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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's

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Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here to us sitting in for a

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Speaker 2: good old fashioned stuff you should know episode.

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Speaker 3: That's right, not one of those new fangled ones.

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Speaker 2: No, no, not one of the new ones that are

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Speaker 2: just like you know, all hair gel and yeah, you know, style,

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Speaker 2: no substance.

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Speaker 3: It still has that new podcast episode smell.

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Speaker 2: Yes for sure. Speaking of new Smell, how do you

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Speaker 2: feel being fifty five? Birthday boy?

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Speaker 3: New smell? You know, it's great. I think I have

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Speaker 3: actual privileges now that come with it.

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Speaker 2: That age, like cheap coffee at McDonald's that kind of stuff.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know about McDonald's, but like I think

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Speaker 3: I think I can play golf for a little cheaper now,

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Speaker 3: like literally as this your rate, which is that's hysterical.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well I think you can get an AARP membership

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Speaker 2: now too.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I mean you're probably already getting that stuff

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Speaker 3: in the mail, right. They start early.

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Speaker 2: H No, I'm not even fifty yet. They won't let me.

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Speaker 2: I keep applying and they keep denying.

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Speaker 3: Okay, maybe fifty. I mean they start sending in that

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Speaker 3: stuff years ahead.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we used to have when you had to get

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Speaker 2: it for work or something like that. But they found out,

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Speaker 2: you know, what our age is, and they got really mad.

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Speaker 3: They said, we've been spending sending things to spring chickens.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, well, let me know how the golf thing goes,

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Speaker 2: and if you get cheap coffee at McDonald's, and what

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Speaker 2: being a senior is like, Chuck, because you know, I

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Speaker 2: think for me and Jerry and everybody, we just want

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Speaker 2: to wish you a happy birthday.

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Speaker 3: I appreciate that.

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Speaker 2: People went bonkers on Instagram.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, was that you?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, of course.

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Speaker 3: I figured, you know what my uncle, My uncle wished

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Speaker 3: you a happy birthday?

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Speaker 2: Did he on that post? I didn't see that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pretty funny. Then THO was a confusing series

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Speaker 3: of texts where he was finally like, is it your birthday?

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Speaker 3: It was like those a few days ago.

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Speaker 2: Sure, he said, who is this? Yeah exactly, he said, McGovern,

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Speaker 2: not mcguffin, no McGovern. Okay, all right, let's start talking,

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Speaker 2: because we're talking about the middle class in America at least,

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Speaker 2: although this definitely extends to other countries like the UK,

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Speaker 2: some of the Nordic countries, Australia, there's not an obsession

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Speaker 2: but a real like obsession with the middle class, how

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Speaker 2: it's doing, how mobile it is, upwardly, downwardly, and there's

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Speaker 2: it's essentially the middle class is like the thumbnail metric

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Speaker 2: for the health, the real, true health of a society

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Speaker 2: and economy.

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Speaker 3: Would you agree, Yeah, I mean I think so. And

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Speaker 3: I think that used to be a real like it's

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Speaker 3: always been a talking point in the United States, but

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Speaker 3: I think it used to be a real, genuine talking point,

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Speaker 3: whereas now I think it's like, you know, are all

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Speaker 3: the rich people doing great? Okay, all right, now let's

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Speaker 3: talk publicly a little bit about the middle class, I

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Speaker 3: guess right.

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Speaker 2: But not everybody's fallen for that. There's like this whole

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Speaker 2: idea that the middle class and the health of the

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Speaker 2: middle class was a canary in the coal mine. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: and not only is the canary dead, it caught fire

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Speaker 2: at some point as far as a lot of people

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Speaker 2: are concerned about the United States middle class at least

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Speaker 2: because there's this idea that it's dead. But then if

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Speaker 2: you read up a little further on it, you come

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Speaker 2: across other people who are like, no, no, dude, look

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Speaker 2: at these statistics, like the middle class is actually doing great,

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Speaker 2: way better than they used to be doing, and other

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Speaker 2: people are like that just doesn't quite add up. So

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Speaker 2: when you get into it, it's really tough to define

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Speaker 2: the middle class. And you can monkey around with who's

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Speaker 2: middle class or who's not and come up with all

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Speaker 2: sorts of different profiles. But I think it just matters

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Speaker 2: what people who would probably self identify as the middle

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Speaker 2: class feel about the economy and about their prospects in life.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. Like what is that the vibe session? Yeah?

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Speaker 2: What was her name, Kyla Scanlon. She's a kind of

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Speaker 2: a gen Z financial explanatory journalist. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's the idea of like sort of like

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Speaker 3: not falling for being gas lit by everything you're being

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Speaker 3: told about how great it's going. And there's something called

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Speaker 3: a vibe session. Am I saying that?

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Speaker 2: Right?

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Speaker 3: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: Vibe session?

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Speaker 3: It just sounds weird because a vibe session sounds like,

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Speaker 3: you know, something I do late on Friday nights.

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Speaker 2: Right, This is with a C instead of an S.

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Speaker 3: Yeah exactly, and it's much less ire. Yeah, oh man,

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Speaker 3: But yeah, the idea of you know, various politicians, you know,

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Speaker 3: whenever anyone's running for something talking about typically reelection, talking

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Speaker 3: about how great everything really is, whereas everyone is like, yeah,

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Speaker 3: but why doesn't it feel that way. That's a vibe

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Speaker 3: session instead of like a true recession.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and she was pointing out like that actually can

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Speaker 2: become self fulfilling. Yeah, sure, because if enough people start

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Speaker 2: feeling like, no, things aren't going so good, they start

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Speaker 2: not spending money, and that actually can trigger a recession

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Speaker 2: just from the fact that people feel that way, no

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Speaker 2: matter what the metrics say. So, yeah, we'll talk about

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Speaker 2: all that, but let's talk about the history of the

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Speaker 2: middle class because it hasn't always been around.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting if you look at, you know, the

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Speaker 3: history of the middle class in the West. It generally

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Speaker 3: you can point to late medieval Europe as you know,

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Speaker 3: when things started to get cooking a little bit as

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Speaker 3: far as the middle class goes, and you know, we'll

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Speaker 3: walk you all the way through you know, modern times.

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Speaker 3: But as cities became a thing, you know, all of

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Speaker 3: a sudden, you needed a middle class to sort of

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Speaker 3: administer what the aristocracy was asking for in a lot

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Speaker 3: of cases. Is so you know, there was this distinct

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Speaker 3: group kind of created that wasn't aristocracy, and it wasn't

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Speaker 3: the peasant class. And I think one word, and I

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Speaker 3: believe they've eve been done a short stuff on the bourgeois, Yeah,

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Speaker 3: didn't we?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and what it means to be bourgeoisie. That's right,

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Speaker 2: there's another word for him burgers too, and apparently both words.

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Speaker 2: I don't I don't remember this, but I'm sure we

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Speaker 2: talked about it in the bourgeois short stuff. That that's

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Speaker 2: the name of the cities, the fortified cities where they worked,

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Speaker 2: right or where they emerged from. Yeah, and the burger

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Speaker 2: is that's why the burger Meister is called that in

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Speaker 2: either Rudolph or Frosty or some rankin bass something like

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Speaker 2: the scary BG exactly. Yeah, Burgermeister means mayor so he's

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Speaker 2: like the head of the city essentially. Anyway, those were

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Speaker 2: the merchants, the bankers, professionals that emerged to kind of

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Speaker 2: fill that space between the peasants and the aristocracy. And

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Speaker 2: you could call them the first middle.

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Speaker 3: Class, yeah, sort of. But they grew in size and

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Speaker 3: wealth and power, so they were kind of like, Hey,

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Speaker 3: we tricked everybody. We're not really the middle class. We're

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Speaker 3: I mean maybe upper middle class. Certainly obviously not aristocracy

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Speaker 3: because they weren't born into that. But as people got wealthier,

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Speaker 3: there was kind of a true middle class that came

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Speaker 3: after that, where you needed people to do things like

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Speaker 3: bookkeeping and you know, kind of handled the business of

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Speaker 3: the people that previously had said that they were the

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Speaker 3: middle class, even though no one was using those terms,

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Speaker 3: you know, we should point.

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Speaker 2: Out, right, no, nothing like that. There was also a

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Speaker 2: lot of changes where before it was wealth and power,

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Speaker 2: right because that's what nobility kind of based itself on.

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Speaker 2: So the earliest middle class kind of based itself on

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Speaker 2: those same markers. But thanks to the Renaissance and the Enlightenment,

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Speaker 2: other markers kind of came along. The whole idea of thrift,

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Speaker 2: of saving your money, of not being just frivolous with

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Speaker 2: your money, that became a really big middle class social marker,

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Speaker 2: certain tastes, certain ways you would dress. And then of

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Speaker 2: course wealth, wealth has always been a marker for the

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Speaker 2: middle class, especially the upper middle class. But these were

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Speaker 2: all like, all these things seemed so normal to us

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Speaker 2: and so ingrained that it seems alien almost to kind

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Speaker 2: of tease this stuff out and identify it historically.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. And this was you know, in Europe

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Speaker 3: at the time when the United States was born. Olivia,

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Speaker 3: by the way, did a great job with this article.

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Speaker 3: I thought, uh, greed, she is a heck of a writer.

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Speaker 3: So the United States was, you know, as she points out,

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Speaker 3: kind of a sort of a bourgeois not a I

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Speaker 3: wanted to say, project or a test an experiment, maybe

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Speaker 3: the American experiment. Yeah, because there were people like Thomas

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Speaker 3: Jefferson who were very much believed like, hey, we're going

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Speaker 3: to build this new country on and not on the

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Speaker 3: backs of but like the middle class, these people that

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Speaker 3: owned farms and could provide for their family and that

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Speaker 3: own some land, like this is the American experiment, that

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Speaker 3: like the goal that we're striving toward.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and those yamen farmers were typically not slave holding.

