Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to WIKA F Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet Your Girl Danielle Moody recording Not So Live from
Speaker 1: San Francisco, folks. Um. I want to open up the
Speaker 1: show with apologizing that there will not be video for
Speaker 1: the last two shows of this week because I am
Speaker 1: traveling for work in a different orientation and so we'll
Speaker 1: not have access to that. But we'll go back old
Speaker 1: school for that short little bit and we will just
Speaker 1: do audio for the next two days, which will be easier.
Speaker 1: I want to start off today as well. I haven't
Speaker 1: been in San Francisco since before the pandemic. I come here.
Speaker 1: I've been coming to San Francisco to the Castro District,
Speaker 1: which is largely LGBTQ plus area, as an advisor with
Speaker 1: the Lesbians Who Tech and Allies organization. For the last
Speaker 1: several years put on two summits a year where we
Speaker 1: have incredible speakers. We've had Hillary Clinton, Stacy Abrams, you know,
Speaker 1: among other big names that have come to talk on
Speaker 1: a variety of issues raging from social justice to tech
Speaker 1: to everything in between. And since the pandemic, obviously we
Speaker 1: have had to move into doing virtual events and so
Speaker 1: this is my first time here, and what is striking
Speaker 1: is one if you haven't traveled as much or at
Speaker 1: all since since twenty nineteen, it's startling to roll up
Speaker 1: into places that you have very fond memories of or
Speaker 1: very distinct, I should say, memories of how they were
Speaker 1: and the cash stro to me in San Francisco has
Speaker 1: always been super bustling, with lots of you know, queer
Speaker 1: folks and artists and musicians and restaurant tours and just
Speaker 1: had a different energy and vibe about it. And you know,
Speaker 1: my friends and I are here and walking around and
Speaker 1: there's an eerieness that is in the air. It's it's
Speaker 1: a quarter of the people, first of all, are walking
Speaker 1: around on the streets. Majority of everyone is masked, even
Speaker 1: if they're walking outside. But there is an eeriness. There's
Speaker 1: a sadness that is kind of that is lingering, that
Speaker 1: is noticeable. And it's very different than New York. And
Speaker 1: I don't know if that is because I live in
Speaker 1: New York, you know, day and day out, and so there,
Speaker 1: while there has been significant changes, the vibration of the
Speaker 1: city has come back to life. Whereas here and even
Speaker 1: when I went to La recently, there is just like again,
Speaker 1: a sadness, a just a lingering sense that something is
Speaker 1: off an off kilter. And I say that because it
Speaker 1: is present, you know, in so many different ways, whether
Speaker 1: you're still working from home, or have slowly started to
Speaker 1: go back into an office, or have been told that
Speaker 1: you're never going back into an office, or your plans
Speaker 1: were altered because of omicron, or you know what have you.
Speaker 1: But I can't help but wonder how long. And I
Speaker 1: don't even just mean like the economic effects, but I
Speaker 1: wonder if we have changed just our emotional well being,
Speaker 1: our structure of society for the long haul, you know,
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the pandemic, right which folks, I
Speaker 1: cannot believe that the calendar year is going to be changing,
Speaker 1: you know, but in a couple of weeks will be
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two, which is mind blowing to me
Speaker 1: and I'm certain to many of you as well, But
Speaker 1: we will be two years. The first reported death of
Speaker 1: COVID came in February of twenty twenty. There's a first
Speaker 1: reported death. Since then, America has surpassed, from what I
Speaker 1: said yesterday, eight hundred thousand deaths, which is significantly more
Speaker 1: than any other country. Like, let that sink in for
Speaker 1: a moment. Now, you know, we could say, we could
Speaker 1: say a lot of different things right about that reality.
