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Speaker 1: Breakingpoints dot com. Well, just as we got the news
Speaker 1: that Republicans did indeed decide to seat George Santos on committees,
Speaker 1: we are also learning, a courtesy of Patch dot com,
Speaker 1: allegations that he took money that was intended to help
Speaker 1: a disabled veteran whose dog was deadly ill and has
Speaker 1: since passed away. The veteran has told Patch basically that
Speaker 1: what happened was he had a sapphire this puppy who
Speaker 1: was in need, this dog who is in need of
Speaker 1: a three thousand dollars surgery. A vet tech pulled him
Speaker 1: aside and said, Hey, I know this guy who can
Speaker 1: help you. The guide turned out to be by the
Speaker 1: name of one of George Santos's aliases. Santos allegedly took
Speaker 1: the three thousand dollars, closed the account, and never gave
Speaker 1: that money to the disabled veteran in question. The dog,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned earlier, passed away. Ryan. Anytime somebody gets
Speaker 1: caught in a cycle of bad press, some folks will
Speaker 1: try to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.
Speaker 1: I know CNN like interviewed his former college roomy or whatever,
Speaker 1: and this has been sort of blown up into a
Speaker 1: huge media story. I think it's newsworthy for sure. But
Speaker 1: all of these different questions lead us to wondering this
Speaker 1: story seems very very real't There don't seem to be
Speaker 1: holes pokable in this story. We have online evidence of
Speaker 1: the charity. We have the accounts of two different veterans
Speaker 1: on the story. George Santos, you mentioned this before we
Speaker 1: started taping the segment. There seems to be an indication
Speaker 1: that maybe he's just wired differently, that there's a psychopathy
Speaker 1: at play in his right Most people would not be
Speaker 1: able to kind of physically stomach the what was required
Speaker 1: to pull this off, Like you just just if you
Speaker 1: go up to ninety nine percent of the global public
Speaker 1: and say that you'll give them that they can have
Speaker 1: three thousand dollars, But in order to do that, they
Speaker 1: have to scam an unhoused veteran whose dog is dying.
Speaker 1: Very few people are going to take that, and the
Speaker 1: people who want to help him right, and everybody who's
Speaker 1: trying to help, they set the criminal element of it aside,
Speaker 1: set everything else aside. Most people would just say, absolutely not.
Speaker 1: There's just no way I could even live with myself
Speaker 1: if I did something like that, And so it takes
Speaker 1: a particular mindset to be able to just have no
Speaker 1: feeling at all, or to even kind of thrive on
Speaker 1: the feelings of having ripped people off. You mentioned earlier
Speaker 1: that you know there will always be con artists in
Speaker 1: the world, but to conyr way into Congress in the
Speaker 1: way that George Santos did, not just by telling the
Speaker 1: usual lies, but by actually being like a very real
Speaker 1: con artist reminded me of the Netflix series that got
Speaker 1: super popular last year about Anna Sarokan also known as
Speaker 1: Anna Deelvi, who conned her way into the upper echelons
Speaker 1: of New York social life, and that was sort of
Speaker 1: remarkable to people how she was able in this age
Speaker 1: of social media and the Internet to create an image
Speaker 1: of herself that actually convinced people this is somebody who
Speaker 1: belongs in our socialite club. George Santos does that. Basically,
Speaker 1: there's an emergent picture that looks kind of parallel to
Speaker 1: anadelby that he's cobbling money together from these various places,
Speaker 1: by making up these various stories, even using aliases and
Speaker 1: all of that. The guy ended up in Congress, right,
Speaker 1: and maybe that was never his intention in this was
Speaker 1: like one foot in front of the other kind of
Speaker 1: thing where you realize that if you run for Congress
Speaker 1: that you can you know, you can raise money and
Speaker 1: then you can live off of that money. Can't do
Speaker 1: it legally, but if you can, you can fudge you
Speaker 1: actually can pay yourself a small incomes legally, but you
Speaker 1: can't benefit personally. Otherwise, what he was doing is h
Speaker 1: he was rent He was renting basically a place for
Speaker 1: himself to stay in using the using the campaign money
Speaker 1: to pay for that. You can get away with a
Speaker 1: lot because of how dysfunctional the FEC is and because
Speaker 1: the way that nobody's really checking on this stuff unless
Speaker 1: you win, Like if you win, then people are going
Speaker 1: to start to check. So he ran twice and the
Speaker 1: way that he won, though, I think is the is
Speaker 1: the serious question that needs answering. You can, if you know,
Speaker 1: if you can defraud tens of thousands of dollars out
Speaker 1: of people and endlessly running for Congress or setting up
Speaker 1: a scam pack. It's when you get over the half
Speaker 1: million dollar market, you become like a credible candidate. And
Speaker 1: so where did Santos get this half million dollar loan
Speaker 1: that he was able to give his campaign? That that's
Speaker 1: a key question. And are Republicans nervous that that's going
Speaker 1: to expose some type of corruption that makes this more
Speaker 1: than just kind of this kind of this kind of
Speaker 1: like silly thing that you can courting off to the side,
Speaker 1: although there's nothing silly about what he did to this veteran.
Speaker 1: Or do they think that he's such a kind of
Speaker 1: unique figure that they're immune from any fallout of this.
Speaker 1: I would assume that it's mostly the latter. They should, though,
Speaker 1: be concerned, because I think there's increasing evidence they understood
Speaker 1: that his record was checked and dubious at best. Because
Speaker 1: you always do vulnerability studies. You always do that to
Speaker 1: preempt the opposition research and It's interesting the story came
Speaker 1: out in local media because I think one of the
Speaker 1: reasons that you get these blind spots is because local
Speaker 1: media doesn't have the resources that used to catch this
Speaker 1: stuff before people become members of Congress, for instance. But
Speaker 1: this is already, I think, exposing problems in the Republican Party.
Speaker 1: And there's even the new right folks like Pedro Gunzalez
Speaker 1: coming in and saying he's skated. You know, they knew
Speaker 1: this stuff. And maybe this half million dollar benefactor knew
Speaker 1: some of this stuff, and is why Republicans stuck with Santos.
Speaker 1: We don't know, but that's an open question. Maybe there
Speaker 1: is a benefactor who pushed through it. He's saying, listen,
Speaker 1: Republicans do this stuff, and you have members establishment folks
Speaker 1: like Elis Stephonic we're trying to remake the Republican Party,
Speaker 1: who said, listen, this guy checks all of our kind
Speaker 1: of identity politics boxes off of He's an instrument for us,
Speaker 1: He's a weapon for us to neutralize criticism from the Democrats.
