1
00:00:00,240 --> 00:00:03,760
Speaker 1: Hi, We're on vacation, but we have an amazing special

2
00:00:03,800 --> 00:00:07,280
Speaker 1: episode for you. In the last year, we set out

3
00:00:07,320 --> 00:00:09,680
Speaker 1: to ask some questions to the smartest people in their

4
00:00:09,720 --> 00:00:12,920
Speaker 1: fields about what Democrats should do when they regain power.

5
00:00:13,160 --> 00:00:16,520
Speaker 1: We hope you'll enjoy this special episode of Project twenty

6
00:00:16,560 --> 00:00:21,280
Speaker 1: twenty nine, A Reimagining. Hello and welcome to Part two

7
00:00:21,520 --> 00:00:25,880
Speaker 1: of Project twenty twenty nine, A Reimagining. I'm Mollie john Fast,

8
00:00:25,960 --> 00:00:31,040
Speaker 1: a columnist, podcaster and person you occasionally see on cable news.

9
00:00:31,280 --> 00:00:35,400
Speaker 1: In this episode, we're going to discuss regulation and antitrust.

10
00:00:35,479 --> 00:00:38,519
Speaker 1: This is subject that many people in the Democratic Party

11
00:00:38,640 --> 00:00:42,239
Speaker 1: are scared of despite a polling really well with the

12
00:00:42,280 --> 00:00:45,280
Speaker 1: base and also independence. Let's get you up to speed.

13
00:00:45,479 --> 00:00:49,320
Speaker 1: You may have noticed that the Heritage Foundation's wildly ambitious

14
00:00:49,360 --> 00:00:53,640
Speaker 1: Project twenty twenty five has been implemented at lightning speed,

15
00:00:53,960 --> 00:00:57,360
Speaker 1: with nearly half of its goals reached in just nine months.

16
00:00:57,480 --> 00:01:01,360
Speaker 1: The agenda Heritage set forth has moved to breakneck speeds

17
00:01:01,640 --> 00:01:05,640
Speaker 1: to reshape America into a right wing policy testing lab

18
00:01:05,760 --> 00:01:09,880
Speaker 1: that is failing its citizens. In this series, we are

19
00:01:09,920 --> 00:01:14,560
Speaker 1: imagining not only what democrats can do when they regain power,

20
00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:20,760
Speaker 1: but what they must do the popular reforms that change citizens'

21
00:01:20,760 --> 00:01:24,920
Speaker 1: lives and get them to believe in the power and

22
00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:28,680
Speaker 1: good of government. We've assembled some of the best minds

23
00:01:28,720 --> 00:01:32,520
Speaker 1: to talk about how regulation and antitrust can be given

24
00:01:32,560 --> 00:01:35,240
Speaker 1: a good name and can make the American people believe

25
00:01:35,240 --> 00:01:39,000
Speaker 1: in it again. Let's start with the brilliant former chair

26
00:01:39,080 --> 00:01:43,200
Speaker 1: of the Federal Trade Commission from twenty twenty one to

27
00:01:43,319 --> 00:01:45,360
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, Lena Kon.

28
00:01:45,640 --> 00:01:47,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, So before I was an academic, I actually got

29
00:01:47,600 --> 00:01:49,840
Speaker 2: my start in all of this as a business researcher

30
00:01:49,920 --> 00:01:51,960
Speaker 2: and reporter, and I spent a lot of time just

31
00:01:52,080 --> 00:01:56,000
Speaker 2: understanding how various markets worked, and through that work film

32
00:01:56,120 --> 00:01:59,760
Speaker 2: that for decades now we've seen markets become more and

33
00:01:59,800 --> 00:02:03,960
Speaker 2: more consolidated, more and more concentrated. So where decades ago

34
00:02:04,120 --> 00:02:07,000
Speaker 2: you had dozens of competitors, you now just have a

35
00:02:07,040 --> 00:02:10,040
Speaker 2: handful of companies that can control a market. And that's

36
00:02:10,080 --> 00:02:15,120
Speaker 2: true in areas ranging from food and agriculture to you

37
00:02:15,120 --> 00:02:17,120
Speaker 2: even go to the grocery store, you go down the

38
00:02:17,120 --> 00:02:20,640
Speaker 2: snack aisle, you see hundreds of brands. Even there, you

39
00:02:20,720 --> 00:02:23,600
Speaker 2: actually just have you know, three or four companies controlling

40
00:02:23,639 --> 00:02:25,960
Speaker 2: the vast majority of the brands there. So it's really

41
00:02:26,240 --> 00:02:29,720
Speaker 2: we see this illusion of choice that is really actually

42
00:02:29,880 --> 00:02:33,360
Speaker 2: masking extreme concentration of economic power. Through my work, I

43
00:02:33,440 --> 00:02:38,760
Speaker 2: was really struck by how this private power can hurt people.

44
00:02:38,919 --> 00:02:41,520
Speaker 2: One of the stories I did was about chicken farming,

45
00:02:42,080 --> 00:02:46,120
Speaker 2: and chicken farmers, because of extreme consolidation, are oftentimes now

46
00:02:46,200 --> 00:02:50,520
Speaker 2: dependent on a single chicken processor for their entire livelihood.

47
00:02:50,760 --> 00:02:53,000
Speaker 2: And they would say that because of that company has

48
00:02:53,040 --> 00:02:55,800
Speaker 2: all that power, they can bully me, they can push

49
00:02:55,880 --> 00:02:58,320
Speaker 2: me around, they can threaten to cut me off, and

50
00:02:58,480 --> 00:03:01,560
Speaker 2: you know, kill my livelihood, and that means I'm scared,

51
00:03:01,560 --> 00:03:03,400
Speaker 2: and that means I'm too scared to even come and

52
00:03:03,440 --> 00:03:05,760
Speaker 2: talk to the government. And it was just this real,

53
00:03:05,840 --> 00:03:10,160
Speaker 2: vivid illustration of how we think about oftentimes, how if

54
00:03:10,160 --> 00:03:12,680
Speaker 2: what you want is real freedom for people, you need

55
00:03:12,720 --> 00:03:16,200
Speaker 2: to protect them from overreach by the state, by the government.

56
00:03:16,840 --> 00:03:20,040
Speaker 2: But I think we also need to protect people from

57
00:03:20,080 --> 00:03:23,400
Speaker 2: overreached by monopolies and by private companies that have so

58
00:03:23,520 --> 00:03:26,239
Speaker 2: much power that they can really infringe on people's core

59
00:03:26,320 --> 00:03:31,040
Speaker 2: freedoms and their material well being. Basically, we want an

60
00:03:31,080 --> 00:03:35,560
Speaker 2: economy where people get a fair shot, and what that

61
00:03:35,600 --> 00:03:40,520
Speaker 2: means practically is you know, if you're a business person

62
00:03:40,720 --> 00:03:43,920
Speaker 2: or a worker, you should be able to make a

63
00:03:43,960 --> 00:03:46,840
Speaker 2: fair living, earn a fair wage, and not be worried

64
00:03:46,960 --> 00:03:48,880
Speaker 2: that a big company is going to be able to

65
00:03:48,920 --> 00:03:51,760
Speaker 2: cut you off or muscle you out. If you're a consumer,

66
00:03:52,040 --> 00:03:53,960
Speaker 2: you should be able to get a fair shake too.

67
00:03:54,200 --> 00:03:56,080
Speaker 2: And I think one of the weird features of our

68
00:03:56,120 --> 00:03:59,440
Speaker 2: economy right now is that oftentimes it feels like you

69
00:03:59,480 --> 00:04:02,360
Speaker 2: always have to be on guard, looking around the next

70
00:04:02,360 --> 00:04:05,760
Speaker 2: corner to make sure that some corporation isn't defrauding you

71
00:04:05,880 --> 00:04:08,680
Speaker 2: or scamming you or screwing you in some way. And

72
00:04:08,720 --> 00:04:11,680
Speaker 2: I think that really also creates this sense of indignity

73
00:04:11,760 --> 00:04:17,640
Speaker 2: and stress. And you know, how people experience real freedom

74
00:04:17,720 --> 00:04:20,320
Speaker 2: in their day to day lives. Yes, depends on how

75
00:04:20,360 --> 00:04:23,560
Speaker 2: government is working, but it also depends on big corporations

76
00:04:23,640 --> 00:04:25,840
Speaker 2: not being able to get away with bullying you or

77
00:04:25,880 --> 00:04:26,400
Speaker 2: abusing you.

78
00:04:26,640 --> 00:04:29,480
Speaker 1: And many of the people we will be talking to you.

79
00:04:29,600 --> 00:04:34,040
Speaker 1: We're formerly a part of the Federal Trade Commission aka

80
00:04:34,120 --> 00:04:39,720
Speaker 1: the FTC, which is the government body which upholds regulations

81
00:04:39,800 --> 00:04:41,520
Speaker 1: and helps enforce anti trust.

82
00:04:41,839 --> 00:04:45,760
Speaker 3: My name is Alva Ovidoya, and I most recently was

83
00:04:45,800 --> 00:04:49,960
Speaker 3: a commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission the FTC basically

84
00:04:49,960 --> 00:04:55,000
Speaker 3: fights the fraudsters and monopolists of the world. We sue

85
00:04:55,240 --> 00:05:00,599
Speaker 3: the jeff Bezos, the Martin Screlly's, the Kroger's trying to buy,

86
00:05:00,640 --> 00:05:04,039
Speaker 3: the Albertsons of the world. And what we try to

87
00:05:04,080 --> 00:05:07,520
Speaker 3: do is number one, keep them from defrauding and deceiving people,

88
00:05:07,600 --> 00:05:11,280
Speaker 3: and number two, keep them from tilting the playing field

89
00:05:11,960 --> 00:05:16,080
Speaker 3: in their favor so that small businesses and workers aren't

90
00:05:16,080 --> 00:05:20,000
Speaker 3: getting screwed. So that's basically what we do. I say

91
00:05:20,040 --> 00:05:23,520
Speaker 3: we I was the president illegally fired me in or

92
00:05:23,560 --> 00:05:27,120
Speaker 3: try to illegally fire me in March March eighteenth. To

93
00:05:27,160 --> 00:05:30,480
Speaker 3: your question, why would President Trump try to fire an

94
00:05:30,520 --> 00:05:35,040
Speaker 3: FTC commissioner who he didn't nominate or rather wasn't on

95
00:05:35,080 --> 00:05:39,040
Speaker 3: his party, It's because all of his golfing buddies and

96
00:05:39,120 --> 00:05:42,320
Speaker 3: all of his dinner buddies, whether they're in tech, or

97
00:05:42,440 --> 00:05:45,440
Speaker 3: oil and gas, or you name it. In terms of

98
00:05:45,480 --> 00:05:49,920
Speaker 3: the billionaire industry, when they buy one of their competitors,

99
00:05:50,520 --> 00:05:53,640
Speaker 3: when they put out a new product and lie to

100
00:05:53,760 --> 00:05:56,400
Speaker 3: consumers about how it works and how much money they're

101
00:05:56,440 --> 00:05:59,119
Speaker 3: going to be charged, or the product tries to trap

102
00:05:59,160 --> 00:06:02,200
Speaker 3: them in some kind of description trapped. The FTC would

103
00:06:02,200 --> 00:06:04,680
Speaker 3: be the ones who shut that down. And so if

104
00:06:04,720 --> 00:06:11,440
Speaker 3: you can exercise minute control over this watchdog, you can

105
00:06:11,680 --> 00:06:14,960
Speaker 3: exercise total power over certain sectors of.

106
00:06:15,120 --> 00:06:18,000
Speaker 1: So many people use the word regulation as a kind

107
00:06:18,040 --> 00:06:22,279
Speaker 1: of bogeyman, when it really is just laws and rules.

108
00:06:22,360 --> 00:06:26,600
Speaker 1: So I asked one of the decades top enforcers about this.

109
00:06:27,160 --> 00:06:30,560
Speaker 4: Miami is Doha Mechi, And for ten years I worked

110
00:06:30,600 --> 00:06:33,640
Speaker 4: at the Anti Trust Division of the US Department of Justice.

