Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here, and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that, Let's get to the show. Some breaking news happening in the media world, a titanic event, maybe not that Titanic.
Let's go and put this up there on the screen.
Ninety two year old Rupert Murdoch is officially stepping down as the chairman of Fox and News Corp.
Here's what he writes in a memo to colleagues.
Dear colleagues, I'm ready to let you know I've decided to transition to the role of chairman emeritus at Fox and News. For my entire professional life, I have engaged daily with news and ideas that will not change. The headline is that he will be turning all responsibilities over to his son, the sole runner of the company, Lachlan Murdoch. He writes, quote, my father firmly believed in freedom. Lachlan
is absolutely committed to this cause. Self serving bureaucracies are seeking to silence those who would question their providence and purpose. Elites have contempt for those who are not members.
Of their rarefied class.
Most of the media is in cahoots with those elites, peddling political narratives rather than pursuing the truth. Bit rich coming from the multi billionaire who's made really the same business as doing the exact same thing but for other people, hey, you know who amongst us that.
It does of course settle a projection there.
For a major succession related drama, because Lachlan will be in charge of the company for now, but the ninety two year old Murdoch whenever he dies. There's actually a clause I believe in his trust or as well, whereas four surviving children will all have equal voting shares for
the future of the company. James Murdoch, on others, son, is very dismuch disagrees with Lachlan and with the future of Fox News and News Corp. He's very much more like Hillary Clinton type liberal supporter and would probably be more likely to either sell it off or to change the editorial direction of the company. Apparently the other two children are probably more inclined to agree with James, but there's no real way to change this. So it really
is like the drama from six. But as long as he's alive, Lachlan will remain in charge.
But be session fans. I guess James is more like Chavn Yes, but the idea well, and Lachlan is like Shron.
Was actually interesting character, though James appears to me to just be like your standard variety multi billionaire son lives.
I'm sure there are layers there.
I'm sure there are layers there, but I mean, the idea is that Lachlan was like buddies with Tucker and sort of embraced this trumpy persona at least he was more comfortable with that extent. So yeah, so you can slot in which our succession character you feel like he fits. But at least for now we have an answer of who is going to take over the reins in the
immediate future. And obviously, I mean this really does come at a critical juncture for Fox News, in particular because the entire cable business, and certainly in the entire cable news business, is on a on a downswing, probably a permanent one. You know, they're trying to figure out their streaming and how they continue to compete in a new era. And then obviously on the political front, they threw all
in with Ronda Santis. Ronda Santis is in fifth place in New Hampshire right now, like He's decline has been precipitous. He clearly he's you know, maybe barely hanging out in to second place in most polls, but is not even close to challenging Trump for the brass ring here, and so you know that bet was off there. Still continue to be in legal trouble over their coverage and stopped steal nonsense. They're still embroiled in lawsuits there, so that
has been an issue for them. So there's a lot of questions about the future of this organization, how they position themselves in a potentially next Trump and administration. Throughout the Republican primary, how they positioned themselves for the future with streaming, et cetera. They have very all the cable news companies have a very elderly audience base, so that's a risk for them as well. So does come at a kind of pivotal moment for the industry and Fox News included.
Just think back to our focus group, only one person said Fox News was really got there.
That's right, one out of eight. So that tells everything. Publican base voters ten years ago.
One said Fox twenty years ago they would be like Fox, Fox five will they would have named every single one of their favorite shows that time is damn guys, the Internet has completely taken over.
So yeah, he's got it. He's got a tough thing going for him.
If I were them, I mean, Fox is not where the fu I mean, that's where the money was. But obviously the one bet of their entire portfolio that I think is the best of Wall Street Journal, you know, if if they still have their hands on but that's not how they look it over there, because it doesn't print the same amount of cable carriage fees.
He's got. He's got a lot on his hands, I think for the future.
Indeed, I did a monologue about the Sound Freedom not that long ago. But there's been some very troubling developments with the leadership of the organization that was behind it, specifically Tim Ballard. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. So Tim Ballard has how had to
depart the operation Underground Railroad after a sexual misconduct investigation. Internally, they said, quote, our has dedicated to combating sexual abuse and does not tolerate sexual harassment or discrimination by anyone inside of the organization. So what they said is that while Tim Ballard allegedly is preparing for a Senate run Crystal, he quote has invited women to act as to quote his wife, on undercover missions which were aimed at rescuing
victims of sex trafficking. He would then quote allegedly coerce these women into sharing a bed or to showering together, claiming it was necessary to fool traffickers. So obviously that's incredibly creepy behavior. They're a believed quote to be higher than seven in terms of the number of women. That would account for some employees who were coerced into this. And you know, the organization itself has distanced himself, they said,
quote he has permanently separated from the organization. We're dedicated to combating sexual abuse. We have retained an independent law firm to conduct a comprehensive investigation to all the relevant allegations. What I actually thought was most noteworthy was the Mormon Church ranging in let's put this up there on the screen.
