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Speaker 1: Hello the Internet, and welcome to season two ninety three,

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Speaker 1: episode one of Dirdlyshi Guys.

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Speaker 2: Say, production of My Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: This is a podcast where we take a deep dive

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Speaker 1: into america shared consciousness.

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Speaker 2: And it is Tuesday, June.

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Speaker 1: Twenty seventh, twenty twenty three, six two seven, twenty twenty three.

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Speaker 2: You know what it means. Sorry, my computer is crashing.

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Speaker 2: Oh wral doesn't matter. They can't stop us because six

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Speaker 2: twenty seven. Oh you better. I don't even know what

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Speaker 2: I was gonna where I was gonna pivot to, but anyways,

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Speaker 2: National Orange Blossom Day, National Sunglasses Day, International Pineapple Day,

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Speaker 2: National PTSD Awareness Day, Micro Small and Medium Enterprise of Game,

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Speaker 2: National Onion Day, National Atype Testing, and National ice Cream

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Speaker 2: Cake Day. There's a lot of days today. We got

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Speaker 2: them all.

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Speaker 1: We got two of my favorites fragrances. You know, orange blossom.

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Speaker 1: I've got some orange blossom like candles, life blossom tea,

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Speaker 1: oh honey, and then onion onion tea.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Onion's gonna candles that like that onion perfume that

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Speaker 2: you have is right high watering, like you just like

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Speaker 2: get a little misty. Could you imagine if there was

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Speaker 2: a thing where like you were just fucking emitting the

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Speaker 2: ship that makes your eyes water from onions, like, like, Yo,

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Speaker 2: what the fuck is that actually cheering up near you?

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Speaker 1: Well, my name is Jack O'Brien ak on we on

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Speaker 1: we on we on we I swear to you that

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Speaker 1: I know this word man on we on we on

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Speaker 1: we on we I know how to speak. I promise

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Speaker 1: you I can. That is courtesy of a c w

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Speaker 1: GB O on the discord making fun of me, humiliating

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Speaker 1: me for a mispronouncing on we as ny and you

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Speaker 1: I you I anyway, I I'm thrilled to be joined

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Speaker 1: as always by my co host mister Miles Gray.

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Speaker 2: Miles prey K.

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Speaker 3: I'm a bitch, I'm in Orcas thinking y'all just stop

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Speaker 3: my Yorca. I'm a sinner, I'm a well I'm gonna

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Speaker 3: hit you with my tail, Okay. Shout out to Paul

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Speaker 3: Garaventa Peache up in It, who found this on the Twitter.

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Speaker 2: It's funny. I love when people find things that are like, Yo,

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Speaker 2: listen to AKA, they don't even listen to show. But

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Speaker 2: these people don't know what you wrote is an AKA

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Speaker 2: And that was from Connor Daily on Twitter. But yeah,

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Speaker 2: hell yeah, Connor, aren't they aren't the activities spreading of

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Speaker 2: the Orcas? Yeah, I think there was another one where

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Speaker 2: they were like in like near the British Isles or

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Speaker 2: something there. I called the British Isles like I'm an

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Speaker 2: old explorer. Yeah, I think I read about a new one.

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Speaker 1: I don't know what it means for how far the

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Speaker 1: message has spread from White Gladys.

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Speaker 2: Yes, but north of Scotland they say, damn, they say

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Speaker 2: that again, this could be like a slight thing where

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Speaker 2: now like media is like being like this is this

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Speaker 2: is a new thing or attack spreading like wildflyre because

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Speaker 2: I said quote it appears to be leap frogging across oceans. Well,

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Speaker 2: they're fucking have like cell coverage out there. How would

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Speaker 2: it be leap frogging.

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Speaker 1: They got that five gjack or maybe whales swim that

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Speaker 1: far that fast.

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Speaker 2: Or maybe orcas just know how to stay on code. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: that's right.

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Speaker 1: Anyways, Miles, this is a very special episode. Our guest

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Speaker 1: today is an expert author of a book that I

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Speaker 1: will just say explained a lot, explained everything about how

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Speaker 1: modern America operates in a lot of aspects.

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Speaker 2: And you'll you'll even hear me admit the beginning, I'm

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Speaker 2: like I would, I was going around a lot of

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Speaker 2: my adult life vaguely understanding what we're talking about, and

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Speaker 2: then but hearing it act properly and like reading it,

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Speaker 2: have it be properly articulated by someone who's like looking

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Speaker 2: at it from a legal standpoint, you're like, oh, yeah, yo,

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Speaker 2: that's fucking terrible. I mean, like I knew that broadly,

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Speaker 2: but this is it gives it so much texture in

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Speaker 2: a way that Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But it might seem at first like a little depressing

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Speaker 1: because it's like it's giving you really good texture on

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Speaker 1: like why things are bad in certain ways. But I

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Speaker 1: think ultimately it's kind of hopeful because it at least

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Speaker 1: gives you an understanding of how things are actually operating.

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Speaker 1: So we're going to talk to our expert guest, Brendan Blue,

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Speaker 1: for a couple acts here for like the next forty minutes.

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Speaker 1: We'll come back and close things out after that. So

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Speaker 1: we will talk to you guys in a bit.

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Speaker 2: Just a caveat I normally, I just I don't speak

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Speaker 2: to the Feds normally, so please don't. I don't want

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Speaker 2: you guys writing in about how I made Miles do it.

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Speaker 1: I said, it's a It's always been fine for me.

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Speaker 1: Come along, friend, let's talk to the Fed.

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Speaker 2: All right, Miles.

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Speaker 1: We are thrilled to be joined in our third seat

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Speaker 1: by a federal prosecutor who served as special counsel at

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Speaker 1: the Department of Justice. He is the author of the

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Speaker 1: book Plunder, which he is here to talk to us

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Speaker 1: about today. It is a hugely compelling, infuriating read about

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Speaker 1: an industry I knew very little about, so Brendan, first

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Speaker 1: of all, welcome, Thank you for joining us. Thank you

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Speaker 1: so much for having me. So I just want to

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Speaker 1: I want to go as long as I can talking

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Speaker 1: about this without mentioning the name of the industry that

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Speaker 1: your book is about, just because I feel like when

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Speaker 1: I hear the two words that are the name of

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Speaker 1: the industry, like.

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Speaker 2: My brain just goes to sleep.

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Speaker 1: Because it's also like the name that I've heard people

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Speaker 1: who I like went to school with be like, oh,

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Speaker 1: well I do some things and and I'm just like, okay,

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Speaker 1: I don't I don't know what that's cool. It's right,

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Speaker 1: it's so divorced from reality and like anything that makes

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Speaker 1: sense to me, And maybe that's by design. I don't know,

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Speaker 1: but just some facts real quick. So, these companies are

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Speaker 1: massive and invisible in a lot of cases. You mentioned

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Speaker 1: that they would be two of them would be the

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Speaker 1: third and fourth biggest employers of people in the country

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Speaker 1: behind Amazon and Walmart if they like admitted that they existed.

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Speaker 2: Or owned these entities, right one.

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Speaker 1: This industry helps explain why ambulances are aren't free. Ambulances

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Speaker 1: used to be free. Like you have a quote that

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Speaker 1: is very close to some things we've been saying on

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Speaker 1: our show, Like anecdotally, it feels like everything's getting a

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Speaker 1: little worse. Our products are lower equality, our stores are understaffed.

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Speaker 1: And this book, more than anything I've read recently, really

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Speaker 1: helped me make sense of why that is or how

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Speaker 1: that's happening. And then there's also the list of companies

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Speaker 1: that this industry took over and then those companies declared

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Speaker 1: bankruptcy that I just want to read through really quickly. Like,

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Speaker 1: so we've got Jay Crew, Neiman, Marcus Toys, r us Sears,

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Speaker 1: twenty four Hour Fitness, Aeropostyle, American Apparel, Brookstone, Player's David's Bridle,

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Speaker 1: dead Spin, Jimberrey Hertz, KB Toys, Linen's and Things, Mattress Firm,

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Speaker 1: nine West, Payless Shoes, Radio shack Shop, co sports authority,

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Speaker 1: true religion, friendlies, friendlies, Yes, And I just so I

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Speaker 1: had just kind of taken it for granted that those places,

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Speaker 1: along with the like mom and pop stores like just

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Speaker 1: no longer needed to exist because Amazon or something you

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Speaker 1: know like that. It was just like Walmart and Amazon

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Speaker 1: coming in and out dueling the mid size guys with scale.

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Speaker 1: But a lot of those companies still deliver on the

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Speaker 1: central premise of capitalism, of like the delivering value to

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Speaker 1: people's lives and getting paid for it. And like, so

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Speaker 1: this helped me fill in a bank a blank that

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Speaker 1: like a lot of these companies are actually getting killed

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Speaker 1: off by the science killer that is private equity. Private equity,

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Speaker 1: folks said it all right again, a word that has

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Speaker 1: the magical power to turn my brain off.

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Speaker 2: But it's one of those words too, like it turns

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Speaker 2: my brain off because it sounds like when I hear

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Speaker 2: it so much that I'm embarrassed to admit how little

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Speaker 2: I know about it. And you're like, yeah, private equity,

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Speaker 2: I know, like I hear that all the time. And

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Speaker 2: if someone asked me to start explaining it, I would

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Speaker 2: probably start like sounding like some maga Republican trying to

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Speaker 2: explain like how the insurrection was an inside job or

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Speaker 2: like the dog, like, well, the thing you gotta understand

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Speaker 2: is like the Clinton socks case and documents, and you're like, whoa, wait,

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Speaker 2: huh that I'm that. I think it's also that's sort

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Speaker 2: of like the brilliant part of this industry is that

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Speaker 2: it so many of us are blissfully ignorant of its

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Speaker 2: power while it is able to just run rampant.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but let's talk scale first of all, Like these

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Speaker 1: are massive companies, as you mentioned, third and fourth biggest

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Speaker 1: employers in the country.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's kind of amazing how big private equity

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Speaker 4: firms are. And I should say at the outset, of course,

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Speaker 4: that I'm speaking purely personally and not necessarily reflecting the

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Speaker 4: views of my employer. So let's just talk numbers here.

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Speaker 4: As you mentioned the some leading private equity firms, if

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Speaker 4: they were considered with their portfolio companies, would be the third, fourth,

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Speaker 4: and fifth largest companies in America after just Amazon and Walmart.

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Speaker 4: In terms of what they're buying. Private equity firms spent

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Speaker 4: a little over trillion dollars buying companies last year and

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Speaker 4: one point two trillion dollars the year before. Just for

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Speaker 4: a sense of perspective, the entire US GDP is about

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Speaker 4: twenty five trillion dollars, so it's not an insubstantial part

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Speaker 4: of the entire US economy. And in terms of where

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Speaker 4: they're spreading out, it's just about every industry you name,

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Speaker 4: you can think of. You know, you already named, you know, ambulances,

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Speaker 4: you named a lot of retail stores and so forth.

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Speaker 4: But whether we're talking about healthcare, housing, prisons, education, municipal services.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 4: Literally the font of my book was owned and licensed

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Speaker 4: by a private equity portfolio company, so it really surrounds you.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess my assumption and maybe maybe the reason

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Speaker 1: that like the the ideas behind private equity like didn't cohere,

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Speaker 1: didn't like stick my brain is that like it doesn't

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Speaker 1: they don't take over, And I guess the premise is

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Speaker 1: right that they take over a company and they figure

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Speaker 1: out ways to make the company better and more profitable,

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Speaker 1: like as this, you know, in and of itself, this

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Speaker 1: company now delivers better value to the customers that serves

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Speaker 1: at a cheaper price, but instead of doing that, they

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Speaker 1: are really seem to be doing something between that and

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Speaker 1: stripping it for parts and like getting them to pay

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Speaker 1: them fees and putting them out of business in a

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Speaker 1: way that is legally structured so that they don't face

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Speaker 1: any of the consequences.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I think, you know, Miles kind of

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Speaker 4: framed it right, because it's something that I felt starting

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Speaker 4: out of this project. Is private equity is a word

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Speaker 4: that or a term that I think we've all heard,

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Speaker 4: but like, if we're honest, like we usually don't actually

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Speaker 4: know what it means. And I'll confess I didn't know

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Speaker 4: what it meant until about a third of the way

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Speaker 4: through this project. So I don't think anybody should feel

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Speaker 4: embarrassed about that. So just taking a step back, So

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Speaker 4: what is private equity and how does this business model work?

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Speaker 4: So private equity firms take a little bit of their

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Speaker 4: own money, some investor money, and a whole lot of

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Speaker 4: borrowed money to buy up companies, as you were saying, Jack,

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Speaker 4: and then what they do is they sort of enact

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Speaker 4: these operational or financial changes with the aim of selling

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Speaker 4: it for a profit a few years later. So it's

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Speaker 4: a very simple idea but the problem that we've got

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Speaker 4: is our laws and regulations are structured in a way

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Speaker 4: that really leads to a lot of bad outcomes. So,

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Speaker 4: for instance, private equity firms typically just own companies for

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Speaker 4: a few years, so they have a very short term perspective.

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Speaker 4: And when they own them, they tend to load the

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Speaker 4: companies up with a lot of debt, and they tend

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Speaker 4: to extract a lot of fees. And then third, and

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Speaker 4: this is the part that interests me the most is

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Speaker 4: a lawyer is they're extremely good at insulating themselves from

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Speaker 4: legal liability for the consequences of their actions. So when

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Speaker 4: you've got those three problems, it leads to all the

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Speaker 4: things that we're talking about here. Short term, a lot

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Speaker 4: of debt, insulation from responsibility. It means that private equity

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Speaker 4: firms often profit, but the companies, the customers, and the

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Speaker 4: employees often don't.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and it like how much is that? Because like

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Speaker 2: that that.

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Speaker 1: Is something even as you are describing it, like just

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Speaker 1: this idea of adding hidden fees to these companies and

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Speaker 1: extracting fees, like using them like atm machines, and like

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Speaker 1: doing things that are just like short term value grabs.

