Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Speaker 2: If you like what we're all about, it just means
Speaker 2: the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that,
Speaker 2: Let's get to the show. Some fascinating new data from
Speaker 2: Pew Research and illustrated by the Wall Street Journal. Let's
Speaker 2: gohead and put this up there on the screen, why
Speaker 2: tribalism took over our politics? The focus of the piece
Speaker 2: really comes down to some Pew data about the share
Speaker 2: of those in each party who view the other party
Speaker 2: very unfavorably and part of how everything has really changed
Speaker 2: from the nineties in terms of division, and how even
Speaker 2: if we felt divided out of that time, it's really
Speaker 2: child's play to where we are right now. Let's put
Speaker 2: this up there on the screen, this image, which is
Speaker 2: very important. What you can see is that the share
Speaker 2: of those in each party who view the other very
Speaker 2: unfavorably are at all time highs in both parties. So
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety four, the share of those who saw
Speaker 2: the other side is very unfavorably was twenty one percent
Speaker 2: for Republicans seventeen percent for Democrats. There wasn't spike actually
Speaker 2: in the late nineties, largely during the impeachment scandal, where
Speaker 2: the Democrats were pretty high, but nowhere even close to
Speaker 2: where we are right now. You can see that two
Speaker 2: thousand and eight was actually a major jump off point
Speaker 2: for both parties, where the share began to rise and
Speaker 2: pretty much equalized around forty percent. And we now stand
Speaker 2: at the most divided period really of all time, where
Speaker 2: sixty two percent of Republicans say that they view the
Speaker 2: other party very unfavorably and fifty four percent of Democrats.
Speaker 2: Funnily enough, when Obama was president, the Republican vote was higher,
Speaker 2: when Trump was president, the Democratic one was higher. Depending
Speaker 2: on who that is, it's relatively marginal. But to have
Speaker 2: an outright majority of both people say that they view
Speaker 2: the others unfavorably is actually crazy because it leads to
Speaker 2: a complete negative valance of all politics, in which everyone
Speaker 2: is voting, or the vast majority of people are voting,
Speaker 2: are voting against something. They're voting explicity to prevent. Like
Speaker 2: you talked about in our show, you were saying, like
Speaker 2: the Biden people, they're not running on like any new
Speaker 2: abortion consensus. They're just like, no, no, we'll go back to
Speaker 2: the old one. We just want to stop them from
Speaker 2: doing something that you don't like. That could be a
Speaker 2: powerful message, even in terms of the Trumpian message.
Speaker 3: It's not that you're not trying to build anything.
Speaker 2: Everything they're running against is like, we're going to reverse
Speaker 2: everything bad that we think that Biden did.
Speaker 3: We're not going to build anything new, We're just going.
Speaker 4: To go back.
Speaker 2: And so in both of those visions it appeals to
Speaker 2: this particular part of the electorate. And I think though
Speaker 2: at the same time, we should remember these are partisan people.
Speaker 2: Many hundreds of millions of people are actually left out
Speaker 2: of this conversation. True people are like, I'm self exiting
Speaker 2: this entire system. I don't belong here.
Speaker 3: I think we speak to some of those people.
Speaker 2: But the people who are politically activated, there's no question
Speaker 2: about where they stand politically.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of social trends that I think have
Speaker 1: led to this outcome. I mean, one of them is
Speaker 1: like the self sorting that has occurred even down to
Speaker 1: the neighborhood by neighborhood and block by block level, where
Speaker 1: people just making choices about where they want to live,
Speaker 1: whether they're you know, famously going to be closer to
Speaker 1: a cracker barrel or a whole foods right, and then
Speaker 1: just inadvertently surround themselves with people who share all of
Speaker 1: their political views, beliefs, and partisan affiliations. And so if
Speaker 1: you're coming into less contact with people who are of
Speaker 1: the other party, it becomes easier to demonize them.
Speaker 5: That's number one, because these.
Speaker 1: Numbers we're talking about, we're not talking about like Democrats
Speaker 1: hate Republican elites. They're talking about like Democrats hate Republicans,
Speaker 1: and Republicans hate Democrats, no matter whether they are elite,
Speaker 1: a regular person, whatever, And so it becomes much easier
Speaker 1: to demonize, you know, if you're not coming in direct
Speaker 1: contact with people who have a different political view than you.
Speaker 5: That's number one.
Speaker 1: Number two, you have a media ecosystem that is all
Speaker 1: about convincing Democrats that they should hate Republicans and convincing
Speaker 1: Republicans they should hate Democrats. And so if you're a partisan,
Speaker 1: you may well be susceptible to that you have obviously
Speaker 1: like the rise of social media, and I don't think
Speaker 1: it's an accident that some of this really kicks off,
Speaker 1: really jumpstarts in the you know, twenty tens, twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: around that time when smartphones become you know, massively widely
Speaker 1: available and adopted, and when you also have social media
Speaker 1: driven by algorithms, where it really again reinforces this desire
Speaker 1: for people to find their tribe online and like rep
Speaker 1: as hard as they possibly can for that tribe, because
Speaker 1: that's what gets them ahead in terms of the social
Speaker 1: media algorithms. But then that Wall Street Journal piece also
Speaker 1: points to a lot of social science research about just
Speaker 1: the way that our brains work that's pretty interesting. So well,
Speaker 1: they say that it shows our need for collective belonging
Speaker 1: is forceful enough to reshape how we view facts and
Speaker 1: affect our voting decisions. When our group is threatened, we
Speaker 1: rise to its defense. So it makes sense that in
Speaker 1: a different time, you know, thirty years ago, when people
Speaker 1: were living in more mixed enclaves, where you had a
Speaker 1: lot more political views and ideologies, that if you're and
Speaker 1: you're not like forming your identity online, your sense of
Speaker 1: belonging comes from your whole community, which is a variety
Speaker 1: of political beliefs, the fact that you used to have
Speaker 1: higher union density, same thing. You're going to have a
Speaker 1: lot of different ideologies represented within that you know, union
Speaker 1: hall environment, And so your sense of belonging comes not
Speaker 1: from you being a Republican or you being a Democrat,
Speaker 1: but being part of this group. As people increasingly identify
Speaker 1: as like whatever their partisan affiliation is, then you're going
Speaker 1: to have more of the belonging coming from just rupping
Speaker 1: as hard as you can for that group and hating
Speaker 1: the other group. They specifically talk about this twenty thirteen
Speaker 1: study Saga that's really interesting where they asked people to
Speaker 1: solve a math problem that had like a political balance too.
