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 1: We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade
Speaker 1: the studio ad staff, give you, guys, the best independent
Speaker 1: coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about,
Speaker 1: it just means the absolute world to have your support.
Speaker 1: But enough with that, let's get to the show. So
Speaker 1: we have a new report into a potential motive of
Speaker 1: that Las Vegas shooter. I don't know if you guys
Speaker 1: remember the details of this guy just massacred people at
Speaker 1: a concert back in twenty seventeen, shooting like a sniper
Speaker 1: from a hotel room in Mandalay Bay, and they were
Speaker 1: never able to at least publicly pin down why he
Speaker 1: did this, and it was sort of like, well, maybe
Speaker 1: he just went crazy. It was known that he was
Speaker 1: a big high stakes gambler and he'd run into some
Speaker 1: financial difficulty. There are reports that his mental health was declining,
Speaker 1: but we never really were told or a motive was
Speaker 1: never really pinpointed by law enforcement. There's some new FBI
Speaker 1: documents that have now just come out let's put this
Speaker 1: up on the screen from the ap that they say
Speaker 1: give a new view into the Las Vegas shooter's mindset.
Speaker 1: The FBI interviewed one of the gunman's fellow gamblers. This
Speaker 1: is detailed in what they say is hundreds of pages
Speaker 1: of documents that were just made public. He believed, this
Speaker 1: fellow gambler that the stress of Stephen Paddock having been
Speaker 1: treated not the way he wanted to by casinos given
Speaker 1: his high roller status, may have led to this massacre. Basically,
Speaker 1: the idea is they used to do like, you know,
Speaker 1: you'd get cruises and you'd get wine tours and all
Speaker 1: this stuff, and they'd sort of cut back on that.
Speaker 1: And he'd also been kicked out barred from a number
Speaker 1: of casinos. I guess because maybe he'd like you done
Speaker 1: too well there or whatever that this led to the
Speaker 1: mental break and may have contributed to the motive here saga,
Speaker 1: You've followed this one really closely, So what do you
Speaker 1: make of this potential here? I think this is bullshit.
Speaker 1: I'll just tell you that I have been obsessed with
Speaker 1: the Steven Pattock case for a long time, as well
Speaker 1: as many others. It remains one of the big mysteries
Speaker 1: in terms of the official narrative, And actually one of
Speaker 1: the investigators said it best. She goes, there's no way
Speaker 1: that they would have hidden any potential motive from our
Speaker 1: victims and survivors for over ten years, dismissing these as
Speaker 1: the speculations of a single gambler. Stephen Paddock was an
Speaker 1: extraordinarily strange individual, very least from a gambling his gambling,
Speaker 1: he wasn't at a gambling table socially. He would sit
Speaker 1: at video poker and sit there and gamble hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars and if we're to believe some millions
Speaker 1: of dollars. Wow. The official narrative is that Stephen Paddock
Speaker 1: became obsessed with guns, and then at a period of
Speaker 1: like a year or so and actually mostly in several months,
Speaker 1: started acquiring all these guns. Then he brought up in
Speaker 1: several trips to his suite in the Mandalay Bay Hotel room,
Speaker 1: at which point he broke out the window and shot
Speaker 1: at these concert goers. I mean, first of all, if
Speaker 1: you're mad at gambling institutions, why would you not shoot
Speaker 1: up the casino? Then why would you shoot people who
Speaker 1: are at a concert? Yeah, so the again, there is
Speaker 1: no technical motive. There is still a lot of weird stuff,
Speaker 1: like he sent his girlfriend off to the Philippines. There
Speaker 1: was some initial speculations like is this an international terrorism
Speaker 1: incident because of the some ICE's activity that was happening there.
Speaker 1: She has actually still yet to tell us the full
Speaker 1: story about what was going on there. How did There's
Speaker 1: still so many questions about the guns, about why security
Speaker 1: never flagged him. All of us was on video too,
Speaker 1: by the way, And yeah, in terms of the motive
Speaker 1: and all that. Now, I've never seen any indication officially
Speaker 1: about law enforcement and their involvement in all that, whether
Speaker 1: he was even known to authorities beforehand. But I'm just
Speaker 1: going to say I think there is a massive cover
Speaker 1: up involving this case because it's been several years. Even
Speaker 1: the open records request did not reveal anything, and the
Speaker 1: FBI kind of put the kaibash on this investigation very early,
Speaker 1: by twenty eighteen, one year in they were like, no,
Speaker 1: I mean, this was I believe at the time it
Speaker 1: was the deadliest mass shooting in American history. It might
Speaker 1: still be. I think there might be one, or there
Speaker 1: might have been one that surpassed the Las Vegas but
Speaker 1: it was an absolutely insane event, killed sixty yell sixty yards. More,
Speaker 1: it led to the bump stock ban if everybody wants
Speaker 1: to remember that by the ATF, because I believe Paddock
Speaker 1: used a bump stock. In terms of again, like information
Speaker 1: about his this is part of the other problem since
Speaker 1: he was killed. Obviously, there's never been a trial where
Speaker 1: a lot of this has come out into the open.
Speaker 1: I read the original like Las Vegas report about Steven Paddock,
Speaker 1: and again there's stuff doesn't pass to smelt this, So
Speaker 1: for me, I don't buy this. I'm buying this. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: there's something much deeper. They said also that he had
Speaker 1: scoped down other potential live events and even booked hotel
Speaker 1: rooms at those hotels that were by different concerts before
Speaker 1: settling on this particular concert that he was able to
Speaker 1: shoot at from the Mandalay Bay and partly he was
Speaker 1: able to so he was comped this room because of
Speaker 1: his quote unquote high roller status, and he was a
Speaker 1: given use of a private elevator to take all his
Speaker 1: bags of suitcases full of these weapons. So anyway, I
Speaker 1: don't know this one I think continues to be a
Speaker 1: mystery the same. I ain't buying it. I'll just tell
Speaker 1: you that I know a lot of other people are
Speaker 1: buying it either. So there you go. We covered here
Speaker 1: at breaking points. How Howard Schultz, the founder now former
Speaker 1: CEO of Starbucks, was compelled to testify in front of
Speaker 1: the Senate, faced some difficult questions about just utter lawlessness
Speaker 1: regards to union busting, repeated infractions of the law, total
Speaker 1: lack of willingness to negotiate with the new unionized stores
Speaker 1: on new contracts, loll and behold. Two days later, let's
Speaker 1: put this up on the screen, Starbucks fired Alexis Rizzo.