The Church of Latter day Saints actually denounced many of the claims made by Tim Ballard, saying quote, his activities were morally unacceptable and that they had betrayed the French. This was after a previous allegation about how he had been betrayed and how the president of a church had been has had his name used in terms of Tim's
quote personal or financial interests. It's pretty rare to see the Mormon Church actually come out and basically disavow and denounce the claims which were made that basically that the church was standing by him. As I said, the backdrop of all this is he wants to run for a Senate in Utah and then at the same time, with other things dropping, let's put this up there on the screen.
One of the producers behind the film quote held an allegedly underaged trafficking victim's breast during an was found during an investigation for sexual misconduct during one of these investigations.
And or trips that were made with the to go and to rescue victims of human trafficking.
So some contrary behavior to what was shown in the film Crystal I think to say the least.
Indeed, and listen, to be clear, Tim Ballard denies everything as he did nothing wrong, that they had really strict guidelines in place, et cetera, et cetera. But you now have a lot of women who effectively said very similar behavior that they experienced. There was a letter that was going around throughout the Utah philanthrop community basically warning about this HR investigation that was occurring within his own organization, which again he has now been forced out of right
into these sexual harassment allegations. Part of what the letter said is it was ultimately revealed through disturbingly specific and parallel accounts that Tim has been deceitfully and extensively grooming and manipulating multiple women for the past few years, with the ultimate intent of coursing them to participate in sexual acts with him under the premise of going where it takes and doing whatever it takes to save a child.
So the allegation here is that effectively he would use these women's real concern about trafficking victims and say, well, you know, how far would you go to make sure that these kids are okay? Well, I guess you have to, you know, sleep at the bed that I guess you have to shower with me. I guess you have to pretend you're my wife for this trip. Those are the allegations, and I think, you know, the fact that he was
pushed out of his own organization says something. There's also there is a long documented track record of him being caught in overt lies about some of the work that his organization has done, including you know, things that he has told Congress about specific trafficking survivors, the details of which he made up. The involvement of his organization with these trafficking survivors he also invented and embellished. So there were some red flags about this dude already, even in
advance of these allegations. And then the other thing that you know, within the world of organizations that are genuinely working to combat human trafficking, there were a lot of questions about their tactics, and that ties into the other allegations about this executive producer and how he ends up, you know, groping this uh maybe under age potentially underage,
sixteen year old, potentially uh sex trafficking victim. Is the the other organizations said, listen, part of what you're doing here is you're actually creating more demand for sex trafficking and in particular underage sex trafficking victims by going into these commune in the tactics that you're using. So there
were a lot of red flags. That doesn't mean you can't like the movie, that doesn't mean that you can't really support the core underlying mission, but just in terms of these particular individuals being heroes.
A lot of problems.
I think that's the that's the key point, right, which is that the movie was popular for a reason.
It was actually one of the biggest films in South America as well.
Like a lot of people, the idea behind it really resonated in terms of the problem probably which is very present, but that the people behind it, you know, people behind it, at the very least, have not conducted themselves in the most professional manner, regardless of whether it's true or not.
And I actually think that's a shame for the organization. And unfortunately, I've.
Seen a lot of people will be like this is a witch hunt and all of that, and I'm like, listen, you know you read these are people who are in the organization who agreed with the cause, who it's like they're not like liberals so much.
They were on these trips.
They who were on the trips, who are involved the Church of Ladder, like the freaking Mormon. You're accusing them of being like liars.
And yeah, it's like, what are we talking about anyway, Let's all just be honest, let's have a discussion, especially because I know that the film resonated with so many people.
That doesn't mean.
Though that it's all about real life. So important to always keep that in mind. And I'll see you guys later. We love history over here, and Crystal actually suggested this, so I decided to do a.
Little bit of a dig and give everyone the facts.
So this some fascinating stuff released from the Vatican archives. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. A new letter shows that Pope Pius the twelve probably knew about the Holocaust much earlier than the Vatican has ever admitted to.
So this letter, it.
Was sent actually in nineteen forty two, and it warns about Nazi attempts explicitly to exterminate Jews.
