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. Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal?
Indeed, we do lots of interesting polls breaking this out this morning, both on the Democratic side, some problems with Biden and non voters, and also on the Republican side, some interesting insights into who is actually the most electable sort of surprising. We also have new comments from Mitch McConnell about what exactly is going on with him and his health. And we also have new comments from Diane Feinstein where she appeared to forget that she had given
her daughter power of attorney over her personal affairs. Also some details about how a doom loop that is coming for commercial real estate could really imperil a lot of
the commercial banking sector, so we'll dig into that. We've also got some new details about how gen Z feels about college is much different from how millennials felt about college, and a very interesting speech from Mike Pence condemning populism and asserting his view of what the Republican Party should be spoiler alert sounds a lot like the past of what the Republican Party has.
Been, so there's a lot to say about it there.
It's actually very interesting, so we'll dig into that. We're also excited to have a YouTuber Fantano and music critic on to do a little fun segment dissecting the political playlist the music playlist of some of the presidential contenders. So that should be a fun one.
Yeah, it's really exciting. Yeah, I go ahead.
Before we get into any of that, though, we want to thank all of the Premium subscribers who've been helping us out because we are super super excited to be putting together our very first ever focus group, and I can now reveal to you a few of the details of this focus group. So it's happening this weekend. We should have some results to bring to you next week. It's among Republican voters in the state of New Hampshire, so we should get a good view from them about
what candidates they're considering, what candidates they're with. Some of them are sort of settled on their candidates, some of them are undecided, So we'll dig into all of that and some of the top issues. It should be really cool.
What I'm most excited for from our focus group and the work that we've put into it, and on top of our team and the firm that we've partnered with, is we're trying to get to stuff that the mainstream media doesn't ask.
We're going to ask economic questions. We're going to try and get into the.
Deeper like what motivates voters, and actually get to some uniting factors and more so just move towards the structural things that affect every every day people's lives as opposed to just pure horse race. So we're going to do our best year. We really excited to put that work in. As we've said before though, it costs a lot of money. So if you are able to Upbreakingpoints dot Com to become a premium member, we think you're going to get a lot out of it. Both you know both to
listen to. But really I think it's gonna be a very visual medium. Think people are going to want to watch some of the stuff that we put together.
Absolutely, it should be really cool, and we want to hear from you about what you think of it. When we get it all together and present the results. Let us know what you think and if you enjoy it and you get something out of it, also let us know what we should do next, because perhaps this is the thing that we you know, it's not just a want,
sure we could continue to do moving forward. All right, So, speaking of polls and focus groups and politics and all of the rest, some pretty dire numbers for Joe Biden and the Democratic Party among non white voters. And this is a very interesting analysis put together by the New York Times Nate Cohen. Let's put this up on the screen.
We've got some of the graphics here. So what these charts show is consistent signs of erosion in black and Hispanic support for Biden, and really not just for Biden. I mean they start to track this shift back in twenty twelve. It really begins to accelerate with some of the realignment that occurs with Donald Trump, in twenty sixteen. These lines track the sentiment of black and brown and other non white voters towards Democrats and support for the
Democratic Party across these years by different demographic growths. So the first one that you see there is just by race and ethnicity. You can see black support declining. You can see all non white support declining. You can see Hispanic support declining. They don't have Asian broken out here because they just didn't have a large enough sample size. Then they go on to gender. It's among both genders, male and female. They go to age. It's among both
ages both age groups that they break out here. Then they go to education. You see this trend among non college and college degree holding. However, the trend is much steeper among non college degree holding non white voters and among income groups. You also see the decline happening among basic all income groups, but it is particularly notable among those making less than fifty K, and actually among those who are making more than one hundred K, so that's
the highest income group. You actually see the trend reversing somewhat. So this is consistent with that sorting of voters among education and class lines that we have sort of consistently tracked over the years. So they make the point that mister Biden is underperforming most among non white voters making less than one hundred thousand dollars per year, at least temporarily erasing the century old tendency for Democrats to fare
better among lower income than higher income non white voters. Now, it's not like non white voter Sager are flocking in droves to the Republican Party, although they do note that there is a modest group of five percent of non white Biden voters who now say they support mister Trump, so there has been some small shift actually affirmatively towards Trump. However, the bigger thing that Democrats are concerned about, and the bigger worry for them out of numbers like this, is
that these voters just aren't going to show up. Yes, and that's exactly what we saw in the midterms. It's not like non white voters went to the Republican Party. It's just they were not nearly as animated about this election as white voters were, who have basically maintained their support for the Democratic Party across the Trump and Biden years. It's just that they didn't show up their turnout was
way down. And when you're talking about these razor thin margins, and when you're looking at polls that are coming out that show Biden and Trump tied in a general election had to head matchup, this is an important part of the story of why Biden is struggling to break out ahead of Trump at this point.
Yeah, the line that just stuck out to me is this quote, I mean, which is just unbelievable. Guys, can if we can put it up there on the screen. It's so important for people to understand. I mean, when he is underperforming amongst non white voters making less than one hundred thousand dollars per year, that quote at temporarily erases the century old tendency for Democrats to fare better amongst lower income than higher income non white voters. This
is a full blown political realignment that we're watching. And if it does manifest whenever it comes to the polling I mean to the actual polling stations and where people are pulling the lever for votes, that is just unbelievable. It also does make sense though, in terms of the issue set that it's most animating for the new Democratic base,
which is abortion and listen we've talked about it before. Actually, freddied Woar made a good pint, which is abortion really is one of those things that cost cuts across class lines, one of the reasons why it is particularly animating.
But let's be real.
You know, it's white liberal women in particular who are the most animated about it. Nothing wrong, just saying though that those are people who are voting the most whenever
it comes to that issue. Well, if that's the only issue set that you're really running on, then people who are most voted but motivated by economic factors, they're either going to stay home, or they're going to look elsewhere, or they're just going to be particularly pissed off and they may, you know, it may take something at the very last minute to can convince them to vote, which is pretty devastating whenever that's your pitch as a party.
I mean, it's not just abortion that Biden's running on. He continues to embrace the emblem Bidenomics for some reason that none of us understand. It's very clear from these numbers working class, non white voters do not subscribe to Bidenomics or the Bidenomics message at all.
So this is actually the entire subject of my monologue today, which is that the experience of the average voter of the Biden administration has been one of seeing every pandemic era aid program that genuinely helped a lot of people. I mean, don't get me wrong, a lot of suffering during COVID two, But if you look at the numbers, people were able to pay down their debt, people were able to have a little bit of a cushion in
their bank account. You think about the child tax credit, you think about the direct checks, you think about support for affordable childcare, all of these things, expanded healthcare, all of these things got stripped away over the course of
the Biden administration. And you add to that increasing prices making it much more difficult for people to be able to afford the things they need, just the basics of survival, and wildly unaffordable housing, perhaps the least affordable housing market that you know we've seen, certainly in our lifetimes, perhaps ever, and it spells a lot of trouble now long term. I actually think some of the things that Biden has done have been good and will benefit the economy in
the long term. The industrial policy, you think about the CHIPSAC Inflation Reduction Act. You think about the moves on unions, the moves on antitrust, but those things are not hitting people's bank accounts today. And so in terms of what matters when people are casting their votes, the fact that their material interests haven't been put first and foremost for especially you know, lower income or working class voters, Yeah, that's going to matter. Matt carp is a historian, scholar, author, etc.
Who studies this stuff really closely. He calls it less class realignment and more class de alignment. It's that in the past you could have predicted, okay, based on your income. If you're lower income, you're more likely to be a Democratic Party supporter, certainly during the New Deal era, because that's where your material interests lie. Increasingly, you just can't predict, like it's just sort of like a toss up. You can't tell anything based on someone's income. They might be
a Republican, they might be a Democrat. And so it's less that there's a you know, all these voters flocking to the Republican Party and more that there's just a reversion to a fifty to fifty split because neither party is dealing directly with people's material interests in a way that they feel in a concrete, immediate way today.
I don't blame it.
How can you, you know, whenever you look at the issue set, that's not really what's up for grabs, especially for our politicians. I wish it wasn't that way, but it certainly is. Class d alignment is an excellent, excellent point, and it fits with something I've been trying to hammer home here for years now, which is we're mostly polarized on educational lies. If you went to a four year college degree, you're probably going to vote for a Democrat.
If you didn't, you're probably going to be a Republican. Absent fact, if you are a black voter, but you know in Hispanic sort of converging towards that trend Black even younger black voters are starting to converge to that trend white voters.
That is entirely where the split is.
That's why I'm so fascinated here to see the non white voter where it's almost it's mostly concentrated, where they would still vote Democrat even if they did not attend a four year college degree institution. Well, in this case, and I always tell this that doesn't mean they're gonna be Republican.