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Speaker 1: As much as possible or just like money grabs like

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Speaker 1: that seems to be like you talk about how these

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Speaker 1: are the new cool places to work in the finance industry,

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Speaker 1: and it like that logic of like no longer think

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Speaker 1: about long term health and just like kind of cynically

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Speaker 1: like smashing the company until smashing thing you are doing

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Speaker 1: business with until it gives you money. Like that, it

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Speaker 1: feels like that we're seeing that kind of everywhere, like

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Speaker 1: when we talked about like the new HBO Max changing

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Speaker 1: its name to Max and like that. But like his

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Speaker 1: main insight is like just cut budgets like that. That's

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Speaker 1: the other thing that just keeps coming up over and

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Speaker 1: over again is like their big insight, if you can

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Speaker 1: call it, that is just like cut budgets, don't don't

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Speaker 1: spend any money so that we can turn things around

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Speaker 1: really quickly, and that that ends with them like being

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Speaker 1: understaffed during like they they cut doctors. Like what one

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Speaker 1: of one of the private equity firms that like bought

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Speaker 1: an ER was in some way in charge of an

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Speaker 1: R was like cutting staff during the COVID pandemic. Like

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Speaker 1: it's just they only have like three answers and they're

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Speaker 1: all just short term value graps.

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Speaker 4: Right, yeah, well, let me give an example of sort

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Speaker 4: of how this sometimes works, it works in practice, and

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Speaker 4: then maybe I can address I think what your broader

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Speaker 4: point is here. So, you know, one of the examples

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Speaker 4: that I always turned to is Carlisle's acquisition of HCR

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Speaker 4: Manor Care, which was this very large nursing home chain

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Speaker 4: in the United States. So they bought it up primarily

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Speaker 4: with death, executed a lot of tactics that you were

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Speaker 4: sort of alluding to, like what's called a sale lease back,

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Speaker 4: where they required Manor Care to sell all of its

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Speaker 4: buildings and offices and then lease it back to itself,

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Speaker 4: which kind of gives it a quick hit of cash,

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Speaker 4: but means that now they sort of have a lease

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Speaker 4: on something that they used to own. They extracted transaction

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Speaker 4: fees and management fees, which were essentially fees for the

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Speaker 4: privilege of being owned by the private equity firm. And

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Speaker 4: you know, understandably, you know, when you start extracting money

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Speaker 4: and disinvesting in the company, health code violet, health code

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Speaker 4: complaints spike. You know, residents start complaining about you know,

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Speaker 4: rodents and roaches and things like that. Eventually somebody dies

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Speaker 4: in one of the nursing homes. But when their family

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Speaker 4: sues for wrongful death, Carlisle's able to get the case

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Speaker 4: against it dismissed by arguing that it is not the

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Speaker 4: technical owner of the nursing home chain. Instead, it merely

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Speaker 4: advises a series of funds whose limited partners, through several

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Speaker 4: shell companies, own the nursing home chain, and that's enough

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Speaker 4: to get the case against it dismissed. And that's, you know,

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Speaker 4: sort of the a typical example or I shouldn't say typical,

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Speaker 4: but a frequent enough example of how you can have

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Speaker 4: a bad consequence with this business model. Now, if I

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Speaker 4: can get to it, I think what your broader point is,

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Speaker 4: which is, I think that there's a feeling in this

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Speaker 4: economy that, you know, there's sort of a short term perspective,

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Speaker 4: that there's a sort of idea of extraction rather than

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Speaker 4: investment and all these things. And I think that there

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Speaker 4: are to broad macro things happening in our economy that

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Speaker 4: can account for that, and sort of talking about the

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Speaker 4: rise of the ideology of shareholder supremacy.

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Speaker 2: And things like that.

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Speaker 4: But one thing that I always try to hit home

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Speaker 4: is that private equity actually is new and is different,

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Speaker 4: and it's something sort of unique and separate from the

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Speaker 4: rest of the financial industry, which is not to say

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Speaker 4: that the rest of the financial industry is pure and

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Speaker 4: clean and you know, perfect, but it's something distinct. And

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Speaker 4: I do that because I think if we sort of

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Speaker 4: throw up our hands and say that the entire sort

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Speaker 4: of economy is broken, the nature of capitalism has failed

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Speaker 4: and so forth, it can lead to a certain level

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Speaker 4: of you know, sort of nihilism. Whereas if we say

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Speaker 4: we've got the specific problem with this private equity business model,

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Speaker 4: I think it's something that we can actually fix.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I definitely felt more knowledgeable and therefore hopeful following

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Speaker 1: reading your book than I did before, because, yeah, it

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Speaker 1: doesn't feel necessarily like it is everything having to do

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Speaker 1: with capitalism. It feels like capitalism has this horrible version

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Speaker 1: of like capitalism can sor that is just you know,

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Speaker 1: invading and being able to spread, and it's silent and

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Speaker 1: so and kind of invisible to a lot of people,

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Speaker 1: and so it's kind of out of control.

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Speaker 2: I think to that point right of being able to

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Speaker 2: diagnose the issues, because I think broadly we see the

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Speaker 2: issues of capitalism in this form of hypercapitalism we're in.

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Speaker 2: But it's one thing to be able to say, okay, now,

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Speaker 2: let's be able to an or be able to diagnose

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Speaker 2: these specific causes because before, like to Jack's point, I

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Speaker 2: was on a like just sort of this ignorant path

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Speaker 2: of being like I don't know, Amazon like ruined all

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Speaker 2: these like small places, and like I don't know, maybe

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Speaker 2: people aren't buying toys anymore. That's what I Toys r

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Speaker 2: Us went under. And it's like, no, it's because there

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Speaker 2: is a very it's like a very proven method of

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Speaker 2: making money like this, and it's and it's we're incentivizing

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Speaker 2: it because people are also on top of this, Like

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Speaker 2: let's like I don't want to lose sight of the

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Speaker 2: amount of money that these people make sort of at

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Speaker 2: out our own expense, at the spens of these people

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Speaker 2: that are in these you know, nursing homes or in

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Speaker 2: prison or working for certain countries or certain companies. Sorry,

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Speaker 2: but you're like you appointed to like a really interesting

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Speaker 2: statistic because just to give people an idea of how

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Speaker 2: wealthy the people that are involved in the pe pirate

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Speaker 2: equity or whatever you want to call it, to get

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Speaker 2: people's ears, like up a little bit like what's the like,

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Speaker 2: what's the sort of disparity and how much money these

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Speaker 2: people make versus something like we can wrap our heads

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Speaker 2: around like you know, like professional athletes. Yeah.

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Speaker 4: So one of the statistics that really grab my attention

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Speaker 4: is that there are now more private equity managers who

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Speaker 4: make over one hundred million dollars a year than all

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Speaker 4: other financial executives, investment bankers, and professional athletes combined. So

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Speaker 4: this tiny part of the industry is really dominant. I mean,

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Speaker 4: you know, to go back to a point I think

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Speaker 4: you were making earlier jack about how private equity, even

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Speaker 4: though this sort of obscure sounding thing is, is sort

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Speaker 4: of the hot place to be in finance. The head

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Speaker 4: of Blackstone, which is one of the leading private equity firms,

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Speaker 4: last year made I think ten times as much as

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Speaker 4: the CEO of Goldman's Axe, and I don't think the

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Speaker 4: CEO of Goldman's Axe is terribly underpaid. So, you know,

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Speaker 4: these are areas where you know, literally you have folks

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Speaker 4: whose net worth is the GDP of you know, some

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Speaker 4: small country.

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Speaker 1: Right, yeah, yeah, you taught you describe some parties that

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Speaker 1: they're throwing in the book, and it's.

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Speaker 2: And the whole head of Goldman is the DJ. That's

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Speaker 2: how these guys are Like that dude, I have him

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Speaker 2: here to be the DJ, not to be a fun guest.

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Speaker 4: I think one of the parties Stephen Schwartzman's seventieth birthday,

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Speaker 4: he's that he's one of the heads of Blackstone. Had

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Speaker 4: I think at least one or two Chinese temples built

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Speaker 4: in his honor on his property in Florida, had sort

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Speaker 4: of dancers, hired the cast of Jersey Boys boys brought

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Speaker 4: in and had Gwen Stefani sing him Happy Birthday personally.

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Speaker 4: So you know, these folks have a fair amount of

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Speaker 4: money to work with, and he's got taste.

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Speaker 2: You know, he's no doubt fan is like I love

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Speaker 2: Tragic Kingdom. How much money do I got to pay

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Speaker 2: for you and Tony to get back together the basis

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Speaker 2: I love that that don't speak video. The other thing too,

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Speaker 2: is like again we talk about because everything is typically

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Speaker 2: that we see, it's always praying on the weakest in

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Speaker 2: our society, whether it's like draconian legislation or like the

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Speaker 2: kinds of consumers these companies go after. I feel like

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Speaker 2: it's it's like almost guaranteed that the people that are

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Speaker 2: on the shit end of the deal, are working people

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Speaker 2: or people who have no options. Can you talk about

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Speaker 2: like how specifically, like how this works too, because there

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Speaker 2: is a methodology to getting as much money as they

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Speaker 2: can out of this because they know they have a

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Speaker 2: sort of captive consumer base.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I think your phrase captive consumer base is exactly right,

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Speaker 4: because you know, when I started out on this project,

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Speaker 4: I sort of assumed that private equity firms would go

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Speaker 4: after industries for wealthy people, because you know, that's where

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Speaker 4: the money is. But I was surprised by how many

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Speaker 4: industries or businesses private equity firms bought up that targeted

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Speaker 4: not the rich, but the poor and working class. You know,

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Speaker 4: whether we're talking about we sort of alluded to this earlier.

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Speaker 4: You know, prison services, mobile homes, for profit colleges, various

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Speaker 4: parts of the healthcare industry that target sort of lower

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Speaker 4: income and working class families. And I think the reason

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Speaker 4: for that buy and large is working class people have

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Speaker 4: fewer alternatives. So when you're talking about prison services, you

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Speaker 4: can lower the quality of care, or when you're talking

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Speaker 4: about mobile homes, you can raise the cost of the lot.

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Speaker 4: At least because folks literally don't have an alternative and

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Speaker 4: don't have another option.

404
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Speaker 1: Yeah, you taught you mentioned elsewhere in the book about

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Speaker 1: how like why ers are attractive to them, and it's

406
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Speaker 1: you know, the inelasticity of demand and the fact that

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Speaker 1: nobody really has has much say over where they are

408
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Speaker 1: when they get shot or have a heart attack, and

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Speaker 1: so they're like, bingo, there's these this consumer base isn't

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Speaker 1: going anywhere, and so we can function up as bad

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Speaker 1: as we want to, essentially, and we'll we'll be able

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Speaker 1: to spend very little and continue extracting money from people.

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Speaker 2: It kind of just reminds me of just like you

414
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Speaker 2: were saying, like ambulances used to be free, that to

415
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Speaker 2: the point now we have like it's now in our consciousness.

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Speaker 2: Oh no, no, no, called ambulance. Yeah, don't do that. Don't

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Speaker 2: do that. And you're like, oh, that's the invisible hand

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Speaker 2: of private equity right there, just putting that into our minds.

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Speaker 4: It's really interesting, you know, ambulances specifically, I think for

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Speaker 4: folks from our generation, like we didn't even really realize

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Speaker 4: that until pretty recently. You know, ambulances used to be

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Speaker 4: largely owned by municipalities. It wasn't until the nineteen nineties

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Speaker 4: and two thousands that you started having this privatization movement,

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Speaker 4: and private equity firms have gotten very active in ambulances.

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Speaker 2: One of the really.

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Speaker 4: Interesting things is it doesn't seem like they've done a

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Speaker 4: terribly great job managing them. There was a really interesting

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Speaker 4: expos in New York Times about them, about how sort

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Speaker 4: of a disproportionate number of ambulance companies owned by pe firms,

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Speaker 4: we're going bankrupt and going out of business and so forth.

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Speaker 4: But to take one step back, I mean, I think

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Speaker 4: emergency rooms are the really interesting story because two private

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Speaker 4: equity firms own the leading physician staffing companies for emergency rooms,

434
00:23:20,320 --> 00:23:23,040
Speaker 4: and according to research by some folks at Yale, really

435
00:23:23,080 --> 00:23:27,719
Speaker 4: the business model of these staffing companies is essentially to

436
00:23:27,760 --> 00:23:31,560
Speaker 4: staff the doctors at these emergency rooms in a way

437
00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:35,439
Speaker 4: strategically so that people pay surprise out of network bills.

438
00:23:35,800 --> 00:23:38,040
Speaker 4: So you go to a hospital, you think it's in

439
00:23:38,119 --> 00:23:41,760
Speaker 4: your network for your insurer, but you're actually treated by

440
00:23:41,800 --> 00:23:43,960
Speaker 4: a doctor who works for a different hospital and as

441
00:23:43,960 --> 00:23:45,720
Speaker 4: a result, have to paint out of network bill.

442
00:23:46,440 --> 00:23:49,440
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's an area, Yeah, go ahead, it's just trick.

443
00:23:49,560 --> 00:23:54,399
Speaker 1: It's adding confusion, adding complexity to the system so that

444
00:23:54,680 --> 00:23:59,040
Speaker 1: they can extract fees without delivering any value whatsoever. Like

445
00:23:59,160 --> 00:24:02,000
Speaker 1: the really seems to be Sorry, let's take a quick

446
00:24:02,040 --> 00:24:04,120
Speaker 1: break and I yeah, I want to kind of come

447
00:24:04,119 --> 00:24:07,160
Speaker 1: back and just look further at the track record because

448
00:24:07,200 --> 00:24:12,080
Speaker 1: it really, like the number of examples you give really

449
00:24:12,200 --> 00:24:16,440
Speaker 1: suggests this is the model. Like this is what they do.

450
00:24:16,560 --> 00:24:20,120
Speaker 1: They come in, they make it worse. They somehow get

451
00:24:20,160 --> 00:24:22,920
Speaker 1: so rich that they can build Chinese temples at their

452
00:24:22,920 --> 00:24:23,960
Speaker 1: birthday party.

453
00:24:23,800 --> 00:24:24,680
Speaker 2: With Gwen Stefani.

