Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wika FP Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody recording Not So Live from
Speaker 1: the Brooklyn Bunker, Folks, I want to talk about a
Speaker 1: couple of things that struck me that were in the news. First,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump was deposed this week for four and a
Speaker 1: half hours at Trump Tower, where there is a lawsuit
Speaker 1: pending of former protesters who were roughed up, physically roughed
Speaker 1: up and injured by Trump's bodyguards at a rally in
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen. What is interesting about this, other than Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's Donald Trump's continued deflection and continue to hide behind
Speaker 1: executive privilege, is the montage of videos that you can
Speaker 1: see that show Donald Trump, in his own fucking words,
Speaker 1: encouraging his bodyguards his crowds in twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen to rough up individuals and that he would
Speaker 1: pay their legal fees to physically harm beat the hell
Speaker 1: out of them. He said in what at one rally
Speaker 1: the judge that was calling for his deposition allowed those
Speaker 1: snippets to be played. Other reporters are saying, you know,
Speaker 1: if it had been a more conservative judge, that that
Speaker 1: probably would not have been entered, but I say, I'm
Speaker 1: sorry why not? Because you see, Donald Trump wants all
Speaker 1: of the privileges that come with the title of presidency,
Speaker 1: but none of their responsibility. This is not news, But
Speaker 1: the fact is is that the questions that I would
Speaker 1: ask if I were a fucking attorney would be, when
Speaker 1: you give an order, you expect people to follow it correct,
Speaker 1: yes or no? And when people don't follow that order,
Speaker 1: are they punished? And is that punishment firing? Yes or no?
Speaker 1: Did you at this rally, this rally, this rally, this rally,
Speaker 1: and this rally call for disruptors to be physically harmed?
Speaker 1: Yes or no? Roll the tape? Is this you? Yes?
Speaker 1: It is? Did you call for the people who are
Speaker 1: disrupting your rally by protesting in it to be roughed up?
Speaker 1: What was your intent behind that? When you spoke before
Speaker 1: the Suffolk County Police officers on Long Island and you
Speaker 1: told them to rough up criminals? What was that about? Like?
Speaker 1: There are so many fucking instances of Donald Trump calling
Speaker 1: for a violence and celebrating violence that how any judge
Speaker 1: would not allow him, in his own words, over the
Speaker 1: past five fucking years, to be evidence in a trial
Speaker 1: where people have been abused by his underlings is ridiculous
Speaker 1: to me, and just goes to show you once again
Speaker 1: how wealthy, white and well connected powerful men get to
Speaker 1: skirt the law and how we have to work overtime
Speaker 1: right to make sure that all the teas are crossed
Speaker 1: and all the eyes are dotted, because God forbid we
Speaker 1: were to treat Donald Trump the way that we treat
Speaker 1: black and brown, low income people in our criminal justice system.
Speaker 1: I'm just so fucking sick and tired. It's just every
Speaker 1: day you see the ways in which if you don't
Speaker 1: have money, and you are not white, and you are
Speaker 1: not male, you don't fucking matter. And I'm sick of it,
Speaker 1: sick of it, and I'm like, why isn't everybody else?