Guys.
Other Republicans were listening who are like, yeah, absolutely, they just may not vote. And there's one hundred million people in this country don't vote. A lot of people don't vote. I've not voted in the past because I just didn't care. And I actually think that is an afirmative choice, you know for many people I which I do not judge really at all, which is I'm checking out, And that's
a feeling overwhelmingly where it's a feeling. It's a real undermining of faith in our democracy, and it's one where increasingly, the more partisan that we become, we will accelerate class d alignment and will probably accelerate the non white voting or the non voting trend, even more so than where it is right now, which is actually a catastrophe in the long run.
I mean a civil engagement.
Ironically, because Trump is such a cult touchstone and like you know, made politics culture and vice versa, voting participation has been up in the Trump era. I mean, yeah, it was very high in twenty twenty. Actually, in a lot of these special elections that we've been tracking that have centered around abortion, turnout has been extremely high, so there's been there's actually been an increase in the level
of engagement. But it'll be interesting to see if that holds in this election when you have so much dissatisfaction with both of these choices, and it's really going to turn on the voters who hate both of these men, you know, assuming it's Trump and Biden who are facing off again, which certainly looks like the most plausible outcome at this point. Those people who hate both of them,
who do they break for? That's probably going to be the determinive factor, given the fact that you know, both of them have like thirty something percent of roval ratings both of them. People are like, really, you're going to run again? Nobody wants you, like, please move on? Can we please have some other choices? And yet here we are locked into this battle between these guys. Let me also put this next piece up on the screen, which is funny, amusing and also sad. I know. NBC News, Okay,
here's the headline. Democratic elites struggle to get voters as excited about Biden as they are now. I question whether they are actually that excited about Joe Biden. I am a little skeptical that they I mean, these are not stupid people. They can see his shortcomings in terms of his vigor that was a good word to use the other day saga, in terms of his sort of like presidential vigor, et cetera. I mean, they can see that
he's not the most exciting, charismatic figure. So I'm a little skeptical that these Democratic elites are as excited as NBC News is reporting them to be. But they're trying very hard to convince the electorate that, you know, this is a great affirmative choice, that this is the best person that the Democratic Party could possibly put forward, and
they're having difficulties getting voters to buy into this. There's one individual, one guy Rich Thou, who ran a focused group in may have swing voters that'd switched from Trump in twenty sixteen to Biden twenty twenty. He said, the analogy I like to use is Trump and Biden are like the fifth place team playing the sixth place team, and you're required to root for one of them. There's a lot of quotes from voters in here who are
basically like the same. I mean, people were like, I'll vote for Biden if that's who it ends up being, but I really wish there was another choice. So a lot of dissatisfaction is don't forget the R.
Hillary in many respects lost some of the close states just because a lot of black voters just didn't vote. A lot of them didn't come out to vote in Detroit or Milwaukee or any of these places where was a razor thin margin, and Trump was able to win Michigan, and he was able to win Wisconsin. Turn Low turnout in the city of Philadelphia almost certainly cost Hillary the state
of Pennsylvania. So it's one of those where I mean, of course the Democrats, many of them turned around and they're like, no, it's your fault for staying at home.
It's like, yeah, well, maybe vote. Motivate them, you know, actually get them to come out to the polls.
I could see a scenario right here where Biden puts himself right back in that situation.
Look at Georgia.
I mean, last time I checked a lot of black Democrats in the state of Georgia. If younger voters don't come out, okay, Trump just won Georgia.
Same in Arizona.
I mean, you could see the exact same thing scenario playing out with Hispanic voters, So Nevada, any.
Of these states.
When you're playing with fire like this, you just have no idea what things are going to look like on election day, and you're setting yourself up very much for failure. So it's one of those trends where, I mean, this is probably one of the most important voting trends in I mean, as you put it in this centry, it.
Is literally a complete relime and d line and whatever the hell you want to call it.
But it is a change, and it's a major change in the way that people vote in this country.
They said in the New York Times piece, those tallies of non white voters might be the worst for a Democratic leader among black and Hispanic voters since Walter Mondale in nineteen eighty, just to give you a sense of how this is all looking. And the Democrats are so terrified of any kind of democracy. I mean, of course, Joe Biden wants to keep his hold on power. Okay, you know that is what it is. But they really believe that by opening up an actual, real democratic prime
and process that they stand to lose from that. And I just can't wrap my head around that being the case when voters are so eager and anxious, and we've got new numbers this morning from CNN, still a majority of Democratic voters saying, we really want someone else. And so, you know, if this is your guy and he earns his place and they evaluate their other options and they're like, Okay,
you know what, Joe is the best guy. You're also going to generate more enthusiasm for him if people don't feel like he's just being foisted on them and they have no other choice. So, you know, I think that if their goal, and it's a big question mark whether really their number one goal is to defeat Trump, but if that is their goal, I really think they're handstraining themselves by closing off even the possibility of an open
Democratic primary choice. However, part of the reason why they so adamantly want to maintain this, like iron grip on, we will not consider anyone other than Joe Biden, is that if they don't do that, then the next logical person in line is Kamala Harris. And as much as Biden is, you know, looking fairly weak against Trump, the numbers bear out that Kamala Harris is much weaker against Trump, whereas Biden is head to head. Kamala in the average of polls is losing to Trump. And I'll show you
some of those numbers in a moment. And it also is a problem directly for Joe Biden because of course, people are looking at the actuarial tables, they are, you know, looking at his manifestic line, and they're thinking about, okay, well, if he doesn't make it, who's next in line? And it's Kamala Harris, who again has even less esteem among the voting public. But she got asked recently is she ready to take over if that happens, if he is
unable to make it through the term. Let's listen to what she had to say.
The question for the president's age often go hand and hand with questions about how you step in the role, you know, if necessary, Do you feel prepared for that possibility as.
Sermon as vice president? Prepared you for that job?
Yes?
And well, how would you describe that process?
Well, first of all, let's I'm answering your hypothetical. But Joe Biden's going to be fine, so that is not going to come to fruition. But let us also understand that every vice president, every vice president understands that when they take the oath that they must be very clear about the responsibility they may have to take over the job of being president. I am no different.
So she's staying there. She's ready to take over if Biden doesn't make it through. And as I said, I think that's also an important factor in this election when you have, you know, president where huge concerns about his age from across the board. Republicans, Independence and Democrats put this up on the train and thought this was a good insight from Nate Silver. He points out that Democrats think Kamala Harris would lose to Trump. Woul say, they
are probably right. The subtext of why there was no serious primary challenge to Biden is that, you know, Kamala would be seen as the next in line. It would be politically got This is something we've been flagging for a long time, by the way, that it would be politically awkward to supplant the first female black vice president for Gavin Newsom or whoever to jump the line in
front of her. That would be very politically awkward. But you can see here Biden is tied forty four to forty four with Trump in these poles Harris trails him forty two to forty six. Silver goes on to say, it's not that big a difference, I guess, but a net margin of four points is a fairly big deal. More likely than not that the next election will come down to four points or less in the tipping point states. So that is a significant disadvantage for Kamala Harris. And
this is part of why Sager. I know, listen, I know people are concerned about Joe Biden's age. I think this is legitimate, absolutely, I think this is an important factor in why you're so close with Trump, etcetera. But I think there's more going on here than just the age. Because also, if you look at not just Kamala Harris, but a whole variety of Democrats who are younger than Joe Biden, it's not like they do way better than he does in the polls. And Harris is the perfect
case in point. I mean, she's carrying the Biden Harris agenda right now. She is much younger than Joe Biden, and she performs meaningfully worse than him in the polls. So I think if people really felt the benefits of his policies in their bank accounts, then the age would
become less of an important factor. But since so much of our politics is like vibes and whatever, then you know, the age and the lack of vigor land becomes the default explanation for why people are feeling unsettled about another Biden president.
Well, I think they look that's a baked in absolutely or correct. It's also with Kamlas She's an incredibly untalented politician.
And I've been thinking about it.
I think it might be one of the biggest mistakes he has made for his entire career was picking Kamala Harris as a vice president, bowing to pressure from Jim Cliburn during BLM. He would have been better off picking just some normy Democrat like aiming Listen, I'm not saying I like these people. I'm talking about just peer politically Whitmer or Amy Klobuchar, any of these people, and now
we would be in this situation. And if he didn't want to run Democrats, I mean, look, I don't think Amyklovitro would be particularly strong, but I think she'd be a hell of a lot stronger than Kamala Harris. I don't know if she would win against Trump. But I mean with Kamala, I know, I know that she won't win against Trump.
Yeah, even Whitmer. I mean, look, I can't stany Gretchen Whitmer.
