4/8/23: Saagar Reacts To FBI LV Shooter Docs, Fired Starbucks Union Organizer Alexis Rizzo, Boomers HomeBuying Bonanza, Pentagon Claims SVB Bailout National Security Interests, James Li On Billionaires

that Las Vegas shooter. I don't know if you guys remember the details of this guy just massacred people at a concert back in twenty seventeen, shooting like a sniper from a hotel room in Mandalay Bay, and they were never able to at least publicly pin down why he did this, and it was sort of like, well, maybe he just went crazy. It was known that he was a big high stakes gambler and he'd run into some

financial difficulty. There are reports that his mental health was declining, but we never really were told or a motive was never really pinpointed by law enforcement. There's some new FBI documents that have now just come out let's put this up on the screen from the ap that they say give a new view into the Las Vegas shooter's mindset. The FBI interviewed one of the gunman's fellow gamblers. This is detailed in what they say is hundreds of pages

of documents that were just made public. He believed, this fellow gambler that the stress of Stephen Paddock having been treated not the way he wanted to by casinos given his high roller status, may have led to this massacre. Basically, the idea is they used to do like, you know, you'd get cruises and you'd get wine tours and all this stuff, and they'd sort of cut back on that. And he'd also been kicked out barred from a number

of casinos. I guess because maybe he'd like you done too well there or whatever that this led to the mental break and may have contributed to the motive here saga, You've followed this one really closely, So what do you make of this potential here? I think this is bullshit. I'll just tell you that I have been obsessed with the Steven Pattock case for a long time, as well as many others. It remains one of the big mysteries in terms of the official narrative, And actually one of

the investigators said it best. She goes, there's no way that they would have hidden any potential motive from our victims and survivors for over ten years, dismissing these as the speculations of a single gambler. Stephen Paddock was an extraordinarily strange individual, very least from a gambling his gambling, he wasn't at a gambling table socially. He would sit at video poker and sit there and gamble hundreds of thousands of dollars and if we're to believe some millions

of dollars. Wow. The official narrative is that Stephen Paddock became obsessed with guns, and then at a period of like a year or so and actually mostly in several months, started acquiring all these guns. Then he brought up in several trips to his suite in the Mandalay Bay Hotel room, at which point he broke out the window and shot at these concert goers. I mean, first of all, if you're mad at gambling institutions, why would you not shoot up the casino? Then why would you shoot people who

are at a concert? Yeah, so the again, there is no technical motive. There is still a lot of weird stuff, like he sent his girlfriend off to the Philippines. There was some initial speculations like is this an international terrorism incident because of the some ICE's activity that was happening there. She has actually still yet to tell us the full story about what was going on there. How did There's still so many questions about the guns, about why security

never flagged him. All of us was on video too, by the way, And yeah, in terms of the motive and all that. Now, I've never seen any indication officially about law enforcement and their involvement in all that, whether he was even known to authorities beforehand. But I'm just going to say I think there is a massive cover

up involving this case because it's been several years. Even the open records request did not reveal anything, and the FBI kind of put the kaibash on this investigation very early, by twenty eighteen, one year in they were like, no, I mean, this was I believe at the time it was the deadliest mass shooting in American history. It might still be. I think there might be one, or there might have been one that surpassed the Las Vegas but

it was an absolutely insane event, killed sixty yell sixty yards. More, it led to the bump stock ban if everybody wants to remember that by the ATF, because I believe Paddock used a bump stock. In terms of again, like information about his this is part of the other problem since he was killed. Obviously, there's never been a trial where a lot of this has come out into the open. I read the original like Las Vegas report about Steven Paddock, and again there's stuff doesn't pass to smelt this, So

for me, I don't buy this. I'm buying this. No, no, no, no, there's something much deeper. They said also that he had scoped down other potential live events and even booked hotel rooms at those hotels that were by different concerts before settling on this particular concert that he was able to shoot at from the Mandalay Bay and partly he was able to so he was comped this room because of his quote unquote high roller status, and he was a given use of a private elevator to take all his

bags of suitcases full of these weapons. So anyway, I don't know this one I think continues to be a mystery the same. I ain't buying it. I'll just tell you that I know a lot of other people are buying it either. So there you go. We covered here

at breaking points. How Howard Schultz, the founder now former CEO of Starbucks, was compelled to testify in front of the Senate, faced some difficult questions about just utter lawlessness regards to union busting, repeated infractions of the law, total lack of willingness to negotiate with the new unionized stores on new contracts, loll and behold. Two days later, let's put this up on the screen, Starbucks fired Alexis Rizzo. She was one of the first organizers of the Starbucks

