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Speaker 2: So a crazy situation has been unfolding in the NATO
Speaker 2: country of Romania. Let's go ahead and put this up
Speaker 2: on the screen. Obviously hugely relevant for us because of
Speaker 2: their NATO status, but also because of the role of misinformation,
Speaker 2: which was used as justification by Romania's top court to
Speaker 2: annul the first round of the presidential vote. To let
Speaker 2: me just read you a little bit of this, so
Speaker 2: I make sure I have the specifics right here, it
Speaker 2: says top Romanian court on Friday and nulled the first
Speaker 2: round of the country's presidential election days after allegations emerged
Speaker 2: that Russia ran a coordinated online campaign what does that
Speaker 2: sound familiar to to promote the far right outsider who
Speaker 2: won the first round. The Consctitiational Court's unpresdented decision, which
Speaker 2: is final, came after the president declassified intelligence on Wednesday
Speaker 2: that alleged Russia had organized thousands of social media accounts
Speaker 2: to promote Colin georg Escu across platforms such as TikTok
Speaker 2: and telegram. The court, without naming George Escu, said that
Speaker 2: one of the thirteen candidates in the November twenty fourth
Speaker 2: first round had improperly received preferential treatment on social media,
Speaker 2: distorting the outcome of the vote. George Escu denounced the
Speaker 2: verdict as an officialized coup and an attack on democracy,
Speaker 2: as did the second place finisher, reformist Alna Lasconi of
Speaker 2: the center right Save Romania Union Party. So, obviously, Soder
Speaker 2: raised a lot of alarms among Cloch watchers here because
Speaker 2: the contours of the allegations are very similar to the
Speaker 2: Russia Gate allegations back in twenty sixteen of this you know,
Speaker 2: coordinated Russian influence campaign. The current president released these intelligence
Speaker 2: reports that indicated and didn't even come to the conclusion
Speaker 2: that these TikTok accounts and whatever had changed the election result.
Speaker 2: Didn't even directly reach the conclusion, just sort of alleged
Speaker 2: and hinted in that direction that it was Russia that
Speaker 2: had created these accounts and was running them and you know,
Speaker 2: conducting this malign influence campaign and then they use this
Speaker 2: as justification to completely annul the results of this election.
Speaker 2: Also worth noting here, so you know, the politics of
Speaker 2: this guy, George Esco or not my politics. He's a
Speaker 2: far right politician. He was the only candidate that was
Speaker 2: sort of aggressively against Romania support for Ukrainian military aid,
Speaker 2: and you know, was sort of adversarial visa VI NATO
Speaker 2: was more kind of pro rustion aligned in terms of
Speaker 2: his rhetoric. And this is a big deal because Romania
Speaker 2: has been an important military partner in that region and
Speaker 2: there's a huge NATO base that is being planned for
Speaker 2: Romania as well. So this was a problem not just
Speaker 2: for you know, the people who are currently in power
Speaker 2: in Romania, it was also a problem for US and
Speaker 2: our other NATO allies because it's signaled potentially, you know,
Speaker 2: Romania could be going in a different direction and not
Speaker 2: be a reliable NATO ally and you know the seat
Speaker 2: of this giant military base that's being planned.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is just classic NATO diplomacy right where NATO
Speaker 1: itself is more important than the literal will of the
Speaker 1: Romanian people. Also, maybe it's a good reason as to
Speaker 1: why former Soviet republics should not be in NATO, right
Speaker 1: because maybe they have complicated feelings and populations, and if
Speaker 1: you have a restricted number of countries that have more
Speaker 1: of a unified message and goal, then it's a little
Speaker 1: bit easier to defend.
Speaker 2: I feel bad for these countries. Do you do get
Speaker 2: end up being used like our ponds and Russia's ponds
Speaker 2: in the region and brought in this like you know,
Speaker 2: tug of war between Europe and between Russia. I mean
Speaker 2: it's the same dynamic plan that played out in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Exactly, and actually in Romania, in Hungary and all these
Speaker 1: other Slovenia, you know, countries like that. They have long
Speaker 1: histories of both, so making them choose is ridiculous. It
Speaker 1: should be up to their own democratic populations.
Speaker 2: And if they want to be unaligned also.
Speaker 1: Yeah, go for it, exactly. Look, Romania is a proud people,
Speaker 1: proud country with a long history, you know, very interesting place,
Speaker 1: and it's not right that they're basically having this like
Speaker 1: Western style coup, which is effectively what this is, by
Speaker 1: canceling the election where within their own system this man won.
Speaker 1: And again it's funny when you read the press, like
Speaker 1: the Financial Time. Let's put this up there on the screen,
Speaker 1: the absolute vast majority, this thing is just oh, Romania's
Speaker 1: Romania's western partners are worried about a key ally turning
Speaker 1: towards Moscow, as Bucharest is a NATO and an EU
Speaker 1: member that has so far supported Western efforts to back
Speaker 1: Ukraine in its defense against Russian aggression. And here's the thing.