111
00:06:34,160 --> 00:06:37,400
Speaker 4: I started off as a line prosecutor and left in

112
00:06:37,520 --> 00:06:43,240
Speaker 4: January twenty twenty five as the highest anti trust ranking

113
00:06:43,240 --> 00:06:45,800
Speaker 4: anti trust official in the Justice Department. You have to

114
00:06:45,880 --> 00:06:50,479
Speaker 4: unpack what regulation is and what it means, because there's

115
00:06:50,480 --> 00:06:56,000
Speaker 4: a huge gap between regulation in the ways that it

116
00:06:56,080 --> 00:06:59,480
Speaker 4: sort of used politically and like the reality on the ground.

117
00:06:59,640 --> 00:07:04,080
Speaker 4: And so, like many terrible things in our political economy,

118
00:07:04,200 --> 00:07:07,000
Speaker 4: it kind of began in the nineteen eighties with the

119
00:07:07,000 --> 00:07:10,680
Speaker 4: Reagan administration where you're sort of seeing and feeling this

120
00:07:10,800 --> 00:07:14,320
Speaker 4: political messaging about how regulation is bad for business, it's

121
00:07:14,360 --> 00:07:18,280
Speaker 4: bad for our progress as people, and it's frankly not

122
00:07:18,440 --> 00:07:22,080
Speaker 4: true because the core of regulation is a set of

123
00:07:22,200 --> 00:07:25,680
Speaker 4: rules about fair dealing and how we are going to

124
00:07:25,840 --> 00:07:28,480
Speaker 4: engage with each other. And like all law and where

125
00:07:28,520 --> 00:07:31,560
Speaker 4: we know law is the people are the objects of

126
00:07:31,600 --> 00:07:34,520
Speaker 4: the law solicitude and law is just a set of

127
00:07:34,600 --> 00:07:37,960
Speaker 4: values written down. These are just rules for how we

128
00:07:38,000 --> 00:07:40,880
Speaker 4: are going to engage with each other, how we transact business,

129
00:07:41,480 --> 00:07:44,520
Speaker 4: how we hold one another accountable, what we're sort of

130
00:07:44,600 --> 00:07:48,720
Speaker 4: permitted to do and not do in a orly society.

131
00:07:49,320 --> 00:07:52,840
Speaker 1: There's been very little imagination spent on how we can

132
00:07:52,960 --> 00:07:56,360
Speaker 1: use regulation to get better outcomes for people and grow

133
00:07:56,400 --> 00:08:00,040
Speaker 1: our economy. This is Elizabeth Wilkins, who serves as the

134
00:08:00,200 --> 00:08:04,160
Speaker 1: president of the Roads About Institute and previously served as

135
00:08:04,240 --> 00:08:07,520
Speaker 1: Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal

136
00:08:07,560 --> 00:08:08,360
Speaker 1: Trade Commission.

137
00:08:08,520 --> 00:08:13,120
Speaker 5: There's no such thing as a world that doesn't have regulation.

138
00:08:13,320 --> 00:08:15,440
Speaker 5: It's just what kind of regulation.

139
00:08:15,120 --> 00:08:15,720
Speaker 4: Do we want?

140
00:08:15,920 --> 00:08:16,120
Speaker 3: Right.

141
00:08:16,280 --> 00:08:20,200
Speaker 5: This is like the idea of a free market is

142
00:08:20,440 --> 00:08:23,960
Speaker 5: kind as a myths, right, Like markets are always regulated

143
00:08:24,000 --> 00:08:26,560
Speaker 5: by whatever rules you choose to put in place or

144
00:08:26,560 --> 00:08:29,800
Speaker 5: not put in place. They're governed by background loot rules

145
00:08:29,880 --> 00:08:35,120
Speaker 5: like laws and statutes and enforcement schemes and all kinds

146
00:08:35,120 --> 00:08:37,880
Speaker 5: of things. Right, So it's not like there's a state

147
00:08:37,920 --> 00:08:42,719
Speaker 5: of nature and we are deciding whether or not to intervene.

148
00:08:42,800 --> 00:08:46,480
Speaker 5: It is what public policy and what state power should

149
00:08:46,480 --> 00:08:50,120
Speaker 5: always be about, which is how do we shape markets

150
00:08:50,520 --> 00:08:52,200
Speaker 5: towards public ends?

151
00:08:52,400 --> 00:08:52,640
Speaker 3: Right?

152
00:08:53,080 --> 00:08:54,920
Speaker 5: So, for like a lot of decades, we have had

153
00:08:54,960 --> 00:09:00,600
Speaker 5: markets that have been actively shaped towards creating shareholder value,

154
00:09:00,880 --> 00:09:09,400
Speaker 5: financializing the economy and producing incredibly wide inequality in favor

155
00:09:09,720 --> 00:09:10,880
Speaker 5: of a few.

156
00:09:11,720 --> 00:09:16,239
Speaker 1: And like, that's a choice, federalizing the losses privatizing the gains.

157
00:09:16,280 --> 00:09:16,720
Speaker 3: Correct.

158
00:09:17,000 --> 00:09:19,120
Speaker 5: We have been a little bit duped by the idea

159
00:09:19,160 --> 00:09:22,439
Speaker 5: that there's some kind of like economic rules of nature

160
00:09:22,640 --> 00:09:24,880
Speaker 5: that dictate that we should do it that way, or

161
00:09:24,920 --> 00:09:26,800
Speaker 5: that this is the natural states of markets.

162
00:09:26,840 --> 00:09:27,280
Speaker 4: But it's not.

163
00:09:27,360 --> 00:09:30,160
Speaker 5: It's a policy choice, and we can make different ones.

164
00:09:30,240 --> 00:09:30,400
Speaker 3: Right.

165
00:09:30,440 --> 00:09:32,480
Speaker 5: And so if you stop and you think, okay, well,

166
00:09:32,520 --> 00:09:34,320
Speaker 5: if we can make different ones, what would they be.

167
00:09:34,360 --> 00:09:37,520
Speaker 1: And what people don't get is that regulation can help

168
00:09:37,559 --> 00:09:41,400
Speaker 1: get rid of abuses in both the public and private sector.

169
00:09:41,600 --> 00:09:45,160
Speaker 1: Here's Doha Mechi explaining how it can do that.

170
00:09:45,600 --> 00:09:49,600
Speaker 4: At its core, regulation is just a set of rules

171
00:09:50,040 --> 00:09:54,360
Speaker 4: and regulation as supposed to target fairness, right, they're just

172
00:09:54,559 --> 00:09:58,559
Speaker 4: rules of the road. And again, in the public imagination,

173
00:09:59,160 --> 00:10:02,360
Speaker 4: there's this idea only the government regulates. But I know

174
00:10:02,480 --> 00:10:07,440
Speaker 4: for my time at the Justice Department investigating huge multinational

175
00:10:07,480 --> 00:10:12,720
Speaker 4: corporations that there are private regulations as well. And when

176
00:10:12,720 --> 00:10:18,479
Speaker 4: the government does not enact law that is democratically accountable

177
00:10:19,080 --> 00:10:24,920
Speaker 4: and equally applied and neutrallly enforced, sometimes dominant corporations and

178
00:10:25,160 --> 00:10:28,520
Speaker 4: cartels of corporations actually fill the vacuum.

179
00:10:29,040 --> 00:10:29,160
Speaker 3: Right.

180
00:10:29,240 --> 00:10:31,840
Speaker 4: So I'll give you some examples in the context of

181
00:10:32,080 --> 00:10:36,040
Speaker 4: Apple's monopoly, where we did file a monopolization case during

182
00:10:36,080 --> 00:10:40,760
Speaker 4: the Biden administration. So the private rule that thirty percent

183
00:10:40,920 --> 00:10:45,520
Speaker 4: of all revenues that are transacted on apps, for example,

184
00:10:45,720 --> 00:10:49,439
Speaker 4: are siphoned away by Apple. Rules that say you can

185
00:10:49,480 --> 00:10:52,880
Speaker 4: only switch your health insurance once a year for most people,

186
00:10:53,520 --> 00:10:59,360
Speaker 4: that's regulation too, right. Rules that allow huge financial services

187
00:10:59,400 --> 00:11:03,880
Speaker 4: companies to pose a one percent tax on all transaction.

188
00:11:04,000 --> 00:11:07,000
Speaker 4: I mean that is a massive tax on the GDP.

189
00:11:07,160 --> 00:11:09,400
Speaker 4: And so I actually had a chance to testify in

190
00:11:09,480 --> 00:11:14,640
Speaker 4: the Senate in June about deregulation, and it was really

191
00:11:14,720 --> 00:11:16,960
Speaker 4: important to me to make the point in the Senate

192
00:11:17,000 --> 00:11:21,600
Speaker 4: Judiciary Committee that regulation is not just public, right, there's

193
00:11:21,679 --> 00:11:25,920
Speaker 4: private regulation too. And as folks who care about economic

194
00:11:26,000 --> 00:11:30,320
Speaker 4: opportunity and fairness and protecting the liberties of all people.

195
00:11:30,480 --> 00:11:32,920
Speaker 4: We have to understand that if we don't get busy

196
00:11:33,480 --> 00:11:37,600
Speaker 4: reimagining a regulation that is by the people and for

197
00:11:37,800 --> 00:11:40,600
Speaker 4: the people, there will be very perverse interests that fill

198
00:11:40,640 --> 00:11:40,960
Speaker 4: the void.

199
00:11:41,280 --> 00:11:45,520
Speaker 1: And while in many ways regulation and antitrust are handled

200
00:11:46,000 --> 00:11:49,720
Speaker 1: by the same part of the government, they are very different.

201
00:11:50,000 --> 00:11:52,720
Speaker 1: Leni Khan explains what those differences are.

202
00:11:53,240 --> 00:11:57,880
Speaker 2: Anti trust law can sound arcane, but practically it can

203
00:11:58,040 --> 00:12:01,400
Speaker 2: determine things like how much you're paying for groceries. It

204
00:12:01,440 --> 00:12:04,640
Speaker 2: could determine whether you're driving five miles to the hospital

205
00:12:04,720 --> 00:12:07,520
Speaker 2: or having to drive eighty miles to the hospital. It

206
00:12:07,559 --> 00:12:11,320
Speaker 2: can determine whether you can actually afford your life saving

207
00:12:11,360 --> 00:12:14,520
Speaker 2: medicine or whether you're actually having to ration it or

208
00:12:14,559 --> 00:12:17,680
Speaker 2: skip things like insulin because the big farm of companies

209
00:12:17,679 --> 00:12:20,959
Speaker 2: have kept too expensive. If you're a worker, it can

210
00:12:21,000 --> 00:12:24,920
Speaker 2: determine can you easily switch jobs, or has an employer

211
00:12:25,080 --> 00:12:28,520
Speaker 2: sneakily stuck a non compete clause in your contract that

212
00:12:28,640 --> 00:12:30,920
Speaker 2: says even when you leave this job, you can't go

213
00:12:30,960 --> 00:12:32,280
Speaker 2: to certain other businesses.

214
00:12:32,559 --> 00:12:36,240
Speaker 1: Though many people think of regulation as being some modern thing,

215
00:12:36,600 --> 00:12:39,360
Speaker 1: it has roots with the founding fathers.

216
00:12:39,559 --> 00:12:41,960
Speaker 2: We've had these laws on the books for a long time,

217
00:12:42,240 --> 00:12:46,240
Speaker 2: and you know, Congress passed these laws because in their words,

218
00:12:46,280 --> 00:12:49,480
Speaker 2: they said, you know, we just went through the American Revolution,

219
00:12:49,600 --> 00:12:52,480
Speaker 2: we overthrew a king, and we didn't just overthrow a

220
00:12:52,600 --> 00:12:56,920
Speaker 2: king to then let ourselves be ruled by economic tyrants

221
00:12:57,160 --> 00:12:59,840
Speaker 2: or autocrats of trade. And there was a real understanding,

222
00:13:00,120 --> 00:13:02,480
Speaker 2: if what you really want for people is freedom, you

223
00:13:02,559 --> 00:13:05,280
Speaker 2: need to protect them from the kings and the monarchs,

224
00:13:05,640 --> 00:13:08,000
Speaker 2: but also from the monopolies. And so that's what these

225
00:13:08,040 --> 00:13:08,800
Speaker 2: laws are about.

