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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 2: coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about,

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Speaker 2: it just means the absolute world to have your support.

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Speaker 2: But enough with that, Let's get to the show. Secretary

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Speaker 2: of Pete buddhaj Edge. If anybody who's going to do

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Speaker 2: a profile of this man, the very first question Krystal

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Speaker 2: should be why are you so bad at your job?

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Speaker 2: And instead Wired decided to do the opposite. Let's go

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Speaker 2: and put this up there on the screen. You're not

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Speaker 2: even going to believe this headline quote Pete Buddhajeedge loves God,

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Speaker 2: beer and his electric Mustang. Sure, the US Secretary of

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Speaker 2: transportationist thoughts on building bridges, but infrastructure occupies just a

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Speaker 2: sliver of his voluminous mind. One particular segment of this

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Speaker 2: is so stunning, it says, quote A Secretary buddhaj Edge

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Speaker 2: and I talked in his underfurnished corner office. One afternoon,

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Speaker 2: I slowly became aware his cabinet job requires only a

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Speaker 2: modest portion of his cognitive powers. Other mental faculties, no kidding,

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Speaker 2: are a portion to the iliad Puritan historiography NewsGuard spring,

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Speaker 2: though not in the original Norwegian. Fortunately, he was able

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Speaker 2: to devote yet another apse in his cathedral mind to

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Speaker 2: making his ideas about three mighty themes Neoliberalism, masculinity, and

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Speaker 2: Christianity intelligible to me. First of all, when you start

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Speaker 2: writing that way, smack yourself in the face. Just pour

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Speaker 2: a coral water on and smack yourself a couple of times.

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Speaker 1: It's like deep insecurity, Like let me show people how smart,

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Speaker 1: how smart is through let me throw on every big

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Speaker 1: word I can think.

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Speaker 3: Got me.

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Speaker 2: Also, just think a little bit about this from even

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Speaker 2: deeper level. Why is your whole mind not occupied on infrastructure?

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Speaker 2: That's why every time I fly I get delayed? And

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Speaker 2: why moms with their kids got stranded on the Southwest debacle.

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Speaker 1: Or or we could talk about being involved in breaking

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Speaker 1: the railroad strike. I mean, like his tenure as Secretary

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Speaker 1: of Transportation has been legitimately catastrophic. It turned out that

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Speaker 1: you actually needed someone who was good at doing this job.

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Speaker 1: Who wasn't just good at like spinning confused reporters, doing

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Speaker 1: cable news hits and hanging out with donors in a

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Speaker 1: wine cave. You actually needed someone for this job, and

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Speaker 1: he has dramatically failed. It's honestly amazing to me that

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Speaker 1: you could find anyone who would write such an embarrassing

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Speaker 1: haio hey geographic puff piece of this man at any time,

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Speaker 1: let alone now, given his manifest record of repeated failures

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Speaker 1: in the job that we have entrusted him with. And

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Speaker 1: I just want people to understand, you didn't cherry pick quotes.

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Speaker 4: In this like.

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Speaker 1: Cherly gross. Let me just read you how this begins.

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Speaker 1: This piece begins. It was tweeted out. Here's the tweet

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Speaker 1: that went out with it. With the remarkable blend of

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Speaker 1: intellect and empathy, Pete Bootagige brings a fresh perspective to

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Speaker 1: the forefront of public discourse. That's what Wired tweeted out

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Speaker 1: as their headline, to which a bunch of people replied

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Speaker 1: like is this real or is this parody? The picture

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Speaker 1: they put with it speaks volumes as well. The opening paragraph.

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Speaker 1: Here's how it goes. The curious mind of Pete Bootagige

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Speaker 1: holds much of its functionality in reserve, even as he

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Speaker 1: discusses railroads and airlines down to the point to lit

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Speaker 1: data that is his current stock in trade. The US

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Speaker 1: Secretary of Transportation comes off like a mensa black card

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Speaker 1: holder whom I have a secret, go have it, or

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Speaker 1: a three second Rubik's cube solution, or a knack for

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Speaker 1: supplying off the top of his head the day of

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Speaker 1: the week for random date in fourteen oh four, along

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Speaker 1: with a non condescending history of the Julian and Gregorian calendars.

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Speaker 5: What I can't like?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, this fawning celebrity style. Hey, geographic journal, I guess

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Speaker 1: you'd call it. I like it is so disgraceful and

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Speaker 1: confusing to me. I really just don't even know where

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Speaker 1: these people come from.

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Speaker 6: I don't even know.

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Speaker 2: First of all, nobody can solve a Rubi's cube in

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Speaker 2: three seconds. You're talking to a former cuber over here.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, and this is check your cathedral mindside.

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Speaker 2: That's part of my listen.

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Speaker 3: I mean.

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Speaker 2: The funny thing is about Rubik's cubing is I won't

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Speaker 2: get too into it. My best time was forty five seconds,

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Speaker 2: That's all I'll say. So I doubt that Pete Budaget

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Speaker 2: can solve it faster than that. That's an okay time.

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Speaker 2: By the way, there are real people out there who

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Speaker 2: can do it much faster. My favorite thing by reading

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Speaker 2: and looking at all of this is the level to

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Speaker 2: which she was seduced, this woman, Jinia Heffernan, because she

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Speaker 2: is also getting deeply into the weeds. She goes, what

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Speaker 2: is neoliberalism? What happened to it? Always getting mugged by reality.

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Speaker 2: She asked questions about the tendency of markets and about

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Speaker 2: paleoliberalism versus listen, okay, these are all great discussions. Maybe

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Speaker 2: for a weekend segment on this show with an intellectual horror.

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Speaker 2: If I have an opportunity to ever interview Pete Buddha judge,

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Speaker 2: all of my questions will be on the FA. On

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Speaker 2: the Secretary of Transportation on his genuine job responsibility. I

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Speaker 2: don't care what he thinks about paleoliberalism. I care about

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Speaker 2: are Americans going to be able to fly on time

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Speaker 2: or at least closer to on time? Why are you

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Speaker 2: ever going to break a railroad strike ever? Again? His

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Speaker 2: views on Christianity, gay marriage, paleoliberalism, industrial policy, the Iliad,

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Speaker 2: Norwegian and all that are immaterial to his actual job responsibility.

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Speaker 2: And that's actually the biggest problem with this entire thing

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Speaker 2: is it's narcissistic on behalf of Buddha Jedge and narcissistic

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Speaker 2: on behalf of the interviewer.

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Speaker 1: I also think some of the ideology that is a

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Speaker 1: spouse in this piece is just really to me disturbing

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Speaker 1: and flat out wrong too. They say, she writes, not everyone,

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Speaker 1: it seems, even once a rising standard of living, if

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Speaker 1: it means they have to accept the greater enfranchisement of undesirables,

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Speaker 1: including of course women, poor people, black people, and the

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Speaker 1: usual demons and the sights of the world's Ted Cruz's

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Speaker 1: and Tucker Carlson's. So to really unpack that, I think

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Speaker 1: is actually quite revealing to the core of the politics

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Speaker 1: of someone like Pete Boudagidje, who apparently believes that some

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Speaker 1: large portion of the country is so craven that they

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Speaker 1: don't even want a better life for themselves if it

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Speaker 1: means that black people are also going to do well,

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Speaker 1: or women are also going to do well, etc. And

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Speaker 1: I mean, this is antithetical to what I view, my

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Speaker 1: view of human nature, my view of the country, my

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Speaker 1: view of politics.

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Speaker 7: So there's a lot.

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Speaker 1: There is a lot going on here, but fundamentally, this

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Speaker 1: is a powerful person who is right now in a

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Speaker 1: position where he could be finding airlines and holding them

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Speaker 1: to account.

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Speaker 3: Could be could be.

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Speaker 1: Putting forward new rules to make sure that a disaster

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Speaker 1: like what happened in East Palaestine that you know, he

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Speaker 1: could barely attend to or notice that that never happens again.

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Speaker 1: Could be trying to provide resources for people who were poisoned,

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Speaker 1: probably by what happened there, and instead, like what, I

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Speaker 1: don't know what even you're doing with this article.

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Speaker 2: But it is I also was just thinking of faux intellectualism.

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Speaker 2: I know a lot a lot of people like this

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Speaker 2: who are quote unquote well educated. Yeah, but then I'm

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Speaker 2: also looking at this and he's like, she's bragging about

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Speaker 2: him reading the Iliad. You're really bragging about reading a

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Speaker 2: high school text. I would be more impressed if he

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Speaker 2: was reading like a History of Trains or something from

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Speaker 2: that from eighteen hundred. To me, yeah, maybe learn the intricacies.

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Speaker 3: Of his job.

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Speaker 2: But instead it's all like said, in such a it's

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Speaker 2: like the Big Bang theory, Big banks.

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Speaker 7: Very disturbatory, is ultimately what it is.

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Speaker 1: It's like intellectual masturbation, right, like, look how smart I

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Speaker 1: am that I know these things that keep footage?

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Speaker 2: It just so smart about correct, It's like the idea

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Speaker 2: that physicists sit around like in the Big Bang. It's

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Speaker 2: like a dumb person's view of what smart people would

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Speaker 2: talk about. Like nobody who actually has any intelligence would

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Speaker 2: think or act this way and portray themselves like this publicly.

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Speaker 2: And also that the interview fell for it shows that

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Speaker 2: she herself is also, as you pointed out, deeply insecure.

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Speaker 2: Cathedral mind iliad Norwegian, you know all this other like

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Speaker 2: Grigorian calendar. It's like, look, you know, people who are

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Speaker 2: actually very very intelligent do not need to try and

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Speaker 2: force in your face like this so overall disgraceful by wiring.

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Speaker 7: And but there is there's an embarrassing thing.

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Speaker 2: There's a real strain of this. Remember whenever they were

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Speaker 2: like he speaks nine languages and all this during the

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Speaker 2: campaign turns out again like say hello, and I can

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Speaker 2: say hello in twelve languages. So that's not even a

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Speaker 2: marker of intelligence at all. It's just one of those

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Speaker 2: where and also it's not qualification for president.

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Speaker 1: It's just it's not qual It certainly hasn't proved to

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Speaker 1: be a reasonable qualification for Secretary of Transportation, which is

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Speaker 1: your job would you have failed at and nothing should

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Speaker 1: make you leave sight of that.

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Speaker 2: Some really interesting new news about how Americans and workers

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Speaker 2: are feeling about their workplace. It's going to put this

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Speaker 2: up there on the screen. Workers are happier than they

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Speaker 2: have been in decades, mostly because of labor shortages and

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Speaker 2: shifting expectations leading to improvements four millions. So the data

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Speaker 2: here is absolutely fascinating. Of the survey of sixteen hundred

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Speaker 2: workers was conducted in November. What they found is that

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Speaker 2: unemployment remains low, and the decline in job opening suggests

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Speaker 2: that workers might have fewer options and might be feeling

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Speaker 2: more anxious. But what they instead found crystal is that

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Speaker 2: we are at the highest level of worker job satisfaction

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Speaker 2: in modern history, up to sixty two point three percent.

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Speaker 2: From that data shows that that is up from sixty

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Speaker 2: percent in twenty twenty one and fifty six percent in

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty. What they found is that the people who

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Speaker 2: are the happiest are those who voluntarily switch jobs during

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Speaker 2: the pandemic and in individuals working in hybrid roles with

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Speaker 2: a mix of in person and remote work. Men's male

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Speaker 2: satisfaction is higher in the workplace currently with every component,

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Speaker 2: especially in areas such as quote, leave policies, bonus plans, promotions, communications,

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Speaker 2: and organizational structures. And really what they show here is

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Speaker 2: that the main thing that gives people work satisfaction is

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Speaker 2: a sick day policy, a bonus plan, mental health benefits policies,

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Speaker 2: communication channels, and promotion policies. Those are like the six

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Speaker 2: top things of promotional policy, sorry, of a worker satisfaction policy.

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Speaker 8: But really what it.

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Speaker 2: Underscored to me is when you give people options optionality

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Speaker 2: like hybrid work or volunteers switching jobs for higher wage

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Speaker 2: people are.

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Speaker 1: Happy when people try like yeah, I mean I think

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Speaker 1: there's a couple of things right you look at Okay,

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Speaker 1: what's changed to make this landscape feel better for America's workers.

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Speaker 1: First of all, the lowest paide jobs are actually the

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Speaker 1: ones that have seen the largest wage gains, So that's

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Speaker 1: significant for low wage workers, people who are sort of

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Speaker 1: in the middle of their career, they're the ones who

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Speaker 1: are most likely to benefit from these hybrid work schedules.

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Speaker 1: And to your point, a key component of happiness, not

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Speaker 1: just in the workplace but in general, is people feeling

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Speaker 1: like they have control and say over their own lives.

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Speaker 1: So even the fact of being able to pick, like

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Speaker 1: how many days I'm going to be in the office,

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Speaker 1: how many days are going to be at home? Having

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Speaker 1: that level of flexibility and optionality and control over your

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Speaker 1: own life, which is something that you should be able

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Speaker 1: to take for granted, but obviously many people can't. That

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Speaker 1: contributes to a sense of happiness. That's one of the

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Speaker 1: biggest shifts that they say the biggest year over year

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Speaker 1: increase in satisfaction came from work life balance and workload,

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Speaker 1: which gets to some of what we talked about with

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Speaker 1: the pandemic, sort of resetting people's values in their priorities,

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Speaker 1: and then with the hybrid work options, they're able to

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Speaker 1: implement some of those revised priorities into their work life

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Speaker 1: balance and into making things work, and so I think those.

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Speaker 7: Are important pieces of this.

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Speaker 1: I also think another part is during the coronavirus crisis,

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Speaker 1: there were a lot of people who.

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Speaker 7: Were forced to switch jobs.

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Speaker 1: There were a lot of people who decided to switch jobs,

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Speaker 1: and of course it's always you know, nobody wants you

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Speaker 1: to have to switch jobs. No one wants you to

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Speaker 1: be out of a job, but when you do switch jobs.

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Speaker 1: Number one, that's when you see your largest salary.

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Speaker 7: Increases when you switch switch jobs.

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Speaker 1: And number two, that appears to have resulted in people

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Speaker 1: choose more affirmatively choosing the work that they're doing. So

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Speaker 1: they're shifting maybe out of frontline service worker into warehousing

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Speaker 1: roles that they're finding more fulfilling, or have larger, higher wages,

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Speaker 1: or have more predictable schedule. So the fact that so

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Speaker 1: many people were sort of like forced into a new

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Speaker 1: situation seems to have, on the end of it, had

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Speaker 1: a silver lining of improving people's quality of life.