Speaker 1: He did not even Georgie Escu did not deny or
Speaker 1: he denied saying that he wants to take Ukraine or
Speaker 1: Romania out of the US military Alliance and he said, quote,
Speaker 1: he wants to renegotiate the terms of its membership. Okay,
Speaker 1: so what Donald Trump's has said stuff like that too.
Speaker 1: There's absolutely nothing wrong with it, and yet you know,
Speaker 1: he wins what is it twenty two? Sorry. The largest
Speaker 1: share of the vote was won by the center left party,
Speaker 1: followed by the nationalists, so he won.
Speaker 2: The first presidential voting round. This article is about the
Speaker 2: parliamentary elections where the centrist parties, mainstream parties did well enough,
Speaker 2: even though there were huge gains by the nationalists are
Speaker 2: right groups, but they did well enough that it looks
Speaker 2: like they'll be able to form a sort of you know,
Speaker 2: mainstream party governing coalition. So all of the NATO types
Speaker 2: were breathing big sigh of relief about this result. But
Speaker 2: it you know, now the first round of the presidential
Speaker 2: vote has been an old They're probably going to redo
Speaker 2: the vote sometime in the spring and we'll see what
Speaker 2: happens there. But you know, I mean, this would be
Speaker 2: like if in the US in twenty sixteen, after there
Speaker 2: was Russian influence in our campaign, which we all know,
Speaker 2: I mean, we run multi billion dollar campaigns here, like
Speaker 2: the idea that the weird memes that they were putting
Speaker 2: on Facebook was determined as preposterous. But anyway, if that
Speaker 2: had been used to actually overturn the election, or imagine
Speaker 2: imagine this time, because Twitter is you know, run by
Speaker 2: Elon Musk, who put a quarter of a billion dollars
Speaker 2: into Donald Trump's campaign. If that was used to overturn
Speaker 2: the results of this election. And you can see how
Speaker 2: this could be used in both directions, right, because then
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty they could have said, hey, you know,
Speaker 2: the censoring of the Hunt Biden laptop story that renders
Speaker 2: this election illegitimate and it should be overturned. And so
Speaker 2: you can see how, you know, this would be the
Speaker 2: road to how and the road to completely you know,
Speaker 2: just disregarding the will of the people. And you know,
Speaker 2: to my knowledge, in spite of our State Department's rhetoric
Speaker 2: about how much they are committed to democracy blah blah blah,
Speaker 2: I don't think that they've objected to any of these
Speaker 2: doings in Romania.
Speaker 1: Why would they write this is the project, this is
Speaker 1: there what they actually want? Put the next one up
Speaker 1: there on the screen, because it's interesting where they point
Speaker 1: out how the long history with Romania and their own
Speaker 1: struggles and all of that are exactly what this quote
Speaker 1: unquote resurrect's dark memories of So in their bid to
Speaker 1: save democracy, they are recalling their own dictatorial past, which
Speaker 1: they probably want to get away from, exactly by expressing
Speaker 1: it through their democratic process. So if it's a democratic
Speaker 1: will of the people to elect somebody who wants to
Speaker 1: end aid to Ukraine, then so be it. And you know,
Speaker 1: the funny thing is this may seem like fringe issues
Speaker 1: and stuff to us because Ukraine is just one of
Speaker 1: a number of things. But if you Romania is actually
Speaker 1: a big deal, right, guess like, not only you're a NATO,
Speaker 1: this is a country which you're very close to. You've
Speaker 1: got some of your population who can probably recall some
Speaker 1: of the USSR times and others and their own dark
Speaker 1: history as well. And so you're overturning this election basically
Speaker 1: based upon the will of the European Union and of NATO.
Speaker 1: I cannot think of a better example to justify so
Speaker 1: much of the European far right hatred which is now
Speaker 1: basically pan European at this point of exactly these institutions
Speaker 1: which claim to act in the name of democracy and
Speaker 1: are obviously committed to anything.