union campaign that unfolded initially in Buffalo. They claimed it was over some incredibly minor infractions, like being literally a minute late for work. And we're excited to talk to Alexis now about exactly what is going on there. Alexis, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, of course, Now, I know you worked at Starbucks for

more than seven years, so you're a longtime employee. I also know you were the first, I think worker to contact the union about starting what has become a historic and groundbreaking union drive. Give us a little bit of your history with the organization, your view of Starbucks, and how that's changed over time. Yeah, So I've been with the company since I was seventeen years old. I started in October of twenty fifteen. For me, I grew up very, very impoverished, and so Starbucks was a way for me

to become independent, lift myself out of that situation. And in a lot of ways, it's an absolutely great company to work for, like the relationships that I've made with my coworkers, the bond that I have with them, the presence that we have in our stores in the community. It really is in a lot of ways a wonderful place to work. Unfortunately, and why we started this union campaign. There's a lot of other things that aren't what they

seem to be. Howard Schultz, you heard during his Senate testimony, him touting all the wonderful benefits that the company offers and him saying that no one made them do that, that that was just something he did out of the goodness of his heart. But in reality, most of my partners don't make enough hours per week to even qualify for those benefits, nor do they make enough money to pay for the health insurance. Anyway, most of us choose to take Medicaid or stay on our parents' health insurance

as long as we can. The benefits don't mean anything if you're not being scheduled enough hours to qualify for them. If the staffing of the stores is so sporadic, it's never consistent. One week you're getting eight hours, the next you're getting twenty. It's impossible to maintain that work life balance, and we don't have a voice in the workplace. That's why in twenty twenty one, we decided that the best bet for us would be to try to organize a

union campaign. I had been in contact with one of the organizers from Workers United for a few years prior before the pandemic, and at some point I was contacted in twenty twenty one, and we decided that that was the right time to try to organize. Starbucks got it.

And so then in the circumstances of your firing, what are some of the excuses they tried to come up with try and separate you from the company and retaliation, Yeah, so it kind of we have to take a little bit of a step back to the beginning of the union campaign. When Starbucks first found out we were trying to organize, we sent our letter to Kevin Johnson. They flooded Buffalo with dozens and dozens of support managers, members of corporate. They fired all of our management. My store

manager was fired, my district manager was fired. The acting district manager at the time came in and put me on a written warning for some bogus time and attendance violations that she had found in my punches, and it's kind of gone on from there. It's been many years of psychological warfare, and I knew that they were going to fire me at some point. When I saw them fire Sam a motto. It's a thirteen year partner here in Buffalo who I've worked with many, many times, and

he's everything you could possibly ask for an employee. He's incredible at his job. They fired him for the silliest reason that I've ever heard, and I knew that they were going to come for me too, as well as

all the other union leaders. So I wish I could say I was surprised, but they changed my schedule so I was closing every night, opening the next morning every weekend, all my availability requests that I put in to try to change the situation, and they ended up firing me for being one minute late to work, twice, four minutes late to work another time five minutes late to anything that they could find. It's just been a witch hunt

essentially for us. That's it's outrageous. I know previously some of the workers that they had fired, you know, they were able to go through legal process and be reinstated. Do you have any potential legal recourse and are you pursuing it? Oh? Absolutely yeah, I'm going to be fighting to get reinstated back with the company. It's no doubt to myself or any of my other store partners that

this was just an act of retaliation. I mean, the same time in attendance violations that they separated me for committed to a much greater extent by other folks. But the only two people in my store that have been delivered any kind of discipline since twenty twenty one are myself and the other shift supervisor that I work with that helped me start the union campaign at my store.

And have you been able to maintain morale at the store, because, as I mentioned in none of the what is it like three hundred stores now that have voted to form a union, not one of them has a contract. Meanwhile, it's not just direct retaliation against worker organizers such as yourself.

There's also you know, this whole two tiered benefit system where they rolled out certain perks and benefits to non union store or something again that I believe, based on labor law, is illegal, and that he was Howard Chultz was sharply questioned over have you been able in the face of all of that to maintain morale and commitment to the union at your own store location. Yeah. Like I was saying before, it's not the benefits that keep us with the company for all these years. It's each other.

And we really do have that strong collective bond together where we know it's not the union's fault. We know that it's the company doing this to us because they do not want us to be able to express our right to organize. I mean here in Buffalo there is an over two hundred page decision where the company was charged and convicted of hundreds of violations of federal labor law. So at this point, we're just trying to remain strong in the face of them so brazenly breaking the law.