226
00:13:09,000 --> 00:13:12,560
Speaker 1: The way these companies that need to be regulated prey

227
00:13:12,679 --> 00:13:17,840
Speaker 1: upon individuals is not something that crosses partisan or socioeconomic lines.

228
00:13:18,000 --> 00:13:21,680
Speaker 1: These are things that no American wants and everyone is

229
00:13:21,720 --> 00:13:25,360
Speaker 1: affected by. Here's Lena Khan explaining why we need more

230
00:13:25,440 --> 00:13:26,640
Speaker 1: accountability in tech.

231
00:13:26,920 --> 00:13:29,640
Speaker 2: I think sometimes it can feel like technology is just

232
00:13:29,679 --> 00:13:32,040
Speaker 2: this thing that is happening to us, and we're just

233
00:13:32,120 --> 00:13:34,760
Speaker 2: like people that are stuck riding this roller coaster and

234
00:13:34,760 --> 00:13:37,760
Speaker 2: who knows where we'll end up. But no, actually, government

235
00:13:37,840 --> 00:13:40,400
Speaker 2: and the public has a really important role to play

236
00:13:40,800 --> 00:13:44,480
Speaker 2: in deciding the trajectory of these technologies in the first place. Right,

237
00:13:44,520 --> 00:13:46,800
Speaker 2: what data can they collect, can't they collect? What can

238
00:13:46,840 --> 00:13:47,640
Speaker 2: these chatbots do?

239
00:13:47,800 --> 00:13:48,319
Speaker 4: Or not do.

240
00:13:48,840 --> 00:13:52,120
Speaker 2: And I think the fact that the government has taken

241
00:13:52,160 --> 00:13:55,040
Speaker 2: such a backseat to trying to determine that future is

242
00:13:55,080 --> 00:13:58,600
Speaker 2: a big problem because then functionally you have it's not

243
00:13:58,640 --> 00:14:01,360
Speaker 2: like there are no decision makers. No, those decision makers

244
00:14:01,400 --> 00:14:04,080
Speaker 2: are basically a small number of executives who have a

245
00:14:04,160 --> 00:14:07,000
Speaker 2: very particular set of interests that are getting to call

246
00:14:07,080 --> 00:14:09,720
Speaker 2: all the shots, and the public is just being subjected

247
00:14:09,760 --> 00:14:11,520
Speaker 2: to that. So I think we do need kind of

248
00:14:11,520 --> 00:14:15,760
Speaker 2: more public accountability, more kind of public involvement in decisions

249
00:14:15,760 --> 00:14:18,640
Speaker 2: that are going to affect us so fundamentally for so

250
00:14:18,679 --> 00:14:21,680
Speaker 2: many decades to come. One of the big turning points

251
00:14:22,320 --> 00:14:27,360
Speaker 2: was that these companies decided to use business models that

252
00:14:27,640 --> 00:14:31,080
Speaker 2: are based on monetizing your data. And so they said,

253
00:14:31,120 --> 00:14:33,680
Speaker 2: we're going to charges zero dollars to use the service.

254
00:14:34,040 --> 00:14:36,560
Speaker 2: That's because we're going to mine all of this information

255
00:14:36,680 --> 00:14:40,440
Speaker 2: about you and then basically sell it online. I think

256
00:14:40,480 --> 00:14:43,480
Speaker 2: that has led to a lot of really bad outcomes

257
00:14:43,480 --> 00:14:47,520
Speaker 2: for people, including just people being surveilled, including just this

258
00:14:47,760 --> 00:14:50,920
Speaker 2: endless hunger that these companies have for more and more data.

259
00:14:51,520 --> 00:14:54,480
Speaker 2: That means that that if there is a single data breach,

260
00:14:54,960 --> 00:14:57,280
Speaker 2: you know your data is everywhere suddenly you are having

261
00:14:57,320 --> 00:14:59,520
Speaker 2: to figure out, you know, is my credit card compromise,

262
00:14:59,640 --> 00:15:02,200
Speaker 2: is my identity being stolen. There's just a lot of

263
00:15:02,280 --> 00:15:06,520
Speaker 2: risk that comes with that for kids. These technologies I

264
00:15:06,520 --> 00:15:10,240
Speaker 2: think need to have real safeguards and real guardrails. You know,

265
00:15:10,280 --> 00:15:14,120
Speaker 2: we have former tech executives who will admit that when

266
00:15:14,120 --> 00:15:17,840
Speaker 2: they are designing some of these technologies, they're actually studying

267
00:15:17,880 --> 00:15:22,000
Speaker 2: the way that slot machines are designed. They're explicitly designed

268
00:15:22,040 --> 00:15:24,400
Speaker 2: to keep you addicted, to keep you on the platform

269
00:15:24,400 --> 00:15:27,720
Speaker 2: as long as possible. Again, that's because they make money

270
00:15:27,760 --> 00:15:30,240
Speaker 2: from how much data they can collect from you as

271
00:15:30,280 --> 00:15:33,600
Speaker 2: well as you know, with these chat bots that we're seeing,

272
00:15:33,880 --> 00:15:35,920
Speaker 2: that's a whole new frontier. I mean, there have been

273
00:15:35,960 --> 00:15:41,040
Speaker 2: some devastating stories from page stories about how teenagers confiding

274
00:15:41,080 --> 00:15:44,320
Speaker 2: in these chatbots, and these chat bots you know, implicitly

275
00:15:44,760 --> 00:15:48,720
Speaker 2: encouraging or at least not sounding the alarm on and

276
00:15:48,800 --> 00:15:52,800
Speaker 2: teenagers expressing certain things has resulted in kids committing suicide.

277
00:15:52,920 --> 00:15:56,800
Speaker 2: There's this whole area that's totally unregulated. At the FTC,

278
00:15:56,880 --> 00:16:00,680
Speaker 2: I met parents who had lost kids because there had

279
00:16:00,680 --> 00:16:03,560
Speaker 2: been facing so much abuse and bullying and social media,

280
00:16:03,640 --> 00:16:05,080
Speaker 2: which is totally unregulated.

281
00:16:05,200 --> 00:16:08,720
Speaker 1: A lack of regulation created the media environment we are

282
00:16:08,760 --> 00:16:11,280
Speaker 1: in today where it feels as if we have the

283
00:16:11,440 --> 00:16:14,680
Speaker 1: tiniest mainstream media doing real journalism.

284
00:16:14,880 --> 00:16:18,200
Speaker 2: One of the key mechanisms through which big Tech really

285
00:16:18,520 --> 00:16:23,640
Speaker 2: impoverished local news was through their monopoly over advertising. Traditionally,

286
00:16:23,920 --> 00:16:27,400
Speaker 2: we had ad markets where even local newspapers and local

287
00:16:27,440 --> 00:16:30,880
Speaker 2: media would be able to make basically make revenue, and

288
00:16:30,920 --> 00:16:34,040
Speaker 2: once Google came along, it basically started to monopolize all

289
00:16:34,040 --> 00:16:37,240
Speaker 2: of that in ways that just totally deprived these publishers.

290
00:16:37,760 --> 00:16:40,960
Speaker 2: And now we have lawsuits and judges agreeing that the

291
00:16:40,960 --> 00:16:44,560
Speaker 2: way Google did that was actually illegal. It violated the law,

292
00:16:44,960 --> 00:16:47,320
Speaker 2: and unfortunately we didn't have at the time enforce years

293
00:16:47,320 --> 00:16:49,600
Speaker 2: who were taking quick action, which is why these problems

294
00:16:49,600 --> 00:16:52,840
Speaker 2: have festered. And now we have thousands and thousands of

295
00:16:52,880 --> 00:16:55,960
Speaker 2: newspapers and local news organizations that have gone under and

296
00:16:56,000 --> 00:16:57,720
Speaker 2: we can't just reverse the clock on that.

297
00:16:57,960 --> 00:17:00,880
Speaker 1: It sounds easy to get the America and people to

298
00:17:00,960 --> 00:17:04,640
Speaker 1: support this because no one wants so much of it

299
00:17:05,040 --> 00:17:07,320
Speaker 1: for when the rubber hits the road. There are many

300
00:17:07,440 --> 00:17:12,040
Speaker 1: things that make regulation and delivering for people difficult in

301
00:17:12,080 --> 00:17:12,800
Speaker 1: this country.

302
00:17:13,000 --> 00:17:15,760
Speaker 2: When I think about regulation, I really think about different

303
00:17:15,760 --> 00:17:19,080
Speaker 2: ways the government is either limiting what businesses can do,

304
00:17:19,280 --> 00:17:22,199
Speaker 2: or requiring them to do certain things, or setting guardrails

305
00:17:22,200 --> 00:17:25,960
Speaker 2: in places. You said, and right now, we have a

306
00:17:25,960 --> 00:17:29,160
Speaker 2: system where a lot of dominant firms have a lot

307
00:17:29,160 --> 00:17:32,479
Speaker 2: of not just economic power, but political power, and they

308
00:17:32,520 --> 00:17:34,919
Speaker 2: can lobby, they can put pressure on the regulators, on

309
00:17:34,960 --> 00:17:38,119
Speaker 2: the enforcers to try to dissuade them from really standing

310
00:17:38,160 --> 00:17:41,400
Speaker 2: up for people. And unfortunately, for many decades, I think

311
00:17:41,440 --> 00:17:43,679
Speaker 2: that's what has been happening. And when I was at

312
00:17:43,680 --> 00:17:46,560
Speaker 2: the FTC and I would travel around the country talking

313
00:17:46,600 --> 00:17:50,160
Speaker 2: to people, they would just express a real sense of disillusionment.

314
00:17:50,240 --> 00:17:52,720
Speaker 2: People think the government is captured. People think the government

315
00:17:52,800 --> 00:17:56,159
Speaker 2: is structured to favor the rich and powerful corporations. And

316
00:17:56,240 --> 00:17:58,080
Speaker 2: I think some of that stems from the fact that

317
00:17:58,160 --> 00:18:00,480
Speaker 2: it has been really hard for the government to fight

318
00:18:00,560 --> 00:18:03,600
Speaker 2: for working people. We tried to do that at the FTC,

319
00:18:03,960 --> 00:18:06,600
Speaker 2: and I think it is possible, but it's really going

320
00:18:06,640 --> 00:18:09,879
Speaker 2: to take a focus on how do we govern effectively.

321
00:18:10,359 --> 00:18:11,800
Speaker 2: I think the other thing is you need to think

322
00:18:11,800 --> 00:18:14,640
Speaker 2: about how how do you govern in a way that's

323
00:18:14,680 --> 00:18:17,920
Speaker 2: actually making a difference in people's lives. The other trend

324
00:18:18,000 --> 00:18:22,399
Speaker 2: we've seen is that sometimes regulators or lawmakers have a

325
00:18:22,440 --> 00:18:26,280
Speaker 2: preference for these half measures that are not actually fixing

326
00:18:26,320 --> 00:18:28,880
Speaker 2: the problem and actually can feel like they're just creating

327
00:18:28,960 --> 00:18:32,320
Speaker 2: more burden. There's this issue of data privacy, right what

328
00:18:32,440 --> 00:18:36,080
Speaker 2: kind of data about you can companies collect? And right

329
00:18:36,119 --> 00:18:39,400
Speaker 2: now we basically have a free for all where corporations

330
00:18:39,440 --> 00:18:42,680
Speaker 2: can collect all sorts of sensitive information about you, your

331
00:18:42,680 --> 00:18:46,960
Speaker 2: exact location, your health data, your whole browsing history. They

332
00:18:47,040 --> 00:18:49,680
Speaker 2: can sell that to the highest bidder. We've even seen

333
00:18:49,720 --> 00:18:52,680
Speaker 2: really dangerous reports of stalkers just being able to buy

334
00:18:52,800 --> 00:18:56,800
Speaker 2: data online about their victims. And one of the ways

335
00:18:56,880 --> 00:19:00,560
Speaker 2: that enforcers and regulators had thought about dealing with problem

336
00:19:00,600 --> 00:19:03,439
Speaker 2: for a long time was to say, well, as long

337
00:19:03,480 --> 00:19:07,119
Speaker 2: as companies are disclosing to you what they're doing with

338
00:19:07,200 --> 00:19:09,320
Speaker 2: your data, as long as they can just have these

339
00:19:09,400 --> 00:19:11,720
Speaker 2: long terms of service that are saying we can do

340
00:19:11,800 --> 00:19:14,879
Speaker 2: whatever we want, that that'll be enough to protect people.