Speaker 1: It was about concealed carry bands and whether or not
Speaker 1: they reduced crime rates and if you were a political partisan,
Speaker 1: and the correct math would lead you to like define
Speaker 1: your own ideology.
Speaker 5: Even people who.
Speaker 1: Were really good at math would get the problem wrong
Speaker 1: because they just couldn't confront that, like this data went
Speaker 1: against the thing that they believed. So it's very it's
Speaker 1: a very sort of hardwired human thing to want to
Speaker 1: fit in and want to belong And then I know,
Speaker 1: I've been going on. The last thing I'll say is
Speaker 1: like Trump made so much politics so central to everything,
Speaker 1: and it really kind of forced everybody to pick which
Speaker 1: team they're on. That I think that's a big part
Speaker 1: of this phenomenon why I have one of the worst
Speaker 1: things that I think Trump has done to our politics.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't see a lot that I disagree with there.
Speaker 2: I mean, especially whenever you're looking at the shares of
Speaker 2: identification and the way that people feel really about the
Speaker 2: entire political system, the lack of faith in institutions that
Speaker 2: need to be tribal. Even you know, one hundred years ago,
Speaker 2: so even though people were tribal and they were still
Speaker 2: very divided, they were just as divided as they were today.
Speaker 2: They still had transnational institutions things like religion, church or
Speaker 2: whatever that both national identity in some ways that went
Speaker 2: cross brown greet that they were able to collectively kind
Speaker 2: of think about, we don't really have a lot of
Speaker 2: that as are even close to what those people had
Speaker 2: at that time, which is why I think that we're
Speaker 2: probably even more divided. Then you have the Internet, which
Speaker 2: rewards division. So there's a lot going on today, and
Speaker 2: I think this graph actually illustrates a lot of like,
Speaker 2: at a core level, what's wrong with wrong with the
Speaker 2: country right now?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and why our politics feel different than they felt
Speaker 1: in previously. I think, yeah, I think that's a big
Speaker 1: part of it. So fascinating stuff.
Speaker 2: There's some troubling new data about home ownership in America
Speaker 2: regarding whether the primary resident actually owns their house or not,
Speaker 2: and the ownership rates and making it unattainable and also
Speaker 2: raising the question of who does own these houses.
Speaker 3: With this up there on the screen, this is very interesting.
Speaker 3: This is the.
Speaker 2: Percent of the overall housing stock which is owned by
Speaker 2: the actual primary resident, which has been majorly declining since
Speaker 2: two thousand and four, but has taken such a massive
Speaker 2: hit in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3: So you can go back and look.
Speaker 2: In two thousand and seven, the primary resident was about
Speaker 2: sixty seven percent of those people owned the house that
Speaker 2: they were living in.
Speaker 3: In twenty twenty three, that.
Speaker 2: Has now dropped to below sixty percent for the first
Speaker 2: time in the two thousands. And the reason why that
Speaker 2: really matters is it does and shows you that the
Speaker 2: interest rate in particular, have made it so unattainable for
Speaker 2: people to be able to buy their homes that you
Speaker 2: are creating a mass rentier class. I mean, remember, a
Speaker 2: twelve percent drop is millions of people who are unable
Speaker 2: to own their overall primary residence and are at the
Speaker 2: mercy of their landlord. And then the question is like
Speaker 2: who are these landlords? A lot of them are boomer
Speaker 2: homeowners who have held the property now for a long time.
Speaker 2: They're not going to sell them because interist rates are
Speaker 2: so high that they won't want to buy anything else,
Speaker 2: and they're just going to sit there and continue to
Speaker 2: jack up rents, especially because the overall competition for rent
Speaker 2: is going to continue to come up. So this is
Speaker 2: actually one of the most important things that you can
Speaker 2: look at. One of the most backward stats in any
Speaker 2: developed economy is if you have the majority of people
Speaker 2: renting versus the majority of people actually owning the house
Speaker 2: that they are living in, and backsliding on that away
Speaker 2: from two thirds nearing one half is a really dangerous marker.
Speaker 1: Well, and you can see, let's actually put a backup
Speaker 1: on the screen there, just so I can make one
Speaker 1: point about this. You can see between twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: and twenty twenty three, there's been a decline for a
Speaker 1: while but there is a huge drop off in a
Speaker 1: single year. So you ask yourself what has changed, and
Speaker 1: I think the very clear answer is fed policy, interest rates,
Speaker 1: the fact that mortgages are so wildly unaffordable at a
Speaker 1: time when housing prices have not really come down from
Speaker 1: the peak of their height, so prices are still extremely high.
Speaker 1: And then you add on top of that extremely high
Speaker 1: mortgage rates. It makes it impossible for regular people to
Speaker 1: be able to buy a house. So guess who swoops
Speaker 1: in and takes advantage of that situation, who doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: have to worry about mortgage rates. Permanent capital with plenty
Speaker 1: of cash comes up, comes in and buys up existing
Speaker 1: housing stock, and pushes the country even closer to their
Speaker 1: dream of basically being America's landlords, which is something that
Speaker 1: we have talked about and covered here extensively. This is
Speaker 1: a disaster on a variety of levels. Number one, there's
Speaker 1: a real argument to be made that at this point
Speaker 1: in America, the biggest class divide is between people who
Speaker 1: are homeowners and people who are not. Because with wages
Speaker 1: failing to keep up with inflation and stagnating over decades,
Speaker 1: the best way to actually build wealth in America is
Speaker 1: to own a home, and home prices have continued to
Speaker 1: go up and up and up. Long before we were
Speaker 1: having this conversation about inflation, home prices were rapidly escalating
Speaker 1: and wilding more unaffordable than they were in previous decades.