In the Holocaust.
The letter, which was reproduced, shows that years before the Vatican has previously maintained that they knew about the mass extermination campaign against Jews in the Holocaust, that a priest, a German America or sorry, a German Catholic priest, had given a heads up to the Vatican that quote, six thousand Poles and Jews a day were being killed quote in ss furnacer furnaces at the Belzak camp near Rava Ruska, which was then part of German occupied Poland now in
western Ukraine. Apparently they also referenced Auschwitz and Dakau, some of the most infamous and worst death camps in the entire Holocaust. Now, the reason why this is very significant is because there's been always a lot of debate about the Vatican and how they handled World War Two and specifically Nazi Germany. And so what this brings up is the fact that the Pope at that time actually never
spoke out against Hitler while he was in power. Now, the key part of that, though, is that while he didn't, yes, technically do that, the Vatican has always argued that they used diplomacy to try and prevent a Nazi backlash, that really what they did is they worked like behind the scenes. There's always been a lot of controversy around this, because there's questions about like the Pope at that time modives themselves. The Allied powers actually begged the Vatican to get involved.
I don't know.
I mean, after reading this, it does seem pretty clear like you knew exactly what was going on in December of nineteen forty two at the same time, I mean, like I'm like somewhat sympathetic, I guess because it was a crazy situation. They the Nazis had long been like anti Catholic, but politically there were some interesting stuff going on between these two parties when the Nazis rose to power. But then of course they were also going after in some cases priests and others who were working in the
resistance movements, like in France. So I don't know, maybe in their justification, I'm assuming as they didn't want to invite like explicit backlash against the Church, that's what they're saying.
That's their spin. I mean, I don't know.
To me, it seems pretty clear cut, like you knew there were death camps and you didn't say anything about it. So, and there's also interesting this, as you said, it was found in the Vatican archives in letters correspondence that they said was like haphazardly stored and seems to not just be a one off. It seems to be a series of correspondents between this individual and the Pope. So the idea being that, you know, there were letters before this,
even before this letter. Now that we've found that they have not let yet located, either they've been misplaced forever or they're somewhere else in the Vatican archives that haven't been turned up yet. But the idea being that, like, this wasn't even your first signal. You knew what was going on even before this, You were in this ongoing correspondence with this individual. So to me, it seems pretty hard to justify.
Yeah, especially because the Allied powers were literally begging them to do it. There was actually an interesting new book that just came out last year, a guy named David Kurtzer. It was called The Pope at War. It really puts the It puts the Pope on blast and oh really, yeah, I mean, he didn't have this document, but he knew
and inferred enough. What effectively he concluded is quote he thought he could negotiate with Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler and tempered Nazi hatred with diplomacy while the pope act carefully quote amid initial concerns that access powers may eventually control europe pies never changed his approach, even as evidence and pleased for the Vatican to take a stand mounted so quote, as a moral leader. He must be judged a failure also because he was in power. I mean, you know,
it's a crazy situation. He came to power I think it was like March nineteen thirty nine, and he died in almost nineteen sixty, like nineteen fifty eight, So he was the pope for almost twenty years. And so even afterwards, apparently they did quite a bit to just cover up
some of the things that were going on. And even his predecessor, they never really knew what to do with Hitler and with all the rise of power until they explicitly turned against the Church because they hated communists just as much as.
Some of the German conservatives.
Anyway, there's a lot we could go into here, but the letter itself fascinating stuff, and I guess just proves really the point of David Kurtzer's entire book, which is like, yeah, this is a huge failure on their side. And a lot of the justifications and stuff that they came up with really just don't stand.
The test of time.
Yeah, they don't hold water.
I wanted to keep an eye on a very troubling trend in the United States which we're all aware of, but which the numbers are really stark.
Let's go and put this up there on the screen.
A new analysis from the CDC of death certificates over the last twenty years shows that obesity is a factor and cardiac debts has tripled over the last twenty years. So there were two hundred and eighty one thousand deaths from heart disease linked to obesity in the last twenty years.
