Speaker 1: Okay, so it kind of happens faster than you think.
Speaker 1: It's real subtle. And of course everybody's story is different,
Speaker 1: everybody's entries point different. But I'll tell you my experience.
Speaker 1: My sister is so much older than me. She kind
Speaker 1: of liked her dudes a little thuggy, but we were
Speaker 1: really close. And oftentimes when she was making a run
Speaker 1: going to check up on her dudes because she had many,
Speaker 1: I would be just along for the ride and her
Speaker 1: alibi and sitting in the living room. And while I'm
Speaker 1: sitting in the living room, there's bricks and packs being
Speaker 1: broken up and repacked and getting prepped, you know, while
Speaker 1: she's you know, checking up on her man's or one
Speaker 1: of her man's. Are you sitting there? And one of
Speaker 1: the big jee's would be like, hey, little man, what's
Speaker 1: your name? You're like Jason, you know, your little brother
Speaker 1: Like yeah, it's like, hey, you wanna make a hundred dollars?
Speaker 1: And when you were a kid, a hundred dollars that
Speaker 1: hundred dollars that sounds it's not a real number. Your
Speaker 1: hundred guy pulls out of hunted out a bill or
Speaker 1: five twenties. Most money you ever seen in your life.
Speaker 1: He's like, hey, look and listen. This man is shining.
Speaker 1: I mean, Jules. His gear is dupe, he got the
Speaker 1: you know, I'm from the nineties and you got the
Speaker 1: starter jacket. Like, Homie is crisp man. His car outside
Speaker 1: is dep you know what I'm saying, Like, it's the
Speaker 1: person you want to be. Then he say this, take
Speaker 1: this bag across the street. We're gonna be right here,
Speaker 1: so all you gotta do take it across the street.
Speaker 1: See them standing over there, Take it across the street.
Speaker 1: Sit like a hundred. That's it to just walk across
Speaker 1: the street. Yeah, And you know, I'm trying to be cool.
Speaker 1: Lucky for me, my sister comes running out from them
Speaker 1: back being like hey, hey, hey, hey hey, and then
Speaker 1: she starts checking the dudes, don't be asking my brother
Speaker 1: to be a part of all this. She coming and
Speaker 1: defend me. And then they're like, hey, man, let the
Speaker 1: little man talk. He all right, he all right, hey,
Speaker 1: little man, can you speak for yourself or your sister
Speaker 1: gonna tell you what to do? You know, And obviously
Speaker 1: I'm frozen because I got to go home with my
Speaker 1: sister and I'm like, no, I'm good, and they're like,
Speaker 1: now you're cool. Hey, look I saw good, honey, here's
Speaker 1: twenty dollars. They still give you twenty dollars, They say,
Speaker 1: are you little wrapping as nigger man? You got flow?
Speaker 1: And then you know, I try to wrap for him,
Speaker 1: And so I got out of the situation. You know,
Speaker 1: I ain't make the hundred, but I got the twenty.
Speaker 1: And my sister looking at me like lot n if
Speaker 1: you do not, And I'm like, all right, well, I
Speaker 1: trust my sister more than EAST make it with that
Speaker 1: hundred dollars. That seemed real easy. I think I may
Speaker 1: want to be a corner boy, but every corner boy
Speaker 1: needs a plug. Every plug needs a corner boy. Politics, y'all,
Speaker 1: it's so good right now, little politics, y'all so good.
Speaker 1: So today has a lot to do with economics and
Speaker 1: the role economics plays in policy and how that relates
Speaker 1: to us and what we can do in a system
Speaker 1: that we exist in. I'm gonna talk about unemployment, unions,
Speaker 1: Amazon jobs reports, and really wighs that you and I,
Speaker 1: as just regular folks, interact with all these things. A
Speaker 1: corner boy is I mean, it's a drug dealer, but
Speaker 1: he's the guy standing on the corner. Now it's a
Speaker 1: it's an East Coast term. We don't necessarily use it
Speaker 1: out here what we do now because you know, the
Speaker 1: world is so connected. But as you probably know, because
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure you've seen a movie, you know, the
Speaker 1: corner boy don't have He has to get the product
Speaker 1: from somebody, you know. And I know you've listened to
Speaker 1: rap music, which probably makes you think you know how
Speaker 1: this works. And I mean, shoot me too, you know,
Speaker 1: But I know enough to know by being around here
Speaker 1: and know enough guys who pushed a weight. I knew.
Speaker 1: I had a friend in high school always had cash.
Speaker 1: Didn'tybody know he got his cash from I just always
Speaker 1: had money in his pocket. He would never tell us.
Speaker 1: He would always be like, man, if I tell you,
Speaker 1: I gotta kill you. I'm positive he was moving real
Speaker 1: silent and was probably somewhere around the city getting product
Speaker 1: into people's heads. But the product gotta come from somewhere,
Speaker 1: and the product comes from the connect or the plug,
Speaker 1: and and and and sometimes those can be two different
Speaker 1: people like the connect oftentimes is might be in Mexico,
Speaker 1: might be a cartel, might be in Colombia, like somewhere
Speaker 1: far away. And then there could be a middleman, but
Speaker 1: most of the time the goal is to not have one.