My disciplines that I had received previously were actually deemed illegal by the judge in that decision in ordered to be discarded, and the company chose to separate me anyway. So it's just total disrespect for the NLRB, And so keeping the store together is really a matter of realizing that we're in an unprecedented situation that none of us knew that our company was going to respond so violently with so little regard for the law. We didn't know

they were going to withhold our benefits. But it's just galvanizing us to stay together and stay strong and fight for what we deserve and what we're legally obligated to the laws of the absolutely doesn't respect those laws. They still exist. Yeah, and I mean, I think it's always important underscore is the company that holds itself out as

supposedly progressive see in their actions something quite different here. Finally, alexis what is your message to any politicians, either at the state or federal level, or even the President of the United States in terms of what they could do to make it so that future worker organizers as yourself

don't face this dire landscape. Yeah, I mean, and the way that things stand currently, the company has been able somehow to wage a year's long battle of psychological warfare on these part time, hourly employees who are simply trying to exercise their right to organize a union. This is the foundation of what our country is built upon. This

is why we have what we have today. It's disgusting and the fact that our labor law has been eroded to such a point that this is allowed to happen, that the NLRV doesn't have the funding that they need to protect us, that's the real problem. We do need help. It's not just Starbucks Workers United, it's any young people who are trying to organize their workplace. We want to fight for something better and we need help to have the power to be able to do so. We can

make this absolutely well. Alexis, thank you so much for taking the time, and please keep us update and let us know if there's any way that we can be helpful. Thank you, thank you, I appreciate it our pleasure. We track very closely what's going on in the US housing market, and the boomer bonanza is officially not stopping. Let's go ahe and put this up there on the screen. Despite a historically bad housing market for most people, Boomers are cash flush are standing in the way of millennials who

are desperate to buy a home. The data is absolutely astounding. I'm just going to read quote between July twenty twenty one. In June of twenty twenty two, boomers were the largest share of home buyers for the first time since twenty and twelve. They purchased thirty nine percent of all homes that sold in that span, up from twenty nine percent the year before. Millennials, on the other hand, saw their s of the market shrink to just twenty eight percent,

down from forty three percent the year prior. So what can we surmise from that? I think it's actually quite obvious. When the rates were low and it was easier to qualify for a mortgage, Millennials were able to compete with cash flush boomers because it was probably more about the

overall price. Then when the price the rates went up, what happened is the millennials either no longer could afford the mortgage payment or no longer even wanted to try, and the Boomers, who are all cash flushed from their holdings either in retirement or pass home equity savings were able to use that and offer an all cash deal

to buy even more of the US housing stock. Now, obviously, the reason that that's bad is that when older people are outpricing younger people in the overall marketplace, those younger people are left behind in the generational wealth that they could build to maybe one day buy a cash house in cash in the future. So it's just an overall generational break down that's happening. And this is not how the economy is supposed to work. People. Yeah, well, millennials

have just been like screwed their entire economic lives. I mean, you know, basically many of them graduating into the Great Recession, you get behind from the jump and then you never recover. Housing prices escalating and escalating, always further out of reach. And it was one thing, yeah, when mortgage rates were low and you could rely on that to be able to get your foot in the door metaphorically speaking here.

But now when you have prices didn't really come down in a lot of places, they didn't come down at all, and you have these high mortgage rates, Well, who does that advantage people who already have money sitting in their bank account or their you know, stockholdings, who were able

to come in with those cash lump sum payments. They say here as well that millennial home buyers are more likely than older cohorts to use financial help from friends or family, further tilting and already uneven playing field toward the halves who are able to tap resources from previous generations. So basically, if you aren't getting help for mommy and daddy to come in with some big upfront cash payment, you were shut out. And that has huge consequences for

wealth building throughout your entire lifetime. The more time that you spend on the hamster wheel of paying rent and not building wealth, the less time you're going to have over your lifetime. So boomers have had a more favorable economic landscape their entire life. They were able to buy houses when it was you know, when they were young, when there was like such a thing as a starter home, which doesn't even really exist anymore. They were able to get their foot in the door. They were able to

build wealth and grow from there. And now you have generation and Millennials and Gen Z by the way coming behind them that have been completely and totally screwed. So don't be surprised then when their politics reflect a much different and much more radical understanding of, you know, the nature of our economic system. No, I completely agree. I think it's going to be a huge problem in the future and unless somebody gets their mind round. This is

the other thing with the boomers. You know, it's like they're buying a lot of these houses for and I guess you can't begrudge anybody for taking advantage of your economic situation. But at the very same time, at least around where I live, they make it a lot more difficult for people to build new housing to basically protect

their own housing stock. Sometimes it's sympathetic because they're like want to historical preserve, but sometimes you're like, yo, what this is all just about, like give me your home health you high, Yeah, so that nobody else can move in. Well, this is part of the problem. And while the home ownership class can screw up our politics because they tend to be more rooted, whereas renters tend to be more transient, they tend to have more wealth, and so that all