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Speaker 2: That's actually the part I found most interesting is that

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Speaker 2: a huge portion of the people who got laid off

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Speaker 2: in leisure and hospitality left to go work in logistics

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Speaker 2: or warehouse chains like in costco where quote, the hours

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Speaker 2: and the pay are better. You've got stable schedules, you

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Speaker 2: can plan for childcare, transportation, not dealing with irate customers,

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Speaker 2: and it's a more pleasant working environment, which leads to

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Speaker 2: two things. A costco has to pay more to lure

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Speaker 2: some of these people over, and b the people who

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Speaker 2: do want to work in service industry are getting paid

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Speaker 2: a ton more because the available pool of workers is

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Speaker 2: not there. It's a lot easier to deal with an

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Speaker 2: irate customer when you're getting paid let's say forty twenty

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Speaker 2: thirty dollars an hour with tips and two dollars an

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Speaker 2: hour with you effectively a real wage rate of like

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Speaker 2: fifteen dollars per hour, so you're basically getting a double

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Speaker 2: raise in that. And then you've also got a lot

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Speaker 2: of white collar workers who love hybrid work. It also

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Speaker 2: does kind of underscore me where the job satisfaction amongst

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Speaker 2: full remote workers doesn't appear to be that high. A

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Speaker 2: lot of full full remote workers appear isolated. They don't

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Speaker 2: particularly like it, they don't have that connection. Hybrid to

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Speaker 2: me seems to be like the best at both words.

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Speaker 2: Get a little bit in person. You still have some

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Speaker 2: company culture and all of that, like maybe say three

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Speaker 2: days a week, but you've got enough where moms and

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Speaker 2: dads can figure out who's going to pick somebody up

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Speaker 2: or drop somebody off work their you know, dentist appointment,

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Speaker 2: into the lunch break, et cetera, and still get the

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Speaker 2: job done. I think that's probably the best of both world.

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Speaker 1: I think it also depends a lot on winning large

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Speaker 1: in your career, you know, because I think if you're

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Speaker 1: early in your career and you're just getting into that

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Speaker 1: office culture, maybe you prefer more in person. If you're

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Speaker 1: you know, mid career, you may prefer more of that hybrid.

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Speaker 7: Or even remote work schedule.

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Speaker 1: I think it just really depends person of person, which

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Speaker 1: is why having the choice and the flexibility is what really,

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Speaker 1: you know, people are sort of looking for and responding

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Speaker 1: to here. So I think we have to put the

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Speaker 1: other like negative side of this out there, which is

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Speaker 1: that the fact that there's a tight labor market, which

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Speaker 1: makes it a lot less risky. If people do want

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Speaker 1: to change career paths, that is something that the FED

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Speaker 1: is actively looking to destroy. So this improvement in quality

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Speaker 1: of life and worker happiness may be short lived if

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Speaker 1: they continue down the path that they have been on.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, agreed.

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Speaker 3: Hi. I'm Matt Stoler, author of Monopoly focused Substack newsletter

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Speaker 3: Big and an anti trust policy analyst. I have a

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Speaker 3: good segment for you today on this Big Breakdown. It's

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Speaker 3: about AI and the policy choices we're making right now

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Speaker 3: to structure how this remarkable technology is deployed. So let's

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Speaker 3: dive in. Okay, So there's a ton of chatter these

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Speaker 3: days about artificial intelligence on Wall Street, with the government

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Speaker 3: all over Silicon Valley and the media and Congress, constant hearings,

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Speaker 3: constant chatter. As just one example, let's take a listen

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Speaker 3: to sixty minutes last month.

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Speaker 9: We may look on our time as the moment civilization

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Speaker 9: was transformed as it was by fire, agriculture, and electricity.

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Speaker 9: In twenty twenty three, we learned that a machine taught

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Speaker 9: itself how to speak to humans like a peer, which

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Speaker 9: is to say, with creativity, truth, error, and lies. The technology,

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Speaker 9: known as a chatbot is only one of the recent

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Speaker 9: breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, machines that can teach them themselves

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Speaker 9: superhuman skills. Ah.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I'm rolling my eyes a little bit, but

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Speaker 3: I mean the technology is clearly important. It's not like

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Speaker 3: fire agriculture, but it's a big deal. Okay, So what

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Speaker 3: is it? What is this machine learning stuff? Why is

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Speaker 3: everyone so excited?

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Speaker 10: Right?

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Speaker 3: AI, It's a bad name, but what it means is

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Speaker 3: it's a broad method of taking large data sources and

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Speaker 3: running them through an algorithm to train a powerful pattern

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Speaker 3: recognition software program unlike things like crypto or self driving cars.

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Speaker 3: Artificial intelligence, this big machine learning stuff, it's real. It's

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Speaker 3: a real technology. It actually does stuff. AI algorithms underpin

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Speaker 3: computer assisted language production, image generation, engineering and programming, a

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Speaker 3: bunch of scientific endeavors, and some of the stuff that

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Speaker 3: people have been able to do is pretty extraordinary. Take

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Speaker 3: protein folding. Now, protein folding is one of those extremely

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Speaker 3: difficult but critical problems in biology. It's useful for drug discovery,

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Speaker 3: all sorts of scientific advances, and an aiprogram solved it.

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Speaker 3: It's been like a fifty year problem like no one

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Speaker 3: could solve, and they solved it in twenty eighteen with

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Speaker 3: one of these tools. Okay, so that's really good. But

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Speaker 3: the thing about scientific advances is that how we deploy them.

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Speaker 3: In fact, the very technology that we create is a

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Speaker 3: function of law as much as engineering. So as an example,

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Speaker 3: in the nineteen sixties, IBM sold a certain kind of computer,

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Speaker 3: a mainframe in it dominated the industry. These computers included

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Speaker 3: all software that IBM told the cosmeers they might need.

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Speaker 3: It was all IBM software, and you got it for

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Speaker 3: free when you bought the computer. Because of an anti

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Speaker 3: trust suit IBM unbundled its software to be sold separately,

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Speaker 3: thus allowing rivals to actually make and sell software for

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Speaker 3: IBM machines. The software industry was born. Okay, So we

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Speaker 3: didn't have a software industry before that. That case created

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Speaker 3: the software industry, and had that anti trust suit not happened,

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Speaker 3: we may not actually have had one. Might have just

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Speaker 3: thought of compute is this thing that you buy in

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Speaker 3: a bundle. In other words, there's no one path for technology.

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Speaker 3: Technology developed under different legal regimes, even if the know how,

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Speaker 3: the scientific knowledge is similar, actually is fundamentally different. And

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Speaker 3: the thing is is the monopolists know this. Okay, So

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Speaker 3: now with all that in mind, with that context, let's

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Speaker 3: talk about the politics of AI. Here's former Google CEO

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Speaker 3: Eric Schmidt, who is a monopolist par excellence, explaining that

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Speaker 3: the industry should set its own rules.

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Speaker 6: Let's take a listen. It shouldn't be a regulatory framework.

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Speaker 6: It maybe shouldn't even be a sort of a democratic vote.

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Speaker 6: It should be the expertise within the industry help me

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Speaker 6: sort that out.

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Speaker 11: The industry will first do that, because there's no way

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Speaker 11: a non industry person can understand what is possible.

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Speaker 8: It's just too new, too hard.

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Speaker 11: There's not the expertise, there's no one in the government

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Speaker 11: who can get it right. But the industry can roughly

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Speaker 11: get it right, and then the government can put a

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Speaker 11: regulatory structure around it.

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Speaker 3: Schmid is one of the more important political figures in

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Speaker 3: the way last twenty five years. He's highly influential under Obama, Trump,

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Speaker 3: and Biden. Also the architect of Google's monopoly, one of

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Speaker 3: these people that spans business and politics in a really

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Speaker 3: savvy way. And Schmidt's commentary matters because it embeds two

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Speaker 3: myths that characterize how we talk about power in America.

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Speaker 3: The first is that markets exist as part of the

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Speaker 3: state of nature until this external force called government comes

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Speaker 3: in and regulates them. Now, that's not the way things happen.

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Speaker 3: The truth is, it's not whether to regulate markets, but

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Speaker 3: how markets are not natural things. They are political institutions

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Speaker 3: structured by human beings. There's all sorts of different types

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Speaker 3: of markets. So, for example, social media, it's a regulated industry.

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Speaker 3: It's not unregulated. It's just regulated to let Mark Zuckerberg

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Speaker 3: decide what happens. And underpinning Zuckerberg's power is a whole

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Speaker 3: host of public rules from the corporate charter itself to

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Speaker 3: property rights which are mandated by government to restrictions or

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Speaker 3: or abilities to use data in different ways. Now, Eric

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Speaker 3: Schmid's myth, and it's a broadly held myth, is done

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Speaker 3: for specific reason. They want to set up a question

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Speaker 3: of whether we should regulate, as opposed to discussing how

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Speaker 3: to do so. And the reason to set the question

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Speaker 3: up this way is to suggest that anybody that wants

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Speaker 3: some sort of public input into how we innovate, into

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Speaker 3: the technologies that we develop, will bear a heavy burden

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Speaker 3: because then you're asking for the government to come in

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Speaker 3: and do something too. This natural myth, this natural state

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Speaker 3: of the market, the state of nature. Okay, so the

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Speaker 3: sec that's the first big myth. The second myth is related,

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Speaker 3: and it is that technology is merely a result of

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Speaker 3: scientific or engineering prowess. It's just an external force that happens.

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Speaker 3: And then again government comes in to regulate technology. Again,

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Speaker 3: this is to subtly set up tech barons as the

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Speaker 3: legitimate arbiters of power. Now, remember they all operate through

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Speaker 3: companies that are chartered by public, by public mandates. They

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Speaker 3: have all their property is structured by public rules, but

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Speaker 3: they want to pretend to otherwise, they develop technology, and

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Speaker 3: then the idiot interlopers in the government try to take

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Speaker 3: everybody wear a seatbelt, those nerds, right, But of course

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Speaker 3: this is all ridiculous. How we develop technology, as I

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Speaker 3: showed with the IBM example, is a function of science

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Speaker 3: and law. And you can see this all over the place,

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Speaker 3: from the breakup of standard oil to the breakup of

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Speaker 3: AT and T in the nineteen eighties, both of which

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Speaker 3: unleashed in nineteen teens, the nineteen eighties, fantastic innovation in

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Speaker 3: energy and telecommunications. You see this all over. How we

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Speaker 3: structure markets really has this kind of catalytic impact or

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Speaker 3: withholds innovation or its structures innovation down certain certain paths. Okay,

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Speaker 3: so why is Eri Schmidt putting forward these myths? Well,

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Speaker 3: they came together in a very important, deceptive question designed

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Speaker 3: to structure the future of AI, and that is, will

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Speaker 3: AI disrupt Google's search monopoly? This is an important question, right,

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Speaker 3: and it's framed in a way that embeds these two

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Speaker 3: myths into the question itself. So here's that same sixty

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Speaker 3: minutes program putting forward that sort of premise.

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Speaker 9: Worldwide, Google runs ninety percent of Internet searches and seventy

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Speaker 9: percent of smartphones.

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Speaker 5: We're really excited about.

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Speaker 9: It, but its dominance was attacked this past February when

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Speaker 9: Microsoft linked its search engine to a chatbot.

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Speaker 3: Okay, so Google's PR department presumably worked very hard to

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Speaker 3: have sixty minutes set up the question that way. Why Well,

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Speaker 3: because the government is threatening Google's monopoly and I'm going

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Speaker 3: to get to this in a second, but in doing so,

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Speaker 3: it's threatening the ability of any AI firm to monopolize

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Speaker 3: the future. So in twenty twenty, the Trump Anti Trust

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Speaker 3: Division accused Google of monopolization, and that antitrust case is

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Speaker 3: being hurt by a judge over the course of this year.

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Speaker 3: Let's take a listen to a then Department of Justice

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Speaker 3: official in twenty twenty explaining the case.

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Speaker 10: This morning, the Department of Justice and eleven States filed

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Speaker 10: an antitrust civil lawsuit against Google for unlawfully maintaining a

435
00:23:21,880 --> 00:23:26,960
Speaker 10: monopoly in general search services and search advertising in violation

436
00:23:27,080 --> 00:23:28,679
Speaker 10: of Section two of the Sherman Act.

437
00:23:29,160 --> 00:23:32,800
Speaker 3: So specifically, the argument is that Google excluded competitors from

438
00:23:32,800 --> 00:23:35,439
Speaker 3: the search market by making sure that Google is the

439
00:23:35,440 --> 00:23:38,520
Speaker 3: default search engine anywhere you go. So, for example, the

440
00:23:38,560 --> 00:23:41,000
Speaker 3: company pays fifteen to twenty billion dollars a year to

441
00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:45,760
Speaker 3: Apple to force iPhones to automatically bring up Google searches

442
00:23:45,800 --> 00:23:50,240
Speaker 3: the default instead of say something like Microsoft. Being Google

443
00:23:50,280 --> 00:23:53,000
Speaker 3: bought Android, which is the operating system for the majority

444
00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:55,840
Speaker 3: of mobile phones globally. It puts its search engine in

445
00:23:55,840 --> 00:23:59,080
Speaker 3: front of users as the default, and then it collects

446
00:23:59,240 --> 00:24:02,440
Speaker 3: search data from those users. It uses that data to

447
00:24:02,440 --> 00:24:05,520
Speaker 3: tweak its own products, but also prevents its rivals from

448
00:24:05,560 --> 00:24:08,800
Speaker 3: getting that data to improve theirs. In essence, one way

449
00:24:08,840 --> 00:24:10,960
Speaker 3: to think of it is that Google bought up all

450
00:24:10,960 --> 00:24:14,119
Speaker 3: the shelf space and says, you can't put rivals on

451
00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:16,879
Speaker 3: the shelf space. It's just Google Search. In all, Google

452
00:24:16,920 --> 00:24:20,280
Speaker 3: pays forty five billion dollars a year for contracts, just domestically,

453
00:24:20,440 --> 00:24:23,679
Speaker 3: for contracts to block out rivals signing deals with and

454
00:24:23,720 --> 00:24:28,679
Speaker 3: here I am quoting directly from the DOJ filing Apple, LG, Motorola, Samsung,

455
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:32,320
Speaker 3: major US wireless carriers such as AT and TT Mobile, Verizon.