Speaker 1: I mean, we can use pimps and house as a
Speaker 1: as a motif. Now, obviously I've never in my right
Speaker 1: mind ever referred to a woman as all. I'm just
Speaker 1: saying for this explanation, there's a product being moved, and
Speaker 1: there's someone that has to move the product. And in
Speaker 1: prostitution and the really interesting it's not necessarily the woman
Speaker 1: that's the product. It's the the feeling of being aroused
Speaker 1: and satisfied is the actual product. Like you could talk
Speaker 1: to I'll talked to a number of women who kind
Speaker 1: of came out that life. I got some we got
Speaker 1: some homies that work with girls transitioning out of that,
Speaker 1: and they're like, yes, some nights is just like they
Speaker 1: just wanted somebody to talk to. You know. Some dudes
Speaker 1: just I want to be cuddled, you know, but they
Speaker 1: have to have a connect. You gotta have a supplier,
Speaker 1: and the supplier is the pimp, you know, and the
Speaker 1: pimp lives a very interesting life. There's there's In my opinion,
Speaker 1: obviously I'm not one, but in my opinion, um, the
Speaker 1: process of breaking your ho just the type of si
Speaker 1: up you have to do to get a woman to
Speaker 1: function against her own best interest is you know, enough
Speaker 1: talking too much, talking, not enough while getting you know,
Speaker 1: the pimp hand, you know, backhand is pimping, pimping, you know,
Speaker 1: using fear and danger to make sure that this person
Speaker 1: keeps doing this is a very interesting I just I
Speaker 1: think some part of you gotta you gotta have a
Speaker 1: little bit of sociopathy, I think to actually do this job,
Speaker 1: because it requires of you to look at this person
Speaker 1: and be like, your job is to walk these streets,
Speaker 1: give me my money. But back to the motif. The
Speaker 1: idea is what keeps a kid on the street because
Speaker 1: the cornerboys is a very dangerous your imminent danger all
Speaker 1: the time. One from the outside might ask themselves like
Speaker 1: why a kid could choose this? I actually understand, can
Speaker 1: empathize as to why somebody would choose to do this,
Speaker 1: because again I'm, you know, just from here. Obviously I
Speaker 1: didn't choose it, but I understand why some did. And
Speaker 1: I think there's two things. There's fear and there's the dream,
Speaker 1: like the possibility. There's a possibility to become the cartel boss,
Speaker 1: to become Escobar, you know, to to have those you know,
Speaker 1: million dollar planes and you know, in your jets, and
Speaker 1: and you know, because because because the connect be shining,
Speaker 1: you know, this idea that like if I do this,
Speaker 1: I could move up in this in this game, you know,
Speaker 1: and put and put young dudes under me, so that
Speaker 1: I don't have to be out here three days under lightpoles,
Speaker 1: you know, no shower, you know, serving these fings. I
Speaker 1: don't have to be running from the police, hiding hiding
Speaker 1: stuff in my pocket, like no, I could say lovely
Speaker 1: out in the valley, you know, and just have a
Speaker 1: little homies out on the streets with me, so you
Speaker 1: I could be shining. You. Let the jay Zs and
Speaker 1: Nipsies of the world start convincing you that that might
Speaker 1: be you. You know what I'm saying, because it worked
Speaker 1: for them. They got in, got out, and they became starts,
Speaker 1: and you start thinking maybe I can do this. You know.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the kid that I swear he
Speaker 1: going pro. You're playing basketball, I'm going pro, and it's like, well,
Speaker 1: there's not many slots there just everybody don't make it,
Speaker 1: you know, But the possibility is alluring. But before that,
Speaker 1: like I said, this man said, I just I could
Speaker 1: have made a hundred dollars for two minutes of work.
Speaker 1: I mean that's basic economics. Like you want me to
Speaker 1: go work at some job slaving for some white man
Speaker 1: you know, he don't respect me, and I'm making pennies.
Speaker 1: Y'all know what the minimum wage? You know, the minimum
Speaker 1: wage has not changed in a long time. Hey, And
Speaker 1: if you're if you're in a job that it has tips,
Speaker 1: minimum wage still two thirteen cents an hour. It's not
Speaker 1: a it's not a lot. You know. President Biden ran
Speaker 1: on changing this. He ain't done it yet, which means, look,
Speaker 1: we need to put his feet to the fire. You
Speaker 1: said you was gonna raise minimum wage. It has not
Speaker 1: raised minimum wage. We did a little bit, but that's
Speaker 1: not what we asked for. So it's like, if that's
Speaker 1: the other option, you mean to tell me I could
Speaker 1: stand out here and just stand here and the product
Speaker 1: sells itself. They addict. These people are addicted. All I
Speaker 1: gotta do is just have it on me, lay it low.
Speaker 1: And you're telling me I can walk home with a
Speaker 1: percentage of the twenty dollars that's in my pocket right now,
Speaker 1: I'll just pay you for the product, pay you your
Speaker 1: your cut. Let's just say your cut is ridiculous. Now again,
Speaker 1: I'm making these numbers up. But your cut is you
Speaker 1: get to keep fifty. So you're telling me one night
Speaker 1: I made ten dollars, Why in the hell would I?
Speaker 1: Why would I? This is well, this is ridiculous. But
Speaker 1: there's also a possibility that if I play my cards right,
Speaker 1: I couldn't make fifty dollars tonight because I got five
Speaker 1: little vatos on the corner doing this for me, and
Speaker 1: they just bring me the money. But this is glorious
Speaker 1: to the possibility. But why would you just accept this? Danger?
