just

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Speaker 1: don't think. I mean this, there's evidence here to say

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Speaker 1: that that's not really what people are looking for. I

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Speaker 1: thought it was interesting too that according to this piece,

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Speaker 1: they said the Obamas were also reported to be frustrated

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Speaker 1: that the exclusivity deal with Spotify was preventing them from

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Speaker 1: reaching wider audiences on more platforms, which is kind of

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Speaker 1: a way of saying, like, our numbers here weren't very good,

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Speaker 1: and they're blaming the platform rather than the content that

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Speaker 1: they ultimately were putting out there. So it is interesting,

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Speaker 1: and it's once again a kind of indictment of legacy, establishment,

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Speaker 1: ideology and personalities, where yeah, there may be a sort

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Speaker 1: of generalized affection towards them, but actually the willingness to

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Speaker 1: show up tune in routinely was clearly just not there.

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Speaker 1: So I wonder if they, I mean, they may just

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Speaker 1: drop the whole podcast thing all together. I wonder if

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Speaker 1: they are going to go somewhere else. It looks like

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Speaker 1: what they're doing is they want to sign a deal

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Speaker 1: with iHeartRadio, because like you said, they're blaming the fact

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Speaker 1: that it was on a walled garden of Spotify. It's like, no,

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Speaker 1: Spotify is not the problem. You can do super well

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Speaker 1: on Spotify, Joe Rogan asking im, our audience on Spotify

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Speaker 1: is huge, But whenever you go and you take a

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Speaker 1: look at what they want, what they really want is

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Speaker 1: to have shows where they don't actually have to do

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Speaker 1: the work. I just love how even when you look

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Speaker 1: at it, like they barely appear even on their own

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Speaker 1: podcasts and they've been highlighted, which is I think the

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Speaker 1: fact is they don't actually want to weigh in. They

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Speaker 1: don't want to do the work. They don't want to

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Speaker 1: have to do the work necessary to build an audience,

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Speaker 1: and they just want to rely on their star power

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Speaker 1: and then build out, build out, you know, other voices.

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Speaker 1: You know. Obama's Netflix show reportedly has been a total disaster.

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Speaker 1: His parks one. Netflix is not highlighting it on their homepage.

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Speaker 1: You have to go and really find it. Also, it

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Speaker 1: was supposed to be about national parks, but it's about

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Speaker 1: national parks in other countries as well, which is weird.

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Speaker 1: Giving me he's the American president and mind seeing. I mean, look,

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Speaker 1: I'd be happy to look, but I'm just saying it's strange.

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Speaker 1: And I didn't know they were doing that, doing some

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Speaker 1: series on national parks. Obama, Yeah, they had. He had

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Speaker 1: a whole series on that. He's like touring the national

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Speaker 1: parks like our like basically trying to do it a

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Speaker 1: Ken Burns like two point zero thing, and to do

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Speaker 1: that that sounds like good. I would love to do

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Speaker 1: it too. Guess what, Ken Burns already did it. So

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Speaker 1: unless I have a great angle, and I'm not even

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Speaker 1: Barack Obama, I'm not sure exactly if that show can

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Speaker 1: be sold. But I think the real point is here

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Speaker 1: is that their translation of star Power to streaming not

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Speaker 1: necessarily going the way that it wants. And it's very

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Speaker 1: telling to me that Spotify was like, now we're good.

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Speaker 1: We're not going to pay you hundreds of millions of

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Speaker 1: dollars or tens of millions of dollars to produce eight

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Speaker 1: podcasts given the attraction. Here's the thing, only the Obama's

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Speaker 1: and Spotify actually know the numbers on that pod. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And the fact that Spotify was like, we're not giving

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Speaker 1: you money in order to keep doing this, that's a

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Speaker 1: very bad song. I think it's also very consistent with

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Speaker 1: Obama's whole personality and EMMO while he was president, which

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Speaker 1: is like he didn't want to get his hands dirty exactly,

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Speaker 1: didn't really want to wait into like the messiness of politics.

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Speaker 1: He wanted to a pine on the things that he

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Speaker 1: wanted to opine on, and that was it, and so yeah,

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Speaker 1: when you're you know, content creator and you're in this business,

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Speaker 1: you got to wait in on all kinds off, on

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Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff. At this point, the only things

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Speaker 1: he really cares to talk about are things that have

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Speaker 1: to do with his legacy, you know, showing up here

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Speaker 1: at the White House around the Affordable Care Act, intervening

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Speaker 1: in the Democratic primary to make sure someone who supports

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Speaker 1: Medicare for All couldn't sort of upstage his principal achievement

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Speaker 1: during the Obama years. Those are the things that he

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Speaker 1: gets directly involved in. Is willing to get his hands

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Speaker 1: dirty on sort of the general day to day of

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Speaker 1: politics and weighing in on whatever issues are going on

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Speaker 1: in the days. He's not there for that and really

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Speaker 1: never has been. Oh well, it's a fitting thing to

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Speaker 1: the Obama career, his Netflix show, his Spotify and all

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Speaker 1: of that lapsing. I think it's really a tel even

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Speaker 1: when you combine it with CNN Plus, which is that

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Speaker 1: this establishment type content, It just doesn't do well. You

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Speaker 1: can't force people to watch it, and when they're forced

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Speaker 1: to really compete out here in the game, you just

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Speaker 1: see how quickly a lot of yeah, kind of road.

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Speaker 1: That was kind of the point Sarah Fisher was making

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Speaker 1: to us in a very like neutral and play. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: but you know, if you are going to survive on

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Speaker 1: a walled garden platform something like Spotify, you have to

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Speaker 1: really have that fervent base of support or people are

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Speaker 1: willing to make an effort to show up for you

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Speaker 1: if you have. The Obamas have sought to create this

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Speaker 1: sort of just like broad sense of you know, general

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Speaker 1: sort of warmth towards them ye versus the die hard

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Speaker 1: audience that is going to show up for you wherever

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Speaker 1: you are or pay for a subscription to hear what

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Speaker 1: you have to say. And so it's in that way

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Speaker 1: it probably never did really make sense this exclusive deal

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Speaker 1: they did with Spotify. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right.

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Speaker 1: All right, guys, thanks for watching. More for you later.

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Speaker 1: All right, guys, we have some new hard numbers to

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Speaker 1: explain to you exactly what is causing the massive inflation

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Speaker 1: spikes that we have ultimately seen. This comes courtesy of

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Speaker 1: the Economic Policy Institute. Let's throw this report up on

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Speaker 1: the screen. According to their research and analysis, corporate profits

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Speaker 1: have contributed proportionally to inflation. They ask the question, how

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Speaker 1: should policy makers respond, So there are basically three inputs

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Speaker 1: to potential inflation here corporate profits, non labor input costs,

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Speaker 1: and unit labor costs. So non input non labor input

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Speaker 1: costs are sort of like supply chain issues, is what

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Speaker 1: that could be, and so what they what they find

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Speaker 1: here is that since the trough of the COVID nineteen

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Speaker 1: recession the second quart of twenty twenty, overall prices in

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Speaker 1: the non financial sector have risen at an annualized rate

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Speaker 1: of six point one percent. That's a pronounced acceleration over

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Speaker 1: the one point eight percent price growth that characterized the

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Speaker 1: pre pandemic business cycle. So huge inflation, and they say

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Speaker 1: strikingly over half of this increase fifty four percent can

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Speaker 1: be attributed to fatter profit margins, with labor cost contributing

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Speaker 1: less than eight percent of this increase. This is not normal,

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Speaker 1: They go on to say, from nineteen seventy nine to

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Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, profits only contribute about eleven percent to price

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Speaker 1: growth and labor costs over sixty percent. Non labor inputs,

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Speaker 1: a decent indicator for supply chain snarls, are also driving

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Speaker 1: up prices more than usual in the current economic recovery.

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Speaker 1: These are hard numbers to put to what we already

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Speaker 1: knew based on what corporate CEOs were saying on their

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Speaker 1: earnings calls of basically like, oh, since there's a little

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Speaker 1: bit of inflation, we can use that to justify price

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Speaker 1: increases above and beyond what our input costs actually would require.

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Speaker 1: And also we knew this was the case because when

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Speaker 1: you look at corporate profit margins, they are through the roof.

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Speaker 1: So it wasn't like they were being you know, there

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Speaker 1: are definitely supply chain issues, no doubt about it, but

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Speaker 1: it was not like they were being squeezed the extent

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Speaker 1: where they had to raise prices to the extent that

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Speaker 1: they have. Instead, they have taken this as an excuse

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Speaker 1: to have fatter profit margins. And let me go ahead

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Speaker 1: and channel Matt Stoller and say, part of why they

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Speaker 1: are able to do that is because of massive monopoly

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Speaker 1: consolidation across so many different duas well. Actually right that

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Speaker 1: they're like, you know, it's like corporate greed got worse

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Speaker 1: in the last forty years. It's that they have the

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Speaker 1: ability in order to enact corporate greed. I think that

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Speaker 1: their warning here is really important, which is that evidence

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Speaker 1: over the last forty years says that you should see

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Speaker 1: lower profits, they should shrink, that the corporate sector income

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Speaker 1: should go to more's labor compensation, and it should rise

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Speaker 1: as unemployment falls and the economy heats up. But the

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Speaker 1: fact that the opposite has happened so far in the

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Speaker 1: recovery should cast doubt on inflation expectations. Claiming that it's

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Speaker 1: all because of macroeconomic overheating. All of that is a

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Speaker 1: very fancy economic way of saying that if it were

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Speaker 1: traditional inflation caused by sole government spending, then you would

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Speaker 1: see a very consistent pattern where price increase would be

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Speaker 1: commiserate with a drop in profit and purely as a

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Speaker 1: result of unit labor costs. And because public companies in

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Speaker 1: America have to report profit based upon the shareholder system,

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Speaker 1: we know how much profit that they are making, right,

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Speaker 1: and we're like, hey, your profit is going up a lot.

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Speaker 1: And oh also, as you point out all the time,

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Speaker 1: brag about it on the shareholder calls, They're like, well,

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Speaker 1: consumer price sensitivity has gone up in the days of

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Speaker 1: inflation contributing to profit. What do you think that means?

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Speaker 1: Do you even need a translation? You go and you're like, oh,

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Speaker 1: I guess meat is twelve dollars a pound now, just

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Speaker 1: is how it is. Same with gas. I you know,

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Speaker 1: I get excited when I see three ninety gas, which

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Speaker 1: you know, a couple of months ago, I would have

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Speaker 1: been like, oh my god, three ninety. Now I'm like,

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Speaker 1: oh my god, one hundred four dollars a gallon. You

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Speaker 1: go hunting around for that. So well, because that's what

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Speaker 1: price sensitivity looks like. The only check on monopoly pricing

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Speaker 1: power is basically consumer outright, yeah, because otherwise, like if

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Speaker 1: you've been conditioned to expect, as we are during these times,

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Speaker 1: that prices are just going to keep going up and up,

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Speaker 1: that inflation is out of control, then you look at

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Speaker 1: these prices and your rage doesn't go where it should

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Speaker 1: at the corporations that are price gouging you. It just

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Speaker 1: goes to the overall economic frustrations. That's sort of like

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Speaker 1: a morphin blob of trouble. And so that means there's

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Speaker 1: no sort of consumer check and outrage around the specific

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Speaker 1: price hikes on these goods and services that are, you know,

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Speaker 1: really hurting working class families. So that's why it's so

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Speaker 1: important to understand specifically where this is coming from. I

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Speaker 1: expect that. It also has some implications in terms of

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Speaker 1: you know, FED policy, because if inflation isn't sort of

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Speaker 1: you know, in the system in the same way, and

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Speaker 1: the FED is making these aggressive moves, then that's going

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Speaker 1: to change the way that the economy ultimately responds to

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Speaker 1: the aggressive moves that the FED is making. The other

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Speaker 1: thing that it really exposes is these corporations that you know, Starbucks,

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Speaker 1: Howard Schultz and Amazon and those folks that are crying

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Speaker 1: about all these union efforts and they're gonna kill us

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Speaker 1: and all this stuff. Clearly you can afford to do

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Speaker 1: a little better buy your workers here, guys, especially giant

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Speaker 1: monopolies like Amazon and like you know, Starbucks isn't exactly

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Speaker 1: a monopoly, but they have plenty of market position here

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Speaker 1: as well. So I think it shows you too. So

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Speaker 1: labor costs have only gone up, you know, eight percent

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Speaker 1: of the increases from labor costs, fifty four percent from

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Speaker 1: corporations just using this as an excuse to jack up

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Speaker 1: their prices and earn a fatter profit margin. Really super

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Speaker 1: clear here. I think what's funny too, though, is that

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Speaker 1: we're all going to find this out real the hard way.

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Speaker 1: Sad way, because here's what I think is going to happen.

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Speaker 1: I think GP obvisly going to win the midterm elections

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Speaker 1: and we're basically going to have probably some fake tea

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Speaker 1: party type shutdown. They'll probably win in the twenty twenty

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Speaker 1: four election. They're going to cut corporate taxes even more.

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Speaker 1: Profit is going to skyrocket, and in that environment, they're

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Speaker 1: going to say this is the way that we combat inflation.

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Speaker 1: But really what's going to happen is that inflation consumer

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Speaker 1: goods are only going to go up even more. So

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Speaker 1: you are going to see very clearly exposed the deficit

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Speaker 1: ideology on whether it's an inflation problem or not. And

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Speaker 1: in that environment, maybe it's good because the public will

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Speaker 1: have been cured of the idea that all you have

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Speaker 1: to do is slash spending and everything is going to

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Speaker 1: get better, So you'll see it real quick. Unfortunately, hrich

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Speaker 1: people are going to get a whole lot richer in

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Speaker 1: order we find that out. I think that will almost

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Speaker 1: play out to a tee unless something happens on the

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Speaker 1: supply side, which I don't see that happening in the

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Speaker 1: next couple of years. Yeah, I mean, we're having very

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Speaker 1: treacherous financial toury and right now with no doubt about that.

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Speaker 1: Go all right, guys, thanks for watching. More for you later.

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Speaker 1: All right, guys, very excited to welcome Kim Kelly, wonderful

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Speaker 1: labor reporter and great front of the Show, back to

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Speaker 1: the show for a very special reason, which is that

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Speaker 1: she has just released her very first book. It is

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Speaker 1: called Fight Like Hell, The Untold History of American Labor.

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Speaker 1: That is what it looks like. The book is wonderful

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Speaker 1: and I think tells stories that everyone should know but

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Speaker 1: doesn't know because labor history has just basically been a

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Speaker 1: race from any sort of like official study of American

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Speaker 1: history in this country. So let's actually start there. Why

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Speaker 1: did you want to write this book, Kim? I wanted

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Speaker 1: to write this book because I wanted to read it

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Speaker 1: a big labor nerd and a labor reporter like this

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Speaker 1: is the kind of book that I've kind of always

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Speaker 1: been looking for because I'm always interested in reading about

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Speaker 1: the people who've been pushed to the margins, who aren't

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Speaker 1: getting the headlines, who aren't as easily accessible as you know,

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Speaker 1: the cesarsha vez Is and you know, triangle shirtwaist factory

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Speaker 1: stories of the World and I wanted specifically with this

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Speaker 1: book to pull together a bunch of different people in

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Speaker 1: events and eras and present that in a way that

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Speaker 1: shows today's workers that, you know, whatever your identity is,

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Speaker 1: wherever you come from, whoever you are, you you're not alone.

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Speaker 1: Someone just like you has done something really incredible in

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Speaker 1: the past or is doing it right now. Like you

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Speaker 1: belong The labor movement belongs to you too. Yeah, I mean, Kim,

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Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about some of the stuff

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Speaker 1: that you report in the book. Just give the audience

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Speaker 1: a taste about some of the stories that are undercovered

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Speaker 1: and that people need to know if they want to

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Speaker 1: really know about labor in the US. Sure, there's one

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Speaker 1: story about this one woman in Ohio that I love

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Speaker 1: so much. Her name is Itdame Stall. She was the

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Speaker 1: first white woman cole My who really loved her job.

