Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
Speaker 1: and we here at Breaking Points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Speaker 2: But enough with that, let's get to the show.
Speaker 1: Friend of show YouTuber s On had recently put out
Speaker 1: a long video about the epidemic of male loneliness that
Speaker 1: we thought was really interesting, so we invited her on
Speaker 1: Breaking Points to discuss it with us.
Speaker 3: Shoo, welcome, Hi, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, so we pulled a little bit of
Speaker 1: what you had to say on the topic, and we
Speaker 1: love to get your thoughts on the other side. But
Speaker 1: first let's take a listen to a bit of the
Speaker 1: beginning of the video.
Speaker 4: I regret to inform you the men are not okay.
Speaker 4: That's right, folks, the men are not okay. The men
Speaker 4: have no friends, no girlfriend, no college education, no money,
Speaker 4: are breaking their legs and inserting metal rods into their bones.
Speaker 4: To be a few inches taller and listening to Ai
Speaker 4: Batman help them overcome their biography addictions, you deserve real love.
Speaker 4: Turns out the society that was built by and allegedly four.
Speaker 3: Men as indeed let them down.
Speaker 4: Now you might be thinking, oh, look another boo hoo
Speaker 4: poor men video by Shoe one Head.
Speaker 1: Yes, June one inspired this video.
Speaker 5: So I've been talking about subjects like this since about
Speaker 5: like twenty fourteen, and like men issues and stuff like that,
Speaker 5: and I would criticize things like pop feminism.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you remember back in.
Speaker 5: The day, like twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, there was a
Speaker 5: big wave of like anti men, sort of quirky tumbler
Speaker 5: type of feminism back in the day, and so that
Speaker 5: was my whole, Like Brendon Butter, I would just talk
Speaker 5: about issues like that, and I would get like crapped
Speaker 5: on for that and everything, hold men's rights activiness, sort
Speaker 5: of pick me and everything.
Speaker 3: And then rewind.
Speaker 5: Now about nine years later, ten years later, even a
Speaker 5: lot of the left is start, like the online left
Speaker 5: is starting to talk about these subjects, which is great.
Speaker 5: It's really refreshing to see that, but it's kind of
Speaker 5: only in a reaction to the rise of people like
Speaker 5: Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate, and I feel like there's
Speaker 5: there was this void for a long time of people
Speaker 5: not really caring about men and like how they're feeling
Speaker 5: and what they're going through, and how alienation specifically affects them,
Speaker 5: and how society technology things like that, what they're doing
Speaker 5: to men and their issues, and so I kind of
Speaker 5: feel like I needed to be like, hey, like.
Speaker 3: In a nice way.
Speaker 5: Look, guys, I told you so, Like we should have
Speaker 5: been talking about these issues for a really long time.
Speaker 3: But it's nice to see that we're all on the
Speaker 3: same page now. Oh go ahead, Oh.
Speaker 5: Sorry, I just I feel like that it's a good
Speaker 5: thing that we're talking about this now, but it's almost like.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's a little too late. So I feel the
Speaker 3: same way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we've been talking about it here for
Speaker 2: literally for years also over and Rising. One of the
Speaker 2: most poignant elements actually was a lot of the comments
Speaker 2: that were left on the video, some of which we have.
Speaker 2: Let's go and put some of these up there on
Speaker 2: the screen. They say, quote, when you ask yourself, why
Speaker 2: am I not putting an end to my suffering? And
Speaker 2: only argument is they would make my mother sad. It
Speaker 2: doesn't feel good, bros. Let's go to the next one.
Speaker 2: Here it says I love how often they are saying, oh,
Speaker 2: you can't get laid, boohoo when we talk about men
Speaker 2: being lonely, is that all we care about is sex
Speaker 2: when most of us just want somebody to hold us
Speaker 2: at night and to feel seen. We have another one
Speaker 2: that we could put up there.
Speaker 6: Sex is nice.
Speaker 2: Is easy to think it's going to fix everything if
Speaker 2: you just get laid, but really it's not. Men need
Speaker 2: intimacy in more forms than just fucking. Let's go to
Speaker 2: the next one. As a guy, all I want is
Speaker 2: for someone to care about me besides my mom and dad.
Speaker 2: Some of these are just absolutely brutal. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of longer, real stories that were left in some of
Speaker 2: your comments. We've seen similar reactions here to videos we've
Speaker 2: done about the plights of men and all that. And yet,
Speaker 2: as you said, it's only now becoming in vogue to
Speaker 2: talk about it as a reaction, not to even try
Speaker 2: and acknowledge the problem on its face. So I mean,
Speaker 2: what did you make of the reaction? Was it what
Speaker 2: you expected? And what do you think is some of
Speaker 2: the bad ways that people can.
Speaker 3: Talk about it.
Speaker 5: So I was actually so surprised at my comment section.
Speaker 5: It was probably the most depressing comment section I've ever seen.
Speaker 5: All these men talking about how lonely they feel, how
Speaker 5: highly neated they feel, how social media has made it worse,
Speaker 5: things like that, And I thought the video would be
Speaker 5: a very like, you know, taken well video. Everyone would
Speaker 5: be like, oh, that's so true, but there was a
Speaker 5: lot of backlash. I think the best way that we
Speaker 5: can go about talking about this is just in a
Speaker 5: way that kind of just talks about the issue, not
Speaker 5: just like, oh, you know, don't go to Andrew Tate,
Speaker 5: don't go to the right, come to us, we need you,
Speaker 5: you know, like that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: That's not really how you tackle this.
Speaker 5: You talk about the actual things that are affecting them.
Speaker 5: Because if you're like, oh, we only care about men
Speaker 5: because you know, we want you on our.
Speaker 3: Side, that's not a good way to go about it.
Speaker 5: It's kind of transparent, and if you're sort of an
Speaker 5: a political sort of guy just dealing with these subjects,
Speaker 5: you're not really going to listen to.