Speaker 1: He can be a face of the Republican Party because
Speaker 1: he claims to be all of these different things, and
Speaker 1: that's a good thing. And you know in the new
Speaker 1: right people are like what utter rot in the Republican
Speaker 1: Party that they would excuse a clear history of perhaps
Speaker 1: sociopathy or whatever, so's it pathic behavior because of that,
Speaker 1: and so Republicans should be nervous. I mean, I do
Speaker 1: think this Our corporate press has blown this wide lay
Speaker 1: out of proportion to its actual newsworthiness which exists. But
Speaker 1: it does, I think reflect seriously on the Republican Party
Speaker 1: and problems in our politics. And I think you're right
Speaker 1: that if because Republicans don't have a strong bench of
Speaker 1: those candidates that they want to check the box they
Speaker 1: don't have, you know, they're not drawing, you know, from
Speaker 1: millions and millions of supporters and then the best of
Speaker 1: those coming forward and running. That's why you're going to
Speaker 1: get some some total cranks desperation who are able to
Speaker 1: check the right boxes and move through the Republican primaries,
Speaker 1: and some will end up being complete con artists. Now,
Speaker 1: the best, the best clue we have yet of where
Speaker 1: this money came from is this. So this guy Andrew
Speaker 1: intertur and his wife maxed out to Santos, gave tens
Speaker 1: of thousands of other of money to other committees that
Speaker 1: were linked to him since twenty twenty, according to The
Speaker 1: Washington Post, and the Post notes that his cousin is
Speaker 1: Russian billionaire Victor Wexelberg, who's been sanctioned by the US
Speaker 1: government for his role in the Russian energy industry. This
Speaker 1: would be the kind of Russian interference that actually does happen,
Speaker 1: like Russian oligarchs, ye, funneling money into the into the
Speaker 1: system to try to get to try to get unsanctioned.
Speaker 1: Like that's a that's I'm not saying that that's what
Speaker 1: happened here, but that would not that would not be crazy,
Speaker 1: right if that's what if that's if it turns out
Speaker 1: that this Bexelberg character had something to do with us, well,
Speaker 1: I assume we're going to find out more, and I
Speaker 1: would assume federal investigators will want to know where the
Speaker 1: money came from, kind of as part of a plea
Speaker 1: bargain that they might offer to him. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: think that that half million dollars is the big open
Speaker 1: question here. So we'll continue to follow the story of
Speaker 1: Congressman an A. Delvi as it develops. You might have
Speaker 1: seen the new MLK statue in Boston. Some people have
Speaker 1: noticed a phallic interpretation. Well, but notice that fel interpretation.
Speaker 1: Others have just called it hideously ugly. I remain part
Speaker 1: of that category. I don't think there's any possible redeeming
Speaker 1: explanation for it. And yet somehow CNN's Don Lemon and
Speaker 1: the sculptor himself twisted themselves and to actually blame the
Speaker 1: people who are noticing how terrible the sculpture is and
Speaker 1: what it shows around on them. Here's their defense. Let's
Speaker 1: take a listen. Look at the hands in the picture,
Speaker 1: and then look at that the art piece, designed by
Speaker 1: conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas, only features a couple's arms
Speaker 1: during the embrace and not their heads, which has sparked
Speaker 1: in mixed reaction. There's not the missing heads that the atrocity.
Speaker 1: Although people lamb on the app it's a stump that
Speaker 1: looks like a PINIONI that's the joke. Look at this, YouTubers.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but that looks like a giant penis right there.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry it does. I think the artists did a
Speaker 1: great job. I'm I'm satisfied, but it represents something that
Speaker 1: brings people to get it all right. Not sure where
Speaker 1: we played some of that because it's just obviously tolls.
Speaker 1: But listen, joining us now as conceptual artist behind the statue,
Speaker 1: Hank Willis Thomas, good morning. I tell you I saw
Speaker 1: the small version and the concept beforehanded to dinner, and
Speaker 1: I thought it was fantastic. Lots of people who think
Speaker 1: it's fantastic. Okay, so a couple of rapid fire questions.
Speaker 1: So you're happy with it? Oh over the joke? O. No,
Speaker 1: there are no plans to modify or change it. No,
Speaker 1: what'd you do that? If asked? I mean by who?
Speaker 1: I mean, because this is a piece that was selected
Speaker 1: by the people of Boston, and this is not Hank
Speaker 1: just came and put something. Thousands of people who worked
Speaker 1: on this, thousands of people actually put it together, and
Speaker 1: no one saw this, I would say, perverse perspective, and
Speaker 1: I mean to bring that to the King's legacy and
Speaker 1: is to dictate the making of art in the celebration
Speaker 1: of them was really strange for me. I think it's
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously you see what you onspy said in
Speaker 1: the art, and I think sometimes the most compelling art
Speaker 1: is the controversial art. Wow. Yeah, so apparently it's a
Speaker 1: rorschack test. Hundreds of people worked on it, never saw it,
Speaker 1: So then they're idiots and they should all be fired
Speaker 1: at their job. Do you believe they spent ten million
Speaker 1: dollars on this thing? I mean, yeah, I listen for
Speaker 1: the sculptor. I understand defending your work for like CNN,
Speaker 1: what's wrong? Why are you doing this right? And it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you saw this as a looking like a giant dick,
Speaker 1: because literally everyone from a certain angle was like, that
Speaker 1: looks like a giant dick, that's really on you. That's
Speaker 1: about what's in your head. I know there's a lot
Speaker 1: to say about this that I don't really get. And look,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be like controversial or whatever, but
Speaker 1: you know, the whole thing is supposed to like honor
Speaker 1: the king's marriage and like, you know, the whole like
Speaker 1: love for each other thing. And I'm not going to
Speaker 1: go into all the details, but it's not like that
Speaker 1: exactly what was the best saying? Also, why does that
Speaker 1: really have anything to do with Mlka's legacy? You know,
Speaker 1: the whole point was that his personal life shouldn't be
Speaker 1: should be separate, I guess from his actual achievements during
Speaker 1: the civil rights era. And then finally is like a
Speaker 1: modern art perspective. I know, I'm not using the term modern,
Speaker 1: it's I'm technically what is it postmodern or whatever? It's like,
Speaker 1: just put up a statue of the two of them, Like,
Speaker 1: why is everything so so like interpretive these days? What's
Speaker 1: wrong with a statue of them hugging each other clearly
Speaker 1: with their faces? Yes? How did this get through? Like
Speaker 1: he said, many people were involved. No one was like, guys,
Speaker 1: this is going a little I think I think they
Speaker 1: were afraid of being accused of being Honestly, I really
Speaker 1: think that's what it is. You know, people are going
Speaker 1: to call you a racist if you think that the
Speaker 1: statue looks like shit. People are literal shit, anti confrontational too,
Speaker 1: so they're like if everyone else like, yeah, it's great,
Speaker 1: it's amazing, They're like, yeah, totally, I love it. There
Speaker 1: are a couple of other moments though, that I liked
Speaker 1: in this clip. First of all, Don Lemon at the top.
Speaker 1: You know, they play like a couple of people being
Speaker 1: including Megan Kelly being like it looks like a giant dick,
Speaker 1: and it's like those are trolls. I don't even know
Speaker 1: why we played it, Like the only people who would,
Speaker 1: and it also almost turns it into like this kind
Speaker 1: of Parson thing. Yeah, like you're only right wing trolls
Speaker 1: would say the statue was terrible and it's like no, literally,
Speaker 1: anybody with eyeballs looking at this thing would say that
Speaker 1: it's terrible and it's an embarrassment. That's number one. Number two.
Speaker 1: I like the humble brag, the subtle humble brag from
Speaker 1: Don Lemon at the top there to notice that he's like,
Speaker 1: I got an advanced field. I thought it was phenomenal. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the bigger point, which is that Phenon made a
Speaker 1: big show of rearranging their like morning show, and this
Speaker 1: is supposed to be Chryslick's big imprint on the on
Speaker 1: the network he comes from Morning TV. This show is
Speaker 1: way worse than what they used to have, way worse.