The death rate has tripled from two point two deaths per one hundred thousand to six point six per one hundred thousand in the database which are linked to obesity, and the increase in obesity related debts has with the
steady decline actually of heart disease overall. So the reason why this is troubling is that overall deaths from heart disease are actually down by eighteen percent, but obesity related heart disease is up by twenty So as obesity continues to be a factor, the advance in medicine and statins and all this other stuff that we're used in non obese cases of heart disease are still going to continue
to be a problem. They also show that obesity currently is, and this is stunning, one hundred and fifteen million people in the United States are now, as they put it, affected by OBEs or classified OBEs themselves, forty two percent of adults. But the worst part, and this is always the one that kills me, twenty percent of children now according to the CDC. And the issue with that figure is that that is just obese, that's not even just
bmi overweight. And then if you really dig into it, a stunning like eight percent or so are like forty or fifty bmi like incredibly overweight relative to where they should be. And the issue with that is that leads to all kinds of insane conditions like type two diabetes with small children or children, teenagers and others. I mean, that's just a lifetime of suffering and it will shorten your life span.
Your health span is a disaster.
So there's a lot, you know, there's a lot of issues that are happening here, and the overall health impact is so stunning and so immense. I saw a recent chart actually that debts related to sugar and or obesity outstrip any drug in the history of the United States. If you classify sugar as an actual drug, which I mean, you know, there's a good case to be made. Like we talk all about alcohol related debts, ventanyl related debts and all this wipes every single one of those, you know,
out of the water. I mean, it's just because it's more I guess societally accepted. All right, we don't think of it that way. I mean probably should.
There's when you see statistics like this, like I saw a map recently that showed the obesity rates by every state, and if you go back to the nineties and look at the same map, the state in the nineties that had the highest obesity rate now is actually a lower than the state now that has the lowest obesity rate.
Like that, things have shifted so much dramatically over time, and when you look at those sort of society wide numbers, you realize there are big picture, systemic things happening here that are so much, so much further beyond just obviously people have agency and I don't want to tell anybody they can't improve their lives and make their situation better. But I also think people need to cut themselves some slack. That this is a massive society wide trend that is
driven by some huge factors. I mean, obviously like big AG, big food, the way we've been like systematically lied to thanks to the corrupting influence of big companies in terms of what actual nutritional guidance should look like and what is actually good for us and what is not good for us. I mean, the sugar lobby has been and big soda has been a tremendously negative impact in our society.
And by the way, the Washington Post also had an article about how many of these so called dietitians are now paid by the food industry to go on TikTok, to go on Instagram, etc. And promote things that again are just like flat out lies and further confused people how even to make good choices for themselves and for their kids. So there's a lot going on here. I wanted to ask you, Sager, if you think that ozempic
can be any sort of a realistic like improvement. It's a very kind, let alone solution, but it can be an improvement.
I know doctors who are on one side. I know doctors who are on the other side. I personally, here's my belief. I do not believe that there can be a quote unquote medical cure to such as systemic problem. I don't believe in magic solutions. I don't believe in magic pills. And I think there's always a catch. Now,
maybe the catch is better than the alternative. So for example, people are like improvement, yeah, right, So people who are like, well, I took it and then when I went off of it, I gained my weight backs, and that means I have to stay on it forever. And you know, I mean that sounds very profitable for Novo no artisks or whatever who's the manufacturer. So I used to start to get skeptical.
There's been previous also reports about like muscle mass loss and also by people who use ozembit, but that could also be biased to the population who wants to, you know, lose a little bit of weight and gain some muscle. We're not talking about the morbidly obese.
I you genuinely don't know. I think there needs to be a lot of study.
But like I said, I am just skeptical of some sort of like one size fits all pills solution that you have to take on a consistent basis. Side effects can be numerous, you know, there's lots of stuff about and just in general, like slowing down your gut. When you tell me that and that's the solution, I'm just like, I don't know, man, Like, I don't know how.
Exactly this all works out.
However, that could be better than being morbidly obese and being seven hundred pounds, so, you know, maybe that is an answer.
I think it's probably a case by case basis that people can make.
Especially for people who are morbidly morbidly obese, I think that is so horrifically bad for you that getting out of that is, you know, is the most imperative thing that you can do for your health. The question then comes for people who are like on the edge, who are overweight and or on the obesity line, like what's the best way to get there.
I'm still a big believer in the tools.
Like mother nature gave us, which is diet, exercise, and it's just very incredibly, incredibly hard even for people who are just blend, people who have money, will power and all that the modern environment is not set up for you to sucty eight, and I just I don't know what the I mean. We've talked about this. It's like when you want to walk ten thousand steps. Yeah, if you have any semblance of a desk job, it sucks.
Like you'll be like it's like six pm, You're like, Okay, I got to go for a one hour and fifteen minute walk today.
Yeah, or carving out moment in your day.
And I've been trying to burn like five hundred calories of cardio per day on top of any resist.