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Speaker 2: So his idea was to basically become a nation of

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Speaker 2: self sufficient farmers growing food for their families and themselves

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Speaker 2: and then selling some in the market. And that just

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Speaker 2: is not how it went, because the wealthy landowners who

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Speaker 2: had actually had slaves became essentially the power, the elite,

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Speaker 2: the people actually pulling the levers, and eventually they except

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Speaker 2: in the Antebellum South. They kind of replaced that wealthy

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Speaker 2: land owning and agriculture with industry as the Industrial Revolution

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Speaker 2: started in Europe and then spread to the US, and

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Speaker 2: then we had a real disparity in power and wealth growing.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, because if you're owning a factory or

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Speaker 3: owning a railroad or a share of a railroad, that

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Speaker 3: is a very distinct upper class. It may not be aristocracy,

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Speaker 3: but aristocracy became less and less important as time went on.

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Speaker 3: Flashed forward to like the middle of the nineteenth century,

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Speaker 3: and you had people like Karl Marx, and we should

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Speaker 3: say Carl Marx was trying to sell something which was Marxism,

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Speaker 3: but he would come along and say like, hey, they're

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Speaker 3: really two classes. There's the working class and then everybody

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Speaker 3: else that's exploiting the working class.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and the exploiters or the oppressors and the oppressed.

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Speaker 2: I think he also put it, they owned the capital.

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Speaker 2: They were the capitalists. They were the ones who could

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Speaker 2: open a factory and employ you and you depended on

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Speaker 2: them for money, but they were exploiting your labor. Yes,

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Speaker 2: And in this sense where there's an owning class and

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Speaker 2: a working class, there's really no room for a middle class. Eventually, though,

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Speaker 2: a middle class still emerged because those capitalists aren't going to,

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Speaker 2: like you said, do their own books. They're not going

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Speaker 2: to go teach the next generation of workers to come

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Speaker 2: work in their factory. So like there was a need

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Speaker 2: for people to train the working classes to better serve

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Speaker 2: the capitalist elite. And that's where the middle class really

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Speaker 2: started to emerge in the United States in particular, but

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Speaker 2: also in the UK, Australia, some of the other places

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Speaker 2: in the West. That's where that the middle classes we

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Speaker 2: understand it now, really developed.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, and it was there during the time

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Speaker 3: of Marx, but that wasn't good for Marxism to point

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Speaker 3: that out. So yeah, it was very much easier for

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Speaker 3: him to say, like you're being exploited or you're the exploiter.

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Speaker 3: It was a little black and white, yeah, for sure.

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Speaker 3: So in the nineteenth century, the middle class values system

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Speaker 3: started to kind of take shape, which is, you know,

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Speaker 3: sort of this the value system that ideally is still

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Speaker 3: around today, which is the idea that you know, if

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Speaker 3: you work hard, you save up, you can be a success.

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Speaker 3: In the United States, you know, they agreed that people

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Speaker 3: should vote more and more like have access to voting.

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Speaker 3: And of course that started with like, hey, maybe men

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Speaker 3: that aren't land owners should be able to vote, and

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Speaker 3: then that kind of spread throughout the years to you know,

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Speaker 3: people of different races, and then women finally. But the

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Speaker 3: idea that expanding voting rights and expanding education was always

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Speaker 3: sort of a middle class value, and then early on

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Speaker 3: it was you know, the role of women in society

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Speaker 3: has definitely changed as far as the middle class value goes,

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Speaker 3: but early on it was, hey, women are very important

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Speaker 3: to keep the home, but really be the moral center

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Speaker 3: of the world. Of the home, you.

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Speaker 2: Know, yeah, of the family, which was of utmost importance,

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Speaker 2: the nuclear family, which became really important in the Victorian

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Speaker 2: era and really informed the middle class values too, right,

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Speaker 2: and all of those seem like so we take them

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Speaker 2: for granted so much as values typically aside from you know,

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Speaker 2: forcing women to work in the home whether they like

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Speaker 2: it or not, that just goes to show you how

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Speaker 2: effective the middle class was at spreading its basically imposing

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Speaker 2: its values on everybody else in the West.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. Should we take an early break here, Well,

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Speaker 3: it's not too early, actually, I think, so, Yeah, all right,

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Speaker 3: we'll take a break. I think that's a good setup.

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Speaker 3: Middle classes forming. Everyone's getting excited, and we'll fast forward

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Speaker 3: to the twentieth century right after.

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Speaker 2: This definitely about our childhood et r.

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Speaker 1: Y Skur, all.

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Speaker 3: Right, I promised talk to the twentieth century in the

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Speaker 3: middle class, and that's where we are, uh specifically, you know,

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Speaker 3: this is when the middle class in the US really

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Speaker 3: really emerged as like a massive thing, like the largest

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Speaker 3: portion of a like set of people in the US

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Speaker 3: became middle class in the in the twentieth century, and

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Speaker 3: really after the war. It was powered by the New Deal.

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Speaker 3: Of course, after World War Two, the United States was

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Speaker 3: in a unique position as as victor, but also victor

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Speaker 3: who didn't have the war fought on their you know,

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Speaker 3: mainland soil, right, so we didn't have to do all

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Speaker 3: this rebuilding after the war. So we were in a

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Speaker 3: position to really he hit the throttle on economic stimulus,

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Speaker 3: which was brought about via the New Deal.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and World War two. Just the sheer amount of

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Speaker 2: money thrown into the economy from the government for World

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Speaker 2: War two helped as well, right, And we had all

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Speaker 2: those technologies that we developed that gave us things like

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Speaker 2: pop tarts and stuff immediately after the war and completely

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Speaker 2: improved the quality of life for people in the United States,

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Speaker 2: especially the middle class. Right, so you have government policy

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Speaker 2: like the New Deal, like the National Labor Relations Act

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Speaker 2: that are favoring workers, this working class that is becoming

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Speaker 2: the middle class. And then one of the other, really

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Speaker 2: really really big aspects of what built the middle class

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Speaker 2: and the United States and elsewhere were unions. Union membership,

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Speaker 2: because if you can bargain collectively, you can't be exploited

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Speaker 2: nearly as easily, and that means that life is a

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Speaker 2: lot more fair for you, the worker, because you're allowed

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Speaker 2: to get together and say no, you can't do that

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Speaker 2: to any of us. If you do that to one

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Speaker 2: of us, you do it to all of us, and

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Speaker 2: we'll all leave.

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Speaker 3: Yes, I mean we did. We did a great episode

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Speaker 3: on unions years ago, So I advise you to go

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Speaker 3: listen to that now if you want to learn more

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Speaker 3: about those But no, no, no, everyone else. I mean

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Speaker 3: you can if you want. Okay, a little refresher, But

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Speaker 3: union membership really bloomed in the nineteen thirties and forties.

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Speaker 3: I think at the beginning of the twentieth century, it

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Speaker 3: was in the low teens union membership and then it

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Speaker 3: really really rose from there, and so did wages. Between

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Speaker 3: nineteen forty and nineteen sixty, if you were a non farmer,

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Speaker 3: your median weekly income rose. And these by the way,

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Speaker 3: everything we're doing is in twenty twenty five dollars, just

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Speaker 3: to make it easier to understand, but your median weekly

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Speaker 3: income for a non farmer went from five hundred and

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Speaker 3: fifty dollars to over one thousand dollars, almost eleven hundred bucks.

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Speaker 3: And that was across all you know, a lot of

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Speaker 3: edgecation levels, you know, different racial groups, different industries. That

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Speaker 3: was sort of a broad change. So, you know, it

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Speaker 3: was an interesting time in that, you know, pay for

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Speaker 3: people and what is now like a solid middle class,

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Speaker 3: it was really rising. They were taxing the rich and

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Speaker 3: constraining corporate power such that some people called this this

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Speaker 3: time the Great Compression, where the wealth levels were sort

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Speaker 3: of smashed together on a graph instead of expanded vastly

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Speaker 3: like we are now. We're gonna have some shocking numbers

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Speaker 3: for you later in this episode.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So that era between nineteen forty and I think

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Speaker 2: a lot of people essentially put it at the mid

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Speaker 2: seventies is when they say the party really started to end.

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Speaker 2: Was just as economic boom golden age for the United

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Speaker 2: States and the middle class. And there was another big

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Speaker 2: factor too, which was home ownership. We did I remember

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Speaker 2: in our racial discrimination or housing discrimination episode that we did,

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Speaker 2: we pointed out that owning a home has long been

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Speaker 2: really important, especially for the middle class, because that is

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Speaker 2: how you generate wealth. For most people, your home just

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Speaker 2: appreciates some value over the years, and then you can

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Speaker 2: also use that home to transfer that wealth to your kids.

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Speaker 2: So it's also a form of generational wealth transfer for

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Speaker 2: the middle class. So it's really big deal to own

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Speaker 2: your own home. And that was another big thing that

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Speaker 2: happened after World War Two. Home ownership went up quite

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Speaker 2: a bit.

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Speaker 3: Yeah previous and this is going way back, but between

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Speaker 3: eighteen ninety and nineteen thirty, home ownership was under fifty

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Speaker 3: percent of the United States. And eventually, you know, thanks

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Speaker 3: to the suspect mortgages that they were handing out like

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Speaker 3: candy in two thousand and four, that peaked at I

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Speaker 3: think it was close to seventy percent, like sixty nine

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Speaker 3: or something.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, and then I think it dropped down

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Speaker 2: to something like sixty five and is basically plateaued since there.

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Speaker 2: But this is the point that that you could own

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Speaker 2: a house, you could own a car. Yeah, you could

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Speaker 2: have a family of you know, a husband and wife

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Speaker 2: and two kids and live in the suburbs, and the

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Speaker 2: kids would go to a nice school. And this was obviously,

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Speaker 2: this is the most idealized version what we're talking about.