Speaker 1: So if you own a home, that's great for you.
Speaker 1: You're benefiting from that increase in wealth. For everybody who
Speaker 1: is shut down of that is obviously disaster and keeps
Speaker 1: you in this incredibly precarious position.
Speaker 3: The more that you.
Speaker 1: Have permanent capital coming in and commodifying the entire housing market,
Speaker 1: the more they also control the market and can jack
Speaker 1: up rents. Many of these companies use algorithms to set
Speaker 1: the rents at their properties, and they've calculated they'll actually
Speaker 1: be a little more profitable if they set the rents
Speaker 1: beyond what the market can really bear and leave some
Speaker 1: units vacant just to extract that extra profit out of
Speaker 1: the residents that they do secure. So it's a disaster
Speaker 1: on a whole lot of levels, and just on a
Speaker 1: deeper level, Slider, I think it just really reflects how
Speaker 1: our entire society, our entire economy, like really key parts
Speaker 1: of just like our humanity have been commodified. Housing is
Speaker 1: no longer really seen as just like this is the
Speaker 1: place for people to.
Speaker 5: Live and shelter and have their family.
Speaker 1: No, this has got to be a money making venture
Speaker 1: that's good for somebody's bottom line that they can, you know,
Speaker 1: gobble up and package together and make as much money
Speaker 1: as they possibly can and squeeze every possible penny over it.
Speaker 1: And so it's it's a real disaster for a lot
Speaker 1: of people.
Speaker 2: What's interesting to me too is looking at some data
Speaker 2: about who's actually purchasing these homes. It's not just permanent
Speaker 2: capital who they definitely bought a lot in one and
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two. A lot of them are large and
Speaker 2: medium sized investors who own between ten and one hundred
Speaker 2: homes or one hundred to one thousand homes. These are
Speaker 2: like the you know, the small the car dealer guy,
Speaker 2: the guy who's got millions of dollars in cash flowing
Speaker 2: off every year. He's got to throw it somewhere, might
Speaker 2: as well throw it. That's how you become like a
Speaker 2: local real estate baron. These guys are purchasing homes like
Speaker 2: nobody's business. And a small investors as well who are
Speaker 2: taking advantage of that, they're going to eat the interest rate.
Speaker 3: Maybe they'll refinance at some point later on.
Speaker 2: But the point, you know, really that comes through in
Speaker 2: all of this is that if it's not the I'm
Speaker 2: Mary a homeowner, somebody somewhere is trying to make money
Speaker 2: a dollar off of you. Yeah, be the big guy,
Speaker 2: it could be the small guy, but it's better off
Speaker 2: whenever you're the one who's actually building in the equity.
Speaker 2: And we have some massive shrink in that number in
Speaker 2: just a one year period, that is such a shock
Speaker 2: to the overall housing market.
Speaker 3: It's just going to change everything.
Speaker 2: So look, the more that we look and the more
Speaker 2: that we think about this, it could be like, if
Speaker 2: you get that number to blow fifty percent or down
Speaker 2: to forty percent, that's like societal that's a complete societal
Speaker 2: change fromhere you've been for the last seventy five That's right.
Speaker 5: And that's the direction we're headed in.
Speaker 1: That is very interesting report from CNBC on how even
Speaker 1: wealthy Americans feel about their financial status. Let's go and
Speaker 1: put this up on the screen. Really curious to get
Speaker 1: Sager's take on this. I want to hear what you
Speaker 1: guys think about this. So their headline is. Even millionaires
Speaker 1: are feeling financially insecure. According to this new report, let
Speaker 1: me read you a little bit of us so you
Speaker 1: get the details. Even doctors, lawyers, and other highly paid
Speaker 1: professionals also referred to as the quote regular rich who
Speaker 1: benefit from stable jobs, home ownership, and a well padded
Speaker 1: retirement savings account, said they do not feel well off
Speaker 1: at all. Some even said they feel poor. That's according
Speaker 1: to a recent survey conducted by Bloomberg. Of those making
Speaker 1: more than one hundred and seventy five K a year,
Speaker 1: or roughly the top ten percent of tax filers, one
Speaker 1: quarter said they were either very poor, poor or getting
Speaker 1: by but things are tight. Even a share of those
Speaker 1: making more than a half a million dollars and more
Speaker 1: than a million dollars said the same. Despite their high
Speaker 1: net worth, less than half of all millionaires, forty four
Speaker 1: percent said they felt very comfortable. In fact, only twelve
Speaker 1: percent of Americans and just twenty nine percent of millionaires
Speaker 1: consider themselves wealthy.
Speaker 2: Soger, this is all keeping up with the Jones behavior,
Speaker 2: and doctors are the absolute worst. So look, if you
Speaker 2: make one hundred and seventy five k years like they said,
Speaker 2: you're in the top quarter. But all of this is
Speaker 2: driven by comparing yourself to others. So the one hundred
Speaker 2: and seventy five k guy is comparing himself to the
Speaker 2: five hundred K guy, who's comparing himself to the millionaire.
Speaker 2: The millionaires comparing themselves to the deca millionaire, the deca
Speaker 2: millionaire to the cent a millionaire, the centi millionaire to
Speaker 2: the billionaire, and then the singular billionaire to thee hundred billionaire,
Speaker 2: and each one of those people feels comparatively poor and
Speaker 2: is to those individual people, but refuses to look at
Speaker 2: their overall actual place in life. I think that the
Speaker 2: keeping up with the Jones here is the biggest problem.
Speaker 2: I mean, it becomes like intra elite competition, like the
Speaker 2: doctors for example, doctors are you know, they'll load themselves
Speaker 2: up with like two boats, two houses, like Mercedes, and
Speaker 2: they're like, oh, I barely feel like I'm making it
Speaker 2: on half a million. Yeah, that's why, because you actually
Speaker 2: kind of are. You've racked yourself up with the amount
Speaker 2: of debt. To sustain that lifestyle comfortably, you'd actually probably
Speaker 2: have to pull in like a million a million five
Speaker 2: per year. So anyway, I think a lot of this
Speaker 2: is a comparative problem. And it's also they even point
Speaker 2: to this why credit card debt is so high.