Speaker 1: She was one of the first organizers of the Starbucks
Speaker 1: union campaign that unfolded initially in Buffalo. They claimed it
Speaker 1: was over some incredibly minor infractions, like being literally a
Speaker 1: minute late for work. And we're excited to talk to
Speaker 1: Alexis now about exactly what is going on there. Alexis,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, Now, I know you worked at Starbucks for
Speaker 1: more than seven years, so you're a longtime employee. I
Speaker 1: also know you were the first, I think worker to
Speaker 1: contact the union about starting what has become a historic
Speaker 1: and groundbreaking union drive. Give us a little bit of
Speaker 1: your history with the organization, your view of Starbucks, and
Speaker 1: how that's changed over time. Yeah, So I've been with
Speaker 1: the company since I was seventeen years old. I started
Speaker 1: in October of twenty fifteen. For me, I grew up very,
Speaker 1: very impoverished, and so Starbucks was a way for me
Speaker 1: to become independent, lift myself out of that situation. And
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, it's an absolutely great company
Speaker 1: to work for, like the relationships that I've made with
Speaker 1: my coworkers, the bond that I have with them, the
Speaker 1: presence that we have in our stores in the community.
Speaker 1: It really is in a lot of ways a wonderful
Speaker 1: place to work. Unfortunately, and why we started this union campaign.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of other things that aren't what they
Speaker 1: seem to be. Howard Schultz, you heard during his Senate testimony,
Speaker 1: him touting all the wonderful benefits that the company offers
Speaker 1: and him saying that no one made them do that,
Speaker 1: that that was just something he did out of the
Speaker 1: goodness of his heart. But in reality, most of my
Speaker 1: partners don't make enough hours per week to even qualify
Speaker 1: for those benefits, nor do they make enough money to
Speaker 1: pay for the health insurance. Anyway, most of us choose
Speaker 1: to take Medicaid or stay on our parents' health insurance
Speaker 1: as long as we can. The benefits don't mean anything
Speaker 1: if you're not being scheduled enough hours to qualify for them.
Speaker 1: If the staffing of the stores is so sporadic, it's
Speaker 1: never consistent. One week you're getting eight hours, the next
Speaker 1: you're getting twenty. It's impossible to maintain that work life balance,
Speaker 1: and we don't have a voice in the workplace. That's
Speaker 1: why in twenty twenty one, we decided that the best
Speaker 1: bet for us would be to try to organize a
Speaker 1: union campaign. I had been in contact with one of
Speaker 1: the organizers from Workers United for a few years prior
Speaker 1: before the pandemic, and at some point I was contacted
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one, and we decided that that was
Speaker 1: the right time to try to organize. Starbucks got it.
Speaker 1: And so then in the circumstances of your firing, what
Speaker 1: are some of the excuses they tried to come up
Speaker 1: with try and separate you from the company and retaliation, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it kind of we have to take a little
Speaker 1: bit of a step back to the beginning of the
Speaker 1: union campaign. When Starbucks first found out we were trying
Speaker 1: to organize, we sent our letter to Kevin Johnson. They
Speaker 1: flooded Buffalo with dozens and dozens of support managers, members
Speaker 1: of corporate. They fired all of our management. My store
Speaker 1: manager was fired, my district manager was fired. The acting
Speaker 1: district manager at the time came in and put me
Speaker 1: on a written warning for some bogus time and attendance
Speaker 1: violations that she had found in my punches, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of gone on from there. It's been many years
Speaker 1: of psychological warfare, and I knew that they were going
Speaker 1: to fire me at some point. When I saw them
Speaker 1: fire Sam a motto. It's a thirteen year partner here
Speaker 1: in Buffalo who I've worked with many, many times, and
Speaker 1: he's everything you could possibly ask for an employee. He's
Speaker 1: incredible at his job. They fired him for the silliest
Speaker 1: reason that I've ever heard, and I knew that they
Speaker 1: were going to come for me too, as well as
Speaker 1: all the other union leaders. So I wish I could
Speaker 1: say I was surprised, but they changed my schedule so
Speaker 1: I was closing every night, opening the next morning every weekend,
Speaker 1: all my availability requests that I put in to try
Speaker 1: to change the situation, and they ended up firing me
Speaker 1: for being one minute late to work, twice, four minutes
Speaker 1: late to work another time five minutes late to anything
Speaker 1: that they could find. It's just been a witch hunt
Speaker 1: essentially for us. That's it's outrageous. I know previously some
Speaker 1: of the workers that they had fired, you know, they
Speaker 1: were able to go through legal process and be reinstated.
Speaker 1: Do you have any potential legal recourse and are you
Speaker 1: pursuing it? Oh? Absolutely yeah, I'm going to be fighting
Speaker 1: to get reinstated back with the company. It's no doubt
Speaker 1: to myself or any of my other store partners that
Speaker 1: this was just an act of retaliation. I mean, the
Speaker 1: same time in attendance violations that they separated me for
Speaker 1: committed to a much greater extent by other folks. But
Speaker 1: the only two people in my store that have been
Speaker 1: delivered any kind of discipline since twenty twenty one are
Speaker 1: myself and the other shift supervisor that I work with
Speaker 1: that helped me start the union campaign at my store.
Speaker 1: And have you been able to maintain morale at the store, because,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned in none of the what is it
Speaker 1: like three hundred stores now that have voted to form
Speaker 1: a union, not one of them has a contract. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: it's not just direct retaliation against worker organizers such as yourself.
Speaker 1: There's also you know, this whole two tiered benefit system
Speaker 1: where they rolled out certain perks and benefits to non
Speaker 1: union store or something again that I believe, based on
Speaker 1: labor law, is illegal, and that he was Howard Chultz
Speaker 1: was sharply questioned over have you been able in the
Speaker 1: face of all of that to maintain morale and commitment
Speaker 1: to the union at your own store location. Yeah. Like
Speaker 1: I was saying before, it's not the benefits that keep
Speaker 1: us with the company for all these years. It's each other.
Speaker 1: And we really do have that strong collective bond together
Speaker 1: where we know it's not the union's fault. We know
Speaker 1: that it's the company doing this to us because they
Speaker 1: do not want us to be able to express our
Speaker 1: right to organize. I mean here in Buffalo there is
Speaker 1: an over two hundred page decision where the company was
Speaker 1: charged and convicted of hundreds of violations of federal labor law.
Speaker 1: So at this point, we're just trying to remain strong
Speaker 1: in the face of them so brazenly breaking the law.
Speaker 1: My disciplines that I had received previously were actually deemed
Speaker 1: illegal by the judge in that decision in ordered to
Speaker 1: be discarded, and the company chose to separate me anyway.