Speaker 1: That's true. I mean it was not great with the
Speaker 1: other two hosts. I'm not saying it was amazing. I
Speaker 1: wasn't doing that well in the ratings, but it was
Speaker 1: way better than whatever that. I got a soft spot
Speaker 1: for a John Berman. He was always always treated you
Speaker 1: wells always very nice. You seem like a nice guy, Yes,
Speaker 1: nice nice guy. I had me on a bunch of
Speaker 1: times during the Sanders campaign and whatever this and apparently
Speaker 1: Kaitlin and Don Lemon apparently like hate each other. It's
Speaker 1: like very clear on her. So it's going well over there. Sorry,
Speaker 1: an absolutely crazy situation happening right now in Arizona. Let's
Speaker 1: gohe and put this up there on the screen. The
Speaker 1: city of Scottsdale has decided to stop selling water to
Speaker 1: an unincorporated enclave of houses that were built nearby. So
Speaker 1: this is roughly five hundred to seven hundred homes with
Speaker 1: about one thousand people who are living there who have
Speaker 1: been totally shut off from the water supply because the
Speaker 1: city says it now has to focus on conserving water
Speaker 1: for its own residents and can sell to this unincorporated area.
Speaker 1: So this area previously had been able to rely on
Speaker 1: Scottsdale and had a link up to their city reservoir.
Speaker 1: And the overall problem is that this area of the
Speaker 1: Snoring Desert has had a drought for nearly twenty years,
Speaker 1: and even though there is major rainfall happening right now
Speaker 1: in California, it's just not enough. It's to fill up
Speaker 1: some of the storage units and others. Many of the
Speaker 1: houses themselves were also built and actually sold to them
Speaker 1: by developers who didn't warn them about this issue. They
Speaker 1: don't have necessarily storage tanks and some of the other
Speaker 1: like if you're living truly off the grid, you know,
Speaker 1: they know what they're doing. You got water tanks, rain collectors,
Speaker 1: all that other stuff. But these people thought, they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not incorporated, but you know whatever, the water doesn't
Speaker 1: just shut off and they're skipping showers, their toilets don't work.
Speaker 1: I mean talking about a total breakdown in their quality
Speaker 1: of life in a matter of like two days. And
Speaker 1: there is no there's no like when is the water
Speaker 1: coming back, There's no guarantee, yeah, happening. So this is
Speaker 1: all emit a major drought. I was just telling you before.
Speaker 1: I love Scottsdale. I think is one of the most
Speaker 1: beautiful parts of the country. Is such a great city.
Speaker 1: And yeah, look, I mean I knew when I was
Speaker 1: there and it was like one hundred and fifteen degrees.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't really know how people live here.
Speaker 1: And now kind of getting a little taste of why.
Speaker 1: There's a quote in here where someone's lag like are
Speaker 1: we just camping now? Now? Yeah, we're doing I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, they bought homes, they knew they were in
Speaker 1: a more rural area. That was what they signed up for.
Speaker 1: They did not sign up for not having running water.
Speaker 1: And the way this went down is what they were
Speaker 1: doing before is they have these big storage reservoirs that
Speaker 1: get filled up basically once a month. They get enough
Speaker 1: water trucked in and filled in these reservoirs to last
Speaker 1: them and their families roughly a month's time, and then
Speaker 1: the truck comes back and fills it up. And the
Speaker 1: truck was coming from Scottsdale, and so Scottsdale said, no,
Speaker 1: we're not doing this anymore. And part of what happened here,
Speaker 1: I mean this is sort of does come down to
Speaker 1: these like sort of skivee developers, it seems to me,
Speaker 1: because Arizona has a law on the books where you're
Speaker 1: not allowed to build a development if you don't have
Speaker 1: an identified water supply that will last at least one
Speaker 1: hundred years. But there's a loophole for developments less than
Speaker 1: six houses. So what these developers would do is they
Speaker 1: would take attractive land divided into five houses and then
Speaker 1: do a whole bunch of these to sort of get
Speaker 1: away with this loophole, and so you know, you can
Speaker 1: see these residents understandably, they're also looking at their home prices, Like,
Speaker 1: even if they wanted to leave, if you just got nuked,
Speaker 1: who is going to buy your house that doesn't have
Speaker 1: a dedicated water supply, So they're totally screwed. And they're
Speaker 1: looking at places like Scottsdale that have beautiful golf courses
Speaker 1: which take massive amounts of waters and swimming pools, and
Speaker 1: you know, and other nearby communities. Apparently there's a nearby
Speaker 1: community that has one of the largest fountains in the
Speaker 1: entire world, and they're like, what the hell, Like, we
Speaker 1: can't even have water to flush our toilets, And I
Speaker 1: think that is a fair point. So anyway, it's a
Speaker 1: bit of a window into just the type of decisions
Speaker 1: and water wars that could really be coming, because a
Speaker 1: lot of the reservoirs that provide water for this entire
Speaker 1: western part of the country have been diminishing and diminishing
Speaker 1: and diminishing, and you're starting to have battles over like
Speaker 1: the Colorado River water is a big one. There are
Speaker 1: people who are trying to fight to basically privatize so
Speaker 1: that it goes to the highest bidder. You have investors
Speaker 1: coming in from Saudi Arabian buying up water rights and
Speaker 1: using it for farming that gets shipped back to there.
Speaker 1: So there. This is one little example of how crucial
Speaker 1: and how devastating these battles ultimately could be as we
Speaker 1: move into the future. Yeah. Absolutely, so everybody just look
Speaker 1: pay attention to these types of things. It could happen.
Speaker 1: I think the fairest point they have having again been
Speaker 1: they're not wrong, like it's a lush green area, not naturally.
Speaker 1: You know, you've got all these golf courses and all
Speaker 1: these resorts and all these things going on. It's like
Speaker 1: you can spare a tank of water for the city.
Speaker 1: I think these people should sue those developers because clearly
Speaker 1: they were scheming or whatever. And you know, probably Arizona
Speaker 1: State government or whoever needs to step in here because
Speaker 1: this is Yes, I do have to say there was
Speaker 1: one line that I thought was interesting and funny and
Speaker 1: how people get like very ideologically driven. One idea was
Speaker 1: all right, well let's form our own little group here
Speaker 1: as a community, and we will pay to have trucks
Speaker 1: go to a further away, not Scott's seale, but another
Speaker 1: further away location that will still sell us water and
Speaker 1: we'll have our own like self funded water provided provider.
Speaker 1: And the quote here says other residents revolted, saying the
Speaker 1: idea would foist an expensive, freedom stealing new arm of
Speaker 1: government on them. So the idea collapsed. So those are
Speaker 1: probably the people who've got the reservoirs and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: screw you, I'm not paying for it. Yeah. Yeah, have
Speaker 1: some sympathetic some property taxes are bullshit. Yeah, but it's
Speaker 1: just like you're so anti government that you're willing to
Speaker 1: literally go without water, rather than it's like they have
Speaker 1: the whole community of a few, you know, probably like
Speaker 1: a few hundred people. It's like it's not a big
Speaker 1: expansive guards literally just you and your neighbors. But yeah,
Speaker 1: their their ideology is too strong. They don't want they
Speaker 1: don't want their freedom stolen from their neighbors who are
Speaker 1: also just trying to get maybe their preppers, and they've
Speaker 1: been living for this for their entire lives. You and I,
Speaker 1: we all know the type. A lot of discussions across
Speaker 1: America about the labor shortage, was it unemployment benefits, was
Speaker 1: it pandemic. Was it just a difference in the way
Speaker 1: that people think, Well, we're getting some actually very interesting
Speaker 1: new data. Let's put it up there on the screen.
