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.
Speaker 2: We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade
Speaker 2: the studio ad staff give you, guys, the best independent coverage.
Speaker 3: That is possible.
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. I rarely am speecial shrine,
Speaker 2: but that's how I felt when I saw this.
Speaker 3: Let's go ahead, put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Holmes is being rehabilitated by The New York Times
Speaker 2: in a fawning new profile which is so humiliating that
Speaker 2: they even acknowledge it.
Speaker 3: In the story.
Speaker 2: They say, I was admittedly swept up in Liz as
Speaker 2: an authentic and sympathetic person's and charismatic in a quiet way.
Speaker 2: My editor laughed at me when I shared these impressions, telling.
Speaker 3: Me Amy, you got rolled.
Speaker 2: The headline of the piece, Ryan is the black turtlenecks
Speaker 2: are gone, so is the voice. As the convicted there
Speaker 2: and was founder awaits prison, she has adopted a new
Speaker 2: persona devoted mother. Liz Holmes wants you to forget about Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: I mean, what did you make of this crap where
Speaker 2: basically they want to say like, oh, she's a mom,
Speaker 2: and all this erasing the fact that billions of dollars
Speaker 2: were stolen from investors and worse, as I always say,
Speaker 2: she actually sold this technology knowing it wouldn't work to
Speaker 2: Walgreens and people were misdiagnosed based on her fake blood technology,
Speaker 2: some of whom suffered severe health events as a result
Speaker 2: of her BS diagnosis. So that is, to me, the
Speaker 2: most unforgivable crime of this entire thing. But give me
Speaker 2: your impressions of this ridiculous.
Speaker 4: And I think there's nothing wrong with doing a profile
Speaker 4: of I would love to talk to if you if
Speaker 4: you can get that, But then you also interview a
Speaker 4: bunch of people about what it takes to be a.
Speaker 3: Sociopath in this world exactly like, because.
Speaker 4: It appears from everything that she was doing in her
Speaker 4: business world like some type of a sociopath.
Speaker 3: Great parcisss, no question.
Speaker 4: The fact that she's now admitting that she faked that
Speaker 4: entire voice is so disturbing that I think it could
Speaker 4: make for some deep psychological explorations.
Speaker 3: Oh, I would love to talk to her one on one.
Speaker 2: I'd be like, so, you know, how do you do
Speaker 2: Do you have any remorse whatsoever about those people?
Speaker 5: How do you feel about it? What about people?
Speaker 4: At what point did you realize that people are going
Speaker 4: to be getting wrong diagnoses? And you continued forward anyway
Speaker 4: because you just thought that you could keep juggling it.
Speaker 5: And then eventually are.
Speaker 2: You at peace with that? When you post for cameras
Speaker 2: with your two little kids? How do you live with
Speaker 2: I'd be like, how do you live with yourself?
Speaker 5: Could have been great.
Speaker 4: Instead, it takes the celebrity profile form and applies it
Speaker 4: to this. Everybody has, you know, read a good Vanity
Speaker 4: Fair profile of you know where, where an author spends
Speaker 4: like a day or an afternoon with the celebrity, writes
Speaker 4: a couple of witty lines. We read it in the
Speaker 4: airport everybody everybody has fun and we all go.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 5: I was just fun.
Speaker 3: I was telling you I just read a profile of
Speaker 3: Tom Hanks. It was nice. Tom Hanks a nice guy.
Speaker 2: I don't really think about it, but I was like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, Tom, real stand up.
Speaker 3: Guy, loves time writers. That's cool killed. That's not the
Speaker 3: same thing.
Speaker 5: Right, killed twenty minutes. Everybody's happy they bring that to
Speaker 5: this is sociopath.
Speaker 4: So like the most celebrity profile line probably in the
Speaker 4: whole piece, but the whole piece is in that form.
Speaker 4: Amy Choseck writes, and we'll talk about who Amy Choseick
Speaker 4: is in one second. She writes, So to just say it,
Speaker 4: MS Holmes knows what you're thinking about her trial and
Speaker 4: the birth of her two babies. And what she's referring
Speaker 4: to there in that under that subtle way is the
Speaker 4: fact that she had these two kids in the middle
Speaker 4: of the sentencing in the trial. Yes, that everybody assumes
Speaker 4: like she had these kids in order to try to
Speaker 4: get out of prison.
Speaker 2: It's obviously true she used her pregnancy as a shield
Speaker 2: at trial for sympathy.
Speaker 3: It's so transparent.
Speaker 2: How do you not ask her that, not even ask
Speaker 2: her press her on that directly.
Speaker 3: It's just it's so absurd.
Speaker 4: And so the other interesting part is the identity of
Speaker 4: this reporter, so Amy Choseick, who has mostly gone away
Speaker 4: since twenty sixteen. It feels like she was the beat
Speaker 4: reporter who was assigned to cover for the New York Times.