Speaker 1: So it's just total disrespect for the NLRB, And so
Speaker 1: keeping the store together is really a matter of realizing
Speaker 1: that we're in an unprecedented situation that none of us
Speaker 1: knew that our company was going to respond so violently
Speaker 1: with so little regard for the law. We didn't know
Speaker 1: they were going to withhold our benefits. But it's just
Speaker 1: galvanizing us to stay together and stay strong and fight
Speaker 1: for what we deserve and what we're legally obligated to
Speaker 1: the laws of the absolutely doesn't respect those laws. They
Speaker 1: still exist. Yeah, and I mean, I think it's always
Speaker 1: important underscore is the company that holds itself out as
Speaker 1: supposedly progressive see in their actions something quite different here. Finally,
Speaker 1: alexis what is your message to any politicians, either at
Speaker 1: the state or federal level, or even the President of
Speaker 1: the United States in terms of what they could do
Speaker 1: to make it so that future worker organizers as yourself
Speaker 1: don't face this dire landscape. Yeah, I mean, and the
Speaker 1: way that things stand currently, the company has been able
Speaker 1: somehow to wage a year's long battle of psychological warfare
Speaker 1: on these part time, hourly employees who are simply trying
Speaker 1: to exercise their right to organize a union. This is
Speaker 1: the foundation of what our country is built upon. This
Speaker 1: is why we have what we have today. It's disgusting
Speaker 1: and the fact that our labor law has been eroded
Speaker 1: to such a point that this is allowed to happen,
Speaker 1: that the NLRV doesn't have the funding that they need
Speaker 1: to protect us, that's the real problem. We do need help.
Speaker 1: It's not just Starbucks Workers United, it's any young people
Speaker 1: who are trying to organize their workplace. We want to
Speaker 1: fight for something better and we need help to have
Speaker 1: the power to be able to do so. We can
Speaker 1: make this absolutely well. Alexis, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: taking the time, and please keep us update and let
Speaker 1: us know if there's any way that we can be helpful.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you, I appreciate it our pleasure. We
Speaker 1: track very closely what's going on in the US housing market,
Speaker 1: and the boomer bonanza is officially not stopping. Let's go
Speaker 1: ahe and put this up there on the screen. Despite
Speaker 1: a historically bad housing market for most people, Boomers are
Speaker 1: cash flush are standing in the way of millennials who
Speaker 1: are desperate to buy a home. The data is absolutely astounding.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to read quote between July twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: In June of twenty twenty two, boomers were the largest
Speaker 1: share of home buyers for the first time since twenty
Speaker 1: and twelve. They purchased thirty nine percent of all homes
Speaker 1: that sold in that span, up from twenty nine percent
Speaker 1: the year before. Millennials, on the other hand, saw their
Speaker 1: s of the market shrink to just twenty eight percent,
Speaker 1: down from forty three percent the year prior. So what
Speaker 1: can we surmise from that? I think it's actually quite obvious.
Speaker 1: When the rates were low and it was easier to
Speaker 1: qualify for a mortgage, Millennials were able to compete with
Speaker 1: cash flush boomers because it was probably more about the
Speaker 1: overall price. Then when the price the rates went up,
Speaker 1: what happened is the millennials either no longer could afford
Speaker 1: the mortgage payment or no longer even wanted to try,
Speaker 1: and the Boomers, who are all cash flushed from their
Speaker 1: holdings either in retirement or pass home equity savings were
Speaker 1: able to use that and offer an all cash deal
Speaker 1: to buy even more of the US housing stock. Now, obviously,
Speaker 1: the reason that that's bad is that when older people
Speaker 1: are outpricing younger people in the overall marketplace, those younger
Speaker 1: people are left behind in the generational wealth that they
Speaker 1: could build to maybe one day buy a cash house
Speaker 1: in cash in the future. So it's just an overall
Speaker 1: generational break down that's happening. And this is not how
Speaker 1: the economy is supposed to work. People. Yeah, well, millennials
Speaker 1: have just been like screwed their entire economic lives. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, basically many of them graduating into the Great Recession,
Speaker 1: you get behind from the jump and then you never recover.
Speaker 1: Housing prices escalating and escalating, always further out of reach.
Speaker 1: And it was one thing, yeah, when mortgage rates were
Speaker 1: low and you could rely on that to be able
Speaker 1: to get your foot in the door metaphorically speaking here.
Speaker 1: But now when you have prices didn't really come down
Speaker 1: in a lot of places, they didn't come down at all,
Speaker 1: and you have these high mortgage rates, Well, who does
Speaker 1: that advantage people who already have money sitting in their
Speaker 1: bank account or their you know, stockholdings, who were able
Speaker 1: to come in with those cash lump sum payments. They
Speaker 1: say here as well that millennial home buyers are more
Speaker 1: likely than older cohorts to use financial help from friends
Speaker 1: or family, further tilting and already uneven playing field toward
Speaker 1: the halves who are able to tap resources from previous generations.
Speaker 1: So basically, if you aren't getting help for mommy and
Speaker 1: daddy to come in with some big upfront cash payment,
Speaker 1: you were shut out. And that has huge consequences for
Speaker 1: wealth building throughout your entire lifetime. The more time that
Speaker 1: you spend on the hamster wheel of paying rent and
Speaker 1: not building wealth, the less time you're going to have
Speaker 1: over your lifetime. So boomers have had a more favorable
Speaker 1: economic landscape their entire life. They were able to buy
Speaker 1: houses when it was you know, when they were young,
Speaker 1: when there was like such a thing as a starter home,
Speaker 1: which doesn't even really exist anymore. They were able to
Speaker 1: get their foot in the door. They were able to
Speaker 1: build wealth and grow from there. And now you have
Speaker 1: generation and Millennials and Gen Z by the way coming
Speaker 1: behind them that have been completely and totally screwed. So
Speaker 1: don't be surprised then when their politics reflect a much
Speaker 1: different and much more radical understanding of, you know, the
Speaker 1: nature of our economic system. No, I completely agree. I
Speaker 1: think it's going to be a huge problem in the
Speaker 1: future and unless somebody gets their mind round. This is
Speaker 1: the other thing with the boomers. You know, it's like
Speaker 1: they're buying a lot of these houses for and I
Speaker 1: guess you can't begrudge anybody for taking advantage of your
Speaker 1: economic situation. But at the very same time, at least
Speaker 1: around where I live, they make it a lot more
Speaker 1: difficult for people to build new housing to basically protect
Speaker 1: their own housing stock. Sometimes it's sympathetic because they're like
Speaker 1: want to historical preserve, but sometimes you're like, yo, what
Speaker 1: this is all just about, like give me your home
Speaker 1: health you high, Yeah, so that nobody else can move in. Well,
Speaker 1: this is part of the problem. And while the home
Speaker 1: ownership class can screw up our politics because they tend
Speaker 1: to be more rooted, whereas renters tend to be more transient,
Speaker 1: they tend to have more wealth, and so that all
Speaker 1: translates into more political power. And so that's why you see,
Speaker 1: you know, a decline in the stock of affordable housing,
Speaker 1: decline in the stock of housing whatsoever. That makes it
Speaker 1: so it's such a zero sum gain where you know,
Speaker 1: the boomer's gain is millennials overall loss. So yeah, it
Speaker 1: really does sort of distort our politics in the way
Speaker 1: that you're describing, which isn't about their age. It's just
Speaker 1: about their like class and economic interests being reflected in
Speaker 1: the type of politics and like local zoning laws and
Speaker 1: ordinances that they favor. So I do continue to think
Speaker 1: that housing is one of the most undercovered, undernoticed, volatile
Speaker 1: political issues that is shaping a lot of the direction
Speaker 1: of our politics in the country. And you know, it
Speaker 1: is long past time that we deal with what is
Speaker 1: a dramatically unfair, uneven system that only perpetuates like inter
Speaker 1: generational wealth and then perpetuates this major divide between and
Speaker 1: class between the generations. Hey everyone, this is Ken Clippin
Speaker 1: sign with the Intercept Breaking Points edition. I'm joined today
Speaker 1: by my co writer Dan Boguslaw. We've got an important
Speaker 1: story for you today that both of us worked on
Speaker 1: concerning Silicon Valley Bank and an angle that I think
Speaker 1: has gotten far too little attention, which is the national
Speaker 1: security component to all of this. Behind this scenes during
Speaker 1: the bank run, as the federal government was debating what
Speaker 1: the seize scope and nature of the intervention to protect
Speaker 1: depositors would look like, there was quietly a case being
Speaker 1: made in the halls of the Pentagon for that, the
Speaker 1: fact that Silicon Valley Bank had depositors from the tech
Speaker 1: world that could be said to be of national security significance.