translates into more political power. And so that's why you see, you know, a decline in the stock of affordable housing, decline in the stock of housing whatsoever. That makes it so it's such a zero sum gain where you know, the boomer's gain is millennials overall loss. So yeah, it really does sort of distort our politics in the way

that you're describing, which isn't about their age. It's just about their like class and economic interests being reflected in the type of politics and like local zoning laws and ordinances that they favor. So I do continue to think that housing is one of the most undercovered, undernoticed, volatile political issues that is shaping a lot of the direction

of our politics in the country. And you know, it is long past time that we deal with what is a dramatically unfair, uneven system that only perpetuates like inter generational wealth and then perpetuates this major divide between and class between the generations. Hey everyone, this is Ken Clippin sign with the Intercept Breaking Points edition. I'm joined today

by my co writer Dan Boguslaw. We've got an important story for you today that both of us worked on concerning Silicon Valley Bank and an angle that I think has gotten far too little attention, which is the national

security component to all of this. Behind this scenes during the bank run, as the federal government was debating what the seize scope and nature of the intervention to protect depositors would look like, there was quietly a case being made in the halls of the Pentagon for that, the fact that Silicon Valley Bank had depositors from the tech world that could be said to be of national security significance.

They were making a case for that they had to intervene to protect the national security of the United States. And again this is a case that was taking place very quietly. There was one report in it afterwards, in Defense one, but far too little discussion of how they were trying to orchestrate this kind of intervention. And in addition to that, what basis that that would have taken, what igs that would have taken place under, and how it might how it might be pursued in the future.

Because the Treasury's intervention ended up making it so that the DoD did not have to intervene, but it turns out they had tools to do so if they wanted to. Thanks very much for joining us, Dan, Thanks for having me again. So Dan's contribution to the story was going to Congress and bird dogging the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner, who right after the bank run on SVB, released a letter saying that the bank run

posed a national security threat. And at about the same time, that's when the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Capital, a newly created office under the Biden administration in December that gives them, you know, money, resources, and authority to try to protect parts of the finance sector that they deem critical to national security. It's at that same time that Warner's letter comes out that the Pentagon starts pushing this case. And so when I contacted them for comment, they didn't respond.

I sent requests for comment like three times. So Dan just physically went to the hill and chased him down and asked him, you know, what is the national security basis of your of your claim that there's a there's a national security threat by this by this bank run. What did you tell you? Well, when he came out, I think maybe it was to provoke the war powers authority that we're used for the invasion of a rock. I think that was the vote that he's coming out of.

I could be wrong about that. However, when he came out, he was greeted by a scrum of very excited reporters. He was smiling, they were smiling. Yeah, keep talking about that dynamic a bit, because when you were describing it to me, it's very different than what people think of the you know, press would like to think of itself as adversarial, but it sounds like that's not what's going on now. This was towards the end of the vote. There weren't that many senators, you know, coming in and out.

He said, Wow, it seems like everyone here loves me. It seems like everyone's so excited to see me. And you know, he was kind of joking because everyone was waiting around, you know, he was one of the last people they want to get their questions in. But there was also an element of that that was completely true. You know, you're sort of standing there. I've been chasing them all day trying to get comment. You know, the large network reporters are there. You know, they're they're chopping

it up. They're having a great time. They're asking a pretty warm dynamic. Warm dynamic, you know, asking you know, a senator, you know, any any updates on you know, the FBI hearings. You know, it's and it's this was anyone asking about the bank runs because this is like the big story that I didn't see anything. I didn't

see anything in that scrum. I know people, uh, you know, obviously when when the SVB news dropped, people were you know, hounding people, especially on the revocation of certain aspects of the Dodd Frank legislation that was uh, you know, repealed by a coalition of Republicans and Democrats, some of whom, like Warner, participated in the original drafting of Dodd Frank legislation to try to increase banking regulation, then later joined

with the Republican allies to scale those back. Can you talk a bit more about that Warner's specific role in what happened, not just in terms of his rolling back to Dodd Frank regulations that you know, economists said could have prevented the SVV bank run from happening, but his own equities within banks and his own experience in the financial world. Yeah. So, I believe at one point Warner

was the wealthiest member of the Senate. He was hovering I think between I think four hundred million, and you know, he's always had a cozy relationship with banks while he was one of the one of the drafters of the original DoD Frank legislation. He also championed this rollback which eliminated certain uh liquidity limits, certain stress testing required for these mid sized banks which SBB came in just under the wire to be protected basically by this regulatory scale back.