341
00:19:15,440 --> 00:19:17,120
Speaker 4: And we all know that that's fake, right.

342
00:19:17,160 --> 00:19:19,159
Speaker 2: We all see these terms of service, we all have

343
00:19:19,240 --> 00:19:21,840
Speaker 2: to use these services, and so we just click away.

344
00:19:22,119 --> 00:19:26,200
Speaker 2: But that doesn't mean we're consenting to these companies surveiling us.

345
00:19:26,400 --> 00:19:28,720
Speaker 2: So what we did at the FTC was actually we

346
00:19:28,840 --> 00:19:31,760
Speaker 2: just created rules that said that firms with certain types

347
00:19:31,760 --> 00:19:34,680
Speaker 2: of sensitive data can't collect it in the first place.

348
00:19:34,680 --> 00:19:37,800
Speaker 2: They can't assume that they're collecting it unless you affirmatively

349
00:19:37,840 --> 00:19:40,360
Speaker 2: allow them to. And so that's just one example where

350
00:19:40,359 --> 00:19:43,159
Speaker 2: we're doing away with all of these disclosures and just

351
00:19:43,200 --> 00:19:46,199
Speaker 2: trying to push for something that'll actually give people a

352
00:19:46,280 --> 00:19:48,840
Speaker 2: real change in their daily lives and what rights they have.

353
00:19:49,040 --> 00:19:52,320
Speaker 1: A lot of times voters vote on cost of living.

354
00:19:52,920 --> 00:19:57,600
Speaker 1: Regulation can help lower the cost of living. It can

355
00:19:57,640 --> 00:20:02,320
Speaker 1: do things like keep rent prices affordable. Here's Doha Mechi

356
00:20:02,480 --> 00:20:06,360
Speaker 1: discussing the alarming practices she's seen in housing in healthcare.

357
00:20:06,480 --> 00:20:10,440
Speaker 4: I think housing and healthcare are just they are sort

358
00:20:10,480 --> 00:20:16,159
Speaker 4: of twin examples of places where you find really alarming practices.

359
00:20:16,560 --> 00:20:19,160
Speaker 4: When I was at DOJ, we sued a company called

360
00:20:19,200 --> 00:20:25,560
Speaker 4: real Page for algorithmic collusion that really seemed to align

361
00:20:25,680 --> 00:20:31,520
Speaker 4: rental prices, kept landlords feeling very comfortable foregoing tenants because

362
00:20:31,560 --> 00:20:35,520
Speaker 4: they knew that they could sort of artificially inflate their prices,

363
00:20:35,680 --> 00:20:39,760
Speaker 4: as alleged in the complaint that DOJ filed. And it

364
00:20:39,840 --> 00:20:44,800
Speaker 4: was so extraordinary that when we went to amend that

365
00:20:44,920 --> 00:20:48,280
Speaker 4: complaint in January. We actually made a choice to sue

366
00:20:48,800 --> 00:20:52,920
Speaker 4: the largest landlords in the country because the practices had

367
00:20:52,960 --> 00:20:56,000
Speaker 4: spanned forty three different states and well north of a

368
00:20:56,040 --> 00:21:00,960
Speaker 4: million units that we could identify, and probably more. And

369
00:21:01,040 --> 00:21:07,360
Speaker 4: so the ability of companies to collude in frictionless ways

370
00:21:07,800 --> 00:21:11,480
Speaker 4: in ways that are frankly difficult were frankly difficult to imagine,

371
00:21:11,880 --> 00:21:14,800
Speaker 4: but even in the nineteen nineties was truly shocking to me.

372
00:21:14,960 --> 00:21:18,760
Speaker 4: And healthcare we've seen recent reporting, just in the last

373
00:21:18,840 --> 00:21:22,119
Speaker 4: few days that Americans are likely to see some of

374
00:21:22,160 --> 00:21:26,879
Speaker 4: the steepest climbs and healthcare premiums that we've seen in

375
00:21:26,920 --> 00:21:31,040
Speaker 4: recent decades, and it's just because they can. The cost

376
00:21:31,080 --> 00:21:34,719
Speaker 4: of care delivery is frankly difficult to parish because there

377
00:21:34,720 --> 00:21:41,280
Speaker 4: are so many, frankly intermediaries and monopolies extracting value from

378
00:21:41,520 --> 00:21:45,159
Speaker 4: the healthcare system. And who's getting hosed right, who's getting

379
00:21:45,560 --> 00:21:50,600
Speaker 4: stuck with more higher prices, higher premiums, higher deductibles, and

380
00:21:50,640 --> 00:21:53,720
Speaker 4: frankly less care the American people. I should say, this

381
00:21:53,760 --> 00:21:57,520
Speaker 4: is not a place where the government has done absolutely nothing.

382
00:21:58,000 --> 00:22:04,760
Speaker 4: I think Obamacare was signature landmark legislation that sought address

383
00:22:05,200 --> 00:22:10,240
Speaker 4: this problem. But even that has not saved the American

384
00:22:10,320 --> 00:22:15,639
Speaker 4: people from really the tyranny of private insurance markets, and

385
00:22:15,720 --> 00:22:20,040
Speaker 4: so we need to rethink the whole system. I suspect

386
00:22:20,040 --> 00:22:23,919
Speaker 4: that if you were thinking about the regulatory scheme for

387
00:22:24,040 --> 00:22:28,240
Speaker 4: health insurance today, you might rethink, for example, the fact

388
00:22:28,280 --> 00:22:32,840
Speaker 4: that people have to get healthcare primarily through their employer, right,

389
00:22:32,880 --> 00:22:35,960
Speaker 4: like that, just as a starting point, that's one to rethink.

390
00:22:35,600 --> 00:22:40,000
Speaker 1: And it is a very intentional conservative policy to keep

391
00:22:40,080 --> 00:22:40,959
Speaker 1: it this way.

392
00:22:41,200 --> 00:22:45,840
Speaker 4: You can find like old Heritage Foundation reports where there

393
00:22:45,840 --> 00:22:51,080
Speaker 4: are proposals to provide broad public access to healthcare right

394
00:22:51,160 --> 00:22:55,840
Speaker 4: and their concerns about frankly empowering people a bit too

395
00:22:55,920 --> 00:22:59,760
Speaker 4: well and make them less economically independent.

396
00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:03,679
Speaker 1: And it's not just healthcare. A lack of regulation on

397
00:23:03,840 --> 00:23:07,840
Speaker 1: how people are employed is a large reason everyday people

398
00:23:07,920 --> 00:23:10,800
Speaker 1: are so unhappy in this country. As the wealth gets

399
00:23:10,800 --> 00:23:15,439
Speaker 1: cited into the top one percent. Alvero Bedoya points out

400
00:23:15,480 --> 00:23:19,320
Speaker 1: the impact of hiring people as independent contractors instead of

401
00:23:19,640 --> 00:23:20,879
Speaker 1: W two employees.

402
00:23:21,400 --> 00:23:25,840
Speaker 3: The first has to do with this fiction that businesses

403
00:23:25,920 --> 00:23:30,280
Speaker 3: increasingly engage in of calling everyone who works from them

404
00:23:30,560 --> 00:23:34,280
Speaker 3: for them an independent contractor. Let's make the super concrete

405
00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:37,440
Speaker 3: and no pun intended. Let's talk about the construction industry.

406
00:23:37,680 --> 00:23:41,040
Speaker 3: If you look back to the nineteen seventies, construction jobs,

407
00:23:41,080 --> 00:23:44,920
Speaker 3: they've always been hard jobs. A couple generations ago, construction

408
00:23:45,040 --> 00:23:47,480
Speaker 3: jobs were not just hard jobs. There were also good jobs.

409
00:23:47,760 --> 00:23:50,560
Speaker 3: You could provide for a family of four on a

410
00:23:50,680 --> 00:23:54,320
Speaker 3: construction job. If you've achieved some seniority, you could, with

411
00:23:54,440 --> 00:23:57,080
Speaker 3: a little luck, maybe buy a boat for the weekend,

412
00:23:57,119 --> 00:23:58,800
Speaker 3: Maybe you could send you a lot of folks could

413
00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:04,480
Speaker 3: send their kid to school, to college. And now construction

414
00:24:04,600 --> 00:24:08,439
Speaker 3: work is subsistence work. You are constantly barely making it

415
00:24:08,600 --> 00:24:13,280
Speaker 3: or you're not making it. And what we all see

416
00:24:13,520 --> 00:24:17,439
Speaker 3: is that construction industry is increasingly dominated by Mexican, Central

417
00:24:17,480 --> 00:24:21,159
Speaker 3: and South American workers. And so some people look at

418
00:24:21,160 --> 00:24:23,879
Speaker 3: that and say, what the hell, why are these folks

419
00:24:24,119 --> 00:24:27,679
Speaker 3: folks coming in and taking our jobs. The answer, the

420
00:24:27,840 --> 00:24:31,760
Speaker 3: hard answer, is those were not the same jobs. What

421
00:24:31,960 --> 00:24:34,560
Speaker 3: no one paid attention to, what is far less shiny

422
00:24:34,600 --> 00:24:38,280
Speaker 3: and far less easy to notice, is that, starting in

423
00:24:38,320 --> 00:24:41,240
Speaker 3: the eighties and then exploding in the nineties two thousands,

424
00:24:41,720 --> 00:24:47,440
Speaker 3: developers stopped hiring people as W two's as their full employees.

425
00:24:47,960 --> 00:24:51,239
Speaker 3: They started pretending that all the people who worked for

426
00:24:51,280 --> 00:24:56,600
Speaker 3: them were independent contractors that ran their own independent businesses,

427
00:24:57,119 --> 00:24:59,240
Speaker 3: such that you don't have to pay them over time,

428
00:24:59,320 --> 00:25:02,040
Speaker 3: you don't have to pay them unemployment insurance, you don't

429
00:25:02,080 --> 00:25:05,840
Speaker 3: have to pay into workers compensation. And so these jobs

430
00:25:06,280 --> 00:25:10,120
Speaker 3: that used to be decent jobs, hard but decent jobs

431
00:25:10,520 --> 00:25:14,160
Speaker 3: are now subsistence jobs. And guess what, when you hire

432
00:25:14,200 --> 00:25:17,320
Speaker 3: someone as a ten ninety nine, you're much less likely

433
00:25:17,600 --> 00:25:20,399
Speaker 3: to ask them for documentation that the legally authorized to

434
00:25:20,440 --> 00:25:23,040
Speaker 3: work in this country. And it's not those Central American

435
00:25:23,080 --> 00:25:25,679
Speaker 3: workers showed up and said, no, boss, you know I'm

436
00:25:25,680 --> 00:25:28,240
Speaker 3: going to outwork this person. And the person said, yes,

437
00:25:28,320 --> 00:25:31,480
Speaker 3: I hire you. What happened is that the developers at

438
00:25:31,480 --> 00:25:33,960
Speaker 3: the top said we're going to make these ten ninety

439
00:25:34,040 --> 00:25:37,320
Speaker 3: nine independent contractors, and the folks who previously relied on

440
00:25:37,359 --> 00:25:39,600
Speaker 3: that kind of income for that work had to look

441
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:42,480
Speaker 3: elsewhere to provide for their families. And you have folks

442
00:25:42,560 --> 00:25:45,119
Speaker 3: coming in and taking them as subsistence labor because they

443
00:25:45,119 --> 00:25:49,040
Speaker 3: have no other choice. And so checking what's called fishering

444
00:25:49,080 --> 00:25:52,479
Speaker 3: the fishered workplace to the term David while came up

445
00:25:52,480 --> 00:25:55,639
Speaker 3: with it. By the way, Uber Left also DoorDash also

446
00:25:55,920 --> 00:25:58,919
Speaker 3: call their workers, quote unquote independent contractors.