Speaker 1: We could say that, you know, it is we do
Speaker 1: the most reporting right and that we have been transparent
Speaker 1: about our reporting, whereas other countries may not have been
Speaker 1: right or may not have had the capability to have
Speaker 1: reported the amount of deaths. But I think that it
Speaker 1: says something right. It says something really striking and really
Speaker 1: upsetting that America has surpassed every other nation in the
Speaker 1: number of deaths. And what is really frightening is that
Speaker 1: a quarter of those deaths have happened since we've had
Speaker 1: the vaccine. Right, So just think about this for a moment,
Speaker 1: that even though we have a life saving vaccine, even
Speaker 1: though we now have mutated two major times since the
Speaker 1: alpha variant of twenty twenty, we've had delta and now omicrons,
Speaker 1: that we have vaccines, we have booster shots, because of scientists,
Speaker 1: because of doctors, nurses, healthcare practitioners, that we have a
Speaker 1: pathway out, and yet a quarter of those over eight
Speaker 1: hundred thousand deaths have come after the fact. We are still,
Speaker 1: according to The New York Times, experiencing twelve hundred deaths
Speaker 1: a day. It makes absolutely no sense. You know, I
Speaker 1: almost want to go back to the history and the
Speaker 1: record books of other plagues and flues and pandemics that
Speaker 1: have wiped across the planet and see what the political
Speaker 1: climate was like. You know, where people in the midst
Speaker 1: of the Spanish flu is, tens of thousands of people
Speaker 1: were dying so rapidly, where their protests in the streets,
Speaker 1: right when polio was ravaging many nations before there was
Speaker 1: a vaccine, where there are people in the streets that
Speaker 1: said no, it's God's will and everyone should get polio.
Speaker 1: I just find it's so absolutely bizarre and sickening that
Speaker 1: we are still at a place where we're hearing stories
Speaker 1: about people now on their deathbeds saying give me the vaccine. Well,
Speaker 1: now it's too late, right, and now the vaccine doesn't matter,
Speaker 1: won't work because your body has been ravaged by COVID.
Speaker 1: And I keep thinking as well, you know, because of
Speaker 1: hippo laws, right, because of the laws that we have
Speaker 1: that allow people able to have privacy right around their
Speaker 1: medical treatment and their medical care, that that has prevented
Speaker 1: us from actually being able to see exactly what happens
Speaker 1: to the body when COVID hits, exactly what the nurses
Speaker 1: and doctors right and healthcare workers are experiencing day in
Speaker 1: and day out trying to save lives. Right knowing that
Speaker 1: we have a vaccine, it was different in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: We didn't know what the fuck we were dealing with,
Speaker 1: But now we do. We have a better understanding. We
Speaker 1: are seeing how and why it's mutating. We're not able
Speaker 1: to stop it because, frankly, human nature, humans led by
Speaker 1: Right the likes of Fox News and other bull shit politicians,
Speaker 1: have made it so this is endemic. It's never going anywhere.
Speaker 1: Right now, we're hanging on to the hope that omicron
Speaker 1: is not as lethal as delta or the alpha was,
Speaker 1: and that if you were vaccinated and boosted that it
Speaker 1: is unlikely that you will end up in hospital. But
Speaker 1: how long will it take for omicron, which is more
Speaker 1: transmissible than the delta variant, to take shape. And then
Speaker 1: once that takes shape, and we still have twenty five
Speaker 1: of our population that refuses to get vaccinated, how long
Speaker 1: before we have a mutation on top of that mutation?
Speaker 1: And maybe we're not so lucky that the vaccines along
Speaker 1: with the boosters actually work, you see right now. They
Speaker 1: were announcements that came out earlier in the week that
Speaker 1: Alvin Elli, the famed African American dance company, was halting
Speaker 1: two of their shows because people within the company. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's dancers, assistance, teachers, what have you,
Speaker 1: but people within the company have contracted COVID, So they've
Speaker 1: canceled two shows. New York University n YU has canceled
Speaker 1: their events because of COVID. Broadway is worried, the Opera
Speaker 1: is concerned, right because as we get into the colder months,
Speaker 1: particularly on the East coast right and in the North
Speaker 1: Pacific Northwest, in all of these places that people are
Speaker 1: going to go back indoors, and we still have a
Speaker 1: couple of holiday humps to get over before we reach
Speaker 1: the new year. And what we know about COVID and
Speaker 1: the holidays and cold weather is that it is exacerbated, right,
Speaker 1: that the numbers spike and if we have people who
Speaker 1: aren't boosted, right, because what we are learning about amicron
Speaker 1: is that even if you are double vaccinated, that depending
Speaker 1: on how far you are from your last shot, that
Speaker 1: if you are not boosted, you can get sick, and
Speaker 1: I don't you know. Before I was just like, I
Speaker 1: just want to be able to go to the grocery store,
Speaker 1: not wash my cardboard boxes, and not feel like I'm
Speaker 1: going to die every time I leave my house. And
Speaker 1: if I can get back to that place, that will
Speaker 1: be good. We got back to that place, but now
Speaker 1: we're at a space where the lingering effects of long
Speaker 1: COVID we're still discovering. There are some people that contracted
Speaker 1: COVID and you know, they had a mild flu or
Speaker 1: they were asymptomatic. There are other people that have contracted
Speaker 1: COVID and they are now able to get disability because
Speaker 1: they're no longer able to work, they have crushing migraines, breathlessness,
Speaker 1: right not able to climb a flight of stairs right
Speaker 1: walk from their bedroom to their kitchens without feeling completely
Speaker 1: and totally out of breath. That there is this lingering
Speaker 1: brain fog. We don't know what that actually is, but
Speaker 1: that's what it's referred to, where you can't really remember
Speaker 1: things and things are kind of out of place in
Speaker 1: your mind. So as time goes on, people that have
Speaker 1: been affected by COVID, which are tens of millions of people, right,
Speaker 1: what will work look like? What will our lives look like?