And uh, you know, when when I pressed Warner on this, you know, basically what he said to me was, you tell me what regulation we could possibly come up with that could have prevented a bank run on twenty five cents to the dollar, you know, a quarter of of of of assets being withdrawed overnight. And then he proceeded to say that you know, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna ask tough questions about deep fakes and the fact that this was a deep Internet driven run. You know,

you know deep fakes. You know him basically, what does that have to do with SVB. Well, he's trying to put forward the idea that that you know, because a piece of this run was catalyzed by private equity you know executives basically uh sorry, VC executives you know, texting each other back and forth about the liquidity problems at the bank. That some and some of that occurred on Twitter and was online that you know, you could have this threat of digitally induced bank runs, right, a panic

driven by some fake video. But there's no evidence that that happening. No, there's there's absolutely no evidence that, in fact, that's the symptom of an underlying disease, which was a regulatory failure, which was a scale back that he voted for and he helped champion UH and also a total lack of of of of internal oversight on the decisions that were made. You know, I think this week, I

believe our article came out. I think it was in the Post about how as we changed their internal risk assessments. You know, they so they had a sense that something like this might They absolutely had a sense that this could happen. It absolutely knew that the rate hikes could could bury them federal reserve hikes. Yeah, and they tweaked their books. Yeah. I find his comments astonishing. Can we

get element two up there? Just to show people the what the quotes are from Senate Intelligence Chair Mark Warner. He says, after an unprecedented and reckless run on Silicon Valley Bank, there were very real risks of instability, spreading into other institutions and undermining our national security and technology innovation system. And so that's what prompted us me first to contact his press secretary, who they say you're supposed

to go through. She didn't respond to like three or four emails, and so Dan had to go to the hill and you know, just chase him down and physically ask him. So when he asked him, the Senator Warner says, when our financial system is under assault, that is a national security issue. And then he goes on to say, if you see adversaries potentially being able to use and I'm not suggesting this, I'm going to ask this question, but I've been worried about deep fakes in the system

for a while. And that's pretty much the extent of what Senator Warner had to say to try to suppsect it. But let's be clear about the false equivalency that he's drawing here, right, This was not a foreign hostile nation trying to take down the US financial system. This was a group of wealthy depositors joining joining forces with extremely wealthy bank managers to sabotage themselves in a name of profit.

I mean, you look at some of the investors and some of the depositors and SVB like Roku, which had deposited hundreds of millions of dollars into a single bank, you know, on the sum of the size of the

GDP of some developing nations. And why did they do this Because there was a relationship between managers and tech CEOs and that relationship was cultivated through white glove concierge treatment, low interest loans, all sorts of things to create a cent that this bank somehow represented the incredible creative output of Silicon Valley. And at the same time they were they were altering their risk assessment tools and protocols uh to try to profit as much as they could from

those hyper risky deposits. Yeah, the potential conflicts here are just staggering. When I looked at Senator Warner, he's also the chair of the Banking Committee. Yes. Well, and and let's let's be clear about something there is I think there is some legitimacy the idea that a collapse of the US financial system could be a national security issue.

Now is the solution to that problem creating a a cash bag within the within the Pentagon to throw at tech companies that are irresponsible with their deposits and the banks holding those deposits, Or is it to use your power as a US senator and representative of the American people to try to create regulations that prevent both both both actors on both sides of this issue from conducting their behavior to maximize their profits at the risk of

disrupting the entire system. So, you know, he was very quick to try to frame this as a warning sign for potential threats from foreign actors and therefore a national security issue, without taking any responsibility for his own domestic

policy decisions. Yeah, I'm glad you brought up the Pentagon point because it's a good place to segue over to the DoD office that I mentioned before, the Office of Strategic Capital, which was established very recently in December, unprecedented in its unique authorities, and I you know, interviewed to former very high level DoD officials who were kind of shocked at all this and said, you know, I was really surprised by what took place because there's not really

a history of you know, the dd having a direct role in this. They have something called the Defense Innovation Board, but that was just an advisory Council, it didn't have the same power that the Office of Strategic Capital does. And going forward, you know, if we're going to learn anything from this, because this was something that affected that

bank and then the bank in New York. But you know, if the catalyst for this stuff is these uh uh federal reserve rate hikes that are going on and still ongoing, and that you know, top federal reserve officials say that, you know, we have no intention of stopping. We need to have a plan for you know, what could happen subsequently. I mean, I've seen no reason I think that this

couldn't happen again. And it seems like the pieces are falling into place, just bureaucratically within the d O D to be able to make this new case in addition to the you know case about the stability of the economic system for for for ordinary people generally. Now they're going to say, oh, this is going to be a you know, coup for the Chinese if we don't intervene.