Speaker 1: They were making a case for that they had to
Speaker 1: intervene to protect the national security of the United States.
Speaker 1: And again this is a case that was taking place
Speaker 1: very quietly. There was one report in it afterwards, in
Speaker 1: Defense one, but far too little discussion of how they
Speaker 1: were trying to orchestrate this kind of intervention. And in
Speaker 1: addition to that, what basis that that would have taken,
Speaker 1: what igs that would have taken place under, and how
Speaker 1: it might how it might be pursued in the future.
Speaker 1: Because the Treasury's intervention ended up making it so that
Speaker 1: the DoD did not have to intervene, but it turns
Speaker 1: out they had tools to do so if they wanted to.
Speaker 1: Thanks very much for joining us, Dan, Thanks for having
Speaker 1: me again. So Dan's contribution to the story was going
Speaker 1: to Congress and bird dogging the chair of the Senate
Speaker 1: Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner, who right after the bank run
Speaker 1: on SVB, released a letter saying that the bank run
Speaker 1: posed a national security threat. And at about the same time,
Speaker 1: that's when the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Capital, a newly
Speaker 1: created office under the Biden administration in December that gives them,
Speaker 1: you know, money, resources, and authority to try to protect
Speaker 1: parts of the finance sector that they deem critical to
Speaker 1: national security. It's at that same time that Warner's letter
Speaker 1: comes out that the Pentagon starts pushing this case. And
Speaker 1: so when I contacted them for comment, they didn't respond.
Speaker 1: I sent requests for comment like three times. So Dan
Speaker 1: just physically went to the hill and chased him down
Speaker 1: and asked him, you know, what is the national security
Speaker 1: basis of your of your claim that there's a there's
Speaker 1: a national security threat by this by this bank run.
Speaker 1: What did you tell you? Well, when he came out,
Speaker 1: I think maybe it was to provoke the war powers
Speaker 1: authority that we're used for the invasion of a rock.
Speaker 1: I think that was the vote that he's coming out of.
Speaker 1: I could be wrong about that. However, when he came out,
Speaker 1: he was greeted by a scrum of very excited reporters.
Speaker 1: He was smiling, they were smiling. Yeah, keep talking about
Speaker 1: that dynamic a bit, because when you were describing it
Speaker 1: to me, it's very different than what people think of
Speaker 1: the you know, press would like to think of itself
Speaker 1: as adversarial, but it sounds like that's not what's going
Speaker 1: on now. This was towards the end of the vote.
Speaker 1: There weren't that many senators, you know, coming in and out.
Speaker 1: He said, Wow, it seems like everyone here loves me.
Speaker 1: It seems like everyone's so excited to see me. And
Speaker 1: you know, he was kind of joking because everyone was
Speaker 1: waiting around, you know, he was one of the last
Speaker 1: people they want to get their questions in. But there
Speaker 1: was also an element of that that was completely true.
Speaker 1: You know, you're sort of standing there. I've been chasing
Speaker 1: them all day trying to get comment. You know, the
Speaker 1: large network reporters are there. You know, they're they're chopping
Speaker 1: it up. They're having a great time. They're asking a
Speaker 1: pretty warm dynamic. Warm dynamic, you know, asking you know,
Speaker 1: a senator, you know, any any updates on you know,
Speaker 1: the FBI hearings. You know, it's and it's this was
Speaker 1: anyone asking about the bank runs because this is like
Speaker 1: the big story that I didn't see anything. I didn't
Speaker 1: see anything in that scrum. I know people, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: obviously when when the SVB news dropped, people were you know,
Speaker 1: hounding people, especially on the revocation of certain aspects of
Speaker 1: the Dodd Frank legislation that was uh, you know, repealed
Speaker 1: by a coalition of Republicans and Democrats, some of whom,
Speaker 1: like Warner, participated in the original drafting of Dodd Frank
Speaker 1: legislation to try to increase banking regulation, then later joined
Speaker 1: with the Republican allies to scale those back. Can you
Speaker 1: talk a bit more about that Warner's specific role in
Speaker 1: what happened, not just in terms of his rolling back
Speaker 1: to Dodd Frank regulations that you know, economists said could
Speaker 1: have prevented the SVV bank run from happening, but his
Speaker 1: own equities within banks and his own experience in the
Speaker 1: financial world. Yeah. So, I believe at one point Warner
Speaker 1: was the wealthiest member of the Senate. He was hovering
Speaker 1: I think between I think four hundred million, and you know,
Speaker 1: he's always had a cozy relationship with banks while he
Speaker 1: was one of the one of the drafters of the
Speaker 1: original DoD Frank legislation. He also championed this rollback which
Speaker 1: eliminated certain uh liquidity limits, certain stress testing required for
Speaker 1: these mid sized banks which SBB came in just under
Speaker 1: the wire to be protected basically by this regulatory scale back.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, when when I pressed Warner on this,
Speaker 1: you know, basically what he said to me was, you
Speaker 1: tell me what regulation we could possibly come up with
Speaker 1: that could have prevented a bank run on twenty five
Speaker 1: cents to the dollar, you know, a quarter of of
Speaker 1: of of assets being withdrawed overnight. And then he proceeded
Speaker 1: to say that you know, you know, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna ask tough questions about deep fakes and the fact
Speaker 1: that this was a deep Internet driven run. You know,
Speaker 1: you know deep fakes. You know him basically, what does
Speaker 1: that have to do with SVB. Well, he's trying to
Speaker 1: put forward the idea that that you know, because a
Speaker 1: piece of this run was catalyzed by private equity you
Speaker 1: know executives basically uh sorry, VC executives you know, texting
Speaker 1: each other back and forth about the liquidity problems at
Speaker 1: the bank. That some and some of that occurred on
Speaker 1: Twitter and was online that you know, you could have
Speaker 1: this threat of digitally induced bank runs, right, a panic
Speaker 1: driven by some fake video. But there's no evidence that
Speaker 1: that happening. No, there's there's absolutely no evidence that, in fact,
Speaker 1: that's the symptom of an underlying disease, which was a
Speaker 1: regulatory failure, which was a scale back that he voted
Speaker 1: for and he helped champion UH and also a total
Speaker 1: lack of of of of internal oversight on the decisions
Speaker 1: that were made. You know, I think this week, I
Speaker 1: believe our article came out. I think it was in
Speaker 1: the Post about how as we changed their internal risk assessments.