It takes me like an hour and a half. Maybe I'm just slow, maybe, but it's also.
I mean in other countries that have rely more on walking public transportation, like when I lived in New York City, absolutely it was built in I walk to work every day. It was roughly like you know, a little over a mile in each direction. And so just like built into my day is at least three miles of walking without
ever going to the gym. And so when so much of are like the way our cities and towns are constructed is just about you know, getting in the car and yeah, there's no there's like basically zero physical activity built into the average Americans day. That's one thing. Then you know you have all of the We subsidize things like corn. That's why there's like every type of corn in your food every day, high fruit shows corn syrup
and whatever. We subsidize things that are unhealthy. We make junk food like the cheek food that you can possibly buy, and then we turn around and wonder like, oh, why why do we have these skyrocketing obesity And.
Then evening, you know, even things like rice, it's like, well, you can make the rice, you can soak the rice, you can put it in the rice kicker, or you can buy that Uncle Ben's five minute rice. It sounds pretty nice. It's but it's super processed. And it's like, well, if you're busy, what are you going to do? I have so total sympathy, you know, I see moms and stuff at the grocery store. If we've got like three screaming children, I'm like listen, you know for you.
Like that is another thing, isn't it?
Like the amount of hours that we work, how stretched people are having to work two and three jobs? Like you think you have time to cook some like perfect healthful meal, even if you could afford the ingredients that would entail, and we make it impossible for people to succeed, and then we only look at like the individual part, which again and blame them, which again, Listen. I don't ever want to take away from people the agency who improve their life to make changes that are going to
help them in whatever they're going through. But when you only are focused on the like you know, pull yourself up by the bootstraps conversation, and you're not looking at these overall trends, I think that can be very dishonest, and I think it can also end up being extremely unhelpful for the people that most need that assistance.
Totally agree.
Pew Research Center survey finds that everybody thinks everything sucks.
Yes, and for more details on that. Basically, the breaking news is that Americans have correctly assessed the state of America. Yes, so this is a new research from PU We can put the element up on the screen where majorities of Americans say the political process is dominated by special interests, flooded with campaign cash, admirred and partisan warfare. Elected officials, Peugh goes on to say, are widely viewed as self
serving and as ineffective. And Pew says that actually, this study finds quote no single focal point for the public's dissatisfaction. There's widespread criticism of the three branches of government, both political parties as well as political leaders and candidates for office. Now this is they say, coming amid historically high levels of voter turnout in national elections. So they find that contrast to be somewhat interesting. I think it's worth noting
some specific results here. Just four percent of US adults say the political system is working extremely well or very well.
Four percent.
That's not just among people who say extremely well. That's extremely well and very well. Another twenty three percent say it is working somewhat well. About six and ten say they have not too much confidence or no confidence at all in the future of the US political system. Pew says positive views of many governmental and political institutions are at historic lows. Just sixteen percent of the public will say they trust the federal government always or most of
the time. That's even including people who say most of the time. Again, usually you can see numbers like that for people saying, oh, I always trust this or that, But you're concluding both of those views. That's extremely bad
for America. Obviously, it goes without saying. Now, while trust has hovered near historic lows Pew says for the better part of the last twenty years, today it stands among the lowest levels dating back nearly seven decades, and more Americans have an unfavorable than favorable opinion of the Supreme Court. That's the first time this has occurred in polling going back to late nineteen eighties. A growing share of the
public dislikes both political parties. Nearly three and ten express unfavorable views of both parties, the highest share in three decades of polling, and a comparable share of adults do not feel very represented by either party, and candidate choices are under wellming. Sixty three percent of Americans say they're
dissatisfied with the presidential candidates that have emerged so far. Now, I was actually going to make that point too, in that we have a leading candidate for the Republican nomination that is not participating in the debate so far, and we also have a president that is currently the sitting president of the US who is not debating despite actually
the majority of his party. It's not, of course, it's normal for the president not to engage in the debates during the primary process, but his voters are on the side of wanting him to debate. Most of his own voters think he's too old to be in elected office right now. So you have even among the party voters for the two main political parties right now, dissatisfaction with the leading candidates, both of those leading candidates clinging to
their power. And this is as you have six and ten Americans saying they have not too much or no confidence at all the future of the US right. We see numbers like this all of the time. It's no real surprise. You're always going to have some level of distrust high with some institutions. You're not always going to have perfect trust across all institutions. But man, these numbers are steep.
They're really bad.