And I want to bring up something that Senator Howley said to me when when right at the start of the SVB collapse, when I was trying to talk to senators who had voted for the scaleback of DoD Frank regulations. And he said to me that, you know, if this had happened, if a small community bank in Missouri had collapsed, you know, national politicians would have said, you know, that's capitalism, that's the free market. They didn't pull themselves up by bootstraps,

and so be it. And when it's a giant bank connected to you know, powerful interests, like as you reported California Governor Gaviner Newsom, and then then all of a sudden becomes systemic risk, then all of a sudden, it's

we have to build that out. And I think there's a similar point to be made here with the Department of Defense, which is that, you know, in a sense, this is this is one more step in the ludicrous sums that are divvied out to defense contractors UH without any competition to these monopolistic firms that have consolidated taken over all production and consulting for the Department of Defense.

And they're creating an office basically to continue that. What is what is in one sense socialism for the rich? What is in one sense creating a government funded program to ensure the continued production of you know, technology, high tech weapons firms and basically saying, you know, we're not gonna We're not going to try to get to the root of the problem here. We're not going to create regulations. We're going to set up a system to not just

bail banks now, but bail out the companies that are affected. Right. It's funny. When I first started working on this story, I go to somebody Sometimes when you have a certain inclination a story, I like to go to somebody who has the opposite view to try to check and challenge

what your assumptions are. So I went to a friend of mine who's a national security hawk who works in the intelligence community and is specifically tasked with and has been specifically tasked to to monitor and track and stop foreign penetration and foreign interference, foreign influence in Silicon Valley and asked, and I said, it just completely neutral. I said, is there a national security threat from the bank runs

on SVB? And he said what you just said? He said, no, this is an excuse for the rich to pad their pockets. This is socialism for the rich and and you know, harsh capitalism for everybody else. And it was like, this guy is not a dumb on these questions. Yeah, I mean, I think it's it's you know, it's one of those things that's a new office. It's it's it's a strange new orientation. It follows a familiar pattern of of of

funneling cash to to giant contractors and giant firms. But I think, you know, it's these subtleties that get left out again, go back to the hill. You know, people are are chasing the story of the day. They're they're not they're not interested. Their bosses, their managers, their outlets are not interested in, you know, chasing these things that that gets slipped in on the slot, these slight things

that like the effects the entire country. Yeah, you know, yeah, and you know there's there's good anecdote again going back to the SBB reporting right when it happened, where you know, I really hammered these these senators on uh, you know, this this vote rolling back these regulations, and they said, you know, well it's unclear whether the stress testing would have done anything. And there's a measure of truth to that insofar as you know, even the FED stress testing

measures are are imperfect and those should be changed. But the idea that uh, that this was adequate regulation. This scale back created adequate regulation is a complete farce. Now. When I when I went and and you know, bird dogged all these Democrats who had joined with Republicans to pass this bill that Trump signed, you know, they it was incredible to me how upset they were, how upset they were. You know, Uh, one senator from Delaware, you know,

I tried to speak with him three times. He tried to brush me off three times, really didn't want to, not want to talk about this. And in fact, when I when I pressed Angus King and we ran the story about you know, his vote, I saw him. I saw I saw another reporter been standing right next to me when when I was pressing him on it, and I saw him the next day after the piece came out, go up to him and try to talk to him. And King was like, I'm not answering any questions, especially

not from you. And you know that really showed though that you know, if you press, if you press a little bit too hard with these senators, then you know there there lose access and that's why people don't ask you. And that's why there's actually someone like Senator Warner, you know, to give folks at home a sense of the Washington media game. You know, you have a chair of a committee.

That guy is going to give you exclusive that guy's going to give you access to things before investigations come out, for press releases coming out, that kind of thing. So it can really cost you to cross them. But that's that's where we come in, happy to cross these game. I'm always shocked by the decorum, you know, I'm always shocked by the decorum on the Hill. You know, it's like they have they answer to the press, the answer to the people who voted to put them in office,

and I'm always shocked by kind of how timid and reserved. Uh. You know, the the the what should be interrogations on the Hill are because you know, they're they're they they are there to answer your questions, and they can't really you know, they say, looking at this story to see how little covers there has been, this is not a marginal issue. Again, this is systemic. This is a question

of systemic risk. And you know, how we prevent something like this going from this was a huge I guarantee you ask any I mean, it's very hard for me to believe that looking at something like Silicon Valley Bank. That's not something that's going to draw broad condemnation from

people of both sides of the political aisle. Yeah. I mean I think both sides tried to, you know, angle you know, both both both on the right and the left for a narrative that suited their purposes, except for you know, those Democrats who who you know, voted for these rollbacks, and they just were doing everything their power to say, we have to wait and see, wait for the news cycle to blow over. The rhetoric I saw.