Speaker 1: You know, they so they had a sense that something
Speaker 1: like this might They absolutely had a sense that this
Speaker 1: could happen. It absolutely knew that the rate hikes could
Speaker 1: could bury them federal reserve hikes. Yeah, and they tweaked
Speaker 1: their books. Yeah. I find his comments astonishing. Can we
Speaker 1: get element two up there? Just to show people the
Speaker 1: what the quotes are from Senate Intelligence Chair Mark Warner.
Speaker 1: He says, after an unprecedented and reckless run on Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley Bank, there were very real risks of instability, spreading
Speaker 1: into other institutions and undermining our national security and technology
Speaker 1: innovation system. And so that's what prompted us me first
Speaker 1: to contact his press secretary, who they say you're supposed
Speaker 1: to go through. She didn't respond to like three or
Speaker 1: four emails, and so Dan had to go to the
Speaker 1: hill and you know, just chase him down and physically
Speaker 1: ask him. So when he asked him, the Senator Warner says,
Speaker 1: when our financial system is under assault, that is a
Speaker 1: national security issue. And then he goes on to say,
Speaker 1: if you see adversaries potentially being able to use and
Speaker 1: I'm not suggesting this, I'm going to ask this question,
Speaker 1: but I've been worried about deep fakes in the system
Speaker 1: for a while. And that's pretty much the extent of
Speaker 1: what Senator Warner had to say to try to suppsect it.
Speaker 1: But let's be clear about the false equivalency that he's
Speaker 1: drawing here, right, This was not a foreign hostile nation
Speaker 1: trying to take down the US financial system. This was
Speaker 1: a group of wealthy depositors joining joining forces with extremely
Speaker 1: wealthy bank managers to sabotage themselves in a name of profit.
Speaker 1: I mean, you look at some of the investors and
Speaker 1: some of the depositors and SVB like Roku, which had
Speaker 1: deposited hundreds of millions of dollars into a single bank,
Speaker 1: you know, on the sum of the size of the
Speaker 1: GDP of some developing nations. And why did they do
Speaker 1: this Because there was a relationship between managers and tech
Speaker 1: CEOs and that relationship was cultivated through white glove concierge treatment,
Speaker 1: low interest loans, all sorts of things to create a
Speaker 1: cent that this bank somehow represented the incredible creative output
Speaker 1: of Silicon Valley. And at the same time they were
Speaker 1: they were altering their risk assessment tools and protocols uh
Speaker 1: to try to profit as much as they could from
Speaker 1: those hyper risky deposits. Yeah, the potential conflicts here are
Speaker 1: just staggering. When I looked at Senator Warner, he's also
Speaker 1: the chair of the Banking Committee. Yes. Well, and and
Speaker 1: let's let's be clear about something there is I think
Speaker 1: there is some legitimacy the idea that a collapse of
Speaker 1: the US financial system could be a national security issue.
Speaker 1: Now is the solution to that problem creating a a
Speaker 1: cash bag within the within the Pentagon to throw at
Speaker 1: tech companies that are irresponsible with their deposits and the
Speaker 1: banks holding those deposits, Or is it to use your
Speaker 1: power as a US senator and representative of the American
Speaker 1: people to try to create regulations that prevent both both
Speaker 1: both actors on both sides of this issue from conducting
Speaker 1: their behavior to maximize their profits at the risk of
Speaker 1: disrupting the entire system. So, you know, he was very
Speaker 1: quick to try to frame this as a warning sign
Speaker 1: for potential threats from foreign actors and therefore a national
Speaker 1: security issue, without taking any responsibility for his own domestic
Speaker 1: policy decisions. Yeah, I'm glad you brought up the Pentagon
Speaker 1: point because it's a good place to segue over to
Speaker 1: the DoD office that I mentioned before, the Office of
Speaker 1: Strategic Capital, which was established very recently in December, unprecedented
Speaker 1: in its unique authorities, and I you know, interviewed to
Speaker 1: former very high level DoD officials who were kind of
Speaker 1: shocked at all this and said, you know, I was
Speaker 1: really surprised by what took place because there's not really
Speaker 1: a history of you know, the dd having a direct
Speaker 1: role in this. They have something called the Defense Innovation Board,
Speaker 1: but that was just an advisory Council, it didn't have
Speaker 1: the same power that the Office of Strategic Capital does.
Speaker 1: And going forward, you know, if we're going to learn
Speaker 1: anything from this, because this was something that affected that
Speaker 1: bank and then the bank in New York. But you know,
Speaker 1: if the catalyst for this stuff is these uh uh
Speaker 1: federal reserve rate hikes that are going on and still ongoing,
Speaker 1: and that you know, top federal reserve officials say that,
Speaker 1: you know, we have no intention of stopping. We need
Speaker 1: to have a plan for you know, what could happen subsequently.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've seen no reason I think that this
Speaker 1: couldn't happen again. And it seems like the pieces are
Speaker 1: falling into place, just bureaucratically within the d O D
Speaker 1: to be able to make this new case in addition
Speaker 1: to the you know case about the stability of the
Speaker 1: economic system for for for ordinary people generally. Now they're
Speaker 1: going to say, oh, this is going to be a
Speaker 1: you know, coup for the Chinese if we don't intervene.