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Speaker 1: She was a part owner in a mind. She was

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Speaker 1: from a mining family. You know, she was really good

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Speaker 1: at it. She was apparently, you know, pretty brolic. And

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Speaker 1: she was told by mind inspectors like, oh, you can't

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Speaker 1: work here, you need to get back in the kitchen.

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Speaker 1: Women aren't allowed to do heavy labor, and she was

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Speaker 1: not about to have that, and she fought back in

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Speaker 1: the courts and she got her job back. She got

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Speaker 1: you know, she wanted to be doing that work. She

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Speaker 1: was told she couldn't because she was a woman, and

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Speaker 1: she was like, well, that's not acceptable. This is who

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Speaker 1: I am. And she set such a precedent for other

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Speaker 1: women who are in these heavy manufacturing or extractive industries

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Speaker 1: that have been told oh, you can't do this, you're

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Speaker 1: just a girl, Like, well, no, we've been doing it

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Speaker 1: for a very long time. And there are a lot

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Speaker 1: of people like that in the book, whether it's Barret Rustin,

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Speaker 1: a queer black man who organized the March on Washington

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Speaker 1: for Jobs and Freedom but was kind of left out

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Speaker 1: of the story because various people were uncomfortable with who

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Speaker 1: he was, or you know, the multiracial, predominantly Asian and

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Speaker 1: Native Hawaiian plantation workers and Hawaii that stage a massive

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Speaker 1: strike against the Big five sugar companies and one in

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Speaker 1: nineteen forty six. There's so many stories like that throughout

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Speaker 1: the book, and it was so much fun digging into them.

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Speaker 1: You know, one of the reasons that labor is really

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Speaker 1: coore to my politics is because I think it's one

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Speaker 1: of the most hopeful ways to truly build solidarity across

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Speaker 1: these typical divides of race or gender or other identity issues,

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Speaker 1: and you know, to really foster understanding and like grapple

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Speaker 1: with those things in a real way, and to also

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Speaker 1: fight for shared collective goals. And that is certainly one

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Speaker 1: of the themes that comes through in your book, along

431
00:22:47,240 --> 00:22:50,280
Speaker 1: with this tension between the way that working class people

432
00:22:50,480 --> 00:22:55,119
Speaker 1: are frequently weaponized and sort of like torn apart in

433
00:22:55,200 --> 00:22:57,960
Speaker 1: order to serve the interest of capital and of the

434
00:22:57,960 --> 00:22:59,640
Speaker 1: boss class. I wonder if you could talk a little

435
00:22:59,640 --> 00:23:02,119
Speaker 1: bit about some of that tension of how the labor

436
00:23:02,119 --> 00:23:05,760
Speaker 1: movement has both been a source of the best of

437
00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:08,679
Speaker 1: sort of multi racial working class solidarity, but also a

438
00:23:08,760 --> 00:23:12,960
Speaker 1: source sometimes of exclusionary beliefs and rhetoric as well. Yeah,

439
00:23:12,960 --> 00:23:15,240
Speaker 1: that was the part that was a little more challenging

440
00:23:15,240 --> 00:23:17,239
Speaker 1: when I was researching this and talking to people that

441
00:23:17,520 --> 00:23:20,399
Speaker 1: I love the labor movement, I love unions, and I

442
00:23:20,440 --> 00:23:22,680
Speaker 1: think that if you love something, you should be able

443
00:23:22,680 --> 00:23:25,359
Speaker 1: to criticize it and make it better. And throughout the

444
00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:28,280
Speaker 1: history of this country there have been some really incredibly

445
00:23:28,320 --> 00:23:31,400
Speaker 1: progressive and radical and militant unions and leaders who really

446
00:23:31,400 --> 00:23:36,640
Speaker 1: held up those ideals, and there have also been like racist, xenophobic, misogynistic,

447
00:23:36,680 --> 00:23:42,040
Speaker 1: hobophobic bigots, like the American Federation of Labor, the predecessor

448
00:23:42,160 --> 00:23:45,560
Speaker 1: of the FLCO. They were huge supporters of the Chinese

449
00:23:45,560 --> 00:23:48,800
Speaker 1: Exclusion Act. They were you know, they have not they

450
00:23:48,800 --> 00:23:51,359
Speaker 1: were seen as the more conservative option back in the

451
00:23:51,400 --> 00:23:54,720
Speaker 1: eighteen eighties when the Knights of Labor, who welcomed all

452
00:23:54,760 --> 00:23:59,520
Speaker 1: workers and on including women, they were falling apart in

453
00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:01,880
Speaker 1: the AFL. I was like, oh, well, we're the conservative,

454
00:24:02,000 --> 00:24:05,560
Speaker 1: like capitalism friendly option, and they kind of swept in

455
00:24:05,640 --> 00:24:09,080
Speaker 1: and dictated that rise in their own way. And it's

456
00:24:09,280 --> 00:24:14,000
Speaker 1: always been unfortunate to see unions and union leaders doing

457
00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:17,600
Speaker 1: the boss's work for them by allowing and fostering these divisions.

458
00:24:17,680 --> 00:24:20,200
Speaker 1: I mean in this country for a very long time,

459
00:24:20,440 --> 00:24:24,359
Speaker 1: like black workers weren't able to join traditional labor unions.

460
00:24:24,400 --> 00:24:27,639
Speaker 1: They're segregated or left out of the left out entirely.

461
00:24:28,040 --> 00:24:32,040
Speaker 1: That only changed much later on, much later than is

462
00:24:32,160 --> 00:24:36,000
Speaker 1: in any way reasonable. Like it's something that we see

463
00:24:36,040 --> 00:24:39,680
Speaker 1: now with think about how Jeff Bezos and his cronies

464
00:24:39,960 --> 00:24:41,879
Speaker 1: tried to paint Christian Small as the leader of the

465
00:24:41,880 --> 00:24:44,960
Speaker 1: Amazon Labor Union as someone who is ignorant, someone who

466
00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:48,360
Speaker 1: wasn't articulous, someone who wasn't worth listening to. Lo and behold,

467
00:24:48,359 --> 00:24:50,760
Speaker 1: he's turned into one of the most effective and beloved

468
00:24:50,800 --> 00:24:55,639
Speaker 1: labor organizer leaders of our current moment. Like you, sometimes

469
00:24:55,680 --> 00:24:58,320
Speaker 1: you just have to count on what you and your

470
00:24:58,320 --> 00:25:01,160
Speaker 1: coworkers see, what you're building, how you feel about one another,

471
00:25:01,200 --> 00:25:02,920
Speaker 1: and ignore what the people who are supposed to be

472
00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:06,159
Speaker 1: in charge have to say. Kim, based on what you

473
00:25:06,960 --> 00:25:11,240
Speaker 1: learned in your studies of labor history, how do you

474
00:25:11,400 --> 00:25:13,800
Speaker 1: view the current moment? I mean you just brought up

475
00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:17,359
Speaker 1: Chris Mall's Obviously we've followed it here really closely. What

476
00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:20,639
Speaker 1: they pulled off on Staten Islands. Another election going on

477
00:25:20,680 --> 00:25:24,280
Speaker 1: this week, so fingers crossed. You also see the Starbucks workers,

478
00:25:24,359 --> 00:25:29,320
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly young, sweeping the country with I think they've unionized

479
00:25:29,320 --> 00:25:32,960
Speaker 1: now thirty stores in a very short time frame, something

480
00:25:32,960 --> 00:25:35,760
Speaker 1: that would have been inconceivable just a short time ago.

481
00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:39,080
Speaker 1: You know, do you think that this new wave and

482
00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:42,639
Speaker 1: interest is sustainable? Do you think it presages like a

483
00:25:42,680 --> 00:25:45,760
Speaker 1: true sort of reawakening within the labor movement, or do

484
00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:48,000
Speaker 1: you think, like you know, that these are kind of

485
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:51,159
Speaker 1: fluke occurrences coming out of a pandemic and the system

486
00:25:51,240 --> 00:25:53,679
Speaker 1: is still so rigged against workers that it's likely to

487
00:25:53,720 --> 00:25:56,720
Speaker 1: be this energy is likely to be snuffed out. I

488
00:25:56,720 --> 00:25:59,520
Speaker 1: don't think it's a fluke, and that's because we've been

489
00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:03,320
Speaker 1: here before. You know, throughout history, it's always been those

490
00:26:03,359 --> 00:26:06,520
Speaker 1: moments where workers were able to build these strong, multi racial,

491
00:26:06,640 --> 00:26:11,159
Speaker 1: multi gender, multi lingual, multi generational coalitions to keep pushing forward.

492
00:26:11,480 --> 00:26:15,040
Speaker 1: That that's what's what makes it hard to break. Once

493
00:26:15,119 --> 00:26:16,879
Speaker 1: you build that kind of community and that kind of

494
00:26:16,920 --> 00:26:20,280
Speaker 1: solidarity and that kind of enthusiasm, the bosses can't really

495
00:26:20,320 --> 00:26:23,919
Speaker 1: say anything to you that will get through because you

496
00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:26,280
Speaker 1: know the truth, you know what you have done. And

497
00:26:26,359 --> 00:26:28,720
Speaker 1: seeing what's happening in Amazon and Starbucks and seeing the

498
00:26:28,760 --> 00:26:32,320
Speaker 1: amount of public support I think is very important too,

499
00:26:32,840 --> 00:26:40,119
Speaker 1: because you know, these are big multinational corporations who are sorry,

500
00:26:40,200 --> 00:26:43,879
Speaker 1: who are very well known. And seeing that work is

501
00:26:43,920 --> 00:26:46,200
Speaker 1: at these companies that we know are owned by these

502
00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:49,040
Speaker 1: you know, evil billionaires who have more money than God.

503
00:26:49,400 --> 00:26:51,639
Speaker 1: Seeing that the workers there are standing up and saying no,

504
00:26:51,720 --> 00:26:53,440
Speaker 1: we're not going to take this anymore, We're going to

505
00:26:53,480 --> 00:26:56,640
Speaker 1: fight back. I think that's very inspiring to folks I mean,

506
00:26:56,680 --> 00:26:59,159
Speaker 1: if you can take on Amazon, you can take on

507
00:26:59,240 --> 00:27:01,240
Speaker 1: the richest man and the richest company in the world,

508
00:27:01,520 --> 00:27:03,640
Speaker 1: what can't you do? And I think that's the kind

509
00:27:03,640 --> 00:27:06,000
Speaker 1: of optimism and inspiration that we really need right now,

510
00:27:06,119 --> 00:27:09,480
Speaker 1: especially you know, after some of us live through the pandemic,

511
00:27:09,720 --> 00:27:12,280
Speaker 1: some of us are dealing with this inflation and great resignation,

512
00:27:12,359 --> 00:27:15,640
Speaker 1: all of these buzzwords. What really matters is that workers,

513
00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:19,240
Speaker 1: and specifically a new generation and younger generational workers are

514
00:27:19,280 --> 00:27:22,560
Speaker 1: excited and they're interested, and they're ready to fight like Hell,

515
00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:24,800
Speaker 1: and we need to be following their lead. Well, I

516
00:27:24,800 --> 00:27:27,639
Speaker 1: think your book comes out at a really crucial moment.

517
00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:29,880
Speaker 1: And again, guys, go ahead and throw the book jacket

518
00:27:29,960 --> 00:27:31,640
Speaker 1: up on the screen. The book is called Fight Like Hell,

519
00:27:31,880 --> 00:27:36,000
Speaker 1: The Untold Stories of American Labor. And you know, as

520
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:38,199
Speaker 1: I mentioned in the beginning, we are not there. It

521
00:27:38,240 --> 00:27:42,040
Speaker 1: is we are not told these stories. We don't learn

522
00:27:42,080 --> 00:27:44,800
Speaker 1: about it in school. In fact, throughout history there have

523
00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:48,560
Speaker 1: been coordinated, organized efforts to make sure that labor history

524
00:27:48,640 --> 00:27:51,400
Speaker 1: is not taught in school. I know, specifically in West Virginia.

525
00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:53,479
Speaker 1: You know, the history of the mind Wars, which is

526
00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:57,239
Speaker 1: rich and fascinating and core to that state's identity was

527
00:27:57,359 --> 00:28:02,040
Speaker 1: excised from school textbooks for years and years. So at

528
00:28:02,080 --> 00:28:05,280
Speaker 1: a time when there's renewed interest in what it means

529
00:28:05,280 --> 00:28:08,480
Speaker 1: for workers to come together and organize and try to

530
00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:12,119
Speaker 1: unionize and all of the ways that the system is

531
00:28:12,200 --> 00:28:15,160
Speaker 1: rigged against them, now is exactly the time to really

532
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:17,800
Speaker 1: learn what the history of those struggles are, how workers

533
00:28:17,840 --> 00:28:21,000
Speaker 1: overcame even longer odds than what people are facing today.

534
00:28:21,040 --> 00:28:23,399
Speaker 1: So I really highly recommend that people check out the

535
00:28:23,400 --> 00:28:25,639
Speaker 1: book and Kim, thank you, congratulations, great to see you.

536
00:28:25,800 --> 00:28:29,080
Speaker 1: Thanks Kim, thank you so much. Solary Forever. Yeah, well,

537
00:28:29,119 --> 00:28:31,159
Speaker 1: have a linked down in description. There's a new New

538
00:28:31,240 --> 00:28:34,119
Speaker 1: York Times report based on some studies of just what

539
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:38,080
Speaker 1: a dire mental health crisis adolescence are suffering through. This

540
00:28:38,200 --> 00:28:40,000
Speaker 1: is some of what we talked about with regard to

541
00:28:40,040 --> 00:28:42,880
Speaker 1: Derek Thompson had a piece sort of debunking some of

542
00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:45,640
Speaker 1: the myths, pointing out that no, there's a real crisis

543
00:28:45,680 --> 00:28:48,040
Speaker 1: here by the numbers, and also floating some of the

544
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:50,000
Speaker 1: reasons that might be happening. So this is an addition

545
00:28:50,040 --> 00:28:52,400
Speaker 1: to that conversation. Let's take a look at this tweet.

546
00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:54,160
Speaker 1: Go ahead and throw it up on the screen, So

547
00:28:54,160 --> 00:28:58,080
Speaker 1: they say American adolescence is undergoing a drastic change. Three

548
00:28:58,080 --> 00:29:00,560
Speaker 1: decades ago, the greatest public health threats to teens in

549
00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:03,920
Speaker 1: the US came from drinking, pregnancy, and smoking. These have

550
00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:08,440
Speaker 1: since fallen sharply, while rates of mental health disorders are soaring.

551
00:29:08,960 --> 00:29:11,160
Speaker 1: In this piece, they point out that in twenty nineteen,

552
00:29:11,560 --> 00:29:15,560
Speaker 1: thirteen percent of adolescents reported having a major depressive episode.

553
00:29:15,600 --> 00:29:18,480
Speaker 1: That is a sixty percent increase from two thousand and seven.

554
00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:22,480
Speaker 1: But it's not just self reported feelings of depression and anxiety.

555
00:29:22,680 --> 00:29:26,040
Speaker 1: You also had emergency room visits by children and adolescents

556
00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:29,520
Speaker 1: in that period, rising sharply for anxiety, mood disorders, and

557
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:33,440
Speaker 1: self harm. For people ages ten to twenty four, suicide rates,

558
00:29:33,640 --> 00:29:36,200
Speaker 1: which were stable from two thousand and two thousand and seven,

559
00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:40,360
Speaker 1: leave to nearly sixty percent by twenty eighteen. That's according

560
00:29:40,360 --> 00:29:44,960
Speaker 1: to the CDC. Some of the potential reasons that they

561
00:29:45,040 --> 00:29:47,800
Speaker 1: point to here, They say, federal research shows teenagers as

562
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:50,400
Speaker 1: a group are getting less sleep and exercise and spending

563
00:29:50,520 --> 00:29:53,280
Speaker 1: less in person time with friends, all of those things

564
00:29:53,600 --> 00:29:56,160
Speaker 1: crucial for healthy development. At a period in life when

565
00:29:56,160 --> 00:29:59,160
Speaker 1: it is typical to test boundaries and explore one's identity,

566
00:29:59,240 --> 00:30:01,520
Speaker 1: So that's kind of the reason that they're pointing to here.