Speaker 1: The other thing happening this week will be a couple
Speaker 1: of things. There'll be the vote in the Senate to
Speaker 1: put folks on the record for a piece of voting
Speaker 1: rights legislation, which has fifty votes, all the fifty Democrats,
Speaker 1: but does not have the fucking sixty that is needed
Speaker 1: to skirt the fillibuster. But you still have Joe Manchin
Speaker 1: and Kirsten's Cinema because of their own personal greed and
Speaker 1: fucking disgusting nature to not give a fuck. So voting
Speaker 1: rights is up for it's probably final vote this week
Speaker 1: to see whether or not our democracy has it gets
Speaker 1: its final nail in the coffin, because there's no more
Speaker 1: skirting around this, and there have been so many stories
Speaker 1: that have been done, and I got to tell you
Speaker 1: that this current administration, with all their fucking you know,
Speaker 1: robust agenda, doesn't matter at all unless you can win
Speaker 1: an election, unless the elections are free and are fair,
Speaker 1: none of those things are true. And so under a
Speaker 1: democratic Congress and a democratic executive branch, we are watching
Speaker 1: our democracy be eroded by their fucking apathy. Right. They're
Speaker 1: fucking like wedded to bullshit Senate procedures as opposed to
Speaker 1: being wedded to uplifting the voices of the people. Every day,
Speaker 1: every fucking day, every week is just another week of disappointment.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be writing a piece soon on you know,
Speaker 1: what my thoughts are as we come to the year
Speaker 1: mark of the twenty twenty election and the questions being asked,
Speaker 1: you know, about what people think about Biden's performance, And
Speaker 1: I'm going to frankly tell you that outside of the
Speaker 1: vaccine rollouts. I think it's fucking paltry at best. And
Speaker 1: everybody can come for me and tell me, well, you know,
Speaker 1: they're facing so many different things and blah blah, Yeah
Speaker 1: they are. Absolutely. I would never have run for president
Speaker 1: at all, right, because I'm like, nah, y'all are on
Speaker 1: your own. But the thing is is that they signed
Speaker 1: up for this willingly, knowing exactly what the fuck they
Speaker 1: were going to be walking into, or having some idea,
Speaker 1: even though I'm sure it was worse than their worst nightmares.
Speaker 1: But the lack of aggression, this fucking sing songy kumbayashit
Speaker 1: that they still want to practice with Republicans, the fact
Speaker 1: that there is no sense of urgency, there is no
Speaker 1: ringing of the alarm, there is no ringing of fucking
Speaker 1: necks of these two fucking supposed democrats that are double
Speaker 1: handedly strangling our democracy to death the way that Chauvin
Speaker 1: did fucking George Floyd. They they have their knees on
Speaker 1: the neck of our democracy. And right now the Biden
Speaker 1: administration is acting like those other fucking officers and just
Speaker 1: standing by. We don't have time to continue with this.
Speaker 1: Oh they'll come together, Oh there are reasonable Republicans, motherfucker, No,
Speaker 1: there are not. Even the two that are on the
Speaker 1: one six commission voted against voting rights. The collision course
Speaker 1: that we are on with authoritarianism and fascism is really
Speaker 1: fucking wild. And what's worse is that some days I
Speaker 1: really wish that I didn't know. Some days I do
Speaker 1: believe that ignorance would be bliss to just pretend that
Speaker 1: you know, all is well and none of this really matters,
Speaker 1: and just go on with my day to day life.
Speaker 1: Except I feel like I'm living on a countdown clock
Speaker 1: that every day we just lose more and more time,
Speaker 1: and we're going to be thrust soon into our dystopian present,
Speaker 1: and then we'll be able to absolutely pinpoint and pin
Speaker 1: the tail on the Democrat that fucked us. The last
Speaker 1: thing that I will say is that, you know what
Speaker 1: else gets me is this saying that I want to die,
Speaker 1: This saying that, oh, but history will remember them. They
Speaker 1: are actively eracing history as we speak. They have politicized
Speaker 1: our history. They are whitewashing our history, they are criminalizing
Speaker 1: our history. So no history won't remember them, because history
Speaker 1: is about who gets to write the story. And right
Speaker 1: now Republicans are the only one holding the fucking pen.