447
00:25:59,119 --> 00:26:04,080
Speaker 1: One of the biggest misconceptions is that regulations to protect

448
00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:07,520
Speaker 1: consumers need to go through a ton of red tape

449
00:26:08,040 --> 00:26:11,199
Speaker 1: or need to get Congress to legislate them, and that

450
00:26:11,240 --> 00:26:16,880
Speaker 1: can take forever. But many of the consumer protections we

451
00:26:16,920 --> 00:26:20,960
Speaker 1: know and love are actually just laws that aren't being enforced.

452
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:25,360
Speaker 1: Leni Khan explains the laws that were overlooked or ignored

453
00:26:25,440 --> 00:26:26,960
Speaker 1: during her time at the FTC.

454
00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:29,920
Speaker 2: There's also an opportunity to still be using the laws

455
00:26:29,960 --> 00:26:31,560
Speaker 2: on the books. And I think one thing that was

456
00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:33,760
Speaker 2: really shocking to me, honestly and when I was at

457
00:26:33,760 --> 00:26:37,680
Speaker 2: the FTC was just how much authority is actually still

458
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:41,280
Speaker 2: on the books that just gets ignored or overlooked. And

459
00:26:41,359 --> 00:26:43,680
Speaker 2: this was also part of the Reagan legacy. They really

460
00:26:43,760 --> 00:26:48,560
Speaker 2: sought to make a shrink agency's own understanding of their

461
00:26:48,600 --> 00:26:52,160
Speaker 2: own powers. And so I think there's, you know, yes,

462
00:26:52,240 --> 00:26:55,560
Speaker 2: opportunity for Congress to legislate to make new rules, but

463
00:26:55,600 --> 00:26:59,119
Speaker 2: also an opportunity to use much more effectively the laws

464
00:26:59,119 --> 00:27:01,200
Speaker 2: we already have on the books. One of the things

465
00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:04,360
Speaker 2: that Congress did in the early nineties was basically tell

466
00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:08,520
Speaker 2: the FTC that they needed to scrutinize basically this issue

467
00:27:08,520 --> 00:27:13,080
Speaker 2: of made in USA labels. So companies sometimes will import

468
00:27:13,320 --> 00:27:15,959
Speaker 2: goods from other countries but then slap a made an

469
00:27:16,040 --> 00:27:19,560
Speaker 2: USA label on them, which just ves consumers if you

470
00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:22,560
Speaker 2: care about, you know, getting your products in America. But

471
00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:25,160
Speaker 2: it's also unfair for the businesses that are making their

472
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:29,120
Speaker 2: products here. And for several decades, the FTC had basically

473
00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:32,879
Speaker 2: ignored that you know, request from Congress and didn't do

474
00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:35,639
Speaker 2: anything about it to really put you know, teeth and

475
00:27:35,760 --> 00:27:39,719
Speaker 2: muscle behind a rule that would penalize companies if you

476
00:27:39,800 --> 00:27:41,760
Speaker 2: lie about where your products are made. So when I

477
00:27:41,800 --> 00:27:43,480
Speaker 2: came to the FTC, you know, we were able to

478
00:27:43,560 --> 00:27:45,680
Speaker 2: finalize a rule that says you can't lie about where

479
00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:49,040
Speaker 2: your products are made. The agency had also for decades

480
00:27:49,160 --> 00:27:53,280
Speaker 2: not done anything about just consumer protection rules, which you know,

481
00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:55,800
Speaker 2: we were told couldn't be done because it would take

482
00:27:55,840 --> 00:27:58,320
Speaker 2: five years or ten years. And when we took a

483
00:27:58,359 --> 00:28:02,800
Speaker 2: closer look, it was that the agency itself had added

484
00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:05,520
Speaker 2: all sorts of procedures and red tape to make the

485
00:28:05,560 --> 00:28:08,400
Speaker 2: process longer, even though there was no good reason for it.

486
00:28:08,400 --> 00:28:11,520
Speaker 2: It wasn't legally required, So we changed that, and it

487
00:28:11,600 --> 00:28:14,199
Speaker 2: meant that we could get through rules more quickly in

488
00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:16,680
Speaker 2: two or three years, and so we passed a rule

489
00:28:16,720 --> 00:28:20,840
Speaker 2: that basically says you can't have fake reviews online, right,

490
00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:23,719
Speaker 2: I mean, everybody's so dependent on these online reviews. We

491
00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:25,840
Speaker 2: passed a rule that said companies have to make it

492
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:28,320
Speaker 2: as easy to cancel a subscription as it is to

493
00:28:28,359 --> 00:28:32,240
Speaker 2: sign up for one. Unfortunately, a court recently struck that down,

494
00:28:32,320 --> 00:28:34,359
Speaker 2: which I think was a big shame in something the

495
00:28:34,400 --> 00:28:36,800
Speaker 2: agency should still be doing. And so we just put

496
00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:39,400
Speaker 2: in place these bread and butter rules that again are

497
00:28:39,400 --> 00:28:42,680
Speaker 2: about having an economy where companies can't trick and lie

498
00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:42,880
Speaker 2: to you.

499
00:28:43,040 --> 00:28:48,440
Speaker 1: And no conversation about regulation would be complete without discussing

500
00:28:48,840 --> 00:28:54,880
Speaker 1: how much obstruction comes from you guessed it, lobbyists. Here's

501
00:28:55,360 --> 00:29:00,680
Speaker 1: Alvaro Badoia explaining how lobbyists get in the way regulation.

502
00:29:01,280 --> 00:29:05,480
Speaker 3: Lobbying is absolutely something that gets in the way. And

503
00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:08,480
Speaker 3: I think the thing to point out is that lobbyists

504
00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:12,440
Speaker 3: are really smart people hired to do really bad things,

505
00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:14,840
Speaker 3: and so it's not all they do is just like

506
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:17,120
Speaker 3: whisper in the ear of a son or a congressman. No,

507
00:29:17,640 --> 00:29:22,720
Speaker 3: they're placing off eds, they're paying for social media influencer campaigns.

508
00:29:23,040 --> 00:29:25,560
Speaker 3: They're paying for ads on the Metro as you pull

509
00:29:25,600 --> 00:29:29,960
Speaker 3: into Union Station. Right. So what lobbyists do isn't just

510
00:29:30,680 --> 00:29:34,120
Speaker 3: try to get your stuff overruled in Congress. Right. What

511
00:29:34,160 --> 00:29:37,680
Speaker 3: lobbyists do is create a whole ecosystem of resistance to

512
00:29:37,760 --> 00:29:40,760
Speaker 3: the rules that are out there protecting workers, small businesses,

513
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:42,480
Speaker 3: and farmers, so to speak.

514
00:29:42,600 --> 00:29:46,360
Speaker 1: Many times, when regulation is discussed, it's framed as being

515
00:29:46,360 --> 00:29:50,200
Speaker 1: something that's only supported by the Democratic base, But if

516
00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:54,160
Speaker 1: explained in the right way, Republicans can actually really support

517
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:58,040
Speaker 1: it too, because they need help from these predatory companies

518
00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:01,920
Speaker 1: just as much as Democrats do. The Oaha Mechi provides

519
00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:05,480
Speaker 1: an example from the agricultural industry.

520
00:30:05,640 --> 00:30:12,400
Speaker 4: In agriculture, farmers they face truly just staggering odds just

521
00:30:12,560 --> 00:30:16,680
Speaker 4: to make a living and keep multi generational farms going.

522
00:30:17,280 --> 00:30:19,320
Speaker 4: And one of the things that we heard when we

523
00:30:19,400 --> 00:30:22,360
Speaker 4: went out to farms and when we had farmers actually

524
00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:25,640
Speaker 4: in to meet with us, and the Justice Department was

525
00:30:26,320 --> 00:30:31,240
Speaker 4: right to repair issues. So farming equipment is incredibly expensive

526
00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:36,240
Speaker 4: and farmers are often at the mercy huge multinational companies

527
00:30:36,760 --> 00:30:42,120
Speaker 4: that impose these rules that they can only be repaired

528
00:30:42,520 --> 00:30:48,760
Speaker 4: by certain accredited aftermarket providers, and so they're left waiting

529
00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:52,760
Speaker 4: for these repairs to happen. They're very, very expensive, and

530
00:30:52,880 --> 00:30:58,320
Speaker 4: meanwhile they cannot sort of reap rewards for farming. And

531
00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:02,880
Speaker 4: that's extraordinary. Again, that's an arbitrary set of rules. Right,

532
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:06,880
Speaker 4: basic enforcement of our antitrust laws, including the FTC Act,

533
00:31:07,040 --> 00:31:11,360
Speaker 4: would address things like that. We heard it from chicken farmers, right,

534
00:31:11,440 --> 00:31:16,360
Speaker 4: So the largest chicken processors in the country own an

535
00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:21,760
Speaker 4: outsized percentage of that industry, and they are able to

536
00:31:21,920 --> 00:31:27,600
Speaker 4: essentially outsource risk to chicken farmers, including through really onerous

537
00:31:27,640 --> 00:31:31,920
Speaker 4: loan terms, and really privatize a lot of the gains.

538
00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:36,080
Speaker 4: There's a system called the tournament system that we addressed

539
00:31:36,240 --> 00:31:39,600
Speaker 4: when we were in government that just sought to bring

540
00:31:40,280 --> 00:31:44,800
Speaker 4: basic fairness and fear dealing to that market and a

541
00:31:44,840 --> 00:31:49,720
Speaker 4: really vulnerable sort of crossset of people, often distributed in

542
00:31:49,800 --> 00:31:52,920
Speaker 4: the South. And it was extraordinary the government had not

543
00:31:53,640 --> 00:31:57,000
Speaker 4: done anything about a system that some people said had

544
00:31:57,080 --> 00:31:58,440
Speaker 4: roots in shear cropping.

545
00:31:58,680 --> 00:32:02,640
Speaker 1: It's important to realize that sometimes these regulations take multiple

546
00:32:02,760 --> 00:32:06,920
Speaker 1: years to be enacted, and that really creates a problem

547
00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:11,440
Speaker 1: because people don't see how these regulations affect their everyday lives.

548
00:32:11,640 --> 00:32:15,120
Speaker 1: Lena Khan explains why regulation needs to go into effect

549
00:32:15,240 --> 00:32:18,200
Speaker 1: faster and how to get companies to cooperate.

550
00:32:18,440 --> 00:32:20,920
Speaker 2: One of the things that the Agriculture Department did was

551
00:32:20,960 --> 00:32:25,920
Speaker 2: they eliminated junk fees on school lunches for low income kids,

552
00:32:26,040 --> 00:32:28,760
Speaker 2: which was really overdue. Why are they paying these extra

553
00:32:28,800 --> 00:32:31,920
Speaker 2: fees that doesn't come into effect until twenty twenty seven.

554
00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:34,080
Speaker 2: It was done during the Biden administration. Why are we

555
00:32:34,160 --> 00:32:37,160
Speaker 2: pushing out so much? And oftentimes that pressure is coming

556
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:39,000
Speaker 2: from companies to say, oh, we need a lot of

557
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:40,440
Speaker 2: time to come into compliance.

558
00:32:40,920 --> 00:32:42,280
Speaker 4: I think that can be a problem.

559
00:32:42,600 --> 00:32:45,800
Speaker 2: The administration was able to negotiate with certain drug companies,

560
00:32:45,920 --> 00:32:47,880
Speaker 2: but even when that comes into effect is going to

561
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:49,479
Speaker 2: be in a few years. So I think we need

562
00:32:49,520 --> 00:32:52,840
Speaker 2: to be thinking very in a very focused way, how

563
00:32:52,840 --> 00:32:55,920
Speaker 2: do we govern and effectively, efficiently, but also in a

564
00:32:55,960 --> 00:32:58,040
Speaker 2: way that's going to make a difference in people's lives

565
00:32:58,080 --> 00:32:58,520
Speaker 2: right away.

566
00:32:58,560 --> 00:33:01,480
Speaker 1: One of the big problems was why regulation doesn't work

567
00:33:01,680 --> 00:33:05,760
Speaker 1: is that the penalties and the finds that these companies

568
00:33:05,840 --> 00:33:10,320
Speaker 1: face are very small and very toothless, so they ignore

569
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:11,440
Speaker 1: them again and again.