There's a whole lot of stuff going with her kidnapping case and all that other stuff. She did win reelection, and in Michigan she did quite well. I didn't think she would survive given all that stuff that was going on COVID.
I was totally wrong about that.
So you have somebody here, midwestern, normy Ish Democrat was able to get re elected. That's what actual points on the score award looked like for Kamala Harris. I mean she was even her election it's fake. I mean, she didn't win a real primary process in California. She just foisted upon the California Democratic Party. She'd never face any
real competition. The only competition that was so heavy in the first place she had to drop out of in twenty twenty, where she was pulling lower than Andrew Yang in her own home state.
That's humiliating.
I mean, there's just no even in her home state, there's no way she would even win against Gavin Newsom in the head to head election. So why are we picking this person for the actual mantle. I mean, we all know why. It's a complete you know, identity politics pick. And now look, they've this was the payout to do the into this into this corner. It's ridiculous.
It was the payback to Jim Clyber, you know, who basically won the election, the primary election for Joe Biden, and so this was, you know, this was the big the big payback for him to get a candidate that he wanted into the vice presidential position. I always think about there was a reporting that Jill Biden, Doctor Jill Biden was like, don't pick her, and she was right.
But anyway, we are where we are. So that is part of why they've been so adamant about no primary process, about yeah, we're going with Joe, even though you know, by far the oldest president we've ever had, even though you know, there's manifest weakness among not just the general electorate but also among the Democratic primary electorate. This is
a big important part of that. And the fact that Kamala Harris has such low favorability ratings and low approval ratings among all voters is another challenging factor for Joe Biden when there are so many concerns about his age. Okay, let's turn to the other party, because we got some interesting pulling out just this morning from CNN with what they call trial heats of different contenders, Republican primary contenders, how they would fare trying to get at who is
the most electable on the Republican side. Let's put this up on the screen. Steve Kornaki tweeted this out. But this is a CNN poll, so you've got Trump Vive Biden. Trump is at forty seven, Biden's at forty six, DeSantis Vie Biden. It's basically tied. So actually Trump is I mean, this is all within the margin of error these two, so you could say they're basically the same. But if you take the numbers at face value, Trump actually does a little better of a guns Biden than DeSantis does.
The standout one here is Nikki Haley, who wins by a six point margin in this trial heat. So Haley's at forty nine and Biden's at forty three. Pence is at forty six and Biden's at forty four, so he does a little better than Trump. Again, these are small differences but important. Tim Scott forty six, Biden forty four, So same as Mike Pence. Biden beats the vag Ramaswami forty six, forty five. Again that basically you put that at a jump ball, and Chris Christy does relatively well
forty four percent, Biden forty two percent. But the real standout candidate here that looks a little bit different, and who I'm sure we'll be happy to make a very sertive case that she is the electable candidate is Nicky Haley at forty nine percent and Joe Biden at forty three percent, which tells you, you know, certainly her first debate
performance did her some favors with the general public. And I also think it's funny Sara like Nikki Haley, you can't really classify her as a moderate in any real sense of the word. But because you have the media just like basically asserting this person is a moderate, people effectively believe it and are like, oh, she seems reasonable.
Here's why I takeaway. I wouldn't even put the Haley thing in there. The margin of error on this thing is three point five. You know what I'm saying. Generic r beats Biden and or ties Biden. That's a disaster for Biden. We've got a generic Republican here, which is effectively, if you put Trump and DeSantis and Ramason and all these people together and you're tied within the margin of error,
or it's that close Hailey slightly outside the margin of error. There, every single one of them either beats Biden or side with Biden. That's terrible for Biden. I mean, because it's one of those where the Biden case was, and especially why the media and everybody else wants Trump in many ways to be the nominees because they're like, oh, well, he's the only one, that he's the weakest Republican in
this field. No, I think that Biden himself is weak, and it shows that even a generic R regardless of baggage, whatever that is, it's plus or mindus, not nearly as much as a lot of people would like to think, which means if people are so dissatisfied with the current status quo, they are willing to look anybody else.
And give them a chance. That's really what I read into it.
With seeing every single candidate either tie or come within a point of this person in the margin, I'm like, that's that's really bad.
I do think that Nicky Haley thing is interesting though, because she does stand out here as having the most significant margin over Biden, I mean, six percentage points. It's outside the margin of error. It's very different than you know, the Trump and DeSantis who are basically tied with him, and what I think it's a real problem for It's a real problem for DeSantis because he to his pitch was electability and he is at best no more electable than Trump, and at worst Trump actually does a little
bit better than him. And in terms of the donor class, there was a big report this week about how what was it like sixty percent of Ron DeSantis's big money donors have moved on. The candidate who's got all the media love coming out of the Republican debates was Nikki Haley. Certainly seems like Robert Murdoch and his empire are giving her a very very hard look. A lot of you know, media love and acclaim for her coming out of that debate and so and she has come up in the polls.
I mean, she was the person the VIC didn't end up really getting a.
Bump out of the result Trump of the.
Polls after that primary debate, because I think you're right. I think the people who liked his performance and said he won the debate, they're already supporting Donald Trump. So he didn't actually grow very much out of that. But Nicki Haley was the person who most consistently across the polls got somewhat of a bump to challenge DeSantis's number
two position. And so for that slice of the electorate that's looking for a Trump alternative, for whom electability is important, you know, this is going to be a very important metric for them. Now. As I have said a million times at nauseum, I think Donald Trump is going to be the Republican nominee absence some unforeseen circumstance. However, if there is some unforeseen circumstance, it will matter who has
put pulled themselves into that number two position. And Nicky Haley, based on you know, a media effort to really cheerlead her performance there and a lot of media comfort, especially conservative media comfort, with her political ideology and positions, is increasingly challenging DeSantis in that new number two slot.
Yeah, that's a great way to reach to is how bad this is for DeSantis? Where if every single other person in the GOP race can say I also have a credible chance of beating Biden, and especially somebody like Haley or Scott or Ramaswamy. Yeah, then why are you running, dude? And now it actually takes away the two man race. The way that we would originally cover the race, the GOP race is it's Trump, and then it was DeSantis, and then there's everybody else, and then Ramaswamy started to
kick up to his heels. Now you've got Haley coming up there as well. Now it's like a three four way tie for number two depending on which state they're looking at and the overall number.
That's really bad.
And actually it only helps Trump because Trump is sitting pretty above all of them as sixty percent, and he's like, oh, all these little kids are squabbling for my number two, and it's like, okay, that's cute. You know, it only elevates his position as the front runner. To have multiple quote unquote credible alternatives as opposed to the one credible alternative were like, this is the guy who actually could be able to do it. So, yeah, that's a great
way to read it. But man, the weakness for Biden in this is just stunning. It's stunning to look at, Yeah, that you're losing to every single one of these guys.
Shocking. Yeah.
I Mean, the one thing I will say on the other side, just to make the other case, is that Democrats outperform the polls in the midterms. Yeah, yeah, Loo, And they've outperformed the polls in the special elections elections this year. And it seems like abortion is more of a factor for voters than even is showing up in the polls. So I don't want anyone to feel like, oh, it's a slam dunk for Republicans. On the other side,
I don't think that's true whatsoever. I still think that Biden, just being the incumbent president, and given what we've seen with abortion, I still believe that he likely has the edge for re election, very dependent on economic conditions ultimately, but the fact that he is an incumbent president, the fact that he's running most likely against you know, Donald Trump, who's facing ninety one different charges, and then everybody hated you know, January sixth, and the chaos and all of
the baggage that Trump brings to it, that it's a jump ball is really embarrassing.
Yeah, I agree with you.
I actually put it mostly a fifty to fifty just because of uncertain economic conditions.
We have no idea.
I mean, the price of diesel right now is going through the roof. I think inflation is going to come roaring back per se, It's going to remain sticky. Who the hell knows what's going to go on with Ukraine. We know that Biden's are going to change the policy anytime soon. You're really just one geopolitical disaster five six dollars a gallon away from total loss to wipe out
in the general election. So it's one of those where considering the uncertainty that remains ahead specifically economically, and we could go into a full blown recession. You know, we could get to five six percent unemployment with persistent and inflation that's really bad. On top of that, with a geopolitical crisis and high gas prices. All of these are you know, within the probability window of not that far away. These are not like tail end type of things. These
are just one two. You know, we're looking at like you go ten percent in this direction, temperason the other way. As I've said too, you can give the other side of that where maybe things calm down in Ukraine, something goes down, gas goes to two fifty, inflation start to go down, unemployment remains steady. All of that, the economy actually looks okay. Sure, I could see them getting reelected.