454
00:24:25,040 --> 00:24:39,159
Speaker 1: Yes, with Gwen Stefani, And we're back. So that that

455
00:24:39,359 --> 00:24:44,639
Speaker 1: story about how their insight into staffing was to trick

456
00:24:44,720 --> 00:24:48,560
Speaker 1: people into using doctors outside of their network is just

457
00:24:48,680 --> 00:24:52,560
Speaker 1: one of the stories in your book that is incredibly infuriating.

458
00:24:52,600 --> 00:24:56,040
Speaker 1: There's also the worst hacking disaster in US history.

459
00:24:56,040 --> 00:24:56,800
Speaker 2: Do you want to talk.

460
00:24:56,640 --> 00:25:01,120
Speaker 1: About how that came about? In partnershi ship with private equity.

461
00:25:01,600 --> 00:25:05,440
Speaker 4: Yeah, so two private equity firms bought up the tech

462
00:25:05,480 --> 00:25:07,680
Speaker 4: company Solar Winds, which provides a lot of sort of

463
00:25:07,760 --> 00:25:11,960
Speaker 4: like boring it and security services to companies. Looking through

464
00:25:12,080 --> 00:25:16,119
Speaker 4: the documents in Solar Winds public filings, it appears that

465
00:25:16,200 --> 00:25:19,240
Speaker 4: after it was bought by a private equity firm. Staffing

466
00:25:19,359 --> 00:25:22,560
Speaker 4: f company was cut, and, at least according to their

467
00:25:22,600 --> 00:25:26,679
Speaker 4: public disclosures, a lot of their engineering work was moved overseas,

468
00:25:26,760 --> 00:25:30,880
Speaker 4: including to, among other countries, Belarus, which is great. Yeah

469
00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:32,120
Speaker 4: in the news recently.

470
00:25:32,800 --> 00:25:34,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh Lukashenko, great guy.

471
00:25:34,920 --> 00:25:39,359
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah yeah. Whether that's causal or not, Ultimately, Solar

472
00:25:39,359 --> 00:25:43,040
Speaker 4: Winds suffered what one government official called the greatest hack

473
00:25:43,240 --> 00:25:46,879
Speaker 4: in United States history. I believe the Department of Defense, Treasury,

474
00:25:47,080 --> 00:25:51,080
Speaker 4: State Justice, and others were all compromised, and at least

475
00:25:51,480 --> 00:25:55,240
Speaker 4: it appears on sort of initial reporting that the leaders

476
00:25:55,359 --> 00:25:59,040
Speaker 4: of the private equity firms may have dump stock in

477
00:25:59,160 --> 00:26:02,640
Speaker 4: advance of the public disclosure of that. Now there's an

478
00:26:02,640 --> 00:26:05,400
Speaker 4: investigation going on to that at the SEC. I don't

479
00:26:05,440 --> 00:26:07,399
Speaker 4: know what the outcome of it was, but it was

480
00:26:07,640 --> 00:26:10,840
Speaker 4: another example of you know, you have this industry, you

481
00:26:10,840 --> 00:26:13,119
Speaker 4: know sort of it security that really needs to be

482
00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:15,800
Speaker 4: thinking in terms of years and really decades for how

483
00:26:15,840 --> 00:26:17,719
Speaker 4: to make sure that you've got to secure a product

484
00:26:17,760 --> 00:26:20,959
Speaker 4: when you're working with the government and they're being bought

485
00:26:21,080 --> 00:26:23,639
Speaker 4: or controlled by private equity firms that are trying to

486
00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:25,880
Speaker 4: make a profit. You know, in a matter of months

487
00:26:25,960 --> 00:26:27,879
Speaker 4: or a manner of years, and it's just a very

488
00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:30,600
Speaker 4: different perspective for how to run these businesses.

489
00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:33,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's right.

490
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:37,320
Speaker 1: The I mean similar to the you know, getting involved

491
00:26:37,320 --> 00:26:40,600
Speaker 1: in er staffing. They also took over the operation of

492
00:26:40,880 --> 00:26:43,520
Speaker 1: nine to one one calls at one point, like just

493
00:26:43,560 --> 00:26:47,720
Speaker 1: all these things that Yeah, it just when you read

494
00:26:47,920 --> 00:26:53,719
Speaker 1: stories of businesses that become successful over the over a

495
00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:57,959
Speaker 1: long period of time, like it's really about fixating on

496
00:26:58,080 --> 00:27:02,679
Speaker 1: like how to do the one thing that they do

497
00:27:02,840 --> 00:27:06,399
Speaker 1: for customers, like better than anyone else. And time and

498
00:27:06,440 --> 00:27:08,879
Speaker 1: time again, it seems like when these private equity firms

499
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:13,960
Speaker 1: come in, like it's just like that is the third

500
00:27:14,040 --> 00:27:18,760
Speaker 1: or fourth thing that they're interested and the most interesting

501
00:27:18,840 --> 00:27:25,240
Speaker 1: thing is delivering value for themselves and get yeah, financial success.

502
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:27,920
Speaker 1: It's interesting, you know, you look at the biographies of

503
00:27:27,920 --> 00:27:30,320
Speaker 1: folks that run private equity firms and it's you know,

504
00:27:30,359 --> 00:27:32,200
Speaker 1: it's not a critique of them, it's not a surprise,

505
00:27:32,359 --> 00:27:35,880
Speaker 1: but you know, it's generally folks that do not have

506
00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:41,359
Speaker 1: experience in sales or it or engineering or marketing or logistics.

507
00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:44,000
Speaker 1: It's folks with a financial background, and so when they

508
00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:47,840
Speaker 1: approach these companies, typically you know, not always, but typically,

509
00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:50,240
Speaker 1: you know, what they're trying to make are essentially sort

510
00:27:50,280 --> 00:27:53,479
Speaker 1: of financial changes to these businesses that's going to you know,

511
00:27:53,600 --> 00:27:54,920
Speaker 1: get a fairly quick return.

512
00:27:55,480 --> 00:27:55,639
Speaker 2: You know.

513
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:57,919
Speaker 4: You look at the diversity of what some of these

514
00:27:57,960 --> 00:28:01,240
Speaker 4: private equity firms buy into. You know, it's a plastic

515
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:05,720
Speaker 4: logistics company, it's a municipal water service, and it's the

516
00:28:05,960 --> 00:28:09,000
Speaker 4: dating app bumble, you know, and it's like one person

517
00:28:09,119 --> 00:28:11,720
Speaker 4: doesn't really have the expertise to run all those different

518
00:28:11,800 --> 00:28:12,520
Speaker 4: kinds of companies.

519
00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:15,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, they just know how to make line go up right,

520
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:17,800
Speaker 2: And it's sort of like, oh wait, what does that mean.

521
00:28:17,840 --> 00:28:19,440
Speaker 2: It's like, well, we're not gonna have enough nurses. I

522
00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:22,160
Speaker 2: don't know, man. But then when I look at these projections,

523
00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:25,120
Speaker 2: I like what I'm seeing, let's do that and figuring

524
00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:28,240
Speaker 2: out afterwards. What's really difficult is like we hear about

525
00:28:28,240 --> 00:28:31,080
Speaker 2: all this. It is so apparent to everyone, you know,

526
00:28:31,160 --> 00:28:34,160
Speaker 2: Like I think at this point even everyone listening is like, right, okay, okay,

527
00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:37,760
Speaker 2: pirate equity bad or like not not necessarily out here

528
00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:40,400
Speaker 2: for everyone's best interest. But then you think about like

529
00:28:40,440 --> 00:28:42,280
Speaker 2: a lot of the examples that you give in your book,

530
00:28:42,800 --> 00:28:47,720
Speaker 2: like it's also very very hard to hold these fucking

531
00:28:47,760 --> 00:28:51,160
Speaker 2: people to account because of the nature of like all

532
00:28:51,240 --> 00:28:55,440
Speaker 2: of the advantages that these companies have, whether it's through lobbying,

533
00:28:55,840 --> 00:28:58,520
Speaker 2: whether it's through like a revolving door of entities that

534
00:28:58,600 --> 00:29:00,479
Speaker 2: have been in government that end up there and then

535
00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:02,640
Speaker 2: end up lobbying people they already know on the hill

536
00:29:02,680 --> 00:29:06,400
Speaker 2: and things like that, or just the amount of complex

537
00:29:06,560 --> 00:29:10,520
Speaker 2: like like hYP like whack a mole of who owns

538
00:29:10,560 --> 00:29:13,080
Speaker 2: this thing that all come together because I think a

539
00:29:13,080 --> 00:29:15,360
Speaker 2: lot of the times, especially when we talk about these issues,

540
00:29:15,400 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 2: like on our show, we're like, well, what's the problem?

541
00:29:17,120 --> 00:29:19,840
Speaker 2: Why can't it why can't it stop? Right? Like it's

542
00:29:20,040 --> 00:29:22,560
Speaker 2: we get it. We're seeing it. Like the cost is

543
00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:25,600
Speaker 2: people losing their lives, the cost is people going bankrupt,

544
00:29:25,680 --> 00:29:29,920
Speaker 2: the cost is untold suffering. And then you know, to

545
00:29:29,960 --> 00:29:31,800
Speaker 2: be real, it's like, hey man, we're looking at you

546
00:29:31,840 --> 00:29:34,560
Speaker 2: the FEDS. What's going on? Uh? And I know you've

547
00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:36,720
Speaker 2: said this too, like it's the federal Like the DOJ

548
00:29:36,960 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 2: is not the only entity that can go after this,

549
00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:41,680
Speaker 2: but like, how how do you explain Like when people

550
00:29:41,880 --> 00:29:44,840
Speaker 2: talk about the frustration of like well then what like

551
00:29:45,680 --> 00:29:47,760
Speaker 2: something's out of give where where will it give it

552
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:48,760
Speaker 2: will be Yeah.

553
00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:52,080
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a huge issue because you know, as you

554
00:29:52,120 --> 00:29:56,239
Speaker 4: started off, you know, private equity I think has been uniquely.

555
00:29:55,720 --> 00:29:57,280
Speaker 2: Successful in lobbying.

556
00:29:57,520 --> 00:29:59,840
Speaker 4: You know, if you look at who private equity firms

557
00:29:59,880 --> 00:30:05,520
Speaker 4: are hired, its former Secretaries of State, Treasury, Defense, two

558
00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:08,960
Speaker 4: former Speakers of the House, to a vice president, former

559
00:30:09,040 --> 00:30:12,640
Speaker 4: chair people of the FCC and SEC. I mean, it's

560
00:30:12,640 --> 00:30:15,520
Speaker 4: a really deep bench, and that means that they have

561
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:21,040
Speaker 4: just been extraordinarily successful at sort of advancing their legislative

562
00:30:21,040 --> 00:30:24,360
Speaker 4: and regulatory agenda. I think the other challenge that we've got,

563
00:30:24,400 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 4: and I think you hit on this exactly right, is

564
00:30:27,400 --> 00:30:31,480
Speaker 4: it's really hard for ordinary people to hold private equity

565
00:30:31,480 --> 00:30:35,000
Speaker 4: firms accountable. We have this doctrine called corporate veil piercing,

566
00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:38,480
Speaker 4: which means that it's very hard to hold an investor

567
00:30:38,560 --> 00:30:41,240
Speaker 4: responsible for the actions of the company that they invest in.

568
00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:43,440
Speaker 4: That makes sense for you and me, where we've got

569
00:30:43,440 --> 00:30:45,760
Speaker 4: our little Vanguard account and have like one share of

570
00:30:45,800 --> 00:30:47,800
Speaker 4: stock and a company, you know, we don't really have

571
00:30:47,880 --> 00:30:50,840
Speaker 4: much to say over them. That doctrine doesn't necessarily make

572
00:30:50,920 --> 00:30:53,360
Speaker 4: sense for a private equity firm that has a controlling

573
00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:55,680
Speaker 4: stake in these businesses. And can essentially tell them what

574
00:30:55,760 --> 00:30:58,720
Speaker 4: to do. And then lastly, I mean, I think you

575
00:30:58,840 --> 00:31:01,360
Speaker 4: hit the point exactly right, which is a lot of

576
00:31:01,360 --> 00:31:03,800
Speaker 4: times it's just hard to even figure out who owns

577
00:31:03,840 --> 00:31:07,200
Speaker 4: what and who to sue. I talked with folks that

578
00:31:07,360 --> 00:31:10,360
Speaker 4: sue nursing homes on behalf of families whose you know,

579
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:12,960
Speaker 4: parents died or were injured or whatever it happens to be,

580
00:31:13,360 --> 00:31:15,520
Speaker 4: and they're telling me, you know, look, these guys have

581
00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:19,840
Speaker 4: these really broke organizational structures where there are shifting assets

582
00:31:19,880 --> 00:31:22,640
Speaker 4: across multiple shell companies and you know, sort of across

583
00:31:22,680 --> 00:31:26,880
Speaker 4: different shells, and it's really hard to figure out who

584
00:31:26,960 --> 00:31:29,760
Speaker 4: is responsible and who has the assets to recover. So

585
00:31:29,800 --> 00:31:31,200
Speaker 4: it's a really tough problem.

586
00:31:31,400 --> 00:31:34,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, and something that's becoming normal too, Like other industries

587
00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:36,680
Speaker 2: are like you know, what kind of works is if

588
00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:39,720
Speaker 2: you kind of spread it all around and no one

589
00:31:39,800 --> 00:31:42,280
Speaker 2: knows how to get like seek damages. Right.

590
00:31:42,960 --> 00:31:46,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, you tell us one really memorable story about Ashford,

591
00:31:46,720 --> 00:31:50,360
Speaker 1: which is, you know, a Franciscan University of the Prairies

592
00:31:50,480 --> 00:31:52,480
Speaker 1: is what it's called, but it's like a really small

593
00:31:52,600 --> 00:31:55,960
Speaker 1: college run by nuns, and then it gets taken over

594
00:31:56,600 --> 00:32:01,000
Speaker 1: and turned into Ashford University which becomes this you know,

595
00:32:01,120 --> 00:32:05,200
Speaker 1: Phoenix University like adjacent thing, and it's really this like

596
00:32:05,280 --> 00:32:09,720
Speaker 1: outraging thing. And then you also mentioned that like the

597
00:32:10,320 --> 00:32:15,520
Speaker 1: private equity firm that now runs it is Warburg Pinkus,

598
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:20,920
Speaker 1: which is run by Obama's former Treasury Secrety Secretary Tim Geitner.