Speaker 4: The Hillary Clinton campaign in twenty fifteen twenty sixteen, and
Speaker 4: her quite soft coverage of her, I think helped produce
Speaker 4: some of the delusions that the campaign operated under in
Speaker 4: a self destructive way. So this kind of soft coverage
Speaker 4: that you do doesn't, in the end, often end up
Speaker 4: helping the person that you think it's helping, because it
Speaker 4: prevents them from then actually doing the self reflection that
Speaker 4: would be necessary to correct what's going wrong here. Now,
Speaker 4: kudos to Liz Holmes, she's now Liz. She doesn't wear
Speaker 4: the black turtlenecks, she doesn't have a deep voice anymore.
Speaker 4: Kudos that are forgetting this coverage in the Times. But
Speaker 4: I don't think it's going to be enough because all
Speaker 4: it did is kind of lump Amy Chosick and the
Speaker 4: Times in with her rather than I think actually rebuilt
Speaker 4: it because people can use their own common sense, Like
Speaker 4: you've got rolled.
Speaker 5: Just like your editor.
Speaker 3: Said, people read it. We're we're not exaggerating.
Speaker 2: Still can't even be incredible, Just an incredible moment where
Speaker 2: Tim Dillon had on two little Biden TikTok stars clearly
Speaker 2: who have been They claim they're not being paid, but
Speaker 2: of course they're attached to some sort of agency tim
Speaker 2: doing the lord's work, I guess having them on and
Speaker 2: interviewing them about their process, which resulted in one of
Speaker 2: the best clips that I've.
Speaker 3: Ever seen yet. Regarding these guys, let's take a listen.
Speaker 6: It's actually really hard in the space, right, Like we
Speaker 6: have like forty five seconds to record a video keep
Speaker 6: Moole's attention, and a lot of the people on our side,
Speaker 6: like if they start hearing like I've actually done it before,
Speaker 6: I've I've criticized like Democrats, like specifically hicken Jeffreys, and
Speaker 6: it all just went south. I started losing followers, Like
Speaker 6: it's bad, right, and I really want to be that
Speaker 6: person that like reaches the other side because Democrats, I mean,
Speaker 6: they're horrible at their jobs, right, They do a lot
Speaker 6: of shitty things, although I'll vote for them all the time.
Speaker 3: But it's also hard in the space to Criticiz's sore good.
Speaker 5: Can we clip that quote?
Speaker 3: They're hard? Please?
Speaker 6: Please don't please don't please don't click that please no, no, no, please.
Speaker 3: Please don't clip please don't clip that. Whatever I criticize
Speaker 3: it when people get.
Speaker 2: Mad, that's a definition of propaganda and not of providing
Speaker 2: honest analysis. I mean, look, to be fair, these guys
Speaker 2: probably they're so young they probably don't even really realize
Speaker 2: like what they're caught up in. But I think one
Speaker 2: of the things that you mature and realize Ryan is
Speaker 2: I'm sure you've had and I have many times, is
Speaker 2: that pissing people off is actually a key part of
Speaker 2: the job if you want to remain intellectually honest throughout
Speaker 2: the period. Because I have been in the melee of
Speaker 2: some big social events and stuff, and you got to
Speaker 2: stick to your guns man, and sometimes it works out.
Speaker 3: Sometimes you look like a fool, and then you think
Speaker 3: about that.
Speaker 2: In retrospect, and you said, you know what, it was
Speaker 2: a little bit too hot in the way that I
Speaker 2: was thinking and talking about this and this time around,
Speaker 2: because I remember exactly what was going on with that.
Speaker 2: You know, at this time, I'm going to do this,
Speaker 2: and then by doing that, you end up pissing people
Speaker 2: off who would demand like loyalty and fealty from you,
Speaker 2: when in reality, what you realize over time is you
Speaker 2: got to try and stay true to yourself, but beyond that,
Speaker 2: you have to always try and say what you believe
Speaker 2: and explain it in a cosion and thoughtful process and
Speaker 2: trust that people will stick with you through it, and
Speaker 2: if they don't, you have to come to the conclusion
Speaker 2: it's on you and it's not on me.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And from the post World War two on, corporate capture
Speaker 4: was the big risk when it came to media and
Speaker 4: to anchors and reporters and editors not being honest with
Speaker 4: their audience because it would run up against the corporate
Speaker 4: interests of the people that financed their entire operations manufacturing
Speaker 4: consent well tried terrain. What is becoming a big problem
Speaker 4: now is audience capture and those kids are a perfect
Speaker 4: example of it. That they are afraid to say what
Speaker 4: they believe, which is that a Keem Jeffries might not
Speaker 4: be the most wonderful person on the planet. But if
Speaker 4: they say that, all of a sudden, it all falls
Speaker 4: apart as they start losing followers. It's what I love
Speaker 4: about this format you have because we have and we
Speaker 4: don't have a monolithic audience.
Speaker 5: We don't have one hegemonic group.
Speaker 2: We've got white people all over, people all over, literally
Speaker 2: all over, and you really see it, especially when we
Speaker 2: do in person events. It's so crazy. I remember the
Speaker 2: first time we did a real student loan debate, it
Speaker 2: was genuinely fifty to fifty and it's just so validating
Speaker 2: to be.
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, people really are you know all walks of life.
Speaker 3: Watch the show. Probably the thing that Chrystal and I
Speaker 3: are the most proud here.