To Unfortunately, I don't think that if the status quo remains in Ukraine, I would like for people to care more about it in terms of a voting issue. I don't really think that if it, if it maintains in this sort of like status quos area that it is right now. I think the economic conditions are likely way more important.
The only reason I put it in there is it's like Afghanistan. Nobody gave a shit about Afghanistan until everybody cared about Afghanistan. So it's you're only one major news event away from it dominating everything. And that's always been my issue with Ukraine. I'm like, you don't know what you're setting yourself up for. Yeah, it's a slow burn now eighteen months, but then hook you know, one thing goes south, nuclear power plant explodes, gets bombed accidentally. One
f sixteen just happens to bomb Russia. We're in a whole other situation, a whole New World.
The whole glow.
You know, the entire earth is captivated by that news. I can easily lose you an election.
Yeah, absolutely, Listen, there's a lot of unknowns. There are a lot of crazy things that no one could imagine that are going to transpire between now an election day, and they could cut in either direction.
Absolutely. Let's talk about McConnell man.
The aging problem in Congress right now, and not just Congress, in our price and see throughout all of our political elite is just so disgusting and shocking, and the lack of transparency here on this issue is one where they have contempt for you.
He doesn't care what you think.
And the reason why is he was willing to give a behind the scenes Q and A for five minutes to his colleagues about his health condition, but when members of the press, on behalf of the public ask him for details of his health condition, he doesn't give us any details. He only tells us what he doesn't have, not what he actually does have. Here he is being questioned by the press yesterday. Let's take a listen.
You know what it is.
We've had all these evaluations.
What a doctor said is the precise medical reason for those two free zumps.
What doctor Monihane's report addressed was concerns people might have. It's some things that happened to me, did happen they didn't, And there's really I have nothing to add to that. Think you pretty well covered the subject.
You what do you say to those who all you got you to step down?
Do you have any plans to retire anytime soon?
I have no announcements to make on that subject.
What do you say to those who are I'm.
Going to finish my term as leader, and I'm going to finish my senate term. Thank you.
I'm going to finish my senate term, Crystal.
And what the doctors have said is the precise medical reason for the freeze ups Well, they said all the things that people concerned about, and it's none of those, So.
Don't worry about it.
And look, you don't have to be a medical doctor to know that that is complete.
BS. What do you have, dude?
It ain't dehydration, as doctor rand Paul had to say. You know, I think it's very noteworthy that one of the people, not only is he his colleague, same state senator. Yeah, probably a little bit more of an inkling about what's going on. He's a freaking board certified physician, and he's like, listen, man, that there is no way and once you know the thing is too is let's even put that you don't have to be a doctor to know that that's not
what dehydration looks like. Two separate times during the course, he also claims Crystal behind the scenes, he's only in two freeze up.
So they just happened to be in front of the camera.
Oh yeah, okay, sure, yeah, sure.
Okay, just so happened whenever you were on the camera.
I mean, how money moments of this man's life are not on camera, And so then you ask yourself, like, what is the likelihood that this medical flare up would only ever happen.
You know, in this one specific scenario. Just ridiculous. And look, look, luckily, I've actually been very heartened by this.
Some GOP senators like rand Paul Josh Holly, who are about to show you they've had enough. This Halle in particular, actually made a great point here. We're about to show you. He's like, listen, everybody, He's like, ahmind, constituents, everyone's asking me about this, And I love that because It's one of those actual small de democratic checks where real people are like, hey man, this is crazy, Like what are you guys going to do about this?
Yeah, here's what he had to say in the center hallway.
I don't think you can have it both ways. I mean, if you're concerned about the president's ability to do job, and I am, and a lot of Republicans say they are, and you've got to be concerning what it's somebody from your own party, right, I mean, it can't be sauce.
For the goose but not for the gander. Is he able to do the job? I mean, he's going to have to answer that question. Do I think he should be a leader? No?
No, I mean, to be fair, Polly voted against him and clearly doesn't mind the blowback that he's going to get. As I alluded to, let's put this up there, Paul is just actually pulling no punches. He says, quote, my point is I'm just trying to counter the misinformation from the Senate doctor. Wow, it is basically not believable to come up and say what's going on is dehydration.
It makes it worse, right, And yeah, good, thank God?
And Christal, you have a little bit of the backstory here about one of the reasons maybe why McConnell won't step down. Yeah, it's because the governor is refusing to say that he would appoint you Republican. I'm still a little confused on what that meant.
Yeah, so let me explain what's going on behind the scenes in the state of Kentucky, which has not only has a democratic governor, actually Andy Wassheer as one of the highest profratings of an governor in the country. He's up for reelection this fall, so like months away from reelection, polls have him ahead. We'll see what happened. So that's
an interesting story in and of itself. But the backstory here is that I think roughly a year ago, right around the time, remember there were those pictures coming out of McConnell with those hands were like black and blue, remember that, And people were like, what's going on with this health At this point, there was a piece of legislation passed through the Kentucky legislature, which is Republican dominee. Republicans have a super majority in the House, that changed
the way that appointments to Senate seats work. So previously the governor, who again is a Democrat at this point, would have carte blanche of being able to fill the seat with whoever he wants and then, you know, schedule
a special election to more permanently fill the seat. They changed it so that the legislature, or the Republican dominated legislature, would pick three different candidates, all of whom I'm sure would be a Republican, and then the governor would have to pick from amongst those three and it it's selected by the legislature. So Andy basheer vetoed this piece of
legislation saying this is not constitutional. It used to be that senators were chosen directly by the state legislature, but I believe it's the seventeenth Amendment of the Constitution says that this will you know that that's not how it's done, and if there needs to be an appointment, it will be handled by the state executive. So he is saying it's not constitutional that I get to say that's what the constitution says, and you can't limit my choices like that.
There's also a provision in the Kentucky State Constitution that he pointed to as well. Now he has gotten questions about if there is a vacancy here because of Mitch McConnell's health, what will you do, And he's basically refused to say whether he would pick from the list given to him by the legislature, whether he would challenge the statute in court, whether he would just pick someone else and then let them challenge him, what exactly he would do.
And again, you know, this is touchy for him because it's a state but where he's popular and facing reelection, et cetera. So he's trying to navigate that as well. So it's comments specifically were there is no senate vacancy. Senator mc connell has said he's going to serve on his term and I believe him, So I'm not going to speculate about something that hasn't happened and isn't going to happen. Asked whether voters deserve to know his stance on the issue, but Sheer said he would not quote
sensationalize McConnell's health. So that's kind of where things stand right now. This could end up in, you know, if there was a vacancy there could end up in basically like a messy legal battle in terms of who is chosen to fill the seat. So that's the backstory in terms of Kentucky. To go back just to the central issue here though, about McConnell's health. First of all, if you look at pictures of him now versus just not
that long ago, it is crazy. I mean, and you can see we all have had loved ones, elderly loved ones in our lives that you see this happen. There's like a point where you know, it's just it goes downhill pretty quickly and it is sad, and you know, I'm not particularly like, I have no love for Mitch McConnell, but it's still even with him hard to watch. These
on camera freeze ups are really horrifying. So for him to try to gaslight everybody of like, well, it's not a seizure, so don't worry about it's not a stroke, so don't worry about it. But I'm not going to affirmatively tell you what is going on. Listen, It's possible that whatever is happening here is consistent with him being able to perform the duties of what is an incredibly
important job with a lot of power. But the American people deserve to know what is actually going on so that they can make that determination for themselves, and so you know, I know, we can harp on these age issues sometimes we've been talking about with Biden, We've been talking about for a long time with Finestein. I talked about with McConnell. You did a fantastic monologue about the overall age creeping up and up and up of the
United States Senate in particular. But in some ways it is just such a central symptom of the decline of our country and the breakdown of actual democracy in the country. Because it's Mitch McConnell has a very low approval rating in the state of Kentucky, and yeah, he's still there. Diane Feinstein, California voters do not want Dian Feinstein representing them,
which she's not even doing at this point. In the state, voters are saying with both Trump and Biden, I mean, Trump's not a young man either, that they're worried about their age. Now they're more worried about Biden. But voters are overwhelming and saying we want different choices than that, and yet we seem locked into this sclerotic system where we have to watch these people on camera rought in decay before our eyes.
It is very troubled, it's sad, and it actually recalls the original debate around the seventeenth Amendment.
We don't have the poster anymore. I used to have it.
The William Jennings Bryan you know, William Jennings Bryan in the Populast Party back in the eighteen nineties were the people who directly advocated for the eventual seventeenth Amendment because they correctly called out that the corruption of the Gilded Age made it so that people could just buy their sentencies, which is what's happening.
Yeah, people should.