599
00:32:21,160 --> 00:32:24,040
Speaker 1: And it's just like you just see that over and

600
00:32:24,080 --> 00:32:28,480
Speaker 1: over again, like the amount of people from positions of

601
00:32:28,560 --> 00:32:33,200
Speaker 1: power who like know how things work better than anybody.

602
00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:35,719
Speaker 1: You know, most people listening to this and like know

603
00:32:35,760 --> 00:32:39,280
Speaker 1: how things really work behind the scenes, are are going

604
00:32:39,320 --> 00:32:43,400
Speaker 1: into private equity and it just really feels like a eluding,

605
00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:45,760
Speaker 1: a plundering that's happening.

606
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 4: I yeah, I heard this third hand, so I don't

607
00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:51,680
Speaker 4: know how true it is. But there was a senior

608
00:32:51,720 --> 00:32:54,680
Speaker 4: government official who ended up doing some work for a

609
00:32:54,680 --> 00:32:58,200
Speaker 4: private equity firm, and somebody was chiding them and they said, look,

610
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:00,200
Speaker 4: you know, it's not who's working for private equity, it's

611
00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:02,880
Speaker 4: who isn't working for private equity right now. So it's

612
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:06,200
Speaker 4: it's pretty extraordinary the breadth of their success.

613
00:33:06,480 --> 00:33:09,440
Speaker 2: Right And just like the greed, how it compounds itself,

614
00:33:09,600 --> 00:33:12,520
Speaker 2: you know, because now it's like it seems like you're

615
00:33:12,520 --> 00:33:15,600
Speaker 2: almost incentivized to get into private equity because of how

616
00:33:15,680 --> 00:33:20,480
Speaker 2: little repercussions people face. And I'm curious, like when you

617
00:33:20,600 --> 00:33:24,000
Speaker 2: have a case like like the ones we've talked about,

618
00:33:24,280 --> 00:33:26,560
Speaker 2: when it's like, yeah, man, like they own this company

619
00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:29,640
Speaker 2: and they basically started throttling back their level of care

620
00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:33,160
Speaker 2: which led to someone losing their life. Okay, well, then

621
00:33:33,200 --> 00:33:36,000
Speaker 2: tell me who owns this and that person's responsible. Like

622
00:33:36,040 --> 00:33:39,400
Speaker 2: when these cases get like dismissedter things, is that the

623
00:33:39,480 --> 00:33:42,320
Speaker 2: cynical part of like I think the cynical shorthand version

624
00:33:42,360 --> 00:33:45,000
Speaker 2: of someone who believes in how like cronyism works and

625
00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:47,760
Speaker 2: things like that, believe that like, oh, the judges are

626
00:33:47,760 --> 00:33:51,160
Speaker 2: in on it too. Everybody's in on this, that's why

627
00:33:51,240 --> 00:33:53,360
Speaker 2: it's happening. But I think you've also raised the point

628
00:33:53,360 --> 00:33:56,240
Speaker 2: that it's not necessarily like like there's there's a huge

629
00:33:56,840 --> 00:33:59,720
Speaker 2: barrier to get over, which is informing people of how

630
00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:03,080
Speaker 2: this even works too, and like having enough public pressure

631
00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:06,680
Speaker 2: like around this idea or this industry of private equity

632
00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:08,399
Speaker 2: that gets people to sort of be on the same

633
00:34:08,400 --> 00:34:10,240
Speaker 2: page to understand the issues.

634
00:34:11,160 --> 00:34:12,880
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I think one of the challenges that

635
00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:15,120
Speaker 4: we've got is exactly what you're saying is education. And

636
00:34:15,160 --> 00:34:18,399
Speaker 4: that's not just educating you know, sort of your listeners

637
00:34:18,520 --> 00:34:21,040
Speaker 4: or you know people and you know, you know people

638
00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:23,600
Speaker 4: that are just generally interested in this topic. It's also

639
00:34:23,840 --> 00:34:27,600
Speaker 4: informing judges, people in government, you know, what private equity

640
00:34:27,680 --> 00:34:30,480
Speaker 4: is and what the practical consequences are. One of the

641
00:34:30,600 --> 00:34:33,120
Speaker 4: challenges that I think people who are critical of the

642
00:34:33,120 --> 00:34:36,440
Speaker 4: private equity business model have is, you know, private equity

643
00:34:36,440 --> 00:34:39,160
Speaker 4: firms have an enormous amount of money to lobby and

644
00:34:39,239 --> 00:34:42,160
Speaker 4: to litigate their issues, and the other side, you know,

645
00:34:42,280 --> 00:34:45,440
Speaker 4: just has a fraction to do the same thing. You know,

646
00:34:45,640 --> 00:34:49,400
Speaker 4: one of the cases was over this obscure sort of

647
00:34:49,520 --> 00:34:52,840
Speaker 4: retirement law issue, and at stake was like four point

648
00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:55,440
Speaker 4: five million dollars for the private equity firm. It was

649
00:34:55,520 --> 00:34:59,640
Speaker 4: essentially a rounding error. They spent ten years litigating the

650
00:34:59,680 --> 00:35:02,280
Speaker 4: case in order not to have to pay out because

651
00:35:02,280 --> 00:35:04,160
Speaker 4: they have the resources to do it, and they wanted

652
00:35:04,160 --> 00:35:07,160
Speaker 4: to set the precedent that they could. And so, you know,

653
00:35:07,440 --> 00:35:09,279
Speaker 4: we got to inform people, and we've also got to

654
00:35:09,280 --> 00:35:13,360
Speaker 4: figure out how to sort of empower activists and folks

655
00:35:13,360 --> 00:35:14,920
Speaker 4: that want to work on this stuff so that they

656
00:35:14,920 --> 00:35:16,320
Speaker 4: can do this work for the long.

657
00:35:16,239 --> 00:35:20,520
Speaker 1: Term, right, can we can we just list some of

658
00:35:20,560 --> 00:35:23,040
Speaker 1: the industries where people might have seen their work, because

659
00:35:23,080 --> 00:35:26,120
Speaker 1: it's just going back to that initial statement about like

660
00:35:26,360 --> 00:35:29,520
Speaker 1: we have an anecdotally everyone seems to have a feeling

661
00:35:29,520 --> 00:35:33,520
Speaker 1: that things are getting worse, but you know, it's kind

662
00:35:33,520 --> 00:35:35,640
Speaker 1: of hard to we don't have much to compare it to.

663
00:35:36,280 --> 00:35:41,040
Speaker 1: But they're you know, there's presence in the dental industry,

664
00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:44,920
Speaker 1: veterinary I think you mentioned grocery stores at one point

665
00:35:45,200 --> 00:35:47,600
Speaker 1: that yea, you know, they're one of the reasons they're

666
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:51,160
Speaker 1: like too grocery stores in the in the country that

667
00:35:51,280 --> 00:35:52,520
Speaker 1: didn't used to be the case.

668
00:35:53,160 --> 00:35:56,120
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, So private equity is you know, I don't

669
00:35:56,120 --> 00:35:58,680
Speaker 4: want to overstate the case, but they they're active in

670
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:02,040
Speaker 4: you know, most most every industry that you can think of,

671
00:36:02,080 --> 00:36:04,680
Speaker 4: whether you're talking about sort of retail things we were

672
00:36:04,680 --> 00:36:08,240
Speaker 4: talking about toys, r US and stuff earlier, or grocery stores.

673
00:36:08,239 --> 00:36:10,680
Speaker 4: As you say, when we're talking about healthcare, it's not

674
00:36:10,760 --> 00:36:14,760
Speaker 4: just emergency rooms and ambulances. It's ordinary sort of obgyn

675
00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:19,120
Speaker 4: and urgent care clinics buying up literal insurance companies, you know,

676
00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:26,280
Speaker 4: life insurance claims, worker compensation companies to things like manufacturing infrastructure.

677
00:36:26,400 --> 00:36:29,400
Speaker 4: In some places, private equity firms literally bought up the

678
00:36:29,719 --> 00:36:32,520
Speaker 4: municipal water services that you might use to drink, you know,

679
00:36:32,600 --> 00:36:33,480
Speaker 4: water from your tap.

680
00:36:33,840 --> 00:36:34,960
Speaker 2: How'd that work out for them?

681
00:36:35,600 --> 00:36:38,920
Speaker 4: Unfortunately, it didn't work out terribly well. So the private

682
00:36:38,920 --> 00:36:44,560
Speaker 4: equity firm operated with as a joint venture ultimately dramatically

683
00:36:44,680 --> 00:36:48,520
Speaker 4: raised the price for users to such an extent that

684
00:36:48,719 --> 00:36:52,680
Speaker 4: local reporters were saying that people quote unquote became water nazis,

685
00:36:52,760 --> 00:36:55,080
Speaker 4: would time their family members in the shower and would

686
00:36:55,080 --> 00:36:58,839
Speaker 4: only buy flowers that didn't require a lot of water. So, unfortunately,

687
00:36:58,840 --> 00:37:00,840
Speaker 4: that's a contract that those two cities are now going

688
00:37:00,920 --> 00:37:03,040
Speaker 4: to have to sit with for the next thirty years

689
00:37:03,120 --> 00:37:06,040
Speaker 4: or so because of how is how is negotiated. But

690
00:37:06,160 --> 00:37:07,799
Speaker 4: to the extent you're interested in these things and you're

691
00:37:07,840 --> 00:37:10,840
Speaker 4: concerned about a business, you know, private equity firms rarely

692
00:37:10,880 --> 00:37:13,880
Speaker 4: advertise their ownership. So what you should do is google

693
00:37:13,920 --> 00:37:16,200
Speaker 4: the company name and just add private equity and see

694
00:37:16,239 --> 00:37:16,719
Speaker 4: what comes up.

695
00:37:17,239 --> 00:37:22,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, chances are it's almost like what industries aren't they

696
00:37:22,080 --> 00:37:25,239
Speaker 2: involved in? It might be an easier question. Yeah, it's like, oh, yeah,

697
00:37:25,239 --> 00:37:28,640
Speaker 2: they're not behind the push for medicare for all. I'll

698
00:37:28,640 --> 00:37:29,960
Speaker 2: tell you that they don't have they don't have a

699
00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:32,240
Speaker 2: dog in that fight unless it's on the other side

700
00:37:32,239 --> 00:37:32,440
Speaker 2: of it.

701
00:37:32,880 --> 00:37:34,439
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't think they're active on that one.

702
00:37:34,600 --> 00:37:37,480
Speaker 2: Yeah. Interesting, how do you talk about it?

703
00:37:37,680 --> 00:37:41,960
Speaker 1: Like, I've there's been in a couple of social settings

704
00:37:42,040 --> 00:37:45,800
Speaker 1: since reading your book and just been like, yeah, it's crazy,

705
00:37:46,040 --> 00:37:49,279
Speaker 1: but they unable to like really fully you know, put

706
00:37:49,320 --> 00:37:53,080
Speaker 1: into words because it's the problems like so big and

707
00:37:53,120 --> 00:37:58,160
Speaker 1: so acute. But like, how do you usually introduce the

708
00:37:58,360 --> 00:38:00,560
Speaker 1: idea of your book to people, Like when you're just

709
00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:03,360
Speaker 1: like talking to them at a cocktail party or something.

710
00:38:03,640 --> 00:38:06,040
Speaker 4: I always explain the basic business model, and I say

711
00:38:06,040 --> 00:38:08,120
Speaker 4: that private equity is going to transform the country in

712
00:38:08,160 --> 00:38:10,239
Speaker 4: this decade the way that big tech did in the

713
00:38:10,320 --> 00:38:13,200
Speaker 4: last decade and subprime lenders did in the decade before that. Yeah,

714
00:38:13,200 --> 00:38:16,360
Speaker 4: And I say, what, the three basic problems are short termism,

715
00:38:16,440 --> 00:38:18,799
Speaker 4: a lot of dead and fees, and insulation from liability.

716
00:38:18,880 --> 00:38:21,520
Speaker 4: And if we can fix those three things, we can

717
00:38:21,560 --> 00:38:22,680
Speaker 4: basically solve the problem.

718
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:26,360
Speaker 2: Yeah. And that's kind of another thing I want to

719
00:38:26,760 --> 00:38:30,840
Speaker 2: solving the problem because again, a lot of the times

720
00:38:30,880 --> 00:38:33,200
Speaker 2: it's easy to fall into the nihilism of being like,

721
00:38:33,239 --> 00:38:35,560
Speaker 2: well this is it, Like I don't know, like I

722
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:37,320
Speaker 2: don't even know, we don't even know who to sue.

723
00:38:37,560 --> 00:38:40,799
Speaker 2: You've talked about how like again, activists have helped to

724
00:38:41,040 --> 00:38:43,640
Speaker 2: like you know, offset or alleviate the cost of like

725
00:38:43,719 --> 00:38:46,640
Speaker 2: phone calls from prisons, you know, like actually have made

726
00:38:46,680 --> 00:38:49,600
Speaker 2: headway there, and like that's a victory. What are some

727
00:38:49,719 --> 00:38:52,560
Speaker 2: other like is what are some other specific areas where

728
00:38:52,600 --> 00:38:56,960
Speaker 2: we are seeing some bit of the clwing back of

729
00:38:57,080 --> 00:38:58,680
Speaker 2: the fuckery as it were.

730
00:38:59,520 --> 00:39:02,880
Speaker 4: So I I think the prison area is really encouraging. So,

731
00:39:03,160 --> 00:39:06,280
Speaker 4: you know, private equity firms bought up prison phone companies,

732
00:39:06,320 --> 00:39:10,160
Speaker 4: started charging extremely high rates for these short, fifteen minute calls.