Speaker 1: Is also the fear? What else you're gonna do? What
Speaker 1: are you gonna You gonna stand up to a boss?
Speaker 1: You're gonna stand up to your plug. You'll connect, You're
Speaker 1: gonna stand up to this this have you Dan dangling
Speaker 1: your bodies off the cranes and San Pedro you better
Speaker 1: get his money right? That man tell he tell you
Speaker 1: the numbers. She tell you the numbers because sometimes to
Speaker 1: connect them trying to plug a she she tell you
Speaker 1: what it is. Sometimes to connect with the connect you
Speaker 1: got to go to another city. A lot of times
Speaker 1: when you get involved in this sort of life. The
Speaker 1: gang banging kind of like slows down because we were
Speaker 1: protecting the bag. You're securing the bag, So you may
Speaker 1: have to go over there with them, vatos. You if
Speaker 1: you black person, you may have to go over everything,
Speaker 1: Vatos because the connect coming from Mexico, right or the
Speaker 1: other way around. Like, if y'all really want to move
Speaker 1: this weight, if you you know, as a you know,
Speaker 1: if you're a lot, you know, you're like, man, I
Speaker 1: gotta go mess with these black folks. You know that
Speaker 1: you usually don't really don't really mess with them, but
Speaker 1: let's get this money. Why would you just allow yourself
Speaker 1: to be treated well because you're scared? What else you're
Speaker 1: gonna do? You haven't signed up for this. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you want to get out, you're gonna what you're
Speaker 1: gonna tell the police? Oh, your whole family diet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. But the only way for you to actually
Speaker 1: get out of the situation is to become the plug.
Speaker 1: You have to become the connect, right, That's how you
Speaker 1: get off the corner, or you go to prison. And
Speaker 1: you don't want that's gonna go to prison. Plug and
Speaker 1: going to prison unless they run some sort of rico thing,
Speaker 1: but they're gonna be fine, So the goal is to
Speaker 1: become that right. Or let's say that's not an option,
Speaker 1: and you just start figuring out this is super hypothetical.
Speaker 1: You and all five of the other corner boys start
Speaker 1: to organize and say, hey man, we're gonna make sure
Speaker 1: this man treat us right now. You're you'd informed the
Speaker 1: drug dealer union. Wow. Or you figure out ways to
Speaker 1: wash the money, to launder it until it becomes legit,
Speaker 1: you know, and uh, move away like that because you've
Speaker 1: you've figured out a way out where you you don't.
Speaker 1: But basically what you're saying is it's almost like I'm
Speaker 1: buying my way out, like you bought your way into
Speaker 1: a position to where now you don't have to do
Speaker 1: these things. But if you've existed under a code that
Speaker 1: says that there's a lot of stuff you just have
Speaker 1: to keep to yourself or everything goes wrong. But the
Speaker 1: way that the business works is it's one way. If
Speaker 1: you're a worker, be you're a worker, be. That's how
Speaker 1: it works, and you better stay in line. There is
Speaker 1: no one you can call, but to actually succeed in
Speaker 1: this business, you have to be remarkably good businessman, unbelievably terrifying.
Speaker 1: There has to be a part of you that's like,
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not afraid of this danger, and I
Speaker 1: will defend myself two the death. You know, if you're
Speaker 1: gonna if you're gonna make it out. You know. So
Speaker 1: anybody that like I know now who either swareed in
Speaker 1: there or was like, really did it? Did a bid
Speaker 1: came out? Our homeboy, um right from Grateful Apparel. He
Speaker 1: this is a clothing line of you know, one of
Speaker 1: my friends out of New York. He was his story
Speaker 1: is super amazing. He was like, yeah, I was a businessman.
Speaker 1: I had the tools and he was like, I mean
Speaker 1: he was doing all right. You know my homeboy Fern
Speaker 1: from the school calls Social Club, Yo, he was, he
Speaker 1: was working. You know what I'm saying. And these both
Speaker 1: of these dudes are like, yeah, they're incredible, incredible businessman.
Speaker 1: But what I want to land on is this symbiotic
Speaker 1: relationship between the worker and the boss, the corner and
Speaker 1: the plug. I think the corner boy knows they need
Speaker 1: to plug, but what the plug don't ever want to
Speaker 1: acknowledge is you actually need the corner board. And there's
Speaker 1: a thing In economics theory, it's called elasticity, which has
Speaker 1: to do with like how how high of a price
Speaker 1: you could charge for something. And I think I'm gonna
Speaker 1: stretch that idea to your worker. You can only push
Speaker 1: your worker so far before make their calculation that this
Speaker 1: is not worth it anymore. But that relationship is symbiotic.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you all about unions and
Speaker 1: unemployment benefits. You're ready to pivot, all right after the break,
Speaker 1: all right back, So I'm gonna connect something for you.
Speaker 1: Back in April, there was this huge thing that the
Speaker 1: news was watching about Amazon in Bessemer, Alabama, of all places,
Speaker 1: that was voting on whether they were going to unionize
Speaker 1: or not. And I used to always wonder, like why
Speaker 1: who cares? Like why is the union such? And why
Speaker 1: is this such a flashpoint in culture? It's it just why?