567
00:30:01,560 --> 00:30:03,840
Speaker 1: And then the last data that I'll throw into the

568
00:30:03,880 --> 00:30:08,000
Speaker 1: conversation is, as I mentioned, some sort of like typical

569
00:30:08,120 --> 00:30:11,880
Speaker 1: teenage behavior, smoking, drinking, having sex seems to have all

570
00:30:12,040 --> 00:30:16,000
Speaker 1: declined at the same time as these depression and mood

571
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:19,959
Speaker 1: anxiety disorders are on the rise. You've got Federal research

572
00:30:19,960 --> 00:30:22,360
Speaker 1: shows that thirty eight percent of high school age teenagers

573
00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:25,400
Speaker 1: report having had sex at least once, So thirty eight

574
00:30:25,440 --> 00:30:29,440
Speaker 1: percent as compared with roughly fifty percent in nineteen ninety eighteen,

575
00:30:29,520 --> 00:30:32,760
Speaker 1: birth rate is plummeted. Cigarette and alcohol use weigh down.

576
00:30:32,840 --> 00:30:36,320
Speaker 1: In twenty nineteen, four percent of high school seniors reported

577
00:30:36,360 --> 00:30:38,360
Speaker 1: having a cigarette in the last thirty days. That's down

578
00:30:38,400 --> 00:30:41,080
Speaker 1: from twenty six point five percent in nineteen ninety seven.

579
00:30:41,360 --> 00:30:44,440
Speaker 1: Vaping has gone up, though alcohol use by high schoolers

580
00:30:44,480 --> 00:30:47,000
Speaker 1: hit thirty year lows. At the same time, use of

581
00:30:47,080 --> 00:30:50,600
Speaker 1: drugs oxyconton and other illicit drugs among high schoolers is

582
00:30:50,640 --> 00:30:54,120
Speaker 1: down sharply over the last twenty years, though things. Couple

583
00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:57,280
Speaker 1: of things that have risen are vaping of both nicotine

584
00:30:57,320 --> 00:31:00,560
Speaker 1: and marijuana, although both drop sharply during the pan. So

585
00:31:00,600 --> 00:31:02,960
Speaker 1: those are kind of the statistics, and it's still very

586
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:05,240
Speaker 1: early days in terms of figuring out what exactly is

587
00:31:05,280 --> 00:31:07,480
Speaker 1: going on here. It's just very multi fascinating. I don't

588
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:08,960
Speaker 1: think there's a way to know. If I had to

589
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:10,840
Speaker 1: blame a single thing, I think it's the Internet. And

590
00:31:10,880 --> 00:31:12,280
Speaker 1: I don't mean that in the boomer way of like

591
00:31:12,360 --> 00:31:14,120
Speaker 1: kids just spending too much time on TikTok, although I

592
00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:16,560
Speaker 1: do think that's true. Really, what I think is that

593
00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:20,440
Speaker 1: the Internet has just facilitated the balkanization of callsure and

594
00:31:20,560 --> 00:31:22,680
Speaker 1: has made it so that there's a higher cost to

595
00:31:22,840 --> 00:31:27,080
Speaker 1: social interaction because real social interaction requires effort, whereas you

596
00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:30,360
Speaker 1: can have fake social interaction on Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok all

597
00:31:30,400 --> 00:31:32,320
Speaker 1: this other stuff. And there's just a lot of downstream

598
00:31:32,360 --> 00:31:34,760
Speaker 1: consequences to that. So I don't think it's singular use

599
00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:37,880
Speaker 1: of social media. I just think the Internet completely changed

600
00:31:38,120 --> 00:31:40,280
Speaker 1: the way that people communicate and interact with each other,

601
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:43,000
Speaker 1: and that's having very bad consequences. I also think this

602
00:31:43,080 --> 00:31:45,680
Speaker 1: is why, and you tell me this, it's so important.

603
00:31:45,720 --> 00:31:48,560
Speaker 1: I think for parents to try and basely force your

604
00:31:48,640 --> 00:31:51,240
Speaker 1: kid to do like it first and stuff and limit

605
00:31:51,280 --> 00:31:53,560
Speaker 1: their time world on the phone and be like, give

606
00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:55,640
Speaker 1: me I can't even imagine. I've seen little kids on

607
00:31:55,680 --> 00:31:58,800
Speaker 1: planes freak out whenever you're trying to take your iPad away.

608
00:31:58,920 --> 00:32:01,120
Speaker 1: It is like an addiction, they really like, they do

609
00:32:01,160 --> 00:32:04,400
Speaker 1: freak out and go through withdrawal. And also like, I mean,

610
00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:08,520
Speaker 1: you're up against as a parent, You're up against you know,

611
00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:11,360
Speaker 1: a lot of money and a lot of minds put

612
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:14,400
Speaker 1: towards making sure that they stay on the device and

613
00:32:14,440 --> 00:32:17,200
Speaker 1: that they stay addicted to the device. So it is

614
00:32:17,240 --> 00:32:21,560
Speaker 1: an almost impossible battle that you're waging. And it's interesting

615
00:32:21,640 --> 00:32:24,480
Speaker 1: because you know, it could I'm sure there are some

616
00:32:24,480 --> 00:32:26,640
Speaker 1: people who look at this and like, well, maybe it

617
00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:29,120
Speaker 1: was better when the teenagers were like smoking and drinking

618
00:32:29,120 --> 00:32:32,720
Speaker 1: and having sex more. But this research is careful to

619
00:32:32,760 --> 00:32:35,760
Speaker 1: point out that even though the decline of those things

620
00:32:35,840 --> 00:32:38,880
Speaker 1: is correlated with the rise of the mental health issues,

621
00:32:39,360 --> 00:32:41,600
Speaker 1: it could very well be that, you know, the reason

622
00:32:41,680 --> 00:32:43,800
Speaker 1: that teens are drinking less and having less sex is

623
00:32:43,800 --> 00:32:46,720
Speaker 1: because they're in person less and so it could actually

624
00:32:46,800 --> 00:32:49,280
Speaker 1: just be the fact that they're in person less doing

625
00:32:49,320 --> 00:32:52,200
Speaker 1: anything right that actually is ultimately the problem. And they're

626
00:32:52,200 --> 00:32:55,440
Speaker 1: also careful to say that, you know, it's too simplistic

627
00:32:55,480 --> 00:32:58,760
Speaker 1: to just say, oh, it's social media, because teens will

628
00:32:58,760 --> 00:33:01,760
Speaker 1: also self report that the you know, they do have

629
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:05,640
Speaker 1: positive associations with social media, that they gain positive interactions.

630
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:08,560
Speaker 1: But I think probably what you're saying to me as

631
00:33:08,560 --> 00:33:10,280
Speaker 1: a parent makes a lot of sense that it's the

632
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:13,920
Speaker 1: fact that social media is taking the place of other

633
00:33:14,600 --> 00:33:17,960
Speaker 1: activities that we know to be positive and important for

634
00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:21,800
Speaker 1: healthy development that's ultimately creating the problem. By the way,

635
00:33:21,840 --> 00:33:24,200
Speaker 1: of course, all these things were exacerbated and made worse

636
00:33:24,240 --> 00:33:27,720
Speaker 1: by the pandemic. The trends were there before the pandemic.

637
00:33:28,080 --> 00:33:32,640
Speaker 1: The pandemic definitely accelerated things. And it's a very It's

638
00:33:32,640 --> 00:33:34,640
Speaker 1: something that I want us to continue to pay close

639
00:33:34,680 --> 00:33:37,680
Speaker 1: attention to because what could be more important than this

640
00:33:38,200 --> 00:33:42,760
Speaker 1: absolute crisis of identity and meaning and feelings of hopelessness

641
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:46,240
Speaker 1: and despair among the future of our country, among our

642
00:33:46,320 --> 00:33:48,440
Speaker 1: children and our young adults. So I do think it's

643
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:50,600
Speaker 1: a critical issue that we're just kind of wrapping our

644
00:33:50,640 --> 00:33:52,680
Speaker 1: heads around what's going on. It's horrible. I mean, the

645
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:55,920
Speaker 1: Surgeon General put out a warning about a youth mental

646
00:33:55,960 --> 00:33:58,800
Speaker 1: health crisis. Like I said, on the measurements, it's hard

647
00:33:58,800 --> 00:34:00,720
Speaker 1: to say, I mean, it's just taking ways. I didn't

648
00:34:00,760 --> 00:34:03,320
Speaker 1: do anything right. There's got to be I don't know

649
00:34:03,360 --> 00:34:04,920
Speaker 1: what it is. I can't imagine what it's like to

650
00:34:04,920 --> 00:34:07,640
Speaker 1: be a teenager at this time. I was actually thinking

651
00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:09,840
Speaker 1: about in the context of you know, two years. It

652
00:34:09,880 --> 00:34:11,480
Speaker 1: felt like a long time for us, but you know,

653
00:34:11,520 --> 00:34:14,840
Speaker 1: we had the most critical developmental years years ago. If

654
00:34:14,920 --> 00:34:17,280
Speaker 1: these are the you know two years, let's say you're sixteen,

655
00:34:17,280 --> 00:34:18,800
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the eighth of your life that you

656
00:34:18,920 --> 00:34:22,120
Speaker 1: spent in a semi lockdown. That's nuts. And when you're

657
00:34:22,160 --> 00:34:25,239
Speaker 1: twelve or you know, even younger, that's a significant portion

658
00:34:25,320 --> 00:34:27,880
Speaker 1: of your life and that is going to have a

659
00:34:27,880 --> 00:34:30,080
Speaker 1: long standing impact. Now. I hope that we get back.

660
00:34:30,280 --> 00:34:32,480
Speaker 1: Part of the reason I'm so pro going back to

661
00:34:32,520 --> 00:34:34,239
Speaker 1: normal is I just I want to get this over

662
00:34:34,239 --> 00:34:36,360
Speaker 1: with as soon as possible so that people can try

663
00:34:36,680 --> 00:34:40,200
Speaker 1: and find some sort of different semblance, because if we don't,

664
00:34:40,440 --> 00:34:41,920
Speaker 1: we're going to be in a big trouble. I think,

665
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:43,600
Speaker 1: especially for a lot of these kids. I think it

666
00:34:43,640 --> 00:34:46,799
Speaker 1: is especially hard for people who are natural extroverts. So

667
00:34:47,040 --> 00:34:51,080
Speaker 1: like my I can say teenage daughter is a natural extrovert.

668
00:34:51,120 --> 00:34:53,640
Speaker 1: I actually sort of like fifty to fifty, I'm like

669
00:34:53,880 --> 00:34:55,839
Speaker 1: fine to be by myself. My son is much more

670
00:34:55,880 --> 00:34:59,040
Speaker 1: of an introvert, so I think it was less of

671
00:34:59,080 --> 00:35:02,440
Speaker 1: an issue for him. But my oldest daughter, she really

672
00:35:02,840 --> 00:35:05,520
Speaker 1: needs to be around people like that's just how she's wired,

673
00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:07,839
Speaker 1: you know. And so that's the other thing that Derek

674
00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:10,000
Speaker 1: Thompson said in his piece that I thought was interesting

675
00:35:10,080 --> 00:35:13,760
Speaker 1: is like social media can be sort of like alcohol,

676
00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:17,240
Speaker 1: like an effective social lubricant that in you know, certain

677
00:35:17,640 --> 00:35:20,759
Speaker 1: reasonable quantities can actually be a good and beneficial part

678
00:35:20,800 --> 00:35:23,680
Speaker 1: of a you know, normal, healthy social life. But for

679
00:35:23,760 --> 00:35:28,360
Speaker 1: a certain percentage of people, relatively small, probably percentage, it

680
00:35:28,440 --> 00:35:31,520
Speaker 1: is actually a problem and really detrimental. And I think

681
00:35:31,640 --> 00:35:33,680
Speaker 1: that might be kind of the way to think about

682
00:35:33,680 --> 00:35:35,319
Speaker 1: some of these things. That's a good boy putting it.

683
00:35:35,360 --> 00:35:37,440
Speaker 1: I like that. All right, guys, thanks for watching. More

684
00:35:37,440 --> 00:35:43,359
Speaker 1: for you later. Well. Very interesting this weekend is the

685
00:35:43,440 --> 00:35:47,160
Speaker 1: nerd prom here in Washington, which is the cringiest event possible,

686
00:35:47,200 --> 00:35:50,040
Speaker 1: the White House Correspondents Dinner. Doctor Fauci was set to

687
00:35:50,080 --> 00:35:52,680
Speaker 1: attend the dinner as a guest of ABC News. Somebody

688
00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:55,399
Speaker 1: can riddle one that for me in terms of how

689
00:35:55,400 --> 00:35:58,600
Speaker 1: that's ethical. Whatever, let's put this up there on the screen.

690
00:35:58,960 --> 00:36:02,560
Speaker 1: Turns out Fauci is backing out of the White House

691
00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:06,520
Speaker 1: Correspondence dinner over COVID concerns. He says that because of

692
00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:10,080
Speaker 1: his personal individual assessment of his own risk, he will

693
00:36:10,080 --> 00:36:12,680
Speaker 1: not be attending the dinner. So this is far. Dude

694
00:36:12,800 --> 00:36:15,160
Speaker 1: is a lot older than people. To the guys like,

695
00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:17,080
Speaker 1: AG's good for his age? How old is he? Again?

696
00:36:17,120 --> 00:36:20,279
Speaker 1: I think he's eighty. But look, I'm not criticizing the

697
00:36:20,560 --> 00:36:23,640
Speaker 1: Fauci for eighty one. There you go. I was close

698
00:36:23,680 --> 00:36:26,840
Speaker 1: to it, almost a little bit older only than our president.

699
00:36:26,920 --> 00:36:30,000
Speaker 1: But it has raised a question then of why is

700
00:36:30,120 --> 00:36:32,000
Speaker 1: the president not going to be wearing a mask? Why

701
00:36:32,040 --> 00:36:34,560
Speaker 1: is he attending? Is he going in violation then of

702
00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:37,720
Speaker 1: doctor Fauci and the White House Correspondence dinner finds itself

703
00:36:37,880 --> 00:36:40,040
Speaker 1: in a hilarious place where they're like, well, we're not

704
00:36:40,080 --> 00:36:43,000
Speaker 1: going to be requiring masks in there, and then the

705
00:36:43,080 --> 00:36:45,920
Speaker 1: Biden administration and the top officials there will be attending

706
00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:48,920
Speaker 1: the dinner. And so actually, after we cut this segment,

707
00:36:49,040 --> 00:36:52,000
Speaker 1: this just happened. Pete boutag Edge was on Fox News

708
00:36:52,080 --> 00:36:56,840
Speaker 1: last night asked exactly, so, why exactly is the White house,

709
00:36:56,880 --> 00:36:59,440
Speaker 1: and you and all public officials who are attending the

710
00:36:59,440 --> 00:37:02,840
Speaker 1: dinner not not required to wear a mask. And you

711
00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:04,759
Speaker 1: guys are going to do that, But you're also in

712
00:37:04,800 --> 00:37:07,560
Speaker 1: court trying to force people on airplanes to wear a mask.