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Speaker 2: There's a lot of disparity. There was a lot of

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Speaker 2: people who are still very poor in the United States too,

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Speaker 2: But overall, if we're just focusing on the middle class,

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Speaker 2: you could do all of these things and have a nice,

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Speaker 2: comfortable middle class life, a pension after you retired, on

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Speaker 2: one salary, one income, because again, one of the main

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Speaker 2: values of the middle class at this time was that

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Speaker 2: the mother stayed home, raised the kids, and made the

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Speaker 2: house the center of the nuclear family, respite from the

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Speaker 2: rest of the world. One salary could do all of that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and it was you know, people weren't as far

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Speaker 3: apart as they were financially speaking, like you may live

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Speaker 3: in the same neighborhood or maybe the neighborhood next to

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Speaker 3: your boss. You know, blue collar workers and white collar

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Speaker 3: workers were were way more you know, just kind of

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Speaker 3: squashed together, like your children probably went to school. If

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Speaker 3: you were like a line worker at an auto plant,

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Speaker 3: you know, you may not have as nice of a

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Speaker 3: car or as big of a house as your manager

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Speaker 3: or your boss, but you know, it was in the

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Speaker 3: It was in the same world. And you know, I

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Speaker 3: still remember that stuff growing up in the eighties, like

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Speaker 3: the watch any John Hughes movie, and like all the

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Speaker 3: kids at the same school. They were like, you know,

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Speaker 3: the rich kids and then the kids that lived in

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Speaker 3: that neighborhood, right, but it wasn't extreme wealth and poverty.

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Speaker 2: No. And the fact is they were all going to

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Speaker 2: the same school exactly. There was like a leveling from that.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, that was a really big deal. And this

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Speaker 2: is this is going on through about to the mid

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Speaker 2: seventies when things started to decline for the middle class. Right. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: there's there was the end of the post war boom.

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Speaker 2: I mean, that's really tough to keep up in the

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Speaker 2: form that it was in for very long. Yeah, and

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Speaker 2: it's kind of astounding it stayed up that long. Part

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Speaker 2: of it was that the US was in that unique position,

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Speaker 2: like you said, it didn't have to rebuild after World

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Speaker 2: War Two like Europe and Japan did well. After a

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Speaker 2: few decades, Europe and Japan were able to rebuild and

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Speaker 2: they started to catch up to the United States, which

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Speaker 2: meant that they were taking more share of the United

383
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Speaker 2: States pie with say like exports and manufacturing and stuff.

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Speaker 2: That was one factor too. There was also the oil crisis. Yeah,

385
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Speaker 2: I think that that made a bigger dent than I

386
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Speaker 2: ever realized that that was like a history changing event,

387
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Speaker 2: the OPEC oil crisis, and then also political conflicts that

388
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Speaker 2: ultimately laid the bedwork for today's culture wars, civil rights movement, feminism, environmentalism,

389
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Speaker 2: LGBTQ plus US rights. All of these things were marginalized groups.

390
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Speaker 2: Previously marginalized groups came forward and said, no, there's no

391
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Speaker 2: reason we should be treated like second class citizens. That

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Speaker 2: created a tension in the United States. A lot of

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Speaker 2: corporations came in and figured out how to exploit this

394
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Speaker 2: for their own ends, and that eventually started to divide

395
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Speaker 2: people to where there was this sense of competition is

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Speaker 2: the bedrock of American capitalism, and American capitalism is the

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Speaker 2: bedrock of the middle class. It's part of the middle class.

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Speaker 2: It's a new middle class value. It's where we got

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Speaker 2: yuppies in the eighties.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. The industrialization also happened. In nineteen seventy

401
00:22:43,440 --> 00:22:46,879
Speaker 3: if one in out of every four non farming jobs

402
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Speaker 3: in the US was in manufacturing, and by twenty seventeen

403
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Speaker 3: it was one and eleven. So other countries, you know,

404
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Speaker 3: as globalization and trade increased, other countries started making stuff

405
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Speaker 3: super cheap. Like this isn't a big surprise to anyone

406
00:23:00,240 --> 00:23:04,400
Speaker 3: to this. Imports from China started coming in, Imports from

407
00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:07,359
Speaker 3: other you know, Southeast Asian countries started coming in. Stuff

408
00:23:07,400 --> 00:23:11,480
Speaker 3: was a lot cheaper to buy, and you know, they

409
00:23:11,560 --> 00:23:14,439
Speaker 3: started automating a lot of stuff. It was, you know,

410
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Speaker 3: kind of the first automation boom was happening in the

411
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Speaker 3: nineteen seventies where factories didn't need as many people on

412
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Speaker 3: the line to do stuff that these new machines were doing.

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Speaker 3: So that coupled with deunionization, really, you know kind of

414
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Speaker 3: dropping off, was a huge factor.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and it really definitely declined that it's below ten

416
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Speaker 2: percent for the entire workforce in the United States. A

417
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Speaker 2: huge chunk of that is just from government jobs like teaching,

418
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Speaker 2: they tend to have a very strong union. But overall,

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Speaker 2: it went from like thirty five thirty six percent to

420
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Speaker 2: ten percent. And one of the reasons that that happened

421
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Speaker 2: is because the government basically withdrew its support for unions.

422
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Speaker 2: Not only did it stop passing legis enforcing legislation that

423
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Speaker 2: supported unions, it actually started issuing legislation that harmed and

424
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Speaker 2: crippled unions and essentially removed their power.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. And then the last reason, you know,

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Speaker 3: we can't talk about the middle class and wealth disparity

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Speaker 3: without talking about Ronald Reagan. You know, he's the one

428
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Speaker 3: that kicked it off. And subsequent administrations definitely didn't do

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Speaker 3: the middle class any favors. But those Reagan era policies

430
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Speaker 3: that trickle down economics, cutting taxes for corporations, undermining labor unions,

431
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Speaker 3: cutting taxes on the top earners individually really transformed the

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Speaker 3: look of our nation heavily, heavily in favor of the

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Speaker 3: rich and you know, the top ten percent, especially the

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Speaker 3: top one percent. And like I said, other you know,

435
00:24:49,240 --> 00:24:52,440
Speaker 3: Democrats and Republicans since then have failed the United States

436
00:24:52,440 --> 00:24:57,520
Speaker 3: and their policies. I know, after the economic crash and

437
00:24:57,600 --> 00:25:00,080
Speaker 3: the real estate crash in two thousand and eight, there

438
00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:02,399
Speaker 3: were a lot of people, especially now in hindsight that

439
00:25:02,480 --> 00:25:04,960
Speaker 3: look back and say, you know what, we really had

440
00:25:05,000 --> 00:25:08,080
Speaker 3: an opportunity there, and the Obama administration failed us. When

441
00:25:08,119 --> 00:25:11,760
Speaker 3: we bailed out those banks with not very many strings attached.

442
00:25:11,760 --> 00:25:14,399
Speaker 3: We had some leverage there to sort of get some

443
00:25:14,520 --> 00:25:17,199
Speaker 3: changes in place that could have helped, you know, shift

444
00:25:17,240 --> 00:25:19,359
Speaker 3: the look of the financial outlook of our country, and

445
00:25:19,400 --> 00:25:20,040
Speaker 3: we didn't do it.

446
00:25:20,760 --> 00:25:24,320
Speaker 2: No, And what they would have been doing is undoing

447
00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:27,600
Speaker 2: damage that was done during the Clinton administration where they

448
00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:32,879
Speaker 2: repealed the Glass Stegal Act that kept banks from dabbling investments.

449
00:25:33,160 --> 00:25:35,360
Speaker 2: You were either a bank or an investment company, which

450
00:25:35,400 --> 00:25:38,800
Speaker 2: one and after that you don't have to choose, And

451
00:25:38,840 --> 00:25:43,440
Speaker 2: that's ultimately what helped lead us to that massive financial crisis,

452
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:44,720
Speaker 2: the Great Recession.

453
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:45,200
Speaker 3: Yeah.

454
00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:48,639
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's really easy and fun to pick on

455
00:25:48,720 --> 00:25:51,600
Speaker 2: Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher for kicking all this off,

456
00:25:51,640 --> 00:25:54,760
Speaker 2: but they were not the only neoliberal presidents to come

457
00:25:54,760 --> 00:25:56,000
Speaker 2: along after the eighties.

458
00:25:56,240 --> 00:25:59,600
Speaker 3: No, for sure, if you're talking about the middle class today,

459
00:26:00,320 --> 00:26:02,560
Speaker 3: you really have to start with like how do you

460
00:26:02,600 --> 00:26:04,920
Speaker 3: define the middle class? And Libya did a really great

461
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:07,040
Speaker 3: job in this section. I think like there are a

462
00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 3: lot of different ways that people and pundits like to

463
00:26:10,080 --> 00:26:14,240
Speaker 3: talk about what the middle class even is. Some social

464
00:26:14,280 --> 00:26:19,760
Speaker 3: scientists it's just a super straightforward income based definitions, which

465
00:26:19,800 --> 00:26:22,600
Speaker 3: is good in one sense because you can adjust that

466
00:26:22,760 --> 00:26:26,879
Speaker 3: depending on where you are in the world, Like a

467
00:26:26,920 --> 00:26:29,520
Speaker 3: middle class income in New York City isn't going to

468
00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:32,360
Speaker 3: be the same thing as in a rural area, so

469
00:26:32,400 --> 00:26:35,840
Speaker 3: they can you can adjust things economically based on just

470
00:26:35,880 --> 00:26:39,080
Speaker 3: a strict income based definition, which is kind of cool.