Speaker 3: Isn't even very high earners are racking up crazy amounts
Speaker 3: of credit card debt.
Speaker 2: I see this all the time, especially with a lot
Speaker 2: of my my friends who are lawyers and particular, and
Speaker 2: I think the reason why is they suffered so much,
Speaker 2: but not only through law school, but really they.
Speaker 5: Hate their job, miserable.
Speaker 1: They're like, at least I should have like a boat
Speaker 1: in a nice house, not.
Speaker 2: Even the boat I'm talking about, like going on crazy
Speaker 2: trips and really two thousand dollars a night in a
Speaker 2: Miami hotel or something like that or whatever, a club,
Speaker 2: I mean, all these things. You know, it's one of
Speaker 2: those where it sounds very cliche, but you're like.
Speaker 3: That's not gonna that's not gonna fix your life. You know,
Speaker 3: like spending these things, but you know, I'm not gonna
Speaker 3: sit there and lecture them in the moment.
Speaker 2: It's just one of those where it's clear I think
Speaker 2: where a lot of this comes from. Some of them
Speaker 2: are trying to spend their ways out of emotional problems.
Speaker 2: But I think a lot of it is also just
Speaker 2: built on I mean even here where we live, Crystal,
Speaker 2: you you know, a million. If you know, somebody makes
Speaker 2: one hundred and seventy five k a year who lives
Speaker 2: in downtown Washington, DC, you can't afford anything. You can't
Speaker 2: buy a house, You can barely afford you. There's no
Speaker 2: way you'd be able to rent the nicest apartment in
Speaker 2: the town.
Speaker 3: You could rent like the middle class.
Speaker 2: So to them, like, yeah, you do feel poor because
Speaker 2: compared to the other people around you, you kind of are.
Speaker 3: But if you were to think about it on a
Speaker 3: bigger scale, you're.
Speaker 1: Not at all, right, I mean, there's so much going
Speaker 1: on here. Actually, because I was thinking about we saw
Speaker 1: that report in California, the whole state, right, not just
Speaker 1: in San Francisco or whatever, the whole state of California.
Speaker 1: You have to earn two hundred and nine thousand dollars
Speaker 1: a year to qualify for a typical mortgage. And that's
Speaker 1: if you have the twenty percent that you can put
Speaker 1: down on a house. Okay, so in certain parts of
Speaker 1: the country, if you're making two hundred K, if you're
Speaker 1: making one hundred and fifty K, you would look at
Speaker 1: this and you would be like, that's a fantastic salary.
Speaker 1: You could live really well in other parts of the country.
Speaker 1: If you're in Manhattan, if you're in San Francisco Bay
Speaker 1: Area at DC, if you're in certain high expense housing markets,
Speaker 1: then yeah, you're going to feel like from my vision
Speaker 1: of where my class status is and what I think
Speaker 1: I should be able to afford and what I'm actually
Speaker 1: able to afford, these are wildly different. You know, these
Speaker 1: are wildly different things. And then that does lead to like, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: let me just take on the debt to live the
Speaker 1: life that I think that my station merits, right. I
Speaker 1: think there's also a lot of because we have such
Speaker 1: wide and high inequality where there's you know, upper middle
Speaker 1: class and wealthy people and then there's you know, a
Speaker 1: working class that's really struggling because there's such a gulf
Speaker 1: and basically the middle class wh's has been destroyed and
Speaker 1: decimated and vettished. There's also a lot of terror among
Speaker 1: upper middle class people or the quote unquote regular rich,
Speaker 1: even about their kids not being able to hold on
Speaker 1: to that station. And so I think some of the
Speaker 1: anxiety is about that too, of like, not only do
Speaker 1: I have to make sure I'm good. I got to
Speaker 1: make sure my kids are going to be able to
Speaker 1: hold on by their fingernails to the status that I'm at,
Speaker 1: because God forbid they fall out of this more like elite,
Speaker 1: higher class status that we've been able to achieve. So
Speaker 1: I think that's part of it as well. But you know,
Speaker 1: to one thing that I've been thinking about recently is, uh,
Speaker 1: you had a bunch of This is going to seem
Speaker 1: like a real asia.
Speaker 5: But I'll get to how this connects in a minute.
Speaker 1: You've had a bunch of kind of just like regular
Speaker 1: standard issue Democrats who were elected in these Midwestern states
Speaker 1: in Minnesota, Illinois, and Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and typically, and
Speaker 1: they were elected largely on this new democratic coalition that's
Speaker 1: like upper class liberals.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Typically, when this has happened, like when this happened in Virginia,
Speaker 1: there was zero effort to focus on economics. When you
Speaker 1: win based on this coalition ends up all being like
Speaker 1: basically cultural signifier issues. However, in these states, there actually
Speaker 1: has been a push on economics. In Minnesota in particular,
Speaker 1: even though the coalition that elected that governor there and
Speaker 1: Tim Walls was this sort of like affluent, upper middle class,
Speaker 1: college educated constituency. They focused on you know, free school lunches.
Speaker 1: They've actually focused on unions and collective bargaining. They've actually
Speaker 1: focused on I mean, they've done some cultural stuff as well.
Speaker 1: That there's been a major focus on economics that has
Speaker 1: surprised me, and I have sort of work shopping a
Speaker 1: theory that part of that is because this anxiety, this
Speaker 1: like economic anxiety, has really creeped up the economic ladder
Speaker 1: where even if you are a college educated person, especially
Speaker 1: if you're a young college educated person, just coming out
Speaker 1: looking at housing prices, imagining how you're ever going to
Speaker 1: achieve this like, you know, stable middle class life, it
Speaker 1: seems impossible. And so the priorities of that coalition may
Speaker 1: have shifted over the past number of years as housing
Speaker 1: and these things have become really unattainable even for people
Speaker 1: who have that you know, college educated stamp of approval
Speaker 1: credential in their back pocket.