It was so frustrating. It's this from the Democrats, it was this is not a bailout, we're protecting depositors, all these euphemisms. And then from the Republicans it's like this is a bailout. And then absent from the from the political leadership discourse is what are we going to do to prevent this from happening again? How are we going to bring back dot frank? What are the conditions that we're going to put on these banks in exchange for frankly saving their ass to make it so that this

doesn't happen again. Almost no discussion of anything, And go back to what Warner said to me, Warner said, Uh, you tell me what regulations could possibly have prevented this wild meme driven online catastrophe other than the one you voted against it. Yeah, it's unbelievable. I mean it's it's unbelievable to make that argument. It's not based in reality, it's not based in truthfulness, and it's it's obscene. Well, we really appreciate your descending into the u mor door

to ask these guys these questions. So thanks for joining us and for your hard work in the story, and thanks everyone for watching this. Ope you've got something out of it. Hey there, my name is James Lee. Thank you for tuning into another segment of my show fifty one forty nine on Breaking Points, and today let's talk about billionaires, this monarch of billionaire. Let's just get get at that. Okay. I grew up in federally subsidized How let me finish. I grew up in federally subsidized housing.

My parents never owned a home. I came from nothing. I thought my entire pier life was based on the achievement of the American dream. Yes, I have billions of dollars. I earned it. No one gave it to me. And I've shared it cod people of Starbucks, and so anyone who keeps labeling this billionaire thing, it's the sil I don't mean to cut you up. We have time limits here, and you, well, I just think I'm not cutting you. It's your moniker constantly. It's unfair. It's unfair. How do

you guys feel about this? It's Bernie being rude to him? Are people unfairly demonizing billionaires, especially billionaires like Howard Schultz of Starbucks, a self proclaimed self made billionaire. He seems to be not taking too kindly to this billionaire moniker. I scrolled through some of the comments on TikTok, people seem kind of split. I'll just throw up a few examples for you on the screen. Bernie's feelings in logic got hurt. Schultz created five hundred thousand good paying jobs

with benefits. Of course, Bernie the fraud doesn't want to hear about it. On the other side, no one earns a billion dollars. You only manage a company of thousands that earns you billions of dollars American oligarchs. Basically, debate is good. I like debate, but how should we be thinking about this? Because income inequality has gone like this out of control in the past few decades. The wealthy have gotten more wealthy, they've never been more well off,

and everybody else seems to be kind of getting left behind. Now, before we get back to Howard, I want to go to another billionaire for a second. We live in a world where billionaires tweet all kinds of crazy things all the time. I won't mention names. Billionaires will treat whatever, and then they'll say I'll change the world, I'll do this, or you actually did doing it. We're the real deal. Yeah.

We started a company called costplus Drugs dot com. If you go and you put in the drug and if we carry it, it'll show you not only what we sell it for, it'll show you your cost and actual cost, actual cost. But we really pay for it. We mark it up fifteen percent. That's it. We have a three dollars pharmacy fee and five dollars for shipping. That's it, right. I don't need you can't. I don't. My next dollar

is not going to change my life. But if I get a chance to up the pharmaceutical industry, hell yeah, right, he's trying to fuck up big pharma. His words, not mine, but hot take. I actually think this is bad, indicative of something rotten, because, look, I'm very happy to hear about Mark Cuban's plans with cost plus drugs, and I hope he is successful. But let's imagine a different example. What if a different billionaire decides, I think I have

a great idea about public health. It's really phenomenal what the vaccine companies have done, and we can convince people to trust the vaccine getting these messages out. You need to figure out who people trust that they'll follow, and you know, whether it's people of color or various religious groups. We somehow need to get the word out this is quite an amazing vaccine that helps everyone. Yes, I was

talking about Bill Gates. Remember when Bill Gates kept saying over and over how great the mRNA vaccine was, how the technology was phenomenal, and how it would get us out of this pandemic. And any discourse, any nuance around the topic of vaccines its efficacy, safety was more or less forbidden and censored. In fact, we couldn't even really discuss other forms of intervention like diet, nutrition, exercise, and even other forms of pharmaceutical treatment were oftentimes misrepresented or

discredited in the mainstream media the entire time. Twenty two, it was just vaccines, Bill Gates. Vaccines are a miracle. It's mind blowing. Somebody could say the opposite. The thing is, vaccines are obviously an important tool in medicine and in fighting a pandemic. But should one person, a private billionaire, be able to hijack scientific discourse at the highest level and tell governments what they should or shouldn't be doing. Because that is exactly what happened, and we all know now,

but it was probably less apparent back then. But in February of this year, investigative journalist Jordan Shaftel revealed the extent of Gates profit making from his investments advisor partner, Bioantich. The foundation had purchased the shares in September twenty nineteen, just months before the pandemic was announced, at a pre public offering price of eighteen dollars ten cents per share.