Speaker 2: But yeah, no, that's absolutely right. And the last thing
Speaker 2: I mentioned this base. I just wanted to give you
Speaker 2: some of the details because I do think this is
Speaker 2: very significant to understanding the geopolitical dynamics here. This is
Speaker 2: from another article that military base in Southeast Romania on
Speaker 2: the Black Sea coast, would become the largest NATO military
Speaker 2: base in all of Europe, will surpass the US military
Speaker 2: base in Remstein. Is that how you say that Germany
Speaker 2: in size? The new base will give Romania an increased
Speaker 2: role in natosecurity architecture, a position of greater strength in
Speaker 2: the Black Sea, which the militarily dominated by Russia. Will
Speaker 2: be able to host ten thousand soldiers in civilians by
Speaker 2: twenty thirty. So that's why we have such an interest
Speaker 2: in what is going on in this election, and also
Speaker 2: because of Romania already being an important ally in terms
Speaker 2: of our position in the Ukrainian War. But I mean,
Speaker 2: obviously the hypocrisy is clear, and it's very troubling. And
Speaker 2: so the first, first controversial decision was the outgoing president
Speaker 2: deciding to release these intelligence reports which fueled all of
Speaker 2: this speculation and concern about Russian meddling in their politics.
Speaker 2: And then following on the heels of that was the
Speaker 2: Top Court in an unappealable decision using those intelligence reports
Speaker 2: as the basis for annulling the presidential election results. So
Speaker 2: there you go, all right, Sager, be much anticipated anti
Speaker 2: online sports gambling monologue. Let's have it.
Speaker 1: I want you to close your eyes and think back
Speaker 1: to the year twenty eighteen. Some ways feels like a
Speaker 1: long way away, but objectively it wasn't. It was six
Speaker 1: short years. And yet in those six short years, one
Speaker 1: of the most sweeping social revolutions in the United States
Speaker 1: has happened beneath our feet, and we are only just
Speaker 1: starting to grapple with it. That is, the mass legalization
Speaker 1: and normalization of online sports gambling. The mass legalization and
Speaker 1: normalization of sports gambling has the potential to rival the
Speaker 1: opioid epidemic in the United States its destruction of the
Speaker 1: American family unit, and yet today almost all lawmakers are
Speaker 1: lockstep in their support of it. The roots of online
Speaker 1: sports gambling boom in the United States trace back to
Speaker 1: a twenty eighteen Supreme Court decision after a petition was
Speaker 1: filed by the State of New Jersey challenging something known
Speaker 1: as the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, or PASPA. PASPA,
Speaker 1: passed in nineteen ninety two, effectively restricted all legal sports
Speaker 1: gambling action to the state of Nevada, and now this
Speaker 1: is stuck in New Jersey's cross. In two thousand and nine,
Speaker 1: especially after the Great Recession, they needed a way to
Speaker 1: bail out Atlantic City casinos, so on their behalf, they
Speaker 1: brought the suit against the law, where it would be
Speaker 1: eventually resolved in their favor in twenty eighteen. Now, in
Speaker 1: the nine years where New Jersey brought the suit against PASPA,
Speaker 1: something important also happened, the absolute explosion of something called
Speaker 1: daily fantasy sports. Daily fantasy sports was effectively a loophole
Speaker 1: allowing people to place wagers on fantasy sports leagues in
Speaker 1: daily payouts, something that many Americans were already doing in
Speaker 1: their spare time. It aligned perfectly with the rise of
Speaker 1: the smartphone. Companies like DraftKings and FanDuel began their entry
Speaker 1: into the market under this guise. So it was at
Speaker 1: this time where the roots of the epidemic were laid.
Speaker 1: Wagers were already being placed in mass by millions of Americans,
Speaker 1: and the normalization of gambling on the phone was planned.
Speaker 1: Perhaps most importantly, though, these companies began to hone their strategies,
Speaker 1: which include insane levels of marketing focused on a one
Speaker 1: specific message, it's a game of skill and you can
Speaker 1: hit it big. Now, in a sense they are correct,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot more subtexts removed, which I will
Speaker 1: return to later. Suffice to say this, they were already tanned, rested,
Speaker 1: and ready for the Supreme Court decision which opened the floodgates.
Speaker 1: On May fourteenth, twenty eighteen, the Supreme Court struck down PASPA.
Speaker 1: Within a month, the state of Delaware began accepting single
Speaker 1: game wagers, which would be seen as tamed today. By
Speaker 1: the end of the month, seven states had legalized sports gambling,
Speaker 1: and by today, as I speak, thirty nine states, including
Speaker 1: the District of Columbia, have now ha it legalized. Now,
Speaker 1: it's important to note when I say legalized, it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that it's a free for all. What it really
Speaker 1: means is that a few mega companies like DraftKings, FanDuel,
Speaker 1: Prize Picks, and others have effectively rolled up the legal
Speaker 1: sports betting market by getting separate states to grant them
Speaker 1: preferential licenses to run action in their state. This is
Speaker 1: important because the quasi monopolistic way that sports gambling runs
Speaker 1: on a state by state basis means that it is
Speaker 1: not a fair marketplace. And two, it means that their
Speaker 1: excesses and sins are multiplied to absolutely stupendous profit and
Speaker 1: fundamentally are altering the way that American sports leagues will
Speaker 1: operate for decades to come. So let's take some time
Speaker 1: to ruminate on gambling itself and the attitudes of the
Speaker 1: United States towards it over the years. It's fair to
Speaker 1: say the US has undergone an extraordinary transition from effectively
Speaker 1: a nation of prudish Christians to much more secular libertarians
Speaker 1: in the span of just a few decades. This is
Speaker 1: evident in current social attitudes, from everything on abortion, gay marriage,
Speaker 1: to marijuana and now sports gambling. Gambling itself was traditionally
Speaker 1: viewed as a sinful, backwards activity that was actually discouraged
Speaker 1: by the state for centuries. Now, the compromise that we
Speaker 1: got to was one that I actually think is quite simpsensible.