713
00:37:07,760 --> 00:37:11,400
Speaker 1: Here's what he says, quote, most of us understand the

714
00:37:11,480 --> 00:37:17,000
Speaker 1: difference between a hotel ballroom and an airplane. Secretary of Transportation, Well,

715
00:37:17,040 --> 00:37:20,719
Speaker 1: that's actually worth parsing because in both instances, people will

716
00:37:20,719 --> 00:37:23,799
Speaker 1: not be wearing masks when they're eating crystal at the

717
00:37:23,840 --> 00:37:27,239
Speaker 1: dinner air go making it irrelevant as to whether the

718
00:37:27,280 --> 00:37:29,680
Speaker 1: mask is worn in the first place, either in the

719
00:37:29,680 --> 00:37:34,800
Speaker 1: hotel ballroom or on the airplane. Just completely ridiculous policy.

720
00:37:34,920 --> 00:37:37,719
Speaker 1: So number one, obviously Fauci being a Covidkaren is kind

721
00:37:37,719 --> 00:37:39,799
Speaker 1: of hilarious. But also he's eighty one years old, so

722
00:37:39,880 --> 00:37:42,320
Speaker 1: I respect his decision. But the buddhaj Edge part of

723
00:37:42,360 --> 00:37:45,560
Speaker 1: this really bugs. Maybe he's the complete hypocrisy. Maybe he's

724
00:37:45,600 --> 00:37:48,000
Speaker 1: just using COVID as an excuse to not have to

725
00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:49,840
Speaker 1: go to the story. I wish we could use excuse.

726
00:37:49,920 --> 00:37:51,680
Speaker 1: We're like, oh, we're not going because of COVID. Well,

727
00:37:51,719 --> 00:37:53,440
Speaker 1: I mean we didn't get invited. Yeah, First of all,

728
00:37:53,440 --> 00:37:57,160
Speaker 1: we didn't get that. There's way what I ever paid.

729
00:37:57,239 --> 00:37:59,320
Speaker 1: Did you go to it? I was, I was supposed

730
00:37:59,320 --> 00:38:02,319
Speaker 1: to attend. Uh, my friend's wedding was on the same day,

731
00:38:02,400 --> 00:38:03,600
Speaker 1: and I was like, I'm not going to skip my

732
00:38:03,640 --> 00:38:09,719
Speaker 1: friend's wedding. I went to it. Yeah, two or three times.

733
00:38:10,080 --> 00:38:13,680
Speaker 1: And it really is as kind of awful of a

734
00:38:13,760 --> 00:38:17,120
Speaker 1: scene as you think. It's like, you know, all these

735
00:38:17,680 --> 00:38:21,719
Speaker 1: social climber like all the media class trying to be

736
00:38:21,760 --> 00:38:25,279
Speaker 1: seen with the right people, all the media outlets. Yeah,

737
00:38:25,280 --> 00:38:29,239
Speaker 1: they try to invite like some cool celebrity and all

738
00:38:29,280 --> 00:38:31,960
Speaker 1: of these like political types who haven't been around a

739
00:38:31,960 --> 00:38:34,719
Speaker 1: lot of celebrities sort of freak out about that, and

740
00:38:35,360 --> 00:38:37,680
Speaker 1: it's it is a whole thing. I did a This

741
00:38:37,719 --> 00:38:40,719
Speaker 1: is super cringe that I'm even owning up to this,

742
00:38:40,840 --> 00:38:45,360
Speaker 1: but I did like a red carpet coverage thing, and

743
00:38:45,400 --> 00:38:47,680
Speaker 1: I did end up. It was before Trump. It was

744
00:38:47,719 --> 00:38:50,640
Speaker 1: when he was weighing running for president, and I ended

745
00:38:50,719 --> 00:38:53,960
Speaker 1: up like interviewing him on the red carpet with Milania

746
00:38:54,280 --> 00:38:58,000
Speaker 1: and yeah. He So it was interesting because that was

747
00:38:58,040 --> 00:39:00,279
Speaker 1: my first that was actually my only one on one

748
00:39:00,320 --> 00:39:03,920
Speaker 1: interaction with him, and he I was at amsc at

749
00:39:03,920 --> 00:39:06,399
Speaker 1: the time, he clearly like watched it all the time,

750
00:39:06,719 --> 00:39:09,480
Speaker 1: knew me, knew my co host, knew what our whole

751
00:39:09,600 --> 00:39:12,600
Speaker 1: energy and what the show was all about. And then

752
00:39:12,760 --> 00:39:14,719
Speaker 1: when I asked him, because at the time he was like,

753
00:39:15,040 --> 00:39:16,839
Speaker 1: you know, had just gotten off the whole like I'm

754
00:39:16,880 --> 00:39:18,920
Speaker 1: going to send my own team of investigators down to

755
00:39:18,960 --> 00:39:21,080
Speaker 1: Hawaii and figure out what's going on with the president.

756
00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:22,520
Speaker 1: So I asked him, I was like, oh, so, do

757
00:39:22,560 --> 00:39:24,800
Speaker 1: you ever find the president's birth certificate dad in Hawaii?

758
00:39:24,960 --> 00:39:26,759
Speaker 1: Like that's the wrong question in Crystal. And then that

759
00:39:26,840 --> 00:39:28,560
Speaker 1: was the end of the interview. But you know, at

760
00:39:28,560 --> 00:39:31,719
Speaker 1: the time, I felt sort of embarrassed that I even

761
00:39:31,800 --> 00:39:35,359
Speaker 1: interviewed him and like took his presidential thing seriously. And

762
00:39:35,400 --> 00:39:38,759
Speaker 1: then of course, you know, we know what happened. But

763
00:39:38,760 --> 00:39:41,279
Speaker 1: but yeah, that was probably my most notable White House

764
00:39:41,280 --> 00:39:47,040
Speaker 1: correspondence dinner thing. Otherwise, it really is just this uncomfortable

765
00:39:47,520 --> 00:39:50,439
Speaker 1: people who are way too full of themselves. People try

766
00:39:50,520 --> 00:39:53,319
Speaker 1: who were like climbers, try to throw themselves at like

767
00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:56,560
Speaker 1: news executives to get a job or get noticed or whatever,

768
00:39:56,719 --> 00:39:59,040
Speaker 1: and no one paying attention to the scholarships that that

769
00:39:59,360 --> 00:40:01,920
Speaker 1: is supposed to really be about. So Yeah, it's basically

770
00:40:01,960 --> 00:40:05,200
Speaker 1: the vibe. The whole event is just so entirely cringe.

771
00:40:05,360 --> 00:40:07,839
Speaker 1: But look, and then there's a whole thing too about

772
00:40:07,880 --> 00:40:12,640
Speaker 1: what after parties you get like that kids get their party.

773
00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:14,600
Speaker 1: And actually, I don't know if it still is, but

774
00:40:14,640 --> 00:40:18,000
Speaker 1: the MSMC party was considered one of the good ones too. Actually, know,

775
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:20,600
Speaker 1: the real ticket in town is the CNN brunch the

776
00:40:20,680 --> 00:40:24,759
Speaker 1: day after the Hangover brunch apparently yes, and there's did

777
00:40:24,760 --> 00:40:28,000
Speaker 1: they still do that the brunch the day of the

778
00:40:28,040 --> 00:40:32,080
Speaker 1: Tammy hadid Now, yeah, that's a vintage one. If anybody's

779
00:40:32,080 --> 00:40:35,040
Speaker 1: ever gone and read This Town by Mark Leebovich, great book,

780
00:40:35,120 --> 00:40:38,279
Speaker 1: actually describes it entirely perfectly. Yeah, I don't want to

781
00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:40,319
Speaker 1: people trying to preen and like show off. I'm not

782
00:40:40,360 --> 00:40:42,560
Speaker 1: in these circles anymore. So I truly have no one

783
00:40:42,640 --> 00:40:44,920
Speaker 1: reaching back in my memory to remember what it's a

784
00:40:45,040 --> 00:40:48,680
Speaker 1: fun view into how decrepit this town is. I do

785
00:40:48,880 --> 00:40:51,200
Speaker 1: will say this, I think that post COVID and in

786
00:40:51,239 --> 00:40:54,160
Speaker 1: the year twenty twenty two, it really is like Versailles

787
00:40:54,280 --> 00:40:56,480
Speaker 1: esque in the way that everybody is gathering and it

788
00:40:56,520 --> 00:40:59,480
Speaker 1: has no credibility. Right ten years ago, it was an

789
00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:02,080
Speaker 1: entire actually a media driven event and all of that.

790
00:41:02,120 --> 00:41:04,319
Speaker 1: But now they're just trying to recreate some of that

791
00:41:04,400 --> 00:41:07,000
Speaker 1: old magic, and the country really sees these people, I

792
00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:08,759
Speaker 1: think for what they are. So I don't think it

793
00:41:08,800 --> 00:41:11,080
Speaker 1: carries nearly the amount of cashape. I don't think so either.

794
00:41:11,200 --> 00:41:13,839
Speaker 1: I mean, we've talked about it before. The best one

795
00:41:14,120 --> 00:41:17,640
Speaker 1: was Colbert George W. Bush completely. I mean that was

796
00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:20,799
Speaker 1: an incredible still, like really stands up if you go

797
00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:23,799
Speaker 1: back and watch it. And the other spectacle you're likely

798
00:41:23,840 --> 00:41:26,400
Speaker 1: to have at this time is all of the fancy

799
00:41:26,400 --> 00:41:31,239
Speaker 1: attendees unmasked and the servers masked up. You're very likely

800
00:41:31,280 --> 00:41:33,120
Speaker 1: to see that divide. I mean, listen, I don't know

801
00:41:33,160 --> 00:41:35,080
Speaker 1: for one hundred percent sure, but we've certainly seen that

802
00:41:35,160 --> 00:41:37,360
Speaker 1: a lot of other fancy events. So very terrible. Anyway,

803
00:41:37,520 --> 00:41:40,440
Speaker 1: enjoy everybody, We'll see you guys soon. So if you're

804
00:41:40,440 --> 00:41:44,040
Speaker 1: wondering if there's more unhinged takes about Elon Musk and Twitter, will,

805
00:41:44,360 --> 00:41:46,799
Speaker 1: you can always leave it to the view to give

806
00:41:46,880 --> 00:41:49,640
Speaker 1: us the worst possible Take this one from Sonny Houstin

807
00:41:49,680 --> 00:41:52,200
Speaker 1: about for what free speech really means. Let's take a listen,

808
00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:57,359
Speaker 1: and in fact, on Twitter it is predominantly straight white men.

809
00:41:57,520 --> 00:42:02,080
Speaker 1: So when Elon Musk says, wow, this is about free speech,

810
00:42:02,120 --> 00:42:04,799
Speaker 1: it seems to me that it's about free speech of

811
00:42:05,200 --> 00:42:08,680
Speaker 1: straight white men, and so let them have it. Let

812
00:42:08,719 --> 00:42:12,800
Speaker 1: them just go at it. I enjoy the block button

813
00:42:13,040 --> 00:42:17,440
Speaker 1: on Twitter. I think it has a real outsized influence

814
00:42:17,840 --> 00:42:22,640
Speaker 1: in our world because politicians and celebrities are on it. Okay,

815
00:42:22,760 --> 00:42:25,799
Speaker 1: all right, straight white men is what freese. It's like,

816
00:42:25,960 --> 00:42:28,600
Speaker 1: why do we have to reach for this every time?

817
00:42:28,640 --> 00:42:30,200
Speaker 1: First of all, I think it's ridiculous. The idea that

818
00:42:30,200 --> 00:42:33,640
Speaker 1: they're straight white men is supposedly the dominant thing on Twitter.

819
00:42:33,680 --> 00:42:35,840
Speaker 1: I don't think that that's accurate, but it fits this

820
00:42:35,960 --> 00:42:38,920
Speaker 1: broader trend in order to paint free speech is some

821
00:42:38,960 --> 00:42:41,760
Speaker 1: sort of links to white supremacy. We saw that happen

822
00:42:41,840 --> 00:42:45,320
Speaker 1: on MSNBC. Let's put this up there on the screen again.

823
00:42:45,480 --> 00:42:49,680
Speaker 1: Just completely hilarious that they say a future of abundant

824
00:42:50,000 --> 00:42:54,839
Speaker 1: equitable speech terrifies people like Evon Musk. I just love

825
00:42:54,920 --> 00:42:58,360
Speaker 1: here now that equitable speech is the moniker for censorship.

826
00:42:58,400 --> 00:43:01,640
Speaker 1: That yeah, yeah's new. I guess that's a new term,

827
00:43:01,719 --> 00:43:04,719
Speaker 1: new current. But on like, you know, put a positive

828
00:43:04,760 --> 00:43:08,200
Speaker 1: spin on restricting people's rights to speech. I mean, I just,

829
00:43:08,920 --> 00:43:12,000
Speaker 1: I really actually I find it offensive because listen, the

830
00:43:12,000 --> 00:43:15,080
Speaker 1: founding of the country has a million issues. The Constitution

831
00:43:15,239 --> 00:43:18,239
Speaker 1: is not some perfect, infallible document, nor is the Bill

832
00:43:18,280 --> 00:43:23,120
Speaker 1: of Rights. But the whole reason you have constitutionally protected

833
00:43:23,520 --> 00:43:27,920
Speaker 1: rights is actually to protect the rights of minority groups

834
00:43:28,200 --> 00:43:30,680
Speaker 1: so that they can't be subject to being stripped away

835
00:43:30,840 --> 00:43:35,840
Speaker 1: from a tyrannical majority. So it's really the core concept

836
00:43:35,840 --> 00:43:40,600
Speaker 1: here is exactly the opposite of what Sunny Houston is saying,

837
00:43:40,719 --> 00:43:42,800
Speaker 1: or what Anon and I think that was a segment

838
00:43:42,760 --> 00:43:46,120
Speaker 1: of joy Read was trying to was trying to intimate.

839
00:43:46,920 --> 00:43:49,400
Speaker 1: The fact of the matter is there is no doubt

840
00:43:49,520 --> 00:43:53,080
Speaker 1: that if you are in favor of handing more powers

841
00:43:53,160 --> 00:43:58,200
Speaker 1: of censorship and stifling to billionaire class or the political class,

842
00:43:58,520 --> 00:44:02,600
Speaker 1: the people who are overwhelm going to be targeted are dissidents,

843
00:44:02,640 --> 00:44:06,279
Speaker 1: are people who are challenging power, who are outside of

844
00:44:06,520 --> 00:44:10,120
Speaker 1: the majority and the mainstream. Those are always going to

845
00:44:10,120 --> 00:44:12,200
Speaker 1: be the people who bear at the brunt of the

846
00:44:12,320 --> 00:44:16,000
Speaker 1: censorship and are pushed out of the public square. So

847
00:44:16,600 --> 00:44:19,560
Speaker 1: that's why I find this issue important. That's why I

848
00:44:19,640 --> 00:44:22,280
Speaker 1: find this not only to be wrong, but to actually

849
00:44:22,320 --> 00:44:25,920
Speaker 1: be the total opposite of what is going on and

850
00:44:26,040 --> 00:44:31,240
Speaker 1: an actively offensive way and dishonest way of viewing this issue,

851
00:44:31,239 --> 00:44:36,320
Speaker 1: because again, the whole idea of why you have constitutional

852
00:44:36,440 --> 00:44:40,160
Speaker 1: rights that require, you know, extraordinary means in order to

853
00:44:40,200 --> 00:44:44,440
Speaker 1: alter them is to protect minority viewpoints so you do

854
00:44:44,520 --> 00:44:47,040
Speaker 1: not suffer from the charity of the majority. So this

855
00:44:47,160 --> 00:44:49,040
Speaker 1: is insane. I mean, listen, I always with the caveat

856
00:44:49,080 --> 00:44:52,239
Speaker 1: is Elon actually going to ashure and we don't want

857
00:44:52,239 --> 00:44:55,200
Speaker 1: to apply it? Apparently we don't know, neither do you.