Speaker 3: Someone like that.
Speaker 5: But if you actually care and talk about the subject,
Speaker 5: I feel like it will be a lot more effective
Speaker 5: of helping men in general, and they would be less
Speaker 5: inclined to go to people like Andrew Tate. So I
Speaker 5: think the best way to talk about subjects like this
Speaker 5: would be like the alienation how it affects men in general,
Speaker 5: the how they're dropping out of college things like that,
Speaker 5: which affects the pay that they get, and to men,
Speaker 5: especially men. I know, like making money is a really
Speaker 5: big deal for everybody, but the way that men, like
Speaker 5: a lot of men find women, how men like get
Speaker 5: a relationship is making more money than a woman. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and today a lot of women have great jobs, which
Speaker 5: is great and careers and everything like that, but sometimes
Speaker 5: they're making more money than most men. And so there's
Speaker 5: this like weird balance where it's like, Okay, the women
Speaker 5: are actually you know, they have their own money and
Speaker 5: they have all this, and so like the men are
Speaker 5: being kind of like left behind, and like.
Speaker 3: It's it's all really comes down.
Speaker 5: It's like most things, it's almost a trickle down from
Speaker 5: like economics, right, wages are really low and although people
Speaker 5: are working more hours, which also if people are working more,
Speaker 5: they don't have time to even hang out with friends
Speaker 5: or go on dates or anything like that. It's all
Speaker 5: really trickling down from economic pus as you Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously as someone on the left, I think
Speaker 1: the left's like economic program would be much more beneficial
Speaker 1: not just to men, but to everyone in the country.
Speaker 1: But I do think there can be a blind spot
Speaker 1: because we do focus so much on the systemic issues,
Speaker 1: which I do think is the most important thing. That
Speaker 1: there is a lack of people who are saying, here
Speaker 1: are things you can do in your own life and
Speaker 1: not have to wait for, like, you know, thirty years
Speaker 1: for Congress to get their act together, or to have
Speaker 1: a president who's going to like institute a living wage
Speaker 1: or whatever. I think there's a real void for that
Speaker 1: kind of a conversation, which, as you said, you know,
Speaker 1: part of the problem is when this emerges, it's oftentimes
Speaker 1: in the context of where worried men are moving to
Speaker 1: the right, and we need them to be our political ally,
Speaker 1: So what can we say to pander to them, to
Speaker 1: convince them that they should be on our team rather
Speaker 1: than a genuine concern for what's actually going on in
Speaker 1: their lives.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Like I said in my video, it's like the
Speaker 5: left has all these great policies, but then absolutely drops
Speaker 5: the ball when it comes to cultural issues. So they
Speaker 5: don't really unders stand like how dating apps, for exact ample,
Speaker 5: are like affecting men more than women, and how like
Speaker 5: all these things they don't really care, they're just.
Speaker 1: More Can you actually talk more about that, because I
Speaker 1: thought that was an interesting piece. What is why would
Speaker 1: you say dating apps affect men more than women?
Speaker 5: So because there's this study that shows that like eighty
Speaker 5: percent of the women go to a very small percent
Speaker 5: of men, So like they're all basically picking the same man, right,
Speaker 5: because like back when you've.
Speaker 2: Had a.
Speaker 5: Back when you had like you lived in like a
Speaker 5: little small town or something, or you had like this community,
Speaker 5: it was like, oh you met men and women met
Speaker 5: each other that way, and a guy didn't have to
Speaker 5: have like what what they say, like what a six pack,
Speaker 5: six figure, six bugotti whatever to get a woman.
Speaker 3: But now that people have, like I guess, more of a.
Speaker 5: Choice, they're not even they're kind of window shopping on men,
Speaker 5: right because men, first of all, don't know how to
Speaker 5: take a.
Speaker 3: Picture to save their life.
Speaker 5: So it's like they're taking these awful pictures of themselves
Speaker 5: and people they're just like judging a book by its
Speaker 5: cover and just swiping on them. Oh they don't have this,
Speaker 5: they don't have that whatever. And so it's a little
Speaker 5: harder for like a good normal guy to find a
Speaker 5: woman when they're all going to the same men, like,
Speaker 5: you know, with the six packs and everything. And there's
Speaker 5: actually studies that have shown that men are actually developing.
Speaker 5: Men on dating apps are more likely to have bulimia
Speaker 5: than women on dating apps.
Speaker 3: There's like, there's all.
Speaker 5: This, there's like almost a it's you always think of
Speaker 5: like eating disorders as things that women have, but because
Speaker 5: of all the pressure of dating apps, men are starting
Speaker 5: to develop things like that. They're also taking more steroids
Speaker 5: than men who aren't on dating apps and things like that.
Speaker 5: It's actually really interesting.
Speaker 2: I want to get to some of the backlas they
Speaker 2: talked about. I always find it fascinating, you know. I
Speaker 2: guess you know, I don't personally ever experienced backlash because
Speaker 2: I'm mostly preaching to the choir on this, but you
Speaker 2: certainly did. We have one example here we can put
Speaker 2: up on the screen, and what it essentially boiled down
Speaker 2: to is that the solution to male loneliness is literally
Speaker 2: just being a better person. I don't know the best
Speaker 2: way to like frame it, but it basically is like, well,
Speaker 2: if you were better then you know, if men stop
Speaker 2: being so shitty effectively as a thesis as then they
Speaker 2: would be better off, probably the best way to say.
Speaker 2: You especially encounter this in elite liberal circles where there
Speaker 2: are a lot of futures female t shirts. What do
Speaker 2: you think your response, I think to the backlash that
Speaker 2: effectively boiled down to that critique is and where does
Speaker 2: it come from?