Speaker 1: People will always gamble. Let's not make it too easy.
Speaker 1: You can do it, but you have to go to
Speaker 1: a physical casino. There are governing bodies like the Nevada
Speaker 1: Gaming Commission which make sure that these games are run fairly,
Speaker 1: and in general, that attitude was to confine it to
Speaker 1: as small places as possible that are accessible who are committed,
Speaker 1: but who did not want to make it part of
Speaker 1: everyday life. Quite sensible, in my opinion, should be applied
Speaker 1: to all vices. We understand they exist, but it shouldn't
Speaker 1: be too easy to indulge, from cigarettes to alcohol. And
Speaker 1: this has been a attitude in America now for decades.
Speaker 1: But then everything changed and now all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: sports gambling is not just legal, but it's available everywhere,
Speaker 1: at the click of a button on your smartphone that's
Speaker 1: always in your pocket, two hundreds of millions of Americans,
Speaker 1: and the results are in. They're astonishing. Since twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: US customers have placed approximately half a trillion dollars in
Speaker 1: bets at legal sports books and climbing, turning a nation
Speaker 1: that had rare access to sports gambling into the largest
Speaker 1: gambling marketplace on Earth. This has transformed the finances of
Speaker 1: every Americans in a way that has not happened in generations.
Speaker 1: My friend Charles Lehman summed up three separate large scale studies.
Speaker 1: The top line findings are this, for every one dollar
Speaker 1: waged on sports bet, household savings is depleted by two dollars.
Speaker 1: Legalized online gambling has increased the risk of household bankruptcy
Speaker 1: in a state by twenty five to thirty percent and
Speaker 1: worst of all, legalized sports gambling has massively increased the
Speaker 1: rates of domestic violence, specifically against spouses of those who lose. Unsurprisingly,
Speaker 1: all of these effects are felt by the most economically
Speaker 1: precarious households, and the financial effects are concentrated amongst young men.
Speaker 1: Fair to say, it's been a disaster. So let's go
Speaker 1: through the arguments for why, even though all of this
Speaker 1: is really bad, we should overlook it. First is philosophical argument.
Speaker 1: This is what living in a free society looks like.
Speaker 1: That's just because some people can't control themselves, we shouldn't
Speaker 1: ruin the fund for everyone. I understand that argument, I
Speaker 1: agree with it partially, but I would say this the
Speaker 1: US is recognized always that we can respect freedom of
Speaker 1: choice while also recognizing them when something is bad and
Speaker 1: trying to reduce said behavior for the societal benefit of
Speaker 1: all citizens. We should We have arrived at this with
Speaker 1: a sensible attitude. For example, towards cigarettes, we know civiretes
Speaker 1: are bad, so we tax them, we restrict their place
Speaker 1: of sale, don't allow cigarette companies to advertise on television.
Speaker 1: We have developed good social norms around not wanting people
Speaker 1: to smoke. Nonetheless, something like twenty percent of Americans still smoke,
Speaker 1: but it's down from a record of like forty or
Speaker 1: fifty percent decades ago, and new uptake in smoking continues
Speaker 1: to reduce. Now. Compare cigarettes to online gambling. Draftkinks, FanDuel
Speaker 1: bet MGM prize picks are allowed to flood the airwaves
Speaker 1: with a single message. All you have to do is
Speaker 1: use your skill and your genius and you can become
Speaker 1: a winner. I will explain soon how this is a
Speaker 1: complete lie. But second is this and what I want
Speaker 1: people to understand. It is impossible for these companies to
Speaker 1: run a fair operation that does not rely on exploiting
Speaker 1: gambling addicts and to still make a profit. A new
Speaker 1: study by the Southern Methodist University tracks seven hundred thousand
Speaker 1: online sports betters for five years. They found less than
Speaker 1: five percent of users ever with grardy profit. The remainder
Speaker 1: of the users either broke even or lost money covering
Speaker 1: the winnings of those five But worst is this three
Speaker 1: percent of all betters who lost the most accounted for
Speaker 1: fifty percent total revenue of these online sports betting companies.