456
00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:36,960
Speaker 3: Browser developers such as Mozilla Opera use web to secure

457
00:24:37,040 --> 00:24:39,440
Speaker 3: default status for its general search engine, and in many

458
00:24:39,440 --> 00:24:45,480
Speaker 3: cases to specifically prohibit Google's counterparties from dealing with Google's competitors. Okay,

459
00:24:45,480 --> 00:24:48,480
Speaker 3: so you can see the resulting decade long search monopoly

460
00:24:49,040 --> 00:24:51,680
Speaker 3: in this timeline of the search market. Now, if you

461
00:24:51,680 --> 00:24:53,800
Speaker 3: look at it, the most dangerous time for Google was

462
00:24:53,840 --> 00:24:57,640
Speaker 3: between twenty ten to twenty twelve for two reasons. First,

463
00:24:57,880 --> 00:25:00,359
Speaker 3: the government came close to getting an anti trust suit.

464
00:25:00,840 --> 00:25:05,640
Speaker 3: The government investigated, but it actually didn't bring a complaint unfortunately. Second,

465
00:25:06,760 --> 00:25:09,160
Speaker 3: at the time, in two thousand and seven or so,

466
00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:13,159
Speaker 3: Google had a desktop search monopoly, but the iPhone, the

467
00:25:13,240 --> 00:25:16,400
Speaker 3: smartphone starting in two thousand and seven really accelerating into

468
00:25:16,400 --> 00:25:19,360
Speaker 3: twenty nine, ten, eleven, twelve. It opened up a new

469
00:25:19,359 --> 00:25:22,639
Speaker 3: market and opportunities for new kinds of search engines that

470
00:25:22,880 --> 00:25:25,199
Speaker 3: used location data and other other things you can have

471
00:25:25,240 --> 00:25:28,400
Speaker 3: on a phone, and these were potential rivals to Google.

472
00:25:29,119 --> 00:25:32,560
Speaker 3: Consumer habits in desktop were had solidified, but they hadn't

473
00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:35,640
Speaker 3: in mobile search the time though, and this is one

474
00:25:35,640 --> 00:25:38,280
Speaker 3: of these inflection points, kind of like the inverse of

475
00:25:38,280 --> 00:25:41,920
Speaker 3: what happened in the sixties with the IBM IBM anttrasuit.

476
00:25:42,119 --> 00:25:45,159
Speaker 3: Policymakers decided to allow Google to leverage its power in

477
00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:49,480
Speaker 3: desktop search to grab mobile search. So Google bought Android

478
00:25:49,680 --> 00:25:52,080
Speaker 3: and that didn't go challenge there are laws you could

479
00:25:52,119 --> 00:25:54,639
Speaker 3: challenge mergers, but the government didn't bring a challenge. And

480
00:25:54,680 --> 00:25:56,879
Speaker 3: then it had all these contracts with distributors that were

481
00:25:56,920 --> 00:26:00,560
Speaker 3: explicitly excluding rivals, and the government didn't challenge them either.

482
00:26:01,200 --> 00:26:04,399
Speaker 3: So that technological inflection point is similar to where we

483
00:26:04,440 --> 00:26:07,879
Speaker 3: are now with AI. As was the case, then there

484
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:11,200
Speaker 3: are lots of potential paths for what kind of technology

485
00:26:11,240 --> 00:26:14,440
Speaker 3: we develop, what kind of AI enabled web we have,

486
00:26:15,880 --> 00:26:18,239
Speaker 3: And there's a there's a there's a good analogy, Like

487
00:26:18,320 --> 00:26:21,560
Speaker 3: the Google story is sort of sad, but it was.

488
00:26:22,320 --> 00:26:24,200
Speaker 3: There's a there's a better case where we can look

489
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:26,200
Speaker 3: at how stuff worked really well and we don't have

490
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:28,439
Speaker 3: to go back to the sixties. The Google case that

491
00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:30,560
Speaker 3: the government is arguing right now is built in a

492
00:26:30,560 --> 00:26:33,679
Speaker 3: similar case brought when Microsoft was busted in the nineteen

493
00:26:33,760 --> 00:26:37,760
Speaker 3: nineties for doing something to a browser company called Netscape.

494
00:26:38,560 --> 00:26:42,160
Speaker 3: Microsoft wanted to dominate this new thing called the Internet,

495
00:26:42,840 --> 00:26:45,840
Speaker 3: so it bundled its browser, its own browser, Internet Explorer

496
00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:49,680
Speaker 3: with its operating system, and paid distributors like Internet service

497
00:26:49,680 --> 00:26:52,719
Speaker 3: providers such as AOL Yahoo at the time to not

498
00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:57,000
Speaker 3: carry its browser rival Netscape. In short, like Google is

499
00:26:57,040 --> 00:26:59,199
Speaker 3: doing now. It brought up all the shelf space and

500
00:26:59,240 --> 00:27:02,400
Speaker 3: tried to deny that shelf space to rivals. The goal

501
00:27:02,440 --> 00:27:05,040
Speaker 3: for Microsoft was to make sure the entire web belonged

502
00:27:05,080 --> 00:27:06,520
Speaker 3: to them. There's a lot more there, but I'm not

503
00:27:06,520 --> 00:27:09,760
Speaker 3: going to go into it. Fortunately, though, the Anti Trust

504
00:27:09,760 --> 00:27:12,639
Speaker 3: Division brought an antitrust case, and so Microsoft didn't use

505
00:27:12,680 --> 00:27:16,159
Speaker 3: its power over browsers to block the next generation of innovators.

506
00:27:16,680 --> 00:27:19,040
Speaker 3: That again, the Microsoft lost the case, but the remedy

507
00:27:19,080 --> 00:27:21,639
Speaker 3: was over turned on appel. Very complicated, but the basic

508
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:24,680
Speaker 3: point was brought forward in an article in twenty twenty

509
00:27:24,680 --> 00:27:27,480
Speaker 3: by Charles Doduhag at The New York Times, who went

510
00:27:27,520 --> 00:27:29,800
Speaker 3: back talked to a bunch of Microsoft insiders about what

511
00:27:29,880 --> 00:27:31,960
Speaker 3: happened in that period from the late nineteen nineties to

512
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:34,520
Speaker 3: the mid two thousands, when a whole bunch of new

513
00:27:34,520 --> 00:27:37,199
Speaker 3: companies like Google and Facebook and Amazon were growing. So

514
00:27:37,280 --> 00:27:41,159
Speaker 3: here's what they told him. He said, insiders were thinking

515
00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:45,600
Speaker 3: of reprogramming Microsoft's web browser, the Popular Internet Explorer, so

516
00:27:45,600 --> 00:27:48,520
Speaker 3: that anytime people typed in Google, they would be redirected

517
00:27:48,520 --> 00:27:52,360
Speaker 3: to MSN Search, or perhaps a warning message might pop up.

518
00:27:52,520 --> 00:27:55,000
Speaker 3: Did you know Google uses your data in ways you

519
00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:58,760
Speaker 3: can't control? Now? Microsoft was so powerful, and Google so

520
00:27:58,840 --> 00:28:00,880
Speaker 3: knew that the young search engine could have been killed off.

521
00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:04,600
Speaker 3: But quote, there was a new culture of compliance and

522
00:28:04,640 --> 00:28:08,080
Speaker 3: we didn't want to get in trouble again, so nothing happened.

523
00:28:08,119 --> 00:28:10,639
Speaker 3: The myth that Google humbled Microsoft on its own is wrong.

524
00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:13,439
Speaker 3: The government's anti trust suit is a reason that Google

525
00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:17,320
Speaker 3: was eventually able to break microsoft monopoly. If Microsoft quote

526
00:28:17,320 --> 00:28:19,919
Speaker 3: if quote, if Microsoft hadn't been sued, all of technology

527
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:23,120
Speaker 3: would be different today. That was a different lawyer involved

528
00:28:23,160 --> 00:28:25,480
Speaker 3: in the case. Again, There's no such thing as an

529
00:28:25,560 --> 00:28:28,560
Speaker 3: unregulated market. There's no such thing as deregulation. These is

530
00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:32,159
Speaker 3: bad language, bad concepts to stop us from thinking about power.

531
00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:37,640
Speaker 3: We chose to regulate the browser market and operating softwares

532
00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:39,760
Speaker 3: in the early two thousands to allow Google and a

533
00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:43,040
Speaker 3: whole bunch of other companies to escape Microsoft's clutches, just

534
00:28:43,120 --> 00:28:45,520
Speaker 3: as we chose to regulate the market in the twenty

535
00:28:45,680 --> 00:28:49,240
Speaker 3: teens to allow Google to crush its rivals in search

536
00:28:49,320 --> 00:28:52,520
Speaker 3: and throughout the web. And these choices led to different

537
00:28:52,560 --> 00:28:56,200
Speaker 3: political and technological destinies. A lot of innovation, much more

538
00:28:56,240 --> 00:29:00,800
Speaker 3: decentralized market in the two thousands, a lot of orterianism,

539
00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:03,720
Speaker 3: a much more monopolized market in the twenty and teens.

540
00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:06,560
Speaker 3: So let's get back to the current case against Google.

541
00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:09,400
Speaker 3: The judge is a guy named Amid Meta, and he

542
00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:11,920
Speaker 3: has set to decide whether to toss the case, to

543
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:14,760
Speaker 3: narrow it, or to let it go to trial. In

544
00:29:14,800 --> 00:29:18,000
Speaker 3: a recent hearing, the potential competitive threat of new technologies

545
00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:21,320
Speaker 3: like AI chatbots came up and the judge Meta what.

546
00:29:21,400 --> 00:29:23,400
Speaker 3: He was intrigued, and he sort of bought into the

547
00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:26,480
Speaker 3: myths that Eric Schmidt was peddling, but he wasn't totally sold.

548
00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:30,240
Speaker 3: So now it's worth asking the question, if AI is

549
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:33,200
Speaker 3: so great, why aren't AI empowered search engines being offered

550
00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:37,240
Speaker 3: to consumers right now where they actually engage in search. Now.

551
00:29:37,320 --> 00:29:39,560
Speaker 3: Microsoft tried to do this in a few months ago.

552
00:29:39,640 --> 00:29:44,080
Speaker 3: Microsoft's Being did actually get a slight mump in usage,

553
00:29:43,120 --> 00:29:46,760
Speaker 3: but Google was still at ninety percent of the search market,

554
00:29:46,800 --> 00:29:49,080
Speaker 3: and now Microsoft's Being is back to where it was.

555
00:29:49,160 --> 00:29:52,120
Speaker 3: Google is still a search monopoly. It's not what they say,

556
00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:54,760
Speaker 3: but that is in fact the case, and Being is

557
00:29:54,800 --> 00:29:57,680
Speaker 3: not the only rival search engine to Google. They're smaller

558
00:29:57,720 --> 00:30:00,520
Speaker 3: ones that like Neva and Duck Duck Go so that

559
00:30:00,600 --> 00:30:03,920
Speaker 3: have different approaches to incorporating AI. Niva is personalized and

560
00:30:03,960 --> 00:30:06,680
Speaker 3: ad free, duc dot Go doesn't track users, so these

561
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:09,840
Speaker 3: are differentiated products that you can use if you want.

562
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:13,240
Speaker 3: But these search engines are not being presented to users

563
00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:16,480
Speaker 3: because Google Search is the default, so only really sophisticated

564
00:30:16,600 --> 00:30:20,600
Speaker 3: users are actually getting to them. So unless judge meta

565
00:30:20,720 --> 00:30:23,800
Speaker 3: rules against Google, then as Google rolls out its own

566
00:30:23,920 --> 00:30:28,280
Speaker 3: AI programs, Google's AI programs will be the default as well.

567
00:30:28,560 --> 00:30:30,800
Speaker 3: So here's a video on how Google is going to

568
00:30:30,840 --> 00:30:34,120
Speaker 3: turn the whole web into its own wald garden by

569
00:30:34,160 --> 00:30:37,440
Speaker 3: integrating everything that it has. That's remarkable, and they're going

570
00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:40,520
Speaker 3: to keep doing things like that to make the web

571
00:30:41,080 --> 00:30:45,280
Speaker 3: its own wold garden. In fact, Google using AI will

572
00:30:45,400 --> 00:30:49,040
Speaker 3: probably attempt to eat the whole web. Now, so that

573
00:30:49,120 --> 00:30:53,480
Speaker 3: means that at worst, Google is going to control pretty

574
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:57,160
Speaker 3: much everything that we see. It won't just control directing

575
00:30:57,240 --> 00:30:59,560
Speaker 3: us to what we see. It will control what we

576
00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:05,320
Speaker 3: see at best if we don't. If judge meta rules badly,

577
00:31:05,480 --> 00:31:08,720
Speaker 3: AI could be an oligopoly of the well capitalized. So

578
00:31:08,800 --> 00:31:15,560
Speaker 3: maybe you'll also have Microsoft or Facebook or Amazon, but

579
00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:20,160
Speaker 3: that's kind of all you'll get. Well, we can already

580
00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 3: see firms preparing for different futures. One way to restructure

581
00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:26,320
Speaker 3: search is to present what's called a choice screen to

582
00:31:26,440 --> 00:31:28,680
Speaker 3: users instead of giving them a pay to play default

583
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:33,160
Speaker 3: search option. So that actually worked in twenty seventeen, Russia

584
00:31:33,200 --> 00:31:37,000
Speaker 3: did this and it actually broke Google's monopoly. And if

585
00:31:37,080 --> 00:31:40,000
Speaker 3: Judge Meta actually forced that as a remedy, the forty

586
00:31:40,040 --> 00:31:43,760
Speaker 3: five billion dollars of annual payments would just go away. DUC,

587
00:31:43,840 --> 00:31:46,920
Speaker 3: Ducgo and Niva could actually compete. And it's almost certain

588
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:50,600
Speaker 3: that companies like Apple would unveil search engines that they

589
00:31:50,680 --> 00:31:54,800
Speaker 3: are developing. And yeah, Apple is actually developing one. They

590
00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:56,760
Speaker 3: just why would they deploy it If they're getting fifteen

591
00:31:56,760 --> 00:31:58,880
Speaker 3: to twenty billion dollars from Google a year. If that

592
00:31:58,920 --> 00:32:01,719
Speaker 3: money goes away, they will deploy their search engine. So

593
00:32:01,760 --> 00:32:04,000
Speaker 3: you'll see a lot more competition in the search market

594
00:32:04,320 --> 00:32:08,840
Speaker 3: if this monopolized structure gets taken away by a judge.

595
00:32:09,600 --> 00:32:13,240
Speaker 3: So an anti trust decision against Google would unleash an

596
00:32:13,280 --> 00:32:17,640
Speaker 3: explosion of innovation around search, and that means AI enabled search.