Speaker 5: So I think that might be part of why some of.
Speaker 1: The policies in these states have been better than frankly
Speaker 1: what I expected with like this these standard issue democrats
Speaker 1: elected by an affluent, college educated liberal base.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's possible, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of it has just more around
Speaker 2: their own life, Like you said, class anxiety. Now it's
Speaker 2: not a bad thing if it goes down to everybody else,
Speaker 2: like we will see. But for example, Biden being like,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to raise taxes on anyone over a
Speaker 2: quarter two hundred fifty thousand dollars, and you're like, well,
Speaker 2: Obama said he wouldn't want anyone or sorry, on anyone
Speaker 2: over four hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: Obama said two hundred and fifty. So what happened?
Speaker 2: Where did that come in? It's like, oh, well, a
Speaker 2: lot of those people have turned into Democrats. That's the
Speaker 2: reason why.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well they didn't really end up raising taxes on anybody.
Speaker 1: Well, they as much as I would like them to
Speaker 1: raise taxes on the wealthy, they didn't want a lot
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 2: We're ruling out actually a huge portion of the taxpayer
Speaker 2: funded base. You know, whenever we're talking about two fifty
Speaker 2: to four hundred, that's actually millions of people. Well, the
Speaker 2: change in that is largely because of exactly what we
Speaker 2: were talking about, the change in the Democratic coalition. So
Speaker 2: I think it's one of those where they will only
Speaker 2: do it as.
Speaker 3: Long as it affects them.
Speaker 2: But there are actually a lot of things though, that
Speaker 2: are going to affect the lives of somebody between the
Speaker 2: one seventy five to two hundred to four hundred range
Speaker 2: that if you really wanted to fix a lot, it's
Speaker 2: going to come to them. And will when when things
Speaker 2: do come for them and some of their lifestyle they're
Speaker 2: keeping up with the Jones behavior and all that, will
Speaker 2: their priorities stay the same?
Speaker 3: I don't know, that's a big, big question.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I see it even in like the national
Speaker 1: support for unions, yes, which is at almost historic highs,
Speaker 1: you know, and really is a cross partisan and cross
Speaker 1: you know, strongest certainly among the working class, but even
Speaker 1: has you know, become more cross class. And so of course,
Speaker 1: if you're making two hundred and fifty K, no matter
Speaker 1: where you live in the country, you're doing way better
Speaker 1: than the overwhelming majority of Americans. And like, let's be
Speaker 1: clear about it, you know, I'm not shedding a tear
Speaker 1: for you, but especially with housing costs, I think it
Speaker 1: has made them feel much more precarious than they previously done.
Speaker 1: With education costs too, and health care costs. I mean,
Speaker 1: all these like core middle class items that are so
Speaker 1: essential to having, just like the basics of American treatment,
Speaker 1: becomes so wildly expensive that even people who are making
Speaker 1: really good salaries are still feeling like anxious about whether
Speaker 1: they're going to be able to do this or whether
Speaker 1: they're going to be able to protect it for their kids.
Speaker 1: So anyway, interesting look at a class anxiety and how
Speaker 1: it is spreading very much.
Speaker 3: We'll see you guys.
Speaker 4: Later, all right, So, the Spain women's soccer football team
Speaker 4: won the Women's World Cup and now the head of
Speaker 4: the Spanish football federation, his name is Luis Rubials, has
Speaker 4: found himself in a huge controversy that is not going
Speaker 4: away anytime soon. You'll know why after we play this
Speaker 4: next video, Dar.
Speaker 3: De marab.
Speaker 4: They can Bernal step planet.
Speaker 3: They can Berna step planet.
Speaker 4: You can see him kissing one of the soccer players
Speaker 4: there on the lips. So that's a midfielder, Jennifer Amoso.
Speaker 4: We can put the next tear sheet up on the screen.
Speaker 4: This is from CNN. Now, Rubiali said he made a mistake,
Speaker 4: but he said the kiss was consensual. The woman says
Speaker 4: she did not give her permission and felt violated. Fortunately
Speaker 4: for her, it's on camera and does not seem to
Speaker 4: be consensual at all.
Speaker 6: He's got both his hands on the back of her head.
Speaker 3: What kind of like.
Speaker 4: He's going down the line in the video and doing
Speaker 4: this to all of the women. He's doing it after
Speaker 4: they win the World Cup, so he knows the eyes
Speaker 4: of the world literally are on him. A World Cup,
Speaker 4: there's cameras everywhere. He clearly thinks that he's not doing
Speaker 4: anything wrong. In the moment, does say that he made
Speaker 4: a mistake. Now we can put the next element up
Speaker 4: on the screen here, his mom is on a hunger strike.
Speaker 4: As calls have mounted for his resignation, he's kind of
Speaker 4: making the defense that, like, listen, I made a mistake,
Speaker 4: but is it as bad as you're saying, is that
Speaker 4: I should actually resign? That's his defense. Ryan, you were
Speaker 4: recently in Spain as a tourist to Spain.
Speaker 3: Was what do you make of this?
Speaker 6: I mean, he's trying to ride the backlash to the
Speaker 6: global back flash to the me too movement and say
Speaker 6: that you know it's a witch hunt and you know this.
Speaker 6: I guess he's doing the boys will be boys type
Speaker 6: of thing. I'm trying to imagine in my mind if
Speaker 6: the men's Spanish team won the World Cup, him going
Speaker 6: down the line and planting big wet kisses on all
Speaker 6: the men. I suppose it's remotely within the No, it's not.
Speaker 6: I can't there's I just can't get myself to imagine it.
Speaker 6: Like this is clearly.
Speaker 3: Gendered. It's gross.
Speaker 6: It's like, dude, like, I mean, what are you doing?
Speaker 6: And also this like entitlement to the job. It's like
Speaker 6: you had you had a job that paid really well,
Speaker 6: that that put you at the top of this position,
Speaker 6: and now everybody wants you out of it. So go
Speaker 6: like that, yts just go like you if you want to,
Speaker 6: you know, keep the trust of the people that you're
Speaker 6: in charge of in this job, like you got to
Speaker 6: behave better and you have to win their trust, and
Speaker 6: you didn't.