Speaker 1: I mean, if I'm running a business and somebody say, hey,
Speaker 1: can you pay me this? And then I tell you, now,
Speaker 1: I can pay you that, and I know my upfront cost,
Speaker 1: I know my cog like how much it costs to
Speaker 1: get the widget and employ everybody, And if I'm businessman,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'll be transparent about it, like Yo, this,
Speaker 1: how much this costs me? This? How much I gotta
Speaker 1: pay this person? If we're on the street, I gotta
Speaker 1: pay your muscle to make sure you don't die. I'm
Speaker 1: paying them this. That's why I can only afford to
Speaker 1: pay you that. Now you're trying to do this or not,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So with the job, I
Speaker 1: feel like it's the same thing. But for some reason,
Speaker 1: corporations find themselves businesses find themselves to be very opaque
Speaker 1: about their numbers. Obviously, I think it's because transparency worker
Speaker 1: works against them. Then we can't maximize our profits because
Speaker 1: maybe you could possibly pay somebody more. And of course
Speaker 1: there's some exceptions. Some companies understand that, like a happy
Speaker 1: worker works harder, a happy worker stays. If we treat
Speaker 1: people right, they're gonna stick around, and then you make
Speaker 1: more money. I mean, I don't whatever. Either way, apparently
Speaker 1: that's not the norm. But yeah, Amazon Bessemer, Alabama. Before
Speaker 1: I go to that, you know what a union is.
Speaker 1: So union and its history began in the nineteenth century
Speaker 1: in the response to like the social and economic impact
Speaker 1: of the Industrial Revolution. Basically, it's like this, we got
Speaker 1: all these factories and we got all these workers and
Speaker 1: we can pay them whatever the hell we tell them.
Speaker 1: We want to pay them, and you're gonna do whatever
Speaker 1: the hell job I tell you to do because you
Speaker 1: need a job. Right post civil war, and now we
Speaker 1: got to pay the workers because the slaves is free
Speaker 1: and people need to make money so they could survive.
Speaker 1: Now as a derailing, but I think it's important understand
Speaker 1: like what the industrial revolution did, like how that really
Speaker 1: changed culture. Remember when we lived in farming agrarian society's
Speaker 1: you grew your own food, grew your own potatoes, you
Speaker 1: made your own clothes, you did all your own stuff.
Speaker 1: There was no what's called specialization. So you didn't go
Speaker 1: off to a work to take care of yourself. You
Speaker 1: went outside in your own land to care of what
Speaker 1: you did. If you need the tools, you went to
Speaker 1: the corner store. Right. Culture is different. There's a specialization now.
Speaker 1: Now you don't grow potatoes, you go to the store.
Speaker 1: The store got potatoes. Right, So rather than working your
Speaker 1: own land, now everybody went off to work, so we
Speaker 1: have to go buy those things that like, like it
Speaker 1: terror formed the world so much differently. Eventually the people
Speaker 1: working here was like your I can't even afford this job,
Speaker 1: like you, it's not even enough. I have to go
Speaker 1: do something else so I can afford the food and
Speaker 1: buy the clothes, so I could come to your store
Speaker 1: and work for nineteen twenty hours a day and there's
Speaker 1: nobody to tell you what to do. Because I'm in
Speaker 1: a situation where I need this job. It's not enough
Speaker 1: jobs for me to have, right, So you need to start, man,
Speaker 1: you can't just be treating us like this. Now. This
Speaker 1: is the labor unions of the United States. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of different types of unions. Um, the police union,
Speaker 1: which is one that we always see in the news
Speaker 1: because they're the ones that guarantee after after the officer
Speaker 1: had this failure and conduct and probably kill the person
Speaker 1: the color, that they still get their golden parachute or
Speaker 1: don't lose their job. It's the union. So ultimately the
Speaker 1: union in that sense is not doing us justice, but
Speaker 1: they're doing their role, which is protect the worker. And unions,
Speaker 1: I think America has had like a love hate relationship
Speaker 1: it with them because they seem to be tied to
Speaker 1: communism and socialism, and you know, America sweared that like
Speaker 1: those are two of the four pale horses. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying that of the apocalypse that are You know,
Speaker 1: if we have any sort of semblance of that, then
Speaker 1: that mean that, like democracy and capitalism, is is collapsing
Speaker 1: because we believe our own propaganda pun intended that if
Speaker 1: you work hard, you'll succeed. This is the land of opportunity.
Speaker 1: You just you know, by the sweat of your brow,
Speaker 1: you you you go get it. But all of us
Speaker 1: who have existed in the real life knows that it's
Speaker 1: not that simple. You were you're telling me the person
Speaker 1: right So now outside mo and yo law and ain't
Speaker 1: working harder than you. You listening to a podcast you
Speaker 1: find we've believed that this idea of this unionizing thing
Speaker 1: undermines that. Now, that's one way to look at it.
Speaker 1: This conservative, free market economy. The best rises to the top.