Speaker 1: What will long term care look like? We're still only
Speaker 1: dealing with the immediacy of now, right, but we're there
Speaker 1: are people who are thinking about will shit, what does
Speaker 1: this look like down the road? If all of these
Speaker 1: people now can have preexisting conditions because of their exposure
Speaker 1: to COVID, right, what does that mean for healthcare costs?
Speaker 1: What is that you know? So there are all of
Speaker 1: these unknowns, and so if the one thing that we
Speaker 1: do know for sure right now is that vaccines keep
Speaker 1: us from dying, they keep us from severe illness, and
Speaker 1: that we are fortunate enough as of right now that
Speaker 1: in the United States you're able to get these shots
Speaker 1: in arms and boosted for free. That is not the
Speaker 1: case around the globe. That is not the case in
Speaker 1: so many places. And once again, it is capitalism that
Speaker 1: is stopping people from being able to stay well. Right.
Speaker 1: This was the conversation that we were having a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks ago when I first learned about how disgusting
Speaker 1: the higher income countries were in not passing the trips
Speaker 1: waiver so that India and South Africa and other lower
Speaker 1: income nations could be able to develop their own vaccines
Speaker 1: and not have to rely on the benevolence of the
Speaker 1: modernas and the fisers and those nation states where they're
Speaker 1: headquartered in doing the quote U quote right thing. The
Speaker 1: right thing would have been to lift the intellectual property
Speaker 1: rights from the vaccine that has ravaged the fucking globe
Speaker 1: and to ensure that we wipe out COVID and that
Speaker 1: be our first priority. Fuck your billions of dollars right
Speaker 1: that you want to fill your coffers with and give
Speaker 1: your CEOs these major bonuses, and your shareholders and oh,
Speaker 1: the members of Congress, particularly the Republicans that saw this
Speaker 1: coming so that they could you buy up stocks. Right.
Speaker 1: I continue to say and believe that white supremacy coupled
Speaker 1: with capitalistic greed is going to be the death of us.
Speaker 1: And when I say the death of us, I mean
Speaker 1: the entirety of the planet. Right. Why we fight climate
Speaker 1: change with the urgency and the rigor that it requires, Oh,
Speaker 1: because we don't want to upset car manufacturers. We don't
Speaker 1: want to upset industry. Because the excuse time and time again,
Speaker 1: and this is by both Democrats and Republicans, Because I
Speaker 1: can't even say, oh, it's just Republicans. No, it's by
Speaker 1: both Democrats and Republicans that they feed into the needs
Speaker 1: of the one percent and screw the ninety nine. So
Speaker 1: we can't make the major changes that we need because,
Speaker 1: oh my god, industry will tumble. Well, that was the
Speaker 1: same ship that they told us during the housing crisis
Speaker 1: in the beginning of the early auts. Oh, we have
Speaker 1: to bail the banks out. Oh, we have to bail
Speaker 1: out the car industry. Oh, we have to bail out
Speaker 1: the airlines. But whenever we're looking for our quote unquote
Speaker 1: build back better, right, whenever we're looking for our own
Speaker 1: tax dollars to bail out the American people to support
Speaker 1: the American people to be reinvested into us and into community,
Speaker 1: which is supposedly what the Build Back Better Biden agenda
Speaker 1: is supposed to do. Oh well, now, by the way,
Speaker 1: that's being kicked down until you know, we're kicking that
Speaker 1: can down the road until probably spring. Meanwhile, Democrats had
Speaker 1: set a self imposed deadline of Christmas to get it done,
Speaker 1: only to once again look like fucking failures that they
Speaker 1: don't know what to do with the power that the
Speaker 1: people have given them. So I look at where we are,
Speaker 1: and I want to get into the conversation around inflation
Speaker 1: right now. And you know the fact that if you're
Speaker 1: going into stores, if you are filling your car up
Speaker 1: with gas, if you are trying to buy holiday gifts
Speaker 1: and the like, you are recognizing that your dollar is
Speaker 1: not going as far as it used to on top
Speaker 1: of everything else. And then they want to tell us
Speaker 1: the lie, Well, it's because nobody wants to work. So
Speaker 1: we had to end right all of the economic relief
Speaker 1: that we were providing people once again with their own
Speaker 1: tax dollars back right whatever people whatever. Republicans want to
Speaker 1: turn around and say, oh, well, people don't want to
Speaker 1: work because the government is. They're just suckling off the
Speaker 1: tit of government. Well, actually, actually it's the other way around,
Speaker 1: because without our consistent payment of taxes, government wouldn't fucking function.