Speaker 5: I just think it's interesting that like for all these groups,
Speaker 5: for all of their issues, it's always you know, socioeconomic
Speaker 5: factors and things like this, and then when it comes
Speaker 5: to men, it's just, you know, pull yourselves up by
Speaker 5: your bootstraps. I think that's really funny and interesting. But
Speaker 5: that tweet in particular, it's funny because it also implies
Speaker 5: that lonely people are just bad people, and that's not
Speaker 5: that's not the case whatsoever. But the backlash was insane.
Speaker 5: It was worse than I thought it was. A lot
Speaker 5: of people just didn't watch the video and assumed that
Speaker 5: I was blaming women, even though I did not even
Speaker 5: mention it.
Speaker 3: I think I mentioned women like once and.
Speaker 5: It was to say that, you know, they're also lonely,
Speaker 5: but the way that the media it's framing women being
Speaker 5: lonely is very different than how they're framing men being lonely.
Speaker 3: But no, I did not blame women, and yet that's
Speaker 3: what the whole.
Speaker 5: Internet thought that video was about for some reason. It
Speaker 5: was mostly you know, alienation under capitalism and things like
Speaker 5: that technology to go full ted k but a lot
Speaker 5: to do with that, and it was just funny to
Speaker 5: see the complete but just to see the backlash of oh, oh,
Speaker 5: of course it's a woman's job, you know, and it's like, no,
Speaker 5: I never I never said that, never implied that, and.
Speaker 1: Let me know ask because I mean, obviously the nefarious
Speaker 1: characters in the space, like the Andrew Tates, it's not
Speaker 1: just like go men and here's, you know, some tips
Speaker 1: to make yourself desirable, et cetera. I mean there is
Speaker 1: a healthy dose of hating women that goes.
Speaker 3: Along with obviously, yes and why right.
Speaker 1: And so I think that's why there's a sensitivity to it.
Speaker 1: To be like fair to the people who level what
Speaker 1: I think, are you know, ridiculous like critiques of your video,
Speaker 1: which didn't do any.
Speaker 6: Of that.
Speaker 1: Even though in the like is there attention though between
Speaker 1: identifying some of the legitimate issues that men are facing
Speaker 1: and saying like women have it too good or feminism
Speaker 1: has gone too far, et cetera. I'll give you example
Speaker 1: of something that you said earlier, which is I think
Speaker 1: accurate that you know men societally, like they're part of
Speaker 1: being or being a man is being the breadwinner. And
Speaker 1: so when you have partner or a lot of women
Speaker 1: around you are actually earning more than you, that can
Speaker 1: be sort of emasculating. So how do you approach that
Speaker 1: without the answer than being like, these hoes need to
Speaker 1: get back in the kitchen basically, and they need to
Speaker 1: earn less money than us, like God intended, right.
Speaker 3: So that's the whole thing. Like, I don't think I.
Speaker 5: Think the issue is that men aren't fulfilled in their
Speaker 5: jobs at all. And the issue again always comes down
Speaker 5: to these like economic factors. They're working longer for less
Speaker 5: pay and things like that. And I don't think it
Speaker 5: has anything to do with feminism or anything like that.
Speaker 3: It's just that now you.
Speaker 5: Know, women can also work, but men are doing terrible
Speaker 5: in college. I don't know if you've seen the statistics
Speaker 5: but they're dropping out of college, and I think we
Speaker 5: really have to like get to the root of that,
Speaker 5: like why is that happening.
Speaker 3: And things like that. And I don't think.
Speaker 5: I don't think this like gender war is going to
Speaker 5: help whatsoever, just going to make things worse. And that's
Speaker 5: why it's easy for people like and W. Tate and
Speaker 5: all those types of people to point the finger right
Speaker 5: like women are the scapegoat to this problem when it's
Speaker 5: really not.
Speaker 3: And I feel like you need to.
Speaker 5: Really hammer on that, like we're all part of society.
Speaker 5: A lot of these things like alienation and technology affect
Speaker 5: women to it affects all of us.
Speaker 3: It affects all of us differently too, So.
Speaker 5: I think you need to like focus hyper focus on
Speaker 5: like the real big picture and not just scapegoat people who.
Speaker 3: Aren't doing nothing wrong.
Speaker 5: Women aren't doing anything wrong by like making money and
Speaker 5: having a job and like wanting a person who can
Speaker 5: provide for them.
Speaker 3: That's not like a negative thing.
Speaker 5: It's just that society a lot of these things seem
Speaker 5: to be leaving men behind when it should be not
Speaker 5: dragging women behind or you know, pushing women more.
Speaker 3: Like above everybody.
Speaker 5: It should be like pushing everyone who is behind further,
Speaker 5: whether it's I don't know, like disenfranchised minorities or things
Speaker 5: like that, Like everyone should be at the same level,
Speaker 5: and so we're starting to see things like leap some
Speaker 5: people behind, and I feel like we should get to
Speaker 5: the core of that before we start pointing fingers and
Speaker 5: like looking for scapegoats, because it's not healthy at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, one thing that I've noticed, and by
Speaker 1: the way, I realy should go watch the whole video.
Speaker 3: I think it.
Speaker 1: You know, you did a great job with that. I
Speaker 1: always enjoy your content tooo. But you know, one thing
Speaker 1: with the identity focused progressive lens is it provides an
Speaker 1: explanation for why minority groups or historically oppressed groups aren't
Speaker 1: doing well, But it does not provide any analysis for
Speaker 1: why white men, white CIS men in particular would be failing,
Speaker 1: other than to say it must be you, like you
Speaker 1: must suck. That's the only explanation that we have for this,
Speaker 1: because you're not black, you're not a woman, you're not trends,
Speaker 1: and you're not you know, historically disenfranchised, So it must
Speaker 1: be that you just suck. And so I think this
Speaker 1: is sort of where where the rubber meets the road,
Speaker 1: and why there's been a real failure here in terms
Speaker 1: of addressing what are obviously real issues. So thank you
Speaker 1: so much, June. It's always great to see you and
Speaker 1: always enjoy your work.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's our pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 7: Well.