570
00:33:11,560 --> 00:33:14,240
Speaker 2: I think we also need to think about what penalties

571
00:33:14,640 --> 00:33:18,120
Speaker 2: are actually going to make CEOs and businesses take the

572
00:33:18,200 --> 00:33:20,840
Speaker 2: rules and the laws more seriously. How do we make

573
00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:23,040
Speaker 2: sure we're not just doing kind of slap on the

574
00:33:23,120 --> 00:33:26,080
Speaker 2: risks That can look like more fines sometimes, but it

575
00:33:26,080 --> 00:33:30,120
Speaker 2: can also look like holding individual executives accountable. Or the

576
00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:34,080
Speaker 2: government gives so many benefits, so many subsidies to certain

577
00:33:34,080 --> 00:33:37,120
Speaker 2: types of businesses. If you're found liable of having broken

578
00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:39,520
Speaker 2: the law, should some of those be taken away? Those

579
00:33:39,560 --> 00:33:42,400
Speaker 2: government benefits or advantages? Right, So, I think we just

580
00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:45,880
Speaker 2: need to think more creatively, more expansively about what kind

581
00:33:45,880 --> 00:33:49,040
Speaker 2: of remedies do we have in place, what penalty do

582
00:33:49,080 --> 00:33:50,480
Speaker 2: you have to pay if you break.

583
00:33:50,240 --> 00:33:51,880
Speaker 4: The law, and if you're a big corporation.

584
00:33:52,320 --> 00:33:55,000
Speaker 1: One of the things we have to incentivize is how

585
00:33:55,040 --> 00:33:59,000
Speaker 1: we keep government workers honest. We have to figure out

586
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:02,120
Speaker 1: who the people are who play the key roles of

587
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:05,040
Speaker 1: regulating big money, so they can be incentivized to not

588
00:34:05,240 --> 00:34:10,680
Speaker 1: go easy when these abuses occur. Alvaro Badoya offers up

589
00:34:10,960 --> 00:34:13,319
Speaker 1: some suggestions on how to do this.

590
00:34:13,680 --> 00:34:16,880
Speaker 3: We've had some fine public servants serving of the FTC,

591
00:34:17,160 --> 00:34:20,280
Speaker 3: but I would say that a plurality, if not a majority,

592
00:34:20,280 --> 00:34:22,799
Speaker 3: of them, had just gone right back to working for

593
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:28,760
Speaker 3: massive corporate law firms that defend corporate America against fraud suits,

594
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:33,480
Speaker 3: monopolization suits. And so you can only shake the boat

595
00:34:33,640 --> 00:34:37,360
Speaker 3: so hard if you want to get a job working

596
00:34:37,400 --> 00:34:40,759
Speaker 3: for corporate America right after your tenure is FTC chair

597
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:46,720
Speaker 3: or CFPB head. And so you need to incentivize putting

598
00:34:46,760 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 3: those folks in office. You could have longer cooling off

599
00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:52,080
Speaker 3: periods so that you can't just go to work for

600
00:34:52,120 --> 00:34:54,919
Speaker 3: a corporate law firm right afterwards. You can pay these

601
00:34:54,960 --> 00:34:59,080
Speaker 3: folks more, because what happens is salaries have been frozen

602
00:34:59,120 --> 00:35:01,759
Speaker 3: at levels that have been adjusted for inflation. I'll just

603
00:35:01,760 --> 00:35:04,720
Speaker 3: share one thing I did. I drew down savings every

604
00:35:04,760 --> 00:35:08,000
Speaker 3: month I was an FTC commissioner. And so as a result,

605
00:35:08,200 --> 00:35:10,640
Speaker 3: a lot of folks feel pressed to go work for

606
00:35:10,680 --> 00:35:14,040
Speaker 3: the private sector right afterwards. And by the way, I know,

607
00:35:14,120 --> 00:35:17,440
Speaker 3: I'm not alone. And so it's actually quite common for

608
00:35:17,600 --> 00:35:20,879
Speaker 3: commissioners will not fix things around the house, not fix

609
00:35:20,960 --> 00:35:24,600
Speaker 3: their car, just because you just don't have the cash

610
00:35:24,640 --> 00:35:26,680
Speaker 3: flow month. The month after what will.

611
00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:30,200
Speaker 1: Be a long four years of Trump delivering for his

612
00:35:30,320 --> 00:35:34,319
Speaker 1: wealthy friends, very likely we will see a thirst for

613
00:35:34,560 --> 00:35:40,000
Speaker 1: an aggressive defense of the American people's interests that will

614
00:35:40,080 --> 00:35:45,480
Speaker 1: happen with regulation. Doha Mechi tells us how we got

615
00:35:45,520 --> 00:35:47,640
Speaker 1: here and how we need to get out of it.

616
00:35:47,760 --> 00:35:51,920
Speaker 4: We actually need to reimagine our political economy and for

617
00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:55,120
Speaker 4: better or for worse, the American people made a choice

618
00:35:55,320 --> 00:35:58,319
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty four, and they will tell you they

619
00:35:58,360 --> 00:36:01,320
Speaker 4: were not offended by the idea idea of a government

620
00:36:01,560 --> 00:36:05,320
Speaker 4: that actually takes power and utilizes it. What the American

621
00:36:05,360 --> 00:36:09,560
Speaker 4: people are hungry for is a government that takes power

622
00:36:10,120 --> 00:36:14,520
Speaker 4: from the people right like legitimately granted power from the people,

623
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:18,040
Speaker 4: and actually imposes a set of rules that are fair

624
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:20,480
Speaker 4: instead of what we currently have, which is a set

625
00:36:20,520 --> 00:36:26,360
Speaker 4: of rules where there is an incredible favor and bordering

626
00:36:26,400 --> 00:36:31,359
Speaker 4: on white glove conciered service for the richest, most powerful

627
00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:34,920
Speaker 4: billionaires and oligarchs on planet Earth. And again, we just

628
00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:38,040
Speaker 4: saw it right. They're fine dining with the President and

629
00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:42,680
Speaker 4: the White House just this week, even as the President's

630
00:36:42,880 --> 00:36:46,440
Speaker 4: policy and the policies of his administration really hose working

631
00:36:46,480 --> 00:36:51,319
Speaker 4: people right and make our economic opportunities more dire, and

632
00:36:51,360 --> 00:36:55,359
Speaker 4: really take from working people and working families and kind

633
00:36:55,400 --> 00:36:58,319
Speaker 4: of redistribute it up to people who already have so

634
00:36:58,480 --> 00:37:01,359
Speaker 4: much power in terms of political power and so much

635
00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:02,280
Speaker 4: material wealth.

636
00:37:02,800 --> 00:37:05,799
Speaker 1: There is a roadmap for getting out of this, and

637
00:37:05,840 --> 00:37:10,440
Speaker 1: it's not even a century old. It's from recent American history.

638
00:37:10,719 --> 00:37:14,400
Speaker 1: Let's hear from Elizabeth Wilkins to walk us through it.

639
00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:16,719
Speaker 5: If you go back to the nineteen thirties, people were

640
00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:20,480
Speaker 5: literally Americans, We're going to Italy and looking at how

641
00:37:20,480 --> 00:37:22,640
Speaker 5: the economy worked and how the government worked, because they

642
00:37:22,640 --> 00:37:26,120
Speaker 5: thought maybe fascism was a better idea for democracy than democracy,

643
00:37:26,120 --> 00:37:29,560
Speaker 5: for like delivering on basic economic prosperity. Right. It was

644
00:37:29,600 --> 00:37:34,280
Speaker 5: like an active debate in intellectual circles, in governing circles,

645
00:37:34,280 --> 00:37:36,320
Speaker 5: et cetera. And so part of what FDR knew he

646
00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:36,600
Speaker 5: had to.

647
00:37:36,640 --> 00:37:40,960
Speaker 1: Do was not that different from now correct, because Republicans

648
00:37:41,200 --> 00:37:43,280
Speaker 1: love of autocrats as.

649
00:37:43,080 --> 00:37:47,200
Speaker 5: We are seeing, and people were willing to vote for

650
00:37:47,239 --> 00:37:50,400
Speaker 5: something because they were, like, I don't know, these like

651
00:37:50,520 --> 00:37:53,640
Speaker 5: abstract appeals to democracy are not as animating as the

652
00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:55,520
Speaker 5: fact that, like I can't buy my groceries, right, so,

653
00:37:55,560 --> 00:37:57,120
Speaker 5: like I don't really care what's going on over there

654
00:37:57,120 --> 00:37:58,319
Speaker 5: as long as you can make sure that I can

655
00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:02,200
Speaker 5: buy my groceries, and like than saying how awful. Shouldn't

656
00:38:02,200 --> 00:38:06,840
Speaker 5: we all have some emotional commitment to democracy. What we

657
00:38:06,920 --> 00:38:10,360
Speaker 5: need to do is say people mostly really care about

658
00:38:10,360 --> 00:38:13,080
Speaker 5: whether they can afford their groceries and their kids to school,

659
00:38:13,200 --> 00:38:14,719
Speaker 5: maybe if they can go out to dinner once a

660
00:38:14,760 --> 00:38:17,480
Speaker 5: week or go camping or whatever it is. And it's

661
00:38:17,560 --> 00:38:20,040
Speaker 5: our job to prove that democracy is better than any

662
00:38:20,080 --> 00:38:23,160
Speaker 5: other system at delivering that. That's what we did in

663
00:38:23,200 --> 00:38:25,960
Speaker 5: the Great Depression, and that is what we can do again.

664
00:38:26,760 --> 00:38:28,920
Speaker 5: I think there's like a total formula for that. Right,

665
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:32,760
Speaker 5: what did FDR do? He curved corporate power, he supported

666
00:38:32,840 --> 00:38:37,319
Speaker 5: labor power, he created economic security, and he narrated what

667
00:38:37,440 --> 00:38:42,319
Speaker 5: he was doing every day in a way that was

668
00:38:42,440 --> 00:38:45,600
Speaker 5: legible to people at the time his fireside chats. That

669
00:38:45,719 --> 00:38:49,000
Speaker 5: is like the least radical thing you could imagine. That

670
00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:51,759
Speaker 5: is in fact as American as apple pie. The New Deal.

671
00:38:52,160 --> 00:38:55,000
Speaker 5: We have a new set of market challenges, we have

672
00:38:55,000 --> 00:38:58,040
Speaker 5: a new set of political economy challenges. We have climate change,

673
00:38:58,080 --> 00:39:02,640
Speaker 5: we have AI. You know, the context is different that

674
00:39:02,920 --> 00:39:07,880
Speaker 5: challenges in the bases for people's anxiety is different, but

675
00:39:07,960 --> 00:39:10,160
Speaker 5: the formula is not that different.

676
00:39:10,360 --> 00:39:14,879
Speaker 1: Right, here's Doha Mechi on what democrats have to do

677
00:39:14,960 --> 00:39:16,120
Speaker 1: when they're back in power.

678
00:39:16,200 --> 00:39:19,719
Speaker 4: If we are entrusted to govern again, we have to

679
00:39:19,920 --> 00:39:22,960
Speaker 4: show the American people that we are on their side,

680
00:39:23,160 --> 00:39:25,520
Speaker 4: right Like that That is the soul of FDR and

681
00:39:25,560 --> 00:39:29,440
Speaker 4: the New Dealers, Right. Showing people that we believe in

682
00:39:29,480 --> 00:39:33,319
Speaker 4: an economy that is built for them and not just

683
00:39:33,440 --> 00:39:36,040
Speaker 4: for the ultra wealthy and the elite is the most

684
00:39:36,120 --> 00:39:38,760
Speaker 4: important thing we can do. And I mean, you see

685
00:39:38,760 --> 00:39:42,520
Speaker 4: this and candidates now who are having, at least if

686
00:39:42,520 --> 00:39:46,960
Speaker 4: you trust some of the polling, really sort of astronomical impact.