471
00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:43,040
Speaker 2: Also, that means that the middle class doesn't move out

472
00:26:43,040 --> 00:26:45,399
Speaker 2: of reach of certain people too. Like if you just

473
00:26:45,400 --> 00:26:47,919
Speaker 2: have the median income and say that's the middle class,

474
00:26:47,920 --> 00:26:51,040
Speaker 2: As the median income grows, the middle class goes up

475
00:26:51,400 --> 00:26:54,480
Speaker 2: and some people stay behind. This is like here's the

476
00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:57,040
Speaker 2: middle class section, and you can get into it and

477
00:26:57,119 --> 00:26:58,840
Speaker 2: out of it, or drop out of it and go

478
00:26:59,480 --> 00:27:02,760
Speaker 2: above it. But it's going to stay in the same place,

479
00:27:02,800 --> 00:27:05,480
Speaker 2: and it's just going to it's going to change depending

480
00:27:05,520 --> 00:27:09,080
Speaker 2: on how wages rise. Yeah, it seems like a pretty

481
00:27:09,119 --> 00:27:12,480
Speaker 2: good it's a good idea to me. The most widely

482
00:27:12,560 --> 00:27:16,960
Speaker 2: used one comes from the Pew Research Center, and they

483
00:27:17,040 --> 00:27:19,560
Speaker 2: it's an income based approach that they use, but they

484
00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:23,840
Speaker 2: basically say that if your household income is two thirds

485
00:27:24,119 --> 00:27:27,960
Speaker 2: of the median household income or up to double the

486
00:27:28,080 --> 00:27:32,480
Speaker 2: median household income. You are middle class, right, and I

487
00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:35,359
Speaker 2: think in twenty twenty four that meant that your household

488
00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:39,320
Speaker 2: is very important too. That your household made between fifty

489
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:42,760
Speaker 2: five thousand, eight hundred and twenty dollars to one hundred

490
00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:46,600
Speaker 2: and sixty seven thousand, four hundred and sixty dollars any

491
00:27:46,720 --> 00:27:49,680
Speaker 2: anywhere in there, you were middle class income wise.

492
00:27:50,280 --> 00:27:53,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is all obviously like pretext money.

493
00:27:53,480 --> 00:27:59,040
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, oh yeah, I would think so. Yeah.

494
00:27:59,240 --> 00:28:02,439
Speaker 3: So under that definition, the middle class made up sixty

495
00:28:02,480 --> 00:28:05,199
Speaker 3: one percent of households in nineteen seventy one, compared to

496
00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:11,240
Speaker 3: just fifty one percent in twenty twenty three. But at

497
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:14,920
Speaker 3: the same time, the upper income category went from eleven

498
00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:19,280
Speaker 3: percent to nineteen percent and the lower percentage rose from

499
00:28:19,320 --> 00:28:22,639
Speaker 3: twenty seven percent to thirty percent. So what you're seeing

500
00:28:22,760 --> 00:28:26,560
Speaker 3: is like the wealth gap like happening in real time, basically.

501
00:28:27,119 --> 00:28:32,040
Speaker 2: Yes, But that also suggests that eight percent of people

502
00:28:32,240 --> 00:28:35,040
Speaker 2: in the middle class moved up from the core middle

503
00:28:35,040 --> 00:28:39,480
Speaker 2: class to the upper income category. So that's what that's

504
00:28:39,520 --> 00:28:41,840
Speaker 2: an interpretation that a lot of people who are like, no,

505
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:44,360
Speaker 2: the middle class is fine, suggest.

506
00:28:44,160 --> 00:28:46,000
Speaker 3: Right, then three percent moved down.

507
00:28:46,360 --> 00:28:51,120
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, so that's yeah. Income is like, if you're

508
00:28:51,120 --> 00:28:53,840
Speaker 2: an economist, this is what you're looking at. If you're

509
00:28:54,040 --> 00:28:59,480
Speaker 2: say anthropologists or sociologists, you might say, well, who considers

510
00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:02,360
Speaker 2: themselves middle class? Maybe we should look at those people

511
00:29:02,920 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 2: and then kind of study them like that, like ask

512
00:29:05,680 --> 00:29:08,360
Speaker 2: people are you middle class or not? Are you working class?

513
00:29:08,560 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 2: You consider yourself upper class? And they usually either divide

514
00:29:12,360 --> 00:29:15,440
Speaker 2: it into those three lower class, middle class, upper class,

515
00:29:15,840 --> 00:29:20,200
Speaker 2: or else they divide it into quintiles lower class, working class,

516
00:29:20,240 --> 00:29:23,800
Speaker 2: which they would also call lower middle class, core, middle class,

517
00:29:24,160 --> 00:29:27,840
Speaker 2: upper middle class, and then gob smackingly rich.

518
00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:31,760
Speaker 3: And one percent saying buzz office, none of your business.

519
00:29:31,800 --> 00:29:32,760
Speaker 3: Quit ask any questions.

520
00:29:33,600 --> 00:29:34,720
Speaker 2: They have them arrested.

521
00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:37,720
Speaker 3: So twenty twenty four was the last Gallop poll that

522
00:29:37,760 --> 00:29:40,400
Speaker 3: we have where someone said, like, hey, what do you

523
00:29:40,400 --> 00:29:43,959
Speaker 3: consider yourself? And in the United States, thirty nine percent

524
00:29:44,080 --> 00:29:48,680
Speaker 3: of citizens considered themselves middle class. Another fifteen percent said

525
00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:52,040
Speaker 3: there were upper middle class, which brings that grand total

526
00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:55,640
Speaker 3: to fifty four. Thirty one percent identified as working class,

527
00:29:56,000 --> 00:29:59,440
Speaker 3: twelve percent is lower class, just two percent of upper class,

528
00:30:00,560 --> 00:30:05,120
Speaker 3: which means a lot of those upper middle class people

529
00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:08,000
Speaker 3: were lying liars and that they're really part of the

530
00:30:08,080 --> 00:30:09,040
Speaker 3: upper class.

531
00:30:09,360 --> 00:30:12,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, But I think also it's not I'm

532
00:30:12,680 --> 00:30:15,240
Speaker 2: sure some people were like I don't want to say,

533
00:30:15,240 --> 00:30:16,520
Speaker 2: like I feel upper class.

534
00:30:16,600 --> 00:30:18,680
Speaker 3: And self identification, so it makes sense.

535
00:30:18,800 --> 00:30:20,680
Speaker 2: Sure, But at the same time, also I think that

536
00:30:20,840 --> 00:30:24,040
Speaker 2: has to do with the idea that maybe based on income,

537
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 2: it's almost like that vibe session thing like, yeah, your

538
00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:28,840
Speaker 2: income would put you in the middle class, but you

539
00:30:29,240 --> 00:30:32,160
Speaker 2: don't feel wealthy. You feel like you could be ruined

540
00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:35,640
Speaker 2: by a healthcare crisis at any time. So I think,

541
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:39,640
Speaker 2: especially with self identification, that gives you a sense of

542
00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:43,360
Speaker 2: the actual health of the economy as far as like

543
00:30:43,440 --> 00:30:45,240
Speaker 2: consumer confidence is concerned.

544
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:48,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's you know, laziness factors in. You could

545
00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:51,040
Speaker 3: be in the upper middle class but also still have

546
00:30:51,160 --> 00:30:56,600
Speaker 3: a car tire sitting in your sideyard for sure, with

547
00:30:57,200 --> 00:31:00,880
Speaker 3: like typical markers of you know, different glasses.

548
00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:03,800
Speaker 2: For sure, tires in your side Jock, I gotta get

549
00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:04,800
Speaker 2: mine moved.

550
00:31:05,360 --> 00:31:09,000
Speaker 3: Emily got onto me for years about the car battery

551
00:31:09,040 --> 00:31:12,440
Speaker 3: that I had that I just it's like, got to

552
00:31:12,520 --> 00:31:14,880
Speaker 3: get rid of a car battery. I know you can, Oh,

553
00:31:14,920 --> 00:31:17,560
Speaker 3: you take it to like one of the auto stores,

554
00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:20,040
Speaker 3: I know, but none of those feel right.

555
00:31:21,160 --> 00:31:24,560
Speaker 2: They know they take the core out and yeah it's

556
00:31:24,600 --> 00:31:25,760
Speaker 2: they recycle them for real.

557
00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:28,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, because you've watched them do all that right from

558
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 3: beginning to help.

559
00:31:29,680 --> 00:31:32,720
Speaker 2: I help on weekends as just as pro bono.

560
00:31:33,160 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 3: That's my point is, I don't I don't trust any

561
00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:36,480
Speaker 3: of it. None of it feels right.

562
00:31:37,240 --> 00:31:38,920
Speaker 2: All right, I'm with you. Well, you want to know

563
00:31:38,960 --> 00:31:41,720
Speaker 2: something that really opened my eyes and changed my life, Chuck,

564
00:31:41,800 --> 00:31:47,400
Speaker 2: I realized recently that that whole like grocery store recycle

565
00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:51,440
Speaker 2: bag recycling thing is a total scam. Like publics and

566
00:31:51,480 --> 00:31:53,720
Speaker 2: all them who have those those things out that said

567
00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 2: put your plastic bags in your we recycle them. They don't.

568
00:31:56,880 --> 00:31:59,640
Speaker 2: They don't. They throw them away. And I can't tell

569
00:31:59,680 --> 00:32:02,920
Speaker 2: you how how much time I've spent, like taking labels

570
00:32:02,920 --> 00:32:06,000
Speaker 2: off of plastic wrap, shaking out plastic crap to make

571
00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:09,200
Speaker 2: it clean, like taking it all bundled together, taking it

572
00:32:09,240 --> 00:32:11,000
Speaker 2: to publics and putting it in the bend. And then

573
00:32:11,040 --> 00:32:13,000
Speaker 2: the idea they just take it and throw it away

574
00:32:13,240 --> 00:32:16,080
Speaker 2: and use this as just like a pr thing. Oh

575
00:32:16,160 --> 00:32:18,200
Speaker 2: my god, I'm so sick of stuff like that.