Speaker 2: Health Organization now classifies the low calorie sweetener aspartame as
Speaker 2: a possible cost synogen.
Speaker 8: This morning, the World Health Organization is out with what
Speaker 8: appears to be a troubling headline about the artificial sweetener aspartame.
Speaker 8: Any experts here in the US are highly critical of
Speaker 8: the report the FDA, saying scientific evidence has continued to
Speaker 8: support the FDA's conclusion that aspartame is safe for the
Speaker 8: general population.
Speaker 9: I think the main thing is that aspertame is a
Speaker 9: safe substance can be consumed in quite large amounts, much
Speaker 9: larger than the humans generally consume.
Speaker 10: Well, which is it? Should I be worried? Is the
Speaker 10: news fear mongering? In who should consumers turn to for
Speaker 10: trustworthy nutrition information?
Speaker 11: The spokeswerson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. The
Speaker 11: Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics urges you to start the
Speaker 11: day off rite with a healthy breakfast.
Speaker 3: The spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
Speaker 10: Well, based on my research, when there are conflicting dietary
Speaker 10: guidelines in the news, experts recommend turning to the Academy
Speaker 10: of Nutrition and Dietetics, the world's largest organization of nutrition
Speaker 10: and dietetics practitioners representing over one hundred thousand credentialed dietitians,
Speaker 10: nutrition practitioners, and students. Taking a look at their recent
Speaker 10: press release addressing Aspertain, they said that they quote believe
Speaker 10: scientific research and evidence based practice form the basis for
Speaker 10: healthful eating recommendations.
Speaker 12: And I really do believe that student nutrition is a science.
Speaker 10: And according to science, aspertain is safe until further evidence
Speaker 10: can be generated. But are there recommendations solely based on
Speaker 10: science or are there other core rupting influences.
Speaker 6: Let's dive in.
Speaker 10: Bounded in nineteen seventeen as the American Dietetic Association by
Speaker 10: a group of women led by Lenna F. Cooper and
Speaker 10: the Academy's first president, Luluji Graves, for the purpose of
Speaker 10: helping the government can serve food and improve public health
Speaker 10: during World War One. Over the next one hundred years,
Speaker 10: the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics rose to prominence as
Speaker 10: the standard bearer for advancing the profession of nutrition and
Speaker 10: dietetics through research, education and advocacy.
Speaker 9: That's who is educating our nation's dietitians, who then go
Speaker 9: out and tell all of us how we got it e.
Speaker 10: This is Gary Ruskin, the executive director and co founder
Speaker 10: of US Right to Know, a nonprofit public health research
Speaker 10: group that investigates corporate wrongdoing and government failures that threaten
Speaker 10: our health, environment, and food system. Late last year, after
Speaker 10: an extensive five year investigation and pouring through tens of
Speaker 10: thousands of pages of internal Academy documents that Gary and
Speaker 10: his team obtained through public records requests, US Right to
Speaker 10: Know co authored a bombshell study detailing the Academy's symbiotic
Speaker 10: relationship with multinational food, pharmaceutical, and agribusiness corporations, and that
Speaker 10: the Academy acts as a quote pro industry voice with
Speaker 10: policy positions that sometimes clash with its mission to improve
Speaker 10: health globally. Recently, I spoke to Gary to really understand
Speaker 10: the magnitude of the kinds of conflicts of interest they
Speaker 10: found between the Academy and various big food companies.
Speaker 9: So first thing was that we found millions of dollars
Speaker 9: for a bunch of process food and pharmaceutical and agribusiness
Speaker 9: companies flowing to the Academy.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 10: The study reports that the Academy accepted more than fifteen
Speaker 10: million dollars from corporate and organizational contributors in the years
Speaker 10: twenty eleven and twenty thirteen to twenty seventeen, according to
Speaker 10: its draft IRS forms nine to ninety. Hot contributors include
Speaker 10: the who's who of big food, con Agra, Pepsi, Coo,
Speaker 10: Coca Cola, Hershey's, General Mills, and Kellogg. So I think
Speaker 10: the question we should all be asking is how do
Speaker 10: such financial influence manifest in the Academy's guide lines and recommendations.
Speaker 10: The answer, as Gary found out, is all kinds of
Speaker 10: different ways, one of them being through these nutrition fact sheets.
Speaker 10: Cocoa and chocolate Sweet news. Did you know that Coco
Speaker 10: packs a powerful antioxidant punch sponsored by Hershey Center for
Speaker 10: Health and Nutrition, Eggs a Good Choice for Moms to
Speaker 10: be sponsored by the Egg Nutrition Center. Adult Beverage Consumption
Speaker 10: making Responsible drinking Choices sponsored by the Distilled Spirits Council
Speaker 10: of the United States or on.
Speaker 9: The sponsors, they corruptly buy influence, and it's all in
Speaker 9: black and white, like they admitted.
Speaker 10: Not only that a number of the Academy's boarded directors
Speaker 10: have extremely close relationships with ultra processed food and chemical corporations.
Speaker 10: Pope Worshaw has been a consultant to the Calorie Control Council,
Speaker 10: which promotes artificial sweeteners, and to McNeil Nutritionals, which manufacture
Speaker 10: splenda and sucrolose. Mary Lee Chin currently consults with Aginamoto
Speaker 10: Bayer and previously with Monsanto. Sylvia Rowe is a former
Speaker 10: president and chief executive of the International Food Information Council,
Speaker 10: a food industry funded front group that aids ultra processed
Speaker 10: food and pesticide companies with product defense campaigns. And she's
Speaker 10: also a former vice president for Communications of the Sugar Association.
Speaker 10: This is bad enough in most cases, but oh there's more.
Speaker 9: Maybe the most amazing thing that I just never ever
Speaker 9: would have guessed that we found was that the Academy
Speaker 9: actually invested in ultra processed food companies.