687
00:39:47,120 --> 00:39:51,200
Speaker 4: It's not a mystery that you see millennials who probably

688
00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:54,279
Speaker 4: came of age during the financial crisis and then all

689
00:39:54,560 --> 00:39:58,080
Speaker 4: saw some of the failures of our market economy around

690
00:39:58,120 --> 00:40:02,279
Speaker 4: COVID who are essentially saying, we're demanding a better politics,

691
00:40:02,640 --> 00:40:06,280
Speaker 4: and we are naming our enemies, right, We are naming

692
00:40:06,360 --> 00:40:09,080
Speaker 4: the cause of the problem, and we are saying that

693
00:40:09,120 --> 00:40:12,920
Speaker 4: we are going to be relentlessly focused on the economic

694
00:40:13,040 --> 00:40:16,120
Speaker 4: issues that hurt the American people most. And I think

695
00:40:16,160 --> 00:40:19,640
Speaker 4: that is a really exciting and wonderful thing in our politics.

696
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:23,160
Speaker 1: It's not just government bureaucrats who need to do this.

697
00:40:23,480 --> 00:40:27,279
Speaker 1: We need our government officials and the media to help

698
00:40:27,400 --> 00:40:31,080
Speaker 1: narrate this for the American people. Elizabeth Wilkins explains why

699
00:40:31,080 --> 00:40:32,200
Speaker 1: a narrative is important.

700
00:40:32,280 --> 00:40:34,279
Speaker 5: There is a key part portion of this, which is

701
00:40:34,280 --> 00:40:38,400
Speaker 5: that you do have to have a narrative and a

702
00:40:38,520 --> 00:40:44,200
Speaker 5: narrator who can tell the story of who is the

703
00:40:44,239 --> 00:40:46,600
Speaker 5: bad guy in this story, who is the hero in

704
00:40:46,640 --> 00:40:50,440
Speaker 5: this story, what is the action, and what is the outcome? Right,

705
00:40:50,480 --> 00:40:53,160
Speaker 5: And there's a story waiting to be told here right.

706
00:40:53,680 --> 00:40:55,600
Speaker 5: There's a villain which is the airline that is just

707
00:40:55,640 --> 00:40:58,520
Speaker 5: trying to extract every last nickel and dime from you.

708
00:40:59,200 --> 00:41:02,520
Speaker 5: There is a hero which is government who's on your side,

709
00:41:02,600 --> 00:41:04,520
Speaker 5: who is willing to stand up to the bully and

710
00:41:04,560 --> 00:41:06,960
Speaker 5: do something about it. There is an outcome, which is

711
00:41:06,960 --> 00:41:09,000
Speaker 5: that you get to go on vacation with your family

712
00:41:09,040 --> 00:41:12,840
Speaker 5: without feeling frustrated and gross about the market interactions that

713
00:41:12,840 --> 00:41:14,960
Speaker 5: you're a part of. But you need somebody with a

714
00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:20,040
Speaker 5: big enough megaphone and with the talent in this moment,

715
00:41:20,120 --> 00:41:23,080
Speaker 5: in this media environment to be able to tell that narrative,

716
00:41:23,080 --> 00:41:25,040
Speaker 5: to pick that up and tell that narrative. And we

717
00:41:25,120 --> 00:41:28,880
Speaker 5: need politicians who are unafraid of telling that story, who

718
00:41:28,920 --> 00:41:32,440
Speaker 5: are talented telling that story, and who are unafraid to

719
00:41:32,640 --> 00:41:35,520
Speaker 5: hire the Lina Khans of the world to do the

720
00:41:35,560 --> 00:41:37,959
Speaker 5: work so that they have a story to tell.

721
00:41:38,360 --> 00:41:43,200
Speaker 1: Doha Mechi doesn't think the American people are understanding why

722
00:41:43,239 --> 00:41:46,600
Speaker 1: being people first is important in our policies.

723
00:41:46,800 --> 00:41:50,520
Speaker 4: The American people, at least as we've seen it in

724
00:41:50,880 --> 00:41:54,880
Speaker 4: races where candidates are sort of pursuing Le's people first

725
00:41:55,239 --> 00:42:00,279
Speaker 4: progressive economic framework. I think people are getting it to

726
00:42:00,320 --> 00:42:05,439
Speaker 4: say that you can't divorce politics from history and other

727
00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:09,279
Speaker 4: events happening on the ground. Milton Friedman and a lot

728
00:42:09,320 --> 00:42:13,440
Speaker 4: of the sort of thinkers that became part of the

729
00:42:13,520 --> 00:42:17,680
Speaker 4: conservative economic movement that really took power in the eighties.

730
00:42:17,920 --> 00:42:21,200
Speaker 4: Those guys started writing in like the fifties and sixties, right,

731
00:42:21,280 --> 00:42:25,040
Speaker 4: Like Milton Friedman published Capitalism and Freedom in nineteen sixty two,

732
00:42:25,600 --> 00:42:28,400
Speaker 4: and nobody cared because he wasn't Milton Friedman yet.

733
00:42:28,640 --> 00:42:28,799
Speaker 3: Right.

734
00:42:29,000 --> 00:42:33,759
Speaker 4: What did I suspect get some of these ideas more

735
00:42:33,840 --> 00:42:38,120
Speaker 4: traction was that you had business interests behind them, but

736
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:43,080
Speaker 4: you also had the broad geopolitical anxiety of the moment,

737
00:42:43,120 --> 00:42:48,719
Speaker 4: which was about our competitiveness relative to the former Soviet Union, right,

738
00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:53,399
Speaker 4: and so politicians also sort of framed those economic policies

739
00:42:54,280 --> 00:42:58,120
Speaker 4: as a means of getting out of a terrible economic downturn,

740
00:42:58,320 --> 00:43:00,360
Speaker 4: including some of the inflation that we saw around the

741
00:43:00,360 --> 00:43:06,080
Speaker 4: Carter administration, but also competitiveness to a geopolitical rival, right,

742
00:43:06,160 --> 00:43:09,600
Speaker 4: And so I think that you see opportunity even in

743
00:43:09,680 --> 00:43:12,839
Speaker 4: moments of crisis. And there's no doubt the Trump administration

744
00:43:12,960 --> 00:43:17,400
Speaker 4: has ushered in crises at home and crises abroad. And

745
00:43:17,440 --> 00:43:22,000
Speaker 4: I think that you see a progressive economic agenda that

746
00:43:22,120 --> 00:43:26,200
Speaker 4: is people centered and people first, sort of taking roots

747
00:43:26,640 --> 00:43:29,520
Speaker 4: amid that chaos. And I think that the American people

748
00:43:29,560 --> 00:43:30,120
Speaker 4: are listening.

749
00:43:30,360 --> 00:43:33,320
Speaker 1: We see over and over again people want a government

750
00:43:33,360 --> 00:43:36,680
Speaker 1: that fights for them. Trump came into power because people

751
00:43:36,760 --> 00:43:40,400
Speaker 1: believe that Trump was going to fight for them. He wasn't.

752
00:43:40,640 --> 00:43:44,400
Speaker 1: But Democrats can and they will do it with regulation.

753
00:43:44,719 --> 00:43:48,600
Speaker 1: Here's Elizabeth Wilkins on fighting back and rebuilding.

754
00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:54,720
Speaker 5: It is amazing to see how many different market interactions

755
00:43:55,000 --> 00:44:05,200
Speaker 5: feel disempowering, humiliating, frustrating, dehumanizing to people. And that frustration

756
00:44:05,600 --> 00:44:10,879
Speaker 5: and anger is like it is a well of untapped

757
00:44:11,520 --> 00:44:16,040
Speaker 5: resource for really making some change. If we could figure

758
00:44:16,080 --> 00:44:19,160
Speaker 5: out how to demonstrate that government can actually do something

759
00:44:19,239 --> 00:44:21,520
Speaker 5: about that, Like that is, if we are able to

760
00:44:21,520 --> 00:44:24,879
Speaker 5: both listen to and tap into that frustration, use our

761
00:44:24,920 --> 00:44:27,959
Speaker 5: authorities to do something about it. Be unafraid to take

762
00:44:28,000 --> 00:44:32,840
Speaker 5: the risks associated with delivering and recognize that actually picking

763
00:44:32,840 --> 00:44:36,759
Speaker 5: a fight is beneficial. It shows people who you are

764
00:44:37,040 --> 00:44:38,880
Speaker 5: and what you stand for in a way that you

765
00:44:38,960 --> 00:44:42,319
Speaker 5: can't do with just words like That's how we get

766
00:44:42,320 --> 00:44:44,520
Speaker 5: people excited about us again, I think, is to be

767
00:44:44,640 --> 00:44:47,239
Speaker 5: unafraid to get into those fights and show people who

768
00:44:47,239 --> 00:44:47,560
Speaker 5: we are.

769
00:44:47,719 --> 00:44:50,200
Speaker 1: We are going to have to find a way that

770
00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:54,840
Speaker 1: government does this in a meaningful way as soon as possible.

771
00:44:55,160 --> 00:44:57,479
Speaker 5: We need to rebuild in a way that brings those

772
00:44:57,520 --> 00:45:00,520
Speaker 5: people back right, that creates a go government that can

773
00:45:00,640 --> 00:45:05,960
Speaker 5: actually deliver for those people, that makes authoritarianism unattractive and

774
00:45:06,080 --> 00:45:09,680
Speaker 5: makes democracy attractive again. That is again what FDR did

775
00:45:09,719 --> 00:45:11,799
Speaker 5: in his time. We need to look at rebuilding a

776
00:45:11,800 --> 00:45:16,160
Speaker 5: government that is nimble enough to be able to deliver fast,

777
00:45:16,640 --> 00:45:19,480
Speaker 5: that understands all of the tools to regulate markets and

778
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:23,000
Speaker 5: understands that you need to regulate markets towards publicans, you know,

779
00:45:23,080 --> 00:45:26,279
Speaker 5: making people's lives good lives to lead, and also that

780
00:45:26,320 --> 00:45:29,279
Speaker 5: has meaningful participation from people. I think what it comes

781
00:45:29,280 --> 00:45:32,560
Speaker 5: down to is truly flipping our risk profile when it

782
00:45:32,600 --> 00:45:39,880
Speaker 5: comes to governing, that we have allowed a world in

783
00:45:39,920 --> 00:45:43,279
Speaker 5: which we get into government and then mostly we are

784
00:45:43,320 --> 00:45:47,920
Speaker 5: afraid to make mistakes because those are politically costly, rather

785
00:45:48,160 --> 00:45:52,240
Speaker 5: than truly pricing in the cost of under delivering for people,

786
00:45:52,280 --> 00:45:57,520
Speaker 5: which is slower and more insidious and longer term. But like,

787
00:45:57,600 --> 00:46:00,600
Speaker 5: look where it got us right, And now we have

788
00:46:00,680 --> 00:46:04,120
Speaker 5: this guy who doesn't care about any norms, is breaking everything,

789
00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:06,120
Speaker 5: seems to be doing it just fine. So if we

790
00:46:06,160 --> 00:46:09,240
Speaker 5: could take a little bit of that energy and say,

791
00:46:09,320 --> 00:46:11,520
Speaker 5: if he can break norms for destruction, how about we

792
00:46:11,560 --> 00:46:13,960
Speaker 5: break norms in the service of building something that will

793
00:46:14,000 --> 00:46:17,200
Speaker 5: be good for people and not take no for an

794
00:46:17,200 --> 00:46:19,920
Speaker 5: answer when it comes to the big swings that we

795
00:46:19,960 --> 00:46:22,840
Speaker 5: should be taking. And I just like, for a modern example,

796
00:46:23,160 --> 00:46:26,160
Speaker 5: I had the privilege and pleasure of working with Lena

797
00:46:26,239 --> 00:46:28,960
Speaker 5: Khan at the Federal Trade Commission in the Biden administration,

798
00:46:29,120 --> 00:46:32,440
Speaker 5: and to my mind, she is an extraordinary example of

799
00:46:32,520 --> 00:46:35,040
Speaker 5: this kind of leadership. Like what are we We are

800
00:46:35,080 --> 00:46:37,520
Speaker 5: public servants. What are we here for? We are here

801
00:46:37,560 --> 00:46:41,160
Speaker 5: for the mission of this agency, which is to promote competition,

802
00:46:41,280 --> 00:46:45,399
Speaker 5: to protect the public from monopolistic behavior. That doesn't mean

803
00:46:45,480 --> 00:46:48,920
Speaker 5: doing things that are safe or easy or clear. It

804
00:46:49,000 --> 00:46:52,279
Speaker 5: means starting from what people are telling us are the

805
00:46:52,320 --> 00:46:55,359
Speaker 5: problems they are having in their market interactions, and then

806
00:46:55,400 --> 00:46:58,320
Speaker 5: finding the tools that we have to be able to

807
00:46:58,360 --> 00:47:01,399
Speaker 5: attack those problems in a holistic way. If we could

808
00:47:01,400 --> 00:47:04,440
Speaker 5: do that across the board, and if our consolutions could

809
00:47:04,480 --> 00:47:06,759
Speaker 5: be legible to people right, not like this is a

810
00:47:06,800 --> 00:47:11,359
Speaker 5: super complicated negotiation over drug prices that you might see

811
00:47:11,400 --> 00:47:13,400
Speaker 5: in five years and you didn't who did it for you.