597
00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:20,640
Speaker 3: More importantly, the deployment of AI would be less likely

598
00:32:20,680 --> 00:32:23,760
Speaker 3: to be monopolized because this decision would create a presumption

599
00:32:24,040 --> 00:32:29,120
Speaker 3: against monopolization in the new business environment. OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Amazon,

600
00:32:29,200 --> 00:32:31,720
Speaker 3: or anyone else who grabs a choke hold would have

601
00:32:31,760 --> 00:32:35,160
Speaker 3: to worry about a judge ruling against business methods intended

602
00:32:35,320 --> 00:32:38,520
Speaker 3: to restrain others in this vibrant space. That's how the

603
00:32:38,640 --> 00:32:43,040
Speaker 3: law works. It works via precedent. The stakes here are high.

604
00:32:43,320 --> 00:32:46,320
Speaker 3: In the last technological inflection point, the shift from desktop

605
00:32:46,360 --> 00:32:50,600
Speaker 3: to mobile, enforcers and regulators and Congress wrote rules to

606
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:54,720
Speaker 3: facilitate monopolization and allow Google, Facebook, and Apple to dominate

607
00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:58,480
Speaker 3: our phones and the mobile web. That occurred by the FTC,

608
00:32:58,560 --> 00:33:01,320
Speaker 3: the Felt Trade Commission closing its investigation in twenty twelve

609
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:05,160
Speaker 3: against Google with a unanimous vote, allowing Facebook to buy

610
00:33:05,200 --> 00:33:09,680
Speaker 3: Instagram and WhatsApp, doing nothing about google suite of acquisitions,

611
00:33:10,040 --> 00:33:12,840
Speaker 3: and Congress not actually coming in and making any laws

612
00:33:12,880 --> 00:33:16,240
Speaker 3: around the use of data and various other things. Okay,

613
00:33:16,600 --> 00:33:19,600
Speaker 3: but that was a different political moment. People were a

614
00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:22,480
Speaker 3: lot more comfortable with monopoly at that time. They didn't

615
00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:25,200
Speaker 3: think it was a big deal. But today it's different.

616
00:33:25,240 --> 00:33:27,760
Speaker 3: So this is an FT of Financial Times op ed

617
00:33:27,800 --> 00:33:31,320
Speaker 3: by an activist named Sarah Myers West, and it shows

618
00:33:31,360 --> 00:33:33,840
Speaker 3: that we haven't made policy choices, but there is actually

619
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:37,480
Speaker 3: a genuine dialogue about consolidation in big tech AI see

620
00:33:38,040 --> 00:33:40,840
Speaker 3: Move Fast and Break AI up. People know that there's

621
00:33:41,080 --> 00:33:44,320
Speaker 3: a concentration problem. And it's not just that there's like

622
00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:45,920
Speaker 3: a lot of chatter about it. I mean, I brought

623
00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:48,800
Speaker 3: up you know, West's op ed, but there were like

624
00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:51,240
Speaker 3: there was hearing their hearings in Congress, people that are

625
00:33:51,400 --> 00:33:53,959
Speaker 3: talking about it all the time. And it's not just that.

626
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:56,360
Speaker 3: There is actually an antitrust trial and that I talked

627
00:33:56,360 --> 00:33:58,080
Speaker 3: about earlier, and it's the first of many. There's a

628
00:33:58,120 --> 00:34:00,880
Speaker 3: bunch that have been brought to again Google, but this

629
00:34:00,920 --> 00:34:03,240
Speaker 3: is the first it's going to trial, and it's actually

630
00:34:03,320 --> 00:34:06,360
Speaker 3: being brought by a reinvigorated anti trust division. And it

631
00:34:06,400 --> 00:34:09,800
Speaker 3: may be the case the judge Meta rules badly. Maybe

632
00:34:09,800 --> 00:34:12,640
Speaker 3: he'll rule that he wants artificial intelligence monopolized in the

633
00:34:12,640 --> 00:34:15,040
Speaker 3: hands of a few. That would, I think, in my view,

634
00:34:15,080 --> 00:34:17,120
Speaker 3: be a subversion of the Sherman Anti Trust Act. But

635
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:20,560
Speaker 3: judges haven't done a particularly good job recently. It could

636
00:34:20,560 --> 00:34:22,400
Speaker 3: also happen that he doesn't do that, that he Meta

637
00:34:22,400 --> 00:34:25,600
Speaker 3: surprises and acts like a judge called Harold Green, who

638
00:34:25,640 --> 00:34:28,560
Speaker 3: was the courageous judge in the early nineteen eighties who

639
00:34:28,640 --> 00:34:30,719
Speaker 3: broke up at and T and did as much as

640
00:34:31,120 --> 00:34:34,320
Speaker 3: as to bring forth an open future as any engineer

641
00:34:34,320 --> 00:34:38,560
Speaker 3: in Silicon Valley. But regardless of how a meta rules,

642
00:34:39,600 --> 00:34:42,759
Speaker 3: the case is sure to be appealed and Congress is

643
00:34:42,760 --> 00:34:45,200
Speaker 3: going to discuss it no matter what. So whatever happens,

644
00:34:45,920 --> 00:34:48,680
Speaker 3: at least this debate is going to be done publicly,

645
00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:51,600
Speaker 3: with the government's anti trust enforcers on the right side,

646
00:34:51,960 --> 00:34:55,839
Speaker 3: with the possibility of appeal and the possibility of congressional action,

647
00:34:56,000 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 3: of state legislative action of action all over the world,

648
00:35:00,120 --> 00:35:02,200
Speaker 3: a long way to overcome the myths that I laid

649
00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:04,359
Speaker 3: out in the beginning that Eric Schmid put forward. These

650
00:35:04,360 --> 00:35:08,000
Speaker 3: are very powerful myths. They are embedded in how we think.

651
00:35:09,160 --> 00:35:11,600
Speaker 3: That is the false question of whether to regulate our

652
00:35:11,640 --> 00:35:14,960
Speaker 3: markets versus the fact that they are just there are rules,

653
00:35:15,160 --> 00:35:17,120
Speaker 3: and the debate is what kind of rules those are

654
00:35:17,160 --> 00:35:19,960
Speaker 3: going to be, or pretending that technology is just this

655
00:35:20,120 --> 00:35:23,400
Speaker 3: external force that kind of happens, and that the government

656
00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:26,319
Speaker 3: comes into set some boundaries instead of seeing collective action

657
00:35:26,480 --> 00:35:30,239
Speaker 3: as foundational to how technology is developed in one way

658
00:35:30,320 --> 00:35:33,440
Speaker 3: or in another, it's always we, the people that structure

659
00:35:33,560 --> 00:35:37,360
Speaker 3: the path of technology. So it's on us as a

660
00:35:37,400 --> 00:35:41,200
Speaker 3: democratic society to tell our lawmakers who represent us that

661
00:35:41,239 --> 00:35:44,640
Speaker 3: we don't want our scientific knowledge, our engineering prowess, our

662
00:35:44,680 --> 00:35:49,160
Speaker 3: innovation controlled by the few. We must be as jealous

663
00:35:49,200 --> 00:35:52,560
Speaker 3: in defending our liberties as the monopolists are to take

664
00:35:52,600 --> 00:35:56,080
Speaker 3: them away. But it starts with freeing our own minds

665
00:35:56,160 --> 00:36:00,239
Speaker 3: from their bad ideas. So thanks for watching this big

666
00:36:00,280 --> 00:36:02,759
Speaker 3: breakdown on the Breaking Points channel. If you'd like to

667
00:36:02,800 --> 00:36:06,840
Speaker 3: know more about big business and how our economy really works,

668
00:36:07,040 --> 00:36:09,680
Speaker 3: you can sign up in the district in the description

669
00:36:10,040 --> 00:36:13,640
Speaker 3: below for my market power focused newsletter. Big thanks and

670
00:36:13,719 --> 00:36:17,040
Speaker 3: have a good one.

671
00:36:17,280 --> 00:36:20,040
Speaker 12: The IRS is trying to compete with some of the

672
00:36:20,280 --> 00:36:24,800
Speaker 12: e filing tax monsters that are already in the industry.

673
00:36:24,880 --> 00:36:25,960
Speaker 3: Let's put this tear sheet up.

674
00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:27,600
Speaker 12: You can see a headline from the Washington Post the

675
00:36:27,640 --> 00:36:30,799
Speaker 12: IRS tests free east filing system that compete that could

676
00:36:30,840 --> 00:36:33,040
Speaker 12: compete with tax prep giants.

677
00:36:33,080 --> 00:36:34,880
Speaker 2: So they're saying that they've been.

678
00:36:34,760 --> 00:36:39,920
Speaker 12: Sort of quietly constructing a system, that a software system

679
00:36:39,960 --> 00:36:43,240
Speaker 12: that would allow Americans for free to file their tax

680
00:36:43,239 --> 00:36:48,040
Speaker 12: returns digitally. That's according to current and former agency officials

681
00:36:48,080 --> 00:36:50,879
Speaker 12: with knowledge of this, who told the Washington Post it's

682
00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:54,000
Speaker 12: going to be a pilot program for just a smaller

683
00:36:54,040 --> 00:36:57,880
Speaker 12: group of people actually in January, when the twenty twenty

684
00:36:57,880 --> 00:37:02,000
Speaker 12: four filing season begins. According to people who know about it,

685
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:04,480
Speaker 12: it was developed actually by the IRS and the US

686
00:37:04,680 --> 00:37:07,360
Speaker 12: Digital Service, which is kind of the White House's tech

687
00:37:07,719 --> 00:37:09,480
Speaker 12: consulting firm Agency.

688
00:37:10,239 --> 00:37:10,520
Speaker 2: Ryan.

689
00:37:10,719 --> 00:37:12,680
Speaker 12: This is really interesting to me because the IRS has

690
00:37:12,719 --> 00:37:15,879
Speaker 12: cooperated a lot with the e filing giants, like that's

691
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:18,840
Speaker 12: a it's almost like a public private partnership, so that

692
00:37:18,880 --> 00:37:22,279
Speaker 12: they've been sort of in the shadows developing something that

693
00:37:22,280 --> 00:37:25,040
Speaker 12: will compete with these businesses. I feel like they've been

694
00:37:25,080 --> 00:37:27,840
Speaker 12: instrumental in propping up is quite interesting.

695
00:37:28,520 --> 00:37:31,840
Speaker 4: Yeah, those eighty seven thousand agents are being put to

696
00:37:31,880 --> 00:37:33,480
Speaker 4: some good use, although it.

697
00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:35,959
Speaker 12: Was always what like seven thousand new agents, like eighty

698
00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:37,640
Speaker 12: thousand new employees.

699
00:37:37,280 --> 00:37:38,640
Speaker 5: Right, yeah, if that.

700
00:37:38,800 --> 00:37:40,359
Speaker 3: Yeah, So.

701
00:37:42,440 --> 00:37:46,719
Speaker 4: For the background on this, as you know, so, I've

702
00:37:46,760 --> 00:37:48,960
Speaker 4: got a book coming out at the end of end

703
00:37:49,000 --> 00:37:51,799
Speaker 4: of this year and I go over the TurboTax fight

704
00:37:51,840 --> 00:37:54,319
Speaker 4: from twenty nineteen, so this is fresh in my mind.

705
00:37:54,360 --> 00:37:55,440
Speaker 9: But if you remember.

706
00:37:57,239 --> 00:38:01,320
Speaker 4: TurboTax and the other kind of free providers, we're trying

707
00:38:01,320 --> 00:38:06,640
Speaker 4: to slip in to law a provision that would basically

708
00:38:06,719 --> 00:38:10,239
Speaker 4: ban the irs from doing this, and they had and

709
00:38:10,280 --> 00:38:12,319
Speaker 4: they got John Lewis to carry the water for them,

710
00:38:12,520 --> 00:38:15,200
Speaker 4: because you just can't oppose anything that John Lewis did,

711
00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:18,839
Speaker 4: Like that was the one rule in Congress. John John

712
00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:20,960
Speaker 4: Lewis is for it. You have to you have to

713
00:38:20,960 --> 00:38:21,320
Speaker 4: be for it.

714
00:38:21,960 --> 00:38:22,040
Speaker 10: Uh.

715
00:38:22,200 --> 00:38:26,080
Speaker 4: And it went through the House unopposed. Every every Democratic

716
00:38:26,160 --> 00:38:28,200
Speaker 4: Republican voice vote voted for it. And I've got some

717
00:38:28,360 --> 00:38:31,080
Speaker 4: details on how that happened. It's it's kind of a

718
00:38:31,080 --> 00:38:35,239
Speaker 4: fun story. But uh, it was then exposed and it

719
00:38:35,280 --> 00:38:37,680
Speaker 4: was blocked in the Senate. And so as a result,

720
00:38:38,160 --> 00:38:41,640
Speaker 4: that allowed the I R s to go forward with

721
00:38:41,760 --> 00:38:45,279
Speaker 4: this technology. And so one of the compromises that they

722
00:38:45,320 --> 00:38:49,600
Speaker 4: had made with the TurboTax types was that, Okay, we

723
00:38:49,680 --> 00:38:52,120
Speaker 4: will continue our cooperation with you so that you can

724
00:38:52,160 --> 00:38:55,200
Speaker 4: prop up this business of helping people file their taxes

725
00:38:55,200 --> 00:39:00,320
Speaker 4: online if you also develop a free product for people

726
00:39:00,320 --> 00:39:03,160
Speaker 4: to use, so you can have your premium thing where

727
00:39:03,360 --> 00:39:06,000
Speaker 4: you'll get more money back and you'll do your taxes accurately,

728
00:39:06,040 --> 00:39:10,480
Speaker 4: but for free, you do this one. And they just

729
00:39:10,600 --> 00:39:15,840
Speaker 4: kept obviously foot dragging, slow walking and never and have

730
00:39:15,960 --> 00:39:18,439
Speaker 4: never developed a free product as they've cut as they've

731
00:39:18,440 --> 00:39:21,360
Speaker 4: promised the government that they would do so. In the background,

732
00:39:21,840 --> 00:39:25,160
Speaker 4: IRS was like, this can't be that hard, and also

733
00:39:25,200 --> 00:39:28,400
Speaker 4: we have access to all the IRS back and stuff.

734
00:39:28,360 --> 00:39:29,160
Speaker 3: We can do this.