Speaker 1: In other words, less than five percent of people actually
Speaker 1: realize any profit. The rest were losers, and the big
Speaker 1: losers lost so much they made up fifty percent of
Speaker 1: total revenue. Now couple this with the dirty secret of
Speaker 1: online sports betting. If you are one of the less
Speaker 1: than five percent who win, you're lucky if you're allowed
Speaker 1: to gamble for even a few months on these apps.
Speaker 1: Once you start to win consistently, these gambling companies are
Speaker 1: fully within their rights to limit your bet size to
Speaker 1: amounts to less than ten or even one dollar, meaning
Speaker 1: that if you're any good, they are allowed to restrict
Speaker 1: your action and their potential exposure. So this is an
Speaker 1: outrageously good business, isn't it. You can promise people they
Speaker 1: can get rich. If they actually do, you cut them off.
Speaker 1: Then you employ all company resources towards extracting as much
Speaker 1: as humanly possible from gambling addicts to make up fifty
Speaker 1: percent of your revenue. In other words, if these gambling
Speaker 1: companies were forced to allow fair play and then follow
Speaker 1: their own guidelines around restricting addicts, something they are legally
Speaker 1: required to do, they would go bankrupt and this entire
Speaker 1: farce would fall apart. Take the story of a New
Speaker 1: Jersey man knowing known to us as Mdalo nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, this man never placed a betness life.
Speaker 1: By twenty twenty four, he had lost approximately one million
Speaker 1: dollars despite making an income of one hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars per year. He drained his wife's investments,
Speaker 1: He maxed out their credit cards, He drained his young
Speaker 1: children's savings accounts, and sold the gifts that they were
Speaker 1: given for Cress's Christmas and their baptisms. Now that's really
Speaker 1: easy to say, Yeah, it's his fault, screw him. But
Speaker 1: according to his wife's lawsuit, this user was contacted on
Speaker 1: a daily basis by draft gigs VIP hosts. They facilitated
Speaker 1: his access to gambling products despite knowing it was impossible
Speaker 1: for him to be able to support the amount of
Speaker 1: money that he was placing on wagers with his W
Speaker 1: two income. Their own policies, as dictated by the state,
Speaker 1: require them to have gamblers placing large sums prove their
Speaker 1: ability to furnish funds by providing them a W two
Speaker 1: statement or bank statements. According to his wife quote, they
Speaker 1: knew he would not be able to continue to gamble
Speaker 1: large sums of money if they required verification, and they
Speaker 1: also knew the source of the money was quote illegitimate.
Speaker 1: A modest amount of due diligence required by their own
Speaker 1: policies would have shown he did not have the ability
Speaker 1: to wager literally four times his literal W two salary.
Speaker 1: Throughout this entire time, again on a daily basis, DraftKings
Speaker 1: threw so called free promotions at him, whiskey glasses, VIP
Speaker 1: tickets and more. Now they do not do this out
Speaker 1: of the goodness of their heart. As I said earlier,
Speaker 1: people like this man constitute only three percent of gamblers,
Speaker 1: but make up fifty percent of revenue. In fact, some
Speaker 1: people have caught on a new number of pro sports
Speaker 1: betters are mimicking the behavior of people like Imdalo nineteen ninety.
Speaker 1: They log into their accounts in the middle of the
Speaker 1: night to make it seem like they cannot sleep without
Speaker 1: checking their bets. Why because it flags to the algorithm
Speaker 1: that they are gambling addicts. It means that the company
Speaker 1: is more likely to shower you with so called free
Speaker 1: promotional money and to continue your addiction chain. This is
Speaker 1: fundamentally different than alcohol or cigarette companies. Cigarette companies are
Speaker 1: not allowed to advertise period, let alone literally sponsor major
Speaker 1: sporting events. Furthermore, cigarette companies are not allowed to identify
Speaker 1: their so called super smokers and shower them in free
Speaker 1: and addictive cigarettes to encourage their addiction, same with alcohol
Speaker 1: companies or any other vice. In this case, the statistics
Speaker 1: show us that the profit margins and the very business
Speaker 1: model of these companies rely on so called problem gamblers
Speaker 1: to prop up the revenue of the entire company. And
Speaker 1: now let me teck it take it even a step further,
Speaker 1: because now imagine if cigarette companies had a super addictive
Speaker 1: special cigarette and that cigarette was the one that they
Speaker 1: are marketing the most, pushing and making the most money on.
Speaker 1: That is the case of online sportsbooks who are pushing
Speaker 1: a particular type of bet called a parlay bet. Most
Speaker 1: of you probably know what it is, but it's simple.