And there are contradictions within these numbers and within the views that people are holding that can't be worked out by the political system necessarily, and one of them being that essentially a number one thing that people say, besides complaints about politicians, that people say to Pew here is that they don't like the way that partisan that the way that things have become so partisan that they think that Democrats and Republicans care more about fighting each other
than they care about solving the problems of the country. Like massive numbers of people agree with that obviously true statement. At the same time, they also and other Pew surveys and somewhat in this one express their deeply, deeply negative views about the other party. So they are expressing the very thing that they think in aggregate is bad. But that's and that's why it can't be worked out because while everybody agrees what the problems are, people disagree on what the solutions are.
Like everybody agrees that, you know, the two.
Party system stinks, but nobody agreed nobody certainly the parties are not going to agree to dissolve themselves and allowing new parties or a multi party system, nor would there even be a mechanic for that outside of like a constitutional convention. And then everybody agrees that, uh, partisanship is the problem, but they will say that it's the other side that just needs to go away and stop, you know, being in the way of things.
Well, and this, by the way, is why the whole mansion no Labels movement that John Huntsmen are resolve that contradiction at all, right, and it actually is, it's the exact opposite. Read So they look at polls like this, and by the way, P did a word bubble of American's top description in the current state of politics. Biggest word is divisive. But then the second biggest word is corrupt, messy, bad, polarized, chaos, dysfunctional, crazy. One of them is just shit.
Wh it'sp blurped out.
But like, they look at this and they say, oh, big opening for the no label's movement to the point where they're seriously flirting with a third party presidential bid. And they really are.
But what right, What they're forgetting is two things. One, lots of people who are independence and don't like one of other parties, disagree with each other. You've got right wing independence, you got left wing independence, and then you got independence who are kind of all.
Over the place.
And then you have independence who are kind of checked out and they're like sort of pay attention to the news, sort of sort of don't might show up for the election,
might not. And to say that all forty percent of those people like would then support Joe Manchin through no labels is absurd and then your point about the corruption and money in politics is key, because No Labels is funded by dark money, like private equity goons, people who own baseball stadiums, like secretly writing checks to get this party, this non party, No Labels party on the ballot in fifty states. Who for what purpose? Who knows why, who's
to benefit, who's funding it? And so the idea that you would approach a population that is saying it's one of its top concerns is the corruption of politics by by big moneyed interests, then you'd come at them with seventy million dollars in dark money supporting Joe Manchin and Larry Hogan and Lisa Murkowski or whatever, and that they're going to and that everybody from the socialist left to the libertarian right who are registered as independents are going
to like flock behind that. It's like give that money back, you're stealing it from them, but actually it should all be confiscated.
They don't want that, I mean nobody, absolutely nobody wants that. And when compromises are brokered in Washington, it's by industry, it's by lobbyists. And so if you're ever hearing Joe Manchin say, there's like the problem solver Caucus.
Yeah right, it's a no labels product.
Oh yeah, yeah, And they have like it's it's all just like established from politicians that are so close to the center on the right and the left that they can sit in a room together. It's not bringing you know, Matt Gates together with Alexandria Casio Cortes and some centrist Josh Gottheimer.
Right, if you can do.
That, then talk to us. But you actually, what you want to do is relegate both of the populist wings to the fringes right further, and you want the sort of adults in the room is what they like to call themselves to take over.
That was the explicit mandate of no labels. No Labels launched after the Tea Party wave and then surged, surged as like as you know, it's fifty people give a lot of money after Bernie Sanders, and so their argument was the Tea Party is bad, Bernie Sanders is bad. You know, let's let's build a wall of money and keep these angry people out. Yeah yeah, and they think that that that's the solution to the crisis.
Nugget.
Yeah, it's amazing, but it's also amazing to me that you can have this level.
It's like when.
People say they lament the level of trust in media, a lot of journalists all the time will be like frothing. They're very upset because trust in media is low. And for me, I'm like Lois, I'm like, oh, thank god, Like these numbers are low, because genuinely, if numbers and trust in media were high right now, and they've been higher than they should be in the past, but like people have caught on to the media's corruption and lies,
that's a good thing. It's bad for the country that we can't trust the media, but it's good that we recognize we can't trust the media because then you can sort of look to different sources and you can make decisions in it in a different way.
But then, but then some of.
Those sources have their own agendas and are then just feeling a vacuum, and we're just manipulating people themselves.
This is this is all a thinly veiled Oh I don't know. I think you do a pretty good job failing it, Ryan, This is all a veiled advertisement for Ryan's new mushroom company, Psychedelic Company, is all he will phone trust.