733
00:39:10,719 --> 00:39:13,719
Speaker 4: This was a many year effort to sort of make

734
00:39:13,760 --> 00:39:17,120
Speaker 4: progress here. Ultimately, you know, they were able. Activists were

735
00:39:17,120 --> 00:39:20,200
Speaker 4: able to get legislation passed in cities New York and

736
00:39:20,239 --> 00:39:24,239
Speaker 4: San Francisco capping rates for phone calls, then passed state

737
00:39:24,320 --> 00:39:27,879
Speaker 4: legislation in Connecticut, and ultimately pass federal legislation. So they

738
00:39:27,920 --> 00:39:32,200
Speaker 4: were really really effective working on this specific issue. Beyond that,

739
00:39:32,239 --> 00:39:34,239
Speaker 4: there's been really good work on For instance, you know,

740
00:39:34,239 --> 00:39:36,920
Speaker 4: we were talking about nursing homes. There's rulemaking going on

741
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:39,600
Speaker 4: right now at the Department of Health and Human Services

742
00:39:39,600 --> 00:39:43,920
Speaker 4: to try to establish national standards from minimum staffing criteria

743
00:39:44,239 --> 00:39:47,600
Speaker 4: for nursing homes, which will be absolutely transformative. So I

744
00:39:47,600 --> 00:39:51,520
Speaker 4: think when activists have chosen really specific issues where the

745
00:39:51,560 --> 00:39:54,480
Speaker 4: effect on people is clear, I actually think that they've

746
00:39:54,520 --> 00:39:58,320
Speaker 4: been really successful. You know, private equity firms have the money,

747
00:39:58,440 --> 00:40:00,719
Speaker 4: but activists have the people on that, and I think

748
00:40:00,760 --> 00:40:02,600
Speaker 4: they've shown that they've been actually able to get a

749
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:03,160
Speaker 4: lot done.

750
00:40:03,680 --> 00:40:07,360
Speaker 2: Right, So rather than being like when you're gonna pass

751
00:40:07,400 --> 00:40:10,520
Speaker 2: the down with private equity bill, it's like about kind

752
00:40:10,520 --> 00:40:13,200
Speaker 2: of getting a little more specific in a way that

753
00:40:13,239 --> 00:40:15,799
Speaker 2: connects to people. Because again, like like we're saying at

754
00:40:15,840 --> 00:40:18,520
Speaker 2: the top, just saying the word it becomes nebulous and

755
00:40:18,560 --> 00:40:20,799
Speaker 2: abstract and I'm like, I don't even know what name,

756
00:40:21,280 --> 00:40:26,560
Speaker 2: yeah versus shouldn't there be a number, like a minimum

757
00:40:26,680 --> 00:40:29,680
Speaker 2: number of staff in a nursing home so someone doesn't

758
00:40:29,760 --> 00:40:32,799
Speaker 2: like like needlessly lose their life and be like yeah, yeah, yeah,

759
00:40:32,840 --> 00:40:35,359
Speaker 2: yah yeah yeah. That part But then again is there

760
00:40:35,640 --> 00:40:38,480
Speaker 2: is there is there a similar thing that gets at

761
00:40:38,520 --> 00:40:40,839
Speaker 2: the accountability part, because I think that's the part that

762
00:40:40,920 --> 00:40:45,080
Speaker 2: really like frustrates me is how easily they can walk

763
00:40:45,440 --> 00:40:47,840
Speaker 2: and hide behind being like I don't know, I don't

764
00:40:47,880 --> 00:40:50,279
Speaker 2: own it. I just tell these funds what to do

765
00:40:50,400 --> 00:40:52,560
Speaker 2: in the Malthain that that's that's where it ends. So

766
00:40:52,640 --> 00:40:56,120
Speaker 2: I don't know where the buck stops. What are is there?

767
00:40:56,160 --> 00:40:58,400
Speaker 2: Like where can people put their energy in terms of

768
00:40:58,440 --> 00:41:01,080
Speaker 2: like finding that part out or at least making that

769
00:41:01,320 --> 00:41:03,040
Speaker 2: augmenting that movement a bit.

770
00:41:03,560 --> 00:41:06,040
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, I think that's a really good question. And

771
00:41:06,120 --> 00:41:08,439
Speaker 4: you know you're talking about private equity being a boring term,

772
00:41:08,520 --> 00:41:10,440
Speaker 4: like they're working to make it even more boring. A

773
00:41:10,440 --> 00:41:12,200
Speaker 4: lot of the leading firms now I don't even call

774
00:41:12,239 --> 00:41:16,200
Speaker 4: themselves private equity firms anymore. There are alternative asset managers,

775
00:41:16,200 --> 00:41:17,319
Speaker 4: so be on the lookout for those.

776
00:41:17,320 --> 00:41:20,520
Speaker 2: Cool. Yeah, so interesting. So what is it where like

777
00:41:20,760 --> 00:41:23,239
Speaker 2: it wears flannel and has a nosering and like has

778
00:41:23,360 --> 00:41:28,000
Speaker 2: Doc Martins Like yeah, like the alternative rock movement, but all.

779
00:41:28,080 --> 00:41:33,600
Speaker 1: Asset management actually sort of inheriting a grunge style fund

780
00:41:33,640 --> 00:41:36,240
Speaker 1: just kind of like being an all band in the nineties.

781
00:41:36,040 --> 00:41:39,239
Speaker 4: Exactly, so they you know, in terms of sort of

782
00:41:39,239 --> 00:41:42,640
Speaker 4: the deeper sort of accountability issues. Obviously, Congress is one

783
00:41:42,760 --> 00:41:45,520
Speaker 4: sort of avenue, and there's important legislation, you know, sort

784
00:41:45,520 --> 00:41:48,160
Speaker 4: of being proposed there. But I actually think that there

785
00:41:48,160 --> 00:41:50,439
Speaker 4: are a lot of levers of power here, whether you're

786
00:41:50,440 --> 00:41:54,719
Speaker 4: talking about federal regulators like the SEC, Treasury, FED, and

787
00:41:54,800 --> 00:41:57,719
Speaker 4: so forth, but also states and localities. You know, we're

788
00:41:57,760 --> 00:42:00,000
Speaker 4: talking about some of these tactics that I think can

789
00:42:00,120 --> 00:42:02,759
Speaker 4: be harmful for companies in the long term, you know,

790
00:42:03,280 --> 00:42:07,320
Speaker 4: sale lease backs, dividend recapitalizations. States could just simply say,

791
00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:09,080
Speaker 4: you know, we're going to legislate to say, if the

792
00:42:09,080 --> 00:42:12,080
Speaker 4: company's headquartered in our district, you know, in our jurisdiction,

793
00:42:12,640 --> 00:42:15,120
Speaker 4: you can't do some of these tactics, or if you

794
00:42:15,120 --> 00:42:17,360
Speaker 4: do them and the company goes bankrupt, the workers are

795
00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:19,680
Speaker 4: going to get paid first. And I actually think that

796
00:42:19,719 --> 00:42:21,799
Speaker 4: there really is interest at the state level on this.

797
00:42:21,920 --> 00:42:23,640
Speaker 4: But we've got to you know, folks need to draft

798
00:42:23,719 --> 00:42:25,520
Speaker 4: up the legislation and there needs to be the push

799
00:42:25,560 --> 00:42:27,640
Speaker 4: for it. I think that's where the real change is

800
00:42:27,640 --> 00:42:29,000
Speaker 4: going to happen in the next few years.

801
00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:31,840
Speaker 1: Right towards the end of your book, you talk about

802
00:42:32,080 --> 00:42:36,000
Speaker 1: different scenarios that the country could take, and some people

803
00:42:36,040 --> 00:42:40,400
Speaker 1: financially think it's like Japan and the eighties and nineties

804
00:42:40,560 --> 00:42:44,960
Speaker 1: like heading for a financial fall, and some people think

805
00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:49,560
Speaker 1: it's like whymar Germany, and but you kind of say,

806
00:42:49,600 --> 00:42:53,520
Speaker 1: there's also this hopeful possibility that it's like America at

807
00:42:53,520 --> 00:42:57,200
Speaker 1: the turn of the twenty, like nineteen oh three, and

808
00:42:58,080 --> 00:43:01,480
Speaker 1: you know, emphasize that we and really today don't recognize

809
00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:05,319
Speaker 1: how bad it was at that time and how like

810
00:43:05,560 --> 00:43:10,560
Speaker 1: incremental the changes were. We just see, oh, in the

811
00:43:10,680 --> 00:43:14,960
Speaker 1: earliest twentieth century, the New Deal happened, so must have

812
00:43:14,960 --> 00:43:17,320
Speaker 1: been must have been good. There were Gatsby parties, and

813
00:43:17,400 --> 00:43:20,960
Speaker 1: then the New Deal came through in response to how

814
00:43:21,239 --> 00:43:24,640
Speaker 1: lavish the Gatsby parties were. But it was generations of

815
00:43:24,680 --> 00:43:30,880
Speaker 1: people working on very specific changes, right, that got us

816
00:43:31,040 --> 00:43:34,480
Speaker 1: out out of that very similar situation where it was

817
00:43:34,560 --> 00:43:39,160
Speaker 1: just unregulated capital running roughshot over the country.

818
00:43:39,800 --> 00:43:42,800
Speaker 4: Yeah, the Gilded Age worked wonderfully for a select few people,

819
00:43:42,840 --> 00:43:46,000
Speaker 4: but was a miserrating for you know, so many. Whether

820
00:43:46,040 --> 00:43:49,400
Speaker 4: it was the movement to stop the labor movement to

821
00:43:49,480 --> 00:43:52,280
Speaker 4: use the antixrust laws to actually break up labor unions

822
00:43:52,320 --> 00:43:57,000
Speaker 4: but protect monopolies, the movement actually to rescind suffrage for

823
00:43:57,360 --> 00:44:00,560
Speaker 4: working class people in New York and the institution of

824
00:44:00,640 --> 00:44:02,759
Speaker 4: Jim Crow in the South, that was endorsed by the

825
00:44:02,760 --> 00:44:05,200
Speaker 4: New York Times. I think you said, right, yeah, yeah,

826
00:44:05,239 --> 00:44:09,160
Speaker 4: the New York Times endorsed, yeah, rescinding suffrage for I

827
00:44:09,520 --> 00:44:12,880
Speaker 4: think working class white men. So but you know, in

828
00:44:12,880 --> 00:44:15,320
Speaker 4: some ways it was it was a politics or an

829
00:44:15,400 --> 00:44:18,440
Speaker 4: economy that's very similar to ours. The trusts of the

830
00:44:18,480 --> 00:44:22,000
Speaker 4: early twentieth century legally are very similar to how private

831
00:44:22,040 --> 00:44:25,520
Speaker 4: equity firms work. And a century ago we managed to

832
00:44:25,520 --> 00:44:28,560
Speaker 4: constrain the trust you know, we created the first you know,

833
00:44:28,840 --> 00:44:31,440
Speaker 4: you know, the most robust anti trust laws. We created

834
00:44:31,440 --> 00:44:35,000
Speaker 4: the Federal Trade Commission. We passed labor laws, environmental laws,

835
00:44:35,200 --> 00:44:38,240
Speaker 4: passed women's suffrage, and so forth. It was a time

836
00:44:38,320 --> 00:44:42,640
Speaker 4: that was really really transformative for the country and ultimately,

837
00:44:42,680 --> 00:44:45,280
Speaker 4: you know, sort of set the stage for sort of

838
00:44:45,360 --> 00:44:47,759
Speaker 4: the greatest moment in American middle class history, you know,

839
00:44:47,800 --> 00:44:50,319
Speaker 4: the nineteen forties and fifties. And so if we've done

840
00:44:50,360 --> 00:44:52,680
Speaker 4: it once, we can do it again. We just need

841
00:44:52,719 --> 00:44:54,239
Speaker 4: to have the patience and the will to do so.

842
00:44:55,200 --> 00:44:55,439
Speaker 1: Yeah.

843
00:44:56,000 --> 00:44:58,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, And a way to offset all the lobbying efforts,

844
00:44:58,800 --> 00:45:00,879
Speaker 2: which I'm sure if the states start saying things like yeah,

845
00:45:00,920 --> 00:45:03,400
Speaker 2: we're thinking about enacting some laws that would really constrain

846
00:45:03,440 --> 00:45:05,400
Speaker 2: private equity. You're just going to start seeing as like,

847
00:45:05,719 --> 00:45:07,680
Speaker 2: don't vote for this because we're going to leave your

848
00:45:07,680 --> 00:45:09,680
Speaker 2: state and you're going to be broke, so don't even

849
00:45:09,719 --> 00:45:12,560
Speaker 2: think about it, and then off we go. And I

850
00:45:12,600 --> 00:45:15,000
Speaker 2: think part of that is for people to really understand

851
00:45:15,560 --> 00:45:20,759
Speaker 2: the threat that this sort of untethered greed operates and

852
00:45:20,800 --> 00:45:24,719
Speaker 2: how it affects us in ways that are just so tangible,

853
00:45:25,120 --> 00:45:27,680
Speaker 2: but yet we think are like again, like for me,

854
00:45:27,760 --> 00:45:29,759
Speaker 2: I was like, there's just so nebulous. I'm like, it's

855
00:45:29,760 --> 00:45:32,200
Speaker 2: just part of this vast thing of all the money

856
00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:36,000
Speaker 2: moving in one direction versus also very specific groups of

857
00:45:36,040 --> 00:45:38,279
Speaker 2: people looking at it in this way, and we're just

858
00:45:38,320 --> 00:45:41,520
Speaker 2: sort of experiencing the lack of investment on the other side.

859
00:45:41,600 --> 00:45:44,440
Speaker 2: I wonder how many triangle shirtwaist fires it'll take for

860
00:45:44,560 --> 00:45:46,600
Speaker 2: us to wake up out of this one, because I

861
00:45:46,640 --> 00:45:48,480
Speaker 2: feel like we're averaging like one a day.