Speaker 1: And I want to bring up something that Senator Howley
Speaker 1: said to me when when right at the start of
Speaker 1: the SVB collapse, when I was trying to talk to
Speaker 1: senators who had voted for the scaleback of DoD Frank regulations.
Speaker 1: And he said to me that, you know, if this
Speaker 1: had happened, if a small community bank in Missouri had collapsed,
Speaker 1: you know, national politicians would have said, you know, that's capitalism,
Speaker 1: that's the free market. They didn't pull themselves up by bootstraps,
Speaker 1: and so be it. And when it's a giant bank
Speaker 1: connected to you know, powerful interests, like as you reported
Speaker 1: California Governor Gaviner Newsom, and then then all of a
Speaker 1: sudden becomes systemic risk, then all of a sudden, it's
Speaker 1: we have to build that out. And I think there's
Speaker 1: a similar point to be made here with the Department
Speaker 1: of Defense, which is that, you know, in a sense,
Speaker 1: this is this is one more step in the ludicrous
Speaker 1: sums that are divvied out to defense contractors UH without
Speaker 1: any competition to these monopolistic firms that have consolidated taken
Speaker 1: over all production and consulting for the Department of Defense.
Speaker 1: And they're creating an office basically to continue that. What
Speaker 1: is what is in one sense socialism for the rich?
Speaker 1: What is in one sense creating a government funded program
Speaker 1: to ensure the continued production of you know, technology, high
Speaker 1: tech weapons firms and basically saying, you know, we're not
Speaker 1: gonna We're not going to try to get to the
Speaker 1: root of the problem here. We're not going to create regulations.
Speaker 1: We're going to set up a system to not just
Speaker 1: bail banks now, but bail out the companies that are affected. Right.
Speaker 1: It's funny. When I first started working on this story,
Speaker 1: I go to somebody Sometimes when you have a certain
Speaker 1: inclination a story, I like to go to somebody who
Speaker 1: has the opposite view to try to check and challenge
Speaker 1: what your assumptions are. So I went to a friend
Speaker 1: of mine who's a national security hawk who works in
Speaker 1: the intelligence community and is specifically tasked with and has
Speaker 1: been specifically tasked to to monitor and track and stop
Speaker 1: foreign penetration and foreign interference, foreign influence in Silicon Valley
Speaker 1: and asked, and I said, it just completely neutral. I said,
Speaker 1: is there a national security threat from the bank runs
Speaker 1: on SVB? And he said what you just said? He said, no,
Speaker 1: this is an excuse for the rich to pad their pockets.
Speaker 1: This is socialism for the rich and and you know,
Speaker 1: harsh capitalism for everybody else. And it was like, this
Speaker 1: guy is not a dumb on these questions. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it's it's you know, it's one of those
Speaker 1: things that's a new office. It's it's it's a strange
Speaker 1: new orientation. It follows a familiar pattern of of of
Speaker 1: funneling cash to to giant contractors and giant firms. But
Speaker 1: I think, you know, it's these subtleties that get left
Speaker 1: out again, go back to the hill. You know, people
Speaker 1: are are chasing the story of the day. They're they're
Speaker 1: not they're not interested. Their bosses, their managers, their outlets
Speaker 1: are not interested in, you know, chasing these things that
Speaker 1: that gets slipped in on the slot, these slight things
Speaker 1: that like the effects the entire country. Yeah, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know there's there's good anecdote again going back
Speaker 1: to the SBB reporting right when it happened, where you know,
Speaker 1: I really hammered these these senators on uh, you know,
Speaker 1: this this vote rolling back these regulations, and they said,
Speaker 1: you know, well it's unclear whether the stress testing would
Speaker 1: have done anything. And there's a measure of truth to
Speaker 1: that insofar as you know, even the FED stress testing
Speaker 1: measures are are imperfect and those should be changed. But
Speaker 1: the idea that uh, that this was adequate regulation. This
Speaker 1: scale back created adequate regulation is a complete farce. Now.
Speaker 1: When I when I went and and you know, bird
Speaker 1: dogged all these Democrats who had joined with Republicans to
Speaker 1: pass this bill that Trump signed, you know, they it
Speaker 1: was incredible to me how upset they were, how upset
Speaker 1: they were. You know, Uh, one senator from Delaware, you know,
Speaker 1: I tried to speak with him three times. He tried
Speaker 1: to brush me off three times, really didn't want to,
Speaker 1: not want to talk about this. And in fact, when
Speaker 1: I when I pressed Angus King and we ran the
Speaker 1: story about you know, his vote, I saw him. I
Speaker 1: saw I saw another reporter been standing right next to
Speaker 1: me when when I was pressing him on it, and
Speaker 1: I saw him the next day after the piece came out,
Speaker 1: go up to him and try to talk to him.
Speaker 1: And King was like, I'm not answering any questions, especially
Speaker 1: not from you. And you know that really showed though
Speaker 1: that you know, if you press, if you press a
Speaker 1: little bit too hard with these senators, then you know
Speaker 1: there there lose access and that's why people don't ask you.
Speaker 1: And that's why there's actually someone like Senator Warner, you know,
Speaker 1: to give folks at home a sense of the Washington
Speaker 1: media game. You know, you have a chair of a committee.
Speaker 1: That guy is going to give you exclusive that guy's
Speaker 1: going to give you access to things before investigations come out,
Speaker 1: for press releases coming out, that kind of thing. So
Speaker 1: it can really cost you to cross them. But that's
Speaker 1: that's where we come in, happy to cross these game.
Speaker 1: I'm always shocked by the decorum, you know, I'm always
Speaker 1: shocked by the decorum on the Hill. You know, it's
Speaker 1: like they have they answer to the press, the answer
Speaker 1: to the people who voted to put them in office,
Speaker 1: and I'm always shocked by kind of how timid and reserved. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, the the the what should be interrogations on
Speaker 1: the Hill are because you know, they're they're they they
Speaker 1: are there to answer your questions, and they can't really
Speaker 1: you know, they say, looking at this story to see
Speaker 1: how little covers there has been, this is not a
Speaker 1: marginal issue. Again, this is systemic. This is a question
Speaker 1: of systemic risk. And you know, how we prevent something
Speaker 1: like this going from this was a huge I guarantee
Speaker 1: you ask any I mean, it's very hard for me
Speaker 1: to believe that looking at something like Silicon Valley Bank.
Speaker 1: That's not something that's going to draw broad condemnation from
Speaker 1: people of both sides of the political aisle. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean I think both sides tried to, you know, angle
Speaker 1: you know, both both both on the right and the
Speaker 1: left for a narrative that suited their purposes, except for
Speaker 1: you know, those Democrats who who you know, voted for
Speaker 1: these rollbacks, and they just were doing everything their power
Speaker 1: to say, we have to wait and see, wait for
Speaker 1: the news cycle to blow over. The rhetoric I saw.