Speaker 1: Coming up next is my conversation with our friend, the
Speaker 1: author of Big Dirty Money, Jennifer Tobb is back with
Speaker 1: us to talk about the Pandora Papers, financial crimes, and
Speaker 1: whether or not white collar criminals will ever be held accountable. Folks,
Speaker 1: I am so happy to welcome back to the show
Speaker 1: my friend and author of the book Big Dirty Money,
Speaker 1: The shocking injustice and unseen cost of white collar Crime,
Speaker 1: Jennifer tub Jen. Let's just say that billionaires have been
Speaker 1: in the press for their wrongdoing like non stop over
Speaker 1: the past several weeks. Every headline from you know billionaires
Speaker 1: headed into add a space with all of you know,
Speaker 1: the tax dollars that the tax wealth that's supposed to
Speaker 1: trickle down to the rest of us, to the Pandora Papers,
Speaker 1: which showed how folks within exorbitant wealth are able to
Speaker 1: shelter their money, to the fact that you know, we
Speaker 1: haven't seen not one Trump accolyte in a jumpsuit as
Speaker 1: of now, and we are ten months past a coup
Speaker 1: and attempted coup to overthrow our government. I don't even
Speaker 1: know where to begin, but I want to start with
Speaker 1: your thoughts around the Pandora Papers and what it illuminates
Speaker 1: to the rest of us about capitalism, about what wealthy
Speaker 1: people are privy to and protected by, and what the
Speaker 1: wealth the rest of us just have to suffer through.
Speaker 1: So I'm so glad you're talking about this because the
Speaker 1: Pandora Papers, which is which were which is a project
Speaker 1: of released by the same group that a year ago
Speaker 1: had worked on something. So this is a consortium of
Speaker 1: the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and they're working with
Speaker 1: one hundred and forty media organizations worldwide to expose what's
Speaker 1: going on across the globe so that billionaires and business
Speaker 1: and in government what they're doing to shelter, to hide
Speaker 1: their wealth and to grow richer while the rest of us,
Speaker 1: you know, continue to decline. And I what's what's the
Speaker 1: most disturbing about this is how little attention it is writing. Yes, right,
Speaker 1: I mean it's such an ambitious title, you know, the
Speaker 1: Pandora Papers. It kind of reminds us it's kind of
Speaker 1: an echo of last year. And I'm forgetting what the
Speaker 1: release was last year before it had been the Panama
Speaker 1: Papers last year. I'm forgetting what the name of the
Speaker 1: Finnsen release, and now we have the Pandora papers. All
Speaker 1: this is meant to echo the Pentagon papers, right, But
Speaker 1: the Pentagon papers from way back during the Vietnam War
Speaker 1: was all over the news. It really changed the public's
Speaker 1: perception of whether this was a just war to continue.
Speaker 1: But with the Pandora papers, it's kind of like silence.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know people I spoke to who said, oh, surprise, surprise,
Speaker 1: now we know the wealthy hide their assets and don't
Speaker 1: pay taxes, Like it's just we're supposed to just accept it, right,
Speaker 1: it shouldn't. And I think, to me, I'm not actually
Speaker 1: shocked that it's not getting that much attention. What I
Speaker 1: found most shocking about this is how we continue to
Speaker 1: talk about assets being sheltered offshore when it turns out
Speaker 1: South Dakota who knew literally they said that, and they said,
Speaker 1: offshore just now means not of the country of your origin. Right,
Speaker 1: is that you can place your money in these places.
Speaker 1: And the term came to be because it used to
Speaker 1: be places like the islands like the Caymans that had
Speaker 1: weaker kind of financial laws in place, and so you
Speaker 1: can harbor your money there. But we learned through this
Speaker 1: discovery through this investigation that we're talking about places like Delaware,
Speaker 1: We're talking about South Dakota, we're talking about Nevada. Right,
Speaker 1: So this idea of offshore really isn't that. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's shocking. You know. I've been to South Dakota and
Speaker 1: it's you know, I grew up in the Midwest. I
Speaker 1: like the plane state. South Dakota is a charming place.
Speaker 1: I spent a summer working on in Indian reservation in
Speaker 1: South Dakota. I went to the Corn Palace, Like I
Speaker 1: am the most shocked and surprise. And I know it's
Speaker 1: been written about before, but it really hit me over
Speaker 1: the head. How there is six three hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: billion dollars in these kinds of trusts? Are you hear me?
Speaker 1: Three hundred and sixty billion with a B in South
Speaker 1: Dakota and this is international clients from fifty four countries. Wow? Again,
Speaker 1: tax Haven's I think of sun I think of islands.