If you've never heard of him, look up a guy named Mark Hannah or any of these other titans of that time period who were able to just you know, finagle by Senate seats. One of my favorite stories is the William Randolph Hurst, who is the eventual newspaper Magne. His father was a very rich man in California. He's like, yeah, it got to be a senator, and he just bought the Senate seat outright, and he died as a senator. I mean it must be nice, right, whenever you had
a ton of money. They directly advocated for popular election because they saw how corrupt the state legislature system was. And it reminds me really this age issue around the same things where by the eighteen nineties and the eventual passage of the seventeenth Amendment, it was undeniable.
This is ludicrous and the people were fed up with it. We have got to.
Get to that point, and we're reaching similar systemic levels of insanity. Put this up there on the screen from Diane Feinstein. She spoke to the San Francisco Chronicle and she completely forgot that she had given the power of attorney to her daughter in the fight over her husband's estate. She says, quote, I gave no permission to do anything. This is one of those obstinate great grandma moments. Or
she's like, no, I didn't. I didn't, I didn't say I wasn't gonna run, And then the staff is like, no you did, and she's like, oh, I did, okay, and it's like you're gone. She's gone, Like we're miles past that moment. Her mind is lost. It's very sad, and it would be sad if she was just still a great grandma and living her life. She's a multimillionaire. She cats you know I always say this, what are you doing here? Go to NAPA, Just relax, Nobody's gonna care.
But you choose to put yourself through this. The people around you are so shameless to continue to prop you up this conspiracy with Pelosi in order to make sure that their candidate Adam Schiff gets the seat. I mean, this is jet I want people to really take that this is just as corruptive as we're going on in eighteen ninety. Sure money's not changing hands, but democracy is being boarded at the highest level.
It's just outrageous. And to totally biparisan problem.
And to connect it back to, you know, the conversation about Biden and Trump and both of them refusing at this point to debate. Part of how Feinstein got reelected is she refused to debate. I mean she did not allow her allow the scrutiny of a true democratic process, small de democratic process, and she was not really elected
based on this democratic will of the people. She was elected because there was a Democratic Party protection racket around her involving Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama, even though the state Party wanted to move on and we're backing her opponent in that primary and probably knew a lot more of what was going on than the public do did at that point and in retrospect, and that's how she ends up back in that seat. And now it's clear as day the way that Pelosi in particular is protecting
her like crazy. I mean, her daughter is like following Feinstein a round as our personal aid, et cetera, all because she shamelessly wants to make sure that Adam Schiff gets that seat over the other Democratic primary contenders. And so that's what we mean when we talk about this breakdown of democracy. Listen, maybe if she had done debates and the public had high an ability to evaluate her,
maybe they still would have voted for her. It's certainly possible, but now we'll never know because they didn't have enough respect for the voters to go in front of him and actually allow them a real chance to evaluate this candidate. And it's not just here. It's with McConnell, it's with Biden, it's with Trump, it's with god knows how many others of these individuals, and you know, it really really is a disgrace. Yep. All right, let's talk a little bit
about some things that are going on. With the economy, which could end up being the biggest story of the coming years. This term doom loop is getting used now over and over again to describe basically a downward spiral, and specifically with regard to commercial real estate. Put this report up on the screen from the Wall Street Journal. Their headline is real estate doom loop threatens America's banks. Regional banks exposure to commercial real estate is more substantial
than it appears. So the Wall Street Journal did an analysis of the level of debt that was held by especially mid levels or regional banks, the level of commercial debt that they held, and also they say that in addition to that direct exposure, many of these banks also lent to financial companies that make loans to some of those same landlords and bonds backed by the same type of properties, and that indirect lending, if you include that
amounts to equivalent and equivalent of twenty percent of their deposits. That gives you a sense of the massive amount of exposure that these regional banks have. Put the next chart up on the screen so people can visualize this. This, they say, is a cumulative change in commercial real estate exposure since March twenty fifteen, by bank size. This was
based on analysis of FDIC data. You can see large banks have some exposure, but there are a much higher level of risk for the sort of regional and local banks which have already been made more vulnerable by FED interest rate hikes that you know, pushed some who were kind of outliers in a sense, but still could be canaries and the coal mine like Silicon Valley Bank over
the edge. Now, as we've discussed before, the reason we're harping on commercial real estate in particular is because during COVID, obviously a lot of office workers worked from home, and now remote work and hybrid work schedules have left so much of big city office space vacant. The values of those buildings have collapsed and are continuing to collapse. We're seeing that in real time the number of sales of those type of properties is down like seventy percent, so
it's just fallen off a cliff. Many people who hold these type of properties they're trying to wait out the storm, so they don't actually want to sell right now because they're kind of afraid of how bad the valuation would be. And at the same time, a lot of their debt comes due over the next couple of years, and if they did have to roll over and refinance, we now have much higher rates than what existed in the past.
So they're under a massive amount of pressure. And that means that the banks that hold this debt are going to be under a massive amount of pressure. And it seems very unlikely at this point, given that you know, hybrid work schedules I think are here to stay, and given the difficulty of converting these spaces into residential units, it seems very difficult to imagine what gets them out of this terrible situation.
Big problem.
I mean, it's one of those where and by the way, I was not aware of how much of commercial real estate floats on variable interest loans. I guess everyone just got real comfortable, didn't they during twenty tents?
Yeah, they like zero interest rate would last forever.
It's crazy.
I'm reading this and I'm like, did en nobody ever price in the fact that we could go to five percent, Because when you do, then the entire cast lost, like the cost projection of your property, takes a dive. Then you take and that's in normal times. Then you take a situation like COVID and you take a black swan event, you're getting absolutely wiped out, and the exposure here is wild.
I mean, we're talking trillions and trillions of dollars across apartment and office and apartment lending, construction loans, small business loans, commercial mortgage backed securities, real estate investor loans, and then other assets linked to actual commercial properties. The Wall Street Journal has been doing fantastic work on this, and I just don't think that they and other analysts in the space won't continue to use doom loop unless.
They mean it. I mean, and I look at this crystal and I.
Just see basically no way out except for a bailout. I mean, there's just no way that these real estate billionaires who have their entire fortunes that are pegged to their real estate asset portfolios. You really think you take a forty fifty percent haircut and they're gonna let the downtown go bankrupt. There's no way it's not gonna. I'm not saying I think it's just I'm saying I'm looking
at this bail out as coming one hundred percent. There's no way that they'll let the billionaires go bankrupt on this or even the small regional banks everybody will come up with some you know, reason, et cetera. Why, but we're either a year out, maybe a year and a half out. Who knows, there's no way interest rates are
going to zero again. It really looks from basically what I've read, where a lot of these loans don't even make sense over two percent, and then you know that's with vacancy, and considering where we are with that, it's a catastrophe. And the one of the reasons why everyone should care about this is that if small banks and regional banks and all that stuff get wiped out, that
has a huge downstream effect. Not only does it consolidate even more so the Power and Chase, Manhattan Bank and all these other bank JP, Morgan Chase, all these other Bank of America, City Bank, all these other people. It dramatically restricts the ability for people to get loans for a normal, everyday life, like mortgages, the small business. I mean, there's so many different car loans whatever. You basically just have a one dealer and then their terms. You set
the market and that's it. So what are you going to do if you need a house or something? You go to your small regional bank or whatever to get that those days maybe over these banks go under.
From what I can tell, this is the biggest risk of catastrophe that is hanging over our economy right now, because, I mean, the math just doesn't work out. And the reason that they've deemed this a quote doom loop is because of what you're pointing to Soccer. Effectively, if losses on those loans occur in massive amounts, then what are the banks going to do. They're going to cut their lending back because they, you know, are trying to cut
back on their risk. Then that leads to further drops in property prices and even more losses, and on and on we go. That's the doom loop that there's describing here. And it's hard to see how any other future comes to pass given what we know about office vacancy, Given what we know about i mean, the extraordinary level of price decline for these properties, given the the interest rate and how much they have come up, and how that
makes so many of these loans not work. It's hard for me to see how this one ends ends well, So this is one we're going to keep our eyes on. The Other thing that we've been really keeping our eyes on is housing, which I think is you know, actually stolen. When he was talking about like, why do people feel so bad about the Biden economy, He's like, I think it's housing, And I think there's a pretty good case to.
Be made about that.