858
00:44:55,520 --> 00:44:57,520
Speaker 1: But I don't know why you're so much more comfortable

859
00:44:57,520 --> 00:45:00,840
Speaker 1: with like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia having massive stake

860
00:45:00,920 --> 00:45:04,480
Speaker 1: in Twitter than Elon Musk. To me, look and I

861
00:45:04,520 --> 00:45:06,600
Speaker 1: think some you know, I think Anne would say, yeah,

862
00:45:06,719 --> 00:45:09,720
Speaker 1: like billionaire control, no matter which billionaire is a problem,

863
00:45:09,760 --> 00:45:12,600
Speaker 1: Like that's a core part of his view. But obviously

864
00:45:12,640 --> 00:45:15,400
Speaker 1: his views on censorship and what he would actually like

865
00:45:15,440 --> 00:45:18,680
Speaker 1: to see in terms of a regime, he's actually advocating

866
00:45:18,760 --> 00:45:21,520
Speaker 1: for people like Elon Musk and his other you know,

867
00:45:21,600 --> 00:45:24,400
Speaker 1: fellow billionaires in that class to have more power. So

868
00:45:24,520 --> 00:45:27,800
Speaker 1: it's counter to what his whole thing is supposed to

869
00:45:27,840 --> 00:45:30,000
Speaker 1: be about, which is we need to not have the

870
00:45:30,040 --> 00:45:32,200
Speaker 1: billionaire class in charge of everything. Yeah, that's right, and

871
00:45:32,239 --> 00:45:35,600
Speaker 1: I completely agree. And it's like, oh, this billionaire is

872
00:45:35,640 --> 00:45:37,239
Speaker 1: bad and this type of free speech is bad, and

873
00:45:37,280 --> 00:45:40,080
Speaker 1: we need more equitable speech. Straight, It's like, why do

874
00:45:40,160 --> 00:45:44,920
Speaker 1: they have to use and really defile these time honored

875
00:45:44,920 --> 00:45:47,719
Speaker 1: principles in the name of the culture war? But I

876
00:45:47,719 --> 00:45:49,200
Speaker 1: think I know the answer, which is that they know

877
00:45:49,280 --> 00:45:51,640
Speaker 1: that they'll be protected and the others won't. Also blocking

878
00:45:51,680 --> 00:45:53,879
Speaker 1: somebody's on a violation of free speech, that's not the point.

879
00:45:53,880 --> 00:45:56,880
Speaker 1: You should have control, more control over your user experience.

880
00:45:56,920 --> 00:45:59,440
Speaker 1: That's actually a good thing. Yeah, you know, that's actually

881
00:45:59,480 --> 00:46:01,719
Speaker 1: a decent So decent's the only good point that she

882
00:46:01,760 --> 00:46:04,920
Speaker 1: was making. I saw I saw an article that was like,

883
00:46:04,960 --> 00:46:07,719
Speaker 1: what free speech actually looks like is some random guy

884
00:46:07,800 --> 00:46:10,799
Speaker 1: sending you a dig pic every single day unsolicited. I'm like,

885
00:46:11,000 --> 00:46:12,960
Speaker 1: you could just you know, there is a block button. Yeah,

886
00:46:13,760 --> 00:46:16,200
Speaker 1: here's just like you can mute people, you can block.

887
00:46:16,239 --> 00:46:19,120
Speaker 1: You don't have to like subject to yourself to whatever

888
00:46:19,239 --> 00:46:23,280
Speaker 1: randomness comes at you online. And advocating for those tools

889
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:26,319
Speaker 1: and being and availing them yourself of them, I think

890
00:46:26,440 --> 00:46:28,960
Speaker 1: that is really important to be able to have control

891
00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:32,640
Speaker 1: over your experience. But yeah, anyway, they're silly. That's the

892
00:46:32,640 --> 00:46:37,920
Speaker 1: bottom line. All right, We'll see you guys later, more later. Hey, guys,

893
00:46:37,960 --> 00:46:40,520
Speaker 1: we're excited to partner with upcoming YouTuber James Lee of

894
00:46:40,560 --> 00:46:43,560
Speaker 1: fifty one forty nine. He's going to explain culture, politics,

895
00:46:43,600 --> 00:46:46,319
Speaker 1: anything else that he's explaining, and we're really excited about it. Yep,

896
00:46:46,360 --> 00:46:48,879
Speaker 1: here is his latest effort. Let's get to it. Hey there,

897
00:46:48,920 --> 00:46:50,960
Speaker 1: my name is James Lee. Welcome to another segment of

898
00:46:50,960 --> 00:46:54,960
Speaker 1: fifty one forty nine on Breaking Points. Today, we are

899
00:46:55,040 --> 00:46:58,720
Speaker 1: going to look to understand China's unique form of autocracy

900
00:46:59,280 --> 00:47:03,240
Speaker 1: to hopefully illuminate how power structures and incentives in China

901
00:47:03,719 --> 00:47:07,800
Speaker 1: and the United States manifest in policies that deeply impact

902
00:47:07,840 --> 00:47:10,759
Speaker 1: the lives of its everyday citizens. And I think the

903
00:47:10,800 --> 00:47:15,719
Speaker 1: most useful lens for understanding China is the country's pandemic

904
00:47:15,760 --> 00:47:22,680
Speaker 1: response policies over the past couple of years. Because it's

905
00:47:22,680 --> 00:47:31,160
Speaker 1: something that y'all, I'm not that anthem that y'all, I mean,

906
00:47:31,200 --> 00:47:37,839
Speaker 1: not check kanga and what what you do? I'm y'all,

907
00:47:37,880 --> 00:47:50,680
Speaker 1: how much you gonna elsy all, I mean, take out

908
00:47:50,680 --> 00:47:53,800
Speaker 1: a long what you're gonna God something that's to my

909
00:47:53,960 --> 00:48:08,520
Speaker 1: value coming to I'm wanna you you do so the hat.

910
00:48:08,680 --> 00:48:12,080
Speaker 1: I'm sure many of you have seen some disturbing footage

911
00:48:12,120 --> 00:48:14,359
Speaker 1: like this coming out of China in recent weeks, as

912
00:48:14,440 --> 00:48:19,160
Speaker 1: some of China's largest cities, including Shanghai, with a population

913
00:48:19,239 --> 00:48:22,360
Speaker 1: of more than twenty six million people, have been under

914
00:48:22,440 --> 00:48:26,719
Speaker 1: a strict lockdown amiss a recent COVID nineteen outbreak in

915
00:48:26,760 --> 00:48:31,120
Speaker 1: pursuit of their zero COVID strategy. According to New York

916
00:48:31,120 --> 00:48:34,320
Speaker 1: Times reporting unquote, mister Shei, he's the president of China

917
00:48:34,320 --> 00:48:37,560
Speaker 1: and the leader of the Chinese Communist Party, is keen

918
00:48:37,600 --> 00:48:40,680
Speaker 1: to stick to this strategy, the zero COVID strategy, because

919
00:48:40,719 --> 00:48:44,120
Speaker 1: he is seeking a third term at an important Communist

920
00:48:44,160 --> 00:48:47,440
Speaker 1: Party congress later this year. He wants to use China's

921
00:48:47,440 --> 00:48:50,200
Speaker 1: success in containing the virus to prove that its top

922
00:48:50,239 --> 00:48:54,560
Speaker 1: down governance model is superior to that of liberal democracies.

923
00:48:55,280 --> 00:48:58,440
Speaker 1: I think, without a doubt there is an intensifying battle

924
00:48:58,480 --> 00:49:03,160
Speaker 1: between two economics and geopolitical superpowers, China and the US,

925
00:49:03,239 --> 00:49:08,240
Speaker 1: and the seemingly diametrically opposing cultures and values they represent,

926
00:49:08,800 --> 00:49:13,680
Speaker 1: one being democracy in individualism and the other being authoritarianism

927
00:49:13,880 --> 00:49:18,440
Speaker 1: and collectivism. And I think in the West we have

928
00:49:18,920 --> 00:49:22,719
Speaker 1: watched with kind of confusion and horror at how just

929
00:49:22,760 --> 00:49:26,040
Speaker 1: how extreme a position China has taken in terms of

930
00:49:26,080 --> 00:49:30,680
Speaker 1: their zero COVID policy, with very little acknowledgment or discussion

931
00:49:30,719 --> 00:49:34,560
Speaker 1: about the inherent trade offs of such an extreme strategy,

932
00:49:34,680 --> 00:49:37,160
Speaker 1: such as the mental and physical health impacts of an

933
00:49:37,160 --> 00:49:41,839
Speaker 1: indefinite lockdown. But I think in order to make sense

934
00:49:41,880 --> 00:49:44,760
Speaker 1: of this policy, we have to understand how the Chinese

935
00:49:44,800 --> 00:49:48,880
Speaker 1: Communist Party is organized, the incentive structures in place, and

936
00:49:48,920 --> 00:49:52,840
Speaker 1: what kind of behavior is rewarded. I'm gonna read a

937
00:49:52,840 --> 00:49:56,359
Speaker 1: little passes from the diplomatic Current Affairs magazine focusing on

938
00:49:56,400 --> 00:49:59,600
Speaker 1: the Asia Pacific region. Quote Scholars such as Kevin J.

939
00:49:59,719 --> 00:50:04,240
Speaker 1: O'bert describe the Chinese state as responsibility driven, meaning local

940
00:50:04,280 --> 00:50:08,480
Speaker 1: officials operate under what is known as a cadre responsibility system.

941
00:50:08,840 --> 00:50:13,080
Speaker 1: The kadre responsibility system evaluates the performance of local cadres

942
00:50:13,160 --> 00:50:17,440
Speaker 1: based on their fulfillment of assigned policy goals. During mobilization,

943
00:50:17,560 --> 00:50:21,120
Speaker 1: the task from the top leadership becomes the priority outweighing

944
00:50:21,200 --> 00:50:24,799
Speaker 1: all policy goals in the kadri responsibility system. Under the

945
00:50:24,800 --> 00:50:28,359
Speaker 1: current zero COVID policy. The task of preventing a COVID

946
00:50:28,440 --> 00:50:32,600
Speaker 1: nineteen outbreak outweighs the imperative of economic growth, usually the

947
00:50:32,640 --> 00:50:36,120
Speaker 1: most critical policy goal in the Kadry responsibility system. So

948
00:50:36,200 --> 00:50:40,440
Speaker 1: you take this overarching national strategy of zero COVID and

949
00:50:40,520 --> 00:50:42,000
Speaker 1: just to give you a little bit of a visual,

950
00:50:42,640 --> 00:50:45,399
Speaker 1: the directive funnels down from President she and a small

951
00:50:45,440 --> 00:50:49,920
Speaker 1: group of senior officials known as the Politburo to the

952
00:50:50,280 --> 00:50:53,479
Speaker 1: local Communist Party officials to implement. Many of these lower

953
00:50:53,520 --> 00:50:56,680
Speaker 1: junior officials would of course have ambitions to move up

954
00:50:56,760 --> 00:51:00,680
Speaker 1: the food chain, and if their performance, loyalty, future prospects, etc.

955
00:51:01,600 --> 00:51:04,879
Speaker 1: Are based on this one policy goal with the most

956
00:51:04,880 --> 00:51:08,480
Speaker 1: important metric being zero cases of COVID, then that doesn't

957
00:51:08,560 --> 00:51:12,880
Speaker 1: lead much choice but for them to double down with

958
00:51:12,920 --> 00:51:16,600
Speaker 1: some pretty extreme measures along with sacrificing other priorities and

959
00:51:16,680 --> 00:51:21,160
Speaker 1: duties to ensure that China stay COVID free. And such

960
00:51:21,280 --> 00:51:25,760
Speaker 1: an imbalance between the demands and incentives of the government

961
00:51:25,760 --> 00:51:29,080
Speaker 1: officials and the needs of the people can have extremely

962
00:51:29,160 --> 00:51:32,919
Speaker 1: harsh consequences for the general public, something that I think

963
00:51:33,040 --> 00:51:35,759
Speaker 1: critics are worried about rightly right now. With China zero

964
00:51:35,800 --> 00:51:39,080
Speaker 1: COVID policy. Now taking it one step further. With the

965
00:51:39,480 --> 00:51:43,720
Speaker 1: numerous entanglements between the public and private sector in China,

966
00:51:44,200 --> 00:51:49,320
Speaker 1: one might think that, like the United States, billionaires wield

967
00:51:50,080 --> 00:51:53,800
Speaker 1: as much, if not more power than any one government official.

968
00:51:54,360 --> 00:51:58,560
Speaker 1: But in China that's not necessarily the case. Take the

969
00:51:58,640 --> 00:52:02,600
Speaker 1: Chinese government's response to their most famous billionaire, Jackma of

970
00:52:02,719 --> 00:52:05,439
Speaker 1: Ali Baba, as an example. This is from the Wall

971
00:52:05,440 --> 00:52:08,280
Speaker 1: Street Journal last year. Quote. During a visit last summer

972
00:52:08,320 --> 00:52:12,040
Speaker 1: to Hoofe, a Chinese city northeast of the epicenter of

973
00:52:12,040 --> 00:52:15,560
Speaker 1: the COVID nineteen outbreak, mister Ma invited medical workers to

974
00:52:15,680 --> 00:52:19,160
Speaker 1: a hot pot banquet to show his appreciation. A local

975
00:52:19,200 --> 00:52:22,360
Speaker 1: media report referred to him as quote teacher Ma and

976
00:52:22,640 --> 00:52:26,280
Speaker 1: said he sang opera for the guests. Senior leaders were annoyed.

977
00:52:26,360 --> 00:52:29,480
Speaker 1: According to a person familiar with the matter, Beijing took

978
00:52:29,480 --> 00:52:32,839
Speaker 1: credit for Chinese COVID nineteen response, and some officials thought

979
00:52:32,840 --> 00:52:37,040
Speaker 1: it wasn't mister Ma's place to thank frontline workers. That's right,

980
00:52:37,080 --> 00:52:40,640
Speaker 1: it's not a billionaire's role to thank workers. It's the

981
00:52:40,680 --> 00:52:46,000
Speaker 1: responsibility of the Chinese Communist Party. They don't want any

982
00:52:46,200 --> 00:52:50,440
Speaker 1: allusion to the idea that the private sector can be

983
00:52:50,480 --> 00:52:53,919
Speaker 1: an answer to a challenging situation or problem, with even

984
00:52:54,040 --> 00:52:58,040
Speaker 1: something as trivial as a thank you hot pop banquet

985
00:52:58,200 --> 00:53:01,880
Speaker 1: to send a message that China only has one leader

986
00:53:02,320 --> 00:53:04,839
Speaker 1: in a time of crisis, as the Wall Street Journal

987
00:53:04,840 --> 00:53:07,840
Speaker 1: headline eludes. And I think, unlike the US, where I

988
00:53:07,840 --> 00:53:11,759
Speaker 1: think you know pretty much, we have this common idolatry

989
00:53:11,800 --> 00:53:16,399
Speaker 1: of the billionaire entrepreneur and this narrative that business can

990
00:53:16,440 --> 00:53:19,799
Speaker 1: do a better job than the government. In China, you

991
00:53:19,880 --> 00:53:23,520
Speaker 1: could be a billionaire tech entrepreneur, but the head of

992
00:53:23,560 --> 00:53:27,879
Speaker 1: the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping still calls the shots.

993
00:53:28,480 --> 00:53:32,719
Speaker 1: There's no way a group of billionaires could control the

994
00:53:32,760 --> 00:53:42,200
Speaker 1: politburea as billionaires control American policymaking. So in China you

995
00:53:42,280 --> 00:53:46,200
Speaker 1: have a viber market economy, but capital does not rise

996
00:53:46,239 --> 00:53:55,800
Speaker 1: above political authority. Capital does not have enshrined rights. In America, capital,

997
00:53:56,600 --> 00:53:59,920
Speaker 1: the interest of capital, and capital itself has risen above

998
00:54:00,719 --> 00:54:05,720
Speaker 1: the American nation. The political authority cannot check the power

999
00:54:05,719 --> 00:54:09,719
Speaker 1: of capital. That was Eric Lee, a Chinese venture capitalist

1000
00:54:09,800 --> 00:54:12,120
Speaker 1: and political scientists. And I think I'm going to repeat

1001
00:54:12,160 --> 00:54:15,080
Speaker 1: what he said once again because I think it explained

1002
00:54:15,160 --> 00:54:19,480
Speaker 1: so much. Because in China, as he said, capital does

1003
00:54:19,520 --> 00:54:24,200
Speaker 1: not have enshrined rights, it doesn't rise above political authority.