862
00:45:49,440 --> 00:45:52,399
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean you sort of look

863
00:45:52,400 --> 00:45:54,800
Speaker 4: at the number of legal tragedies that are happening in

864
00:45:55,640 --> 00:45:58,960
Speaker 4: private equity portfolio companies, and yet the private equity firms

865
00:45:59,000 --> 00:46:01,360
Speaker 4: you know, are rarely held to come I will say

866
00:46:01,480 --> 00:46:04,200
Speaker 4: just you know, as a as a workaday, you know, bureaucrat,

867
00:46:04,320 --> 00:46:08,600
Speaker 4: I will say that, don't underestimate your power and influence

868
00:46:08,719 --> 00:46:11,880
Speaker 4: as a person outside of government. People inside a government

869
00:46:12,360 --> 00:46:16,480
Speaker 4: listen to complaints, and you know, if you're saying this

870
00:46:16,560 --> 00:46:19,279
Speaker 4: is a broken system, this is not working, it really

871
00:46:19,320 --> 00:46:21,799
Speaker 4: empowers people in a bureaucracy to try it, you know,

872
00:46:21,840 --> 00:46:23,880
Speaker 4: who want to do the right thing, to feel like

873
00:46:23,920 --> 00:46:27,240
Speaker 4: they've got people on their side. So I felt that personally.

874
00:46:27,320 --> 00:46:30,400
Speaker 4: I know others people do do too, So I I

875
00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:33,200
Speaker 4: know that can be a somewhat frustrating thing to hear,

876
00:46:33,360 --> 00:46:35,480
Speaker 4: but it really does make a difference for folks.

877
00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:39,360
Speaker 1: And yeah, just not having it happen quietly and visibly

878
00:46:39,840 --> 00:46:42,960
Speaker 1: like that when when you just tell this story, it

879
00:46:43,080 --> 00:46:46,160
Speaker 1: is the sort of story that people respond to. It

880
00:46:46,239 --> 00:46:49,640
Speaker 1: is an all out war being wage on the lives

881
00:46:49,640 --> 00:46:54,080
Speaker 1: of people who aren't extremely wealthy by people who are extremely,

882
00:46:54,200 --> 00:46:57,879
Speaker 1: extremely wealthy. Like it's just it is that simple. It's

883
00:46:58,040 --> 00:47:02,560
Speaker 1: they they are taking away comforts and you know, things

884
00:47:02,600 --> 00:47:05,120
Speaker 1: that people rely on and getting rich.

885
00:47:04,960 --> 00:47:05,479
Speaker 2: Off of it.

886
00:47:05,480 --> 00:47:09,600
Speaker 1: It's pretty pretty straightforward. And I'm glad you told the

887
00:47:09,680 --> 00:47:12,120
Speaker 1: story in your book. I'm hoping more, more and more

888
00:47:12,160 --> 00:47:16,000
Speaker 1: people kind of continue to tell it. So and thanks

889
00:47:16,000 --> 00:47:17,759
Speaker 1: for coming on and talking less about it.

890
00:47:18,200 --> 00:47:20,040
Speaker 2: And yeah, I got to say, normally I don't talk

891
00:47:20,040 --> 00:47:22,040
Speaker 2: to the Feds, but this has been fantastic.

892
00:47:23,400 --> 00:47:24,880
Speaker 4: Well, thank you guys so much for the time. I

893
00:47:24,920 --> 00:47:25,719
Speaker 4: really appreciate it.

894
00:47:25,800 --> 00:47:28,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, where can people well you remind us the name

895
00:47:29,000 --> 00:47:30,680
Speaker 1: of the book and where people can read it and

896
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:31,640
Speaker 1: all that good stuff.

897
00:47:31,920 --> 00:47:35,080
Speaker 4: It's plunder private equities, plans to pillage America, and you

898
00:47:35,080 --> 00:47:36,520
Speaker 4: can buy it anywhere you might buy a.

899
00:47:36,440 --> 00:47:41,120
Speaker 2: Book, perfect or Barnes and Noble also private equity. I

900
00:47:41,120 --> 00:47:44,680
Speaker 2: think they might have been. Yeah. Yeah, Brendan Blue, thanks

901
00:47:44,719 --> 00:47:47,319
Speaker 2: for coming on. Appreciate it, Thank you so much. All Right,

902
00:47:47,400 --> 00:47:50,920
Speaker 2: that was our interview with Brendan Man. I learned a

903
00:47:50,920 --> 00:47:51,840
Speaker 2: lot from this book.

904
00:47:52,200 --> 00:47:54,400
Speaker 1: I feel like, you know how, when I read a

905
00:47:54,440 --> 00:47:56,959
Speaker 1: New Yorker article, I'll like reference it at least five

906
00:47:57,000 --> 00:47:59,080
Speaker 1: times over the course of the next week, like this

907
00:47:59,239 --> 00:48:01,600
Speaker 1: is its own for for U hos, Like this is

908
00:48:02,080 --> 00:48:04,520
Speaker 1: all I'm going to be referencing from now on.

909
00:48:05,080 --> 00:48:07,240
Speaker 2: Wait, so is this going to push out coal gas

910
00:48:07,239 --> 00:48:11,080
Speaker 2: study Havan syndrome. So those are just the those are

911
00:48:11,120 --> 00:48:13,279
Speaker 2: the keepers, Those are the ones that those are like

912
00:48:14,000 --> 00:48:16,680
Speaker 2: that try you and God of your mind. Yeah exactly, Yeah,

913
00:48:16,960 --> 00:48:20,080
Speaker 2: those will not be usurped. But yeah, again, I think

914
00:48:20,160 --> 00:48:25,040
Speaker 2: it's it's so helpful to like be able to be

915
00:48:25,120 --> 00:48:28,880
Speaker 2: like that's why these certain things got shitty, yeah, you know,

916
00:48:29,080 --> 00:48:31,520
Speaker 2: or like again like toy store.

917
00:48:31,920 --> 00:48:33,799
Speaker 1: The toy store really fucking did it for me.

918
00:48:33,880 --> 00:48:34,080
Speaker 4: Man.

919
00:48:34,320 --> 00:48:36,359
Speaker 1: That was the one where I was like, oh, yeah,

920
00:48:36,400 --> 00:48:40,000
Speaker 1: there's no reason there shouldn't be like kids still yeah,

921
00:48:40,280 --> 00:48:43,440
Speaker 1: I can speak kids really still fucking like toys, I

922
00:48:43,440 --> 00:48:45,600
Speaker 1: can tell you that much. Now we just have the

923
00:48:45,640 --> 00:48:49,120
Speaker 1: toy section of Target and there are no toy stores.

924
00:48:49,440 --> 00:48:51,759
Speaker 1: And I remember at the end of the Toys r

925
00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:55,560
Speaker 1: us run, like going to Toys r Us to like

926
00:48:55,680 --> 00:48:59,000
Speaker 1: for a kid's birthday party, get get a toy, and

927
00:48:59,239 --> 00:49:03,719
Speaker 1: it was just wildly understaffed, and it looked and like

928
00:49:04,120 --> 00:49:06,040
Speaker 1: it looked like Sears did when it was going out

929
00:49:06,040 --> 00:49:08,239
Speaker 1: of business, you know, like they're the floors are kind

930
00:49:08,280 --> 00:49:10,879
Speaker 1: of torn up, like think they're just like boxes of

931
00:49:11,360 --> 00:49:15,160
Speaker 1: like palettes laying around because they just are totally understaffed.

932
00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:18,520
Speaker 2: And it makes total sense that they just you know,

933
00:49:18,640 --> 00:49:22,520
Speaker 2: privact that these workers are lazy, right exactly, which is

934
00:49:22,520 --> 00:49:24,560
Speaker 2: what I was yelling, but you know what, but that

935
00:49:24,719 --> 00:49:27,240
Speaker 2: is the kind of shit older people was saying. Of course,

936
00:49:27,280 --> 00:49:28,919
Speaker 2: they're like, I don't know what the hell happened here?

937
00:49:29,040 --> 00:49:31,200
Speaker 2: These people are so lazy. And then you're like, no,

938
00:49:31,480 --> 00:49:34,680
Speaker 2: it's being like sucked the life sucked out of it

939
00:49:34,719 --> 00:49:37,880
Speaker 2: from the inside financially, and what you're seeing is like

940
00:49:38,160 --> 00:49:40,880
Speaker 2: the husk of a once operating business.

941
00:49:41,080 --> 00:49:43,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is the fact that this is like

942
00:49:43,800 --> 00:49:49,080
Speaker 1: like a an epidemic that is across the entire economy,

943
00:49:49,760 --> 00:49:54,080
Speaker 1: like more people are being asked to do more work

944
00:49:54,200 --> 00:49:56,560
Speaker 1: or fewer people are being asked to do more work,

945
00:49:56,960 --> 00:50:00,279
Speaker 1: like just everywhere, and so yeah, everybody's going to be

946
00:50:00,800 --> 00:50:04,319
Speaker 1: like immiserated as you know, like I think he used

947
00:50:04,360 --> 00:50:06,360
Speaker 1: to that word. And really, you know, both on the

948
00:50:06,400 --> 00:50:11,080
Speaker 1: customer side and on the employee side, these companies absolutely

949
00:50:11,120 --> 00:50:15,319
Speaker 1: spread misery as part of their business model. Yeah, and

950
00:50:15,800 --> 00:50:18,080
Speaker 1: become the billionaires.

951
00:50:18,600 --> 00:50:21,920
Speaker 2: That's the wild part too, is like you get you know,

952
00:50:22,080 --> 00:50:24,120
Speaker 2: we talk about all the time how like human life

953
00:50:24,120 --> 00:50:27,279
Speaker 2: gets reduced to like a number figure on a spreadsheet,

954
00:50:27,760 --> 00:50:31,440
Speaker 2: and that's truly how these people are looking at it.

955
00:50:31,440 --> 00:50:35,160
Speaker 2: When you have only guys who have finance brain being like, yeah, yeah,

956
00:50:35,200 --> 00:50:39,560
Speaker 2: I can help operate a healthcare provider. Watch this snip

957
00:50:39,560 --> 00:50:43,120
Speaker 2: snip snip, and then you know, we just continue to

958
00:50:43,120 --> 00:50:47,520
Speaker 2: talk about the the ongoing movement of privatization and how

959
00:50:47,560 --> 00:50:51,040
Speaker 2: that's only going to lead to fucking disaster. Yeah. It

960
00:50:51,080 --> 00:50:53,200
Speaker 2: also made me realize too, like when I was lobbying

961
00:50:53,239 --> 00:50:56,720
Speaker 2: for for profit colleges, like how like the for profit

962
00:50:56,760 --> 00:50:59,719
Speaker 2: college section is really wild. I mean that was the

963
00:50:59,719 --> 00:51:02,000
Speaker 2: thing that help loosen my brain to be like I

964
00:51:02,000 --> 00:51:03,719
Speaker 2: don't I can't be doing this, Like I can't be

965
00:51:03,760 --> 00:51:06,960
Speaker 2: consulting like this at all. But then really, even then,

966
00:51:07,360 --> 00:51:11,080
Speaker 2: the private equity part was a little bit abstract to me, sure,

967
00:51:11,120 --> 00:51:16,280
Speaker 2: like I was only the company levels the company. Yeah, yeah, yeah, anyway,

968
00:51:16,560 --> 00:51:19,000
Speaker 2: I'm stupid and that's easy to say now.

969
00:51:19,320 --> 00:51:22,440
Speaker 1: But we yeah, we're we're all part of this system

970
00:51:22,680 --> 00:51:26,560
Speaker 1: that has just been attacked invisibly. And this is the

971
00:51:26,560 --> 00:51:29,319
Speaker 1: first time I've just seen somebody say it out let,

972
00:51:29,480 --> 00:51:32,720
Speaker 1: you know, in print, just be like, this is the company,

973
00:51:32,760 --> 00:51:35,520
Speaker 1: this is what they're doing. It is like the most

974
00:51:35,560 --> 00:51:40,319
Speaker 1: deeply anti I don't know, it's just it's it's so

975
00:51:40,880 --> 00:51:43,719
Speaker 1: clear cut. It just seems wild that nobody said it

976
00:51:43,760 --> 00:51:45,080
Speaker 1: out loud, up to this point.

977
00:51:45,160 --> 00:51:46,839
Speaker 2: Yeah, people probably have been.

978
00:51:47,080 --> 00:51:49,240
Speaker 1: It's wild that I haven't read it to this point,

979
00:51:49,239 --> 00:51:52,200
Speaker 1: and it's probably because the phrase private equity made my

980
00:51:52,239 --> 00:51:52,960
Speaker 1: brain go to sleep.

981
00:51:53,200 --> 00:51:55,040
Speaker 2: I also blame the New Yorker from not making a

982
00:51:55,080 --> 00:51:59,399
Speaker 2: cartoon about it, which thank you. Understand. All right, we're

983
00:51:59,400 --> 00:52:00,399
Speaker 2: gonna take one more break.

984
00:52:00,400 --> 00:52:03,239
Speaker 1: We're gonna come back and hear from a reader who

985
00:52:03,600 --> 00:52:07,719
Speaker 1: has some job experience that is somewhat related to this.

986
00:52:08,040 --> 00:52:11,160
Speaker 1: It seems like it's operating the same principles.

987
00:52:10,520 --> 00:52:12,200
Speaker 2: With one of the industries we're just talking about.