Yeah, when you can't, I mean that's like the basic basic building block of a stable life is like can I afford the rent? Can I ever conceive of buying a house? And increasingly, for more and more Americans, the answer is no. Apparently suburbs have been particularly hard hit in terms of rising rents. This is another Wall Street Journal piece. They say that suburban rent growth exceeds its urban counterpart in twenty eight of thirty three metro areas,
according to a new study. This is yet another post pandemic and pandemic era trend where during the pandemic, people wanted to get out of the city. They wanted more space, they wanted to be able to move around and not be so confined, and they office workers were working from homes so they didn't have to worry about their commute, and so people fled a lot of these urban centers. And guess what, They've decided that they like where they
are and they want to stay. So the suburbs have seen huge growth, and with that growth has come a lot of pressure on the rental market. So it's becoming super expensive to afford an apartment in a lot of suburbs across the country. What they say is that many white collar workers remote jobs move down to city apartments for roomy or accommodations during the early months. Now, high mortgage rates and home prices are keeping some of those
families renting for longer periods. Rise in crime and homelessness in several big cities also has some renters looking to the suburbs. That trend is propping up rents and fueling concerns about rental affordability in suburban areas. Is leading some governments to pass new rent control measures in response. And actually, if you look across the country, some of the biggest activist energy is actually around tenant protections and rent controls
and trying to deal with this crisis of affordability. Huge energy around this across the country. And they point to Montgomery County, Maryland, and Peg County Prince George's County, Maryland. Both of them are Washington DC suburbs that have taken
some real steps in response to this affordability crisis. But this is, you know, this is a massive issue for a lot of people who are just trying to have a little bit more room and have been priced out of the housing market, but are now starting to be priced out of the rental market as well.
Rust of are the rental market? What are people supposed to do? And you know, I'm somewhat sympathetic too. Some of these people they want to buy, they want to buy a house in suburbs. Guess what now with an eight percent interest rate, that ain't going to happen. So what are they supposed to do?
You got a rent? Well, if you got a rent, then you're pushing somebody else out of that house. So they would have done.
Now they're in a multi family home and they're now somebody else is homeless or even somewhere an hour away and has a terrible commute.
So it's a bad system all the way around. I think housing is number one looking at this too.
I mean, I just don't know how you fix it because when you got massive construction loan rates and all that stuff, it's not like people going to be building new things. Developers are Actually there is a big boom right now, luckily in terms of what people are developing, but the overall price to justify your build it's going to be high.
Yeah who can afford that? Well, probably not you.
Yeah, that's the issue is there is actually a lot of development that is happening right now, but it's high end because that's where the money is. So it doesn't seem like a problem that just like letting the free market do its thing is going to solve. You're going in order to build out the number of units you would need in order to make housing anything approaching affordable at this point, it's going to take some direct government involvement.
You know, probably these cities and localities are doing everything they can, but they don't have the level of funds that at the state level, let alone the federal level. So you're really going to need this. Something that was proposed in the Build Back Better Bill originally was a lot of money to fund and incentivize construction of these affordable, you know, more affordable units. Montgomery County has been pretty innovative in some of their like public private partnerships and
mixed income apartment building living. There's some interesting like pilot projects that are happening here close to DC, but of course it's nowhere near the scale that would be needed to deal with this problem.
This is a multi trillion dollar issue. It would require the actual attention of the president, and just like everything else in our politics, no one is going to pay attention to those guys until it breaks completely.
That's what I was talking about, bailout.
That we will resolve this problem when there's a bailout, when there's an actual complete bottom falls, even though everyone can see that it's coming. I would bet you if you ask, you know, ten people in the White House, maybe one guy, that junior guy has someone on his radar.
The President probably has no idea. Yeah, it's gone, and that's our system that we don't do anything until.
Well that is so true. And if when there is a single bank that fails, then DC will pay attention. But when you have you know, people get kicked out on the street and can't afford the rent and they're just completely screwed. Well that's not we can deal with that, you know, a decade from now. But the minute that it's a bank and their investors and whatever that are in trouble, then they'll op.
To Yeah, wait, till the billionaires actually start to suffer, and then maybe we'll start to pay a defension. All right, let's talk about college. There's some really interesting stuff going on in the college space. People know I care a lot about this issue. I wanted to give a big shout out this big show for the Wall Street Journal.
Journal came out with a new ranking system which we really I really commend because it's really important for people who are trying to evaluate if college is worth it, whether it's worth it, and what college to go to to answer a couple of basic questions. What we all know already is about student debt, and of course student
debt and intuition is astronomical. So the way that people even justified debt is a single question, can I actually make enough money in order to pay this off and in a reasonable timeframe and also make decent living and better prospects.
Than if I hadn't gone to college at all.
For many majors, for many universities, there have been on the wrong side of that trade millions and millions of people, But for some places it is worth it. So how do you identify one of the biggest problems with student debt in particular the borrowers for are the most screwed are the people who take out loans from college, don't graduate on time or don't graduate at all, and who have a huge amount of student debt and don't get the wage premium. So what the journal data is. They
created this new ranking system. Let's put it up there on the screen. Where the vast majority of the weight in this ranking system is will this university push you to graduate on time, actually have an on time graduation rate? And number two, will it have a good wage premium over the average high school earner wage. What they came up with is a good list of which they say Princeton University, MIT, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, Harvard, University of Pennsylvania
are in the top seven. But from there that's where actually things start to get interesting. Amherst College, Claremont, McKenna, Babson, Swarthmore, Georgetown University, Vanderbilt, Bandy, Lehigh University, University of Florida, Duke University, Rose Homan Institute of Technology, the California Institute of Technology,
the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Brigham Young University. What they point to in their college ranking systems, Crystal is that they are able to show that these universities and of course look Ivy League and all that the wage premium.
We've all known about that. So it's not a surprise for the top ten.
But to see somebody like Babson at number ten, okay, why so I did a little bit of digging. Babson is one of those colleges where they require freshman courses on business. They actually place you inside of real businesses from a very early on age.
They make you a really good manager.
It's like a targeted college, and the people who go there, they're pitch to you is like, we not only are going to get you a job, you're going to learn how to run a business from a very very young age. And you know now that you and I do this, it's hard. It's a real skill set to be able to get that when you're twenty invaluable. So people like Claremont McKenna as well even Amherst, some of these smaller
liberal arts colleges. It's not just engineering that's coming out from the it's targeted, actual working with people to develop their interest early on, line them up with a genuine skill, and then put them into the robust alumni network to get them into a decent, high paying job. And really what came through, I think in terms of the colleges was that if you know things do align for you, you could make some pretty good money whenever you graduate from
one of these institutions. So just to give everybody an idea, they have the wage premium here Princeton University, their average graduate for their average graduate is making eighty three thousand dollars, almost more than the average high school graduate yearly salary whenever they graduate.
That's got a lot of money. It's over one hundred thousand dollars. Mit.
Of course, you know technology field, but as I mentioned about Amherst, I mean they're making fifty one thousand dollars over the average earner. Babson is making eighty two almost thousand dollars more. So, So what are we learning from this is that actual it's about skill, and it's about realigning that skill with your graduation on time rate, racking it up and putting against debt, and thinking about your
longtime actual premium. When you put those three things together, that's where college is worth it.
I've always said this, I think way too many people go to college.
Many people go to and study things that just don't make any real economic sense, and so this is a great way of actually putting it together where the stars really aligned for graduates, where it's way more so worth it than if you were just going to go to a trade school in the first place.
I'm a huge fan of trade schools.
I think we should vastly fund more so whenever I posted this, actually a lot of people who work in the trades were like, I make more money than that picking up garbage, and I was like, great, I'm happy about that.
Actually, so people should have that available to them.
But for those who are considering it, this is a great way to actually look into evaluate college. And I think a lot of people are kind of waking up to what I was describing the just the generic idea of like the tick in the box, like I'm going to take out one hundred in debt and go to college.
We shouldn't do that anymore.
I think this information is just very useful, super you know. And I was initially a little uncomfortable, frankly, because first of all, I think, you know, people are more than just what their earning capacity is. And I also think that there are the whole point of an education isn't just to be able to cash in on that educational right. But they, you know, they acknowledge that. I mean, they say that the scores are based on three factors. Student
outcomes account for seventy percent of the reakings. That's what Soccer's been talking about, basically, like how much does it cost? And how much are you likely to earn? The learning environment is twenty percent and diversity is ten percent. And they broke down for people who are evaluating college based on other criteria than just like Okay, what am I likely to earn if I go to the school and how much is it going to cost me? They have
other lists that focus on social mobility ranking. You know, how does this cut this? That's something we looked at before the city cost New York, That's right. Which colleges do the best at elevating like working class people into the upper middle class, Like if you want to you know, if you want upper mobility, what's the best college to go to? They have a student experience ranking just for if you're looking, you know, for that real college life experience.