Speaker 3: You lost it. So go.
Speaker 4: I think that's a good point that he's lost the
Speaker 4: trust of people.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: He gave the speech that sein in accurately characterizes as defiant,
Speaker 4: and if you go watch it, defiant is really the
Speaker 4: right word for it, where he says.
Speaker 3: This is been a room full of like hooting dudes too.
Speaker 4: He says, yeah, he's what he called the quote spontaneous
Speaker 4: mutual euphoric and with consent spontaneous mutual euphoric and with consent.
Speaker 4: Hell of a self defense there, and he says he's
Speaker 4: going to quote fight to the end. As we mentioned earlier,
Speaker 4: his mom feels so struggling about this that she's on
Speaker 4: hunger strike. And I don't want to actually minimize that,
Speaker 4: because there are men who feel like they are bearing
Speaker 4: the brunt of the sort of collective reconsideration of sexual
Speaker 4: norms post sexual revolution. And you know, women mothers have
Speaker 4: to watch their sons in some cases be unfairly maligned
Speaker 4: and smeared for offenses that are, you know, maybe more
Speaker 4: more minor than the media scandal. You know that may
Speaker 4: indeed be wrong, but are sort of more minor than
Speaker 4: the media scandal makes them out to be. This video,
Speaker 4: I think is really interesting because women like get stuff
Speaker 4: like this more common than I think people more commonly
Speaker 4: than people realize.
Speaker 3: And it's and from our current president of the United States.
Speaker 4: Yes, exactly as conservatives lament and criticize them for. And
Speaker 4: it is uncomfortable. And so the fact that it's played
Speaker 4: out in front of the world.
Speaker 3: I think should be a lesson.
Speaker 4: Maybe to to men who grew up in a different
Speaker 4: era when this was probably still uncomfortable for women, although
Speaker 4: those women were, you know, just like incredible generations of
Speaker 4: women who put up with this, uh and you know,
Speaker 4: called it out, but put up with it. And then
Speaker 4: you sort of put on a brave face. And it's
Speaker 4: not to say that they should have to, but it
Speaker 4: is to say that, you know, it's is this the
Speaker 4: same thing as a sexual assault? I don't think so,
Speaker 4: But is it, you know, also uncomfortable in something men
Speaker 4: shouldn't be doing. Yes, So the question of whether it
Speaker 4: rises to a resignation worthy offense, I think Ryan comes
Speaker 4: to the point where it's like, well, you're the head
Speaker 4: of the federation and everyone's like, dude, you blew it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, step down. Yeah.
Speaker 6: And one thing that I think is important to remember
Speaker 6: about the consequences throughout the kind of me too movement
Speaker 6: is that a lot of it correlated with how much
Speaker 6: goodwill people had built up kind of previously. Like if
Speaker 6: you look back at the cases of people who survived
Speaker 6: scandals and people who didn't survive scandals, in almost every
Speaker 6: case it correlates with how much of a jerk you
Speaker 6: were to people, and that and then that corresponded to
Speaker 6: how much kind of benefit of the doubt you gave
Speaker 6: somebody in a murky situation, and if nobody's giving you
Speaker 6: any benefit of the doubt, and then you throw your
Speaker 6: hands on the back of this woman's head, kiss her
Speaker 6: in front of the entire world on the lips. She says,
Speaker 6: she hated it people, and and you've been a jerk
Speaker 6: to people and particularly to women over the years. Then
Speaker 6: people are gonna be like, yeah, I'm with her, like
Speaker 6: because because I believe it, Whereas with with other people
Speaker 6: who survived, you know, allegations, they'd say, m I know,
Speaker 6: you know, that's not who this person is. And then
Speaker 6: let's say they even if they believe the allegation, they
Speaker 6: let's say they made a mistake.
Speaker 3: So they end up coming through it in the end.
Speaker 6: And so what the reaction from so many people who
Speaker 6: know him so well tells me, even though I have
Speaker 6: no evidence, I don't know, never heard of the guy before,
Speaker 6: is that you know he didn't have a whole lot
Speaker 6: of good will going into this.
Speaker 3: Yeah I would. I'd go out on a limb and say that.
Speaker 4: That's probably And you can tell from the women's body language,
Speaker 4: like they kind of lock up some of them do
Speaker 4: when by the way, like some women don't mind this
Speaker 4: and like probably you know, like are willing to just
Speaker 4: like go along, get along, but like they're also in
Speaker 4: this case, it's not just something that happened with like
Speaker 4: a friend at a party. It's their professional implications. He
Speaker 4: has power over this woman, so she's got the eyes
Speaker 4: of the world on her, she knows that she's got
Speaker 4: rows of cameras behind her, and gets sort of grabbed
Speaker 4: by this guy who has some power over her on
Speaker 4: national TV. She can't do what a lot of women
Speaker 4: would do, or she probably feels less able to do
Speaker 4: what a lot of women would do, just push them
Speaker 4: back and be like hey, man, cut it out, or
Speaker 4: even playfully to do that, Like you don't want to
Speaker 4: do that to someone who has power over you. There's
Speaker 4: no incentive to do that to someone who's power over you,
Speaker 4: even though the world probably would have rallied behind her,
Speaker 4: That's not what your brain is telling you in the
Speaker 4: moment when you know your ability to continue on this
Speaker 4: team doing what you love, making money, you know, providing
Speaker 4: for yourself and potentially your family is on the line
Speaker 4: because you could be embarrassing this DUDEO has power over
Speaker 4: you on TV. There's no incentive to do that. So
Speaker 4: it's not just like a typical social either. It's like
Speaker 4: it's a pretty inappropriate thing to do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and don't be a jerk.
Speaker 4: And nobody has mentioned the Cuomo defense where he's like,
Speaker 4: it's just I'm Italian, like nobody is, okay.