812
00:47:13,760 --> 00:47:16,720
Speaker 5: But rather there is a cap on insulin at thirty

813
00:47:16,760 --> 00:47:19,200
Speaker 5: five dollars, and you can see in field there is

814
00:47:19,239 --> 00:47:21,080
Speaker 5: a ban on junk fees, and that is just not

815
00:47:21,560 --> 00:47:23,840
Speaker 5: something that a company is allowed to do for you anymore.

816
00:47:24,160 --> 00:47:26,440
Speaker 5: That is, I think, a modern day example of the

817
00:47:26,600 --> 00:47:30,040
Speaker 5: attitude towards governance and the urgency with which we should

818
00:47:30,080 --> 00:47:32,279
Speaker 5: be using our tools on behalf of working people. That

819
00:47:33,440 --> 00:47:36,200
Speaker 5: is not the way Democrats usually do it, but then

820
00:47:36,200 --> 00:47:38,160
Speaker 5: we opportunity to do next time.

821
00:47:38,520 --> 00:47:44,360
Speaker 1: Both Democrats and Republicans want to be defended against people

822
00:47:44,400 --> 00:47:49,200
Speaker 1: who pry upon them. Alvaro Bedoya talks to us about

823
00:47:49,239 --> 00:47:53,680
Speaker 1: how the left versus right doom loop helps no one.

824
00:47:54,000 --> 00:47:58,000
Speaker 3: I feel like we are stuck in this left versus

825
00:47:58,080 --> 00:48:01,640
Speaker 3: right doom loop where you know, we get in and

826
00:48:02,360 --> 00:48:04,439
Speaker 3: they think we're getting our punches in, and so when

827
00:48:04,440 --> 00:48:06,920
Speaker 3: they get in, they're going to punch us back. And

828
00:48:07,360 --> 00:48:11,120
Speaker 3: I feel like we are missing struggle that people wake

829
00:48:11,239 --> 00:48:13,040
Speaker 3: up in the morning and think about which is not

830
00:48:13,640 --> 00:48:18,600
Speaker 3: Democrat versus Republican, But how on God's earth am I

831
00:48:18,680 --> 00:48:24,399
Speaker 3: going to pay these bills from this monopolist company or

832
00:48:24,800 --> 00:48:29,760
Speaker 3: this monopolist utility, because my employer, who pays me, you know, Jack,

833
00:48:30,200 --> 00:48:33,120
Speaker 3: isn't paying me what I'm worth. Right, I don't think

834
00:48:33,160 --> 00:48:35,799
Speaker 3: people wake up in the morning and think like, I'm

835
00:48:35,840 --> 00:48:37,960
Speaker 3: a Democrat and I'm going to stick it to the ours.

836
00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:40,960
Speaker 3: And I frankly don't think, despite some of the fervor

837
00:48:41,040 --> 00:48:43,240
Speaker 3: of the president's supporters, I don't think the vast majority

838
00:48:43,239 --> 00:48:44,799
Speaker 3: of the people who voted for this president wake up

839
00:48:44,800 --> 00:48:46,640
Speaker 3: in the morning and say I'm going to stick it

840
00:48:46,680 --> 00:48:48,400
Speaker 3: to the Libs. No, they say, how the hell am

841
00:48:48,440 --> 00:48:50,839
Speaker 3: I going to pay the bills? I think that on

842
00:48:50,880 --> 00:48:53,640
Speaker 3: the left and the right, we need to start seeing

843
00:48:53,680 --> 00:48:57,279
Speaker 3: the fight of our lives, not liberals versus conservatives, but

844
00:48:57,680 --> 00:49:01,759
Speaker 3: populist versus oligarchs and I think we need to reframe

845
00:49:01,880 --> 00:49:06,160
Speaker 3: government in this way. The level of despair in this

846
00:49:06,320 --> 00:49:12,040
Speaker 3: country is completely underappreciated. Farmers kill themselves at a rate

847
00:49:12,200 --> 00:49:14,719
Speaker 3: higher than almost any other profession.

848
00:49:15,120 --> 00:49:15,319
Speaker 2: Right.

849
00:49:15,760 --> 00:49:20,080
Speaker 3: We value people who work with their hands for a living. Right,

850
00:49:20,320 --> 00:49:22,839
Speaker 3: you know, construction worker may not be an elite job,

851
00:49:22,880 --> 00:49:25,440
Speaker 3: but it's a job that like people respect because it's

852
00:49:25,480 --> 00:49:27,680
Speaker 3: you're actually building things. It's a hard job. It's a

853
00:49:27,680 --> 00:49:30,720
Speaker 3: hard It's a job we respect. Right now, as we speak,

854
00:49:31,040 --> 00:49:35,080
Speaker 3: every ten days a construction worker literally dies of thirst

855
00:49:35,120 --> 00:49:38,680
Speaker 3: and heat. In Miami Dade County and broader Florida. We

856
00:49:38,760 --> 00:49:43,279
Speaker 3: live in a time when billionaires like literally compete to

857
00:49:43,440 --> 00:49:47,960
Speaker 3: launch rockets into space, and the most common thing to

858
00:49:48,000 --> 00:49:50,879
Speaker 3: do when you get a cancer diagnosis is to set

859
00:49:50,920 --> 00:49:53,279
Speaker 3: up a go Fundme page to beg your friends and

860
00:49:53,320 --> 00:49:56,360
Speaker 3: family for money. This is the world we live in.

861
00:49:57,000 --> 00:49:59,960
Speaker 3: And the sad fact is, look you see the background.

862
00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:03,440
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm okay. I live a professional, upper middle

863
00:50:03,440 --> 00:50:07,080
Speaker 3: class life. I don't struggle to pay the bills, but

864
00:50:07,239 --> 00:50:10,560
Speaker 3: I am a weirdo. Right. The growing share of people

865
00:50:10,600 --> 00:50:15,120
Speaker 3: in this country wake up anxious, wake up not knowing

866
00:50:15,160 --> 00:50:17,439
Speaker 3: how they're going to pay the bills, regularly working two

867
00:50:17,520 --> 00:50:19,960
Speaker 3: or three jobs a week, and what that does is

868
00:50:20,000 --> 00:50:22,960
Speaker 3: it produces anger. And so I think a lot of

869
00:50:23,000 --> 00:50:25,759
Speaker 3: folks in the Democratic Party, and look, I'm a Democrat,

870
00:50:25,880 --> 00:50:28,839
Speaker 3: are really focused on Okay, we gotta we gotta fund

871
00:50:28,880 --> 00:50:31,400
Speaker 3: up the groups that fight for democracy. We gotta fund

872
00:50:31,440 --> 00:50:36,680
Speaker 3: up the groups that protect people against the legal deportations. Amen. Absolutely,

873
00:50:36,960 --> 00:50:40,440
Speaker 3: But if you don't get at the cause of the anger,

874
00:50:41,000 --> 00:50:45,640
Speaker 3: which is this feeling of complete lack of control over

875
00:50:45,680 --> 00:50:48,040
Speaker 3: our material lives, the suspicion that, like, what the hell

876
00:50:48,120 --> 00:50:49,960
Speaker 3: is going on up there, what the hell are these

877
00:50:50,000 --> 00:50:53,920
Speaker 3: elites doing, We're going to just continue in this doom

878
00:50:53,960 --> 00:50:56,520
Speaker 3: loop of the left blames the right, the right blames

879
00:50:56,560 --> 00:50:59,600
Speaker 3: the left, and so I think that reframing is important.

880
00:51:00,000 --> 00:51:02,440
Speaker 3: One thing I'll share with you is Lena Khan is

881
00:51:02,600 --> 00:51:06,239
Speaker 3: really popular among a whole lot of conservatives, right, and

882
00:51:06,360 --> 00:51:08,200
Speaker 3: they have no idea who I am. But when I

883
00:51:08,239 --> 00:51:11,480
Speaker 3: tell them, I work to ban subscription traps where you

884
00:51:11,560 --> 00:51:14,520
Speaker 3: sign up online but you can only cancel over the phone.

885
00:51:14,600 --> 00:51:18,600
Speaker 3: I work to ban those ridiculous junk fees that increasingly

886
00:51:18,680 --> 00:51:21,520
Speaker 3: pack your rent bill or you show up at hotel

887
00:51:21,520 --> 00:51:24,440
Speaker 3: you're like, congratulations, you're at a resort. Here's this mandatory

888
00:51:24,800 --> 00:51:27,480
Speaker 3: ninety dollars resort fee you've never heard of. I tell them,

889
00:51:27,640 --> 00:51:30,400
Speaker 3: you know, I blocked the Kroger Albertson's merger. There is

890
00:51:30,440 --> 00:51:34,759
Speaker 3: not one maga conservative. I'll just say where I've described

891
00:51:34,840 --> 00:51:38,480
Speaker 3: your record that we achieved under Chircom, who does not

892
00:51:38,600 --> 00:51:41,120
Speaker 3: walk away with a whole lot less skepticism, And so

893
00:51:41,640 --> 00:51:44,600
Speaker 3: number one, we're underestimating the amount of despair in this country.

894
00:51:44,680 --> 00:51:48,120
Speaker 3: Number Two, there are troop bridges to be built along

895
00:51:48,160 --> 00:51:50,759
Speaker 3: the lines of economic populism. And like, am I going

896
00:51:50,800 --> 00:51:53,479
Speaker 3: to surrender on the idea that trans kids are kids

897
00:51:53,480 --> 00:51:55,200
Speaker 3: and trans people are people and they deserve to be

898
00:51:55,200 --> 00:51:55,960
Speaker 3: treated with respect.

899
00:51:56,120 --> 00:51:56,200
Speaker 1: No?

900
00:51:56,320 --> 00:51:58,640
Speaker 3: I will not. Am I going to surrender the idea

901
00:51:58,680 --> 00:52:01,319
Speaker 3: that like there should be mass at least picking up

902
00:52:01,440 --> 00:52:03,759
Speaker 3: random brown people on the street and sticking them in

903
00:52:03,760 --> 00:52:06,439
Speaker 3: a swamp gulag. No I will not. But at least

904
00:52:06,480 --> 00:52:09,000
Speaker 3: we can find some ground we can agree on, which is,

905
00:52:09,400 --> 00:52:12,200
Speaker 3: there is a vulgar amount of inequality in our society

906
00:52:12,440 --> 00:52:14,560
Speaker 3: and that needs to be the problem. We liked.

907
00:52:14,680 --> 00:52:17,319
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for watching this episode. We made

908
00:52:17,320 --> 00:52:20,120
Speaker 1: this series to get the conversation going, to get people

909
00:52:20,200 --> 00:52:25,680
Speaker 1: thinking about what America can be after Trump's disaster a

910
00:52:25,760 --> 00:52:30,200
Speaker 1: second term. We want people talking about this, so tell

911
00:52:30,280 --> 00:52:33,880
Speaker 1: us if you agree or you disagree. Please share this

912
00:52:33,960 --> 00:52:36,920
Speaker 1: with a friend and click like on the video and

913
00:52:37,080 --> 00:52:40,400
Speaker 1: comment so it can spread two more people on YouTube