You can look at that as well well. And so I did feel like they took a sort of wholesome view of this. I think there are a lot of different reasons why people go to college increasingly, and I actually think that this is sad. People view a liberal arts education as basically a luxury for students, for students who are wealth whose families are wealthy enough that they don't have to worry about what salary they're going to
earn when they come out of college. And I do think the reason I say that I think that's sad is because I do think that there is value to education and learning about you know, history and great works of art and literature beyond just can I convert that
into a salary. But given how much pressure there is on you know, millennials and now on gen z just to be able to survive, or just talking about the cost of housing, I think, you know, increasingly, that's the that's the primary focus of students going into colleges, like is this going to be worth it? What am I
going to get out of this experience? How quickly can I get through college so that I can get into actual earning and convert this investment I'm making into myself into actual dollars in an ability to live I think that's, you know, the reality that people are living in now, and it's great to have some information that helps people to sort those things through because it is very complex and it's very difficult to do this kind of evaluation on your own.
It's important, it's nearly impossible, actually, because a lot of this data is actually very difficult to find, and it also fits very neatly with there's a reason why gen Z and create it increasingly does not look at college as a good trade.
So we have that we can put this up.
There on the screen where they go into a little bit of the detail about how people feel about this. And one of the reason why is that college tuition from twenty ten to twenty twenty two has risen an average quote of twelve percent per year, while overall inflation
only increased on average two point six per percent per year. Today, it costs one hundred and four thousand dollars on average to attend a four year public university and two hundred and twenty three thousand dollars for a private University's completely unhinged and insane, especially if you are borrowing all of that up to the hill and then lo and behold let's go to the next one here, guys, please quote the widening gap between the value and the cost of
college has shifted gen Z's attitude towards higher education. At twenty twenty two, survey by Morning Consult found that forty one percent of gen Zer said that they tend to trust US colleges and universities, at the lowest percentage of any generation.
I'm really glad to see that. It's very important.
As I said, you can make if you're just looking for work life balance. I mean, there's a lot of things that you can find in the trades or not having to go on to a college education.
That doesn't mean you need some education. You still do.
There are a lot of different certifications, all the things that you can go about. I know that there are a lot of plumbers and all the people living very meaningful in great lives. And the reason why is because they get to sert their own work schedules. Some those get to own their own business. There's a huge amount of upside potential too if you're able to only master the trade, but also master the business side of this. The point though, is that people are starting to wake
up to that. Whereas I think our generation, Crystal, the millennial generation very much was like the liberal arts. Education is not only an attainable goal, it's a noble goal. And while I don't think that that's wrong, I do think it is Ultimately, I do believe it is a luxury good.
Pushing everyone to college is really it was really a neoliberal era thing where it's like, we're going to take the responsibility away from the government and push it onto you. And also, by the way, the costs are going to be pushed onto you, and you know, you are responsible for making sure you're able to make it in the workplace and earn a decent salary. And if you are a good girl or boy and you follow this program and you go to college, then you're going to be
set up for a solid middle class life. For many people, that ended up being a lie. I mean, especially for people who graduated out into the Great Recession. But even you know, people who are graduating out into this economy are finding the same thing, and especially in terms of those basic building blocks of the middle class life. So they took on all the debt, they did the thing that you know, they were told they were supposed to do,
and then they still find themselves screwed. So not surprising that gen Z is taking a different approach or has a different view of what the college experience should be, or whether or not they even think that that is for them.
Yes, and my last thing I'll say about this is stop prestige hunting. One of the most important takeaways from this thing was that places like Brown University it ranked number sixty six, even though it's.
In the IVY. Really yeah, because you don't make any money.
It's the classic example if I took out a ton of debt, studied a major which didn't actually wasn't all that useful, and then.
Wasn't really able to get a job where it paid out.
Johns Hopkins was number ninety nine, which is pathetic that compared to prizes mat it's not. I mean, I'm sure if you've just did engineering or bio degrees or whatever, I think would be different, But that's not where a lot of their money comes from for their students. So read and listen carefully, and you know, also take advantage of opportunities if you have them. I'm looking at this, you know, University of Florida. If you live in Florida, you don't need to pay a ton of money to
go somewhere else. You can have a great school experience, you can have football, and you can get a decent job places like BAPS in Claremont McKenna. Do you know any of these other places where it's a little bit more accessible, just you know, check it out. Not everything is just a prestige hunt. And you don't have to check a box for your parents or your grandparents or any of those things. This is mostly my monologue to the Indian parents.
I was going to say, I need to get Chris Matthews in here to talk to you about your tiger moment.
Yes, the thing is I did not even have a tiger moment.
Its a funny thing, but I mean I know a lot of people who did, and you know, without fail and actually religion.
The funniest moments there.
He said, you know what that's like. I was like, yeah, I mean, yes, I guess around other Indian people.
Sure.
Anyway, all right, let's get to the last part here.
Mike Pence in a fascinating this is this is one of those moments which we could go back and study that actually thinks is a very important speech, not for the reasons that he thinks it is where he wants to reclaim the mantle of conservatism, but for the last vestiges of what the establishment view will look like. Fighting
against the tides of populous uprisings left and right. They are manifesting themselves in all sorts of ways, and Pence just being there, the very last guy trying to cling you know, at the end and pull everyone back, gives this big speed. It was in New Hampshire against populism and it's important the speech because it's not just about
Trump populism, although that is the main target. It's about populism left and right and why it is not the answer, why limited government reagunite conservatism is the real answer is what the Republican Party should try and reclaim.
Here's what he had to say.
Will we be the party of conservatism or will we follow the siren song of populism unmoored to conservative principles. The future of this movement in this party belongs to one or the other. But today another strain of this ideology challenges Conservatism, not from the Democratic Party but from within for control of the Republican Party. It takes the form of what's known as populism rather than progressivism. But
make no mistake about it. Theologies are fellow travelers that the Republican populace would abandon American leadership on the world stage, embracing a posture of appeasement in the face of rising threats to freedom. Republican populace would blatantly erode our constitutional norms.
A leading candidate for the Republican nomination last year called for the quote termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution, and even after a historic victory for life, Republican populace would relegate the cause of protecting the unborn to the states, much in the way during another time in the life of our nation, those who sought to preserve a great evil tried to leave that question to the states alone. We've come to
a Republican time for choosing. Will we embrace the traditional conservative agenda that's led our party and our nation to victory and prosperity now for more than a half a century, or will we choose to go down the path of populism and decline.
Oh man, there's so much to go and to say there.
I mean, first, I'm pretty sure he just compared saying that you should leave abortion to the states to slavery.
So that's number one.
But two really is it's very clear that he believes that the administration of the president that he served was not only wrong just on January sixth, but was wrong entirely from the very beginning.
And that is where I just can't get over this crystal content.
Aside how he was craven enough to take the VP job whenever he had a chance of being the freaking president, he was craven enough to stand behind Donald Trump when Donald Trump gave American carnage, one of the most popular speeches delivered by an American president in an inauguration in all of US history, he.
Didn't say anything.
Then served him loyally all that, But now whenever he's running his own campaign, it's like the four years that he existed in the White House, none of it happened war that he was a part of or sat next to Trump during.
Apparently that was stupid.
You know, any of the rhetoric or anything that Trump ran on twenty sixteen, he allegedly, I guess, just doesn't agree with any of that now, which makes me really question all of this toun and be like, why should I believe a word that you say whenever it comes to this, especially.
When twenty sixteen Trump actually had a lot more truly populist elements to it, oh yeah, than current version of Trump totally. And and you know, we've seen the limits of the populism of Trump in terms of how he actually governed. The fact that the biggest domestic policy initiative they passed was a tax cut for the rich, something that I'm sure Mike Pence loved and felt very comfortable with.
So it actually some pieces of it. It makes sense to me why Mike Pence stood by him during his time in office, because much of the agenda was basically like Reaganite, Paul Ryan engineered, Heritage Foundation, etc. But I also want to give some do to the main place where Trump actually departed from the prior Republican in Washington consensus was on trade and was on China. There genuinely
was a shift there. It's now been embraced by Joe Biden, who actually has gone further in certain regards than Trump even went, especially with the industrial policy regarding semiconductors and some of the additional tariffs that he has levied in approach that he's taken to trade with China, and so it's formed the basis of kind of a new different consensus on trade, which I find to be really That's one of the few things I can say I feel
actually encouraged about a new Washingt consensus form. And so Mike Pence's speech here, which in a way I respect because I think he really believes what he's saying, more so than when he was defending parts of the Trump
agenda that he didn't necessarily agree with. But his speech is basically, like anything that was good about the Trump administration, I want to make sure we go back to the ways that were worse, like anything that he actually got right, which in my opinion was a few things, but you know they were far like few and far between, but the were a few things. He's like those things I want to go in the other direction on and you know, it's you can see the writing on the wall, like
it's a losing cause at this point. You can see the level of support that he's getting. You can see the level of support that there are a lot of ideological brothers and sisters in the Republican primary field. You can see the level of support that they're getting a lot of donor interest, but not a lot of base popular support at this point. So, like I said, I mean, in a way, I sort of respect it because I think it's true to who he is at this point.