576
00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:22,360
Speaker 3: Man agreed two quick things on that. You can't count

577
00:32:22,400 --> 00:32:26,200
Speaker 3: on your large grocery store chain to do that. You

578
00:32:26,240 --> 00:32:27,840
Speaker 3: got to go to like the Charm. You got to

579
00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:30,000
Speaker 3: go what we have here in Atlanta and Athens, the

580
00:32:30,800 --> 00:32:33,640
Speaker 3: Center for Hard to recycle Materials, because they really do

581
00:32:33,720 --> 00:32:36,800
Speaker 3: the work. It's just a big pain. And number two,

582
00:32:38,040 --> 00:32:40,320
Speaker 3: just as a quick aside, I went to Belize on

583
00:32:40,760 --> 00:32:44,280
Speaker 3: winter break recently, had a great time, but the grocery

584
00:32:44,320 --> 00:32:47,960
Speaker 3: store in there was a grocery store in Placentia named Publics.

585
00:32:48,440 --> 00:32:55,600
Speaker 3: Publics same exact font and coloring as Publics.

586
00:32:56,280 --> 00:32:58,840
Speaker 2: It's like Ricky Rouse and moneld Muck thought it was very,

587
00:32:58,960 --> 00:33:02,640
Speaker 2: very funny. It's funny. They're like, we spell it different.

588
00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:06,320
Speaker 3: What all right? So we're getting off track. The one

589
00:33:06,320 --> 00:33:09,000
Speaker 3: of the last ways, I guess, second to the last

590
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:12,719
Speaker 3: ways to look at it is through education levels, because

591
00:33:13,120 --> 00:33:15,120
Speaker 3: a lot of times when you hear you know, pundits

592
00:33:15,160 --> 00:33:17,600
Speaker 3: on the news talking about the middle class, they'll say

593
00:33:17,640 --> 00:33:19,920
Speaker 3: things like, you know, people with a four year college degree,

594
00:33:20,360 --> 00:33:23,200
Speaker 3: that's only about forty percent of the population in the US,

595
00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:25,800
Speaker 3: and it's really misleading. So I wish they'd just kind

596
00:33:25,800 --> 00:33:29,720
Speaker 3: of throw this one out with the Public's grocery bags

597
00:33:29,760 --> 00:33:34,000
Speaker 3: because you know, you could have a four year degree

598
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:38,200
Speaker 3: and be a college professor that also has to have

599
00:33:38,240 --> 00:33:40,920
Speaker 3: a second job to make ends meet. Or you could

600
00:33:40,960 --> 00:33:43,440
Speaker 3: also not have a college degree and on a multimillion

601
00:33:43,480 --> 00:33:46,960
Speaker 3: dollar you know, sort of blue collar business. So I say,

602
00:33:47,040 --> 00:33:47,920
Speaker 3: just get rid of that one.

603
00:33:48,280 --> 00:33:51,280
Speaker 2: A multimillion dollar battery recycling.

604
00:33:50,840 --> 00:33:53,120
Speaker 3: Business, yeah, because that's where all the money is.

605
00:33:53,960 --> 00:33:58,680
Speaker 2: So yeah. So values also, I agree education levels, just

606
00:33:58,720 --> 00:34:02,280
Speaker 2: get rid of that, especially with college not really leading

607
00:34:02,320 --> 00:34:05,000
Speaker 2: to many as many opportunities today as it used to

608
00:34:05,120 --> 00:34:07,520
Speaker 2: and all of the incredible debt associated with it, that

609
00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:11,000
Speaker 2: should not be a measurement for the middle class. Values

610
00:34:11,080 --> 00:34:13,319
Speaker 2: is another one too, And this one I was kind

611
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:15,719
Speaker 2: of like, what why, Yeah, and I realized you can't

612
00:34:15,960 --> 00:34:20,879
Speaker 2: measure social groups strictly on things like income. That self

613
00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:24,799
Speaker 2: identification thing has a lot to do with values. One

614
00:34:24,880 --> 00:34:28,799
Speaker 2: we talked about is a nuclear family, which has been

615
00:34:29,280 --> 00:34:33,080
Speaker 2: altered dramatically since the middle of the last century. When

616
00:34:33,120 --> 00:34:35,319
Speaker 2: I would say, I would argue in the United States

617
00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:38,320
Speaker 2: at least the nuclear family was like at its peak

618
00:34:38,360 --> 00:34:42,080
Speaker 2: of importance. It's definitely declined. People kind of make family

619
00:34:43,400 --> 00:34:47,560
Speaker 2: wherever they can find it. And that doesn't mean that

620
00:34:47,719 --> 00:34:50,239
Speaker 2: like all of the values are gone that there was

621
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:56,120
Speaker 2: a twenty ten Vice President Joe Biden middle Class task

622
00:34:56,160 --> 00:34:59,399
Speaker 2: Force had no idea that existed, but it essentially went

623
00:34:59,400 --> 00:35:01,759
Speaker 2: through and said what are your values and they came

624
00:35:01,840 --> 00:35:05,279
Speaker 2: up with pretty basic stuff that that I think most

625
00:35:05,320 --> 00:35:08,400
Speaker 2: middle class people would agree with. Economic stability and security.

626
00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:11,080
Speaker 2: You want a car for each of your kids as

627
00:35:11,120 --> 00:35:13,880
Speaker 2: they get to driving age. You want to take a

628
00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:16,239
Speaker 2: family vacation once a year. You want to send those

629
00:35:16,320 --> 00:35:18,560
Speaker 2: kids to college. You want to own your home, like

630
00:35:18,640 --> 00:35:22,520
Speaker 2: really basic stuff. And the idea that all of that

631
00:35:22,680 --> 00:35:26,480
Speaker 2: is up for grabs in this country right now is

632
00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:27,320
Speaker 2: really alarming.

633
00:35:27,800 --> 00:35:33,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. Should we take another break? Yes, all right,

634
00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:35,960
Speaker 3: we're going to take a break and we'll talk about

635
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:38,279
Speaker 3: what's gone wrong with the middle class and where we

636
00:35:38,360 --> 00:35:39,400
Speaker 3: might be headed right after this.

637
00:35:39,760 --> 00:35:45,799
Speaker 2: Definitely large holds of each o.

638
00:35:47,880 --> 00:35:48,400
Speaker 1: Y s k.

639
00:35:54,320 --> 00:36:06,439
Speaker 2: Is okay, Chuck. So, I think we've kind of said

640
00:36:06,480 --> 00:36:08,080
Speaker 2: a couple of times that there's a lot of different

641
00:36:08,080 --> 00:36:10,520
Speaker 2: ways you can look at things to say the middle

642
00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:12,640
Speaker 2: class is doing great. I know the middle classes hauloed

643
00:36:12,640 --> 00:36:15,440
Speaker 2: out in debt. One of the things that you can

644
00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:18,160
Speaker 2: really kind of point to is like, how much are

645
00:36:18,200 --> 00:36:22,719
Speaker 2: you getting paid. Right, that's a pretty easy one. So

646
00:36:22,800 --> 00:36:27,040
Speaker 2: you can look at average hourly wages for non supervisory employees.

647
00:36:27,120 --> 00:36:30,319
Speaker 2: So that's everybody who's not a manager or like a

648
00:36:30,360 --> 00:36:35,400
Speaker 2: C suite executive, right, just the regular rank and file employees.

649
00:36:36,239 --> 00:36:39,279
Speaker 2: There was a peak of pay in nineteen seventy three

650
00:36:39,360 --> 00:36:42,440
Speaker 2: of thirty dollars. This is twenty twenty five dollars, right.

651
00:36:42,880 --> 00:36:46,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, always or always on this episode.

652
00:36:46,760 --> 00:36:51,040
Speaker 2: Right in fall of twenty twenty five, we were at

653
00:36:51,120 --> 00:36:55,480
Speaker 2: thirty one dollars and fifty cents. So we managed to

654
00:36:55,640 --> 00:37:02,080
Speaker 2: gain an extra dollar fifty in average hourly wages in

655
00:37:02,560 --> 00:37:06,560
Speaker 2: fifty years. Yeah, and you might think like, oh, okay,

656
00:37:06,640 --> 00:37:09,520
Speaker 2: well really, let's think about inflation and everything. I did.

657
00:37:10,000 --> 00:37:13,560
Speaker 2: Get this if you went back to nineteen seventy three, right,

658
00:37:15,440 --> 00:37:20,280
Speaker 2: one dollar today buys fourteen percent of what it bought

659
00:37:20,280 --> 00:37:23,240
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy three. Yeah, so that means that today

660
00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:28,080
Speaker 2: it does. So you can you could buy, using the

661
00:37:28,120 --> 00:37:33,680
Speaker 2: same hourly wage today fourteen percent of your groceries if

662
00:37:33,719 --> 00:37:36,719
Speaker 2: you went from nineteen seventy three to today. So we

663
00:37:36,800 --> 00:37:40,360
Speaker 2: are definitely worse off because things have gotten more expensive,

664
00:37:40,600 --> 00:37:44,360
Speaker 2: but wages have stagnated. If anyone ever tells you that

665
00:37:44,480 --> 00:37:48,640
Speaker 2: wages have not stagnated, they are lying or they're dumb

666
00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:51,719
Speaker 2: or both, and just tell them so. Yeah, I've been

667
00:37:51,719 --> 00:37:53,840
Speaker 2: trying really hard not to get worked up, man, and

668
00:37:53,840 --> 00:37:56,160
Speaker 2: I'm trying to keep it together. Rre we go, everybody,

669
00:37:56,239 --> 00:37:57,240
Speaker 2: I'm keeping it together.