Speaker 1: Competition drives innovation. If you just let the market have
Speaker 1: the competition, it's going to drive in a vation to
Speaker 1: which I would respond, then how come every fast food
Speaker 1: restaurant got the same chicken sandwich? It don't seem like
Speaker 1: it's innovated to be anyway. On the other side of
Speaker 1: that is no one's gonna move your product if your
Speaker 1: workers aren't happy if you're if they're not treating you
Speaker 1: don't have a factory if you're treating if you're not
Speaker 1: treating your workers well, So the workers could get together
Speaker 1: and be like, well, listen until you do right by us,
Speaker 1: we're not coming to work, to which the company men respond, okay, fine,
Speaker 1: go home. There's a trillion person line outside looking for
Speaker 1: this work. We're gonna find somebody to do it. If
Speaker 1: you don't want to, Okay, they're not pressed for workers,
Speaker 1: but we press for jobs. Now. Obviously, throughout American history,
Speaker 1: the unions have been exploited by organized crime to make
Speaker 1: sure that certain jobs go to certain groups. And if
Speaker 1: you get a guy from your said, from your you know,
Speaker 1: crime family into that, you can start muscling the city
Speaker 1: to make sure. This is how this stuff gets mixed up,
Speaker 1: where you can start muscling the city to make sure
Speaker 1: that like who's gonna build this skyscraper. You're gonna make
Speaker 1: sure we build this skyscraper because we're gonna run this
Speaker 1: twenty million dollars to the hood, but we're gonna get
Speaker 1: it this clean way, like rather than us just pushing
Speaker 1: way dying on the streets. It's like, nah, we're gonna
Speaker 1: get it. We're gonna get it nice. In corporate organized
Speaker 1: crime kind of figured it out. They just that was
Speaker 1: the end to make sure that the government does whatever
Speaker 1: the hell they want them to do and they keep
Speaker 1: this money going. But that's a certain element of it.
Speaker 1: The other hand is, I mean, the system don't work
Speaker 1: if we don't work. I you're gonna pay me a
Speaker 1: fair wage, and there's power and numbers if none of
Speaker 1: us show up. Right, it was a way for those
Speaker 1: out of power, the corner boys, the workers, if you will,
Speaker 1: to respond to those in power. It was our only,
Speaker 1: our only way to get our voices heard was a
Speaker 1: collective work. So there's things called collective bargaining to make
Speaker 1: sure that, like you're paying us a fair wage. You know,
Speaker 1: unions are the reason why you have a five day
Speaker 1: work week, why it's eight hours a day, why you
Speaker 1: have to have a lunch break. Those as unions. We
Speaker 1: can get into some of those stories. Is Behind the
Speaker 1: Bastards episode about the Virginia coal miners and they had
Speaker 1: a government responded to that, but that's all other story.
Speaker 1: The Pinker Tins, we did an episode on the Pinker
Speaker 1: Tins with the Behind the police situation where when these
Speaker 1: poor white Northerners who were working for Carnegie and the
Speaker 1: steel mills decided that this was unbearable. Carnegie and him
Speaker 1: was like, listen, we'll just go get freed slaves. They'll
Speaker 1: come work. And that was their way of breaking a power.
Speaker 1: Breaking apart the union's power. They used somebody who was
Speaker 1: poorer than the poor, who was like, damn, that's a job,
Speaker 1: y'all bugging, I'm gonna go get this job because we've
Speaker 1: been working for free for so long. At least I
Speaker 1: have the dignity of a paycheck. It was just a
Speaker 1: way to keep poor people down and you know, divide
Speaker 1: and conquer. It's the same same bag. But anyway, they
Speaker 1: have these things called union breakers, where they would hire
Speaker 1: people to just beat the crap out of folks. Since
Speaker 1: the history of unions is to make sure that the
Speaker 1: worker is treated well, and unions really only exist because
Speaker 1: there's such thing as capitalism. Now let me talk about capitalism.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get to bestum or I promise capitalism is
Speaker 1: a moral, not im moral. A moral it's not concerned
Speaker 1: with morals, good or bad. The morality of capitalism is
Speaker 1: how you do it it's not the what, but the how.
Speaker 1: Capitalism is math. It's input output least amount lower the
Speaker 1: investment to hire the rewards. What's the least I can
Speaker 1: put into to yield the highest rewards at the lowest
Speaker 1: cost for myself. It's numbers, it's profit. So if there's
Speaker 1: a higher risk in my investment, then that means the
Speaker 1: rewards need to be that much more. It's concerned with yields,
Speaker 1: return on investment. That's a r O. Why. That's what
Speaker 1: capitalism is. There's a product that you want, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be the guy to get it. I'm gonna get it
Speaker 1: at the lowest cost to myself, and I'm gonna sell
Speaker 1: it if I'm doing capitalism right, because again, it's a
Speaker 1: moral at the highest price that possibly can to maximize
Speaker 1: the numbers and get the greatest yields. So the system
Speaker 1: by definition says, I want to be the best product
Speaker 1: and the only one. I need to get a lot
Speaker 1: of them to the market, and I need to be
Speaker 1: the only place you can get it or the best
Speaker 1: place to get it. How do you get yourself to
Speaker 1: get a profit on something that means the product had
Speaker 1: to cost you nothing, which means you don't pay the
Speaker 1: workers or for the raw materials. That's I mean, if
Speaker 1: I'm doing capitalism, the way the numbers work, the best
Speaker 1: labor is free labor. I mean, that's just how the
Speaker 1: numbers work. Because the more I pay my employees, the
Speaker 1: lower my profits are. I'm incentivized to pay them less. Now,
Speaker 1: once you add humanity to it and the reality city that,
Speaker 1: like capitalism exists among people, you can't just treat people
Speaker 1: that way because they'll stop working. Right then you have
Speaker 1: to come to a place of understanding that here is
Speaker 1: what's called a fair minimum wage. Follow me, But if
Speaker 1: that minimum wage is only decided by the owners, by
Speaker 1: the plugs and the corner boys, us don't ever get
Speaker 1: no saying it. We're just subject to whatever you tell
Speaker 1: us to do. Because what's the alternative to be unemployed?