Speaker 1: And what we are looking for government to do with
Speaker 1: our tax dollars is to strengthen our social safety nets.
Speaker 1: Is to ensure that nobody goes hungry, that roads are paved,
Speaker 1: that airports are maintained, that railroads are innovated upon, that
Speaker 1: we're able to build infrastructure that can fight against our
Speaker 1: rapidly changing climate. But anytime that you talk about providing
Speaker 1: relief to the American people, you ever listen to how
Speaker 1: politicians talk about us, Oh, they're lazy, right now, buildback
Speaker 1: Better is dead in the water. They're going to tell
Speaker 1: you that, oh, it'll get done, It'll get done. I
Speaker 1: don't think that it will. And I think that that
Speaker 1: was the major mistake of breaking up Buildback Better from
Speaker 1: the larger Infrastructure, the larger building infrastructure part of Biden's agenda,
Speaker 1: because unless you were going to pass those things together,
Speaker 1: you were going to give the mansions of the world
Speaker 1: the ability to go through with their fine tooth comb
Speaker 1: and take out all of the things that people actually need, like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're the only industrialized fucking nation that doesn't have parental leave,
Speaker 1: paid parental leave. You want to know why people are
Speaker 1: leaving the workforce? Oh, maybe because they don't make a
Speaker 1: living wage. They've decided that they're not anymore going to
Speaker 1: just work to exist, that there must be something better
Speaker 1: out there for them. But we're looking at a major
Speaker 1: problem right now with inflation, and they're talking about the
Speaker 1: supply chain issues, which we saw right with the ships
Speaker 1: out in sea with nobody to unload them. Nobody to
Speaker 1: unpack them. We're hearing things like this is the highest
Speaker 1: level of inflation since nineteen eighty two. Right. But one
Speaker 1: of the things that I found disturbing, and I want
Speaker 1: to run it by all of you, is this in
Speaker 1: an article that I was reading. You know, I feel
Speaker 1: that it is important to recognize that our news is
Speaker 1: skewed through the eyes and the lens and the perspective
Speaker 1: of the rich. Right. And so they tell us that
Speaker 1: there is a job shortage, and I tell you there
Speaker 1: isn't a job shortage. There's a shortage of good jobs.
Speaker 1: And what do I mean by good jobs? I mean
Speaker 1: jobs that you can work, where you have health benefits,
Speaker 1: where you have a four one K, where you are
Speaker 1: able to provide for your basic necessities as well as
Speaker 1: save and or invest. Right, there is a lack of
Speaker 1: those jobs. But what CEOs wants you to believe, and
Speaker 1: what our government wants you to believe, is that people
Speaker 1: are lazy. Americans are lazy. So at once they want
Speaker 1: to tell us that you're hard working. But on the
Speaker 1: other hand, they're like, oh, but we're gonna end that
Speaker 1: student loan debt relief program that we promised you. Oh,
Speaker 1: We're not going to give you any more stimulus checks
Speaker 1: because in this article in the New York Times written
Speaker 1: by Jianna Smialik, inflation has arrived. Here's what you need
Speaker 1: to know, and here's what she writes. Inflation is a
Speaker 1: loss of purchase in power over time. It means your
Speaker 1: dollar will not go as far tomorrow as it did today.