Speaker 10: That's right. Internal investment documents obtained through FOYA show that
Speaker 10: in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen, the Academy held more
Speaker 10: than a million dollars worth of stock in Nesley and PepsiCo.
Speaker 10: You could argue free market, but funny enough. Emails, once
Speaker 10: again obtained through FOYA, revealed that some of the Academy's
Speaker 10: leadership were aware that this presented a potential conflict of interest.
Speaker 10: This email was sent by Donna Martin, a prominent Academy spokesperson. Quote,
Speaker 10: everything looks good to me. The only flag that I
Speaker 10: saw was that PepsiCo is one of our top ten stocks.
Speaker 10: I personally like PepsiCo and do not have any problems
Speaker 10: with that owning it. But I wonder if someone will
Speaker 10: say something about that. Well, Donna, it's not a great look.
Speaker 9: I've been working on conflicts of interest for so long now,
Speaker 9: and to my mind, that is like belongs to the
Speaker 9: conflict of interest Hall of Fame.
Speaker 10: Conflict of interest Hall of Fame is perhaps right, but
Speaker 10: the ultimate goal, I think, the holy grail, you could say,
Speaker 10: is to corrupt the dietitians themselves. Every year, the Academy
Speaker 10: hosts an annual food conference, the FNCEE Food and Nutrition
Speaker 10: Conference and Expo, where big food shells out big money
Speaker 10: for speaking appearances and booths on the convention floor for
Speaker 10: an opportunity to showcase and convince nutritionists why their products
Speaker 10: aren't so bad if you just know how to consume
Speaker 10: them in the right way. And perhaps the ultimate gift
Speaker 10: the Academy can give to big food is a dream
Speaker 10: article like this one on the Food Network. This dietitian
Speaker 10: wants you to eat more processed food. Subheadline, process food
Speaker 10: is not a bad thing. Here's why.
Speaker 9: This is how the ult process food industry tunnels in
Speaker 9: and get legitimacy for the standard American diet that is
Speaker 9: causing us so much pain and separation.
Speaker 10: He's not wrong because regardless of whether you think the
Speaker 10: Academy is or isn't able to stay independent and objective
Speaker 10: given their close financial ties to big food, Big Pharma,
Speaker 10: and other agribusiness corporations, the fact is Americans are getting
Speaker 10: sicker year after year, Obesity skyrocketing, type two diabetes on
Speaker 10: the rise, cardiovascular disease. After a brief decline, it's on
Speaker 10: the rise again, all the while, definitely not coincidentally, healthcare
Speaker 10: is quickly becoming America's largest industry. Mackenzian Company projects profits
Speaker 10: across the entire healthcare industry to skyrocket from five hundred
Speaker 10: and fifty eight billion dollars a year in twenty twenty
Speaker 10: one to almost seven hundred billion by twenty twenty five.
Speaker 10: A lot of people think food and nutrition has a
Speaker 10: big role to play if we are to reverse such trends.
Speaker 10: So I ask Gary, what do nutrition think about the
Speaker 10: Academy's long history of financial ties to big food companies.
Speaker 9: There are many nutritionists who have very uneasy, bad feeling
Speaker 9: about it, and who are truly troubled by the lack
Speaker 9: of integrity of their standard bearer organization, and who wrestle
Speaker 9: in a very sincere way with the corruption of their profession.
Speaker 10: And maybe even more troubling is how the Academy has
Speaker 10: chosen to rule with an iron fist to combat such dissent.
Speaker 10: In twenty thirteen, Carol Bartolato, a registered dietitian in California,
Speaker 10: was removed from an Academy of Nutrition and Dietechs panel
Speaker 10: for questioning the Academy's decision to hire a professor with
Speaker 10: ties to Monsanto to write its position paper on genetically
Speaker 10: engineered foods. Get this before the work group even finished
Speaker 10: its review of the scientific materials. She said, quote, why
Speaker 10: have a work group if its conclusions are not going
Speaker 10: to be basis for the position paper, Yeah, that's sketchy.
Speaker 10: Despite the murkiness of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics affiliations,
Speaker 10: for the sake of journalistic integrity, I must let you
Speaker 10: know that the Academy has labeled recent allegations as quote
Speaker 10: inaccurate and misleading, staunchly defending their corporate guidelines, which they
Speaker 10: claim prohibit external influence. Nevertheless, today's revelation should underline a
Speaker 10: crucial lesson for us, and that we must continue to
Speaker 10: advocate for transparency, support the work of organizations that work
Speaker 10: tirelessly to obtain documents previously hidden from the public, to
Speaker 10: arm ourselves with knowledge, and to seek the unvarnished truth
Speaker 10: because our health literally depends on it. That's all for
Speaker 10: me this time. What are your thoughts? Do you have
Speaker 10: any personal experiences with nutritionness or dietitians you'd like to share,
Speaker 10: Please let us know in the comments section below. Also,
Speaker 10: if you enjoy these beyond the headline segments, I would
Speaker 10: highly encourage you to check out and subscribe to my
Speaker 10: YouTube channel fifty one forty nine with James Lee. The
Speaker 10: link will be in the description below. I really appreciate that,
Speaker 10: and as always, keep on tuning into Breaking Points, and
Speaker 10: thank you for your time today.
Speaker 12: I'm Matt Stoler, author of monopoly focused newsletter Big and
Speaker 12: an anti trust policy analyst. I have a great segment
Speaker 12: for you today on this Big Breakdown. It's actually some
Speaker 12: good news. It's about how the government listens to its citizens,
Speaker 12: and in particular to you Breaking Point subscribers, because about
Speaker 12: a year and a half ago, roughly one thousand of
Speaker 12: you sent comments into the government on what seems like
Speaker 12: a really obscure question, which was about something very important,
Speaker 12: how to use antitrust law against big companies.
Speaker 6: And it really mattered. And I'm going to tell you why.