Speaker 1: And I mean where you're gonna go. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: unemployment later. But Bessemer, Alabama. This was very special because
Speaker 1: for a long time, somehow or another, Amazon was able
Speaker 1: to dodge the need to have a union, mainly because
Speaker 1: they pay very well and their argument is we treat
Speaker 1: you all right. I don't understand why you would need one,
Speaker 1: but it was a big push and they were like, yo,
Speaker 1: if if this happens. This was back in April, like,
Speaker 1: if this happens, this might be a big watershed of it.
Speaker 1: Because what's bigger than Amazon right now? So if they
Speaker 1: have to go the way of union, this may tell
Speaker 1: us something about our economy later. Right, So look this
Speaker 1: one spot at Bessemer, Alabama voted. They voted eighteen hundred
Speaker 1: no to seven hundred yes. So they shot the union down.
Speaker 1: And it's always interesting to me where maybe this is
Speaker 1: just my cynicism. I'm generally like not on the corporation
Speaker 1: side because I just feel like you're just trying to
Speaker 1: maximize your numbers. But this was very interesting when you
Speaker 1: listening to the people. There were workers there that was like, listen,
Speaker 1: this is a great job. I mean, I don't see
Speaker 1: anything wrong. And they have this view of unions as
Speaker 1: being you know, corrupted money grabbing. Maybe now listen listen.
Speaker 1: Amazon went extra hard though a loss, but like that
Speaker 1: loss is questionable. They did some stuff like his thing
Speaker 1: when you're dealing with bosses like this. They got pulled
Speaker 1: with with the city, with the state. There's like a
Speaker 1: little best of Alabama. They ain't but like four five
Speaker 1: street lights. They got the street light that was in
Speaker 1: front of their building. They got the pattern changed because
Speaker 1: that's where labor organizers were organizing. People would stop at
Speaker 1: the stop like they were passing about flyers like hey,
Speaker 1: this is what's going on. We're going on the strikers,
Speaker 1: and they got the lights changed so you wouldn't be
Speaker 1: long enough to do that. Crazy. You know what else
Speaker 1: they did, Look, it's supposed to be one of those
Speaker 1: blind votes where you mail in your ballot for whether
Speaker 1: you're gonna vote for unionizing or not unionizing. Amazon had
Speaker 1: to nerve hit the post office and was like, look,
Speaker 1: put a box in front of our place. And then
Speaker 1: it would harass people like yo, you put your you
Speaker 1: put your vote in, put your vote in, put your
Speaker 1: vote in, Like this shouldn't be legal. They was doing
Speaker 1: things calling mandatory meetings during the work day and would
Speaker 1: hire these people that was like anti union people. They
Speaker 1: were saying, he's other facts. We're just gonna give you
Speaker 1: the information. They make their work or sit around and
Speaker 1: listen for hours the people telling them union is wrong.
Speaker 1: They just look, these are just bullies bad. This is
Speaker 1: corporate bullies. Dog so you should already have your antenna's up.
Speaker 1: When a company is so hell bent on you not
Speaker 1: doing something, that should make you think, okay, now, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, now, why why is this so bad? And
Speaker 1: there is a collective term for trying to stop companies
Speaker 1: from unionizing, and it's called union breaking. Under the the
Speaker 1: laws for you know, labor in America, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of leeway, a lot of wiggle room. Yo,
Speaker 1: get this right down the street. We're not right down
Speaker 1: the street. Further into the sticks is a coal mining
Speaker 1: strike having it right now. It started April one. I
Speaker 1: listened to this this sister Kim Kelly Man she um,
Speaker 1: I think she was on worst year ever recently. She
Speaker 1: had this reporting on it on the same thing that
Speaker 1: there's this this coal mine down there way out in
Speaker 1: the stix. Ain't no cell service right. They've been striking
Speaker 1: since April one. And then look look here, how gangs
Speaker 1: to this situation is there was a coal mining company
Speaker 1: down there that ran out of money. It went belly up.
Speaker 1: This venture Capitalless company bought it. Now, since the company
Speaker 1: went belly up, they just fired all their workers. And
Speaker 1: then then these new people came in and was like, yo,
Speaker 1: we got you now we all now, yeah, we'll hire you.
Speaker 1: Here go your contract. And the contract was awful. They're
Speaker 1: making way less, way way way less. You gotta work
Speaker 1: six days a week, twelve hour days, but what you're
Speaker 1: gonna do not work. So they signed this horrible contract,
Speaker 1: was working on it for a while. Then finally they
Speaker 1: was like, Yo, this is wild, doc. We can't be
Speaker 1: working like this. We're striking. So they unionized and strike.