There's no realities. You might as well just enjoy these much.
And then he steps into the vacuum and sells you psychedelic.
Right.
But in all seriousness, there's no answer to this. I mean, that's like, that's probably the biggest problem. The answer is either no labels or.
I think this wave might be cresting, I think, and that maybe we can't see it because Trump is still around.
And he's going to be around for a very long time.
But I feel like, at least on the democratic side, there's a lot of people are checking out, like you've seen st worries about big Democratic donors and small democratic donors are stepping back in a big way from and I think that part of that is this wave that we saw from twenty seven sixteen seventeen, with Trump coming in and everybody everybody experiencing politics as this like minute to minute phenomenon is unsustainable, and I think people gradually
are kind of pulling back from it, though they will return through twenty twenty four as Trump, you know, exerts his gravitational force on our political field. But I think that that's obviously that is temporary, and I think it's possible that we're seeing a fading on the right, though, Are you seeing a decoupling a little bit for the connection or.
People just as frothing at the mouth as they always were.
No. I think it's a huge problem on the right because it's so specifically attached to Donald Trump, and the Trump factor looms over absolutely every other conversation. So if you want to have a same conversation that would appeal to the average voter about weaponization of the Department of Justice, you're going to have to be litigating these completely thorny cases against Donald Trump, where some of them it's like, Okay, did he do something wrong?
Yes?
Would they be bringing charges against Biden if he did this? Probably not, And it gets tangled up in these kind of meta discussions instead of the central discussions. And so that means the entire sort of populist movement is specifically tied to one man, and that one man happens to be very unpopular outside of this sort of Trump base.
He might be something that people tolerate and will vote for if their other train is Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton, but sort of in a broad sense, he's not like a popular you know, someone who's going to like build bridges between this wide swath of voters and left and
the right. He's pretty unpopular and if you look at his numbers, and that's a big problem because it means Republicans who are trying to broaden the base and are trying to let some populism in the door have to contend with that, and that makes the populism unpopular.
Yeah, in the short version of the few survey rails, nobody likes this, but this is what we got.
We're going to keep modeling forward.
We're going to keep you exactly all right.
To stick around for more modeling.
You know, it's funny you wouldn't tell an employer that you plan to put in so little effort that if you put in any less effort, it would be illegal. And yet that is exactly what minimum wage is. And is it possible to live anywhere on a US's minimum wage and not just subsists, not just barely scrape by, but experience some level of comfort because the origin of the minimum wage in the US is a commitment to the idea that if you're working full time, you shouldn't
have to experience poverty. You work forty hours a week, whatever, you're doing developing software or working on as semay line or behind a deep fryer. You should be able to relax after work and not worry about whether or not you have enough money to both pay rent and eat.
In the late eighteen hundred.
Sweatshops were a big issue in the US, and one way of combating this was to institute a minimum wage.
In nineteen thirty eight. This was set at twenty five cents.
When FDR was pushing for this legislation, he called it a living wage, saying that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers.
Has any right to continue in this country. And he meant every.
Single business and every single worker. And he went out of his way to clarify living wage as a decent wage. And this was when he was pushing for a minimum wage. So I think it's safe to say that a minimum wage was meant to be a decent page, fair day's work for a fair day's wage. So, now that I've said wage too many times, where do you have to go to live on the US federal minimum wage?
Okay?
So I'm in New York and here minimum wage is fifteen dollars an hour. If you're working forty hours a week, you are going to be left with about eighteen hundred dollars a month after taxes. Well, if you should spend roughly a third of your income on rent, that's six hundred dollars a month, which is insane. Here, let's see what that gets you. Nothing, which is why New Yorkers spend more like two thirds of their income on rent. So what can we get for less than twelve hundred dollars?
Two apartments in the entire city under twelve hundred at least on this site. But one thousand dollars for an apartment is really good. So one thousand dollars plus a subway tasks, three hundred dollars on food, two hundred and four electric, gas, internet, and your phone.
It's gonna be really tough.
Even if you find a roommate situation where you can save a few hundred dollars on you're not going to have much leftover at the end of the month to get drinks with friends or see a movie.
Obviously a child is going to.
Be way over the budget. Definitely don't do that. But you know what, in New York that's one of the most expensive places in the world. There are places in the US, I'm sure with a way lower cost of living. So where could you live? According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Arkansas has the lowest cost of living. Median rent for a studio apartment is five hundred and twenty eight dollars.
Eight hundred and.