Speaker 5: And I love pissing people off.
Speaker 3: Yeah it's fun, but that's the other thing.
Speaker 4: People forget, right, But if the audience all felt one way,
Speaker 4: I could love pissing them off all they want, but like,
Speaker 4: at the end of the day, you're not going to
Speaker 4: be able to survive that if your entire audience like
Speaker 4: disagrees with you. And so there is that audience capture
Speaker 4: that you just if you cultivate an audience that believes
Speaker 4: just one thing, like democrats are amazing and hikeem Jefferies
Speaker 4: is going to lead them to the promised Land.
Speaker 5: You just have to keep saying that you're not independent.
Speaker 4: And too many people to describe themselves as independent today
Speaker 4: when they are not actually independent of their audience.
Speaker 3: That's smart, that's a good way of putting it.
Speaker 2: I you know, I think about all the time I
Speaker 2: shared a career before we took a big hit, A
Speaker 2: lot of people cancel their previous descriptions during the withdrawal
Speaker 2: from Afghanistan, and Chris and I looked at each other
Speaker 2: and we were like, we're not going to change a
Speaker 2: damn thing.
Speaker 3: We're just going to keep going.
Speaker 2: And actually it was vindicating because in the long run
Speaker 2: we got more by being staying true to who we
Speaker 2: were we would have, you know, business wise, you could
Speaker 2: see how we're like, oh, we got to you know,
Speaker 2: make sure that we said no. They said, we believe this.
Speaker 2: Being anti war is core to the things that we believe.
Speaker 2: If we make less money as a business, so be it.
Speaker 2: And again, I think it worked out actually in the
Speaker 2: long run. But you know, I know a lot of
Speaker 2: people in the business.
Speaker 3: They would take an opposite move.
Speaker 5: They really would.
Speaker 2: And yeah, so you got to remain true to yourself.
Speaker 2: That's what I would say to these kids. You're twenty
Speaker 2: years old. You probably cringe of that clip in a
Speaker 2: few years.
Speaker 3: And that's okay. I cringe every time I watch all
Speaker 3: the clip hit me.
Speaker 5: Too, and it's not just YouTubers.
Speaker 4: Fox News after the November election did not believe that
Speaker 4: the election had been stolen, but started seeing audience bleeding
Speaker 4: out to Newsmax and these other places, and the orders
Speaker 4: came down we need to play foot seat with this
Speaker 4: stuff because they were They had become captured by their
Speaker 4: audience and had no choice.
Speaker 3: Smart as everyone who watched this show knows. I love history.
Speaker 2: So I hear there's a new Cleopatra thing coming, I say, oh,
Speaker 2: great Cleopatra. What a fascinating era, the Macedonian Age, the declining,
Speaker 2: you know, intersections with the Rome. We've had all those
Speaker 2: famous the mark antony and stuff. I said, maybe that'll
Speaker 2: get into it. But then it turns out the controversy
Speaker 2: euroups because let's put this up there all the screen.
Speaker 2: Netflix's new Cleopatra slash historical series cast Cleopatra as black. Now,
Speaker 2: I personally had never thought about it. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: it's a little wit weird, but it has caused enormous
Speaker 2: consternation actually in Egypt, because the Egyptians say that cast
Speaker 2: and I'm not just saying the Egyptians, I'm talking about
Speaker 2: the Egyptian government is calling out the United States and
Speaker 2: Netflix for casting a black actress to play Cleopatra. They
Speaker 2: claim that they are falsifying Egyptian hit. We are falsifying
Speaker 2: Egyptian history. We are desecrating their heritage, their government, their antiquity,
Speaker 2: their overall history, that is not accurate and not true,
Speaker 2: which has now caused Ryan a great study into what
Speaker 2: was Cleopatra. It turns out, you know, that from three
Speaker 2: point twenty three BC, we don't actually have a particularly
Speaker 2: good view into what the racial what the makeup was
Speaker 2: of some of these figures. It's like Jesus, you know,
Speaker 2: we don't actually know all that much about either. Some
Speaker 2: accounts to say this to some accounts that say that, well,
Speaker 2: same thing apparently is true of Cleopatra. The general consensus
Speaker 2: is that she had Persian ancestry of some kind. We
Speaker 2: know that she was, you know Ptolemy, the Ptolemy Ptolemaic dynasty,
Speaker 2: That she had Persian ancestry of some kind, that she
Speaker 2: possibly had some intermingling ancestry involving slaves, but that to
Speaker 2: be a noble woman or whatever at that time very
Speaker 2: likely had the hue of what you would you know
Speaker 2: that you would relate Egyptian person who's not black to
Speaker 2: be Okay. So that's the general historical consensus according to
Speaker 2: the Egyptians too. Okay, but again, you know, we don't
Speaker 2: technically know, well, this then what I love this is
Speaker 2: that this is peak Westerners in like putting their own
Speaker 2: bs on to other cultures and then finding out that
Speaker 2: other cultures don't actually agree with us at all and
Speaker 2: actually get very angry. And it resulted in this New
Speaker 2: York Times op ed that we showed you fear of
Speaker 2: a black Cleopatra.