Speaker 1: But why this story ain't so sexy is these is
Speaker 1: like sticks redneck white dude Trump folks who are pro union,
Speaker 1: and I don't fit the narrative right because the Republicans
Speaker 1: is supposed to be, you know, anti union because in
Speaker 1: our stories out here, union is all commy right. But no,
Speaker 1: it's just folks saying you can't just treat me however
Speaker 1: you want to treat me. This ain't no common like
Speaker 1: damn man. And so it's like is baffling the sea,
Speaker 1: these right wing Trumpers all about this union, but it
Speaker 1: shouldn't be. If you just understand what it's like to
Speaker 1: be po to be up under somebody's power, you just
Speaker 1: can't let nobody work you like this. And listen, since
Speaker 1: they way out there in the sticks that company do
Speaker 1: what they want. Man, They've been driving cars into picket
Speaker 1: lines and carrying on harassing people. They got drones floating
Speaker 1: over and you can't say nothing because you pour what
Speaker 1: you gonna do. Look pimping. Let's talking more walking. Get
Speaker 1: your ass back on that curb and go give me
Speaker 1: my money. I mean, what else you're gonna do. I
Speaker 1: don't understand how this ain't red meat to the Fox
Speaker 1: News in them, And like why if I'm Johnny red State,
Speaker 1: I'd be out there right now because this is a
Speaker 1: great story, these these hard working you know as salt
Speaker 1: of the Earth American Americans standing up to the corporate
Speaker 1: elites and they're being treated now. But it don't fit
Speaker 1: cause because listen, they unionized that you look, you said,
Speaker 1: don't ride for you. I know, I know I'm not
Speaker 1: talking to people that would listen to Fox News on this,
Speaker 1: but I'm trying to tell you right now, you're set,
Speaker 1: don't ride for you now. Uh. I am on my
Speaker 1: side personally. I'm pro union to the extent that a
Speaker 1: union is needed. You know what I'm saying. I don't
Speaker 1: like being forced into it. I was a teacher forever,
Speaker 1: so when I was a teacher. I didn't know the
Speaker 1: union was, but I realized they told me how much
Speaker 1: I was gonna get paid a year. I was like,
Speaker 1: all right, cool, that's dope. And then they said do
Speaker 1: you want to get a union rep? And I was
Speaker 1: like what is that? And it was like, oh, they'll
Speaker 1: negotiate your salary for you. And I was like, oh, word,
Speaker 1: so they could get me more. Well damn, okay, I
Speaker 1: mean I didn't. I mean, I didn't know I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do the same amount of work. You mean I could
Speaker 1: get paid more for it that you get a rep
Speaker 1: that come in there and make sure they're paying you, right,
Speaker 1: I mean I thought, I mean, this was all I knew.
Speaker 1: I was like, this sounds good to me. But that
Speaker 1: collective understanding of like nah, homie, like you don't have
Speaker 1: to be treated this way, like you understand this place
Speaker 1: need you just as much as you need them. And
Speaker 1: then there's then the power dynamic shifts, because at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, is that not what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: We're still talking about a power dynamic again. Capitalism is
Speaker 1: a moral so is power. Power just wants to feed itself,
Speaker 1: and I mean socialism in the same way, it's no different,
Speaker 1: it's a moral. It's it's still concerned with power. That mean,
Speaker 1: it's no how you do these things, in my mind
Speaker 1: is where the humanity panity falls. But unions exist because
Speaker 1: of capitalism. Capitalism is a moral. Now what does all
Speaker 1: this have to do with us? I want to talk
Speaker 1: to you about unemployment and the concept of scarcity right
Speaker 1: after this, Braine. So look, this was back in April,
Speaker 1: this unionizing thing, because I don't know, if you know,
Speaker 1: throughout the pandemic, Amazon wasn't hurting, Like a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: they was offering a lot of jobs, you understand what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. And they set themselves up with as a
Speaker 1: situation to say, well, we treat your fair, so leave
Speaker 1: us alone. But the relationship I'm arguing is still symbiotic.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure they're out the water. I think maybe
Speaker 1: there might be a time that once people really really
Speaker 1: realize really how much money Amazon made and how little
Speaker 1: and how hard they work in these people that like
Speaker 1: something may something may crack, but why Amazon made so
Speaker 1: much is something that's like a monopoly that uh. Elizabeth
Speaker 1: Warren was kind of running on and just kind of
Speaker 1: saying that like they shouldn't be able to be the
Speaker 1: grocery store and the groceries basically saying Amazon has its
Speaker 1: own products and it's the store, so like men of
Speaker 1: because there's no you can't compete. It's it's the Netflix model.
Speaker 1: Netflix is where you see movies and Netflix makes movies.
Speaker 1: So like, there's no it's capitalism. Where else you're gonna
Speaker 1: go like and of course they're going to throttle their
Speaker 1: own stuff because of this idea of scarcity. What scarcity
Speaker 1: means is there's only so much of something there's own.
Speaker 1: There's only a limited amount in a limited way to
Speaker 1: get to that. Does that make sense? Now when you
Speaker 1: stretch that too, jobs, there's only so many jobs available.
Speaker 1: So when you hear things like a job's report unemployment rate,
Speaker 1: what we're saying is like, how many people in the
Speaker 1: world or in America don't have jobs that want one?
Speaker 1: That's your unemployment rate? A percent? Ten percent? What Obviously
Speaker 1: when the pandemic hit, it's shot up. Nobody had worked
Speaker 1: because stores were shutting down, but but the jobs weren't
Speaker 1: weren't available. Now some would argue that this, this economic stance,
Speaker 1: this this job's report, is really part of the incentive
Speaker 1: to never do any prison before walk with me, y'all,
Speaker 1: because the more again scarcity. There's only so many jobs available,
Speaker 1: So if there's more people competing for those jobs, then
Speaker 1: there's less jobs available for the children of those in power.