Speaker 1: Inflation is typically expressed as the annual change in prices
Speaker 1: for a basket of goods and services. In the United States,
Speaker 1: there are two main inflation gauges. Consumer Price Index or CPI,
Speaker 1: measures the cost of things urban consumers buy out of pocket.
Speaker 1: The other, personal Consumption Expenditures Index or PC is released
Speaker 1: or is released at more of a lag, and measures
Speaker 1: things people consume, including things that they don't pay for directly,
Speaker 1: notably healthcare, insurance, government benefits, the government covers right, and
Speaker 1: your jobs cover some. What causes inflation? This is what
Speaker 1: I found interesting. This is what she writes. In the
Speaker 1: short term, high inflation can be the result of a
Speaker 1: hot economy, one in which people have a lot of
Speaker 1: surplus cash or are accessing a lot of credit and
Speaker 1: want to spend. Now, let me pause right there for
Speaker 1: a second. Does anything about this current economy feel hot
Speaker 1: to you? Does it feel like people are just you know,
Speaker 1: out there just making it rain at every store that
Speaker 1: they walk into, that there is such an increased demand
Speaker 1: for things that prices have to be raised in order
Speaker 1: to meet that demand. No, it's not. And while you
Speaker 1: can look at the jobs numbers, and I always want
Speaker 1: to know, like who is measuring this and how and
Speaker 1: where and what jobs are we talking about and what
Speaker 1: kind of quality jobs are we adding back in? But
Speaker 1: let me not, you know, let me ask too many
Speaker 1: questions for disappointment, just a rain down. But the reality
Speaker 1: here is that that's not what's causing this inflation. But
Speaker 1: here's what she goes on to, right, But inflation can
Speaker 1: and often does rise and fall based on developments that
Speaker 1: have little to do with economic conditions. Limited oil production
Speaker 1: can make gas expensive. Supply chain problems can keep goods
Speaker 1: in short supply, pushing up prices. The inflationary burst America
Speaker 1: has experienced this year has been driven partly by the
Speaker 1: quirks and partly by demand. And by quirks, she's referring
Speaker 1: to the coronavirus. The coronavirus clog shipping routes helping to
Speaker 1: limit the supply of cars and couches and pushing prices
Speaker 1: higher airfares and rates for hotel rooms, which if you're
Speaker 1: trying to travel this holiday season, you realize that those
Speaker 1: deals are fucking long gone, that the long lines are
Speaker 1: back at TSA, and that the prices that the airlines
Speaker 1: are charging are through the fucking roof, as are hotel prices.
Speaker 1: But also, she says, the case also the case that
Speaker 1: consumers who collectively built up big savings. This is what
Speaker 1: she writes. And when I tell you that I've read
Speaker 1: this article multiple times and talk to a couple of
Speaker 1: different people about it, because by the end of it,
Speaker 1: I was irate, and you will understand why in a moment.
Speaker 1: But it is also the case that consumers who collectively
Speaker 1: built up big savings thanks to months in lockdown and
Speaker 1: repeated government stimulus checks, are spending robustly, and their demand
Speaker 1: is driving part of inflation. They are continuing to buy
Speaker 1: even as costs for exercise equipment or outdoor furniture rise,
Speaker 1: and they are shouldering increases in rent and home prices.
Speaker 1: The infatiguable shopping is helping to keep price increases brisk.
Speaker 1: First of all, I think that this is absolutely false.
Speaker 1: One the stimulus checks, if you were able to get
Speaker 1: one because you made a certain amount of money, right,
Speaker 1: amount to two roughly twenty four hundred dollars right for
Speaker 1: those two big checks, big checks. I will tell you
Speaker 1: that in New York, for instance, the average rent right
Speaker 1: is roughly depending on what part of New York you
Speaker 1: are in. If you're in New York City, I'm going
Speaker 1: to say that the average rent is probably somewhere between
Speaker 1: you know, fifteen to twenty five hundred dollars, right, depending
Speaker 1: on what you're looking for. If it's a one bedroom
Speaker 1: versus studio, you know, if it has a walk up
Speaker 1: versus elevators. But the average mortgage and rent in this
Speaker 1: country well exceeds twelve hundred dollars a month unless you
Speaker 1: are literally living in the middle of nowhere, right. There
Speaker 1: are very few places where you can roll up nowadays,
Speaker 1: right and pay five six hundred dollars a month and
Speaker 1: rent or in a mortgage. So this quote unquote big
Speaker 1: surplus right is a false flag if I've ever seen one,
Speaker 1: because what it is making seem is that people have
Speaker 1: just been laying around suckling off of the Tit of government.