Speaker 3: Now, this was by an associate.
Speaker 2: Professor of philosophy at the University of Missouri and doctor Gilbert,
Speaker 2: an assistant professor of classics at Mississippi State University. This
Speaker 2: op ed is probably best noted as what actual.
Speaker 3: Critical race theory looks like.
Speaker 2: If people want to know critical race theory, they're always like, well,
Speaker 2: that's a graduate level.
Speaker 3: This is a pretty good view into what it is.
Speaker 2: And our friend Richard Hannania actually flagged for me my
Speaker 2: favorite part.
Speaker 3: Let's put it up there on the screen, they say.
Speaker 5: Quote.
Speaker 2: Netflix's casting was informed by the views of Shelley Haley,
Speaker 2: who claims that, although evidence of her ancestry and physical
Speaker 2: attributes are inconclusive, Cleopatra was culturally black.
Speaker 3: And so what does that remind you of? Ryan?
Speaker 2: That reminds me of Rachel Dolezoll And so as Richard
Speaker 2: so aptly puts it there. They basically are saying that
Speaker 2: Cleopatra is the ancient Rachel Dolezoal, which is certainly something.
Speaker 3: So I'm curious what you make of this entire thing.
Speaker 5: Well, it's absurd, it's incorrect.
Speaker 3: That's just wrong.
Speaker 4: There was no such thing as black in Egyptian culture
Speaker 4: at that time, not until later.
Speaker 5: Therefore, you can't be culturally black. It's just false. Now,
Speaker 5: I was.
Speaker 4: Doing some research to get ready for this segment, and
Speaker 4: I looked into another historical drama called Hamilton and what
Speaker 4: I have done.
Speaker 3: Great show, by the way.
Speaker 4: And I have uncovered a couple of disturbing facts. One
Speaker 4: is that George Washington was a character in the drama
Speaker 4: Hamilton played black.
Speaker 5: Was not black. He's white. Did you know that?
Speaker 4: George Washington went, I did not know that something, Aaron
Speaker 4: Burr Ah, So what right? Hamilton, despite being born in
Speaker 4: the Caribbean, also white, also white?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 4: So I think we're gonna need a pretty like serious
Speaker 4: run of corrections in the way that they portrayed.
Speaker 2: I actually think this is a fair point, which is
Speaker 2: who cares it all? The only reason I think is
Speaker 2: funny is because of the whole ancient Regil doles all thing,
Speaker 2: and I don't know why they just didn't do what
Speaker 2: Hamilton did. The guy was his name lin Manua Miranda.
Speaker 2: The way he wrote Hamilton, his explanation was, it's America
Speaker 2: before told by America.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, cool, And I was like whatever, you're
Speaker 2: the artist, yeah, yeah, he's like your show. By the way,
Speaker 2: it's a great show. I actually recommend people go and
Speaker 2: watch it. I know it sounds cringe, but genuinely is
Speaker 2: a great show. The songs are fantastic, so it's fun.
Speaker 2: It's we're captivating for two and a half hours.
Speaker 3: And the theater is also much smaller than you would expect.
Speaker 2: You know, when you're there, it felt much more theater
Speaker 2: into It's a lot of fun. Actually, my point, my
Speaker 2: point being, there's a way to do that and just
Speaker 2: be like, yeah, it's not you know, it's sort of
Speaker 2: but but And I think this is where in America,
Speaker 2: I think the idea of a heterogeneous alti racial society
Speaker 2: is much more baked into kind of who we are, whereas.
Speaker 3: In Egypt not so much.
Speaker 2: And that was part of the problem is that they
Speaker 2: were then trying to basically Western explain like American explain
Speaker 2: Egyptian culture to Egyptians, and they were like, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: We're not going to be handling this.
Speaker 3: So it's caused a global freak.
Speaker 2: I think they might actually ban it in Egypt exactly,
Speaker 2: which is actually a whole other you know, like who cares, guys, come.
Speaker 4: On, yeah, and I think most people know the barstool
Speaker 4: history of the production of race as a thing. But
Speaker 4: if people don't, you know, it comes from mostly you know,
Speaker 4: South America and the Caribbean after the Spanish and then
Speaker 4: other European colonists came, and it was a way to
Speaker 4: basically implant a hierarchy because you had people who were
Speaker 4: born so you had you know, the highest, the highest
Speaker 4: in the heart hierarchy are Europeans born in Europe who
Speaker 4: have then come over to South America or to the Caribbean.
Speaker 4: Then below that you have Europeans who are born in
Speaker 4: South America and in the Caribbean. But then they have
Speaker 4: their own pride because they're born there and they're calling
Speaker 4: themselves kind of native to this land.
Speaker 5: But then you have intermingling.
Speaker 4: Mestizo mestizo and like you have if you go to
Speaker 4: say Haiti or so there's something like fifteen different lists
Speaker 4: of like all right, if you have you know, one grandfather,
Speaker 4: that's this one, and they became legal. Now, the Haitians
Speaker 4: banned that and tossed it after the revolution.
Speaker 5: But that's kind of where.
Speaker 3: I was about to say.