1004
00:54:24,320 --> 00:54:28,239
Speaker 1: But in America, capital and the interests of capital has

1005
00:54:28,400 --> 00:54:33,040
Speaker 1: risen above the American nation, and political authority is actually

1006
00:54:33,120 --> 00:54:36,359
Speaker 1: unable to check the power of capital, and we see

1007
00:54:36,360 --> 00:54:39,520
Speaker 1: this in practice all the time. On December twenty first

1008
00:54:39,680 --> 00:54:43,359
Speaker 1: of last year, Delta Airline CEO Ed Baston asked the

1009
00:54:43,400 --> 00:54:46,680
Speaker 1: CDC to shorten the COVID nineteen isolation period from ten

1010
00:54:46,800 --> 00:54:50,080
Speaker 1: to five days and lo and behold. A few days later,

1011
00:54:50,239 --> 00:54:53,600
Speaker 1: on December twenty seventh, the CDC updated and revised their

1012
00:54:53,640 --> 00:54:57,560
Speaker 1: isolation in quarantine guideline from ten to five days. Many

1013
00:54:57,680 --> 00:55:01,080
Speaker 1: have suggested that the motivation for the change and the

1014
00:55:01,080 --> 00:55:05,279
Speaker 1: guideline was economic rather than scientific, and I think with

1015
00:55:05,400 --> 00:55:09,440
Speaker 1: some pretty good reason, according doctor Frauci, with the sheer

1016
00:55:09,520 --> 00:55:12,560
Speaker 1: volume of new cases that we are having and that

1017
00:55:12,600 --> 00:55:15,320
Speaker 1: we expect to continue with omicron, one of the things

1018
00:55:15,360 --> 00:55:17,600
Speaker 1: we want to be careful of is that we don't

1019
00:55:17,640 --> 00:55:20,920
Speaker 1: have so many people out. Doctor Anthony Fauci, the Biden

1020
00:55:20,960 --> 00:55:25,560
Speaker 1: administration's chief medical advisor, told CNN's Jim Acosta. I mean, obviously,

1021
00:55:25,600 --> 00:55:27,839
Speaker 1: if you have symptoms, you should stay home. But if

1022
00:55:27,880 --> 00:55:31,000
Speaker 1: you're asymptomatic and you're infected. We want to get these

1023
00:55:31,000 --> 00:55:34,480
Speaker 1: people back to jobs, particularly those with essential jobs, to

1024
00:55:34,560 --> 00:55:37,920
Speaker 1: keep our society running smoothly. In the case of Delta,

1025
00:55:38,280 --> 00:55:41,480
Speaker 1: staffing was and remains a major issue for the airline

1026
00:55:41,520 --> 00:55:44,960
Speaker 1: industry as a whole, and having a shorter quarantine period

1027
00:55:45,000 --> 00:55:48,640
Speaker 1: would certainly help the cause. Also a bit of the

1028
00:55:48,719 --> 00:55:51,920
Speaker 1: quiet part out loud there for doctor Fauci admitting that

1029
00:55:51,960 --> 00:55:56,520
Speaker 1: the change in quarantine length isn't necessarily scientifically driven, but

1030
00:55:56,640 --> 00:56:00,120
Speaker 1: rather to mitigate economic disruption I think, which is a

1031
00:56:00,160 --> 00:56:06,040
Speaker 1: clear deviation from past messaging that asymptomatic infection fueled the

1032
00:56:06,120 --> 00:56:09,239
Speaker 1: spread of COVID nineteen and that folks should stay home

1033
00:56:09,320 --> 00:56:14,080
Speaker 1: until testing negative. Another example, President Joe Biden, to his credit,

1034
00:56:14,120 --> 00:56:18,120
Speaker 1: has at least in rhetoric, continually called for intellectual property

1035
00:56:18,200 --> 00:56:22,120
Speaker 1: waivers on the COVID nineteen vaccines, and at last year's

1036
00:56:22,239 --> 00:56:25,640
Speaker 1: WTO meetings said that the discovery of new variants demonstrates

1037
00:56:25,680 --> 00:56:28,400
Speaker 1: that the pandemic will not end until the entire world

1038
00:56:28,400 --> 00:56:31,799
Speaker 1: has access to vaccines. But he, along with the rest

1039
00:56:32,000 --> 00:56:37,520
Speaker 1: of the US government, have been continually thwarted by massive

1040
00:56:37,600 --> 00:56:40,800
Speaker 1: lobbing efforts and the power of big pharma and so

1041
00:56:41,000 --> 00:56:43,720
Speaker 1: like we just talked about before. In the United States,

1042
00:56:44,080 --> 00:56:46,840
Speaker 1: with money being the number one interests of the country,

1043
00:56:47,400 --> 00:56:51,720
Speaker 1: political authority is actually not capable of checking the power

1044
00:56:51,719 --> 00:56:56,160
Speaker 1: of capital. Wealthy individuals and businesses almost always get their way,

1045
00:56:56,640 --> 00:57:00,360
Speaker 1: while in China the interests of capital cannot rise above

1046
00:57:00,360 --> 00:57:03,920
Speaker 1: political authority because in China the number one interest is,

1047
00:57:04,320 --> 00:57:07,839
Speaker 1: of course, to preserve the Chinese Communist Party. We talked

1048
00:57:07,840 --> 00:57:10,640
Speaker 1: about Jack Ma earlier, and this is once again from

1049
00:57:10,680 --> 00:57:13,239
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal quote. Mister Ma failed to keep

1050
00:57:13,280 --> 00:57:17,200
Speaker 1: pace with beijing shifting views and lost in appreciation for

1051
00:57:17,520 --> 00:57:20,200
Speaker 1: the risk of falling out a step. According to people

1052
00:57:20,200 --> 00:57:23,120
Speaker 1: who know him, he tuned out warnings for years. They

1053
00:57:23,160 --> 00:57:26,880
Speaker 1: said he behaved too much like an American entrepreneur. Mister

1054
00:57:26,960 --> 00:57:30,120
Speaker 1: Ma's exit from the world stage followed a typically frank

1055
00:57:30,160 --> 00:57:33,960
Speaker 1: speech in October when he criticized Chinese regulators for stifling

1056
00:57:34,040 --> 00:57:38,560
Speaker 1: financial innovation. Mister she personally intervened days later to block

1057
00:57:38,600 --> 00:57:42,480
Speaker 1: the record thirty four billion plus initial public offering of

1058
00:57:42,560 --> 00:57:45,960
Speaker 1: ant Group, mister Maa's financial tech company. So money does

1059
00:57:46,040 --> 00:57:50,000
Speaker 1: not talk in China, unlike in the US, where money

1060
00:57:50,040 --> 00:57:53,840
Speaker 1: not only allows you to buy influence in public policy.

1061
00:57:54,440 --> 00:57:56,400
Speaker 1: This is a quote from Jackoman magazine in reference to

1062
00:57:56,440 --> 00:57:59,960
Speaker 1: Bill Gates. Quote. This is a private billionaire in CIA

1063
00:58:00,440 --> 00:58:04,000
Speaker 1: at the highest levels of scientific discourse, the New England

1064
00:58:04,080 --> 00:58:07,080
Speaker 1: Journal of Medicine, telling governments what they should be doing.

1065
00:58:07,480 --> 00:58:10,840
Speaker 1: So right. Capital allows billionaires to bend the ear of

1066
00:58:10,880 --> 00:58:14,800
Speaker 1: not only the politicians, but also academia, and it can

1067
00:58:14,840 --> 00:58:18,480
Speaker 1: also be used to shield you from any media criticism. Quote.

1068
00:58:18,480 --> 00:58:21,760
Speaker 1: If you're a journalist covering global health, the Gates Foundation

1069
00:58:21,840 --> 00:58:25,240
Speaker 1: should be one of your most important targets. But it

1070
00:58:25,280 --> 00:58:28,200
Speaker 1: can't be if it's funding your newsroom. So in America,

1071
00:58:28,320 --> 00:58:34,439
Speaker 1: policymaking and capital are inextricably intertwined, with the country's number

1072
00:58:34,480 --> 00:58:37,280
Speaker 1: one interest being to protect capital at all costs. But

1073
00:58:38,120 --> 00:58:40,480
Speaker 1: on the other hand, in China, they've been willing to

1074
00:58:40,520 --> 00:58:43,640
Speaker 1: put economic considerations on the back burner. I think Forbes

1075
00:58:43,800 --> 00:58:47,200
Speaker 1: estimates about forty six billion dollars a month in pursuit

1076
00:58:47,320 --> 00:58:50,320
Speaker 1: of zero COVID. I live in the US, and I

1077
00:58:50,400 --> 00:58:53,200
Speaker 1: think so do a lot of the audience watching this video.

1078
00:58:53,680 --> 00:58:55,120
Speaker 1: And I think in the US, at least in the

1079
00:58:55,160 --> 00:58:58,640
Speaker 1: Western world, we think we look at a country like

1080
00:58:58,720 --> 00:59:01,680
Speaker 1: China and think, yeah, man, I'm glad I don't live

1081
00:59:01,720 --> 00:59:05,440
Speaker 1: there because look at all the human rights violations now,

1082
00:59:05,920 --> 00:59:10,400
Speaker 1: the indefinite lockdowns in some cities, with other cities watching on,

1083
00:59:10,560 --> 00:59:13,479
Speaker 1: knowing that it could be them next. Not to mention

1084
00:59:13,680 --> 00:59:18,160
Speaker 1: the strict speech, information and media censorship under the Chinese

1085
00:59:18,160 --> 00:59:21,520
Speaker 1: communist regime, but I think what's important to note here,

1086
00:59:22,600 --> 00:59:25,360
Speaker 1: you know, in regards to something like censorship and free speech,

1087
00:59:26,280 --> 00:59:29,400
Speaker 1: which I find quite interesting, is that in China, sure

1088
00:59:29,440 --> 00:59:32,720
Speaker 1: the government decides who canon cannot speak and then what

1089
00:59:32,760 --> 00:59:36,320
Speaker 1: you can't can and cannot say. But in the US,

1090
00:59:36,960 --> 00:59:42,040
Speaker 1: the government doesn't censor people. Capital does. Even government officials

1091
00:59:42,160 --> 00:59:46,000
Speaker 1: like Marjorie Taylor Green and of course former President Trump

1092
00:59:46,400 --> 00:59:50,400
Speaker 1: can actually be censored by corporations like Twitter, although you know,

1093
00:59:50,440 --> 00:59:53,400
Speaker 1: now with Elon Musk's takeover, that could very well change.

1094
00:59:53,600 --> 00:59:56,800
Speaker 1: But once again that change is based on the whims

1095
00:59:56,880 --> 01:00:00,280
Speaker 1: of capital and not the government. So in a way,

1096
01:00:00,960 --> 01:00:03,800
Speaker 1: the freedoms and liberties of citizens in both countries are

1097
01:00:03,840 --> 01:00:07,720
Speaker 1: infringed upon by different groups of people and in slightly

1098
01:00:08,040 --> 01:00:11,280
Speaker 1: different ways. My point, of course, is not to be

1099
01:00:11,520 --> 01:00:15,480
Speaker 1: pro China or anti America vice versa, or to draw

1100
01:00:15,480 --> 01:00:19,520
Speaker 1: any kind of false equivalency between these two countries, but

1101
01:00:19,640 --> 01:00:25,840
Speaker 1: rather to hopefully illuminate and understand the underlying incentives and

1102
01:00:25,920 --> 01:00:29,200
Speaker 1: priorities driving the policy making and the trade off decisions,

1103
01:00:29,240 --> 01:00:33,400
Speaker 1: because the truth is, both countries seek to preserve something.

1104
01:00:34,080 --> 01:00:37,280
Speaker 1: In China, the number one goal happens to be preserving

1105
01:00:37,320 --> 01:00:42,480
Speaker 1: the Chinese Communist Party, and so sometimes the Chinese government

1106
01:00:42,960 --> 01:00:45,640
Speaker 1: will sacrifice the rights and the well being of its

1107
01:00:45,680 --> 01:00:49,640
Speaker 1: citizens to preserve their power. In the United States, the

1108
01:00:49,720 --> 01:00:53,600
Speaker 1: number one goals of the current bipartisan consensus is to

1109
01:00:53,680 --> 01:00:57,640
Speaker 1: protect capital, corporations and the wealthy, and so sometimes the

1110
01:00:57,760 --> 01:01:00,200
Speaker 1: US government will sacrifice the rights and the well being

1111
01:01:00,240 --> 01:01:03,800
Speaker 1: of its citizens to protect the interests of capital. Now,

1112
01:01:03,960 --> 01:01:06,520
Speaker 1: let you draw your own conclusions on which you prefer,

1113
01:01:06,680 --> 01:01:10,720
Speaker 1: But for me, if the primary purpose of government is

1114
01:01:10,720 --> 01:01:14,000
Speaker 1: to protect and provide for the well being of its citizens,

1115
01:01:14,880 --> 01:01:19,240
Speaker 1: and if you share that similar vision, the truth is

1116
01:01:19,240 --> 01:01:23,720
Speaker 1: that any government, democratic or otherwise, whose primary function is

1117
01:01:23,800 --> 01:01:29,200
Speaker 1: either to preserve power or protect capital could never truly

1118
01:01:29,280 --> 01:01:33,800
Speaker 1: prioritize the well being of its citizens. I hope you

1119
01:01:33,880 --> 01:01:37,760
Speaker 1: enjoyed today's discussion about China. If you'd like to know

1120
01:01:37,800 --> 01:01:40,320
Speaker 1: more about this topic and many others, please check out

1121
01:01:40,680 --> 01:01:42,800
Speaker 1: my channel fifty one to forty nine with James Lee

1122
01:01:43,360 --> 01:01:47,120
Speaker 1: on YouTube, where I release weekly videos relating to the

1123
01:01:47,560 --> 01:01:50,920
Speaker 1: intersection of business and politics and as well as society.

1124
01:01:51,280 --> 01:01:54,160
Speaker 1: The link will be in the description below. Of course,

1125
01:01:54,560 --> 01:01:56,800
Speaker 1: subscribe to Breaking Points and thank you so much for

1126
01:01:56,840 --> 01:02:03,720
Speaker 1: your time today. Hi. I'm Matt Stoler, author of monopoly

1127
01:02:03,720 --> 01:02:07,560
Speaker 1: focused newsletter Big and an anti trust policy analyst. Welcome

1128
01:02:07,560 --> 01:02:11,640
Speaker 1: to the latest Big Breakdown on Breaking Points. Two thirds

1129
01:02:11,640 --> 01:02:14,040
Speaker 1: of people over the age of seventy, about thirty or

1130
01:02:14,040 --> 01:02:18,320
Speaker 1: forty million Americans, experience hearing loss. It's just something that

1131
01:02:18,360 --> 01:02:22,520
Speaker 1: happens as you age, and untreated it can lead to dementia.

1132
01:02:22,600 --> 01:02:24,960
Speaker 1: But fortunately we have something for this. If you have

1133
01:02:25,000 --> 01:02:28,720
Speaker 1: bad eyesight, you get glasses. If you lose hearing, you

1134
01:02:28,800 --> 01:02:32,760
Speaker 1: get hearing aids, which are basically it's a microphone and

1135
01:02:32,800 --> 01:02:36,560
Speaker 1: an amplifier meant to fit into your ear, along with

1136
01:02:36,720 --> 01:02:40,160
Speaker 1: software and an app to control it, algorithms and things

1137
01:02:40,240 --> 01:02:43,360
Speaker 1: like that to improve hearing. There are different styles depending

1138
01:02:43,440 --> 01:02:45,960
Speaker 1: on your hearing and what feels comfortable of hearing aids.