Speaker 1: I do not think of a landlocked state Aratha that
Speaker 1: can be twenty below with windshow. But I mean the
Speaker 1: point here is, you know it's called the Door of Papers,
Speaker 1: and you know the story of Pandora's Box. You know,
Speaker 1: it's supposed to open it because all this stuff comes
Speaker 1: out and then now the world is it's kind of
Speaker 1: like a Garden of Eden story, and now there's all
Speaker 1: kinds of disaster. But obviously, you know, I don't think
Speaker 1: that that's what these papers are going to do, obviously,
Speaker 1: and I don't even think the I think the real,
Speaker 1: the real Pandora's box here is the fact that we
Speaker 1: cannot now contain what we have done as a nation
Speaker 1: and as a globe in terms of multi billionaires getting
Speaker 1: so much wealthier than the rest of us and having
Speaker 1: all the power to shape the laws across the globe
Speaker 1: so they don't really have to pay taxes on their wealth,
Speaker 1: and that they can also engage in illegal behavior, you know,
Speaker 1: And it's how is it? Can we can we talk
Speaker 1: about this for a moment though, because you know, wealth
Speaker 1: has changed over just my lifetime, right, Like what we
Speaker 1: used to consider as rich, now we have a whole
Speaker 1: other grouping of uber rich, right, And how is it
Speaker 1: that people during this time when millions of Americans lost
Speaker 1: their job due to the pandemic, when we saw economies
Speaker 1: grind to a halt, that billionaires got richer and millionaires
Speaker 1: turned into billionaires during this time. How does that happen?
Speaker 1: And we don't and we don't look at the overarching
Speaker 1: picture and say, we have failed infrastructure in this country,
Speaker 1: not because of you and I who are paying our taxes, right,
Speaker 1: and the government wants to tell us, well, that's not
Speaker 1: enough money. But then you have people that are moving
Speaker 1: up the economic ladder from millionaires to billionaires with such ease.
Speaker 1: You know, you know, I there's an partial answer to
Speaker 1: the question. Is the same thing that we've talked about
Speaker 1: that you know, the gains on the gains you can
Speaker 1: make on capital, on investment, wealth will always exceed income growth, right,
Speaker 1: And this is from the book you know, Capitalism in
Speaker 1: the twenty first century. But we but we we know this.
Speaker 1: You know. The numbers though still shock me. So the
Speaker 1: billionaires in the US alone, these numbers are unbelievable. During
Speaker 1: the pandemic, their wealth increased by one point eight trillion dollars,
Speaker 1: you know, and globally, globally billionaires gained five point five trillion.
Speaker 1: And if you just I mean, if you just look
Speaker 1: at some of the numbers, I don't know if I
Speaker 1: have this number right, but I remember, if you look
Speaker 1: at just Jeff Bezos alone. I think he gained if
Speaker 1: I remember correctly, and I'm just going to check it
Speaker 1: right now, I think he gained gained seventy Yes, I'm right,
Speaker 1: seventy billion dollars during the pandemic. That's just beso salon.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just disgusted, right Like, And why do
Speaker 1: you think that we don't have collective outrage? Is it
Speaker 1: because we as Americans regard wealth in such high esteem
Speaker 1: and that we are so you know, dazzled by celebrity
Speaker 1: culture and wealth culture, that it's okay for us to
Speaker 1: shrug it off because in our minds we're like, well,
Speaker 1: we would do the same thing if we were them,
Speaker 1: and so we're not making the connection as to how
Speaker 1: it is hurting us, right, I guess there's so there's
Speaker 1: two things, three things I would say. One, there's, um,
Speaker 1: I think the notion that even even if under existing
Speaker 1: law that wealth is gained, you know, legitimately, I think
Speaker 1: I have you know, many of us have a problem,
Speaker 1: um you know, going back to the Brandisi an idea
Speaker 1: that you can either have a democracy, you know, or
Speaker 1: you can have you know, a super wealthy class, but
Speaker 1: you can't have both, right, I think also though some
Speaker 1: of that wealth is gained not lawfully. I'm not speaking
Speaker 1: to bezos, I'm speaking generally either some of it's gained
Speaker 1: by you know, union busting or things other ways, or
Speaker 1: actual actually illicit activity, right. So I think people have
Speaker 1: trouble with that as well. But I think the last
Speaker 1: piece that's a lot more complicated is the notion that
Speaker 1: there is a lot of mistrust in what if you're
Speaker 1: talking about taxing is a form of you know, a
Speaker 1: wealth tax or what have you, which makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense, you know, Elizabeth Warrens, you know, just two
Speaker 1: cents to have a certain amount, right, that makes a
Speaker 1: lot of sense, except for people wonder, well, what is
Speaker 1: the government going to do with that those tax dollars? Right?