Sixty dollars is what the average person spends on their car and transportation, two hundred and fifty dollars for food, two hundred and four electric gas, internet.
And your phone.
If you can delete the car because you just happen to live near some public transit that may actually be really cheap. Let's say you are so lucky and you never have to stay at work until nine or ten after the.
Bus stopped running.
Well, hey, you could be doing worse, and it just so happens that a living wage in Arkansas is fifteen dollars and twenty five cents, not too far off. One problem, though, Arkansas's minimum wage is not fifteen dollars an hour.
It's eleven.
But you know what, you're still doing a lot better than all these states that are making seven to twenty five an hour. Now, as it turns out, only about two percent of the workforce make exactly minimum wage. But that's one point six million people. And yes, some of them are teenagers, but most of them are not. And these are only the people making exactly federal minimum wage. There are a lot more people making seven fifty seven
to seventy five eight nine dollars an hour. About fourteen percent of all US workers make fifteen dollars an hour or less. That's nineteen million people on average.
For the United States.
If this is the poverty threshold, and this is a living wage, this is minimum wage. If you're splitting the rent with someone, it gets easier. But as soon as you add a couple kids to that, the gap between you and poverty gets a little smaller, and the gap between you and comfort gets a lot bigger. So where can you live on seven to twenty five? Well, Belgium has a lower cost of living. Maybe you could move to Belgium. Belgium's poverty line is one three hundred and
sixty six euros for a single person. The work week there is thirty eight hours, and the minimum wage before taxes is one nine hundred and fifty five euros. For some reason, you move to Belgium and you're working remotely from the US making the US minimum wage a scenario I can't imagine exists outside of this video, but that's the game we're playing. At seven twenty five an hour, it would take almost seventy two hours a week to make the Belgium's minimum wage, So.
Belgium is out.
The UK also has a lower cost of living. Again, why are you working remote from England making an American's minimum wage?
That makes no sense.
Evidently, a living wage in the UK is ten pounds ninety The minimum wage there is ten forty two, so they're lagging behind a little bit as well. And in pounds, the US federal minimum wage comes to five eighty five, which is apparently the minimum wage for sixteen year olds there.
Not doing so great. Uruguay is pretty affordable.
Looks like you can live for as little as fourteen thousand US dollars there, and as far as I can tell, they won't charge taxes on income that is earned outside the country, but you do still have to pay American taxes on that money earned, so that's too much for US as well. It goes without saying it's almost impossible to buy a house when you're making minimum wage it's only the rarest of circumstances that will allow you to pull this off. But this didn't have to be the case.
Economist Dean Baker explains that until nineteen sixty eight, the minimum wage not only kept pace with inflation, it rose in step with productivity growth, which, according to him, would place minimum wage at more like twenty four dollars an hour, which would make it way more possible for a couple
each earning minimum wage to actually buy a home. Clearly, that is not the timeline we're living in, Okay, So moving down the cost of living list by country, you can live in Taiwan for eleven hundred dollars a month, but again seven to twenty five take home is more like nine to fifty a month.
Cuba cost of living is nine to ninety five. Getting closer.
Continuing down the list, the first place that we find that's under nine to fifty a month take home is Jordan. The cost of living for a single person with an apartment outside out of a city center is apparently nine hundred and twenty dollars a month. Some cursory and lazy research has confirmed this, the point being if you make seven dollars and twenty five cents an hour. There are places you can go where it will be a decent living.
Those places just are in America. Also, it will be thousands of dollars for you to actually move to those places, So you're definitely trapped here no matter what. Fortunately, there is progress being made, in no small part to groups like five for fifteen states have individually raised their minimum wage and brought more and more people into a higher
standard of living. As far as what's going on federally right now, the Republicans have a bill that would raise the minimum wage to eleven dollars an hour, which clearly isn't enough, and it's only for people who can prove citizenship, which means it will exclude the probably five million undocumented workers in the US. But you know what, if you're not slipping poison pills and needless cruelty into the bills you're authoring, that takes the whole sport.
Out of legislating, right.
But a much better bill was introduced this summer in the Raise the Wage Act of twenty twenty three, which would bring the federal minimum wage to seventeen dollars an hour by twenty twenty eight, which is much closer to what we actually need in this country, and that will do it for me. I hope you found this video interesting. I hope you learned something. If you did, make sure you are subscribed to Breaking Points. You can also follow me on Twitter or at my own YouTube channel, where
I talk about media and politics and things. Liking and sharing always helps. Thank you so much to Breaking Points, Thank you so much for watching, and I will see you in the next one.