988
00:52:12,280 --> 00:52:27,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll be right back, and we're back. And I

989
00:52:27,080 --> 00:52:29,480
Speaker 1: was talking to a former guest this weekend. I'm not

990
00:52:29,520 --> 00:52:32,960
Speaker 1: gonna out them, but like when I was taught as

991
00:52:32,960 --> 00:52:35,919
Speaker 1: I'm actually the two thousand episodes and trying to go back,

992
00:52:36,120 --> 00:52:39,520
Speaker 1: as I was saying to Brandon, like after reading his book,

993
00:52:39,520 --> 00:52:43,920
Speaker 1: I've tried to speak to it everywhere because it's like

994
00:52:44,200 --> 00:52:46,880
Speaker 1: all I can think about. And one of the people

995
00:52:46,920 --> 00:52:50,239
Speaker 1: I spoke to was like dental care. That was the

996
00:52:50,280 --> 00:52:53,080
Speaker 1: one when I was like, it's like this, it's veterinary care,

997
00:52:53,560 --> 00:52:57,600
Speaker 1: it's nine to one one call centers, it's retirement homes,

998
00:52:57,600 --> 00:52:59,400
Speaker 1: it's dental care. Like dental care is the one that

999
00:52:59,480 --> 00:53:02,399
Speaker 1: jumped out. They were like, yeah, you know, I have

1000
00:53:02,480 --> 00:53:05,560
Speaker 1: lived both in the US and in another country, and

1001
00:53:06,080 --> 00:53:08,439
Speaker 1: the US like you would see the dentists like over

1002
00:53:08,480 --> 00:53:10,520
Speaker 1: and over and over with the same problem. They'd just

1003
00:53:10,560 --> 00:53:13,839
Speaker 1: be like, I don't know, man, like brushmore, you know,

1004
00:53:14,160 --> 00:53:17,840
Speaker 1: and just give you the same solution and just seemed

1005
00:53:17,960 --> 00:53:22,560
Speaker 1: taxed and overwhelmed. And then like when we're able to

1006
00:53:22,960 --> 00:53:28,440
Speaker 1: have this problem fixed and oh, hey.

1007
00:53:28,160 --> 00:53:33,680
Speaker 2: Use some of a bitch. No, I mean I think, yeah,

1008
00:53:34,000 --> 00:53:35,680
Speaker 2: we can justin you can censor that.

1009
00:53:38,000 --> 00:53:43,240
Speaker 1: But anyways, so the dental industry, we have a listener

1010
00:53:43,440 --> 00:53:48,320
Speaker 1: who works in billing in the dental industry and also

1011
00:53:48,360 --> 00:53:52,520
Speaker 1: works with insurance companies. Again, this similar logic in that

1012
00:53:52,640 --> 00:53:56,640
Speaker 1: even without even if the listener's company is not owned

1013
00:53:56,640 --> 00:53:59,640
Speaker 1: by private equity, it seems to operate on a similar

1014
00:53:59,680 --> 00:54:05,640
Speaker 1: logic of like making things really profitably for them, unprofitably

1015
00:54:05,719 --> 00:54:11,480
Speaker 1: for the consumer, very complicated, very annoying to deal with.

1016
00:54:11,760 --> 00:54:15,560
Speaker 2: When it comes to insurance, it's like incentivized bumbling and

1017
00:54:15,640 --> 00:54:19,319
Speaker 2: incentivized miscommunication or non communication. And then be like, oh,

1018
00:54:19,360 --> 00:54:20,600
Speaker 2: you know here from us, well you owe us that.

1019
00:54:20,680 --> 00:54:22,239
Speaker 2: Now we got those interests on top of that, now

1020
00:54:22,280 --> 00:54:24,840
Speaker 2: you owe us more money. But shout out to this listener,

1021
00:54:24,840 --> 00:54:27,319
Speaker 2: and I believe we'll be okay using your name because

1022
00:54:27,360 --> 00:54:30,359
Speaker 2: it is a handle, We'll call this person Pirate Pam. Yeah,

1023
00:54:30,360 --> 00:54:32,880
Speaker 2: which is actually great because I was talking calling it

1024
00:54:32,920 --> 00:54:35,839
Speaker 2: pirate Equity. But anyway, Pirate Pam has been saying, you know,

1025
00:54:35,960 --> 00:54:38,279
Speaker 2: she's like, you know, I work in dental insurance, and

1026
00:54:38,320 --> 00:54:40,000
Speaker 2: I can tell you a little bit about how like

1027
00:54:40,320 --> 00:54:43,080
Speaker 2: how wacky it is. And when I when we started

1028
00:54:43,120 --> 00:54:44,719
Speaker 2: talking on discord, I was like, oh no, walk me

1029
00:54:44,719 --> 00:54:46,680
Speaker 2: through it a little bit. And I said, when did

1030
00:54:46,719 --> 00:54:49,319
Speaker 2: you realize how fucked up shit was with like in

1031
00:54:49,440 --> 00:54:51,120
Speaker 2: dental insurance and how you work with it? And this

1032
00:54:51,160 --> 00:54:52,960
Speaker 2: is what you said quote. I think it was just

1033
00:54:53,000 --> 00:54:56,040
Speaker 2: a lot of disbelief. I went to business school black

1034
00:54:56,360 --> 00:54:58,680
Speaker 2: and was taught how important it was to close out

1035
00:54:58,680 --> 00:55:01,160
Speaker 2: your accounts and be efficient the counting. I used to

1036
00:55:01,160 --> 00:55:03,719
Speaker 2: work for a medium large private manufacturing company, and we

1037
00:55:03,719 --> 00:55:07,080
Speaker 2: were all about production efficiency and technology improvement. Then I

1038
00:55:07,120 --> 00:55:10,040
Speaker 2: found out that many times insurance companies will be inefficient

1039
00:55:10,040 --> 00:55:15,200
Speaker 2: with their claims processing as a strategy. Allegedly, Okay, we're

1040
00:55:15,239 --> 00:55:18,000
Speaker 2: putting that there legally, my boss actually told me that

1041
00:55:18,040 --> 00:55:21,040
Speaker 2: when I started. My boss actually told me that when

1042
00:55:21,080 --> 00:55:23,360
Speaker 2: I started, and I honestly didn't believe him until I

1043
00:55:23,400 --> 00:55:26,759
Speaker 2: saw it for myself. They quote lose our claims all

1044
00:55:26,840 --> 00:55:29,799
Speaker 2: the time and have a terrible back end system for

1045
00:55:29,880 --> 00:55:33,080
Speaker 2: cataloging information. I knew that insurance companies were evil and

1046
00:55:33,080 --> 00:55:35,360
Speaker 2: that they raised rates, refuse to cover procedures, et cetera,

1047
00:55:35,560 --> 00:55:37,719
Speaker 2: but just didn't expect to trickle all the way down

1048
00:55:37,800 --> 00:55:40,799
Speaker 2: to their day to day business off business processes. I

1049
00:55:40,920 --> 00:55:43,640
Speaker 2: have some pretty blatant examples that just boil my blood.

1050
00:55:43,640 --> 00:55:45,759
Speaker 2: It has really radicalized me even further to the point

1051
00:55:45,760 --> 00:55:47,719
Speaker 2: where I don't even believe people should be able to

1052
00:55:47,719 --> 00:55:50,960
Speaker 2: purchase private insurance on top of universal coverage. They will

1053
00:55:51,000 --> 00:55:53,520
Speaker 2: do anything and everything in their power to squeeze profit out.

1054
00:55:53,440 --> 00:55:56,680
Speaker 1: Of people in need, so basically not deliver the thing

1055
00:55:56,800 --> 00:56:00,000
Speaker 1: that it is their job to deliver. Which yes, yeah,

1056
00:56:00,000 --> 00:56:03,359
Speaker 1: that is interesting to hear, because you know, like the

1057
00:56:03,400 --> 00:56:07,160
Speaker 1: whole thing, the whole logic of the universe that is

1058
00:56:07,239 --> 00:56:12,160
Speaker 1: created in this story about private equity in Pirate Pam's

1059
00:56:12,280 --> 00:56:19,800
Speaker 1: story about what it's completely like the central gravitational like force,

1060
00:56:20,280 --> 00:56:25,360
Speaker 1: like the gravitational center of the entire like capitalistic enterprise

1061
00:56:25,520 --> 00:56:30,640
Speaker 1: was supposed to be to deliver value in exchange for money, right,

1062
00:56:30,800 --> 00:56:33,680
Speaker 1: Like that that's what a business is designed to do,

1063
00:56:34,320 --> 00:56:38,719
Speaker 1: is to solve a problem, address a need something. And

1064
00:56:38,920 --> 00:56:41,560
Speaker 1: the better you are at that, the more likely you

1065
00:56:41,600 --> 00:56:45,439
Speaker 1: are to get repeat customer. Like there's just this very

1066
00:56:45,760 --> 00:56:51,840
Speaker 1: central core gravitational center, like economic like center, central truth

1067
00:56:51,920 --> 00:56:55,359
Speaker 1: that is supposed to be at work. And I think

1068
00:56:55,400 --> 00:56:58,759
Speaker 1: we we've just like crossed over to a place where

1069
00:56:58,800 --> 00:57:02,000
Speaker 1: like that seems even like that seems idealistic for me

1070
00:57:02,080 --> 00:57:03,680
Speaker 1: to even say that at this point.

1071
00:57:03,520 --> 00:57:06,040
Speaker 2: Right, Or it's kind of like what Brendan said, there's

1072
00:57:06,080 --> 00:57:09,520
Speaker 2: two versions, right, there's the version for working people, right,

1073
00:57:09,560 --> 00:57:13,399
Speaker 2: and you have no alternatives and you're basically checkmated there.

1074
00:57:13,680 --> 00:57:15,200
Speaker 2: And then if you have a little bit more money,

1075
00:57:15,200 --> 00:57:16,720
Speaker 2: then you do have the ability to be like, well,

1076
00:57:16,720 --> 00:57:19,919
Speaker 2: I'm not going to stand for this specific kind of treatment. Yeah,

1077
00:57:19,960 --> 00:57:22,200
Speaker 2: And do you just see how much that chasm just

1078
00:57:22,240 --> 00:57:24,880
Speaker 2: grows more and more and more as the companies that

1079
00:57:24,960 --> 00:57:27,480
Speaker 2: are like quote unquote smarter, like you got to go

1080
00:57:27,560 --> 00:57:30,640
Speaker 2: after like the working people businesses. Yeah, because if you

1081
00:57:30,680 --> 00:57:34,000
Speaker 2: own every dermatology practice in a county, what are they

1082
00:57:34,000 --> 00:57:36,439
Speaker 2: gonna do leave the county for cheaper rates. No, Now

1083
00:57:36,480 --> 00:57:39,480
Speaker 2: we determine what the market is and it's you know,

1084
00:57:39,720 --> 00:57:40,720
Speaker 2: rinse and repeat.

1085
00:57:41,200 --> 00:57:44,919
Speaker 1: The whole enterprise on the private equity side, like really

1086
00:57:44,920 --> 00:57:47,440
Speaker 1: resembles a Ponzi scheme. So like that when I was

1087
00:57:47,480 --> 00:57:49,800
Speaker 1: asking him, like about how this is like the new

1088
00:57:49,840 --> 00:57:53,040
Speaker 1: hot place to work in the world of finance, Like

1089
00:57:53,080 --> 00:57:56,440
Speaker 1: that's It's it's not just that like these are isolated

1090
00:57:56,480 --> 00:58:00,280
Speaker 1: companies doing this, it's also like the like people are

1091
00:58:00,280 --> 00:58:03,560
Speaker 1: seeing that this is a system that works and makes

1092
00:58:03,560 --> 00:58:06,640
Speaker 1: you incredibly wealthy, and like that in that industry is

1093
00:58:06,680 --> 00:58:09,960
Speaker 1: like kind of what is worshiped and held up and

1094
00:58:10,360 --> 00:58:14,640
Speaker 1: you know, pursued by other people who work in that industry.

1095
00:58:14,880 --> 00:58:17,880
Speaker 1: And then also like on the level of you know,

1096
00:58:17,960 --> 00:58:20,800
Speaker 1: we've talked before about how it seems like we're increasingly

1097
00:58:20,920 --> 00:58:25,600
Speaker 1: interested in scams because it feels like the entire economy

1098
00:58:25,600 --> 00:58:29,280
Speaker 1: has turned into a scam. Like these most successful companies

1099
00:58:29,360 --> 00:58:32,320
Speaker 1: of the past ten years, the ones who have become

1100
00:58:32,560 --> 00:58:36,600
Speaker 1: as you know, big as Amazon and Walmart, suddenly without

1101
00:58:36,680 --> 00:58:40,760
Speaker 1: us ever learning their names, like they are doing it

1102
00:58:40,880 --> 00:58:44,320
Speaker 1: by extracting fees, and you know that that is the

1103
00:58:44,840 --> 00:58:47,840
Speaker 1: mo of the moment, and so of course, like it's

1104
00:58:47,880 --> 00:58:51,720
Speaker 1: going to trickle down everywhere. Like people aren't stupid, they

1105
00:58:51,760 --> 00:58:54,560
Speaker 1: recognize what's being done to them. They're just without power

1106
00:58:54,680 --> 00:58:59,440
Speaker 1: or without people advocating on their behalf, or without options, right.

1107
00:58:59,600 --> 00:59:01,120
Speaker 2: And I think that's why we're kind of at the

1108
00:59:01,200 --> 00:59:03,200
Speaker 2: end of that discussion with Brendan. It's like you go

1109
00:59:03,280 --> 00:59:08,720
Speaker 2: from fighting an invisible enemy to now beginning to define

1110
00:59:08,760 --> 00:59:12,000
Speaker 2: at least one very specific kind and seeing how it works.

1111
00:59:12,000 --> 00:59:14,360
Speaker 2: Among many other things that are moving in are like

1112
00:59:14,400 --> 00:59:16,680
Speaker 2: global economy. But I want to add the part where

1113
00:59:17,080 --> 00:59:19,760
Speaker 2: I asked pirate Pam. I said, can you just talk

1114
00:59:19,800 --> 00:59:21,480
Speaker 2: about like one thing you deal with and you're like,

1115
00:59:21,480 --> 00:59:23,840
Speaker 2: these people are fucking around like that, you know this

1116
00:59:23,920 --> 00:59:27,960
Speaker 2: is bullshit and said quote one instance was when I

1117
00:59:28,000 --> 00:59:30,200
Speaker 2: had to send a bunch of documentation and X rays

1118
00:59:30,200 --> 00:59:32,400
Speaker 2: for a claim that they didn't want to pay the insurance.