Speaker 1: It was so frustrating. It's this from the Democrats, it
Speaker 1: was this is not a bailout, we're protecting depositors, all
Speaker 1: these euphemisms. And then from the Republicans it's like this
Speaker 1: is a bailout. And then absent from the from the
Speaker 1: political leadership discourse is what are we going to do
Speaker 1: to prevent this from happening again? How are we going
Speaker 1: to bring back dot frank? What are the conditions that
Speaker 1: we're going to put on these banks in exchange for
Speaker 1: frankly saving their ass to make it so that this
Speaker 1: doesn't happen again. Almost no discussion of anything, And go
Speaker 1: back to what Warner said to me, Warner said, Uh,
Speaker 1: you tell me what regulations could possibly have prevented this
Speaker 1: wild meme driven online catastrophe other than the one you
Speaker 1: voted against it. Yeah, it's unbelievable. I mean it's it's
Speaker 1: unbelievable to make that argument. It's not based in reality,
Speaker 1: it's not based in truthfulness, and it's it's obscene. Well,
Speaker 1: we really appreciate your descending into the u mor door
Speaker 1: to ask these guys these questions. So thanks for joining
Speaker 1: us and for your hard work in the story, and
Speaker 1: thanks everyone for watching this. Ope you've got something out
Speaker 1: of it. Hey there, my name is James Lee. Thank
Speaker 1: you for tuning into another segment of my show fifty
Speaker 1: one forty nine on Breaking Points, and today let's talk
Speaker 1: about billionaires, this monarch of billionaire. Let's just get get
Speaker 1: at that. Okay. I grew up in federally subsidized How
Speaker 1: let me finish. I grew up in federally subsidized housing.
Speaker 1: My parents never owned a home. I came from nothing.
Speaker 1: I thought my entire pier life was based on the
Speaker 1: achievement of the American dream. Yes, I have billions of dollars.
Speaker 1: I earned it. No one gave it to me. And
Speaker 1: I've shared it cod people of Starbucks, and so anyone
Speaker 1: who keeps labeling this billionaire thing, it's the sil I
Speaker 1: don't mean to cut you up. We have time limits here,
Speaker 1: and you, well, I just think I'm not cutting you.
Speaker 1: It's your moniker constantly. It's unfair. It's unfair. How do
Speaker 1: you guys feel about this? It's Bernie being rude to him?
Speaker 1: Are people unfairly demonizing billionaires, especially billionaires like Howard Schultz
Speaker 1: of Starbucks, a self proclaimed self made billionaire. He seems
Speaker 1: to be not taking too kindly to this billionaire moniker.
Speaker 1: I scrolled through some of the comments on TikTok, people
Speaker 1: seem kind of split. I'll just throw up a few
Speaker 1: examples for you on the screen. Bernie's feelings in logic
Speaker 1: got hurt. Schultz created five hundred thousand good paying jobs
Speaker 1: with benefits. Of course, Bernie the fraud doesn't want to
Speaker 1: hear about it. On the other side, no one earns
Speaker 1: a billion dollars. You only manage a company of thousands
Speaker 1: that earns you billions of dollars American oligarchs. Basically, debate
Speaker 1: is good. I like debate, but how should we be
Speaker 1: thinking about this? Because income inequality has gone like this
Speaker 1: out of control in the past few decades. The wealthy
Speaker 1: have gotten more wealthy, they've never been more well off,
Speaker 1: and everybody else seems to be kind of getting left behind. Now,
Speaker 1: before we get back to Howard, I want to go
Speaker 1: to another billionaire for a second. We live in a
Speaker 1: world where billionaires tweet all kinds of crazy things all
Speaker 1: the time. I won't mention names. Billionaires will treat whatever,
Speaker 1: and then they'll say I'll change the world, I'll do this,
Speaker 1: or you actually did doing it. We're the real deal. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We started a company called costplus Drugs dot com. If
Speaker 1: you go and you put in the drug and if
Speaker 1: we carry it, it'll show you not only what we
Speaker 1: sell it for, it'll show you your cost and actual cost,
Speaker 1: actual cost. But we really pay for it. We mark
Speaker 1: it up fifteen percent. That's it. We have a three
Speaker 1: dollars pharmacy fee and five dollars for shipping. That's it, right.
Speaker 1: I don't need you can't. I don't. My next dollar
Speaker 1: is not going to change my life. But if I
Speaker 1: get a chance to up the pharmaceutical industry, hell yeah, right,
Speaker 1: he's trying to fuck up big pharma. His words, not mine,
Speaker 1: but hot take. I actually think this is bad, indicative
Speaker 1: of something rotten, because, look, I'm very happy to hear
Speaker 1: about Mark Cuban's plans with cost plus drugs, and I
Speaker 1: hope he is successful. But let's imagine a different example.
Speaker 1: What if a different billionaire decides, I think I have
Speaker 1: a great idea about public health. It's really phenomenal what
Speaker 1: the vaccine companies have done, and we can convince people
Speaker 1: to trust the vaccine getting these messages out. You need
Speaker 1: to figure out who people trust that they'll follow, and
Speaker 1: you know, whether it's people of color or various religious groups.
Speaker 1: We somehow need to get the word out this is
Speaker 1: quite an amazing vaccine that helps everyone. Yes, I was
Speaker 1: talking about Bill Gates. Remember when Bill Gates kept saying
Speaker 1: over and over how great the mRNA vaccine was, how
Speaker 1: the technology was phenomenal, and how it would get us
Speaker 1: out of this pandemic. And any discourse, any nuance around
Speaker 1: the topic of vaccines its efficacy, safety was more or
Speaker 1: less forbidden and censored. In fact, we couldn't even really
Speaker 1: discuss other forms of intervention like diet, nutrition, exercise, and
Speaker 1: even other forms of pharmaceutical treatment were oftentimes misrepresented or
Speaker 1: discredited in the mainstream media the entire time. Twenty two,
Speaker 1: it was just vaccines, Bill Gates. Vaccines are a miracle.
Speaker 1: It's mind blowing. Somebody could say the opposite. The thing is,
Speaker 1: vaccines are obviously an important tool in medicine and in
Speaker 1: fighting a pandemic. But should one person, a private billionaire,
Speaker 1: be able to hijack scientific discourse at the highest level
Speaker 1: and tell governments what they should or shouldn't be doing.