670
00:37:58,880 --> 00:38:02,120
Speaker 3: The idea of the middle class, though, around the nineteen sixties,

671
00:38:02,520 --> 00:38:06,160
Speaker 3: was about wasn't just about getting to a spot and

672
00:38:06,239 --> 00:38:09,319
Speaker 3: hitting it. It was about everybody continuing to grow and the

673
00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:13,000
Speaker 3: overall economy of the United States continuing to grow. And

674
00:38:13,800 --> 00:38:17,239
Speaker 3: that has happened, but compensation hasn't happened along with it.

675
00:38:18,120 --> 00:38:21,200
Speaker 3: From nineteen seventy nine to twenty twenty five, productivity in

676
00:38:21,200 --> 00:38:26,040
Speaker 3: the United States rose eighty seven percent, but that hourly

677
00:38:26,080 --> 00:38:31,000
Speaker 3: compensation rose by thirty three percent for non supervisory workers.

678
00:38:31,360 --> 00:38:33,600
Speaker 2: Right. And there's two ways you can interpret that. If

679
00:38:33,640 --> 00:38:37,000
Speaker 2: you're like, well, unions are gone, you could say if

680
00:38:37,040 --> 00:38:39,360
Speaker 2: you're an owner, well you get rid of the union's

681
00:38:39,400 --> 00:38:43,120
Speaker 2: productivity increases. Unions make lazy workers. Another way to put

682
00:38:43,160 --> 00:38:46,000
Speaker 2: it is that without the unions, you can exploit workers

683
00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:48,040
Speaker 2: more easily and get them to work harder because they're

684
00:38:48,040 --> 00:38:52,480
Speaker 2: afraid of losing their job. Right, Yeah, regardless of how

685
00:38:52,480 --> 00:38:56,480
Speaker 2: you look at it, like, there's no way to interpret

686
00:38:56,480 --> 00:39:00,440
Speaker 2: it differently. If your wages have increased thirty three but

687
00:39:00,520 --> 00:39:04,360
Speaker 2: productivities increased eighty seven percent, that means that that extra

688
00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:07,360
Speaker 2: wealth that was generated had to go somewhere, and it

689
00:39:07,440 --> 00:39:11,000
Speaker 2: didn't go to the workers. It went to the wealthiest people.

690
00:39:11,640 --> 00:39:14,480
Speaker 2: And there are just like, if you want to just

691
00:39:15,120 --> 00:39:18,800
Speaker 2: look at eye popping numbers, just look up income inequality

692
00:39:19,320 --> 00:39:24,040
Speaker 2: in the twenty first century, because it has gotten completely

693
00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:26,840
Speaker 2: out of control compared to how it used to be.

694
00:39:27,239 --> 00:39:28,640
Speaker 2: And I mean how it used to be. Like I'm

695
00:39:28,640 --> 00:39:29,560
Speaker 2: talking the eighties.

696
00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:32,880
Speaker 3: As Sam Jackson would say, hang on your butts. What

697
00:39:32,920 --> 00:39:33,959
Speaker 3: do you say, Jurassic Park?

698
00:39:34,160 --> 00:39:34,959
Speaker 2: Hang on your butts?

699
00:39:35,040 --> 00:39:36,120
Speaker 3: Yep, hang on your butt.

700
00:39:36,600 --> 00:39:38,200
Speaker 2: You need a cigarette sticking out of your mouth?

701
00:39:38,360 --> 00:39:41,320
Speaker 3: Oh, I've got it, pal, all right, So these numbers

702
00:39:41,360 --> 00:39:44,240
Speaker 3: are going to be slightly depressing and slightly eye popping.

703
00:39:45,840 --> 00:39:49,640
Speaker 3: Annual wages of the bottom ninety percent of Americans rose

704
00:39:49,680 --> 00:39:54,040
Speaker 3: by twenty nine percent from seventy nine to twenty twenty one.

705
00:39:54,760 --> 00:39:57,400
Speaker 3: For the top one percent during over that same time period,

706
00:39:58,120 --> 00:40:03,919
Speaker 3: they rose two hundred and six and the Forbes four

707
00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:06,520
Speaker 3: hundred lists it's a list that we put out in

708
00:40:06,640 --> 00:40:11,080
Speaker 3: or Forbes magazine puts out about the four hundred wealthiest Americans.

709
00:40:11,600 --> 00:40:14,319
Speaker 3: They should probably just stop doing this altogether.

710
00:40:14,880 --> 00:40:16,839
Speaker 2: I know it ruins society.

711
00:40:17,239 --> 00:40:20,440
Speaker 3: But you mentioned the nineteen eighties, nineteen eighty two that

712
00:40:20,719 --> 00:40:23,640
Speaker 3: it was the initial Forbes four hundred. It had thirteen

713
00:40:23,719 --> 00:40:29,319
Speaker 3: billionaires on it. Now everybody on the Forbes list is

714
00:40:29,360 --> 00:40:33,759
Speaker 3: a billionaire, and there's another five hundred billionaires that don't

715
00:40:33,800 --> 00:40:34,560
Speaker 3: get on the list.

716
00:40:34,880 --> 00:40:35,440
Speaker 2: Wow.

717
00:40:35,520 --> 00:40:38,040
Speaker 3: So in nineteen eighty two there were thirteen billionaires. There

718
00:40:38,040 --> 00:40:41,160
Speaker 3: are more than nine hundred billionaires in the United States

719
00:40:41,200 --> 00:40:43,920
Speaker 3: right now who have a collective worth of six point

720
00:40:43,960 --> 00:40:46,920
Speaker 3: six trillion dollars. I'm sorry, that's just the Forbes four

721
00:40:47,000 --> 00:40:49,839
Speaker 3: hundred have six point six trillion. Forget the other five

722
00:40:49,920 --> 00:40:51,080
Speaker 3: hundred billionaires.

723
00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:54,640
Speaker 2: Okay. So another thing that that Forbes list pointed out

724
00:40:55,040 --> 00:40:57,400
Speaker 2: is that the total wealth in all of the United

725
00:40:57,440 --> 00:41:01,640
Speaker 2: States is one hundred and forty trillion dollars. The bottom

726
00:41:01,880 --> 00:41:05,319
Speaker 2: fifty percent owns four trillion of that. That means the

727
00:41:05,360 --> 00:41:08,160
Speaker 2: top fifty percent owns one hundred and thirty six trillion

728
00:41:08,440 --> 00:41:12,439
Speaker 2: compared to four trillion. Ah Man, there was one other

729
00:41:12,560 --> 00:41:15,800
Speaker 2: statistic I found too, between nineteen seventy five and twenty

730
00:41:15,840 --> 00:41:19,719
Speaker 2: twenty four, there was a wealth transfer upward to the

731
00:41:19,760 --> 00:41:25,799
Speaker 2: top percent that totaled fifty trillion dollars. So, however you

732
00:41:25,840 --> 00:41:27,799
Speaker 2: want to put it, however you want to look at it,

733
00:41:28,160 --> 00:41:32,640
Speaker 2: the middle class and the lower class have been held

734
00:41:32,680 --> 00:41:36,399
Speaker 2: back while the wealth that they have been producing has

735
00:41:36,640 --> 00:41:40,279
Speaker 2: moved upward. And a big problem with that is when

736
00:41:40,320 --> 00:41:42,920
Speaker 2: you have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few,

737
00:41:43,520 --> 00:41:46,320
Speaker 2: they're making the decisions about what happens with that money,

738
00:41:46,640 --> 00:41:49,600
Speaker 2: rather than hundreds of millions of people all making individual

739
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:53,680
Speaker 2: decisions and collectively making decisions that are like market signals

740
00:41:53,680 --> 00:41:55,600
Speaker 2: that tell people, I'm going to go make this, I'm

741
00:41:55,600 --> 00:41:57,120
Speaker 2: going to stop making this, I'm going to make this

742
00:41:57,160 --> 00:41:59,480
Speaker 2: price that all these people are upset because they don't

743
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:01,919
Speaker 2: have good healthcare, we better do something about that. None

744
00:42:01,960 --> 00:42:05,040
Speaker 2: of that matters because they don't have money, so they

745
00:42:05,080 --> 00:42:07,560
Speaker 2: don't have power, and they're afraid of losing their jobs.

746
00:42:07,560 --> 00:42:09,760
Speaker 2: So you can do basically whatever you want to them.

747
00:42:09,880 --> 00:42:10,720
Speaker 2: That's what happened.

748
00:42:11,040 --> 00:42:14,239
Speaker 3: Yeah, And you know, politically speaking, the wealth and the

749
00:42:14,280 --> 00:42:19,000
Speaker 3: powers is who controls everything. They obviously via campaign donations

750
00:42:19,080 --> 00:42:21,880
Speaker 3: is the most clear cut way, but all kinds of

751
00:42:21,880 --> 00:42:27,000
Speaker 3: interventions to basically let the top one or two percent

752
00:42:27,120 --> 00:42:30,560
Speaker 3: make the decisions for the majority. There's a social scientist

753
00:42:30,640 --> 00:42:33,080
Speaker 3: and this isn't us railing on stuff. This is just

754
00:42:33,200 --> 00:42:35,919
Speaker 3: how it is. Like, if you're saying this isn't the case,

755
00:42:35,960 --> 00:42:39,720
Speaker 3: then you're lying. Like you said, there's a social scientist

756
00:42:39,800 --> 00:42:42,960
Speaker 3: named Richard Reeves who said that the top twenty percent

757
00:42:43,000 --> 00:42:46,880
Speaker 3: of earners are basically have been completely successful in pushing

758
00:42:47,800 --> 00:42:52,160
Speaker 3: zoning regulations and tax policies that benefit them all at

759
00:42:52,160 --> 00:42:55,440
Speaker 3: the expense of the middle class. They gain the systems

760
00:42:55,480 --> 00:42:57,840
Speaker 3: to pass that you know, wealth down to their children

761
00:42:58,239 --> 00:43:01,120
Speaker 3: or to get their kids into the better It's just

762
00:43:02,120 --> 00:43:04,280
Speaker 3: the way things have gone in the United States.