Speaker 2: I actually recommend Dan Carlin has a series on Haiti
Speaker 2: and the racial obsessiveness. It makes me vomit when I
Speaker 2: listened to it, because you're exactly right. Everything was ordered
Speaker 2: by drops of blood. Like they'd be like, oh, that's
Speaker 2: an octoroon, as in you have one eighth one eighth.
Speaker 3: Of black blood.
Speaker 2: Then they're like, no, that's a quadroon, as in you
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, this is reading. It is literally repulsive
Speaker 2: because that's not only the way that their society was ordered,
Speaker 2: it was the way that money was distributed, and it
Speaker 2: was the way through which power and all of that worked,
Speaker 2: which all was obviously on top of the most horrific
Speaker 2: conditions of slavery literally in the entire world at the time,
Speaker 2: which led to the revolution. What was the name toussa
Speaker 2: I forget, Yeah, the name of the it's like the
Speaker 2: Haitian George Washington, he was.
Speaker 4: Just celebrated in France McCrone went to the prison where
Speaker 4: he died in France.
Speaker 3: Really yeah, oh that's interesting.
Speaker 5: Napoleon went and got him, that's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which, actually that's kind of precipitated. Why the Napoleon
Speaker 2: didn't want anything to do with the American colonies Louisiana purchased.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of our own history actually intertwined with that.
Speaker 2: And you're right, I'm glad that you brought that up,
Speaker 2: which is that the way that we think about race
Speaker 2: today is much more a byproduct of the repulsive historical
Speaker 2: legacy of the Spanish and Spanish Spanish and Portugal African
Speaker 2: slave trade than anything that happened, you know, two three thousand.
Speaker 4: If you like, the More of Venice is nobody in
Speaker 4: the play considers the More to be racially inferior.
Speaker 3: Ott point, Yeah, that's true. I haven't thought about that.
Speaker 3: But right around that age of Spanish American.
Speaker 4: People understood that some people had different skin colors, but
Speaker 4: that's not how they judged people. It was more Now,
Speaker 4: there was plenty of tribalism, and you and you might, like,
Speaker 4: you know, have tribalist ideas about the Persians or about
Speaker 4: the Egyptians, but it wasn't. It only became codified by
Speaker 4: skin color thanks to the colonialists over here in the
Speaker 4: North and South America.
Speaker 3: Well, shout out to them. I guess, I guess they're gone.
Speaker 3: I'm glad we're gone.
Speaker 5: But that's why the Egyptians like, what are you talking about?
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Egyptians are like, we don't, we don't do
Speaker 3: this over here. Okay, all right, we'll see you guys later.
Speaker 2: Senator Dianne Feinstein returned to Washington after a three and
Speaker 2: a half month absence. She had missed a lot of votes, Ryan,
Speaker 2: Everyone hoped that she was in good health. And look,
Speaker 2: I want to say this at the top, As I've
Speaker 2: said here many times, I got nothing but compassion for
Speaker 2: elderly people who are in the last days of their lives,
Speaker 2: nothing who are private citizens. But I have nothing but
Speaker 2: discussed for narcissists who are unable to do their jobs,
Speaker 2: who continue to cling onto power. And the photo I'm
Speaker 2: about to show you is genuinely disturbing. This is what
Speaker 2: Senator Feinstein looked like when she got out of the
Speaker 2: car after arriving in Washington.
Speaker 3: I mean, what are we doing here?
Speaker 2: Ryan?
Speaker 3: And this is someone who I mean, she literally.
Speaker 2: Looks like like this, like days away, Like the Queen
Speaker 2: looked better two days before she died.
Speaker 4: If you coupled that image with either an indication or
Speaker 4: even reports of a crisp.
Speaker 2: Mind, yeah, sure, and you'd be like okay, as in,
Speaker 2: she can get better. I don't think so, not looking
Speaker 2: at that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like this whole get well soon. The person has dementia.
Speaker 4: Now she's also suffering with shingles, which is extraordinarily painful.
Speaker 3: Feel very bad for her. I'm like, please retire.
Speaker 2: You have two hundred million dollars, Go sit in a
Speaker 2: in a palace in a wine country and be surrounded
Speaker 2: by your loved ones.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And what makes it doubly important is that she sits
Speaker 4: on the Juiciary Committee exactly, which can't move judicial nominees
Speaker 4: like the one thing that the Biden administration can still
Speaker 4: do unilatterly, because they control the Senate, make nominees the
Speaker 4: executive branch into the jugitial branch, moving through the Juitiary,
Speaker 4: moving through the floor of the Senate. Republicans can't stop
Speaker 4: them because Feinstein's not there on the on the Juiciary Committee,
Speaker 4: everything has been just ground to a halt, and it
Speaker 4: brings to mind for so many people. Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
Speaker 4: who launched you know, an entire girl Boss campaigns in
Speaker 4: twenty eleven twelve thirteen to push back on the pressure
Speaker 4: for her and Bryer to step down as successfully so,
Speaker 4: and as a result, I wound up flip the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and very likely making sure that roe versus Wade
Speaker 2: was over. I actually fully believe that if it had
Speaker 2: been five to four that Roberts would not have fully
Speaker 2: overturned over Suaede. I think it would have kept some
Speaker 2: remnants of the Casey architecture and they wouldn't be where
Speaker 2: we are today.