Speaker 1: A paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research finds
Speaker 1: that a majority of the post pandemic shortfall in the
Speaker 1: labor supply is people who are working fewer hours, not
Speaker 1: people becoming non workers. Cutting back is especially most common
Speaker 1: amongst high earning men who worked very long hours before
Speaker 1: the pandemic. So let's actually read exactly what they say. Quote.
Speaker 1: Although the pre existing trend of lower labor force participation
Speaker 1: by young men without a college degree accounts for some
Speaker 1: of the decline, the intensive margin accounts for more than
Speaker 1: half of the decline. Between twenty nineteen and twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: The decline in hours amongst workers was larger for men
Speaker 1: than women, and amongst men, the decline was larger for
Speaker 1: those with a bachelor's degree than those with a high
Speaker 1: or then with less education, for prime age workers than
Speaker 1: older workers, and also for those who already worked long
Speaker 1: hours and had high earnings. Workers hours reduction can explain
Speaker 1: why the labor market is even tighter than it was
Speaker 1: expected at the current levels of unemployment. And labor force participation.
Speaker 1: I like this because it dispels a lot of memes.
Speaker 1: One of the big memes in our society, especially more
Speaker 1: like a conservative meme, is unemployment made it so that
Speaker 1: people refuse to work. And you could have credibly claimed
Speaker 1: that until we cut unemployment off more than a year
Speaker 1: ago and we still have a used labor shortage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's like, well, okay, in fact, I remember the
Speaker 1: states that did it first, they actually saw there they yeah,
Speaker 1: it got even worse for that, so they had worse unemployment.
Speaker 1: So it was unemployment or at least unemployment. Maybe EV
Speaker 1: had something to do with it, but wasn't the whole story,
Speaker 1: And predominantly the whole story just is I don't want
Speaker 1: to work a crappy job. I don't want to work
Speaker 1: as much. I want to spend a ton more time
Speaker 1: with my kids. I mean, if there is any one
Speaker 1: solid benefit to pandemic, it might actually be this one.
Speaker 1: My only hope would be that, of course, people who
Speaker 1: are actually working class and not of not bachelor degree holders,
Speaker 1: which is more than half of the population, would get
Speaker 1: the same benefits to work less hours than their white
Speaker 1: collar counterpropus one hundred percent but I do think that
Speaker 1: this reset in the way people view their lives and
Speaker 1: reprioritize their lives. I think it's nothing but positive direct
Speaker 1: I mean people, these are the type of workers. So
Speaker 1: you're talking about relative high earners, college degree holders who
Speaker 1: were forced to work remotely during the pandemic, and then
Speaker 1: many of them were like, you know what, work is
Speaker 1: not everything. I actually like my kids turns on, I
Speaker 1: kind of like my wife. It's kind of nice having
Speaker 1: like other priorities in my life and having other things
Speaker 1: than just define me other than just who I am
Speaker 1: in the workplace ultimately. And then you couple that with
Speaker 1: the data we talked about last week Sager of which
Speaker 1: jobs make people the most like miserable doing them, and
Speaker 1: it's like lawyer and banker, those are the two most
Speaker 1: miserable professions. And in general it was like white collar workers.
Speaker 1: Now again, I want to take all of that with
Speaker 1: a grain of salt, because some of the occupations that
Speaker 1: they said that were the happiest were ones that were,
Speaker 1: you know, difficult and dangerous. And you have a lot
Speaker 1: of blue collar workers whose work is you know, very
Speaker 1: difficult and can be degrading the way that they're treated
Speaker 1: in the workplace and low paid and all of those
Speaker 1: sorts of things. But it still was kind of revealing
Speaker 1: that the things that were making people the happiest, not
Speaker 1: only in terms of their occupations but where they want
Speaker 1: to spend their time had nothing to do with this
Speaker 1: like miserable office existence. So some rebalancing of those scales,
Speaker 1: I do think it's a tremendously tremendously positive thing and
Speaker 1: better values for us to have as a society as
Speaker 1: a whole. Oh yeah, I mean, look, I have multiple
Speaker 1: friends who had to work in high finance, and it
Speaker 1: sucked the soul out of every single one of them.
Speaker 1: I don't have a single one that survived more than
Speaker 1: let's say, like three to four years. It just burns you.
Speaker 1: You get basically burnt to the core, and then they
Speaker 1: all end up going do something else. But again, this
Speaker 1: is a white collar discussion, particularly, so we don't just need, like,
Speaker 1: you know, for all of the talk of white collar
Speaker 1: people cutting back, like we just had a whole episode
Speaker 1: where guys who work on a railroad literally can't get
Speaker 1: one paid sick day. I mean, for me, the big
Speaker 1: hope would be that because this group of people has
Speaker 1: so much cultural power that the fact that they have
Speaker 1: a shift in mindset helps to use a terrible term,
Speaker 1: trickle down to everybody else. That would be like the big,
Speaker 1: grand optimistic vision. But I mean, to be really serious,
Speaker 1: I do think that a resetting of priorities, at a
Speaker 1: resetting of values is just a genuinely, genuinely good thing.
Speaker 1: All of the panic about the labor force participation rate dropping,
Speaker 1: I think is silly. I think this is from like
Speaker 1: boss class and a lot of people who you know,
Speaker 1: really liked it when they had this labor oversupply and
Speaker 1: then you had like too many workers for the jobs
Speaker 1: and you could just treat them as disposable. So any
Speaker 1: rebalancing of the scales in that direction, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: is a positive. Yeah, I agree with you. All right,
Speaker 1: we here at Counterpoints are going on a crusade. That's right,
Speaker 1: and we're going to win this campaign. We're driving this
Speaker 1: all the way home. We want the cameras in the
Speaker 1: House chamber and you know what, the Senate to house,
Speaker 1: the Senate escaping this to continue to give us the
Speaker 1: kind of drama that they gave us that week where
Speaker 1: there were no rules. So actually over at the Intercept,
Speaker 1: we kicked off a petition that says, basically, if we
Speaker 1: put this put this one up here, basically says free
Speaker 1: the cameras. This is directed to Kevin McCarthy. Allow the
Speaker 1: cameras to not just pan as Nuke Gingrich wanted it
Speaker 1: to one speaker behind the podium, but let us see
Speaker 1: what's going on in the whole chamber. And actually one
Speaker 1: thing that people will learn is that there's nobody in
Speaker 1: the House chamber and maybe that'll start frustrating people and
Speaker 1: then actually we might actually get people all together in
Speaker 1: the room like that's that's fun, that's democracy. It feels
Speaker 1: it feels right. We'll put that, We'll put that petition
Speaker 1: down down in the notes underneath here. Who was the
Speaker 1: Tea Party Patriots? Is that? Who Tea Party Patriots put
Speaker 1: up that second element here for us? Yeah, so Tea
Speaker 1: Party Patriots sort of took the side actually of the
Speaker 1: intercept and the lever I believe in others sort of
Speaker 1: left wing groups that signed the petition, but also has
Speaker 1: to go a little further what they consider a little
Speaker 1: bit further. So in addition to adding c Span to
Speaker 1: continue to broadcast, they said they want to also I'm
Speaker 1: trying to read. Maybe I need a new multiicam view
Speaker 1: of the House. Yeah, the multiicam, the viewers can select
Speaker 1: from multiple vantage points. So it's like citizen journalists, so
Speaker 1: people can do their own yeah production right, empowering citizen
Speaker 1: journalists via c SPAN Now I like it so. Interestingly enough,
Speaker 1: I had a conversation with a leadership source yesterday that
Speaker 1: I think floated some some very relevant information. This is
Speaker 1: to counterpoints. The leadership source said there are eight cameras
Speaker 1: in the House Chamber at all times as of right now.