Speaker 12: But I'm also going to tell you another way, for
Speaker 12: those of you who submitted comments or who want to
Speaker 12: submit comments, that you can actually help the government crack
Speaker 12: down on big business if that's of.
Speaker 6: Interest to you. Okay.
Speaker 12: So it's a pretty grim moment in politics, but one
Speaker 12: of the positive aspects of the Biden administration has actually
Speaker 12: been something called anti trust policy, which is the law
Speaker 12: we use mostly to govern big business. And you have
Speaker 12: two important officials, Jonathan Canter at the Anti Trust Division
Speaker 12: and Lena Khan at the Federal Trade Commission. These are
Speaker 12: the two agencies that police competition in our markets, and
Speaker 12: they're trying to return America to the way we used
Speaker 12: to manage corporate power prior to the nineteen eighties. Let's
Speaker 12: just take a look picture of the two of them. Okay,
Speaker 12: So con and CANT have brought cases against a lot
Speaker 12: of powerful firms, and indeed, there is a major anti
Speaker 12: trust trial against Google Search that's going to start in September.
Speaker 12: I'm going to do a segment on that in the
Speaker 12: next couple of weeks, and that is actually the first
Speaker 12: big trial against a monopoly since Microsoft twenty five years ago. Now,
Speaker 12: last April, I told you about something else that Con
Speaker 12: and Canter are doing, which is it seems technocratic, but
Speaker 12: it's not. It's very important. It's called rewriting merger guidelines.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 12: Merger guidelines are little known in interpretive documents which the
Speaker 12: government uses to explain how they will enforce anti trust
Speaker 12: laws against big business. Now, in that video, which is
Speaker 12: you can look at it in the description if you want,
Speaker 12: I explained why mergers of big companies are often really bad,
Speaker 12: but also why they are so pervasive. In today's economy,
Speaker 12: and there's a policy reason behind it. I also said
Speaker 12: that you can help because the anti trust agencies opened
Speaker 12: what's called a comment docket. It is basically a website
Speaker 12: where you can tell your stories, where you can tell
Speaker 12: the government what you think. And about a thousand of
Speaker 12: you did just that. Well, guess what the new draft
Speaker 12: merger guidelines are out. And one of the ways that
Speaker 12: you can tell that they matter is that away from
Speaker 12: the political news, when you look at Wall Street, well
Speaker 12: they are big mad.
Speaker 6: Okay.
Speaker 12: So here's Larry Summers, who's probably the most important economic
Speaker 12: policy makers of the last thirty or forty years, and
Speaker 12: he's responsible for many things including offshoring of jobs, the
Speaker 12: rise of monopolies, financial deregulation, and massive, massive inequality. Let's
Speaker 12: listen to what he has to say about these new
Speaker 12: merger guidelines.
Speaker 10: What is your perception of where the administration is going
Speaker 10: on mergers and acquisitions?
Speaker 7: I guess I would say these things. I do not
Speaker 7: think it is remotely plausible to ascribe lower real wages
Speaker 7: or more men not working to anything about monopoly power.
Speaker 7: I think that traditional thinking has had it about right
Speaker 7: on what sometimes seems almost like a war on business,
Speaker 7: and so based on what's been put out for public
Speaker 7: comment and a very rapid study I've been able to
Speaker 7: do so far, I have to say I'm a bit disappointed.
Speaker 12: Summers is a very unpleasant man, and you know, he's
Speaker 12: the guy who's been saying we need more unemployment to
Speaker 12: tame inflation, we need to you know, offshore more jobs,
Speaker 12: and so on and so forth. He's also really widely
Speaker 12: beloved and respected on Wall Street. He's a Democrat, you know.
Speaker 12: But don't worry. You know, there's a lot of dissatisfaction
Speaker 12: among the Wall Street friendly Republicans. So let's take a
Speaker 12: look at the Republicans in the House and what they've done.
Speaker 12: So this is a proposed statute. They want to take
Speaker 12: away all money from the anti trust enforcers for actually
Speaker 12: modifying merger guidelines. Okay, so that's the thing, this thing
Speaker 12: that everybody with power and money hates. That's the thing
Speaker 12: that you helped construct. It's the thing that you commented on.
Speaker 12: And if they hate it so much, that's probably a
Speaker 12: pretty good indication that it's good. That it reduces persistent
Speaker 12: high profit margins among big business, which are really an
Speaker 12: indication of bad health. Health in the economy. And it's
Speaker 12: good in part because they listened to you and because
Speaker 12: you participated, and they really did listen to you. So
Speaker 12: here's a woman you probably don't know but who's very important.
Speaker 12: Her name is Doha Mecki, and she's number two at
Speaker 12: the Anti Trust Division, and she's explaining how the government
Speaker 12: staff read every single one of your comments and there
Speaker 12: were five thousand in total, and how that affected their
Speaker 12: understanding of anti trust laws. So let's take a listen
Speaker 12: to what she has to say.
Speaker 13: We are lucid to traditional anti trust harms. Right, my
Speaker 13: prices went up, there are fewer jobs, et cetera. But
Speaker 13: I was moved by accounts from emergency room physicians, for example,
Speaker 13: who talked about, you know, after a merger of their
Speaker 13: provider group or an acquisition by hospital, that they were
Speaker 13: actually not able to provide as good care under you know,
Speaker 13: the regulations or rules or whatever that were promoted by
Speaker 13: the acquiring company. There were accounts of maternity ward nurses
Speaker 13: that said, you know, after a merger, you know, they
Speaker 13: reduced the number of nurses on a hospital floor and
Speaker 13: they were rounding less frequently, and they found that very
Speaker 13: stressful because they felt like they weren't able to deliver care.
Speaker 13: There were many more examples of agriculture, media, and other
Speaker 13: really important industries in the economy. But hearing real accounts
Speaker 13: of how regular people, many of whom are outside the Beltway,
Speaker 13: experience life post merger, was very interesting.