735
00:39:30,040 --> 00:39:33,959
Speaker 4: It's absurd, but also telling that we don't have that yet,

736
00:39:34,760 --> 00:39:37,640
Speaker 4: like that we're such a privately controlled government that even

737
00:39:37,640 --> 00:39:43,120
Speaker 4: our tax our revenue engine, couldn't develop a website to

738
00:39:43,360 --> 00:39:47,600
Speaker 4: just let people give it money. Like you're getting trillions

739
00:39:47,600 --> 00:39:51,279
Speaker 4: of dollars from the public, and you couldn't build a

740
00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:53,279
Speaker 4: website for them to send it to you. But now

741
00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:57,640
Speaker 4: finally they're breaking through that opposition. You know, hopefully it

742
00:39:57,719 --> 00:40:00,759
Speaker 4: actually works because I think if you people can save

743
00:40:00,840 --> 00:40:02,520
Speaker 4: the money that they're spending on H and R block

744
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:06,279
Speaker 4: or turbo tax filing online, I think, sorry turbo tax,

745
00:40:06,360 --> 00:40:08,560
Speaker 4: but like that's that's a good thing, you know.

746
00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:11,239
Speaker 12: I hope though, that this isn't a situation where in

747
00:40:11,440 --> 00:40:14,160
Speaker 12: the same sense that like the IRS has less funding

748
00:40:14,239 --> 00:40:16,759
Speaker 12: historically than it has had in the past right now,

749
00:40:16,800 --> 00:40:20,200
Speaker 12: Like that's absolutely true, and who ends up getting squeezed

750
00:40:20,239 --> 00:40:23,000
Speaker 12: when you start arming the IRS with tons and tons

751
00:40:23,080 --> 00:40:28,600
Speaker 12: more researchers resources. There's like actual evidence and Soccer's talked

752
00:40:28,640 --> 00:40:31,120
Speaker 12: about this a lot that you know pretty much suggests

753
00:40:31,160 --> 00:40:32,480
Speaker 12: it's going to be a lot of middle class tax

754
00:40:32,480 --> 00:40:34,960
Speaker 12: payers who end up having to deal with these audits,

755
00:40:35,040 --> 00:40:37,080
Speaker 12: even ones that cost them a lot of money, when

756
00:40:37,080 --> 00:40:39,480
Speaker 12: they haven't really done anything wrong or there's no evidence

757
00:40:39,480 --> 00:40:41,960
Speaker 12: of wrongdoing. And I hope it's in a similar situation

758
00:40:42,040 --> 00:40:45,919
Speaker 12: with this because as somebody who has had both Obamacare

759
00:40:46,000 --> 00:40:49,600
Speaker 12: like on the DC Exchange and private insurance in recent years,

760
00:40:49,800 --> 00:40:52,320
Speaker 12: the private insurance like just does talk about the infrastructure

761
00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:54,440
Speaker 12: and the websites there's so much easier to use than

762
00:40:54,440 --> 00:40:57,760
Speaker 12: the government ones. And we know that the Obamacare websites

763
00:40:57,760 --> 00:40:59,960
Speaker 12: have had problems going back to like the literal inception

764
00:41:00,120 --> 00:41:03,200
Speaker 12: of the Obamacare websites, And so I hope again that

765
00:41:03,280 --> 00:41:06,839
Speaker 12: what doesn't happen is that people who you know, want

766
00:41:06,880 --> 00:41:11,319
Speaker 12: to pay the the flat turbo tax fee get it

767
00:41:11,360 --> 00:41:14,680
Speaker 12: over with, end up then having an inferior product. And

768
00:41:15,560 --> 00:41:18,760
Speaker 12: the option is, you know, TurboTax charging like five hundred

769
00:41:18,840 --> 00:41:21,319
Speaker 12: dollars for what used to cost less because they need

770
00:41:21,360 --> 00:41:23,960
Speaker 12: to make up that base. So I mean, this is

771
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:26,399
Speaker 12: the This is what an industry guy is saying, he's

772
00:41:26,440 --> 00:41:28,120
Speaker 12: with File Yourtaxes dot Com.

773
00:41:28,200 --> 00:41:29,319
Speaker 2: He says, is there a need for.

774
00:41:29,360 --> 00:41:31,720
Speaker 12: The government to come compete with in terms of functioning

775
00:41:31,760 --> 00:41:32,800
Speaker 12: private sector industry.

776
00:41:32,840 --> 00:41:33,239
Speaker 3: Bless you.

777
00:41:34,239 --> 00:41:38,680
Speaker 12: It seems like they're saying, it's where's this one? This

778
00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:40,800
Speaker 12: is the guy from into it. He says, a direct

779
00:41:40,800 --> 00:41:42,920
Speaker 12: to IRS E file system is wholly redundant and is

780
00:41:42,920 --> 00:41:44,160
Speaker 12: nothing more than a solution in.

781
00:41:44,080 --> 00:41:45,000
Speaker 3: Search of a problem.

782
00:41:45,080 --> 00:41:47,200
Speaker 12: Right, so this could disrupt what is as the post

783
00:41:47,239 --> 00:41:51,400
Speaker 12: sage feels that way, right, a fourteen billion dollar e

784
00:41:51,560 --> 00:41:54,640
Speaker 12: filing industry. And again, a lot of that is because

785
00:41:54,719 --> 00:41:57,120
Speaker 12: you get the cooperation of the IRS to begin with.

786
00:41:57,239 --> 00:41:59,719
Speaker 12: And so I'm sort of in agreement and then in

787
00:42:00,080 --> 00:42:03,319
Speaker 12: disagreement with your take on this and that I think

788
00:42:03,360 --> 00:42:06,960
Speaker 12: some of these private filers are actually pretty efficient and

789
00:42:07,239 --> 00:42:09,960
Speaker 12: relatively easy to use. At the same time, I do

790
00:42:10,040 --> 00:42:12,600
Speaker 12: think a basic function of the i r S would

791
00:42:12,680 --> 00:42:15,960
Speaker 12: be having an easy to use e filing program that

792
00:42:16,080 --> 00:42:19,400
Speaker 12: is free for taxpayers. Because we spend our money propping

793
00:42:19,440 --> 00:42:21,440
Speaker 12: up the i r S, like, that's our money is

794
00:42:21,440 --> 00:42:23,880
Speaker 12: funding you, so's it's a little bit of both. For me.

795
00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:26,560
Speaker 12: Bottom line is it's way too complicated to do taxes

796
00:42:26,600 --> 00:42:28,000
Speaker 12: in the United States, and a lot of that is

797
00:42:28,040 --> 00:42:32,600
Speaker 12: because of a tax code that has been completely constructed

798
00:42:32,760 --> 00:42:36,279
Speaker 12: by special interests and lobbyists and does not serve the

799
00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:39,640
Speaker 12: average American but serve special interests and serves wealthy Americans.

800
00:42:40,400 --> 00:42:41,799
Speaker 9: Yeah, and I guess we'll see.

801
00:42:41,840 --> 00:42:44,960
Speaker 4: So so far, IRS dot gov is actually pretty pretty good.

802
00:42:45,719 --> 00:42:49,040
Speaker 4: I've used it for like you know, there's there's some

803
00:42:49,080 --> 00:42:50,920
Speaker 4: few basic things that you can do on and then

804
00:42:50,920 --> 00:42:51,880
Speaker 4: it actually functions.

805
00:42:52,000 --> 00:42:53,560
Speaker 9: I was I was impressed by that.

806
00:42:54,520 --> 00:42:57,719
Speaker 4: So we'll see, like if they can. And it would

807
00:42:57,719 --> 00:43:00,799
Speaker 4: be nice for the government government to be able to

808
00:43:00,840 --> 00:43:04,200
Speaker 4: demonstrate that it can do things again, So we'll see

809
00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:07,160
Speaker 4: if it can, because it is up against all of

810
00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:09,439
Speaker 4: these forces that are in opposition to it being able

811
00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:12,400
Speaker 4: to do things like into It spoke to Rick Heinemann,

812
00:43:13,239 --> 00:43:15,960
Speaker 4: who and credit to the wash It Post the very

813
00:43:16,000 --> 00:43:19,120
Speaker 4: next paragraph they write into It spent one million dollars

814
00:43:19,120 --> 00:43:22,080
Speaker 4: between January and March lobbying both House and Senate lawmakers

815
00:43:22,080 --> 00:43:26,160
Speaker 4: on issues including tax system integrity and intellectual property protections,

816
00:43:26,200 --> 00:43:27,359
Speaker 4: according to disclosures.

817
00:43:27,960 --> 00:43:29,920
Speaker 12: Wish they do that in like Pentagon coverage.

818
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:33,960
Speaker 4: But yes, yes, now clearly you found a populist issue

819
00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:38,480
Speaker 4: when even like the Washington Post reporters are like throwing

820
00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:41,640
Speaker 4: shade at the end it quote that they're including in

821
00:43:41,680 --> 00:43:44,239
Speaker 4: their own and saying, you know what, I'm checking the

822
00:43:44,280 --> 00:43:45,719
Speaker 4: disclosure filings into it.

823
00:43:45,760 --> 00:43:48,040
Speaker 3: See what they spent on lobbying Boom million dollars.

824
00:43:48,239 --> 00:43:50,160
Speaker 4: You can spend a million bucks lobbing for three months,

825
00:43:50,400 --> 00:43:52,759
Speaker 4: and then you're giving us a quote that says the

826
00:43:52,800 --> 00:43:56,680
Speaker 4: solution will unnecessarily cost taxpayers. You just spent a million

827
00:43:56,760 --> 00:44:01,360
Speaker 4: dollars of money that people paid you to develop this software.

828
00:44:01,520 --> 00:44:05,719
Speaker 4: You gave it to lawmakers and lobbyists in order to

829
00:44:05,760 --> 00:44:09,200
Speaker 4: prevent them from building a competitor to you. So don't

830
00:44:09,200 --> 00:44:12,680
Speaker 4: tell us about waste unnecessarily costing taxpayers money.

831
00:44:13,040 --> 00:44:14,759
Speaker 12: And on a high note, I guess we can all

832
00:44:14,760 --> 00:44:17,319
Speaker 12: agree that both our government and private sector is a mess.

833
00:44:17,400 --> 00:44:18,719
Speaker 7: Right now, there you go.

834
00:44:18,719 --> 00:44:21,279
Speaker 4: So come on, irs, show us you can do it.

835
00:44:21,480 --> 00:44:22,160
Speaker 8: We'll be watching.

836
00:44:25,320 --> 00:44:28,160
Speaker 1: So we're joined now by Jordan Sheridan of status Q News.

837
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:30,640
Speaker 1: He's been on the ground in Kalamazoo doing some really

838
00:44:30,680 --> 00:44:34,320
Speaker 1: important reporting about a toxic paper mill there which seems

839
00:44:34,320 --> 00:44:37,279
Speaker 1: to be having some local impacts. That Jordan first set

840
00:44:37,320 --> 00:44:39,720
Speaker 1: up for us and for our audience as a reminder

841
00:44:39,920 --> 00:44:42,359
Speaker 1: what you found on the ground and then tell us

842
00:44:42,360 --> 00:44:43,359
Speaker 1: what the reaction has been.

843
00:44:43,280 --> 00:44:49,120
Speaker 13: Politically Yeah, Graphic Packaging International, it's a multi billion dollar

844
00:44:49,480 --> 00:44:54,759
Speaker 13: packaging company. It's plant in Kalamazoo, Michigan is a cardboard

845
00:44:54,800 --> 00:44:57,520
Speaker 13: recycling plant. It's been there for a long time, and

846
00:44:57,560 --> 00:45:01,680
Speaker 13: for a long time residents have been complaining of horrible

847
00:45:01,719 --> 00:45:05,040
Speaker 13: smells coming from that plant, predominantly in the poor black

848
00:45:05,200 --> 00:45:09,800
Speaker 13: part of Kalamazoo. High rates of asthma, COPD, heart disease,

849
00:45:10,040 --> 00:45:15,560
Speaker 13: cancers in this neighborhood. But basically nothing happened. And there

850
00:45:15,640 --> 00:45:20,400
Speaker 13: was a health study initiated in twenty twenty by a resident,

851
00:45:20,960 --> 00:45:24,240
Speaker 13: not the government, but a resident who just was really

852
00:45:24,239 --> 00:45:29,000
Speaker 13: aggressive and paid out of pocket for a toxicologist to

853
00:45:29,040 --> 00:45:30,840
Speaker 13: look at some of the gas data.

854
00:45:31,160 --> 00:45:33,399
Speaker 5: This is what drove the Health department to do.

855
00:45:33,400 --> 00:45:37,600
Speaker 13: A gas study, to do a study on the dozens

856
00:45:37,680 --> 00:45:40,600
Speaker 13: of volatile gases coming out of this plant right into

857
00:45:40,640 --> 00:45:44,280
Speaker 13: the black community. Frankly, the Health department dragged their feet

858
00:45:44,400 --> 00:45:47,520
Speaker 13: for three years on this health study that could have

859
00:45:47,560 --> 00:45:51,520
Speaker 13: been out probably in a year. And when I went

860
00:45:51,600 --> 00:45:54,200
Speaker 13: down there, you know, we reported right next to the plant.

861
00:45:54,239 --> 00:45:57,560
Speaker 13: I got sick just being next to that plant. Trying

862
00:45:57,600 --> 00:46:02,520
Speaker 13: to speak coherently. You get a headache, sore, throat burning

863
00:46:02,600 --> 00:46:08,080
Speaker 13: eyes as far as the five to six miles down

864
00:46:08,080 --> 00:46:12,360
Speaker 13: the road. The smell and gases are now going into

865
00:46:12,440 --> 00:46:17,319
Speaker 13: the West Side, predominantly white neighborhood because the plant expanded

866
00:46:17,760 --> 00:46:21,839
Speaker 13: two years ago with the help of Governor Whitmere's administration.

867
00:46:22,320 --> 00:46:27,320
Speaker 13: So essentially, you've had a plant emitting far, far more

868
00:46:27,520 --> 00:46:31,640
Speaker 13: than is regulatory allowable for years, but because of big

869
00:46:31,680 --> 00:46:36,160
Speaker 13: business and its financial importance to Kalamazoo City officials basically

870
00:46:36,239 --> 00:46:40,160
Speaker 13: ignored it. Thankfully, our report got traction also thanks to

871
00:46:40,200 --> 00:46:44,440
Speaker 13: Breaking Point for publishing a report from us on the ground,

872
00:46:44,520 --> 00:46:47,200
Speaker 13: and this seemed to kind of force the Health Department

873
00:46:47,239 --> 00:46:50,760
Speaker 13: to finally release the health study. And that health study

874
00:46:50,800 --> 00:46:54,360
Speaker 13: found that they're releasing at least one guess hydrogen sulfide

875
00:46:54,640 --> 00:46:58,520
Speaker 13: at nineteen times higher the allowable limit.