Speaker 1: That is up from six cameras in the one hundred
Speaker 1: and sixteenth Congress, seven cameras in the one hundred and
Speaker 1: seventeenth Congress, so it's now eight in one hundred and eighteenth.
Speaker 1: And they also pointed out there are six cameras with
Speaker 1: they had forty two transit in the one hundred back
Speaker 1: and right. That went up to seventy three transitions in
Speaker 1: the next congress, so it's it's increased. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: this is okay. So this is the first hour of
Speaker 1: rules debate in each of those congress, so this is there. There.
Speaker 1: They took what should have been a representative sample basically
Speaker 1: from the first hour and said basically that in the
Speaker 1: one hundred and eighteenth Congress, not only have the cameras increased,
Speaker 1: but the transitions and the multiple views have increased. Now,
Speaker 1: the interesting thing here, and this is actually I think
Speaker 1: a worthwhile argument, and I think Ryan has a good solution.
Speaker 1: But the worthwhile argument is that c SPAN is not
Speaker 1: is not the House Gallery. It's not the same thing.
Speaker 1: So c SPAN is not nationalized, and so the argument
Speaker 1: that there's a conglomeration of cable right, So there's the
Speaker 1: slippery slope argument that says what differentiates c SPAN from
Speaker 1: MSNBC or Fox News. So if c SPAN gets control
Speaker 1: of the cameras as to patriots said there and the
Speaker 1: and the different viewpoints, then or as the petition says,
Speaker 1: then what would happen when Fox News or MSNBC comes
Speaker 1: to the House Gallery and says, hey, we want control
Speaker 1: of the cameras. Why does c SPAN get this privilege?
Speaker 1: And we don't because a lot of people think of
Speaker 1: c SPAN almost like PBS, right, like it's this or
Speaker 1: even more nationalized and federalized than PBS. But it's not.
Speaker 1: And that distinction is what makes that really really hard
Speaker 1: because if you do it with c SPAN. Why don't
Speaker 1: you do it with others? Now? Is the solution then
Speaker 1: to nationalize c Span? Yeah, I'd have to. I got
Speaker 1: to think this through. On the one hand, yes, nationalized
Speaker 1: c SPAN, make it public and maybe let PBS do
Speaker 1: it something like that, because I understand the resistance to
Speaker 1: wanting to allowing Fox, msn NBC, CNN, because then where
Speaker 1: do you stop, like who else do you let in? Like? Right?
Speaker 1: And and then and then you have the government in
Speaker 1: the position of kind of licensing certain media but not
Speaker 1: licensing others, which they already do. So they already do,
Speaker 1: but you don't. But it's but it's it's dicey. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you're getting into that area, then part of me
Speaker 1: is like, you know what, let let MSNBC, CNN, Fox,
Speaker 1: like if they're but then who do you not let in?
Speaker 1: So okay, so all right, I'd say I would. I
Speaker 1: still I'm still signing the petition and im and I'm saying,
Speaker 1: all right, take a shot if if if the House
Speaker 1: Gallery is going to add more cameras and going to
Speaker 1: continue to allow but they've got to I mean, if
Speaker 1: they do a good job, fine, let's see. Yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I think that's a good point. I mean, yeah, I
Speaker 1: was all, I'm completely in Fabruary. I saw the Tea
Speaker 1: Party Patriots thing and I was like, hell, yeah, let's
Speaker 1: do this. And as I sort of dug into it
Speaker 1: a little bit more and talk to a source, it
Speaker 1: was It's an interesting counter argument because I can see
Speaker 1: like editorial decisions, especially with c SPAN. If you see
Speaker 1: those clips are the ones that as people are tuning
Speaker 1: into cable newsless, they get used in tweets. We use them,
Speaker 1: they get used in instagrams, they get clipped everywhere, Facebook, YouTube, wherever,
Speaker 1: and become really important. And so you are making editorial
Speaker 1: decisions as the person who controls these cameras, and if
Speaker 1: you're just showing you know, Republicans in bad light, Orf,
Speaker 1: you're just showing democrats in bad light, whether it's chaos
Speaker 1: or sleeping, and you're not doing it proportionally to you know,
Speaker 1: both people sleeping in the get like you can have
Speaker 1: a real effect on the discourse by those editorial judgments.
Speaker 1: So I do understand that argument, and I think you know,
Speaker 1: their solution isn't the end of the world saying hey,
Speaker 1: we're increasing cameras, We're increasing different views. So I'm willing
Speaker 1: to see that out. But I also think there's something
Speaker 1: important about figuring out how to because they listen, like
Speaker 1: they do make this decision about who's license to have credentials,
Speaker 1: they do make those decisions. Is there a way to
Speaker 1: do something similar here? And one thing? So one counter
Speaker 1: that that just occurred to me. It could be the
Speaker 1: argument that, well, if you let c SPAN in, then
Speaker 1: you have to let in Fox, MSNBC and CNN doesn't
Speaker 1: hold because Congress can do whatever it wants, Like Congress
Speaker 1: could write into the rules we allow c SPAN and
Speaker 1: not the others, like there's actually there's actually nobody who's
Speaker 1: going to force you to change if you're the lawmakers.
Speaker 1: If you're the rule makers, then then you can do
Speaker 1: whatever you want. You could just say c SPAN. The
Speaker 1: history of this is fun, but then you have a
Speaker 1: hard time when someone comes to you and says, well,
Speaker 1: why why because we say so because public likes se
Speaker 1: SPAN and they don't like you. That's why, get out
Speaker 1: of here. But the history is kind of fun. In
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, you probably know this. The biggest prize
Speaker 1: in Washington was the contract to do all the printing
Speaker 1: for Congress, and whoever won the speakership was able to
Speaker 1: give that prize out to give that contract, and so
Speaker 1: the party that one would then have its partisan paper
Speaker 1: get a massive subsidy from Congress, from the taxpayer. And
Speaker 1: so it would be funny if you said, Okay, if
Speaker 1: Republicans are in power, Fox gets to control the cameras,
Speaker 1: and if Democrats are in control, MSNBC gets the cameras. Sorry, CNN,
Speaker 1: they are a little more partisan than you are. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, they're still relying to all of this, which
Speaker 1: is even if this solution falls short, it's actually still
Speaker 1: better than where it was before. If the number of
Speaker 1: cameras are increasing, the number of views are increasing, and
Speaker 1: this issue has become more high profile. A lot of
Speaker 1: people have been talking about this this week, to the
Speaker 1: point where the petition is going viral and two Patriots
Speaker 1: was weighing in people on both sides. This is important.
Speaker 1: I think this does really matter a lot. We should
Speaker 1: be able to see what's happening. The speakership battle proved
Speaker 1: that we got a lot of insight. It gave reporters
Speaker 1: questions to ask. There was a lot more that we
Speaker 1: understood about that battle. Because we're porters knew what to
Speaker 1: latch onto. They knew to ask about Mike Rogers, they
Speaker 1: knew to ask about some of these schisms that were
Speaker 1: happening in fights that were happening in real time. Because
Speaker 1: of what we could see in c SPAN, the public
Speaker 1: got to see it in a way that I think
Speaker 1: was extremely enlightening and broaden the context that we all
Speaker 1: had for understanding what was transpiring with our government. So
Speaker 1: it is important and the more views and the more
Speaker 1: transparency we get, the better. And anyone who wants to
Speaker 1: help in that way, I think that's great. That's the
Speaker 1: silver lining is that it's at least advancing in some direction.