Speaker 12: Remember what Larry Summers said, We said, there's no evidence
Speaker 12: that monopoly power reduces wages. There you have Doha Meck
Speaker 12: talking about all the comments that they got which showed
Speaker 12: that that monopoly power and acquisitions do actually impact working conditions,
Speaker 12: which are actually a form of labor compensation. So there's
Speaker 12: an interesting disconnect between Wall Street, which I think is
Speaker 12: fairly represented by Larry Summers, and the rest of America,
Speaker 12: who I think is pretty fairly represented by what Dohamechi said.
Speaker 12: So that's why these guidelines create such anger. They reflect
Speaker 12: how normal people understand monopoly power, corporate power, and anti
Speaker 12: trust versus how Wall Street has controlled it for forty years.
Speaker 12: And in fact, these new guidelines are an attempt to
Speaker 12: return anti trust back to the rule of law in
Speaker 12: a way, from recent decades of corporate domination. So now
Speaker 12: I've said a lot, but let me just do a
Speaker 12: quick recap of the last video where I described the
Speaker 12: historical context. So here's what happened over the last forty
Speaker 12: years in corporate America. In nineteen eighty Ronald Reagan wanted
Speaker 12: to end anti trust enforcement. It was part of the
Speaker 12: very different context. He's very favorable to big business. They
Speaker 12: thought anti trust didn't make sense. But the thing is,
Speaker 12: Reagan and his people knew that Congress wouldn't go along
Speaker 12: because broadly speaking, the public likes anti trust enforcement.
Speaker 6: People don't like monopolies.
Speaker 12: So the Reagan administration pursued a strategy and evidence of
Speaker 12: this came from documents in the Reagan Library, documents that
Speaker 12: were recently unearthed. And the strategy was not to change
Speaker 12: the law through Congress, but to simply not enforce anti
Speaker 12: trust laws. So essentially it's an administrative reright of the law. Now,
Speaker 12: the main recommendation was that Reagan appoint anti trust leaders
Speaker 12: who would change enforcement priorities by issuing different merger guidelines,
Speaker 12: which was the way that the Department of Justice instructed
Speaker 12: courts and business leaders as to what was and wasn't legal.
Speaker 12: In nineteen eighty two, Bill Baxter, who was Reagan's Anti
Speaker 12: Trust Division chief, he's had Jonathan Canter's position.
Speaker 6: And he did so.
Speaker 12: The impact of this new non enforcement mandate had large
Speaker 12: and immediate effects on our society. So take a look
Speaker 12: at this chart. So the red arrow is the moment
Speaker 12: that the Reagan administration issued their merger guideline rewrite. Merger
Speaker 12: Mania started instantly in everything from retail to defense to banking,
Speaker 12: and indeed, mergers and acquisitions became so important they came
Speaker 12: into the culture in a big way. They were the
Speaker 12: basis of the popular nineteen eighty seven movie Wall Street,
Speaker 12: which coined the memorable term greed is good that characterized
Speaker 12: the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 6: But it wasn't just Reagan who did this. Bill Clinton,
Speaker 6: George W.
Speaker 12: Bush, Barack Obama, even Donald Trump all continued the framework
Speaker 12: that Baxter laid out, and over the next forty years
Speaker 12: there were successive merger waves to consolidate nearly every nook
Speaker 12: and cranny of American commerce.
Speaker 6: I should say this about Trump.
Speaker 12: He did bring the Google antitrust case and that is
Speaker 12: going to trial in September, which is why I was
Speaker 12: a little bit hesitant, because his administration is a little
Speaker 12: bit more mixed. But the thing is that in terms
Speaker 12: of this forty to forty five year track record. It
Speaker 12: is hard to find a part of America that has
Speaker 12: remained unaffected. With much higher prices on vital medicines, but
Speaker 12: also medicines that are too low priced such that they're
Speaker 12: in shortage. You see reduced wages, and you see you know.
Speaker 12: Just to give you a recent and sense, massively irritated
Speaker 12: Taylor Swift fans, the consolidation of the ticketing industry and
Speaker 12: the live performance industry under Live Nation Ticketmaster. Now, over
Speaker 12: the course of the past ten years, a lot of
Speaker 12: people have started to notice, a reason being the financial
Speaker 12: crisis and other shocks to our system. Today, the Biden
Speaker 12: administration is actually starting to enforce antitrust laws again, but
Speaker 12: a few high profile court losses, such as a recent
Speaker 12: court challenge to the Microsoft Activision merger and one against
Speaker 12: United Health Group's acquisition of Change Healthcare, show that the
Speaker 12: old way of thinking, the way that Baxter imported in
Speaker 12: the nineteen eighties, is still very powerful among judges, and
Speaker 12: that brings us back to the merger guidelines. These guidelines
Speaker 12: help instruct the courts how to interpret a complicated area
Speaker 12: of law. They're not binding precedent, but they are a
Speaker 12: sort of influence interpretation. And one of the problems with
Speaker 12: antitrust law is that successive versions of the Merger Guidelines
Speaker 12: since nineteen eighty two have told judges that most mergers
Speaker 12: are good, most mergers of big companies. I'm talking about,
Speaker 12: not the little ones that don't really matter or are
Speaker 12: actually helpful. I'm talking about most mergers of big companies
Speaker 12: are good.
Speaker 6: And I'm not kidding or exaggerating.
Speaker 12: So here's a sentence from the most recent version of
Speaker 12: these guidelines, written in twenty ten. It says a primary
Speaker 12: benefit of mergers to the economy is their potential to
Speaker 12: generate significant efficiencies and thus enhance the merged firms ability
Speaker 12: and incentive to compete, which may result in lower prices,
Speaker 12: improve quality, and enhanced service or new products. That's like
Speaker 12: Live Nation Ticketmasters. Did that improve anything? I don't think so.