Speaker 3: But because it was six three and he would be
Speaker 3: outnumbered anyway, he went ahead and joined.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think you're right that Roberts would be unlikely
Speaker 4: to be the fifth vote for that, but he's happy
Speaker 4: to be the sixth one exactly.
Speaker 3: Well, he's like, that's not on me.
Speaker 5: Right, he doesn't want to be the fourth against it, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I mean that's the like. I mean, she
Speaker 3: was a narcissist too.
Speaker 2: She said, I'm the notorious even though I've had cancer
Speaker 2: like five times, and I'm going to die on the bench.
Speaker 2: And as a result, fulfilled with the greatest legacy and
Speaker 2: the greatest dreams of the pro life movement and of
Speaker 2: the conservative movement. So I guess you know, for them,
Speaker 2: they're like, yeah, RBG is a hero, just not the
Speaker 2: hero though that the liberals wanted.
Speaker 3: To make her.
Speaker 2: And this is the thing too about Feinstein put this
Speaker 2: up there on the screen.
Speaker 3: She says, quote.
Speaker 2: Even though I've made significant progress and was able to
Speaker 2: return to Washington, I'm still experiencing some side effects from
Speaker 2: the shingles virus. My doctors have advised me to work
Speaker 2: a lighter schedule as I returned to the Senate.
Speaker 3: What is a lighter schedule from zero from zero?
Speaker 2: And also, you're a senator, you're barely within your right mind.
Speaker 3: She ain't working that hard, all right, She ain't going anywhere.
Speaker 4: What's she doing all I mean, you know, within the
Speaker 4: last several years, when you would talk to her in
Speaker 4: the hallway, her staff would constantly have to remind her
Speaker 4: of what you're asking about, what.
Speaker 3: You're asking about, what you're doing.
Speaker 2: Remember, she didn't remember that they put out a statement
Speaker 2: saying she wasn't going to run again. She literally didn't
Speaker 2: write fort She didn't know what was going on. So
Speaker 2: look in the farce, it's not right. There's forty million
Speaker 2: people who live in California. They deserve representation.
Speaker 3: And some conservatives are like, why are you cheering for this?
Speaker 3: Here's the thing. Look, California's gonna liket a Democrat anyway.
Speaker 2: And my point is that it's not fair to those
Speaker 2: people who need constituent services. They need someone in their
Speaker 2: corner fight, Like right now, you only have the junior senator.
Speaker 3: If you had somebody with her level of seniority, she
Speaker 3: can make stuff move.
Speaker 2: Man, if you're a California business, you got a problem
Speaker 2: with the tariff, she'll call the agency. All you're back
Speaker 2: you probably used to fifteen years ago today Nope, And
Speaker 2: that is fundamentally wrong in terms of representations. She got
Speaker 2: forty million constituents, the biggest state in the Union, in
Speaker 2: the whole country. They got gas problems, they got housing problems,
Speaker 2: they got so much going on. You deserve somebody in
Speaker 2: the chamber who's actually doing something.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: If you add up you know North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho,
Speaker 4: there's eight eight serving senators for like seventeen people. That's right,
Speaker 4: And California with what sixty seventy million.
Speaker 2: That's like one it's I think it's thirty nine million,
Speaker 2: whatever it was, I mean a lot, right, Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: like almost ten percent in iron Nation.
Speaker 4: I remember when I first started covering the Senate in
Speaker 4: two thousand and six seven, there was a senator from Mississippi.
Speaker 5: I think it was that Cockran, it.
Speaker 3: Was Thatad Cochran. He actually resigned because I had dementia.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he would.
Speaker 4: You would see him and wandering He's like just wandering
Speaker 4: around the Senate like because he'd been there since the
Speaker 4: forties or sessing right, Yeah, he'd been yeah, very very
Speaker 4: and it was clear that he was just completely out
Speaker 4: of it. And eventually it took a long time, but
Speaker 4: eventually they're like, look.
Speaker 2: And you and I missed the whole strom Thermon thing,
Speaker 2: who one hundred and also was gone.
Speaker 3: He was totally gone.
Speaker 2: From everybody I've spoken to who knew and interacted with
Speaker 2: strom Thurmond in his later years, they're like, he was
Speaker 2: basically a living corpse. And guess what that also wasn't
Speaker 2: right either, and put his own personal history or whatever aside. Right,
Speaker 2: that still is not right to the people who he
Speaker 2: was serving.
Speaker 3: It's not you know. I mean, look at Chuck Grassley,
Speaker 3: he's like, what ninety years old at.
Speaker 4: Least he when you talked to him in the hallway,
Speaker 4: he's he's not who he used to be. Yeah, but
Speaker 4: you can tell he's totally.
Speaker 3: That still with it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't know about that, you don't think.
Speaker 2: So listen, I'm well all me and ages if you want.
Speaker 2: The thing is he could be gone tomorrow given the
Speaker 2: way that these things work.