Speaker 1: They have all this excess cash that they're sitting on
Speaker 1: and now they're just buying up peloton bikes right an
Speaker 1: outdoor furniture like it's nobody's business. The reality is so
Speaker 1: far from that narrative that is being pushed out, just
Speaker 1: in the same way that the narrative is being pushed
Speaker 1: out that there are so many jobs, but nobody wants
Speaker 1: to work and that's all because of the stimulus checks. Right.
Speaker 1: She goes on to say this, but you know, it's like,
Speaker 1: here's the thing. Is inflation bad? And she says, well,
Speaker 1: for some people, inflation isn't good, right, And she starts
Speaker 1: out by saying that inflation isn't good for those that
Speaker 1: are on fixed incomes, like students and the elderly. And
Speaker 1: in my mind, I'm thinking, who isn't on a fixed income?
Speaker 1: Because if you have been paying attention for the last
Speaker 1: two years that we've been living in COVID, you understand
Speaker 1: now at this point in time that anything is possible, right,
Speaker 1: That you could lose your job, that there could be
Speaker 1: a next wave that the vaccines don't work against, that
Speaker 1: if you are changing jobs, you better do something that
Speaker 1: doesn't require you to leave your fucking home in the
Speaker 1: event there is a next major fourth or fifth or
Speaker 1: sixth wave, right that who can stay at home and
Speaker 1: still be able to provide for your family. That this
Speaker 1: surplus of money that you're talking about actually doesn't exist
Speaker 1: because millions of people had lost their jobs and needed
Speaker 1: those stimulus checks just to be able to put food
Speaker 1: on the table, or put medicine in their medicine cabinets, right,
Speaker 1: or fill up gas so that they can go around
Speaker 1: and actually, if they were essential workers, if they weren't
Speaker 1: gig workers, that they could pick up work here and there, right,
Speaker 1: which requires its own investment in order to be able
Speaker 1: to do. But the narrative is that Americans are either
Speaker 1: lazy or sitting on a bunch of fucking cash. And
Speaker 1: that's what I took from this article. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: neither of those things are true. She goes on. Most
Speaker 1: everyone agrees that super fast price increases, often called hyperinflation,
Speaker 1: spell trouble. They destabilize political systems, turn middle class workers
Speaker 1: into paupers overnight, and make it impossible for businesses to plan.
Speaker 1: Wem are Germany, where hyperinflation helped to usher Aidolf Hitler
Speaker 1: into power, is often cited as a case in point.
Speaker 1: Moderate price gains, even ones as a bit above the
Speaker 1: federal official goal, are a topic of more serious debate.
Speaker 1: Slightly higher inflation can be good for people who owe
Speaker 1: money at fixed interest rates, and she goes on to
Speaker 1: provide an example. But I want to say this. She
Speaker 1: then has a section entitled how does inflation affect the poor?
Speaker 1: Poor households, she writes, spend a bigger chunk of their
Speaker 1: budgets on necessities food, housing, and especially gas, which is
Speaker 1: often a contributor to bouts of high inflation, and less
Speaker 1: on discretionary expenditures. If rich households face high inflation and
Speaker 1: their wages do not keep up, they may have to
Speaker 1: cut back on vacations or dining out. A poor family
Speaker 1: may be forced to cut back on essentials like food. This,
Speaker 1: to me is actually the crux of the conversation we
Speaker 1: are not having, because when I was reading this, I
Speaker 1: was saying to myself, well, tell me, at this point
Speaker 1: in time, what constitutes a quote unquote poor household? What
Speaker 1: does that actually look like in dollars and in cents?
Speaker 1: Because here's the thing that people are not paying attention to.
Speaker 1: Everything in our society has been hyper skewed. Just take
Speaker 1: our politics as one example. The further right right that
Speaker 1: the white supremacists Republican Party has gone has pulled the
Speaker 1: entire spectrum further to the right, which means that what
Speaker 1: was considered the middle, what was considered moderate, is actually
Speaker 1: right of center. The same is true with regard to
Speaker 1: our economy, and I don't need to be an economist
Speaker 1: in order to recognize this. You have people who are
Speaker 1: uber wealthy. The uber wealthy have completely skewed things for
Speaker 1: the rest of us, those that are making millions of
Speaker 1: dollars a year. The rich during the pandemic got ultra rich, right,
Speaker 1: but that is not the same was not true for
Speaker 1: the middle class or for the poor. They did not
Speaker 1: move up right, So everything has been stretched towards the
Speaker 1: uber rich. So when we're talking about quote unquote poor households,
Speaker 1: to me, what that looks like is that you are
Speaker 1: working forty hours a week. You are barely able to
Speaker 1: make your rent, to make your mortgage, to then also
Speaker 1: pay for your necessities. And if you're able to do that,
Speaker 1: then you are unable to actually save and or invest.