Speaker 1: There you go, and then people have to actually show
Speaker 1: up and be on the floor. That's right, Yeah, that's hey.
Speaker 1: Maybe this incentivizes them to do that, maybe well to
Speaker 1: actually govern. All right, stick around, we'll have more for
Speaker 1: you soon. Real Clear Investigations is out with a new piece.
Speaker 1: We could put this one up here that they call
Speaker 1: the rise of the of the single woke female or
Speaker 1: the single woke and young democratic female trying to be
Speaker 1: one of these It's one of these pieces that's that
Speaker 1: is kind of putting a finger on a zeitgeisty kind
Speaker 1: of voter block. You know, they make direct reference at
Speaker 1: the top of the story to soccer moms, the way
Speaker 1: that both Democrats and Republicans were battling over this demographic
Speaker 1: that they that existed. But it was also kind of
Speaker 1: creation of political consultant minds. When Sarah Palin came in
Speaker 1: trying to carve into that demographic, she very consciously called
Speaker 1: herself a hockey mom. Wasn't even also, like two thousand
Speaker 1: and four, right, the Ohio in particular, and under the
Speaker 1: soccer mom stereotype, the consultant class was really laser focused
Speaker 1: on what gets the Ohio soccer mom, the Pennsylvania soccer
Speaker 1: mom onto either side, right, and Republicans thought that they
Speaker 1: really had the sauce that was going to like really
Speaker 1: work with the soccer moms at the time. So now
Speaker 1: you have real clear investigations flagging what they're calling SWF
Speaker 1: basically never married women, they don't get to be soccer ma, right,
Speaker 1: and so women in their twenty thirties forties who are
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly Democratic. So what, you know, what what drew you
Speaker 1: to this piece? You know, to your point, I think
Speaker 1: it's what they're trying to do is coin the SWF
Speaker 1: which sounds like if it gives you back to the
Speaker 1: single white female you know s WF imagery. But they say, well,
Speaker 1: married men and women as well as unmarried men broke
Speaker 1: for the GOP. This is last cycle. CNN Exit pools
Speaker 1: found that sixty eight percent of unmarried women voted Democrats.
Speaker 1: And so the logical progression of this argument is that
Speaker 1: if you have such a clear majority of unmarried women
Speaker 1: and an increasing majority of unmarried women supporting Democrats, and
Speaker 1: you also have an increasing majority of women becoming unmarried,
Speaker 1: then this is a huge, huge demographic boost for Democrats.
Speaker 1: They also say their power is growing thanks to the
Speaker 1: demographic wins. The number of never married women has grown
Speaker 1: from about twenty percent nineteen fifty to over thirty percent
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, while of married women has declined from
Speaker 1: almost seventy percent in nineteen fifty to under fifty percent today.
Speaker 1: And so you have the overall percentage, they say, of
Speaker 1: married households with children declining from thirty seven percent in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six to twenty one percent today. That I
Speaker 1: do find interesting that you have these two things happening
Speaker 1: at once, less women getting married and more unmarried women
Speaker 1: supporting Democrats. They get into all the reasons that it
Speaker 1: might be sort of the cultural reasons. They talk about
Speaker 1: education rates, they talk about when you're less likely to
Speaker 1: own a home, perhaps you're more likely to vote for Democrats,
Speaker 1: the fact that you're existing in densely populated urban areas,
Speaker 1: all of these different reasons that women previously may have
Speaker 1: aged into more conservative voting patterns. Typically we just saw
Speaker 1: different rates of voting. So it's I think actually a
Speaker 1: pretty interesting question that sort of swf coinage aside. There's
Speaker 1: something in there for Democrats for sure. Yeah, home ownership
Speaker 1: linked to fan only formation is the force that has,
Speaker 1: you know, historically pulled people to the right in the
Speaker 1: United States of America. Like as people look at it
Speaker 1: at age, as people age they become more conservative. There's
Speaker 1: a you know, they're playing you know, several funny cliches
Speaker 1: about that, but it's it's what happens as you age
Speaker 1: that that ends up shaping your politics and the and
Speaker 1: the significant the significant drivers of that are one, you
Speaker 1: kids and you know, worrying about you know, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: their financial futures right and and their and their safety,
Speaker 1: their security, and related to that is is home ownership right,
Speaker 1: and so then you you become invested in policies that
Speaker 1: are going to preserve the status quo. Uh and are
Speaker 1: and are and are hopefully going to grow your kind
Speaker 1: of investment in in this in the status quo, Whereas
Speaker 1: if you don't have a piece of that, then you're
Speaker 1: then you're much more willing to take risks there. I
Speaker 1: was looking at some polling recently of the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: presidential campaign, and if you were over the age of
Speaker 1: sixty five voting the Democratic primary, the number that there
Speaker 1: were only I think sixteen percent of people who said
Speaker 1: that they were going to vote for the person that
Speaker 1: most closely aligned with their politics. Everyone else was just
Speaker 1: going to vote for whoever could be Trump, Whereas when
Speaker 1: you got to young people under twenty five, a majority
Speaker 1: of them said they're going to just vote for whoever
Speaker 1: it is that is going to make the world a
Speaker 1: better place that believes in the same values, shares the
Speaker 1: same values that they do. And when you're younger, you're
Speaker 1: able to do that because you have less to lose.
Speaker 1: You know, you have less to lose, And that's how
Speaker 1: political scientists have understood this kind of shift that people
Speaker 1: go through it's not that your politics change when you're older,
Speaker 1: it's that your willingness to take risk goes down, and
Speaker 1: so not getting the house in the suburbs and going
Speaker 1: through the process of family formation changes that calculus. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they invoke the Life of Julia, of course predictably,
Speaker 1: but I think interestingly and to interesting effect, which was
Speaker 1: it has a very big place in the sort of
Speaker 1: the pantheon of conservative movement or the great book of
Speaker 1: Things that you know, people on the right latch onto
Speaker 1: from the Obama administration it's it's a Life of Julia
Speaker 1: thing that it's the life of Julia thing where the
Speaker 1: Bomba administration trotted out as a good thing every step
Speaker 1: of this woman, this hypothetical woman, Julia's life where she
Speaker 1: would get help from the government. And on the right,
Speaker 1: I think there are very real arguments that it was
Speaker 1: a celebration of dependency in a way that sort of
Speaker 1: went beyond what the public consensus always was about the
Speaker 1: relationship between a person and their government. But also I
Speaker 1: think probably resonates with a lot of people, especially post recession,
Speaker 1: which is when the Life of Julia was released, and
Speaker 1: the sort of hyper individualism that has always been informed
Speaker 1: by you know, Paul Ryan giving his staff copies of
Speaker 1: an Rand and you know, that sort of old school
Speaker 1: conservative movement mentality has been replaced by you know, Tim
Speaker 1: card Carney writing books like Alienated America about how the
Speaker 1: problem is alienation and not necessarily you know, it is
Speaker 1: actually Obama's the dependency agenda creating hyper individualization. There's a
Speaker 1: groundswell after Youngkin's election in the Conservative movement of saying
Speaker 1: the Republican Party should become the party of parents. Well,
Speaker 1: if there are less parents, your strategy can't just be
Speaker 1: the party of parents. It has to be also the
Speaker 1: party that appeals to Julia. They have to find some
Speaker 1: way to do that. It's not just that Democrats are
Speaker 1: going to become increasingly reliant on that demographic. It's how
Speaker 1: do Republicans become a party that can also appeal to Julia,
Speaker 1: that can also tap into saying. There's this really sad
Speaker 1: New Yorker cover from the Middle of the Pandemic. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you remember. It's a young woman trash
Speaker 1: all over her apartment, takeout containers, a cat pill bottles,
Speaker 1: She's drinking a martini on a zoom call. Yeah, how
Speaker 1: do Republicans tap into that. I don't think they have
Speaker 1: good answers right now. Well, I mean, what they have
Speaker 1: to do is they have to turn Julie into a parent,
Speaker 1: and they are now suffering from the very results of
Speaker 1: the policies that they championed in eight in nineteen nineties.