Speaker 1: A parlay bet is a contingent bet where several discrete
Speaker 1: events have to happen for you to win. Parlay bets
Speaker 1: unsurprisingly have the biggest payouts and on surprisingly they have
Speaker 1: the biggest loss rate for gamblers. Why because they're unlikely,
Speaker 1: and yet this exact bet, the parlay bet, is the
Speaker 1: one and most pushed, most marketed, and most used by
Speaker 1: online sports betters. The largest online sportsbook in the United States,
Speaker 1: FanDuel has amassed forty six percent market share in the
Speaker 1: United States, specifically by marketing massively profitable single game parlay bets,
Speaker 1: which are gigantically profitable for the company. We don't have
Speaker 1: exact data, we do know this from the state of Illinois.
Speaker 1: Sixty percent of all wagers in the state wagered online
Speaker 1: are parlay bets. We also know that the online sportsbook
Speaker 1: know that they will win with such regularity they build
Speaker 1: it into their profit forecast before for the customers even
Speaker 1: officially lose, and they remain the single most profitable bet
Speaker 1: to the company. So again, bringing it back to a
Speaker 1: cigarette comparison, you target the most addicted and you sell
Speaker 1: them the worst thing for them. The system is built
Speaker 1: on a simple premise band winners milk losers for all
Speaker 1: their worth. All of you who are placing small wagers
Speaker 1: for fun is great, But the thing is it's only
Speaker 1: enabled by crippling addicts. Already, Gambler's Anonymous is reporting massive
Speaker 1: spikes in the number of young betters calling their hotline
Speaker 1: coming to their meetings. Some children as young as fourteen
Speaker 1: have found their ways to bet their parents' phones are
Speaker 1: full atticts. This will only continue, which brings me back
Speaker 1: to the comparison I made at the top. It took
Speaker 1: nearly a decade to reckon with Purdue Pharma and the
Speaker 1: OxyContin crisis. It created an entire generation of previously not
Speaker 1: known heroin addicts, but the signs a few years were
Speaker 1: all there. And now we've unleased in addiction with one
Speaker 1: of these the highest rates of people taking their own
Speaker 1: lives and made it easily accessible to hundreds of millions
Speaker 1: of Americans. If anything, this trend is accelerating. Literally, just
Speaker 1: a few days ago, the state of Missouri legalized sports gambling,
Speaker 1: now the fortieth state to do so. And so when
Speaker 1: people come back to this in a decade and we
Speaker 1: have millions of gambling addicts, high rates of domestic violence, alcoholism,
Speaker 1: and we need to figure out what to do, let
Speaker 1: me offer this modest proposal. The solution is staring us
Speaker 1: all on the face more of what we used to do.
Speaker 1: Paspa was correct about one thing. It is not fair
Speaker 1: that Nevada is the only monopoly on sports gambling. So
Speaker 1: instead adapta model what the UK used to have. Sports
Speaker 1: betting is legal and available in person at parlors which
Speaker 1: are widely accessible. People can access it, but it requires
Speaker 1: physically having to go to a location with cash. This
Speaker 1: introduces the same level of friction that all other vices
Speaker 1: are governed by in the US. Second, betting organizations must
Speaker 1: be subject to fairness rules. If they advertise anyone can win,
Speaker 1: then everyone must be allowed to win they can. It
Speaker 1: cannot be allowed to limit sharp sports betters and must
Speaker 1: have a truly free marketplace. Three, we must have heavy
Speaker 1: oversight on the ongoing fusion between professional sports and gambling companies.
Speaker 1: You can call this nanty state intervention if you want,
Speaker 1: but here's the truth. The NFL, the National Football League itself,
Speaker 1: it only exists because of multiple acts of Congress and
Speaker 1: preferential treatment from the US government. Sports and the NFL
Speaker 1: are important to the American character. Gambling corruption scandals are
Speaker 1: already beginning to question the very integrity of the game itself.
Speaker 1: Leagues have become physically intertwined with multi billion dollar gambling behemits.
Speaker 1: Is a recipe for corruption and disaster. So I will
Speaker 1: end with a warning that I gave many years ago.
Speaker 1: Sometimes private industry can be just as much of a
Speaker 1: threat to your freedom as liberty to your freedom and
Speaker 1: liberty as the government itself. And in this case, I
Speaker 1: think it is quite clear the damage gambling companies have
Speaker 1: wrought and will continue to do to America's families poses
Speaker 1: a direct threat to our country. Clearyde it will only
Speaker 1: get worse. But I hope I could help all of
Speaker 1: you at least think about what I believe is going
Speaker 1: to be a major problem of our time. So what
Speaker 1: do you think, Chrys Would I convince you?
Speaker 2: And if you want to hear my reaction to Cyger's monologue,
Speaker 2: become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com. Luigi Mangioni,
Speaker 2: the alleged killer of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, wanted
Speaker 2: to send a message to the world that much is clear.