Speaker 1: I mean it might feel like a jump, but could
Speaker 1: you imagine if all these non violent of corner boys
Speaker 1: who were selling weed out they backpack, got their records
Speaker 1: expunged and didn't have to tick felony on their applications,
Speaker 1: who have all these skills as brilliant businessmen because there
Speaker 1: was corner boys at one time totally more prepared for
Speaker 1: the corporate experience or the political experience that these kids
Speaker 1: who just learned in school have. What's my incentive, It's
Speaker 1: a moral Remember, I need to keep you out the
Speaker 1: jobs market because there's only so many to go around.
Speaker 1: But that's a side note. But onto the note I
Speaker 1: do want to talk to you all about is this
Speaker 1: unemployment rate and unemployment benefits. Now, the government does have
Speaker 1: a role in all this now pending on where you
Speaker 1: land on small government in large government, which is a
Speaker 1: whole other conversation. The question basically about that is like
Speaker 1: what it should government be your first resort or your
Speaker 1: last resort. Now, traditionally, your conservatives believe that the government
Speaker 1: should be the last resort. So we was in a
Speaker 1: global pandemic. Therefore, there ain't no jobs out there, so
Speaker 1: we need to boost the unemployment the amount of money
Speaker 1: people can get when they sign up for unemployment. Now
Speaker 1: that the pandemic over. Remember, I don't know if you'll remember,
Speaker 1: they was fighting over how much it was gonna be
Speaker 1: three hundred dollars a week, six hundred dollars a week,
Speaker 1: you know. Then we got that funky little twelve hundred
Speaker 1: dollars stimulus check that was supposed to last the whole year. Right,
Speaker 1: y'are playing games, But anyway, we still talking about this
Speaker 1: symbiotic relationship between the plug and the corner board, between
Speaker 1: the the employer and the employee, and how does power
Speaker 1: game kind of work. Now, some of y'all may know
Speaker 1: a bunch of states actually are ending their unemployment benefits early.
Speaker 1: June twelfth is Alaska, Iowa, Mississippi, and Missouri. June nineteenth
Speaker 1: is Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, South or North Dakota,
Speaker 1: West Virginia, Wyoming. I don't know if you notice these
Speaker 1: are clearly Republican states Arkansas June Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Ohio,
Speaker 1: South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, and Utah. June is Montana, Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: July three in Tennessee, in July tenth in Arizona. Your
Speaker 1: unemployment benefits are ending. Then, So if you lost your
Speaker 1: job because of the pandemic or for any other reason,
Speaker 1: and you've been collecting unemployment and you wanted these states,
Speaker 1: it's finn end. But that's only besides the point. Their
Speaker 1: argument for ending this is the idea that this is
Speaker 1: going to to make you go get a job. It's
Speaker 1: a power play. But what's been happening is, according to
Speaker 1: it's so funny. According to the CEO of Indeed, he said,
Speaker 1: in these states that ended their unemployment early, the national
Speaker 1: the numbers of clicks for job searches on their website
Speaker 1: really only went up a little bit, and only for
Speaker 1: a couple of days. And in some states it dipped,
Speaker 1: meaning you in and needs unemployment and people still ain't
Speaker 1: looking for jobs. Why, conservative pundits would argue, because the
Speaker 1: unemployment is too high, foods is begging, there's so many
Speaker 1: jobs available, right, they say, we're having our our workforce
Speaker 1: is struggling because nobody wants these jobs. And their argument
Speaker 1: is it's because unemployment is too good. Why would I
Speaker 1: go work if I get this money for free. The
Speaker 1: problem is that's just not what the data is showing.
Speaker 1: The data showing actually that in states where people don't
Speaker 1: have unemployment, they're not clicking more jobs. In states that do,
Speaker 1: it's pretty much the it's the same. I saw a
Speaker 1: thing that Applebee's was offering free appetizers if you come
Speaker 1: get this interview. People don't show up for interviews or
Speaker 1: apply for or actually come in and try to get
Speaker 1: these jobs because unemployment. To continue to get it, you
Speaker 1: have to show that you're trying to get work. So
Speaker 1: maybe you apply, go get a thing, and then just
Speaker 1: like walk away. Why are people doing this? They're saying
Speaker 1: because unemployment is too high. But here's what's interesting to me.
Speaker 1: But I'm like, look, is unemployment high or is your
Speaker 1: job trash? Maybe you're not offering enough money for us
Speaker 1: to work so you can look at yourself in the
Speaker 1: mirror at all. Maybe it really ain't worth it like
Speaker 1: it used to be, standing out on this corner. Maybe
Speaker 1: there's other ways to do this. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: rather than saying, okay, well let's raise the minimum wage,
Speaker 1: meaning maybe we should pay people more because the relationship
Speaker 1: ship is symbiotic. If y'all don't want to work, is
Speaker 1: it because you're getting money from somewhere else that's too much? Well,
Speaker 1: then what should the market? What does market tell you?
Speaker 1: What does market rules tell you? That tells you you
Speaker 1: need to pay more? You can't tell them to pay less,
Speaker 1: or can you? Because that's exactly what happened. Government went
Speaker 1: in there and said, well, you need to stop paying
Speaker 1: them so they'll come work for me. That's a power play.
Speaker 1: Rather than paying more, they saying lower unemployment because at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, in their pocket they saying, listen,
Speaker 1: it's only so many jobs available. And what's what's being
Speaker 1: shown right now is oh crap, We've been telling them
Speaker 1: for centuries they need us. Turns out we actually need them.
Speaker 1: Mhm right, wrong or and different. I'm just saying this
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