1119
00:59:32,640 --> 00:59:34,480
Speaker 2: We got a letter from the insurance company that they

1120
00:59:34,480 --> 00:59:37,200
Speaker 2: had received all of our documentation and that we didn't

1121
00:59:37,240 --> 00:59:39,160
Speaker 2: need to do anything else. I call them out a

1122
00:59:39,200 --> 00:59:41,360
Speaker 2: month or so later. These appeals can take a while,

1123
00:59:41,440 --> 00:59:43,600
Speaker 2: and they said they had never received any of it

1124
00:59:43,640 --> 00:59:45,640
Speaker 2: from us. We also have a lot where we send

1125
00:59:45,680 --> 00:59:47,600
Speaker 2: it two to three times and they still claim they

1126
00:59:47,600 --> 00:59:51,120
Speaker 2: have never received anything. So again, just part of like

1127
00:59:51,160 --> 00:59:55,360
Speaker 2: the inefficiency, whether it's like you know, intentional or just

1128
00:59:55,440 --> 00:59:59,000
Speaker 2: part and parcel of understaffing, whatever, it tends to benefit

1129
00:59:59,200 --> 01:00:01,360
Speaker 2: you know, them in the LA long term, long term

1130
01:00:01,640 --> 01:00:05,480
Speaker 2: we talket for them to be inefficient. Yeah, and we are. Yeah,

1131
01:00:05,520 --> 01:00:07,720
Speaker 2: you realize how much you know. There are other examples

1132
01:00:07,760 --> 01:00:09,360
Speaker 2: from that book that are just wild about like, yeah,

1133
01:00:09,400 --> 01:00:11,280
Speaker 2: you buy like a clothing store and then you're like, yeah,

1134
01:00:11,280 --> 01:00:12,840
Speaker 2: I guess what now you're only gonna buy clothes from

1135
01:00:12,920 --> 01:00:16,040
Speaker 2: this other company we own, right, Yeah, yeah, like the

1136
01:00:16,160 --> 01:00:22,840
Speaker 2: Mike Tyson meme with the pigeons saying now kiss. But

1137
01:00:23,080 --> 01:00:26,080
Speaker 2: just like the corporate Raider for like you're like, what,

1138
01:00:26,240 --> 01:00:27,920
Speaker 2: we don't even buy clothes and just like no, no,

1139
01:00:28,040 --> 01:00:29,200
Speaker 2: you do you?

1140
01:00:29,320 --> 01:00:33,520
Speaker 1: We don't care about you? Yeah yeah, and and then

1141
01:00:33,520 --> 01:00:35,960
Speaker 1: we're just like man, J Crew really lost it.

1142
01:00:36,040 --> 01:00:36,360
Speaker 2: Huh.

1143
01:00:36,400 --> 01:00:40,000
Speaker 1: They really got real crappy, got real crappy. All of

1144
01:00:40,000 --> 01:00:44,720
Speaker 1: a sudden, Toys r US just started having palettes of

1145
01:00:44,920 --> 01:00:49,040
Speaker 1: toys half ripped open laying around when you walked in.

1146
01:00:49,200 --> 01:00:54,320
Speaker 2: That was weird. Yeah, that's a new policy. No, no,

1147
01:00:54,600 --> 01:00:57,440
Speaker 2: you're seeing the you're seeing the thing turned into a

1148
01:00:57,680 --> 01:00:58,800
Speaker 2: ghost in real time.

1149
01:00:59,360 --> 01:01:03,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, so wild the comparison. Like, I do think a

1150
01:01:03,760 --> 01:01:06,640
Speaker 1: lot about the how the Gilded Age, the last Gilded

1151
01:01:06,640 --> 01:01:10,200
Speaker 1: Age in the US like somehow turned into the New

1152
01:01:10,240 --> 01:01:16,480
Speaker 1: Deal and like they're being actually beneficial to America socialism

1153
01:01:16,640 --> 01:01:18,760
Speaker 1: in a lot of cases. And if we could do

1154
01:01:18,920 --> 01:01:22,880
Speaker 1: that without the racism that the first New Deal had,

1155
01:01:23,120 --> 01:01:31,440
Speaker 1: like incremental utopia jack like just but these those things

1156
01:01:31,680 --> 01:01:37,000
Speaker 1: did happen incrementally, right, But yeah, I mean that's happening.

1157
01:01:36,680 --> 01:01:38,640
Speaker 2: A lot of work, and I honestly I think that's

1158
01:01:38,680 --> 01:01:42,040
Speaker 2: why we see a lot of emphasis from the powers

1159
01:01:42,080 --> 01:01:45,320
Speaker 2: that be to like try and make younger people as

1160
01:01:45,360 --> 01:01:49,120
Speaker 2: ignorant as possible, or make them like take back their

1161
01:01:49,160 --> 01:01:51,600
Speaker 2: ability to vote by raising the voting age. There's a

1162
01:01:51,640 --> 01:01:54,800
Speaker 2: lot where I think already I think just existing in

1163
01:01:54,840 --> 01:01:56,720
Speaker 2: the United States is probably one of the most potent

1164
01:01:56,840 --> 01:02:00,880
Speaker 2: radicalizing forces right now for young people merely alive and

1165
01:02:00,960 --> 01:02:05,960
Speaker 2: observing things, and hopefully that manifests into like a huge

1166
01:02:06,040 --> 01:02:08,439
Speaker 2: wave of like you know that the numbers are there

1167
01:02:08,480 --> 01:02:11,000
Speaker 2: to have like bigger changes rather than people that are

1168
01:02:11,000 --> 01:02:13,280
Speaker 2: holding onto the scraps of yesteryear.

1169
01:02:13,800 --> 01:02:16,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would highly recommend people people check out this

1170
01:02:16,920 --> 01:02:20,680
Speaker 1: book if that conversation was interesting to you. Yeah, Miles,

1171
01:02:21,160 --> 01:02:24,919
Speaker 1: I would highly recommend they check out you on social media.

1172
01:02:24,960 --> 01:02:26,040
Speaker 1: Where can we find you?

1173
01:02:26,360 --> 01:02:29,720
Speaker 2: My goodness to find me on Twitter, Instagram at Miles

1174
01:02:29,720 --> 01:02:33,080
Speaker 2: of Gray. Check out Miles and Jack on our basketball

1175
01:02:33,240 --> 01:02:35,800
Speaker 2: I said, Miles, and I went third person on them. Anyway,

1176
01:02:35,880 --> 01:02:38,120
Speaker 2: find us on our basketball podcast. Miles and Jack got

1177
01:02:38,160 --> 01:02:40,320
Speaker 2: Matt Boosti's And if you're going to be in Las

1178
01:02:40,440 --> 01:02:44,840
Speaker 2: Vegas for NBA con, well, guess what. Guess what will

1179
01:02:45,160 --> 01:02:47,720
Speaker 2: your boys, because we're going to be on there doing

1180
01:02:47,760 --> 01:02:50,320
Speaker 2: a couple of live shows. And hey, if you got

1181
01:02:50,920 --> 01:02:53,960
Speaker 2: recommendations about Vegas, you want to take us out for

1182
01:02:54,000 --> 01:02:57,640
Speaker 2: a spin in your cool Lamborghini or helicopter ride to

1183
01:02:57,680 --> 01:03:00,880
Speaker 2: the Grand Cable on either of those things. But oh,

1184
01:03:00,480 --> 01:03:02,600
Speaker 2: I'll I'll hop in. I'll hop in a Lambeau with

1185
01:03:02,640 --> 01:03:04,680
Speaker 2: a listener. I don't care. I don't know where that

1186
01:03:04,760 --> 01:03:09,120
Speaker 2: ends up. Finally, after that question, how I get to Yeah,

1187
01:03:09,120 --> 01:03:11,040
Speaker 2: how do I get the Lambeau? I had somebody rent

1188
01:03:11,040 --> 01:03:13,360
Speaker 2: one in Vegas and we got in it. Uh, And

1189
01:03:13,400 --> 01:03:16,280
Speaker 2: then you can find me on fort with Sophia Alexandra

1190
01:03:16,480 --> 01:03:20,520
Speaker 2: talking non political, non serious stuff like ninety day fiance

1191
01:03:20,840 --> 01:03:21,680
Speaker 2: or blind.

1192
01:03:22,040 --> 01:03:23,880
Speaker 1: All right, and is there a work a media that

1193
01:03:23,920 --> 01:03:24,760
Speaker 1: you've been enjoying.

1194
01:03:25,200 --> 01:03:30,560
Speaker 2: Uh, honestly I have. It's probably from Uh. I got

1195
01:03:30,600 --> 01:03:32,400
Speaker 2: a shout out again. We talked about this on the

1196
01:03:32,400 --> 01:03:38,720
Speaker 2: Trending episode yesterday at Underscore ched Earthling erb the Provinciaga

1197
01:03:38,840 --> 01:03:42,400
Speaker 2: who definitely got the Portuguese flag flyne in that Twitter

1198
01:03:42,440 --> 01:03:47,160
Speaker 2: display name put us onto this like TikTok, fucking like

1199
01:03:47,320 --> 01:03:52,040
Speaker 2: just mashup of all these like kids protect like just

1200
01:03:52,240 --> 01:03:54,760
Speaker 2: trying the new Grimace Shake from McDonald's and then just

1201
01:03:54,920 --> 01:04:00,160
Speaker 2: ending up in like the worst horrifying physical positions or situation.

1202
01:04:00,320 --> 01:04:02,240
Speaker 2: So yeah, shout out to shout out to that video.

1203
01:04:02,280 --> 01:04:04,440
Speaker 2: It's I don't know, I don't know what you search.

1204
01:04:04,640 --> 01:04:08,760
Speaker 2: Just search Grimace Shake causing irreversible damage to society.

1205
01:04:09,160 --> 01:04:12,040
Speaker 1: Just go look at Miles' likes on Twitter.

1206
01:04:12,400 --> 01:04:15,040
Speaker 2: You know how about this, Gonna retweet it? There you go,

1207
01:04:15,080 --> 01:04:18,800
Speaker 2: that makes it easy. Boom, check that out. Check that out.

1208
01:04:19,160 --> 01:04:22,080
Speaker 1: You can find me on Twitter at Jack Underscore O'Brien.

1209
01:04:22,800 --> 01:04:27,000
Speaker 1: A couple of tweets I enjoyed over the weekend picture

1210
01:04:27,040 --> 01:04:29,000
Speaker 1: of George Bush finding out about nine to eleven and

1211
01:04:29,200 --> 01:04:32,480
Speaker 1: somebody saying a second Russia has hit the Russia, which

1212
01:04:32,720 --> 01:04:35,320
Speaker 1: I thought summed it up pretty nicely what it felt

1213
01:04:35,400 --> 01:04:39,120
Speaker 1: like at first. Tarn At Young Titty tweeted, the baby

1214
01:04:39,200 --> 01:04:43,640
Speaker 1: is kicking. He must like vodka Red bulls. Oh my fascinating,

1215
01:04:44,120 --> 01:04:48,840
Speaker 1: tweeted a picture of the founder of Gucci and said

1216
01:04:48,880 --> 01:04:52,160
Speaker 1: the life of Gucci O Gucci, founder of Gucci, and

1217
01:04:53,200 --> 01:04:57,200
Speaker 1: Zach Raffio retweeted that and said the life of Dunky

1218
01:04:57,320 --> 01:05:02,080
Speaker 1: No Duncan, founder of Duncan, and then Sydney Battle tweeted,

1219
01:05:02,320 --> 01:05:05,280
Speaker 1: whoever came up with the word morsels was correct?

1220
01:05:05,800 --> 01:05:10,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, perfectly named. Yeah, where'd that come from? Maybe some

1221
01:05:10,640 --> 01:05:12,720
Speaker 2: etymologies in the store? Yeah.

1222
01:05:12,840 --> 01:05:15,960
Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter at Daily Zeitgeist. We're

1223
01:05:15,960 --> 01:05:18,440
Speaker 1: at the Daily Zeitgeist on Instagram, we have a Facebook

1224
01:05:18,480 --> 01:05:21,360
Speaker 1: fanpage and a website Daily zeikeys dot com where we

1225
01:05:21,440 --> 01:05:24,640
Speaker 1: posts our episodes and our footnotes. So we take off

1226
01:05:24,680 --> 01:05:27,000
Speaker 1: to the information that we talked about in today's episode

1227
01:05:27,160 --> 01:05:29,120
Speaker 1: as well as a song that we.

1228
01:05:29,120 --> 01:05:31,200
Speaker 2: Think you might enjoy. That was with the song that

1229
01:05:31,280 --> 01:05:33,840
Speaker 2: people might enjoy, Oh well, guess what You've died and

1230
01:05:33,880 --> 01:05:36,080
Speaker 2: gone to Babe Heaven because that's the name of this

1231
01:05:36,200 --> 01:05:41,720
Speaker 2: West London band, Babe Heaven, really great band. This tracks

1232
01:05:41,840 --> 01:05:45,040
Speaker 2: just like again. It's called make Me Wanna and apparently

1233
01:05:45,080 --> 01:05:47,800
Speaker 2: like this group started off with like two friends who

1234
01:05:47,800 --> 01:05:49,880
Speaker 2: were like really in the groups like Massive Attack and

1235
01:05:49,920 --> 01:05:52,480
Speaker 2: stuff and trip hop and then slowly started getting their

1236
01:05:52,520 --> 01:05:55,919
Speaker 2: band together and y'all are making some good music now.

1237
01:05:56,000 --> 01:05:58,920
Speaker 2: If you like Massive Attack and stuff like that Cocktat Twins,

1238
01:05:59,600 --> 01:06:01,840
Speaker 2: check this group out. But this is a track make

1239
01:06:01,880 --> 01:06:05,560
Speaker 2: Me wand bye babe Head. All right, well we will

1240
01:06:05,600 --> 01:06:08,080
Speaker 2: link off to that in the footnotes. The Daily Zeitgeist

1241
01:06:08,120 --> 01:06:11,000
Speaker 2: is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from.

1242
01:06:10,920 --> 01:06:14,240
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen.

1243
01:06:14,040 --> 01:06:14,880
Speaker 2: To your favorite shows.

1244
01:06:14,920 --> 01:06:17,000
Speaker 1: That's going to do it for us this morning, back

1245
01:06:17,040 --> 01:06:19,960
Speaker 1: this afternoon to tell you what's trending and we'll talk

1246
01:06:19,960 --> 01:06:23,760
Speaker 1: to you all then Bye bye