763
00:43:04,800 --> 00:43:07,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the problem, one of the big problems is

764
00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:09,480
Speaker 2: people are going to be all over our iTunes reviews

765
00:43:09,520 --> 00:43:11,759
Speaker 2: being like, these guys are liberal idiots. You don't know

766
00:43:11,760 --> 00:43:15,200
Speaker 2: what they're talking about. It's not liberal and conservative, and

767
00:43:15,239 --> 00:43:19,520
Speaker 2: it's not Republican and democrat. This is strictly a class issue,

768
00:43:20,120 --> 00:43:23,400
Speaker 2: and the idea that you are defending a class beyond

769
00:43:23,480 --> 00:43:27,680
Speaker 2: yours that is exploiting your own class, including you. That's

770
00:43:27,680 --> 00:43:31,440
Speaker 2: a problem because it's presented as a political thing, and

771
00:43:31,480 --> 00:43:34,520
Speaker 2: we're so tribal when it comes to political affiliations that

772
00:43:34,719 --> 00:43:38,760
Speaker 2: you will defend against your own self interest.

773
00:43:38,920 --> 00:43:40,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, because it's.

774
00:43:40,200 --> 00:43:42,720
Speaker 2: Being presented to you as a political issue, and it's.

775
00:43:42,600 --> 00:43:46,320
Speaker 3: Not happens every voting season. That happens.

776
00:43:46,400 --> 00:43:50,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's true. And I'm not picking just on

777
00:43:50,560 --> 00:43:54,279
Speaker 2: conservatives or Republicans like Democrats do it too, like tr

778
00:43:54,400 --> 00:43:59,080
Speaker 2: tribal and toxic and unhealthy. And if, oh man, if

779
00:43:59,080 --> 00:44:01,120
Speaker 2: we could ever come to get there and break down

780
00:44:01,160 --> 00:44:04,319
Speaker 2: those lines, oh my gosh, people are so ripped up

781
00:44:04,440 --> 00:44:08,000
Speaker 2: right now that it would just be magnificent, the sweeping

782
00:44:08,080 --> 00:44:13,960
Speaker 2: changes that would happen. A new renaissance, Yes, renaissance too,

783
00:44:14,120 --> 00:44:17,200
Speaker 2: the sequel to h Yeah.

784
00:44:17,360 --> 00:44:19,960
Speaker 3: Here's the thing. You know, Goods have gotten cheaper though,

785
00:44:20,600 --> 00:44:23,440
Speaker 3: if you want to look at again, comparing in today's dollars,

786
00:44:23,960 --> 00:44:26,319
Speaker 3: groceries are generally cheaper than they were in the mid

787
00:44:26,320 --> 00:44:28,600
Speaker 3: seventies because the mid seventies, as we said, was pretty bad.

788
00:44:29,600 --> 00:44:33,480
Speaker 3: Things like you know, clothing and furniture, electronics, all that

789
00:44:33,520 --> 00:44:36,399
Speaker 3: stuff is way cheaper than it used to be. If

790
00:44:36,400 --> 00:44:38,760
Speaker 3: you look at you know, back when you bought a VCR,

791
00:44:38,800 --> 00:44:40,040
Speaker 3: when those first came out, and they were like a

792
00:44:40,120 --> 00:44:43,279
Speaker 3: thousand dollars, you know, stuff like that is all like

793
00:44:43,320 --> 00:44:45,880
Speaker 3: the bottom has fallen out on those kind of prices.

794
00:44:45,920 --> 00:44:49,040
Speaker 3: But that hasn't happened in the housing market, which is

795
00:44:49,080 --> 00:44:50,839
Speaker 3: a big deal for the middle class. Like you said

796
00:44:50,920 --> 00:44:54,040
Speaker 3: in Act one, that median sales price of a house

797
00:44:55,040 --> 00:44:57,560
Speaker 3: and again in today's dollars, it was three hundred thousand

798
00:44:57,560 --> 00:45:00,120
Speaker 3: dollars in nineteen seventy nine. It's more than four four

799
00:45:00,200 --> 00:45:03,680
Speaker 3: hundred thousand dollars today. And I think we said it

800
00:45:03,719 --> 00:45:05,880
Speaker 3: was sixty nine point two percent at its peak of

801
00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:10,200
Speaker 3: home ownership in two thousand and four. As of I

802
00:45:10,280 --> 00:45:15,080
Speaker 3: think twenty twenty two. You know, what's happened is that

803
00:45:15,360 --> 00:45:18,399
Speaker 3: you know, I think you said if it was about

804
00:45:18,440 --> 00:45:20,800
Speaker 3: sixty five percent, so it's not that big of a difference,

805
00:45:20,840 --> 00:45:23,960
Speaker 3: but it's that age of buying your first house has

806
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:28,399
Speaker 3: just gotten older and older and older. In twenty twenty two,

807
00:45:28,440 --> 00:45:31,160
Speaker 3: only sixty two percent of forty year olds own their home,

808
00:45:31,600 --> 00:45:35,960
Speaker 3: whereas the Boomer generation sixty nine percent of forty year

809
00:45:35,960 --> 00:45:40,680
Speaker 3: olds owned. And the same can be said for rent

810
00:45:40,880 --> 00:45:44,080
Speaker 3: and childcare, in college and healthcare. It's just all these

811
00:45:44,120 --> 00:45:47,319
Speaker 3: things are outpacing earnings.

812
00:45:47,040 --> 00:45:49,680
Speaker 2: Plus also that sixty two and sixty nine percent is

813
00:45:49,680 --> 00:45:53,160
Speaker 2: a little misleading because there are way more boomers than

814
00:45:53,200 --> 00:45:57,680
Speaker 2: there are Gen x who are forty now, So that

815
00:45:57,840 --> 00:46:00,400
Speaker 2: so sixty nine percent of boomers is a new manically

816
00:46:00,440 --> 00:46:04,560
Speaker 2: a much bigger group than sixty two percent of gen.

817
00:46:04,560 --> 00:46:09,040
Speaker 3: Xers, right, which also means that that's a greater number

818
00:46:09,040 --> 00:46:12,240
Speaker 3: of houses that are now locked up right being passed

819
00:46:12,280 --> 00:46:14,480
Speaker 3: on to their kids. And you know, not saying that

820
00:46:14,560 --> 00:46:16,760
Speaker 3: you shouldn't own a house and pass along your kids,

821
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:19,399
Speaker 3: but that as far as the housing market goes, that's

822
00:46:19,440 --> 00:46:20,959
Speaker 3: just a lot, right.

823
00:46:21,960 --> 00:46:24,360
Speaker 2: So Chuck, what do you what are we going to

824
00:46:24,440 --> 00:46:26,920
Speaker 2: do about this? What are some things we can do?

825
00:46:28,200 --> 00:46:33,080
Speaker 3: Oh? Man, let's solve it right now on the spot. Well,

826
00:46:33,160 --> 00:46:36,040
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know, man, It's not like this

827
00:46:36,120 --> 00:46:38,000
Speaker 3: all over the world. If you look in Europe that

828
00:46:38,120 --> 00:46:41,400
Speaker 3: there is a middle class there, but it's not quite

829
00:46:41,400 --> 00:46:43,279
Speaker 3: the same. They aren't maybe don't have the kind of

830
00:46:43,320 --> 00:46:46,319
Speaker 3: wealth that upper middle class does here, but they have

831
00:46:46,880 --> 00:46:49,680
Speaker 3: the income and quality isn't as great generally, they have

832
00:46:49,760 --> 00:46:55,640
Speaker 3: stronger social welfare programs, like the danger of falling into

833
00:46:56,160 --> 00:47:00,080
Speaker 3: a desperate life straits isn't as great over there. I

834
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:02,360
Speaker 3: saw I think on Instagram recently. It was an interview

835
00:47:02,400 --> 00:47:05,359
Speaker 3: with a guy that was a had a good job.

836
00:47:05,560 --> 00:47:05,640
Speaker 1: You know.

837
00:47:05,719 --> 00:47:07,319
Speaker 3: It was one of those stories where the guy was

838
00:47:07,360 --> 00:47:10,880
Speaker 3: on the streets and he had a degree in chemistry

839
00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:13,120
Speaker 3: and he had a good job, and you know, I

840
00:47:13,239 --> 00:47:15,120
Speaker 3: read the comments because I was curious if people were

841
00:47:15,160 --> 00:47:19,320
Speaker 3: going to be like bashing this dude or what. And hearteningly,

842
00:47:19,360 --> 00:47:21,520
Speaker 3: a lot of the people were like, Hey, I worked

843
00:47:21,560 --> 00:47:25,239
Speaker 3: in shelters for the un House for years and we

844
00:47:25,280 --> 00:47:28,319
Speaker 3: saw all kinds of people come through here. We saw

845
00:47:28,400 --> 00:47:32,799
Speaker 3: doctors and attorneys and people you know that just you know,

846
00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:38,279
Speaker 3: sometimes you're a bad circumstance or two away from that

847
00:47:38,360 --> 00:47:41,080
Speaker 3: kind of situation, and it's just not like that in

848
00:47:41,120 --> 00:47:42,560
Speaker 3: Europe generally speaking.

849
00:47:43,080 --> 00:47:45,560
Speaker 2: I remember during the two thousand and eight recession of

850
00:47:45,600 --> 00:47:48,920
Speaker 2: reading some statistic that something like at the time like

851
00:47:49,600 --> 00:47:52,799
Speaker 2: forty percent or something like that of Americans were one

852
00:47:52,840 --> 00:47:56,880
Speaker 2: paycheck away from being homeless. Like that's how little savings

853
00:47:56,880 --> 00:47:59,680
Speaker 2: and cushion that most Americans had.