Speaker 3: Spanish, I'm Spanish.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like what what's a big deal? All right? Well,
Speaker 4: I didn't realize Ryan that you were nine avid football fan.
Speaker 3: No, no, not really.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's why we have we both have baseballs behind
Speaker 4: us if people haven't mentioned that we both when when
Speaker 4: Sager and Crystal were telling us what to stock on
Speaker 4: the shelves, both of us independently without.
Speaker 6: Talking at school. Never really liked it that much. I
Speaker 6: love I did solve the Catalan independence issue when I
Speaker 6: was in Spain.
Speaker 3: Really do they know that? The Cats? They don't know yet.
Speaker 6: Here I'll tell you how I solved it, Okay. Also,
Speaker 6: this is an incredible story. Yes, and we're over eight minutes,
Speaker 6: but I'll tell it anyway.
Speaker 4: We don't care.
Speaker 6: So the span the Spanish, So the Spanish elections like
Speaker 6: a month ago or whatever, everybody expected the right wing
Speaker 6: was gonna win. They fell just short forty eight percent
Speaker 6: or something like that, so they don't have enough to
Speaker 6: take power, so they need to form a coalition. Back
Speaker 6: in twenty seventeen, you remember this, the Catalan kind of
Speaker 6: independence movement held its own referendum where they were going
Speaker 6: to have a vote and then they were just going
Speaker 6: to declare independence. Catalan is Barcelona, it's the kind of
Speaker 6: Mediterranean area area around there, and it was illegal and
Speaker 6: the police came in, beat up a bunch of people,
Speaker 6: arrested most of the leadership of the Catalan independence movement,
Speaker 6: and the head of that movement escaped. They didn't like
Speaker 6: he was going from like safe house to safe house,
Speaker 6: got across the border into France, and he's now in Switzerland.
Speaker 6: He's been in exile for the last six years.
Speaker 3: The right has.
Speaker 6: Forty eight percent, Left's got less than fifty percent. The
Speaker 6: Catalan Independence Party is now the kingmaker, and so whoever
Speaker 6: they form a coalition with becomes the government in Spain.
Speaker 6: Who are they negotiating with the fugitive in Switzerland. You
Speaker 6: could not write a better story than this. So he
Speaker 6: is currently negotiating with both sides and he's trying to
Speaker 6: get a legal vote, legal referendum, and then other things
Speaker 6: that the Catalan independence crowd wants. Here's how you solve
Speaker 6: the here's how you solve this. You drive around Europe.
Speaker 6: There's no borders, just how you like it.
Speaker 3: No borders. Everybody uses the EURO. I mean there's EU borders.
Speaker 6: Right, I mean, if you drive into the sea, you're
Speaker 6: going to get into a border. But it's like, what
Speaker 6: do you mean you want independence? Like, you're still going
Speaker 6: to use the Euro, You're still going to be within
Speaker 6: the EU. What they really mean is they want their
Speaker 6: language to be respect of their culture, and they don't
Speaker 6: want to subsidize what they think of as all these
Speaker 6: lazy Spaniards, Like they hate that they that they are
Speaker 6: the kind of economic engine of Spain and that they
Speaker 6: you know, the same way that New York hates that
Speaker 6: they have to subsidize.
Speaker 3: Ohio or whatever.
Speaker 6: And so what you can do is say, all right, fine,
Speaker 6: you don't have to pay anything to Spain. You can
Speaker 6: have your independence, but whatever the current tax revenue structure is,
Speaker 6: you got to pay that to the EU. Then the
Speaker 6: EU is going to kick it back to Spain and
Speaker 6: then you have your independence, get your own country, your
Speaker 6: own flag, your own language, all that stuff, and I
Speaker 6: think that they would reject it, yes, and that which
Speaker 6: shows they don't really want it, like they if if
Speaker 6: you're not willing to pay a little bit higher taxes
Speaker 6: to have independence, then you don't actually want it, and
Speaker 6: you're just play acting like pretending that you want it.
Speaker 6: And I am certain the cat and Penance Party doesn't
Speaker 6: want it, because then what.
Speaker 5: Are they like?
Speaker 6: They're nobody's at that point, because they're actually a pretty
Speaker 6: conservative bests. They're a pretty conservative party, but the Catalans
Speaker 6: themselves are pretty progressive, and so the only reason that
Speaker 6: they win votes in Catalan is because they support independence
Speaker 6: alliance right and so as soon as they have, they're
Speaker 6: no longer going to support this like right wing Catholic
Speaker 6: party anymore.
Speaker 3: They're going to support it progressive.
Speaker 4: I love to think sometimes that Sacer and Crystal are like,
Speaker 4: let's check in on Counterpoints.
Speaker 5: They click on a.
Speaker 4: Segment about Spanish soccer, they tune into Ryan solving the
Speaker 4: problem of Catalan.
Speaker 6: Nothing more American than like driving into Spain for a
Speaker 6: couple of days.
Speaker 3: Having some time away with the solutions.
Speaker 6: Solving the Catalan independence crisis.
Speaker 4: Well, stay tuned because if Ryan does indeed turn out
Speaker 4: to have solved this problem, we'll we'll surely bring.
Speaker 6: Up but they can't because these are cynical people who
Speaker 6: don't actually want to.
Speaker 3: Solve the problem.
Speaker 4: So well, either way, regardless, we'll keep you updated on
Speaker 4: the situation if as Ryan's negotiations proceed.
Speaker 1: So as the writer's strike in particular, but also the
Speaker 1: actors strike, by the way drags on, some of the
Speaker 1: late night hosts have gotten together to launch their own podcast,
Speaker 1: and it is for the worthy cause. Is supposed to
Speaker 1: go to the strike fund for their writers. It's called
Speaker 1: Strike Force five and it's Jimmy Fallon, John Oliver, Jimmy Kimmel,
Speaker 1: Stephen Colbert, and Seth Myers.
Speaker 5: Let's take a look at their little teaser here one
Speaker 5: more time.