876
00:46:58,960 --> 00:47:02,160
Speaker 1: So the article we put up a moment ago has

877
00:47:02,160 --> 00:47:04,239
Speaker 1: some of those details. They say that the data that

878
00:47:04,280 --> 00:47:06,879
Speaker 1: has now for the first time been publicly released over

879
00:47:06,880 --> 00:47:09,239
Speaker 1: the past four days has shown hydrogen sulfide, which you

880
00:47:09,320 --> 00:47:12,359
Speaker 1: just mentioned, concentrations near the factory as high as four

881
00:47:12,400 --> 00:47:16,080
Speaker 1: parts per billion. It's a foul smelling gas that can

882
00:47:16,160 --> 00:47:19,080
Speaker 1: cause health issues when humans are exposed to it. Federal

883
00:47:19,120 --> 00:47:22,160
Speaker 1: government says levels should not exceed one point four parts

884
00:47:22,360 --> 00:47:25,560
Speaker 1: per billion for long term exposure of a year or more.

885
00:47:25,760 --> 00:47:27,920
Speaker 1: And of course this plant has been in the community

886
00:47:27,960 --> 00:47:30,200
Speaker 1: four years, so these residents are having to deal with,

887
00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:32,239
Speaker 1: you know, not only the quality of life of having

888
00:47:32,280 --> 00:47:35,319
Speaker 1: to live next to this like smelly, horrible, gaseous thing,

889
00:47:35,760 --> 00:47:38,799
Speaker 1: but also real health impacts that they are feeling day

890
00:47:38,840 --> 00:47:41,359
Speaker 1: to day. Tell us a little bit more about the

891
00:47:41,400 --> 00:47:44,319
Speaker 1: residents you spoke with and what they had to say

892
00:47:44,360 --> 00:47:46,120
Speaker 1: about how this has impacted their lives.

893
00:47:47,200 --> 00:47:49,720
Speaker 13: Yeah, I just want to note that health study, although

894
00:47:50,040 --> 00:47:53,480
Speaker 13: finally it's good that there is a health study lacking.

895
00:47:54,160 --> 00:47:56,200
Speaker 5: For example, there was in twenty twenty.

896
00:47:56,280 --> 00:47:58,600
Speaker 13: They found it at nineteen parts per billion, which is

897
00:47:58,640 --> 00:48:01,680
Speaker 13: ten times higher, so they kind of cherry pook picked

898
00:48:01,719 --> 00:48:05,200
Speaker 13: their findings. But anyway, that's the Michigan Health Department. People

899
00:48:05,239 --> 00:48:09,520
Speaker 13: in Flint know that. Yeah, the residence, it really is stunning.

900
00:48:09,640 --> 00:48:12,200
Speaker 13: I mean, just being a block away from that plant.

901
00:48:12,239 --> 00:48:16,640
Speaker 13: Doing an interview, I was interviewing the resident, Dianne Winfield.

902
00:48:17,000 --> 00:48:18,600
Speaker 5: She's got horrible asthma.

903
00:48:18,880 --> 00:48:22,440
Speaker 13: Her seventeen year old daughter had a minor case of

904
00:48:22,480 --> 00:48:25,240
Speaker 13: asthma before they moved blocks away from that plant.

905
00:48:26,600 --> 00:48:28,640
Speaker 5: The asthma got way worse.

906
00:48:28,440 --> 00:48:30,960
Speaker 13: Living next to that plant. She died of a severe

907
00:48:30,960 --> 00:48:36,360
Speaker 13: asthma attack. Her or thirty two year old son didn't

908
00:48:36,400 --> 00:48:37,799
Speaker 13: really have asthma growing up.

909
00:48:37,880 --> 00:48:39,040
Speaker 5: They moved near that plant.

910
00:48:39,239 --> 00:48:42,279
Speaker 13: He's now on twenty four to seven oxygen and has

911
00:48:42,280 --> 00:48:45,040
Speaker 13: had a lot of close calls life or death. I've

912
00:48:45,040 --> 00:48:48,799
Speaker 13: spoken with residents to live in that community. They can't

913
00:48:48,800 --> 00:48:51,040
Speaker 13: really have guests over because the smell is so bad

914
00:48:51,560 --> 00:48:55,000
Speaker 13: over the summer, they can't open their windows. I interviewed

915
00:48:55,040 --> 00:48:57,480
Speaker 13: residents that you look at a playground on the block

916
00:48:58,000 --> 00:49:01,040
Speaker 13: is empty most of the time because parents don't let

917
00:49:01,040 --> 00:49:04,799
Speaker 13: their kids come out. There's a daycare right near, like

918
00:49:04,840 --> 00:49:07,880
Speaker 13: three hundred feet near that plant. The kids are not

919
00:49:07,920 --> 00:49:12,480
Speaker 13: allowed outside. There's elementary schools nearby. Kids don't go out

920
00:49:12,560 --> 00:49:15,640
Speaker 13: for recess, and they're really I mean, I'm not shocked

921
00:49:15,680 --> 00:49:18,480
Speaker 13: because this is America. But the really horrible thing is

922
00:49:18,840 --> 00:49:21,640
Speaker 13: the city has known about this for years, The state

923
00:49:21,680 --> 00:49:24,719
Speaker 13: has known about this for years, and they basically blew

924
00:49:24,760 --> 00:49:29,120
Speaker 13: off the residents who were begging for health studies, data.

925
00:49:28,719 --> 00:49:29,640
Speaker 5: Something to be done.

926
00:49:30,080 --> 00:49:33,640
Speaker 13: Because this plant employs six hundred and fifty people.

927
00:49:34,040 --> 00:49:34,920
Speaker 5: You know, donates to.

928
00:49:35,000 --> 00:49:39,160
Speaker 13: The colleges, the nonprofits. I mean, you know, this is neoliberalism.

929
00:49:39,200 --> 00:49:41,320
Speaker 13: And most of our factory jobs have been sent to

930
00:49:41,320 --> 00:49:44,719
Speaker 13: other countries. So a lot of these cities are starving

931
00:49:44,840 --> 00:49:49,520
Speaker 13: for employers and basically let these employers in many ways

932
00:49:49,560 --> 00:49:50,600
Speaker 13: poison the community.

933
00:49:51,000 --> 00:49:53,160
Speaker 5: But it's severely high.

934
00:49:53,080 --> 00:49:57,560
Speaker 13: Rates of asthma, COPD, cancer And also in twenty fifteen,

935
00:49:58,360 --> 00:50:02,600
Speaker 13: there was one nine hundred fifty black infants under the

936
00:50:02,680 --> 00:50:05,279
Speaker 13: age of one who died in this neighborhood. And then

937
00:50:05,320 --> 00:50:08,640
Speaker 13: mysteriously they took the data off the website, so we

938
00:50:08,680 --> 00:50:11,880
Speaker 13: don't know what the data is since then. That was

939
00:50:11,960 --> 00:50:14,680
Speaker 13: five That was five times higher for black infant death

940
00:50:14,960 --> 00:50:17,440
Speaker 13: than white infants in Kalamazoo.

941
00:50:17,560 --> 00:50:21,040
Speaker 1: Wow, unbelievable, and you can bat if something like this

942
00:50:21,560 --> 00:50:24,080
Speaker 1: was placed. I mean, it just wouldn't even happen that

943
00:50:24,160 --> 00:50:28,600
Speaker 1: it was placed in a predominantly white, affluent, suburban neighborhood.

944
00:50:28,640 --> 00:50:30,759
Speaker 1: I mean, there's no way that they would let, you know,

945
00:50:30,880 --> 00:50:34,719
Speaker 1: people who are considered worthy by the state be and

946
00:50:34,760 --> 00:50:38,160
Speaker 1: have more political power be poisoned year after year in

947
00:50:38,200 --> 00:50:38,680
Speaker 1: this way.

948
00:50:38,880 --> 00:50:40,640
Speaker 7: I mean, one thing I was wondering. You know, the

949
00:50:40,680 --> 00:50:41,520
Speaker 7: area I grew up.

950
00:50:41,480 --> 00:50:43,399
Speaker 1: In, there was a paper mill that we would drive

951
00:50:43,440 --> 00:50:45,719
Speaker 1: by sometimes it always smelled bad. Actually, Kyle and I

952
00:50:45,800 --> 00:50:47,759
Speaker 1: on our honeymoon drove by one and I immediately like

953
00:50:47,840 --> 00:50:49,680
Speaker 1: recognize the smell as like that must be a paper mill.

954
00:50:49,719 --> 00:50:53,920
Speaker 1: Sure enough, it was like, is this just what happens

955
00:50:53,960 --> 00:50:57,319
Speaker 1: when paper mills are set up? Is this plant particularly egregious?

956
00:50:57,920 --> 00:50:58,200
Speaker 7: Is it?

957
00:50:58,320 --> 00:51:01,319
Speaker 1: You know, the level of constant that goes beyond just

958
00:51:01,360 --> 00:51:05,279
Speaker 1: an odor and creates obviously health complications As you're tracking here,

959
00:51:05,360 --> 00:51:06,720
Speaker 1: give us some sense of that piece.

960
00:51:07,880 --> 00:51:10,799
Speaker 13: Yeah, I mean the Devil's advocate will say, Jordan, there's

961
00:51:10,840 --> 00:51:12,960
Speaker 13: paper mills all over the country and all of them smell.

962
00:51:13,080 --> 00:51:15,160
Speaker 13: That is true, because a lot of what they're releasing

963
00:51:16,080 --> 00:51:20,120
Speaker 13: are smelly odors. Just because its smells doesn't necessarily equal

964
00:51:20,160 --> 00:51:23,200
Speaker 13: health hazard. Problem with this the problem with this plant

965
00:51:23,280 --> 00:51:25,880
Speaker 13: in particular, By the way, the net worth of graphic

966
00:51:25,920 --> 00:51:29,080
Speaker 13: packaging is seven point eight billion dollars. They're not using

967
00:51:29,120 --> 00:51:33,920
Speaker 13: carbon filters, I've learned at this plant, which is stunning.

968
00:51:34,800 --> 00:51:39,640
Speaker 13: They're releasing over thirty types of volatile organic compounds, and

969
00:51:39,680 --> 00:51:43,400
Speaker 13: they expanded in twenty twenty two with the help of

970
00:51:43,560 --> 00:51:47,120
Speaker 13: Governor Whitmer, who knew and her administration knew of the

971
00:51:47,160 --> 00:51:52,080
Speaker 13: complaints and the data, so they are releasing way more

972
00:51:53,080 --> 00:51:56,600
Speaker 13: of these gases as of the last two three years,

973
00:51:56,880 --> 00:51:58,640
Speaker 13: so it's gotten a lot worse.

974
00:51:59,239 --> 00:52:01,600
Speaker 1: So they could admit gate the health impacts, but they

975
00:52:01,680 --> 00:52:03,280
Speaker 1: choose not to correct.

976
00:52:03,360 --> 00:52:06,040
Speaker 5: And by the way, I mean the state health department.

977
00:52:06,040 --> 00:52:09,879
Speaker 13: The environmental departments say they have, you know, air sensors up,

978
00:52:10,239 --> 00:52:12,560
Speaker 13: which is similar to what we're told by the Epaight

979
00:52:12,560 --> 00:52:15,279
Speaker 13: East Palestine. But I talked to residents and they say

980
00:52:15,360 --> 00:52:17,880
Speaker 13: those air sensors that are supposed to be around the plant,

981
00:52:18,120 --> 00:52:22,319
Speaker 13: half the time they're malfunctioning or taken down. So it's

982
00:52:22,360 --> 00:52:25,759
Speaker 13: really questionable how thorough the testing has been.

983
00:52:26,160 --> 00:52:27,279
Speaker 5: This health study that.

984
00:52:27,200 --> 00:52:29,560
Speaker 13: Came out, it's good that finally we know at least

985
00:52:29,560 --> 00:52:32,440
Speaker 13: the hydrogen sulfide levels, but it did not test for

986
00:52:32,719 --> 00:52:38,880
Speaker 13: other volatile organic compounds that independent testing from a toxicologist

987
00:52:38,960 --> 00:52:45,280
Speaker 13: had found, including carbon disulfide, carbon carbonyl sulfide, methylene chloride,

988
00:52:45,280 --> 00:52:50,759
Speaker 13: a whole batch of potentially hazardous volatile organic compounds. So

989
00:52:51,320 --> 00:52:55,799
Speaker 13: this plant in particular is basically just skating regulations because

990
00:52:55,800 --> 00:52:58,960
Speaker 13: the state is allowing it to because it's more expensive,

991
00:52:59,400 --> 00:53:02,359
Speaker 13: you know, to follow regulations. You have to spend more

992
00:53:02,400 --> 00:53:06,759
Speaker 13: money to mitigate the release. And yeah, I mean you

993
00:53:07,160 --> 00:53:10,400
Speaker 13: said it right. Most of these, most of these kind

994
00:53:10,440 --> 00:53:15,680
Speaker 13: of plants, whether it's a paper mill, when you have mining, fracking,

995
00:53:16,600 --> 00:53:20,640
Speaker 13: auto there are chemical plants. They're usually dumped in predominantly

996
00:53:20,680 --> 00:53:25,880
Speaker 13: poor black, brown, now poor white communities. Obviously Native American

997
00:53:25,920 --> 00:53:29,719
Speaker 13: reservations with this. Now that the white part of town,

998
00:53:29,840 --> 00:53:32,920
Speaker 13: since the plant expanded and is emitting more gases, now

999
00:53:32,960 --> 00:53:35,600
Speaker 13: the white part of town is complaining. So it'll be

1000
00:53:35,600 --> 00:53:40,080
Speaker 13: interesting to see if more affluent white people start complaining, maybe.

1001
00:53:39,880 --> 00:53:40,680
Speaker 5: Something will be done.

1002
00:53:40,800 --> 00:53:42,680
Speaker 1: I really appreciate the way that you stay on top

1003
00:53:42,719 --> 00:53:45,160
Speaker 1: of these stories. I mean, you've been dogged and continuing

1004
00:53:45,160 --> 00:53:47,720
Speaker 1: to focus on, you know, the poisoning of Flint and

1005
00:53:47,880 --> 00:53:50,040
Speaker 1: you know, the lack of any accountability there and the

1006
00:53:50,120 --> 00:53:53,640
Speaker 1: lack of really even fixing the problem in Flint, you know,

1007
00:53:53,719 --> 00:53:56,640
Speaker 1: on the ground and East Palestine. You've you've really put

1008
00:53:56,640 --> 00:53:59,120
Speaker 1: a spotlight on these issues. And I think it's so

1009
00:53:59,239 --> 00:54:03,280
Speaker 1: vital because it shows you really the shocking treatment of

1010
00:54:03,480 --> 00:54:07,360
Speaker 1: you know, people who are considered less worthy. The American

1011
00:54:07,640 --> 00:54:10,879
Speaker 1: you know, underclass is considered by elitesa here in DC

1012
00:54:11,280 --> 00:54:13,120
Speaker 1: and around the country. So Jordan, thank you so much

1013
00:54:13,120 --> 00:54:14,560
Speaker 1: for your work and thank you for joining us today.