Speaker 1: Because that is exactly what happened, and we all know now,
Speaker 1: but it was probably less apparent back then. But in
Speaker 1: February of this year, investigative journalist Jordan Shaftel revealed the
Speaker 1: extent of Gates profit making from his investments advisor partner, Bioantich.
Speaker 1: The foundation had purchased the shares in September twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: just months before the pandemic was announced, at a pre
Speaker 1: public offering price of eighteen dollars ten cents per share.
Speaker 1: Shaftell reviewed SEC filings and found that the Gates Foundation
Speaker 1: downsides its Biointech holdings by eighty six percent over the
Speaker 1: third quarter of twenty twenty one, bio Intech's best performing
Speaker 1: quarter When the foundation sold the shares at an average
Speaker 1: sale price of three hundred dollars per share, it pocketed
Speaker 1: a profit of approximately two hundred and sixty million dollars,
Speaker 1: or more than fifteen times its original investment. Wow, I'll
Speaker 1: talk about buying low and selling high. Now, would it
Speaker 1: be fair for me to say that his motivations are
Speaker 1: less scientific, perhaps more financial? Could that lead him to
Speaker 1: potentially obfuscate the facts from the public. We think we
Speaker 1: can also have very early in an and the epidemic.
Speaker 1: The thing you can heal that will mean that you
Speaker 1: can't be infected, a blocker, an Inhale blocker. We also
Speaker 1: need to fix the three problems with vaccines. The current
Speaker 1: vaccines are not infection blocking. They're not broad so when
Speaker 1: new variants come up, you lose protection, and they have
Speaker 1: very short duration. So there are some issues and deficiencies
Speaker 1: with the mRNA vaccines. Now that you've sold your stake
Speaker 1: in biointech and made hundreds of millions of dollars, he's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, we all had a few problems with the
Speaker 1: mRNA vaccine, but going forward, we have this much better thing,
Speaker 1: a new type of vaccine which we Inhale through our nose,
Speaker 1: and that's going to be the real game changer. I
Speaker 1: looked it up, something called intran nasal SARS Kobe two vaccine.
Speaker 1: The claim is that it is likely to prevent infection
Speaker 1: and transmission, also likely to prevent disease, a bunch of
Speaker 1: other benefits. It's made by a company called Barod Biotech.
Speaker 1: Sounds like a familiar pitch. Bill Gates His foundation just
Speaker 1: happens to be also invested in this company to a
Speaker 1: tune of about twenty million dollars. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: feel like this is kind of a formy one shame
Speaker 1: on you for me twice shame on me type of situation.
Speaker 1: Will it work. I'm not sure. Maybe we'll have to see.
Speaker 1: But the point is, or my point is, it's never
Speaker 1: our idea is getting implemented. It's never the will of
Speaker 1: the people, it's the will of the billionaire. I'm just
Speaker 1: going to toss a few other examples out there on
Speaker 1: the screen. For example, one of them has taken a
Speaker 1: liking into charter schools. Well, guess what, we got a
Speaker 1: bunch of charter schools now. They don't like unions, they
Speaker 1: don't think it's good for business. Well, let's make it
Speaker 1: really tough to unionize, and even if people do, they
Speaker 1: could still use the law to their advantage to drag
Speaker 1: out the bargaining process and boom union membership. That an
Speaker 1: all time low social security not a chance, Just slash
Speaker 1: it four to one. K's all the way. Any one
Speaker 1: billionaire in America can, on a whim, good idea or
Speaker 1: a bad idea, whatever they're feeling passionate about on the day,
Speaker 1: or in many cases, whatever they think might advance their
Speaker 1: financial objectives. They are able to more or less implement
Speaker 1: any policy they like without electoral intervention, without the ability
Speaker 1: for the public to say no. The New York Times
Speaker 1: has termed this stealth politics. Now, is that the America
Speaker 1: that you want? Because according to history that I learned
Speaker 1: in seventeen seventy six, the founding fathers of America came
Speaker 1: together to disavow the monarchy, to overthrow the king, revolution war,
Speaker 1: to fight for democracy, for liberty. So why today do
Speaker 1: we allow a bunch of kings, call them oligarchs, call
Speaker 1: them whatever you want, But why do we allow a
Speaker 1: bunch of people who have never been elected to public
Speaker 1: office to rule the country. What is going on here?
Speaker 1: Just an observation, just something to think about. But let's
Speaker 1: go back to Howard scheldt to tie this whole thing together.
Speaker 1: Were you informed of or involved in the decision to
Speaker 1: withhold benefits from Starbucks workers in unionize stores, including higher
Speaker 1: pay and fast the sick time accrual. My understanding when
Speaker 1: we created the benefits in May, one month after I
Speaker 1: returned to CEO, my understanding was under the law, we
Speaker 1: did not have the unilateral right to provide those benefits
Speaker 1: to employees who were interested in joining a union. Starbucks
Speaker 1: Coffee Company did not break the law, And that clip
Speaker 1: illustrates my point exactly. It's pretty easy not to break
Speaker 1: the law if you have a hand in crafting the law.
Speaker 1: I can't speak for everyone, and I certainly can't speak
Speaker 1: for the Starbucks employees, but me personally, I don't have
Speaker 1: a problem with for profit enterprises. I don't have a
Speaker 1: problem with billionaires. I mean, who could be upset about
Speaker 1: a rags to riches story like Howard Schultz? Well, some
Speaker 1: people maybe, But what I do take issue with is
Speaker 1: undemocratic lawmaking where money buys policy, and then to have
Speaker 1: to watch a guy like Schultz smugly declare in front
Speaker 1: of Congress that he and his company are acting perfectly
Speaker 1: within the bounds of the law. So the solution we
Speaker 1: have to overturn Citizens United. You know the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: case that basically legalize bribery. We need to force the
Speaker 1: issue and take seriously the effort to ratify House Joint
Speaker 1: Resolution twenty one on your screen, known as the People's
Speaker 1: Rights Amendment, which would undo the Court's disastrous ruling and
Speaker 1: restore the proper guardrails between money and power in government.
Speaker 1: I can trace back so many of the problems we
Speaker 1: have in this country to the fact that we have
Speaker 1: legalized bribery, where corporations are people, where money is speech,
Speaker 1: where one single person can buy the media, and or
Speaker 1: politicians in one fell swoop and implement whatever policy they
Speaker 1: damn well. Please, what do you think? Do you take
Speaker 1: issue with billionaires? Yes? No? If so, in what way?
Speaker 1: Please share your thoughts in the comments below, and if
Speaker 1: you feel inclined to explore more about who runs our world,
Speaker 1: subscribe to my YouTube channel fifty one to forty nine
Speaker 1: with James Lee. The link will be in the description below.
Speaker 1: Oh thank you so much for watching Breaking Points, and
Speaker 1: thanks for your time today