854
00:47:59,800 --> 00:48:05,799
Speaker 3: Yeah, or having to make you know, healthcare decisions like

855
00:48:06,080 --> 00:48:09,399
Speaker 3: that aren't good for your life because you can't afford it,

856
00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:13,080
Speaker 3: because it will bankrupt your family. You're having to put

857
00:48:13,080 --> 00:48:15,240
Speaker 3: yourself and your family in peril physically.

858
00:48:15,680 --> 00:48:18,920
Speaker 2: Right, That's part of that why the European middle class

859
00:48:19,000 --> 00:48:23,120
Speaker 2: is much more secure because most of them have universal

860
00:48:23,120 --> 00:48:23,560
Speaker 2: health care.

861
00:48:23,600 --> 00:48:27,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're not bankrupted by a diagnosis.

862
00:48:26,480 --> 00:48:30,800
Speaker 2: Right, But even on more day to day pedestrian stuff.

863
00:48:30,840 --> 00:48:34,520
Speaker 2: So the lower income you are, the more inflation affects you.

864
00:48:35,200 --> 00:48:37,919
Speaker 2: Where Like if your higher income and you go gas

865
00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:41,040
Speaker 2: up your car and you're like, wow, gas went up

866
00:48:41,080 --> 00:48:43,759
Speaker 2: twenty cents today, that sucks, and you just don't think

867
00:48:43,800 --> 00:48:47,160
Speaker 2: about it from that point on. If your lower income,

868
00:48:47,280 --> 00:48:49,920
Speaker 2: you might roll up to the gas station and be like, oh,

869
00:48:50,280 --> 00:48:52,600
Speaker 2: I can't afford to drive my car to work today

870
00:48:52,600 --> 00:48:55,680
Speaker 2: because gas went up twenty cents a gallon. So that's

871
00:48:55,680 --> 00:48:57,799
Speaker 2: another issue with the whole thing too. It makes it

872
00:48:57,880 --> 00:49:03,880
Speaker 2: tougher to get a head when you can't afford the

873
00:49:04,000 --> 00:49:07,879
Speaker 2: basic necessities because they're growing out of your reach day

874
00:49:07,880 --> 00:49:08,399
Speaker 2: by day.

875
00:49:09,080 --> 00:49:11,440
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean when I was a snot nosed, no

876
00:49:11,560 --> 00:49:15,640
Speaker 3: at all college kid working at Golden Pantry in Athens, Georgia,

877
00:49:16,400 --> 00:49:19,040
Speaker 3: I used to and you know, I was working at

878
00:49:19,040 --> 00:49:20,879
Speaker 3: Golden Pantry, so it's not like I was making any

879
00:49:20,960 --> 00:49:23,160
Speaker 3: kind of money, but for a college kid, it was like, hey,

880
00:49:23,200 --> 00:49:26,000
Speaker 3: that's great. I had everything I needed making that seven

881
00:49:26,040 --> 00:49:29,880
Speaker 3: dollars an hour or whatever, because my parents were generally

882
00:49:29,880 --> 00:49:32,960
Speaker 3: paying for my education and it's like easy street. I

883
00:49:32,960 --> 00:49:36,799
Speaker 3: would I would wonder why someone would come in and

884
00:49:36,840 --> 00:49:41,120
Speaker 3: buy like seven dollars worth of gas. I aloud be like,

885
00:49:41,160 --> 00:49:43,280
Speaker 3: what a weird number? Why are you putting seven dollars

886
00:49:43,320 --> 00:49:46,080
Speaker 3: worth of gas? Because it didn't occur to me that's

887
00:49:46,120 --> 00:49:48,480
Speaker 3: all that they could afford. It's like, why don't you

888
00:49:48,480 --> 00:49:50,320
Speaker 3: just fill your car up? And it's like because it

889
00:49:50,320 --> 00:49:53,919
Speaker 3: couldn't afford to dummy? Right, I was a dummy, that's right.

890
00:49:54,800 --> 00:49:56,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I know exactly what to mean. I've been

891
00:49:56,840 --> 00:49:57,680
Speaker 2: on both sides of that.

892
00:49:58,440 --> 00:50:01,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you know the night abitab a college kid,

893
00:50:01,200 --> 00:50:02,160
Speaker 3: So in a way.

894
00:50:03,080 --> 00:50:05,560
Speaker 2: Was that the golden pantry at Alps?

895
00:50:06,080 --> 00:50:09,800
Speaker 3: Uh No, I worked on the college station road.

896
00:50:09,920 --> 00:50:15,400
Speaker 2: Okay side, gotcha. So we didn't figure out how to Yeah,

897
00:50:15,480 --> 00:50:17,080
Speaker 2: I had the same kind of job, and it is

898
00:50:17,120 --> 00:50:20,799
Speaker 2: a very weird job. So we didn't figure out how

899
00:50:20,840 --> 00:50:26,120
Speaker 2: to fix anything. Chuck, you got any ideas, I think

900
00:50:26,160 --> 00:50:29,120
Speaker 2: that you could learn a lot from Europe expanding social

901
00:50:29,200 --> 00:50:32,080
Speaker 2: safety nets. We could stop making that a political thing

902
00:50:32,120 --> 00:50:34,480
Speaker 2: and be like, no, actually, this can help everybody. I

903
00:50:34,560 --> 00:50:38,200
Speaker 2: saw that in New Mexico has started free childcare for all,

904
00:50:38,719 --> 00:50:41,120
Speaker 2: doesn't matter what your income level is, doesn't matter, Like

905
00:50:41,160 --> 00:50:44,560
Speaker 2: you can put your kid into childcare for free, and

906
00:50:44,600 --> 00:50:47,640
Speaker 2: that's a huge expense that save for the average person.

907
00:50:48,200 --> 00:50:48,439
Speaker 3: Yeah.

908
00:50:48,680 --> 00:50:50,520
Speaker 2: I think New York is trying to do that, like

909
00:50:50,600 --> 00:50:54,560
Speaker 2: Mom Donnie is trying to to institute that in New

910
00:50:54,640 --> 00:50:57,880
Speaker 2: York City too, So that could be a huge trend.

911
00:50:58,400 --> 00:51:02,640
Speaker 2: Just free childcare, Universe childcare could make a huge difference

912
00:51:02,640 --> 00:51:03,640
Speaker 2: in people's income.

913
00:51:04,440 --> 00:51:07,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, and all of that is because people want to

914
00:51:07,040 --> 00:51:10,400
Speaker 3: go out and work their job to make money for

915
00:51:10,520 --> 00:51:10,839
Speaker 3: the man.

916
00:51:11,560 --> 00:51:15,040
Speaker 2: Yep, yeah, well put man, you got anything else?

917
00:51:15,520 --> 00:51:16,279
Speaker 3: Got nothing else?

918
00:51:16,520 --> 00:51:20,319
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't either, which means it's time for listener man.

919
00:51:23,040 --> 00:51:25,319
Speaker 3: It is a quick correction. We heard from people from

920
00:51:25,360 --> 00:51:30,279
Speaker 3: Tennessee because we stole their college. Hey guys, longtime listener here.

921
00:51:31,400 --> 00:51:33,640
Speaker 3: Your show has fueled many runs and chores over the years.

922
00:51:33,840 --> 00:51:37,440
Speaker 3: Quick Nashville nitpick from a proud local. In the Flexner

923
00:51:37,480 --> 00:51:41,200
Speaker 3: Report episode, you mentioned Maharry being right here in Georgia.

924
00:51:41,800 --> 00:51:45,560
Speaker 3: Nashville would like to gently reclaim that, guys, Mahary medical

925
00:51:45,560 --> 00:51:47,960
Speaker 3: College has been proudly in Nashville since eighteen seventy six,

926
00:51:48,000 --> 00:51:50,960
Speaker 3: and we're pretty attached to it. Totally understand how geography

927
00:51:50,960 --> 00:51:54,440
Speaker 3: gets slippery mid podcasts, but just wanted to defend a

928
00:51:54,480 --> 00:51:59,640
Speaker 3: hometown institution and that is from Bridget Chevron or Shavaine.

929
00:51:59,719 --> 00:52:01,520
Speaker 3: And we heard from a lot of people, Bridget, So

930
00:52:01,800 --> 00:52:03,399
Speaker 3: I don't know how we screwed that up, but we did.

931
00:52:04,040 --> 00:52:06,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, we got it screwed up royally. I even went

932
00:52:06,280 --> 00:52:09,040
Speaker 2: back and was like, surely there's a Mahary College in

933
00:52:09,080 --> 00:52:12,400
Speaker 2: Georgia too. Nope, Nope, it's just the one in Tennessee.

934
00:52:12,920 --> 00:52:15,160
Speaker 2: So sorry everyone in Tennessee who took offense to that,

935
00:52:15,200 --> 00:52:16,600
Speaker 2: because we did hear from a lot of you.

936
00:52:16,719 --> 00:52:18,640
Speaker 3: For sure, that's right, But we're neighbors and we like

937
00:52:18,680 --> 00:52:19,719
Speaker 3: to think that we're all the same.

938
00:52:20,160 --> 00:52:24,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, we all shared your medical college. Yeah,

939
00:52:24,400 --> 00:52:27,600
Speaker 2: in the Tri state area. If you want to be

940
00:52:27,600 --> 00:52:30,680
Speaker 2: like Bridget and send us a really nice email correcting us,

941
00:52:30,680 --> 00:52:33,120
Speaker 2: we love that kind of thing. You can send it

942
00:52:33,160 --> 00:52:38,160
Speaker 2: off to Stuff Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.

943
00:52:38,320 --> 00:52:41,200
Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

944
00:52:41,280 --> 00:52:45,480
Speaker 3: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,

945
00:52:45,560 --> 00:52:47,400
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.