Speaker 1: So to me, that is actually working poor. So the
Speaker 1: conversation that we're not having is about how we have
Speaker 1: actually skewed what it means to be middle class. You
Speaker 1: want to talk about inflation in the price of goods?
Speaker 1: Will our entire class and cast structure in this country
Speaker 1: has changed incredibly rapidly, Like we have always been having
Speaker 1: conversations about the quote unquote shrinking middle class. No, it
Speaker 1: just costs more now to be even perceived to be
Speaker 1: middle class. And the question that I would have for
Speaker 1: economists is what is actually considered middle class? What does
Speaker 1: that look like? She says here that oh, if your
Speaker 1: middle class, inflation is about oh, maybe I can't afford
Speaker 1: this vacation, or maybe I can't afford this new car,
Speaker 1: whereas poorer people, lower income people are like, now, I
Speaker 1: can't afford that bread and peanut, butter and jelly. I
Speaker 1: gotta pick one. I gotta pick two of the three
Speaker 1: because I can't have three of the three. And what
Speaker 1: I believe to be true, especially with the after effects
Speaker 1: continuing to linger and reverberate of the COVID economic meltdown,
Speaker 1: I believe that there are more Americans that are in
Speaker 1: the poorer household range than actually even want to admit
Speaker 1: it to themselves. So when she's having a conversation and
Speaker 1: we have this quote here from a senior economy at
Speaker 1: Macro Policy Perspectives that says this, for lower income households,
Speaker 1: price increases eat up more of their budget. Duh, right,
Speaker 1: we know that, But the reality is is that what
Speaker 1: is government doing right in order to bridge that gap?
Speaker 1: And if we're going to have true conversations about how
Speaker 1: the economy is actually doing, we can't look to the
Speaker 1: stock market to be an indicator of whether or not
Speaker 1: things are going well because there's only a small percentage
Speaker 1: of people who actually have their money in that market.
Speaker 1: The rest of us can barely afford to keep roofs
Speaker 1: over our heads. But listening to those CEOs and shareholders
Speaker 1: convince politicians to provide you with your money back in
Speaker 1: your pocket so that you're not just making ends meet,
Speaker 1: but that you're actually able to thrive is the real conversation.
Speaker 1: And that's why I say that we continue to push
Speaker 1: people right, There's only so far that they will continue
Speaker 1: to be pushed. There's only so much more that people
Speaker 1: will take before they revolt. Case in point, you know,
Speaker 1: I was thinking to myself before it, before the news
Speaker 1: story had even broken about all of those workers that
Speaker 1: were caught in the tornado in the Amazon building and
Speaker 1: the Amazon building structure. The Amazon factory is like a
Speaker 1: fucking city city blocks wide, right, And I'm thinking to myself,
Speaker 1: we have a system in this country right that warns
Speaker 1: people that the weather is changing and that you need
Speaker 1: to take cover. Right. We have tornado warnings, right, tornado warnings,
Speaker 1: tornado alarms that go off. Well, what was reported is
Speaker 1: that workers right in these factories were told by their overseers,
Speaker 1: because we can't say that they are anything other than that,
Speaker 1: that they were not allowed to leave, and that if
Speaker 1: they left because of fear of being killed or trapped
Speaker 1: by the tornado, that they wouldn't have a job tomorrow.
Speaker 1: So literally, these people were faced with possible death right
Speaker 1: or loss of a job, which could also mean at
Speaker 1: some point, right loss of housing, loss of hell of care,
Speaker 1: loss of food supply, all of these things. What kind
Speaker 1: of choice is that to give to somebody? Either you
Speaker 1: stay here, right because this eight dollars an hour or
Speaker 1: ten dollars an hour job is worth your life, But
Speaker 1: because you don't know what's coming, you can't risk saving
Speaker 1: your life in order to upset your financial stability. We
Speaker 1: want to talk about, you know, the end of unions
Speaker 1: and all of these things. What kind of fucking choice
Speaker 1: is that? And you know what, no one we'll get
Speaker 1: in trouble over that these companies won't take a hit.