Speaker 1: It's a distributional access at distributional factors. Once the federal
Speaker 1: government has that money, you know, if are they going
Speaker 1: to distribute it to the states? Are they? You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of the things that people, I think
Speaker 1: worry about, and the more people lose confidence in the government,
Speaker 1: I think that's why they'll say they think things like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, Elon Musk, another one of the billionaires, maybe
Speaker 1: he's got a lot of issues you know that we
Speaker 1: see all over the place. But at least the Rocketsy,
Speaker 1: you know, puts up in the air come down, or
Speaker 1: there's there's a way that I think, and I think
Speaker 1: a lot of them mistrust. I think you know, and
Speaker 1: I think it's a lot of them mistrust is wrong, right.
Speaker 1: I think we should trust, we can, we should be
Speaker 1: able to trust the government officials we elect. But at
Speaker 1: the same time that you and I are saying, oh
Speaker 1: my goodness, the whole system, there's voter suppression, there's money
Speaker 1: and politics. We're trying to fix it to that the
Speaker 1: people who are elected actually represent us, even while we
Speaker 1: know a lot of them aren't looking at our interests. Right,
Speaker 1: So we're kind of talking out of both sides of
Speaker 1: our mouth. On the one hand, we want more taxes
Speaker 1: to make things more cool. On the other hand, we don't.
Speaker 1: You and I don't fully trust the people who are
Speaker 1: elected in office. I know that, and you know that.
Speaker 1: But that that is such. That is such a valid
Speaker 1: point because if I'm relying on the same people who
Speaker 1: created tax policy to only benefit a certain class and
Speaker 1: then punish another, then I'm asking those same people and
Speaker 1: assuming that if I give you more money, you're now
Speaker 1: going to do right by it. In my response to
Speaker 1: that would be, on the other hand, we have, you know,
Speaker 1: the government needs to employ even more people. Right our
Speaker 1: post office is slow. The government can also distribute funds
Speaker 1: to the states so they can pay for higher education
Speaker 1: and there's less student that. There's a lot that just
Speaker 1: having the money. Infrastructure. Our bridges are crumbling, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: There's a lot hey, oh sorry, you know, um trying
Speaker 1: to develop industry, so we don't, you know, kill the planet.
Speaker 1: I think even if you and I both agree that
Speaker 1: we don't fully trust the folks who may you know,
Speaker 1: funnel the money to the good stuff, we think starving
Speaker 1: the federal government starting the states is going to be
Speaker 1: far worse. Right so so, but I think it takes
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you're not gonna have this honest conversation
Speaker 1: because I think some of you just have to think
Speaker 1: logically about what is the alternative. And I don't like
Speaker 1: the status quo right now, and I really think we
Speaker 1: need a wealth tax, and we of course need to
Speaker 1: close a lot of the loopholes that are in the
Speaker 1: tax system, and a lot of where we need to look,
Speaker 1: is this really important work that these journalists across the
Speaker 1: country are doing to shine a light on all of this.
Speaker 1: But you're in your mind, do you believe that we
Speaker 1: are still living inside of a democracy? Because this is
Speaker 1: something that I have been honestly grappling with and writing
Speaker 1: about and talking about, you know, since before Trump came
Speaker 1: into office, because even the idea of a person like
Speaker 1: him being able to ascend shows me that our democracy
Speaker 1: is broken. And you know, oftentimes when I say things
Speaker 1: on this show, the criminal justice system is broken, I've
Speaker 1: decided to shift that and I'm like, no, it's not broken.