Speaker 5: Yes, and also you have good days and bad days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, So fine, scene, it's time to go. We'll
Speaker 2: see you guys later.
Speaker 1: You've probably seen headlines like this, lack of financial literacy
Speaker 1: cost fifteen percent of adults at least ten dollars in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. Financial literacy is essentially the idea that
Speaker 1: if you understand the mechanics of personal finance, you will
Speaker 1: make better financial decisions and have a more prosperous life.
Speaker 1: You might be thinking that sounds like neoliberal nonsense. The
Speaker 1: problem is not that people don't understand money, it's that
Speaker 1: they don't make enough money. And you're definitely right, You're
Speaker 1: totally right about that. People who write headlines like financial
Speaker 1: illiteracy is an epidemic should all be uniformly ignored they
Speaker 1: do not get it. But as I researched this, I
Speaker 1: realized financial literacy doesn't have to be a completely stupid idea.
Speaker 1: It might even be worth taking seriously in the right context.
Speaker 1: Here's what I mean. If you don't have enough money,
Speaker 1: decrease your expenses and then your money will go further.
Speaker 7: Gy.
Speaker 1: If you don't have enough money, try spending less money. Now,
Speaker 1: when I think of the topic of financial literacy, I
Speaker 1: think of Charlatan's like her, people who totally discount systemic
Speaker 1: reasons for financial woes and instead write about things like
Speaker 1: lifestyle creep, which is basically going out to dinner too
Speaker 1: much as a core reason. So many people are living
Speaker 1: paycheck to paycheck. You see this in annoying articles asking
Speaker 1: are you financially literate? Here are seven signs You're on
Speaker 1: the right track, or baiting you into reading about how
Speaker 1: financial literacy matters for your retirement savings, as if knowing
Speaker 1: just how to work the numbers is going to matter
Speaker 1: as much as simply making enough money, and the advice
Speaker 1: they give is often.
Speaker 3: Frustrating and demeaning.
Speaker 1: Credit cards and loans might seem like easy solutions to
Speaker 1: our money problems, not knowing how to manage them wisely
Speaker 1: can often leave you struggling. Financial literacy, you can better
Speaker 1: understand the terms and conditions. Well, dam are you telling
Speaker 1: me that by financing my lifestyle with credit cards that
Speaker 1: I'm only able to pay off with other subsequent credit cards,
Speaker 1: thus commencing and anexorable accumulation of debt that I have
Speaker 1: no hope of ever escaping. Are you saying that that's
Speaker 1: ill advised somehow? Because apparently only twenty four percent of
Speaker 1: American adults have a basic understanding of financial literacy, and
Speaker 1: I may not be one of them. But when they
Speaker 1: say financial literacy, what exactly do they mean? Because the
Speaker 1: annoying advice money gurus give is pretty different from the
Speaker 1: questions that researchers ask to actually measure financial literacy. Now,
Speaker 1: personal finance training as part of US policy goes back
Speaker 1: to at least the fifties.
Speaker 4: Yes, Ralph has a budget and a method of saving
Speaker 4: the shows results.
Speaker 1: There was even a Financial Literacy and Education Commission established
Speaker 1: in two thousand and three. This is an ongoing concern
Speaker 1: of the government. We actually spend a quarter billion dollars
Speaker 1: a year. You're on this and if you think some
Speaker 1: of that money is being wasted, you are not wrong,
Speaker 1: because some of that money went to the FDIC to
Speaker 1: create this horrible game.
Speaker 5: Select around to start earning coins. Welcome to round one.
Speaker 7: You may want to save money for your goals, to
Speaker 7: build wealth, for emergencies, to cover times when you have
Speaker 7: less income or more expenses, And.
Speaker 1: Of course the banks are in on this too. Resolutions
Speaker 1: were just passed in Congress making April financial literacy month.
Speaker 1: You just missed the barbecues, And this was supported by
Speaker 1: the Credit Union National Association. Well wait, banks are fans
Speaker 1: of financial literacy. Wouldn't it benefit them to have financially
Speaker 1: illiterate customers. Turns out there are huge believers in education.
Speaker 1: Charles Schwab helps bring financial literacy to kids as young
Speaker 1: as four or five. Here are a bunch of teachers
Speaker 1: submitted lesson plans you can borrow to teach your third
Speaker 1: grader about sustainable financing. Bank of America volunteers helped Boys
Speaker 1: and Girls Club interns learn about budgeting and saving. Golden
Speaker 1: Sachs donates five hundred thousand dollars to Youth Financial Literacy Initiative.
Speaker 1: Of course banks do this, it's positive pr and it
Speaker 1: helps teach kids that being poor is their fault for
Speaker 1: not knowing how to balance a checkbook. Do you think
Speaker 1: they should teach things like balancing a checkbook?
Speaker 2: We don't even teach kids how to balance a checkbook balancing.
Speaker 1: A checkbook, But I do keep teaching my kids how
Speaker 1: to balance a checkbook. No, we don't teach people literally
Speaker 1: how to balance a checkbook, because that was made obsolete
Speaker 1: with online banking. But we do teach financial literacy. Now,
Speaker 1: the US spends a quarter billion dollars a year on this.