1014
00:54:15,239 --> 00:54:18,520
Speaker 13: Thank you and please subscribe to status kop on YouTube

1015
00:54:18,800 --> 00:54:19,200
Speaker 13: if you can.

1016
00:54:19,719 --> 00:54:23,600
Speaker 8: Modern medicine helping us live longer and healthier, we go.

1017
00:54:23,640 --> 00:54:26,560
Speaker 12: Be helped us lose weight and keep it off.

1018
00:54:27,960 --> 00:54:33,560
Speaker 8: Or is there maybe a darker, more sinister jim, perhaps

1019
00:54:33,600 --> 00:54:49,200
Speaker 8: a longer but sicker life. Big pharma, big food, the

1020
00:54:49,280 --> 00:54:55,439
Speaker 8: mainstream media, medical different the government.

1021
00:54:56,680 --> 00:54:57,960
Speaker 9: Across the United States.

1022
00:54:58,680 --> 00:55:01,640
Speaker 8: I think that just about covers all the main culprits. Yes,

1023
00:55:02,160 --> 00:55:07,080
Speaker 8: is big pharma, big food, the mainstream media, medical professionals,

1024
00:55:07,400 --> 00:55:11,680
Speaker 8: and the government acting in concert dispute propaganda in an

1025
00:55:11,680 --> 00:55:17,120
Speaker 8: effort to make us all sick. Let's go back to

1026
00:55:17,200 --> 00:55:20,960
Speaker 8: January first. It's typically the day where many people, at

1027
00:55:21,040 --> 00:55:24,360
Speaker 8: least for a few days, muster up the strength to

1028
00:55:24,440 --> 00:55:29,040
Speaker 8: hit the gym, make a meal plan, get better sleep,

1029
00:55:29,440 --> 00:55:32,160
Speaker 8: to say that this is the year I'm finally going

1030
00:55:32,239 --> 00:55:33,040
Speaker 8: to get healthy.

1031
00:55:34,440 --> 00:55:34,520
Speaker 10: Now.

1032
00:55:34,600 --> 00:55:38,240
Speaker 8: Curiously, that same evening, CBS sixty Minutes airs a segment

1033
00:55:38,320 --> 00:55:41,440
Speaker 8: about the obesity epidemic ravaging the United States.

1034
00:55:41,800 --> 00:55:46,719
Speaker 14: Doctor Fatima Cody Stanford, an obesity doctor at mass General Hospital,

1035
00:55:47,680 --> 00:55:51,720
Speaker 14: an associate professor at Harvard Medical School says common beliefs

1036
00:55:51,760 --> 00:55:53,680
Speaker 14: about obesity are all wrong.

1037
00:55:53,760 --> 00:55:54,680
Speaker 7: It's a brain disease.

1038
00:55:54,760 --> 00:55:54,960
Speaker 15: It is.

1039
00:55:55,160 --> 00:55:56,120
Speaker 7: It's a brain disease.

1040
00:55:56,400 --> 00:56:00,279
Speaker 15: The number one cause of obesity is genetics. That means

1041
00:56:00,320 --> 00:56:03,719
Speaker 15: if you are born to parents that have obesity, you

1042
00:56:03,760 --> 00:56:07,160
Speaker 15: have a fifty to eighty five percent likelihood of having

1043
00:56:07,160 --> 00:56:13,840
Speaker 15: the disease yourself, even with optimal diet, exercise, sleep management,

1044
00:56:13,960 --> 00:56:14,960
Speaker 15: stress management.

1045
00:56:15,960 --> 00:56:19,640
Speaker 8: Okay, this face Leslie Stall's face? Is that not the

1046
00:56:19,680 --> 00:56:23,239
Speaker 8: look of I don't know about that man. But regardless,

1047
00:56:23,280 --> 00:56:26,520
Speaker 8: if obesity is in fact a genetic disease and nothing

1048
00:56:26,560 --> 00:56:30,839
Speaker 8: we do eating, riot, exercising, sleeping while does anything to help,

1049
00:56:31,239 --> 00:56:34,239
Speaker 8: the only logical conclusion we can draw is that the

1050
00:56:34,239 --> 00:56:36,320
Speaker 8: solution can only be medication.

1051
00:56:37,040 --> 00:56:41,160
Speaker 14: The drug WGOVI that you inject yourself once a week

1052
00:56:41,440 --> 00:56:42,840
Speaker 14: with something like an EpiPen.

1053
00:56:43,239 --> 00:56:44,600
Speaker 8: What the medication does.

1054
00:56:45,120 --> 00:56:48,800
Speaker 14: It's part of a new generation of medications that brings

1055
00:56:48,840 --> 00:56:52,600
Speaker 14: about an impressive average loss of fifteen to twenty two

1056
00:56:52,680 --> 00:56:56,160
Speaker 14: percent of a person's weight, and it helps keep it off.

1057
00:56:56,400 --> 00:56:58,880
Speaker 8: So the message from the mainstream media is pretty simple.

1058
00:56:59,239 --> 00:57:02,919
Speaker 8: Obesity is a disease. Take a drug, But is that

1059
00:57:03,000 --> 00:57:07,440
Speaker 8: the whole story. Let's start by taking a look at

1060
00:57:07,440 --> 00:57:10,360
Speaker 8: this chart data from the CDC showing the obesity rates

1061
00:57:10,400 --> 00:57:14,680
Speaker 8: of American adults, which was virtually nonexistent in the nineteen fifties,

1062
00:57:14,960 --> 00:57:18,280
Speaker 8: is now projected to hit fifty percent by twenty thirty.

1063
00:57:18,720 --> 00:57:21,800
Speaker 8: Get that half of Americans who will be obese in

1064
00:57:22,000 --> 00:57:24,520
Speaker 8: just a few years time. Now, You and I, we

1065
00:57:24,560 --> 00:57:27,840
Speaker 8: may not be a wealth credential doctor like doctor Fatima

1066
00:57:27,880 --> 00:57:31,240
Speaker 8: Cody Stanford of CBS Fame. I don't work at General Mass,

1067
00:57:31,600 --> 00:57:34,440
Speaker 8: I don't teach at Harvard Med. But it's odd, though,

1068
00:57:34,560 --> 00:57:39,480
Speaker 8: because unless the human race experienced some kind of quantum

1069
00:57:39,640 --> 00:57:43,000
Speaker 8: leap in genetics, there must be something else we're doing

1070
00:57:43,080 --> 00:57:46,720
Speaker 8: that is destroying our metabolic health. Kelly Means is a

1071
00:57:46,880 --> 00:57:49,680
Speaker 8: former pharma consultant and co founder of a company that

1072
00:57:49,720 --> 00:57:53,080
Speaker 8: promotes food as medicine. Recently, he spoke to our very

1073
00:57:53,080 --> 00:57:55,480
Speaker 8: own Crystal Ball and Sager and Jetty, and he offered

1074
00:57:55,520 --> 00:57:56,440
Speaker 8: this perspective.

1075
00:57:57,320 --> 00:58:00,720
Speaker 16: I believe our food system is rigged, and our healthcare

1076
00:58:00,760 --> 00:58:02,280
Speaker 16: system stands by iprofits from that.

1077
00:58:02,440 --> 00:58:05,640
Speaker 8: Yes, let's first start by examining our food system. The

1078
00:58:05,760 --> 00:58:08,680
Speaker 8: average child is eating one hundred times more sugar than

1079
00:58:08,680 --> 00:58:12,320
Speaker 8: they did one hundred years ago. Researchers say sugar is

1080
00:58:12,400 --> 00:58:16,480
Speaker 8: basically as addictive or even more addictive than cocaine. Sugar

1081
00:58:16,560 --> 00:58:19,280
Speaker 8: activates the opiate receptors in our brain and affects the

1082
00:58:19,360 --> 00:58:23,360
Speaker 8: reward center. Every time we eat sweets, we are reinforcing

1083
00:58:23,400 --> 00:58:27,400
Speaker 8: those nearer pathways, causing the brain to become increasingly hardwired

1084
00:58:27,400 --> 00:58:32,240
Speaker 8: to crave sugar, building up atolane like any other drug. Now,

1085
00:58:32,240 --> 00:58:34,560
Speaker 8: some of you out there are probably saying, I have

1086
00:58:34,720 --> 00:58:37,520
Speaker 8: really good self control. I don't drink soda, I don't

1087
00:58:37,560 --> 00:58:40,840
Speaker 8: eat candy, airgo, I don't have a sugar problem. But

1088
00:58:41,000 --> 00:58:45,040
Speaker 8: oh yes, you just might. Are you a fan of barbecue?

1089
00:58:45,440 --> 00:58:48,240
Speaker 8: A quarter cup of barbecue sauce has on average sixteen

1090
00:58:48,280 --> 00:58:53,320
Speaker 8: to twenty grams of added sugar. What about salad? That's healthy? Right? Well,

1091
00:58:53,400 --> 00:58:57,640
Speaker 8: oftentimes light salad dressings replace fat with sugar. For example,

1092
00:58:57,720 --> 00:59:01,400
Speaker 8: two tablespoons of this light honey wrench dressing has eleven

1093
00:59:01,440 --> 00:59:04,280
Speaker 8: grams of added sugar. You think you're getting your day

1094
00:59:04,400 --> 00:59:07,720
Speaker 8: started off right with multi grain cereal. Although it may

1095
00:59:07,760 --> 00:59:12,000
Speaker 8: not have bright colors, chocolates or marshmallows, many popular brands

1096
00:59:12,000 --> 00:59:15,080
Speaker 8: of multi grain cereal have between six to fourteen grams

1097
00:59:15,120 --> 00:59:17,920
Speaker 8: of added sugar per cup. Think about it. If you

1098
00:59:18,040 --> 00:59:20,680
Speaker 8: are a food industry executive, bonus is on the line

1099
00:59:20,800 --> 00:59:25,160
Speaker 8: shareholders demanding astronomical growth quarter after quarter. What do you

1100
00:59:25,160 --> 00:59:28,080
Speaker 8: do to get a leg up on your competitor. Well,

1101
00:59:28,480 --> 00:59:31,520
Speaker 8: you add sugar to your products to make them more addictive,

1102
00:59:31,720 --> 00:59:35,360
Speaker 8: so people buy yours and not your competitors, and then

1103
00:59:35,360 --> 00:59:37,640
Speaker 8: they try to one up you, and all of a sudden,

1104
00:59:37,800 --> 00:59:41,800
Speaker 8: sugar is everywhere. But it's not just sugar.

1105
00:59:42,280 --> 00:59:45,480
Speaker 16: You know the foundation of our diet. And it's really

1106
00:59:45,480 --> 00:59:46,920
Speaker 16: taking me a while to even understand this. We know

1107
00:59:46,960 --> 00:59:49,960
Speaker 16: our diets bad, but the foundation is added sugar. It's

1108
00:59:50,000 --> 00:59:52,680
Speaker 16: processed grains, and processed grains didn't exist until a hundred

1109
00:59:52,760 --> 00:59:55,440
Speaker 16: years ago. The processing totally changes. It takes the fiber

1110
00:59:55,520 --> 00:59:56,280
Speaker 16: off fiber.

1111
00:59:56,560 --> 00:59:59,560
Speaker 8: What is fiber, Well, it's a type of carbohydrate that

1112
00:59:59,640 --> 01:00:02,920
Speaker 8: is found in plant based foods such as fruits, vegetables,

1113
01:00:02,960 --> 01:00:06,880
Speaker 8: whole grains, nuts, and seeds. According to the Male Clinic,

1114
01:00:06,960 --> 01:00:09,920
Speaker 8: eating a high fiber diet helps you maintain a healthy

1115
01:00:09,960 --> 01:00:13,520
Speaker 8: weight and lowers your risk of diabetes, heart disease, and

1116
01:00:13,600 --> 01:00:17,000
Speaker 8: even some types of cancer. But for some reason, fiber

1117
01:00:17,040 --> 01:00:20,280
Speaker 8: has almost completely disappeared in a lot of our most

1118
01:00:20,560 --> 01:00:25,240
Speaker 8: popular food products. Products you might buy thinking it's full

1119
01:00:25,280 --> 01:00:28,320
Speaker 8: of fiber, cream of wheat, cereal, it's got the image

1120
01:00:28,320 --> 01:00:31,000
Speaker 8: of a wheat stalk right across the top, but if

1121
01:00:31,040 --> 01:00:34,400
Speaker 8: you go to the nutrition label, it's got almost no fiber.

1122
01:00:35,920 --> 01:00:40,280
Speaker 8: Uncle Ben's whole grain brown rice. Somehow it's got whole grains,

1123
01:00:40,520 --> 01:00:42,680
Speaker 8: but if you go to the nutrition label, little to

1124
01:00:42,800 --> 01:00:47,360
Speaker 8: no fiber. Nature's harvests white made with whole grain. Once again,

1125
01:00:47,480 --> 01:00:51,480
Speaker 8: whole grain all over the packaging, but little to no fiber.

1126
01:00:51,960 --> 01:00:54,000
Speaker 8: So while many of us have been told over and

1127
01:00:54,040 --> 01:00:57,880
Speaker 8: over again about the benefits of eating fiber, sometimes known

1128
01:00:57,920 --> 01:01:01,920
Speaker 8: as nature superfood, almost nobody is getting their daily dose

1129
01:01:01,960 --> 01:01:05,720
Speaker 8: of dietary fiber. According to the NIH, only five percent

1130
01:01:05,760 --> 01:01:08,320
Speaker 8: of people in the US meet the Institute of Medicines

1131
01:01:08,400 --> 01:01:11,520
Speaker 8: recommended daily target of twenty five grams for women and

1132
01:01:11,560 --> 01:01:15,120
Speaker 8: thirty eight grams for men. Why because the food industry

1133
01:01:15,240 --> 01:01:19,160
Speaker 8: isn't incentivized to make food healthy, it's incentivized to make

1134
01:01:19,280 --> 01:01:23,600
Speaker 8: food addictive. Many of these ultra processed foods are almost

1135
01:01:23,640 --> 01:01:26,720
Speaker 8: pre chewed for us. They melt in your mouth immediately.