1139
01:02:47,080 --> 01:02:50,200
Speaker 1: But there's a major problem going on with this market.

1140
01:02:50,240 --> 01:02:53,000
Speaker 1: With hearing aids, only twenty percent of people who have

1141
01:02:53,120 --> 01:02:57,600
Speaker 1: hearing loss actually end up buying and using them. Why

1142
01:02:57,680 --> 01:03:02,040
Speaker 1: is that? Yes, there's an an optly story, and that's

1143
01:03:02,040 --> 01:03:05,200
Speaker 1: what I'm going to be talking about today now. A

1144
01:03:05,240 --> 01:03:07,560
Speaker 1: good amount of the problem with hearing aids is that

1145
01:03:08,960 --> 01:03:12,520
Speaker 1: it's they're kind of embarrassing. People don't like to admit

1146
01:03:12,560 --> 01:03:15,320
Speaker 1: that they need help hearing. It makes them feel old,

1147
01:03:15,800 --> 01:03:19,240
Speaker 1: and they don't really like feeling stigmatized. No one does.

1148
01:03:20,160 --> 01:03:23,560
Speaker 1: But there's another problem with this more measurable problem, and

1149
01:03:23,600 --> 01:03:27,320
Speaker 1: that's the hefty prices. A few years ago, buying a

1150
01:03:27,320 --> 01:03:30,840
Speaker 1: hearing aid cost roughly forty eight hundred dollars. That is

1151
01:03:31,040 --> 01:03:35,080
Speaker 1: the third largest purchase for many people, after a house

1152
01:03:35,240 --> 01:03:37,840
Speaker 1: and a car. It's a lot of money, and as

1153
01:03:37,840 --> 01:03:40,040
Speaker 1: a result, a lot of people can't afford hearing aids

1154
01:03:40,560 --> 01:03:43,440
Speaker 1: and they can't afford to replace them when they break,

1155
01:03:43,880 --> 01:03:47,320
Speaker 1: especially if you're a retiree living on Social Security or

1156
01:03:47,360 --> 01:03:52,040
Speaker 1: you have limited amounts of income. With today's technology, hearing

1157
01:03:52,080 --> 01:03:55,520
Speaker 1: aids just shouldn't cost this much. And in truth, the

1158
01:03:55,600 --> 01:03:59,439
Speaker 1: prices are much higher than the costs really are. So

1159
01:04:00,200 --> 01:04:02,240
Speaker 1: I think we can see this because we can compare

1160
01:04:02,720 --> 01:04:05,320
Speaker 1: the prices abroad with what we have in the United States.

1161
01:04:05,320 --> 01:04:08,320
Speaker 1: In England, the government buys hearing aids, the same hearing

1162
01:04:08,320 --> 01:04:11,640
Speaker 1: aids that we use here at sixty eight dollars a piece,

1163
01:04:12,160 --> 01:04:16,600
Speaker 1: versus the wholesale price to retailers and hearing aids specialists

1164
01:04:16,600 --> 01:04:20,360
Speaker 1: who are called audiologists. In the United States, that price

1165
01:04:20,480 --> 01:04:23,800
Speaker 1: is between three and six hundred dollars. And that's not

1166
01:04:23,840 --> 01:04:27,120
Speaker 1: what consumers pay here. That's the wholesale price. The actual

1167
01:04:27,160 --> 01:04:30,160
Speaker 1: price to consumers runs into the thousands. As I just

1168
01:04:30,240 --> 01:04:34,000
Speaker 1: pointed out. Now, the driving force between the gap between

1169
01:04:34,040 --> 01:04:37,480
Speaker 1: what Americans are paying for hearing aids compared to their

1170
01:04:37,480 --> 01:04:41,200
Speaker 1: counterparts in England lies in the market power of the

1171
01:04:41,240 --> 01:04:45,240
Speaker 1: firms that make and sell hearing aids. The industry is

1172
01:04:45,280 --> 01:04:49,600
Speaker 1: controlled by five very profitable hearing aid manufacturers, firms you

1173
01:04:49,720 --> 01:04:52,720
Speaker 1: haven't heard of because they receive very little publicity and

1174
01:04:52,760 --> 01:04:55,040
Speaker 1: the brands are not well known. So these are companies

1175
01:04:55,040 --> 01:05:01,720
Speaker 1: so Nova, WS, Audiology, William Demant, Genersound, and Starkey. Now,

1176
01:05:01,720 --> 01:05:05,720
Speaker 1: according to the Global Partnership for Assistive Technology, these manufacturers

1177
01:05:05,800 --> 01:05:08,320
Speaker 1: control ninety percent of the market and they make a

1178
01:05:08,400 --> 01:05:10,880
Speaker 1: lot of money. Their margins are around twenty five percent

1179
01:05:10,880 --> 01:05:15,040
Speaker 1: and gross margins are around seventy to eighty percent. So

1180
01:05:15,760 --> 01:05:19,400
Speaker 1: why can these companies keep prices so high. Well, one

1181
01:05:19,480 --> 01:05:22,240
Speaker 1: reason is that the Food and Drug Administration requires a

1182
01:05:22,280 --> 01:05:25,040
Speaker 1: prescription for a hearing aid, and that makes it hard

1183
01:05:25,120 --> 01:05:29,240
Speaker 1: to bring cheaper and more innovative devices to market. That's

1184
01:05:29,240 --> 01:05:32,600
Speaker 1: why Apple can't say that its air pods can serve

1185
01:05:32,880 --> 01:05:36,680
Speaker 1: as hearing aids for moderate hearing loss, even though it's

1186
01:05:36,840 --> 01:05:40,280
Speaker 1: likely that AirPods can do this, and tens of millions

1187
01:05:40,320 --> 01:05:42,240
Speaker 1: of people already own air pods and there's not really

1188
01:05:42,280 --> 01:05:47,880
Speaker 1: a stigma to using them now. In twenty seventeen, Congress

1189
01:05:47,960 --> 01:05:51,240
Speaker 1: acted to solve this problem by loosening FDA rules on

1190
01:05:51,320 --> 01:05:57,760
Speaker 1: prescription requirements. The goal was to introduce new, cheaper competition

1191
01:05:58,040 --> 01:06:00,840
Speaker 1: by allowing firms to sell hearing aids over the counter

1192
01:06:01,560 --> 01:06:06,560
Speaker 1: without a prescription. Hearing aids would be like glasses today.

1193
01:06:06,600 --> 01:06:08,320
Speaker 1: You can go into a store and buy what are

1194
01:06:08,320 --> 01:06:11,760
Speaker 1: called breaders that are glasses that you know they're not prescription,

1195
01:06:12,240 --> 01:06:14,880
Speaker 1: and eventually people you know, if they work, they often

1196
01:06:14,880 --> 01:06:18,280
Speaker 1: do get real prescription glasses, and a lot of people

1197
01:06:18,360 --> 01:06:21,040
Speaker 1: do it that way. You can't do that with hearing aids,

1198
01:06:21,240 --> 01:06:23,560
Speaker 1: but you should be able to for the sake of

1199
01:06:23,600 --> 01:06:25,800
Speaker 1: competition and prices and just being able to hear better

1200
01:06:25,840 --> 01:06:28,480
Speaker 1: and avoid dementia and live your life fully, or so

1201
01:06:28,600 --> 01:06:32,280
Speaker 1: went the thinking according to this legislation that passed in

1202
01:06:32,360 --> 01:06:35,240
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen. And after the bill passed, it seemed like

1203
01:06:35,320 --> 01:06:39,040
Speaker 1: it worked. Bows which make speakers and great audio equipment

1204
01:06:39,560 --> 01:06:41,880
Speaker 1: soon sought to enter the market. And indeed, there is

1205
01:06:42,240 --> 01:06:45,680
Speaker 1: a Bo's OTC hearing aid that's over the counter OTC

1206
01:06:45,800 --> 01:06:49,000
Speaker 1: hearing aid on the market today, sort of because it's

1207
01:06:49,120 --> 01:06:51,680
Speaker 1: currently only being sold in a few states because of

1208
01:06:51,680 --> 01:06:56,680
Speaker 1: state regulations. When the FDA finally came out with proposed

1209
01:06:56,760 --> 01:07:02,400
Speaker 1: rules last October, and this is important, something weird happened.

1210
01:07:02,800 --> 01:07:05,680
Speaker 1: The stock prices of the major hearing aid producers, which

1211
01:07:05,680 --> 01:07:08,240
Speaker 1: you would expect to fall when they face more competition

1212
01:07:08,320 --> 01:07:12,360
Speaker 1: and their margins are under pressure, didn't. Budge wall Street.

1213
01:07:12,360 --> 01:07:15,600
Speaker 1: In other words, wasn't particularly concerned that competition would bring

1214
01:07:15,680 --> 01:07:20,280
Speaker 1: down prices and impract profits like conventional economic models of

1215
01:07:20,320 --> 01:07:24,600
Speaker 1: thinking would portray. Why is that, Well, it turns out

1216
01:07:24,640 --> 01:07:27,320
Speaker 1: that these firms use a variety of techniques to keep

1217
01:07:27,360 --> 01:07:30,600
Speaker 1: prices high. So the creation of an OTC market is

1218
01:07:30,680 --> 01:07:33,880
Speaker 1: just the beginning of the fight to make these products cheaper.

1219
01:07:33,960 --> 01:07:36,080
Speaker 1: It's also possible that wall Street is wrong. I actually

1220
01:07:36,080 --> 01:07:39,360
Speaker 1: think that Wall Street probably is wrong. But it's important

1221
01:07:39,400 --> 01:07:42,920
Speaker 1: to go through the barriers to understand why hearing aids,

1222
01:07:43,280 --> 01:07:46,920
Speaker 1: but also more broadly, medical devices in things like glasses

1223
01:07:46,960 --> 01:07:50,120
Speaker 1: and dental implants and whatnot, are way too expensive costs

1224
01:07:50,160 --> 01:07:52,160
Speaker 1: much more than they should be. So how do the

1225
01:07:52,160 --> 01:07:55,040
Speaker 1: hearing aid firms do this the in comments. Well, First,

1226
01:07:55,080 --> 01:07:58,240
Speaker 1: they share patents through a common pool called the Hearing

1227
01:07:58,320 --> 01:08:04,160
Speaker 1: Instrument Manufacture in Partnership HIMPP controls ninety percent of the

1228
01:08:04,160 --> 01:08:07,120
Speaker 1: hearing technology available to consumers worldwide. That's according to their

1229
01:08:07,120 --> 01:08:09,200
Speaker 1: own website. So if you want to enter the market

1230
01:08:09,200 --> 01:08:11,480
Speaker 1: with a new device, it's possible that you'll infringe on

1231
01:08:11,480 --> 01:08:14,040
Speaker 1: one of these patents, which means you'll have to pay up.

1232
01:08:14,160 --> 01:08:17,680
Speaker 1: It's just a barrier to entry. Second, these firms have

1233
01:08:17,720 --> 01:08:20,080
Speaker 1: also bought up a bunch of companies trying to enter

1234
01:08:20,120 --> 01:08:23,240
Speaker 1: the space and made deals with popular consumer brands that

1235
01:08:23,280 --> 01:08:26,519
Speaker 1: compete with them, so they're taking out competitors through corporate

1236
01:08:26,600 --> 01:08:32,160
Speaker 1: mergers and alliances. Now. Third, these companies control the whole

1237
01:08:32,160 --> 01:08:35,559
Speaker 1: process behind a patient getting fitted for a hearing aid,

1238
01:08:35,800 --> 01:08:40,960
Speaker 1: from the insurance to the audiologist. Several of these firms

1239
01:08:40,960 --> 01:08:44,080
Speaker 1: have subsidiaries that manage the hearing part of health insurance.

1240
01:08:44,439 --> 01:08:50,200
Speaker 1: WS Audiology, for instance, owns True Hearing and Hearing Care Solutions,

1241
01:08:50,439 --> 01:08:54,479
Speaker 1: which runs healthcare plans and discount plans for Medicare advantage.

1242
01:08:54,479 --> 01:08:59,000
Speaker 1: Insurers including human A, Blue Closs, Brushield, anthem Atnasigna, etc.

1243
01:09:00,120 --> 01:09:02,760
Speaker 1: Have health insurance with say ETNA, and you need a

1244
01:09:02,800 --> 01:09:05,479
Speaker 1: hearing aid. Who does Etna send you to to find

1245
01:09:05,479 --> 01:09:08,160
Speaker 1: out what kind of hearing aid you need or what

1246
01:09:08,240 --> 01:09:11,160
Speaker 1: kind of hearing assistance you might require? Will they send

1247
01:09:11,200 --> 01:09:13,000
Speaker 1: you to someone who will tell you that you need

1248
01:09:13,120 --> 01:09:16,200
Speaker 1: one of their particular hearing aids, or at least a

1249
01:09:16,280 --> 01:09:21,000
Speaker 1: hearing aid that is very expensive. Now, these manufacturers also

1250
01:09:21,120 --> 01:09:25,839
Speaker 1: own or affiliate with networks of audiologists and hearing specialists. Starkey,

1251
01:09:25,880 --> 01:09:30,000
Speaker 1: for instance, not only owns the benefit management company Start Hearing,

1252
01:09:30,120 --> 01:09:33,679
Speaker 1: but runs the hearing aid specialist network Starky hear Care.

1253
01:09:34,360 --> 01:09:36,800
Speaker 1: So most people with hearing loss problem will go to

1254
01:09:36,840 --> 01:09:40,080
Speaker 1: the doctor, they'll use their insurance, and that's controlled by

1255
01:09:40,120 --> 01:09:42,360
Speaker 1: a hearing aid maker, which will then send them to

1256
01:09:42,400 --> 01:09:46,679
Speaker 1: an audiologist who is perhaps also employed by that hearing

1257
01:09:46,680 --> 01:09:52,000
Speaker 1: aid maker. And here's what's craziest, hearing aid makers sometimes

1258
01:09:52,040 --> 01:09:56,160
Speaker 1: even pay these medical professionals more if they recommend a

1259
01:09:56,280 --> 01:10:00,920
Speaker 1: more expensive hearing aid. That is legitimately crazy. Doctors are

1260
01:10:00,960 --> 01:10:03,639
Speaker 1: not allowed to get a cut from the pharmaceutical company

1261
01:10:03,800 --> 01:10:06,639
Speaker 1: when they prescribe medicine to you for a good reason.

1262
01:10:06,880 --> 01:10:09,599
Speaker 1: But that's how the hearing aid market works right now,

1263
01:10:09,880 --> 01:10:14,000
Speaker 1: and most patients won't know about these embedded conflicts of

1264
01:10:14,080 --> 01:10:17,679
Speaker 1: interest or the kickbacks that are likely involved. It would

1265
01:10:17,720 --> 01:10:20,080
Speaker 1: be bad business if you told them, because there would

1266
01:10:20,160 --> 01:10:23,120
Speaker 1: likely be a negative reaction to the structure of the market.