Speaker 1: That's not much in the grand scheme of things, but
Speaker 1: it's almost double, for example, the National Endowment for the Arts,
Speaker 1: And that is quite unfortunate because apparently financial literacy training
Speaker 1: doesn't really work. Loyola Law School professor Lauren Willis concludes
Speaker 1: that financial education does not demonstrably improve financial wellbeing, and
Speaker 1: a meta analysis of more than two hundred studies found
Speaker 1: that educational interventions explain only zero point one percent of
Speaker 1: the financial behaviors studied.
Speaker 3: Also, as far as.
Speaker 1: I can tell, we don't even know how much money
Speaker 1: is actually lost to financial illiteracy. If you're looking up
Speaker 1: figures on financial literacy, you will very likely come across
Speaker 1: this report that estimates three hundred and fifty two billion
Speaker 1: dollars were lost to financial illiteracy in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: The two articles I reference in the intro for this
Speaker 1: video referenced that report. The report is from the National
Speaker 1: Financial Educator's Council, and how they conducted the study was
Speaker 1: by asking people one question during the past year about
Speaker 1: how much money do you think you lost because you
Speaker 1: lacked knowledge about personal finances. They then multiplied the average
Speaker 1: amount by the two hundred and fifty million adults in
Speaker 1: the US, and that's how we have three hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty two billion. So the question is, one, how reliable
Speaker 1: are these personal reports? And two are people losing money
Speaker 1: because they're not financially literate or are people losing money
Speaker 1: because they were maybe bilked? Or how many people feel
Speaker 1: like they lost money because they lack personal finance education,
Speaker 1: but actually it's because they simply didn't have enough money
Speaker 1: and there was no way to avoid the overdraft fee
Speaker 1: or paying interest on a credit card or whatever.
Speaker 3: We have no idea.
Speaker 1: According to this report, a common financial illiteracy mistake is
Speaker 1: luxury spending. Apparently, luxury spending costs Americans sixty five billion dollars.
Speaker 1: Scroll down to the section on luxury spending, and all
Speaker 1: it says is that Americans spent sixty five billion dollars
Speaker 1: on luxury items in twenty twenty. It offers no insight
Speaker 1: as to what percentage of that sixty five billion was
Speaker 1: spent by people who couldn't afford what they were buying.
Speaker 1: And then it offers some wisdom. While you may need
Speaker 1: a purse, do you really need a Louis Vaton? Scroll
Speaker 1: a little further down Personal Impact on Financial illiteracy. Twenty
Speaker 1: nine point six percent of Americans are in poverty or
Speaker 1: low income, but they established no concrete relationship between these
Speaker 1: two things. This could just as easily be Tomm DeLong
Speaker 1: leaves blank tweent eighty two. Twenty nine point six percent
Speaker 1: of Americans are in poverty or low income. Well, thank
Speaker 1: god he rejoined the band. Clearly, this report is problematic,
Speaker 1: but somehow its results are finding their way into mainstream
Speaker 1: outlets like CNBC and Yahoo. And finally, what actually constitutes
Speaker 1: financial literacy? These are known as the Big Five questions
Speaker 1: for financial literacy. You can pause the video and read them,
Speaker 1: but something tells me that regardless of whether or not
Speaker 1: you know the relationship between bond prices and interest rates.
Speaker 1: It's not going to be enough to lift you out
Speaker 1: of a low age job, Okay, But if we take
Speaker 1: a slightly more serious approach to this, it is possible.
Speaker 1: But the sense of public urgency over the level of
Speaker 1: financial literacy in the population is a reaction to a
Speaker 1: greater personal financial responsibility in the face of increasingly complicated
Speaker 1: financial products. When I started asking people about this, no
Speaker 1: one told me they wish they were taught the concept
Speaker 1: of saving money earlier. No one said they wish that
Speaker 1: risk diversification had been more emphasized in kindergarten. People told me,
Speaker 1: actually that essentially they wish they had been warned and
Speaker 1: upon leaving high school, maybe gotten some practical lessons on
Speaker 1: navigating a predatory financial system. And if people were interested
Speaker 1: in reframing personal finance education like that, that's obviously not
Speaker 1: a solve for the predatory system itself. But I don't
Speaker 1: think that is a completely ridiculous idea. But the fantasy
Speaker 1: that some people have that financial literacy is the antidote
Speaker 1: to poverty, as if poor people just missed the lesson
Speaker 1: on budgeting is idiotic and wrong. All to speak about
Speaker 1: using your money to maximize wealth or differentiating between needs
Speaker 1: and wants. That's all just worthless because in reality, the
Speaker 1: actual need we have for personal finance training should be
Speaker 1: held up to emphasize how opaque and cruel and unequal
Speaker 1: the financial system is to the average person. And that
Speaker 1: will do it for me. If you found this video interesting,
Speaker 1: make sure you are subscribed to Breaking Points. It costs
Speaker 1: you nothing. You can also check out my YouTube channel
Speaker 1: where I talk all about media and politics and other things.
Speaker 1: Link and description, liking and sharing always helps. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much to Breaking Points. Thank you for watching, and
Speaker 1: I will see you in the next one.