Speaker 1: It's actually working exactly how it was meant to work, right.
Speaker 1: It's punishing those that they have believed don't deserve second chances,
Speaker 1: don't deserve lesser sentencing, and are not rehabable whatever. And
Speaker 1: I wonder, like I have you know, I had one
Speaker 1: of our one of our other friends watch a hot
Speaker 1: on this show, you know, last week, and I was
Speaker 1: just like, our is our democracy? Do you still think
Speaker 1: it's it's functioning? And he's like, yeah, I don't think so.
Speaker 1: So you know, I'm going to do this like thing,
Speaker 1: which is like, uh, did it you know, were there
Speaker 1: times when it functioned better than other times. And you know,
Speaker 1: to me, democracy has always been aspirational. I think things
Speaker 1: are really in trouble right now. Let me just yea, yeah, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: But we can you know, we can talk about democracy,
Speaker 1: you know, and I don't need to tell you you know,
Speaker 1: when this nation was founded, that was aspirational only for
Speaker 1: some group of people, right, okay? And so have we
Speaker 1: ever had you know, you know, we can talk about
Speaker 1: you know, you know, what did the fourteenth Amendment mean?
Speaker 1: Didn't mean anything until the Voting Rights Act happened? What about?
Speaker 1: You know, was there a golden age? I'm trying to
Speaker 1: figure out, you know, was there a moment when we thought,
Speaker 1: you know, was it like you know, when Barack Obama
Speaker 1: was elected? We didn't think everything was fixed then, right,
Speaker 1: you know? In other words, I don't I'm trying to
Speaker 1: find this moment where things were perfect and they weren't.
Speaker 1: But the problem now is things are broken and there's
Speaker 1: an aggressive attempt to roll back voting rights, civil rights
Speaker 1: all you know that is happening, abortion rights. We're watching this.
Speaker 1: There's so much money in politics. The Republican Party is
Speaker 1: willing to stand behind an insurrectionist who's still claiming he
Speaker 1: won the election. I mean, a lot is really broken.
Speaker 1: I think this is a really dangerous time. Right. This
Speaker 1: reminds me of like what you hear about before the
Speaker 1: Civil War. I mean, this is really a dangerous time.
Speaker 1: But to be you know, democracy can't Democracy itself can
Speaker 1: never be broken because it's an ideal. And the question
Speaker 1: is can be sit down and talk about the ideal
Speaker 1: and talk about how far we are ideal? Right? There's
Speaker 1: all you know. And for also a point of view,
Speaker 1: for you or me, it really feels like democracy is
Speaker 1: broken now. But for somebody who's struggling just to get by,
Speaker 1: it looks just as broken as it always did their
Speaker 1: whole life, you know what I mean? Yeah, I do,
Speaker 1: Because you know, there is the beauty that I've always
Speaker 1: said that lies in the promise of America, is in
Speaker 1: its aspiration. Right, people come here because that we don't
Speaker 1: have a system, or at one time we didn't have
Speaker 1: a system where you were locked into a cast. Right
Speaker 1: that there, the beauty of America is embedded in its possibility.
Speaker 1: But when possibility of economic mobility is eroded, right, and
Speaker 1: we're seeing that, I mean I think I saw a
Speaker 1: report the other day where it's like eleven million people
Speaker 1: have opted out of the workforce because they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: these are slave wages. I don't have any health benefits,
Speaker 1: Like it's my mental health is taxed, right, I'm treated
Speaker 1: like trash, So I'm just going to opt out. I
Speaker 1: talk to you know, a gen Zer recently, and they're like,
Speaker 1: you know, their generation is bucking against capitalism as a whole.
Speaker 1: They're like, it doesn't work, right, Like, it doesn't, it doesn't.