Speaker 1: If you go in and you destroy people's economic security,
Speaker 1: then you shouldn't be surprised that as a result they're
Speaker 1: delaying having children. Common sense and surveys all say that
Speaker 1: the reason that people are delaying or not having children
Speaker 1: is financial insecurity. They can't afford it. It's too expensive marriage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so it's right, the same thing with marriage. And
Speaker 1: so Reaganomics in that entire neoliberal order produced the very
Speaker 1: procarity that has led now to so many people saying,
Speaker 1: you know what, I don't have anything to lose anymore,
Speaker 1: so screw you. Well, it's interesting because Reaganomics was really
Speaker 1: a reaction to government that I don't think we're administered
Speaker 1: responsibly that created some of these problems as well in
Speaker 1: low income populations. And so that's where I think it's
Speaker 1: difficult to have this conversation because, on the one hand,
Speaker 1: you do need to be sure that these policies are
Speaker 1: not cynically administered to create dependents that creates electoral benefits.
Speaker 1: And then at the same time, you need to make
Speaker 1: sure that if you're going to the other side, you
Speaker 1: damn well better be taking a look at what people
Speaker 1: actually need. I mean, one of the biggest drivers on
Speaker 1: unhappiness and stress in this country is freaking healthcare. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just like Republicans have no answer to that question,
Speaker 1: absolutely none. So they shouldn't be surprised when Julia turns
Speaker 1: to the government and says, I'm out of luck, I'm
Speaker 1: screwed if something happens to me. This is a policy
Speaker 1: I will vote on. They just don't have any answers,
Speaker 1: all right. So then if we can get the Republicans
Speaker 1: supporting kind of left wing kind of pro family ideas
Speaker 1: like creating actual economic security, which then we'll create more parents,
Speaker 1: create more children, and then maybe eventually they'll turn into
Speaker 1: reactionaries a vote for Republicans. I'm fine with that trade off. Fine,
Speaker 1: let's do that. Yeah, make everybody's life better, and if
Speaker 1: they end up voting Republican as a results, but then
Speaker 1: we'll have that fight, then bookmark this video so that
Speaker 1: when that happens Ryan Grimgritz credit for being the car
Speaker 1: rove that's right started your course. Now you guys just
Speaker 1: take all right, Well, we'll have more right after this.
Speaker 1: Hey there, my name is James Lee. Welcome to another
Speaker 1: segment of fifty one forty nine on breaking Points and
Speaker 1: today let's explore the hot button topic permeating the minds
Speaker 1: of CEOs and billionaires at this year's World Economic Forum
Speaker 1: annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. The Wall Street Journal at
Speaker 1: Davos mood is somber as many CEO's question Economic Outlook
Speaker 1: Reuters twenty twenty three, CEO's most gloomy on growth in
Speaker 1: more than a decade Bloomberg News. CEO's economist worry global
Speaker 1: recession looms as wef begins. Davos has gone mainstream, and
Speaker 1: recession has gone mainstream. PwC survey shows seventy three percent
Speaker 1: of chief executives across the world are expecting a global
Speaker 1: economic growth to decline over the next twelve months. That
Speaker 1: is the most pessimistic view CEOs have had since the
Speaker 1: survey started over a decade ago. Mark, We've been expecting
Speaker 1: a slowdown, but an overwhelming number of CEOs say it's
Speaker 1: coming this year. Yeah, and it's Cheryl and I were
Speaker 1: just talking about this. I feel like if there is
Speaker 1: a recession this year, which I think is likely, that
Speaker 1: this is going to go down as one of the
Speaker 1: most telegraphed, most consensus recessions ever because everyone seems to
Speaker 1: be on board. Everyone believes that there's going to be
Speaker 1: a recession sometime this year, one of the most telegraphed
Speaker 1: mo consensus recessions ever, says mister ceo. There does anyone
Speaker 1: else find it very odd the nature of today's discourse
Speaker 1: where CEOs and billionaires are all predicting a recession. Jeff Bezos,
Speaker 1: who has ninety jillion dollars of his personal net worth
Speaker 1: in Amazon stock, told people not to use it the
Speaker 1: probability to say, if we're not in a recession right now,
Speaker 1: we're likely to be in one very soon. If you're
Speaker 1: an individual and you're thinking about buying a large screen TV,
Speaker 1: maybe slow that down now, hear me out. I understand
Speaker 1: what content creators and the media say, things like we're
Speaker 1: going into a recession, the world is ending it buy
Speaker 1: camp foods, et cetera. It gets clicks and it gets used.
Speaker 1: I see it happen with my own videos as well.
Speaker 1: But what I don't understand is that if you're Jeff
Speaker 1: Bezos and you make money from consumer spending, why are
Speaker 1: you going out of your way to say that there's
Speaker 1: going to be a recession and that you need to
Speaker 1: be careful about spending money. And I'm not just cherrypicking here.
Speaker 1: Look at these other examples of some of the most
Speaker 1: rich and powerful people on earth that's in the exact
Speaker 1: same thing, you know, mild recession for I don't know,
Speaker 1: eighteen months or something like that recession, and they're likely
Speaker 1: to put us in subki recession six nine months from now.
Speaker 1: It's an increase in interest rates that eventually will result
Speaker 1: in an economic slowdown. So I'm afraid that the bears
Speaker 1: on this one have a pretty strong argument. Jeff Bezos,
Speaker 1: Elon Musk, Jamie Diamond, Bill Gates. I'm not saying their
Speaker 1: predictions are necessarily wrong, but these aren't exactly the types
Speaker 1: of people who would go against their own financial interests
Speaker 1: and offer up this kind of advice from the goodness
Speaker 1: of their hearts. I don't think they'll let me know
Speaker 1: what you think, but I think there's more going on here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had to take some losses in our subprime department
Speaker 1: last year, but those losses will be contained at only
Speaker 1: five percent. All I have a question, please sir. The
Speaker 1: Q and A is after my statements. But you know
Speaker 1: what you see? How can I help you? How are
Speaker 1: you fine? Thank you? Would you say that it is
Speaker 1: a possibility or a probability that subprime losses stop at
Speaker 1: five percent? Thank you? I would say it is a
Speaker 1: very strong probability, indeed zero zero. There is a zero
Speaker 1: percent chance that your subprime losses will stop at five
Speaker 1: percent zero. Excuse me, I have to take this. You
Speaker 1: must be from Bank of America. Yeah. That is how
Speaker 1: we expect people in positions of power to behave In
Speaker 1: the weeks and months leading up to an economic recession.