1267
01:10:23,280 --> 01:10:26,559
Speaker 1: Consumers would be like, what, you're making a lot of

1268
01:10:26,600 --> 01:10:30,599
Speaker 1: money on this massive purchase that I have to put forward,

1269
01:10:30,680 --> 01:10:35,679
Speaker 1: Like that is wrong. The entire business model around hearing aids,

1270
01:10:36,280 --> 01:10:39,680
Speaker 1: causing the prices to be way higher for US customers,

1271
01:10:40,000 --> 01:10:44,000
Speaker 1: at least to me, seems highly unethical. No. One simple

1272
01:10:44,040 --> 01:10:46,479
Speaker 1: way to fix this problem would be to charge for

1273
01:10:46,640 --> 01:10:50,559
Speaker 1: the audiologist's service, which is quite valuable, and the hearing

1274
01:10:50,600 --> 01:10:56,480
Speaker 1: aid or software packages separately. These firms make that impossible

1275
01:10:56,520 --> 01:10:59,439
Speaker 1: because they bundle the device and the fitting service, so

1276
01:10:59,680 --> 01:11:02,600
Speaker 1: they make it impossible for consumers to understand exactly what

1277
01:11:02,640 --> 01:11:05,000
Speaker 1: they're paying for and who the money is going to. Now,

1278
01:11:05,000 --> 01:11:07,559
Speaker 1: if the products were sold separately, audiologists would have an

1279
01:11:07,600 --> 01:11:10,360
Speaker 1: easier time servicing patients with a range of devices. They

1280
01:11:10,360 --> 01:11:13,040
Speaker 1: could choose which one is best for you or for

1281
01:11:13,120 --> 01:11:16,720
Speaker 1: the patient, instead of choosing the one that gets them

1282
01:11:16,760 --> 01:11:22,080
Speaker 1: the most money. Now there are you know, there's a

1283
01:11:22,080 --> 01:11:25,559
Speaker 1: lot of cool technology here. There are even software packages

1284
01:11:25,600 --> 01:11:28,080
Speaker 1: coming out that allow people with moderate hearing loss to

1285
01:11:28,200 --> 01:11:31,000
Speaker 1: use off the shelf electronics without any new hardware at all.

1286
01:11:31,280 --> 01:11:35,600
Speaker 1: Here's a quick demonstration of a software suite called Jacati,

1287
01:11:35,880 --> 01:11:38,160
Speaker 1: which I thought was particularly cool. It's just a few seconds,

1288
01:11:38,200 --> 01:11:40,559
Speaker 1: but just take a look about the so you can

1289
01:11:40,600 --> 01:11:45,960
Speaker 1: see how this technology is developing avoiding such activity. His

1290
01:11:46,080 --> 01:11:49,880
Speaker 1: commitment to fresh ideas often stretched what we thought we

1291
01:11:50,000 --> 01:11:53,960
Speaker 1: knew about. It transmits high quality audio wirelessly back and

1292
01:11:54,000 --> 01:11:58,040
Speaker 1: forth from speaker to listener with no perceptible delay. Third

1293
01:11:58,040 --> 01:12:01,000
Speaker 1: party products can also use the following Cody Hearing suite

1294
01:12:01,000 --> 01:12:06,320
Speaker 1: built in proprietary technologies. Now that's pretty cool technology. The

1295
01:12:06,360 --> 01:12:09,800
Speaker 1: thing is audiologists who might like these newer options, and

1296
01:12:10,160 --> 01:12:12,320
Speaker 1: many of them do. Because these people went into this

1297
01:12:12,360 --> 01:12:14,760
Speaker 1: profession not to make money, but to help people here

1298
01:12:16,479 --> 01:12:20,200
Speaker 1: are often scared to offer these kinds of options because

1299
01:12:20,640 --> 01:12:23,759
Speaker 1: right now they need they actually need the hearing aids

1300
01:12:23,880 --> 01:12:27,599
Speaker 1: that these firms provide. It can also easily get caught

1301
01:12:27,600 --> 01:12:30,519
Speaker 1: off and have their livelihood threatened. I mean they also

1302
01:12:30,520 --> 01:12:34,559
Speaker 1: get customer referrals from the subsidiaries of these hearing aid makers.

1303
01:12:34,600 --> 01:12:37,840
Speaker 1: They are you know, they're both given incentives, but they're

1304
01:12:37,880 --> 01:12:40,639
Speaker 1: also you know, there's an implicit threat there as well.

1305
01:12:41,040 --> 01:12:43,519
Speaker 1: So it's not so much the audiologists that are the

1306
01:12:43,520 --> 01:12:46,680
Speaker 1: problem here. It's that the hearing aid manufacturers who have

1307
01:12:46,840 --> 01:12:51,200
Speaker 1: structured this industry through a whole range of you know,

1308
01:12:51,200 --> 01:12:55,960
Speaker 1: what's called vertical integration or owning multiple pieces of the

1309
01:12:55,960 --> 01:12:59,439
Speaker 1: supply chain so that you can control the whole industry. Now,

1310
01:12:59,720 --> 01:13:04,400
Speaker 1: there's also the problem of maintenance suppliers have proprietary fitting

1311
01:13:04,439 --> 01:13:07,280
Speaker 1: software and that can make it harder for hearing aid

1312
01:13:07,320 --> 01:13:13,880
Speaker 1: specialists to learn to actually use different hearing aids when

1313
01:13:13,880 --> 01:13:17,479
Speaker 1: they shift to another supplier. And for some of these products,

1314
01:13:17,520 --> 01:13:19,360
Speaker 1: you're not allowed to repair them if they break. This

1315
01:13:19,479 --> 01:13:21,080
Speaker 1: is you know, you guys know about right to repair.

1316
01:13:21,120 --> 01:13:24,200
Speaker 1: It's the same it's the same problem. And if you

1317
01:13:24,240 --> 01:13:26,479
Speaker 1: have to get the manufacturer to do the repair and

1318
01:13:26,520 --> 01:13:29,400
Speaker 1: you've upset the manufacturer. That can be a huge problem.

1319
01:13:29,720 --> 01:13:31,320
Speaker 1: So it's just not a good idea if you're an

1320
01:13:31,320 --> 01:13:34,200
Speaker 1: ideologist to piss off one of these big companies who

1321
01:13:34,800 --> 01:13:38,240
Speaker 1: often dominate the hearing market or can dominate your particular

1322
01:13:38,320 --> 01:13:42,400
Speaker 1: medical practice. Now undergirding the power of these incumbents is

1323
01:13:42,400 --> 01:13:45,719
Speaker 1: the usual bundle of lobbying and campaign contributions, with hearing

1324
01:13:45,720 --> 01:13:48,320
Speaker 1: aid firms using political muscle to press states to prevent

1325
01:13:48,360 --> 01:13:50,759
Speaker 1: the sale of over the counting hearing aids through the internet.

1326
01:13:51,160 --> 01:13:54,080
Speaker 1: The FDA rules would actually preempt this, and that's when

1327
01:13:54,120 --> 01:13:58,280
Speaker 1: they started getting federal So in twenty seventeen, when Congress acted,

1328
01:13:58,479 --> 01:14:01,280
Speaker 1: as I outlined earlier, are these firms immedia, they got

1329
01:14:01,320 --> 01:14:04,400
Speaker 1: political in a big way on a federal level. The

1330
01:14:04,439 --> 01:14:09,040
Speaker 1: president of Starkey, Brandon Solowitch, who runs the biggest hearing

1331
01:14:09,080 --> 01:14:11,920
Speaker 1: aid maker in the United States, launched a lobbying campaign

1332
01:14:12,120 --> 01:14:15,680
Speaker 1: called Listen Carefully to pushback on Congress. So let's take

1333
01:14:15,680 --> 01:14:18,840
Speaker 1: a listen to his message to lawmakers. It's a little

1334
01:14:18,880 --> 01:14:22,800
Speaker 1: bit boring, but this is actually how political conspiracies work.

1335
01:14:22,840 --> 01:14:25,160
Speaker 1: They are actually a little bit boring, but this is

1336
01:14:25,200 --> 01:14:29,040
Speaker 1: why things are expensive and crappy across the economy. Your

1337
01:14:29,080 --> 01:14:32,200
Speaker 1: hearing is as unique as a fingerprint. So why are

1338
01:14:32,240 --> 01:14:37,040
Speaker 1: some politicians oversimplifying hearing health solutions. They are narrowly focused

1339
01:14:37,040 --> 01:14:40,040
Speaker 1: on costs, while many other factors, such as social stigma,

1340
01:14:40,400 --> 01:14:44,639
Speaker 1: actually influence hearing health outcomes. That's why Washington must get

1341
01:14:44,640 --> 01:14:48,799
Speaker 1: the OTC, hearing aid regulation, and Medicare expansion right. Hearing

1342
01:14:48,800 --> 01:14:52,160
Speaker 1: health professionals should be part of the equation because hearing

1343
01:14:52,240 --> 01:14:55,200
Speaker 1: loss is not a one size fits all approach. Are

1344
01:14:55,280 --> 01:15:00,840
Speaker 1: you listening carefully? So he's not wrong about stigma, but

1345
01:15:01,040 --> 01:15:04,599
Speaker 1: being narrowly focused on cost, I should say put sarcastic

1346
01:15:04,640 --> 01:15:08,360
Speaker 1: air quotes. Narrowly focused on cost is bad, of course,

1347
01:15:08,960 --> 01:15:13,080
Speaker 1: if you're making money by charging high prices. Now Ever,

1348
01:15:13,120 --> 01:15:16,160
Speaker 1: since the twenty seventeen bill passed, Starkey has become one

1349
01:15:16,200 --> 01:15:18,559
Speaker 1: of the leading donors in the medical device space. In

1350
01:15:18,600 --> 01:15:21,439
Speaker 1: this election cycle alone, the founder of Starkey donate one

1351
01:15:21,520 --> 01:15:25,000
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty five thousand dollars to GOP leader Kevin McCarthy.

1352
01:15:25,000 --> 01:15:27,639
Speaker 1: You can see Kevin McCarthy talking here. He's the House

1353
01:15:27,680 --> 01:15:29,880
Speaker 1: Republican leader and potentially the next Speaker of the House.

1354
01:15:30,760 --> 01:15:33,200
Speaker 1: This guy also donated three hundred and thirty thousand dollars

1355
01:15:33,280 --> 01:15:35,640
Speaker 1: to the Republican Party Committee, whose goal it is to

1356
01:15:35,680 --> 01:15:38,719
Speaker 1: win back Congress and make McCarthy the speaker. Last cycle,

1357
01:15:38,800 --> 01:15:42,160
Speaker 1: Starkey spent one point six million dollars on campaign contributions,

1358
01:15:42,400 --> 01:15:46,320
Speaker 1: which included contributions to state Republican parties nationwide because they

1359
01:15:46,320 --> 01:15:50,160
Speaker 1: wanted to control state rules. Now, other Starkey executives gave

1360
01:15:50,520 --> 01:15:53,240
Speaker 1: tons of thousands of dollars to both Democratic Senate Majority

1361
01:15:53,320 --> 01:15:56,320
Speaker 1: Leader Chuck Schumer and the powerful West Virginia Democratic Senator

1362
01:15:56,400 --> 01:15:58,600
Speaker 1: Joe Manchin. And this was to try to get some

1363
01:15:58,640 --> 01:16:01,320
Speaker 1: of their hearing aid restrict into the Build Back Better

1364
01:16:01,320 --> 01:16:05,400
Speaker 1: bill that failed. Now, for a time, this sort of

1365
01:16:05,920 --> 01:16:09,680
Speaker 1: quasi cartel, will call it, that was afraid that THETC

1366
01:16:09,800 --> 01:16:13,120
Speaker 1: hearing aid market would take off and cut at their business.

1367
01:16:14,200 --> 01:16:16,920
Speaker 1: But back in February, over the course of just a

1368
01:16:16,920 --> 01:16:20,400
Speaker 1: few days, five hearing aid makers raise their prices on

1369
01:16:20,479 --> 01:16:24,880
Speaker 1: hearing aids at the same time, all citing inflation. They

1370
01:16:24,920 --> 01:16:27,640
Speaker 1: are no longer worried that they will face real competition.

1371
01:16:28,000 --> 01:16:30,439
Speaker 1: If they were, they wouldn't be raising their prices because

1372
01:16:30,479 --> 01:16:32,840
Speaker 1: at this point they don't think there's any way that

1373
01:16:32,920 --> 01:16:37,200
Speaker 1: consumers will choose OTC hearing aids without them. Now, they

1374
01:16:37,200 --> 01:16:41,800
Speaker 1: may be wrong, they may be right. We'll see. So

1375
01:16:41,840 --> 01:16:44,200
Speaker 1: what can we learn from problems in the hearing aid

1376
01:16:44,200 --> 01:16:48,480
Speaker 1: market and Congress actually doing the right thing. Well, first,

1377
01:16:48,880 --> 01:16:54,040
Speaker 1: what I've described this kind of corrupted middlemen driven industry

1378
01:16:54,280 --> 01:16:58,240
Speaker 1: that actually costs people not just money, but literally their

1379
01:16:58,280 --> 01:17:01,960
Speaker 1: ability to think, to hear, to live a full life,

1380
01:17:02,280 --> 01:17:05,880
Speaker 1: to communicate with their families and their communities. It's not

1381
01:17:05,960 --> 01:17:10,000
Speaker 1: just a problem with hearing aids or hearing As I

1382
01:17:10,000 --> 01:17:12,760
Speaker 1: said earlier, this market looks a lot like glasses or

1383
01:17:12,920 --> 01:17:16,879
Speaker 1: dental implants, or in some ways pharmaceuticals and other forms

1384
01:17:17,120 --> 01:17:20,840
Speaker 1: of medical devices. Consumers are relying on a trusted medical

1385
01:17:20,880 --> 01:17:24,040
Speaker 1: professional who has in some cases been subverted by a

1386
01:17:24,040 --> 01:17:26,840
Speaker 1: dominant firm, or in other cases is holding out to

1387
01:17:26,880 --> 01:17:31,280
Speaker 1: help patients but has increasingly less power in either case. Now,

1388
01:17:31,280 --> 01:17:35,280
Speaker 1: in glasses, the dominant firm is Luxotica Werby Parker has

1389
01:17:35,280 --> 01:17:38,639
Speaker 1: a little bit of power there. In dental implants it's

1390
01:17:39,080 --> 01:17:41,599
Speaker 1: Henry Shine, and you can go down the list. In

1391
01:17:41,640 --> 01:17:44,160
Speaker 1: all of these different industries, there's usually a couple of

1392
01:17:44,200 --> 01:17:48,799
Speaker 1: dominant players who use similar arrangements. It's not the same arrangements,

1393
01:17:48,800 --> 01:17:52,960
Speaker 1: but it's similar ones. The second thing we can learn

1394
01:17:53,640 --> 01:17:57,080
Speaker 1: is that despite the rancid nature of current politics, we

1395
01:17:57,240 --> 01:18:00,760
Speaker 1: actually can make things better. We undo some of the

1396
01:18:00,760 --> 01:18:05,280
Speaker 1: corruption in our economy. Prices will drop and service will improve,

1397
01:18:05,600 --> 01:18:08,400
Speaker 1: and our lives will get better. The point is, don't

1398
01:18:08,400 --> 01:18:13,320
Speaker 1: lose hope. We have amazing technology and politics can actually work.

1399
01:18:13,800 --> 01:18:16,400
Speaker 1: In a few years, there will be an over the

1400
01:18:16,439 --> 01:18:18,880
Speaker 1: counter hearing aid mark and in fact it could be

1401
01:18:19,200 --> 01:18:23,160
Speaker 1: as soon as this fall. Apple and Bow's and probably

1402
01:18:23,200 --> 01:18:25,800
Speaker 1: a bunch of others are coming in to challenge the

1403
01:18:25,840 --> 01:18:31,040
Speaker 1: dominant players and more importantly, help people who need to

1404
01:18:31,120 --> 01:18:35,320
Speaker 1: hear again for less money. Thanks for watching this big

1405
01:18:35,360 --> 01:18:38,000
Speaker 1: breakdown on the Breaking Points channel. If you'd like to

1406
01:18:38,000 --> 01:18:40,920
Speaker 1: know more about big business and how our economy really works,

1407
01:18:41,160 --> 01:18:43,880
Speaker 1: you could sign up below for my market power focused

1408
01:18:43,920 --> 01:18:47,200
Speaker 1: newsletter Big where I go into weird monopolies, fund monopolies,

1409
01:18:47,280 --> 01:18:50,720
Speaker 1: unexpected monopolies, and then the policymakers who are trying to

1410
01:18:50,720 --> 01:18:54,040
Speaker 1: address the problem. Thanks a lot to have a good one.