Speaker 1: It doesn't work for us, Like look, how look how
Speaker 1: wide the gap is. And so when I you know,
Speaker 1: and I take all of these things in, it's just like,
Speaker 1: what I think is most eroded right now is possibility,
Speaker 1: is hopefulness, And if that's the cornerstone of a healthy democracy,
Speaker 1: on top of being able to you know, vote, then
Speaker 1: I don't know how you rectify that. I don't know
Speaker 1: how you. I don't know how you then tap into
Speaker 1: our government and our agencies when our politicians are showing
Speaker 1: themselves to be extraordinarily selfish in ways that I don't
Speaker 1: I have never seen, you know, um, because there's so
Speaker 1: many of them and it's so obvious, and so I
Speaker 1: just wonder like, I wonder about your thoughts around the
Speaker 1: possibility of America and what it what it promised. We
Speaker 1: know that the promise doesn't match the reality, but the
Speaker 1: possibility is what keeps people wanting to actually come here.
Speaker 1: You know. This is so I'm so glad you talked
Speaker 1: about possibility. And also you're mentioning like the labor force,
Speaker 1: because I was can get some of that this morning,
Speaker 1: and I think, you know, here's the deep irony, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, if COVID changes everything, right, we're in the
Speaker 1: still limits of this pandemic. But the first work in
Speaker 1: this almost the second year of it, and what people
Speaker 1: did learn is relationships matter, like we need each other.
Speaker 1: I think people were and at some people you know,
Speaker 1: you had to be on the front lines in some way,
Speaker 1: and how did that feel exploitative? And yeah, people who
Speaker 1: are who don't want to go back into low wage
Speaker 1: service jobs. And it's part has to do with the
Speaker 1: fact that the wages, you know, they won't pay for
Speaker 1: childcare even if your kid is at school. Now people
Speaker 1: need to be home with their kids more than ever
Speaker 1: when they've had learning loss, emotional issues. Right, But jobs,
Speaker 1: in addition to not paying enough, they also those kinds
Speaker 1: of jobs. You don't have certainty around what your hours
Speaker 1: are and if you're going to take a job, and
Speaker 1: it's kind of backwards in terms of supplying demand. If
Speaker 1: there's a huge demand for wait staff or for other
Speaker 1: service jobs, if you take a job like that, you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to work all the time, right, You're not
Speaker 1: gonna look, you're not gonna have that much control. You're
Speaker 1: gonna be overworked, underpaid, and stressed out. So people don't
Speaker 1: want to go back into those jobs. Plus those jobs
Speaker 1: the men of the pandemic hid everyone got fired right away,
Speaker 1: so it's actually logical to think you don't want to
Speaker 1: go into them. Also, how many years I mean this
Speaker 1: thing about And it's mostly women parents generally, but mostly
Speaker 1: women who don't want to take jobs because there's no
Speaker 1: real childcare. And this is like a perfect match. If
Speaker 1: the government funded decent childcare, that would create jobs for
Speaker 1: some people, right, And you know, it just it just
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense that we can't figure these these things
Speaker 1: out together. And I thought, you know, you're younger than me.
Speaker 1: I'm now in my fifties, and when I was, you know,
Speaker 1: a teenager, I thought by the time I was a
Speaker 1: work adult, there would be childcare options. I thought at
Speaker 1: my own workplace, I believed that I would work in
Speaker 1: a business and my kid would be down the hall, right.
Speaker 1: I actually had to change my career around at some
Speaker 1: point because I realized I needed to figure out what
Speaker 1: kind of job I could have so I could be
Speaker 1: physically around my kids. And I will tell you, because
Speaker 1: I became an academic, that means I'm only in a
Speaker 1: few days a week. I can work from home. I
Speaker 1: work all the time. I mean, here it is, we're
Speaker 1: talking right now. You know it's after hours for us.
Speaker 1: But never happened. I'll tell you, I could never go
Speaker 1: back to a job where I have to go into
Speaker 1: a place every single day from nine to eight at
Speaker 1: night or whatever. I don't have to do that, and
Speaker 1: I'm actually more productive than I've ever been in my life.
Speaker 1: So I'm imagining all those people who a lot of
Speaker 1: people left the physical workforce or they saw others who did,
Speaker 1: and I thought, you know, I can keep my house clean,
Speaker 1: I can make sure there's dinner on the table, I
Speaker 1: can have a good relationship with my kids. And now
Speaker 1: you want me go to back to something different. Why
Speaker 1: should people do that? Here's the part. Yeah he's here.