Speaker 1: The wealthy, the elite, the establishment mouthpieces will say, no,
Speaker 1: the market is strong and there's nothing to worry about,
Speaker 1: and any opinions and evidence contrary to that are to
Speaker 1: be dismissed as fringe conspiracies. Today, however, mega investment firms
Speaker 1: like Blackrock are publicly shouting from the rooftops telling us
Speaker 1: to quote unquote get ready for a recession unlike any
Speaker 1: other and what worked in the past won't work. Now.
Speaker 1: This is really bizarre to me because, and this is
Speaker 1: a little anecdote, the commencement speaker at my MBA graduation.
Speaker 1: Her name was Sally Kratchak. She was kind of a
Speaker 1: famous former research analyst and banking executive. She told us
Speaker 1: in her speech that there was an unwritten rule within
Speaker 1: Wall Street to never write or publish negative research. Basically,
Speaker 1: if you predicted that the market would go up and
Speaker 1: it didn't, that would be okay, just dust your stuff
Speaker 1: off and we'll get it right the next time. But
Speaker 1: if you predicted that the market would go down and
Speaker 1: it didn't, you'd be crucified and fired. That was just
Speaker 1: how it was apparently. But for some reason, they've now
Speaker 1: done a complete one eighty and throughout all of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, CEOs and billionaires have been pumulgating this recession narrative,
Speaker 1: so much so that over fifty percent of Americans think
Speaker 1: that the economy is only going to get worse in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, according to a recent Wall Street Journal poll.
Speaker 1: So it's either that people in power are for some
Speaker 1: reason more honest, more altruistic now and warning people about
Speaker 1: getting smart with their money, or there's something else going on.
Speaker 1: I think they'll give me something else going on. First off,
Speaker 1: despite however outwardly quote unquote somber, the mood has been
Speaker 1: for CEOs, the fact is that US corporations are still
Speaker 1: lining up to buy back their own shares. The article
Speaker 1: I'm citing is from January ninth, twenty twenty three, Bloomberg News. Quote.
Speaker 1: Despite ninety eight percent or whatever survey you want to
Speaker 1: use of CEOs saying that they're worried about a recession,
Speaker 1: they are still comfortable enough to spend money on stock buybacks.
Speaker 1: So are they really that worried? That's a good question,
Speaker 1: are they because evidence suggests that a recession isn't much
Speaker 1: of a worry if you have enough capital, due to
Speaker 1: the fact that you can not only withstand a recession,
Speaker 1: but you'll come out of it even better off than
Speaker 1: you were previously. The Great Depression, the dot com bubble,
Speaker 1: the finalinancial crisis, their survivors always got bigger. But here
Speaker 1: is the key difference. You remember that clip from earlier,
Speaker 1: the big short The big banks were definitely aware of
Speaker 1: their overlever position and knew they were exposed if the
Speaker 1: bubble were to pop, Probably not to the degree or magnitude,
Speaker 1: but they knew it would be bad for them, which
Speaker 1: is why it was widely reported afterwards that many of
Speaker 1: them had tried to conceal their bad investments and financial
Speaker 1: woes with quote unquote accounting slide of hand, accounting slide
Speaker 1: of hand. Interesting how they put that, But my point
Speaker 1: is this is not the case today. According to a
Speaker 1: report from JP Morgan, all the big banks appear to
Speaker 1: be well capitalized to whether a recession. The nomenclature on
Speaker 1: this graphic looks a little bit technical, but to put
Speaker 1: it simply, even under the worst case scenario, the banks
Speaker 1: would have more than enough cash and reserved to weather
Speaker 1: the storm and comply with regulatory requirements that were put
Speaker 1: in place after the financial crisis. So in some ways,
Speaker 1: I guess it's a good thing that they've learned their
Speaker 1: lesson and won't be on the brink of collapse if
Speaker 1: the economy were to tank. But maybe not so good
Speaker 1: in the sense that they might also be willing to
Speaker 1: tolerate or even bring about a recession for their own
Speaker 1: self serving interests, knowing full well the negative impact it
Speaker 1: would have on everyday working people. For example, think about housing.
Speaker 1: If housing prices were to collapse, who would be best
Speaker 1: primed to take advantage? You think a well capitalized institutional
Speaker 1: investment firm or a full time worker whose job may
Speaker 1: or may not have been impacted by a recession, trying
Speaker 1: to pay their monthly mortgage or saving up to buy
Speaker 1: their first house. This is from Fortune magazine quote. What's
Speaker 1: an interesting dynamic with institutional investors is a lot of
Speaker 1: them have been sitting on the sidelines, waiting for that
Speaker 1: moment to strike. They're thinking, Hey, I want to buy
Speaker 1: these homes from you, the builder, but I want to
Speaker 1: have a discount to do so. These institutional investors don't
Speaker 1: just want markdowns in the ten percent ballpark. They're hoping
Speaker 1: for twenty percent and thirty percent. Well that's sort of convenient,
Speaker 1: isn't it. The hollowing out of America's housing market visa
Speaker 1: via recession by corporate vultures. Alex carp thank you for
Speaker 1: being here. I'm very vi How many times have we
Speaker 1: been doing this? Many? Many times? Yeah, and we've been
Speaker 1: through a bit of a roller coaster in terms of
Speaker 1: the economy, in terms of the world, geopolitics and everything.
Speaker 1: Where what is your sense now and what do you
Speaker 1: think the sensibility is here right now. Yeah, I'm look,
Speaker 1: we built our company and I believe in addressing the
Speaker 1: world as it is. We've built our company around the
Speaker 1: way the world is now. I am pessimistic about the
Speaker 1: near future, very optimistic about what we can do to
Speaker 1: help that. Alex Karp of Palanteer Technologies a scarily powerful firm,
Speaker 1: look them up. But anyway, the point I want to
Speaker 1: make is that I think that clip perfectly encapsulates the
Speaker 1: mindset of Davos and the world economic form and the
Speaker 1: game they play. The CEOs, the billionaires in the business community.
Speaker 1: They love to pontificate about the state of the world,
Speaker 1: the opportunities, the challenges, and how they are the ones
Speaker 1: somehow best equipped to save the world, except of course,
Speaker 1: ignoring the fact that they are responsible for causing most,
Speaker 1: if not all, of the problems in the first place,
Speaker 1: thus perpetuating the cycle where they create problems. Then they
Speaker 1: get together to talk about the problems, which then ultimately
Speaker 1: lead to these backroom deals where they hatch these profit
Speaker 1: generating schemes that masquerade around as solutions. That's a conspiracy
Speaker 1: if there ever was one, because with each of these
Speaker 1: cycles they gain just a little bit more control over
Speaker 1: the masses, and we gradually and inevitably lose our personal sovereignty.
Speaker 1: So is the recession coming? Is it already here? For
Speaker 1: now we can only conjecture. But the undeniable truth is
Speaker 1: that each and every invite a Davos, no doubt, has
Speaker 1: the ability to profit handsomely from economic, social, and geopolitical disorder,
Speaker 1: all while prancing about the Swiss Alps cosplaying as altruistic
Speaker 1: ambassadors of the world. That is all from me this time.
Speaker 1: I am very curious to know what you think. Also,
Speaker 1: if you found today's discussion about Davos to be helpful,
Speaker 1: please take a moment to check out my channel fifty
Speaker 1: one to forty nine with James Lee, where I released
Speaker 1: weekly videos relating to the intersection of business, politics and society.
Speaker 1: The link will be in the description below. Of course,
Speaker 1: subscribe to Breaking Points and thank you so much for
Speaker 1: your time today.