Shaftell reviewed SEC filings and found that the Gates Foundation downsides its Biointech holdings by eighty six percent over the third quarter of twenty twenty one, bio Intech's best performing quarter When the foundation sold the shares at an average sale price of three hundred dollars per share, it pocketed a profit of approximately two hundred and sixty million dollars, or more than fifteen times its original investment. Wow, I'll

talk about buying low and selling high. Now, would it be fair for me to say that his motivations are less scientific, perhaps more financial? Could that lead him to potentially obfuscate the facts from the public. We think we can also have very early in an and the epidemic. The thing you can heal that will mean that you can't be infected, a blocker, an Inhale blocker. We also need to fix the three problems with vaccines. The current

vaccines are not infection blocking. They're not broad so when new variants come up, you lose protection, and they have very short duration. So there are some issues and deficiencies with the mRNA vaccines. Now that you've sold your stake in biointech and made hundreds of millions of dollars, he's like, yeah, I know, we all had a few problems with the mRNA vaccine, but going forward, we have this much better thing, a new type of vaccine which we Inhale through our nose,

and that's going to be the real game changer. I looked it up, something called intran nasal SARS Kobe two vaccine. The claim is that it is likely to prevent infection and transmission, also likely to prevent disease, a bunch of other benefits. It's made by a company called Barod Biotech. Sounds like a familiar pitch. Bill Gates His foundation just happens to be also invested in this company to a

tune of about twenty million dollars. I don't know. I feel like this is kind of a formy one shame on you for me twice shame on me type of situation. Will it work. I'm not sure. Maybe we'll have to see. But the point is, or my point is, it's never our idea is getting implemented. It's never the will of the people, it's the will of the billionaire. I'm just going to toss a few other examples out there on the screen. For example, one of them has taken a

liking into charter schools. Well, guess what, we got a bunch of charter schools now. They don't like unions, they don't think it's good for business. Well, let's make it really tough to unionize, and even if people do, they could still use the law to their advantage to drag out the bargaining process and boom union membership. That an all time low social security not a chance, Just slash

it four to one. K's all the way. Any one billionaire in America can, on a whim, good idea or a bad idea, whatever they're feeling passionate about on the day, or in many cases, whatever they think might advance their financial objectives. They are able to more or less implement any policy they like without electoral intervention, without the ability for the public to say no. The New York Times has termed this stealth politics. Now, is that the America

that you want? Because according to history that I learned in seventeen seventy six, the founding fathers of America came together to disavow the monarchy, to overthrow the king, revolution war, to fight for democracy, for liberty. So why today do we allow a bunch of kings, call them oligarchs, call them whatever you want, But why do we allow a bunch of people who have never been elected to public office to rule the country. What is going on here?

Just an observation, just something to think about. But let's go back to Howard scheldt to tie this whole thing together. Were you informed of or involved in the decision to withhold benefits from Starbucks workers in unionize stores, including higher pay and fast the sick time accrual. My understanding when we created the benefits in May, one month after I returned to CEO, my understanding was under the law, we did not have the unilateral right to provide those benefits

to employees who were interested in joining a union. Starbucks Coffee Company did not break the law, And that clip illustrates my point exactly. It's pretty easy not to break the law if you have a hand in crafting the law. I can't speak for everyone, and I certainly can't speak for the Starbucks employees, but me personally, I don't have a problem with for profit enterprises. I don't have a problem with billionaires. I mean, who could be upset about

a rags to riches story like Howard Schultz? Well, some people maybe, But what I do take issue with is undemocratic lawmaking where money buys policy, and then to have to watch a guy like Schultz smugly declare in front of Congress that he and his company are acting perfectly within the bounds of the law. So the solution we have to overturn Citizens United. You know the Supreme Court

case that basically legalize bribery. We need to force the issue and take seriously the effort to ratify House Joint Resolution twenty one on your screen, known as the People's Rights Amendment, which would undo the Court's disastrous ruling and restore the proper guardrails between money and power in government.

I can trace back so many of the problems we have in this country to the fact that we have legalized bribery, where corporations are people, where money is speech, where one single person can buy the media, and or politicians in one fell swoop and implement whatever policy they damn well. Please, what do you think? Do you take issue with billionaires? Yes? No? If so, in what way?

Please share your thoughts in the comments below, and if you feel inclined to explore more about who runs our world, subscribe to my YouTube channel fifty one to forty nine with James Lee. The link will be in the description below. Oh thank you so much for watching Breaking Points, and thanks for your time today