Speaker 1: So here's the possibility instead of everyone you know saying
Speaker 1: this is terrible. Now, no, you know, if we can't
Speaker 1: staff the neveryone's buying stuff, and if we don't staff
Speaker 1: the shipping yards and no one will get their stuff
Speaker 1: on time? Like so what like what if we slow
Speaker 1: that stuff down and built up our relationships? This is
Speaker 1: this is the possibility of work life balance. It could
Speaker 1: be a beautiful thing. And I consider, you know not,
Speaker 1: you know, I want people to be able to be
Speaker 1: in the labor force in the ways they want to,
Speaker 1: because I actually think having work and getting paid and
Speaker 1: feeling valued are all good. But those jobs, you're expendable,
Speaker 1: that's what people learned, and why should they take them
Speaker 1: if they don't pay their rent? You know? So I
Speaker 1: mean to me, I see it as a I see
Speaker 1: this is like a rebellion, and I wish that the
Speaker 1: markets understood that people don't want to go back to
Speaker 1: the way it used to pay. And that's what I
Speaker 1: think is that I want. But I want it to
Speaker 1: be an actualized rebellion. I want it to be a
Speaker 1: revolution of the workers rising up right, you know, from
Speaker 1: service to everywhere you shouldn't have to work in conditions
Speaker 1: that are unsuitable for your mental health, your physical well being,
Speaker 1: your ability to take care of your kids. Like no
Speaker 1: one should work forty hours a week and not be
Speaker 1: able to afford a mortgage or their rent at the
Speaker 1: end of the month. Like that, that is that is outrageous,
Speaker 1: right that you can work that much and still at
Speaker 1: the end need to get another job or figure out
Speaker 1: what kind of you know, three card Monty, you're going
Speaker 1: to play with your utilities, your food, your medicine. You know,
Speaker 1: and what happened? I mean, cardis jump in because I'm
Speaker 1: so excited about the Please going to where my brain
Speaker 1: is going. Okay, we started talking about kind of like
Speaker 1: tax evasion. It's my view that if you are not
Speaker 1: earning whatever the a dollar amount is in your state
Speaker 1: or your area that could pay for a two bedroom apartment, food,
Speaker 1: health insurance, and a certain amount of you know, um,
Speaker 1: disposable income because that supports the local economy, you should
Speaker 1: whatever the hourly wage is, you should have no money
Speaker 1: deducted from your paycheck period. I don't think you know
Speaker 1: later you can get the tax deduction. That's bullshit. That's
Speaker 1: after the fact. People need money in their pockets now,
Speaker 1: I mean, whatever that number is, is it set you
Speaker 1: know right now? That what is it? Like what I
Speaker 1: think if you don't make seventy five thousand dollars a
Speaker 1: year as at certain places as a couple or whatever
Speaker 1: it is, Yeah, yeah, you should not have any So
Speaker 1: seventy five thousand dollars a year and a paycheck would
Speaker 1: be Is that like thirty Is that like thirty four dollars?
Speaker 1: I think that's wrong. It's about a little under forty
Speaker 1: dollars an hour at a certain hourly wage. No taxes, no, no,
Speaker 1: there should be no no money taking your pycheck out
Speaker 1: of your paycheck period. Why are you making people pay
Speaker 1: taxes when they can't pay their own pay for their
Speaker 1: own stuff like this, this would stimulate local economies. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't understand why we do that. Income tax should
Speaker 1: not be for someone who does not earn enough hourly
Speaker 1: wage to you know again, pay their rent, pay for
Speaker 1: their food, pay for their medicine, and pay for things
Speaker 1: in their community and gas, books, clothing. They shouldn't pay
Speaker 1: any taxes. That is it for me today, Folks on
Speaker 1: woke a f as always power to the people and
Speaker 1: to all the people power, get woke, and stay woke
Speaker 1: as fuck.