Speaker 1: They'll get one bad headline, maybe two, and then they'll
Speaker 1: keep it moving. And you know why, because the networks
Speaker 1: need their advertising in order to pay their own bills.
Speaker 1: And so you'll see these little stories and they'll be hot,
Speaker 1: you know, a hot moment of outrage, and then we'll
Speaker 1: turn the page. But there's a reason why those stories
Speaker 1: don't stay on the front page. And it's because those corporations,
Speaker 1: those rich CEOs, are the ones that get to call
Speaker 1: the shots, and they're the ones that get to tell
Speaker 1: the story. And until we all unite, right regardless of
Speaker 1: who we are, where we live, what we look like,
Speaker 1: and say that work in this country needs to fucking change,
Speaker 1: it's never going to. But this story in the New
Speaker 1: York Times pissed me the hell off because I'm like,
Speaker 1: we're just not telling the truth, and there's a real
Speaker 1: like And again I say, I'm not an economist, right,
Speaker 1: but I'm smart enough to know when I'm being bullshitted, right, Like,
Speaker 1: I'm smart enough to know when things don't seem to
Speaker 1: be adding up in the way that they're being presented.
Speaker 1: But you see, that's what they hope, because so long
Speaker 1: as you can keep people just scrambling to have their
Speaker 1: basic needs met, the more that you're able to get
Speaker 1: over to them, the more that you're able to use them.
Speaker 1: I mean when I said, I tweeted this the other
Speaker 1: day and I said, you don't have to watch squid Game.
Speaker 1: There's a reason why squid Game took over the globe.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just for its insane violence, right, but
Speaker 1: it was what led people to put themselves in these
Speaker 1: situations because they were so much in debt that death
Speaker 1: would have been some relief. Why is that a story
Speaker 1: that resonates in so many different countries, in so many
Speaker 1: different places at this particular time. You know, we watched
Speaker 1: this week the story in South Dakota. I talked about
Speaker 1: this earlier. You have teachers scrambling on the ground, putting
Speaker 1: dollar bills into their hats, underneath their shirts. This was
Speaker 1: joy and entertainment for those around them, not an actual
Speaker 1: like just way to look at our country and say
Speaker 1: that this is fundamentally broken that right now, the Senate
Speaker 1: had no problem passing a nearly eight hundred fucking billion
Speaker 1: dollar defense bill, twenty four billion dollars more than the
Speaker 1: Pentagon actually asked for. But we have teachers in this
Speaker 1: country scrambling on the ground for dollar bills, and we
Speaker 1: think that America is somebody's beacon. America is like that
Speaker 1: fucking before Pitcher, right, that's what it looks like now.
Speaker 1: It is no one's testament to anything that is substantial
Speaker 1: or great. And Tupacs said it, He said it decades ago,
Speaker 1: got money for war, but can't feed the poor. You're
Speaker 1: giving the Pentagon an excess of twenty four billion dollars,
Speaker 1: But we have teachers scrambling around in order to pay
Speaker 1: out of their own pocket to supply future generations with
Speaker 1: the supplies that they need to be able to compete
Speaker 1: on anybody's global stage. How does that make sense? Make
Speaker 1: it make sense to me. That's why I tell you
Speaker 1: that it his greed coupled with white supremacy that is
Speaker 1: going to be the destruction of this planet. Because everywhere
Speaker 1: you look, all you have to do is follow the money.
Speaker 1: And there is your reason. Why are things so fucked up,
Speaker 1: follow the money. Check out this article in the New
Speaker 1: York Times once again. It is entitled Inflation has Arrived.
Speaker 1: Here's what you need to know and it's written by
Speaker 1: Jianna Smi Alec. Check it out and let me know
Speaker 1: in the comment section honestly what you were thinking about
Speaker 1: with the rise in prices, but more so the conversation
Speaker 1: that is being had as to why it's happening and
Speaker 1: who is to blame or how it is going to
Speaker 1: be stopped, because I'd love to hear from all of you.
Speaker 1: That is it for me today. Here, folks on woke
Speaker 1: a f as always, Power to the people and to
Speaker 1: all the people. Power, Get woke and stay woke as fuck.