1136
01:01:27,120 --> 01:01:30,680
Speaker 8: There's no protein, there's no water, there's no fiber. Slowing

1137
01:01:30,720 --> 01:01:33,200
Speaker 8: them down. It's going to hit your taste buds and

1138
01:01:33,280 --> 01:01:36,360
Speaker 8: light up your reward and motivation centers of the brain immediately.

1139
01:01:36,960 --> 01:01:39,480
Speaker 8: Then there's a secondary hit of dopamine when it gets

1140
01:01:39,520 --> 01:01:43,800
Speaker 8: absorbed into the body. My goodness. Over the last half century,

1141
01:01:43,800 --> 01:01:45,840
Speaker 8: the R and D divisions in these food companies have

1142
01:01:45,960 --> 01:01:50,600
Speaker 8: morphed into narcotics laboratories. They've found a way to hack

1143
01:01:50,680 --> 01:01:54,000
Speaker 8: our brains and make a killing, both figuratively and literally.

1144
01:01:54,080 --> 01:01:57,760
Speaker 8: I mean, because of all the food that we've been eating,

1145
01:01:58,160 --> 01:02:01,920
Speaker 8: some of it criminally missmas marketed. Half of the country

1146
01:02:02,080 --> 01:02:06,880
Speaker 8: is now sick and guess who gets to play hero.

1147
01:02:07,080 --> 01:02:12,160
Speaker 5: Com Inside effects are nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, constipation, stomach pain, headache, tiredness, upset,

1148
01:02:12,200 --> 01:02:15,800
Speaker 5: stomach dizziness, feeling bloated, belching, gas, stomach flu and heartbreak.

1149
01:02:16,920 --> 01:02:23,000
Speaker 8: That's right. The healthcare system that includes healthcare services, pharma services, payers, manufacturers,

1150
01:02:23,000 --> 01:02:27,240
Speaker 8: and providers. According to market research done by Mackenzie and Company,

1151
01:02:27,680 --> 01:02:31,760
Speaker 8: profits across the entire healthcare industry are projected to skyrocket

1152
01:02:31,840 --> 01:02:34,480
Speaker 8: from five hundred and fifty eight billion dollars a year

1153
01:02:34,520 --> 01:02:37,440
Speaker 8: in twenty twenty one to almost seven hundred billion by

1154
01:02:37,520 --> 01:02:40,240
Speaker 8: twenty twenty five. Now, that's a lot of money, but

1155
01:02:40,320 --> 01:02:43,880
Speaker 8: according to Cali means it's not the money that's necessarily

1156
01:02:43,920 --> 01:02:46,240
Speaker 8: the problem. It's the incentive structure.

1157
01:02:47,000 --> 01:02:50,040
Speaker 16: The problem with healthcare is that ninety five percent of

1158
01:02:50,080 --> 01:02:54,160
Speaker 16: costs are interventions on people that are sick. That's how healthcare.

1159
01:02:53,800 --> 01:02:54,520
Speaker 5: Works right now.

1160
01:02:54,760 --> 01:02:58,600
Speaker 16: Every single institution is incentivized for more Americans to be

1161
01:02:58,640 --> 01:03:00,480
Speaker 16: sircar for a longer periods of time. I don't think

1162
01:03:00,480 --> 01:03:02,440
Speaker 16: there are that many evil people in the system, but

1163
01:03:02,480 --> 01:03:04,640
Speaker 16: that's exactly what's happening. It's in if speak, it's larger

1164
01:03:04,680 --> 01:03:06,000
Speaker 16: than any one person, so.

1165
01:03:05,960 --> 01:03:09,840
Speaker 8: Not any different than the military industrial complex's willingness to

1166
01:03:09,880 --> 01:03:13,520
Speaker 8: trade human lives for profit. The seven hundred billion dollar

1167
01:03:13,600 --> 01:03:17,720
Speaker 8: healthcare industry is wholly predicated on large swaths of the

1168
01:03:17,760 --> 01:03:22,120
Speaker 8: population being sick. Remember the CBS sixty minute segment on obesity,

1169
01:03:22,120 --> 01:03:25,960
Speaker 8: where doctor Stanford claimed on national television that obesity is

1170
01:03:26,000 --> 01:03:30,120
Speaker 8: a genetic brain disease. Turns out, in the thirteen minute

1171
01:03:30,120 --> 01:03:34,400
Speaker 8: segment on weight loss drug Wigov, the only medical experts

1172
01:03:34,440 --> 01:03:37,320
Speaker 8: interviewed by CBS were doctors who had received thousands of

1173
01:03:37,320 --> 01:03:41,440
Speaker 8: dollars in consulting fees in onaria from Novo Nordis, the

1174
01:03:41,560 --> 01:03:46,280
Speaker 8: maker of Wigov and Ozempic, and the sponsor of that broadcast.

1175
01:03:46,680 --> 01:03:50,760
Speaker 8: Doctor Cody Stanford herself received over fifteen thousand dollars from

1176
01:03:50,760 --> 01:03:53,600
Speaker 8: Novo Nordisk in twenty twenty one, the most recent year

1177
01:03:53,640 --> 01:03:56,640
Speaker 8: for which data is available. So it's not an accident

1178
01:03:56,720 --> 01:04:00,000
Speaker 8: that not one medical professional in the sixty minute Segum

1179
01:04:00,280 --> 01:04:03,560
Speaker 8: mentioned the concerning finding that for Ozepic and Wagov patients

1180
01:04:03,840 --> 01:04:07,360
Speaker 8: a third of weight loss came from muscle, bone, mass,

1181
01:04:07,400 --> 01:04:10,600
Speaker 8: and lean tissue. It's also not an accident that not

1182
01:04:10,880 --> 01:04:14,720
Speaker 8: one nutritionist was interviewed about food, and no one questioned

1183
01:04:14,760 --> 01:04:17,920
Speaker 8: the impact of the plethora of food products that are marketed,

1184
01:04:18,160 --> 01:04:21,400
Speaker 8: sold and eaten by consumers in the US but banned

1185
01:04:21,480 --> 01:04:25,880
Speaker 8: in most other modern industrialized nations. It's not an accident

1186
01:04:25,920 --> 01:04:29,440
Speaker 8: that the program never disclosed that Novo Nordisk, together with

1187
01:04:29,520 --> 01:04:34,080
Speaker 8: Eli Lilly, have at least twelve more obesity medications in development,

1188
01:04:34,440 --> 01:04:37,400
Speaker 8: and that the two companies are spending roughly ten million

1189
01:04:37,480 --> 01:04:41,600
Speaker 8: dollars annually on lobbying. A primary focus of that lobbying

1190
01:04:41,800 --> 01:04:44,960
Speaker 8: is the proposed Treat and Reduce Obesity Act, which has

1191
01:04:44,960 --> 01:04:48,480
Speaker 8: been introduced in congressional sessions annually since twenty twelve, and

1192
01:04:48,520 --> 01:04:52,680
Speaker 8: would require Medicare to cover, among other treatments, chronic weight

1193
01:04:52,760 --> 01:04:57,240
Speaker 8: management drugs. It is a perfectly executed game of forty chess.

1194
01:04:57,920 --> 01:05:04,400
Speaker 8: Let me explain. The food industry makes billions of dollars

1195
01:05:04,400 --> 01:05:07,520
Speaker 8: selling food that's known to be toxic and poisonous, making

1196
01:05:07,560 --> 01:05:11,200
Speaker 8: millions of Americans sick in the process. The health care industry,

1197
01:05:11,280 --> 01:05:14,520
Speaker 8: in this case, gets to play hero while also pocketing

1198
01:05:14,600 --> 01:05:17,760
Speaker 8: billions of dollars selling a supposed miracle drug to millions

1199
01:05:17,800 --> 01:05:21,320
Speaker 8: of adults and children. Both of these industries have worked

1200
01:05:21,320 --> 01:05:24,160
Speaker 8: out a little deal with the federal government Congress with

1201
01:05:24,280 --> 01:05:27,240
Speaker 8: lobbing money with funding for the FDA so that they

1202
01:05:27,240 --> 01:05:30,480
Speaker 8: can rewrite science and continue to sell food that is

1203
01:05:30,560 --> 01:05:34,280
Speaker 8: known to be toxic and poisonous. The Nutrition Coalition found

1204
01:05:34,320 --> 01:05:37,440
Speaker 8: that conflicts of interest on the twenty twenty Dietary Guideline

1205
01:05:37,440 --> 01:05:42,080
Speaker 8: Advisory Committee were pervasive. Ninety five percent of committee members

1206
01:05:42,080 --> 01:05:45,840
Speaker 8: had at least one conflict with the food or pharmaceutical industries.

1207
01:05:46,160 --> 01:05:52,320
Speaker 8: The most frequent and durable corporate connections were with Kellogg, Abbot, Craft, Mead, Johnson,

1208
01:05:52,520 --> 01:05:55,840
Speaker 8: General Mills, and Danit that sounds like quite the racket

1209
01:05:55,880 --> 01:05:59,960
Speaker 8: to me. But how is such a racket allowed to continue?

1210
01:06:00,120 --> 01:06:02,080
Speaker 16: There's a three part playbook. We went directly to the

1211
01:06:02,200 --> 01:06:06,000
Speaker 16: NAACP and the Hispanic Federation, very respected civil rights groups,

1212
01:06:06,160 --> 01:06:08,120
Speaker 16: and it was a quid pro qull Coke paid ten

1213
01:06:08,160 --> 01:06:11,040
Speaker 16: millions of dollars and they labeled the opponent's racist and

1214
01:06:11,080 --> 01:06:12,000
Speaker 16: that shuts down debate.

1215
01:06:12,280 --> 01:06:15,240
Speaker 8: And according to means the same playbook is being used

1216
01:06:15,240 --> 01:06:19,480
Speaker 8: again today. Novo Nordis is paying the NAACP to lobby

1217
01:06:19,560 --> 01:06:22,680
Speaker 8: on their behalf to say opponents of lifetime OBEs the

1218
01:06:22,760 --> 01:06:26,960
Speaker 8: injections such as ozempic and wagov are racist. The implication

1219
01:06:27,120 --> 01:06:29,200
Speaker 8: is that the lack of access to a drug such

1220
01:06:29,200 --> 01:06:33,360
Speaker 8: as ozembic is an example of quote unquote systemic racism

1221
01:06:33,560 --> 01:06:38,000
Speaker 8: and oppression. In addition, Novo Nordis has also funded articles

1222
01:06:38,040 --> 01:06:41,880
Speaker 8: in leading research journals advocating for the government to subsidize

1223
01:06:41,960 --> 01:06:45,760
Speaker 8: their drugs to address racism. That is quite the playbook.

1224
01:06:45,920 --> 01:06:48,680
Speaker 8: But is there a solution to all of this? Because

1225
01:06:48,720 --> 01:06:51,760
Speaker 8: I think it would be irresponsible to simply point out

1226
01:06:51,800 --> 01:06:54,640
Speaker 8: all of these problems without offering a solution.

1227
01:06:55,280 --> 01:06:57,480
Speaker 16: Now, there's a couple things that I think are absolute

1228
01:06:57,600 --> 01:06:59,520
Speaker 16: No brainers, and I think that the biparson issue of

1229
01:06:59,520 --> 01:06:59,959
Speaker 16: our time.

1230
01:07:00,160 --> 01:07:02,920
Speaker 8: The first solution, he said, would be for the FDA

1231
01:07:03,040 --> 01:07:06,000
Speaker 8: to revise the recommended added sugar for kids to zero.

1232
01:07:06,960 --> 01:07:10,720
Speaker 8: Right now, the FDA actually recommends up to fifty grams

1233
01:07:10,760 --> 01:07:13,640
Speaker 8: of added sugar per day based on a two thousand

1234
01:07:13,680 --> 01:07:17,520
Speaker 8: calorie diet means a second suggestion, the federal government should

1235
01:07:17,560 --> 01:07:21,920
Speaker 8: eliminate subsidies for unhealthy foods. Right now, more than half

1236
01:07:22,000 --> 01:07:26,120
Speaker 8: of SNAP benefits are taken by retailers for meat, sweetened beverages,

1237
01:07:26,320 --> 01:07:30,800
Speaker 8: prepared foods and desserts, cheese, salty snacks, candy, and sugar.

1238
01:07:31,560 --> 01:07:37,760
Speaker 8: Just twenty three point nine percent go for fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, beans, seeds,

1239
01:07:37,840 --> 01:07:38,680
Speaker 8: and spices.

1240
01:07:39,240 --> 01:07:42,160
Speaker 16: Let's reform food stamps again. That's a program that fifteen

1241
01:07:42,200 --> 01:07:44,800
Speaker 16: percent of Americans depend on for nutrition. Ten percent of

1242
01:07:44,840 --> 01:07:47,640
Speaker 16: it goes to sugar water. I don't think we should

1243
01:07:47,640 --> 01:07:49,480
Speaker 16: be paying tens of billions of dollar dollars to subsidize

1244
01:07:49,520 --> 01:07:50,160
Speaker 16: them for kids.

1245
01:07:50,360 --> 01:07:52,280
Speaker 8: But a last we all know the old adage you

1246
01:07:52,280 --> 01:07:54,560
Speaker 8: could lead a horse to water, but you can't make

1247
01:07:54,600 --> 01:07:56,720
Speaker 8: it drink. And what I mean by that is I'm

1248
01:07:56,720 --> 01:07:59,920
Speaker 8: only here to ask questions in form and connect the dock.

1249
01:08:00,720 --> 01:08:04,920
Speaker 8: So ask yourself this, all the technological advancements and public

1250
01:08:04,960 --> 01:08:08,320
Speaker 8: policy decisions of the last half century, have they contributed

1251
01:08:08,400 --> 01:08:12,800
Speaker 8: to promoting a longer and healthier life or a longer

1252
01:08:12,840 --> 01:08:16,160
Speaker 8: and sicker life. Thank you for watching the first installment

1253
01:08:16,240 --> 01:08:19,680
Speaker 8: of Breaking Points Beyond the Headlines. I hope you enjoyed it,

1254
01:08:20,280 --> 01:08:24,519
Speaker 8: discussion questions, feedback, Have at it in the comments section below.

1255
01:08:24,880 --> 01:08:27,439
Speaker 8: For more of me, please take a second to check

1256
01:08:27,439 --> 01:08:30,280
Speaker 8: out my YouTube channel fifty one forty nine with James Lee.

1257
01:08:30,400 --> 01:08:33,000
Speaker 8: The link will be in the description below. Thank you

1258
01:08:33,040 --> 01:08:36,000
Speaker 8: so much for watching, and thank you for supporting Breaking Points.