Speaker 2: Police found bullet casings with the words deny, defend, and depose.
Speaker 2: His backpack was found in Central Park stuffed with monopoly money.
Speaker 2: When police arrested him at a Pennsylvania McDonald's, he was
Speaker 2: in possession of a manifesto that read, in part quote,
Speaker 2: I do apologize for any strife or trauma, but it
Speaker 2: had to be done. These parasites had it coming even
Speaker 2: louder than this message, though, was the public response to
Speaker 2: the cold blooded, broad daylight murder of a CEO. From
Speaker 2: TikTok to Facebook to the Ben Shapiro Comments Section, Americans
Speaker 2: of all political ideologies and backgrounds came together to express
Speaker 2: their utter incomplete disgusted at a healthcare system that they
Speaker 2: experience as violent, which treats their lives as just as
Speaker 2: disposable as Mangioni treated Brian Thompson's life. They're discussed by
Speaker 2: the way, it's well founded. Here in the US, we
Speaker 2: don't really have a healthcare system. We have a profit
Speaker 2: maximizing price gouging system. Your health is at best incidental.
Speaker 2: Among wealthy nations, we spend more per capita than any
Speaker 2: other nation by a long shot, we should have the
Speaker 2: best healthcare on the planet and the healthiest population. But
Speaker 2: of course the reality is out of these same wealthy nations,
Speaker 2: we also have the lowest life expectancy. The UK is
Speaker 2: the second worst, and their citizens live on average nearly
Speaker 2: half a decade longer than we do. We are having
Speaker 2: entire years of our lives stolen from us now. Sometimes
Speaker 2: the problems with having a system built around profit instead
Speaker 2: of around health can feel kind of abstract. But recent
Speaker 2: New York Times investigation into methadone clinics dug deep into
Speaker 2: the way that these sick inc can play out in
Speaker 2: the real world. These clinics are a sort of microcosm
Speaker 2: of the way that profit motive perverts every corner of
Speaker 2: our healthcare system. So here is that backstory. Kadia Healthcare
Speaker 2: is a large hospital chain started by a former financier
Speaker 2: that has aggressively moved into the addiction recovery space in
Speaker 2: recent years, after purchasing a for profit chain of one
Speaker 2: hundred and sixty five methodone clinics from the private equity
Speaker 2: firm Bane Capital. Between the financia founder and the private
Speaker 2: equity connection, I'm sure you already feel really great about
Speaker 2: the care that these chains provide. Now, at these methodone clinics,
Speaker 2: recovering opioid addicts can receive a daily dose of the
Speaker 2: narcotic methodome to help curb their cravings for more damaging
Speaker 2: opioids like heroin and fentanyl. These clinics are, of course,
Speaker 2: heavily regulated by state and federal authorities, but part of
Speaker 2: the times, a Kadia uses all kinds of lies and
Speaker 2: tricks to skirt the rules and to juice their profits.
Speaker 2: As reported by The Times in their piece Fraud and
Speaker 2: Fakery At the country's largest chain of methodone clinics, Adias
Speaker 2: Clinics aggressively push quantity over quality. The more patients they
Speaker 2: take on and the more cups of methodone they hand out,
Speaker 2: the greater their insurance and federal government reimbursements. Now, I'm
Speaker 2: sure you can imagine the sort of behavior that this drives.
Speaker 2: Staff are overloaded, they're underpaid, They have massive caseloads that
Speaker 2: they cannot possibly handle. They take on patients who are
Speaker 2: not even opioid addicts to be able to fill out
Speaker 2: their quotas. They routinely falsify records in order to meet
Speaker 2: federal and state guidelines which require that the cup of
Speaker 2: methadone come with a certain amount of counseling and therapy.
Speaker 2: One staff member, for example, bragged that if they even
Speaker 2: said hello to a patient, they counted that as one
Speaker 2: of those mandatory therapy sessions. Now, I'll note here an
Speaker 2: Acadian spokesperson denies these allegations, as they operate in compliance
Speaker 2: with all rules and regulations. The Methodone business, though, has
Speaker 2: proven quite profitable for a Kadia, as the federal government
Speaker 2: has gotten more serious about dealing with opioid addiction following
Speaker 2: a drug company fueled addiction crisis, a Kadia has seen
Speaker 2: their methodone clinic profits spike thirty percent, adding about three
Speaker 2: million dollars in revenue to the larger hospital chains bottom
Speaker 2: line each and every year. Their green fueled business practices
Speaker 2: do not end with treating patients like cash cows instead
Speaker 2: of humans. However, according to the Times, they are working
Speaker 2: to get their money grubbing hands on some of the
Speaker 2: settlement money secured by states and counties nationwide from those
Speaker 2: big pharma companies like Purdue pharmaceutical which helped to create
Speaker 2: the opioid crisis in the first place. In other words,
Speaker 2: Acadia is both profiting handsomely off of this epidemic by
Speaker 2: providing substandard treatment and also trying to bilk the very
Speaker 2: money that is meant to go to the victims of
Speaker 2: this epidemic. It is truly sick. This may seem like
Speaker 2: a long shot, but the effort is already bearing fruit,
Speaker 2: according to the Times quote. This year, for example, the
Speaker 2: company successfully lobbied the Kansas legislature to allow for profit
Speaker 2: companies to receive grants from that settlement money. Christopher Hunter,
Speaker 2: Acadian's Acadia's chief executive has told investors that the settlement
Speaker 2: funds will be quote a really nice tailwind for the company.