Speaker 3: Jimmy, Yeah, Hi, I'm Jimmy Fallon, I'm Stephen Colbert, I'm
Speaker 3: Jimmy Kimmel. I thought when you said Jimmy, you meant
Speaker 3: me Jimmy, But you meant Jimmy, jim.
Speaker 6: I always mean you.
Speaker 3: But when you always be Seth Meyers, who do you mean?
Speaker 3: I mean John Oliver. It's the five of us together
Speaker 3: for maybe an hour a day. Strike Force five is
Speaker 3: the name of our podcast. Subscribe to it.
Speaker 2: Now, Spotify or wherever else you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3: But Spotify, you focks. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: So I cannot really recommend the content which I did watch.
Speaker 1: Listen to the first episode, half of the first episode yesterday.
Speaker 1: It's not that great. It's a little cringey. But I
Speaker 1: do appreciate the solidarity with the writers.
Speaker 3: Okay, sure, that's great. With this is great? Is we
Speaker 3: need Dan the strike now?
Speaker 2: We need this podcast as soon as humanly possible. I
Speaker 2: am personally begging Bob Iger and all the other studio
Speaker 2: executives just give them whatever they want. Put these people
Speaker 2: back on network television so they can remain irrelevant or
Speaker 2: whatever on the spaces that they fill there.
Speaker 3: Let the people get paid. That all need to get paid.
Speaker 2: Let's just end s abomination as soon as humanly possible.
Speaker 2: You were get to get something, though, Crystal, when we
Speaker 2: were talking beforehand, which is the lack of you know,
Speaker 2: it's shocking actually to think about the medium of late
Speaker 2: night TV as the original comedy venue, especially in an
Speaker 2: age of YouTube where it's like it's just not funny,
Speaker 2: like and a lot of these guys on themselves. And
Speaker 2: I don't know what it is, because clearly they had
Speaker 2: to have some level of talent to get where they were.
Speaker 2: I wonder if it's because the writers are actually doing
Speaker 2: all their jokes. I wonder if it's just that they're old,
Speaker 2: like out of touch. I wonder if it's just that
Speaker 2: the authentic comedy on YouTube is just so much better
Speaker 2: than anything you can find in a network environment.
Speaker 3: But it is just so shocking to me to like see.
Speaker 2: This exist in the age of I mean, there's so
Speaker 2: many great comedians who are out there right now, are
Speaker 2: putting and dropping specials out fifteen thirty minute or whatever
Speaker 2: sets which will have you double over in laughter that
Speaker 2: you can watch for free. And then to see these
Speaker 2: guys are probably better paid than every single one of
Speaker 2: them even knows whatever they're strike for. And it's great
Speaker 2: once again, any conversation they're getting to strikers, I think
Speaker 2: that's awesome. But the fact that it even exists in
Speaker 2: the first place is just really odd. I find it weird.
Speaker 1: The thing that is interesting to me is, you know,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of comedy was kind of broken
Speaker 1: by the Trump era. You know, a lot of the
Speaker 1: like the liberal resistance comedy which becomes kind of tired
Speaker 1: and whatever like it. It doesn't land with me, right,
Speaker 1: just in terms of being funny. I mean, Stephen.
Speaker 5: Colbert on The Colbert Reports to be so good.
Speaker 1: It was genuinely hilarious, groundbreaking, unique, his you know, roasting
Speaker 1: of George W.
Speaker 5: Bush's legendary, all of that stuff.
Speaker 1: But also I'm thinking about the fact that all five
Speaker 1: of these they're sort of they're made for that made
Speaker 1: for TV late night era, and now they're trying to
Speaker 1: do a medium that they're just not really geared for
Speaker 1: and in the product it shows.
Speaker 5: And then I mean it's also.
Speaker 1: Just these are all people who are used to being
Speaker 1: the guy and you put them together and it just
Speaker 1: doesn't totally Mesh doesn't totally jealous the first show. We'll
Speaker 1: give them some time, maybe it comes together, et cetera.
Speaker 1: But it's very clear, and they, to their credit, make
Speaker 1: this joke in the first episode. It's clear that those
Speaker 1: writers are important. It's clear that they need the writers.
Speaker 1: They need them back because it's not the same without
Speaker 1: the producing and the scripting and the things that they
Speaker 1: need to have their shows be.
Speaker 3: Where they are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, look, like I said this, is just the
Speaker 2: clear sign. Yet we need to end the strike, give
Speaker 2: the writers whatever they want, return them from whence they came,
Speaker 2: and end this. And this assumes as possible, although unfortunately
Speaker 2: it doesn't acually look like any of that is going
Speaker 2: to happen, and this is probably gonna go yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's no no sign that you know, that
Speaker 1: it's coming to any sort of amicable cloths here. The
Speaker 1: studios have made good on their promises to let writers
Speaker 1: go homeless. I mean, I actually am seeing reports now
Speaker 1: that what they said they were willing to do, which
Speaker 1: was you know, coming out and telling journalists that, hey,
Speaker 1: our plan is to let this drag on until people
Speaker 1: start losing their homes and start becoming homeless, and then
Speaker 1: we'll try to you know, get a bad deal out
Speaker 1: of them instead of coming at this, you know, with
Speaker 1: a place where they're at a place to strength that
Speaker 1: that's happening now. People are losing their homes, they're getting
Speaker 1: kicked out of their apartments, et cetera as this drags on.
Speaker 1: So it's incredibly disgraceful. The future of that industry, the
Speaker 1: future of Hollywood is you know, really at stake, the
Speaker 1: future of AI and the use of chatbots to write
Speaker 1: initial drafts of script and basically stript writers of their
Speaker 1: livelihood like that is all at stakes, So let's not
Speaker 1: lose sight of that these fights are incredibly real, not
Speaker 1: just for Hollywood and for our favorite shows, whether these
Speaker 1: are your favorite shows, not just for Hollywood in our
Speaker 1: favorite shows, but really for a lot of workers.
Speaker 5: Across the country.
Speaker 2: If they take the last of us for away from me,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna riot.
Speaker 3: I'm absolutely gonna ride it. Okay, guys, we'll see you later.
Speaker 4: Mhm.