Speaker 12: But those guidelines said that mergers like that do actually
Speaker 12: help things. So keep in mind the twenty ten guidelines,
Speaker 12: which is the most recent edition. They weren't some right
Speaker 12: wing conspiracy. They were written by Obama enforcers, and this
Speaker 12: kind of guidance matters, right. So Trump, as I said earlier,
Speaker 12: was mixed, and he did bring it challenge to the
Speaker 12: AT and T time Warner merger, which was very important
Speaker 12: for a variety of reasons. But in twenty eighteen, Judge
Speaker 12: Richard Leon ruled in favor of the merger, ruled against
Speaker 12: the Anti Trust Division, and he cited the guidelines in
Speaker 12: doing so. Okay, so what are these new guidelines. They're
Speaker 12: in draft form, they're not finalized. What do they say, Well,
Speaker 12: they present thirteen principles. Each of one is tethered to
Speaker 12: specific legal precedent on how mergers may violate the law. Now,
Speaker 12: some principles are well understood, like the idea that when
Speaker 12: you have two big companies that compete against each other,
Speaker 12: that each own a big part of the market, and
Speaker 12: they merge and increase what's called corporate concentration, that's probably illegal. Okay,
Speaker 12: we've always known that, that's always.
Speaker 6: Been part of merger law.
Speaker 12: But other principles haven't been in force since the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 12: So they extend arguments of concentration to labor markets and
Speaker 12: how workers are infected by mergers. There have been some
Speaker 12: good cases on that recently, but the guidelines say, look,
Speaker 12: the judges have to look at labor markets, whether you
Speaker 12: have different rivals that you can work for or not
Speaker 12: take that into account, whether to see whether a merger
Speaker 12: or substantially lessons competition or not.
Speaker 6: Still other principles.
Speaker 12: In these new merger guidelines, our attempts to update guidance
Speaker 12: for how the economy has changed with the rise of
Speaker 12: institutions like tech platforms and private equity firms. So, for instance,
Speaker 12: one new principle is that the anti trust agencies should
Speaker 12: look not just at one merger, at a whole series
Speaker 12: of mergers. The so called serial acquisition problem such roll
Speaker 12: ups where a firm or private equity fund buys a
Speaker 12: whole slew of small companies in one industry India being
Speaker 12: to consolidate. It's common today in the economy, from dental
Speaker 12: clinics to portable toilets to the income verification services of Equifax.
Speaker 12: The guidelines indicate that the whole suite of mergers are
Speaker 12: fair gain, not just one specific merger. Now, now this
Speaker 12: is I said, this is kind of a new principle.
Speaker 12: It's not really new. It was actually in the original
Speaker 12: updates to the Clayton Act that Congress wrote in nineteen fifty.
Speaker 12: It's just that it hasn't really been put into practice
Speaker 12: for a long time, and so these anti trust enforcers
Speaker 12: are saying, no, we're going to actually enforce the law
Speaker 12: as it was written. Now you can read the whole
Speaker 12: document if you want, including all thirteen principles. I've put
Speaker 12: it into the description. It's relatively easy to read, but
Speaker 12: it is a policy document. Okay, here's where you come
Speaker 12: in if you want to continue helping. These new guidelines
Speaker 12: are in draft form and they will be finalized soon,
Speaker 12: at which point they'll start to be used in court
Speaker 12: cases and in a whole variety of different ways. Now,
Speaker 12: the anti trust enforcers, they came out, they asked for
Speaker 12: information about your experience with mergers. You gave it to them.
Speaker 12: Now they have these draft guidelines based in part on
Speaker 12: that feedback guidelines. They want to get more feedback before
Speaker 12: finalizing them. So the government has set up a site
Speaker 12: on regulations dot gov where you can tell them about
Speaker 12: your experience with mergers or offer thoughts on anti trust
Speaker 12: law mergers, big business, or unfair methods of competition. I'll
Speaker 12: put a link in the description. Now the site looks
Speaker 12: like this. I've circled the comment piece in red, so
Speaker 12: if you click on the button, you.
Speaker 6: Can just add your thoughts now.
Speaker 12: My organization has also added created a website which is
Speaker 12: Share your mergerstory dot org, which you can go to.
Speaker 12: I've put that in the description and that makes it
Speaker 12: a little bit easier to participate. But you can do
Speaker 12: it either on the government site or you can do
Speaker 12: it on our site. But the point is is one
Speaker 12: of the few bright spots right now in our policy regime.
Speaker 12: And it's not a small bright spot. It's a big deal.
Speaker 12: You don't see it on the political news, but it's
Speaker 12: a big deal. It's kind of like the tectonic plates
Speaker 12: of politics. That bright spot is antitrust. That bright spot
Speaker 12: is how we deal with big business. And the reason,
Speaker 12: and this is what's important, the reason our enforcers can
Speaker 12: actually do anything at all here despite all of the
Speaker 12: money coming at them, is actually because of you. Because
Speaker 12: it's popular, because the public wants it. So your comments
Speaker 12: really do matter, and that's why I encourage you to
Speaker 12: actually see you know, whether you like mergers or don't,
Speaker 12: give your feedback, tell the government what you think about
Speaker 12: big business right now because they are listening. Thanks for
Speaker 12: watching this big breakdown on the Breaking Points channel. I
Speaker 12: wanted to give you some good news. I want to
Speaker 12: let you know we do live in a democracy. You
Speaker 12: can help, your voice does matter. Just want to let
Speaker 12: you know how you can participate, just like the lobbyists do.
Speaker 12: And guess what, there's a lot more of us than
Speaker 12: there are of them. So if you'd like to know
Speaker 12: more about big business and how our economy really works,
Speaker 12: you can sign up below for my market power focused
Speaker 12: newsletter Big in the description, thanks and have a good.
Speaker 13: One, indiscrim and
Speaker 11: In deep sy