Speaker 2: G can't imagine why people despise these companies and the
Speaker 2: people that run them. In addition, they have been busy
Speaker 2: working the halls of Congress to avoid what would be
Speaker 2: a deadly threat to their business model, allowing people to
Speaker 2: avoid methodone clinics altogether and receive their dose from the
Speaker 2: pharmacy like other medications. Ironically, Katie has been arguing that
Speaker 2: this bill should be blocked because of how critical it
Speaker 2: is to combine methodone with their quote individualized care and
Speaker 2: quote gold standard suite of services. You know, the very
Speaker 2: services that The New York Times found this company was
Speaker 2: often not actually providing and routinely lying about so. At
Speaker 2: the nation's largest methodone chain, humans are treated like cattle.
Speaker 2: They are denied therapy that could help them with the recovery.
Speaker 2: Staffers are overworked and put under intense sales like pressure
Speaker 2: to deliver numbers. Records are outright falsified and faked in
Speaker 2: what can only be described as mass fraud. And this
Speaker 2: is just one little corner of our profit. First healthcare system.
Speaker 2: It doesn't serve the patients or society. It serves only
Speaker 2: the corporate executives and shareholders who are at the top
Speaker 2: of that chain. Now, if you want to see how
Speaker 2: this plays out in other corners of the healthcare system,
Speaker 2: you could start by taking a look at the separate
Speaker 2: investigation from these same New York Times journalists into Akadia
Speaker 2: psychiatric hospitals. In that expos a, you'll learn how they
Speaker 2: literally trap patients against their will and against the law
Speaker 2: so that they can maximize insurance pants And if that
Speaker 2: isn't dark enough for you, Akadia employees have been accused
Speaker 2: by dozens of patients of assault and neglect. A Utah
Speaker 2: A Kadia hospital was closed after state regulators investigated dozens
Speaker 2: of charges of assault and rape. Tennessee regulators found that
Speaker 2: A Kadia had lied in their medical charts, claiming they
Speaker 2: checked on a patient every fifteen minutes. In reality, that
Speaker 2: patient wasn't found dead for hours had already entered a
Speaker 2: state of rigor mortis. Now, perhaps not all actors in
Speaker 2: our healthcare system are as negligent, abusive, and fraudulent as
Speaker 2: A Kadia is accused of being. However, of abusing patients
Speaker 2: for profit is in fact exactly what you should expect
Speaker 2: from the system that we have set up. Every greedy
Speaker 2: middleman google in the system getting their cut and patients
Speaker 2: getting sick and stuck with the bill. New poll from
Speaker 2: Gallop shows that even before the CEO was slain, Americans
Speaker 2: were absolutely clamoring for a radical departure from the healthcare
Speaker 2: status quo. Gallup finds a new post Obamacare high in
Speaker 2: support for the federal government guaranteeing a right to healthcare coverage.
Speaker 2: Only thirty two percent of the country disagrees. And yet,
Speaker 2: because there is so much money being made, so much
Speaker 2: cash flowing from those profits into the campaign coffers of
Speaker 2: DC politicians, health care reform has been all but abandoned
Speaker 2: as a national issue. We went from Bernie pushing medicare
Speaker 2: for all, to Biden briefly pretending to fight for a
Speaker 2: public option, to Kamala crowing about dropping prices for a
Speaker 2: handful of drugs with savings only going to Medicare recipients.
Speaker 2: That's how far we've fallen, and how quickly. If Democrats
Speaker 2: are actual serious about getting back into power and truly
Speaker 2: delivering for the nation, they will heed the message that
Speaker 2: was sent laden clear this week and fight to cut
Speaker 2: these parasites off once and for all. By making our
Speaker 2: country more humane, they will save lives, including potentially the
Speaker 2: lives of the CEO War two and saber Kind.
Speaker 1: And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,
Speaker 1: become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints dot com. Thank
Speaker 1: you guys so much for watching. We appreciate you. Great
Speaker 1: Counterpoints show for everyone tomorrow and we'll see you the