But it's also awkward given that you took the job as Trump's VP. Trump helped to usher in this different vibe within the Republican Party and mostly at this point is vibes versus policy, but different vibe in the Republican Party. You didn't say anything until now, and until you know, his supporters were running around the Capitol like wanting to
hang you. So it makes it complicated for him to both try to run on the Trump Pence agenda, which he does, yes, which he does all, but also assert like you know, I'm a return to this other thing and I'm actually really different from him. He's trying to have it both ways.
Yeah, and look, I am heartened to see that people don't appreciate this, that they are not signing on to it. But there's strains of it everywhere. Don't forget Tim Scott, Nikki Haley. These are all cut from the exact same cloth. They really believe in this anti populist sentiment. And look, at the end of the day, it's like where you fall on that question, to me is like the ultimate decider for it's like do I even marginally respect you as a politician or not, at least in rhetoric, because
he is rejecting the frame at all. He's not even trying to co opt or to embrace it. He's like, no, this is explicitly a bad thing and it is anti democratic. It is also you know, a shadow really of what the party was, and I'm really glad to see that at at the very least, is not there anymore. So the thing is is that it has to be moved on from. And that's still why I think that the speech was so important. It was important for people to
see that this is still a real force. It is believed, you know, huge For most people, what they do is they try and co opt it, to try and you know, push what Pence is selling.
He's just the only one really outwardly being.
Like, no, populism itself is bad and you know, accepting the quote unquote limited government framework, but don't you know, don't don't forget there. He's like, I'm limited government, except we need to pass up in a national abortion ban. I'm like, oh, okay, yeah, it's so it doesn't quite square there exactly what you're saying.
I guess.
Just it was an important speech for everyone, even though it didn't receive as much media attention, I think as it should, because it shows you, like what they really think of you, and regardless of whether you're Republican or not. Like that, that was the most distane I've seen yet for real like voters and for Democrats. For democracy.
There's a huge gulf between what the Republican base actually thinks, especially on economics, It's huge, and what the entire even the supposed populist in Washington support here. And that's not an accident. I mean, that's still where the financial base is.
You know.
When we talked to Sora Amari about this, he pointed out that the not even the like big billionaire donors, although that's part of it, but that next level down, the car dealership owners, like the local you know, campaign donations and the people who in the individual congressional districts fund the party and are the biggest activists, really act as a check on any sort of more populous movement in terms of economics, and so it's not a surprise
that you see candidates like Ronda Santis and Vivike Ramaswami who hold very you know. I mean, you can look at Ronda Santis record when he was like a Tea party limited government Mike Pencish kind of a guy when he was here in Washington, and Vivike Ramaswami who has these very like pretty radical libertarian beliefs and very you know,
libertarian approach to limited government as well. They use the language of populism because they see that it sells, but they don't and but they don't actually follow it up with the policy that the Republican base would support more so than the elites here in Washington. So that's part of why I say I actually respect Mike Pence being like, no, I just say I don't like that. This is who I am, like at least that's honest versus trying to
do this bait and switch thing. But I also think that the interest and somewhat success of DeSantis and Ramaswami shows how much of our politics really does just come down to like vibes and attitude and the way you feel about someone.
Sure enough, Crystal, what are you taking a look at well.
A new poll from the Wall Street Journal underscores how even the mainstream press can no longer deny that Biden's age is a significant and legitimate issue for voters. Three quarters of American voters believe he is too old, and that includes a large majority of Democrats. And as we discussed on Tuesday, according to life expectancy charts for white men, there is quite a significant chance that he could actually
die in office. As I said, that's worth considering. But the truth is, Biden's age isn't act actually his biggest liability now, as always, it's the economy stupid. It's the future promise of Bidenomics versus a current reality of struggle, and if he loses to Trump, it will have more to do with the proverbial kitchen table than with the actuarial tables. So let's dig into the actual Biden economic record, the failures, the wins, and why Americans are not feeling
the Bidenomics love the TLDR. Is this the economic story of the Biden administration is experienced by regular people, has been price bikes coupled with a stripping away of all the pandemic programs. Which actually did help them survive. This chart here from the Lever shows all of the pandemic social safety net and how peace by piece it was allowed to expire, massively shrinking the social safety net for
ordinary Americans. Now, for many people, these programs instituted by both Trump and Biden actually really improve their financial situation. During the COVID crisis, take a look at this chart of credit card debt. Pandemic programs led to a historic reduction in personal debt during twenty twenty and twenty twenty one. But as those programs have been stripped away and inflation started to bite and the Fed hyped interest rates, Americans were quickly forced to rack back up new record levels
of credit card debt, which has now surpassed pre pandemic levels. Now, the original idea of the Biden administration was to permanently expand the social safety net to bring it more in line with its other developed world peers. That was the
basic concept of build back. Better to couple long term investments in a green transition industrial policy with tangible immediate benefits for Americans, things like affordable childcare, permanent child tax credit, huge investments in affordable housing, and a large expansion of healthcare, but this effort collapsed as Washington bought wholesale into what we now know was an incorrect analysis by permanently wrong economists of the causes of inflation in the face of
massive supply chain disruptions and what is by now a widely accepted phenomenon of corporate price gouging. These economists pointed to the little bit of money in regular Americans bank accounts as the sole driver of inflation, and basically Biden the Democrats bought it, running like scared children away from the part of their agenda that actually would have helped
ordinary people in immediate, tangible ways. The collapse of Build back beat Are roughly coincided with a messy Afghan withdrawal, which was one hundred percent the right thing to do, but led to uniform condemnation of the Biden administration across media outlets. With this one to two punch, Biden's once impressive approval ratings collapsed and never recovered, as you can
see on that chart. So that's the short term economic reality which has led Biden to be rated so poorly overall, and specifically poorly on his stewardship of the economy, and it stands in start contrast to a medium to long term economic vision, which I have to say is actually the best of any president of my lifetime. Now, you might say that's a low bar.
True.
You might say there is way more than needs to be done. Also true, But the long term Bidenomics vision represents an important and notable shift away from the market obsessed tenants of forty years of neoliberalism, which have decimated our industrial capacity along with our once storied middle class.
To put it simply, Biden and his team have rejected the Reagan, Clinton, Bush Obama consensus on free trade and have returned to a direct industrial policy that harkens back to the New Deal era or even to the Hamiltonian system which helped to build our nation in the first place. The Infrastructure Act is helping to build critical infrastructure which was desperately needed long neglected. That Chips Act prioritizes domestic
industrial development of semiconductor's absolutely essential industry. The very poorly named Inflation Reduction Act is the most ambitious piece of Biden industrial policy, which seeks to get America wholeheartedly into the game of green tech investment, an industry which will define the future in an area where China has long been destroying us through their own large investments and industrial policy.
At the same time, the Biden administration has also broken with forty years of consensus on corporate power and monopolies, bringing in a group of true renegades to restore trust busting and make it relevant again. In the modern era. There is hardly an industry where a small group of giant corporations haven't taken over with devastating consequences for small businesses, workers, farmers, and consumers, to name a few groups. So this work
is really essential. And while of course I want them to go further and vehemently oppose the Biden endmen's intervention in the rail workers potential strike, this is the first administration in my life that has taken significant steps to
strengthen union power. The Biden National Labor Relationsport has been a game changer for workers trying to organize, from decisions in favor of Starbucks workers to the recent earthquake ruling that will force union busters to immediately recognize embargain with workers real estate. Steps have been taken that could lead to a resurgence of labor, which to me is the single most important thing you could do to improve the lot of American workers. To underscale score just how important
this really is. Just take a look at this chart. Killing unions killed the middle class. It is really that simple. Now. As I've said before, the Biden NLRB alone is reason to choose Biden over Trump if your priority is the fate of the American working class. But none of that positive possible future for Bidenomics is helping people today right now, nor will it be helping them when they go to
cast their ballots a year from now. The Biden team screwed themselves by abandoning an immediate agenda of material progress for debt laden Americans. That's the real problem for him, after all. Biden's been old this whole time. He was old when he won the Democratic primary, he was old when he beat Trump. He was old at the beginning of his term when his approval rating was soaring, and he's still faring better in the polls than his much
younger Vice president Gamala Harris. What has changed isn't Biden being old. It's the credit card balances, the dwindling bank accounts, an increasingly hopeless housing situation that has turned what should be a gimme reelect into grave, peril and saber. That's sort of my overall view of Biden.
And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com.
All right, sorry, we looking at it.
Well.
Something I've been thinking about a lot lately is the trade off that we have made with technology and privacy. And I was especially struck by this A few weeks ago. I was on a trip with some friends of mine. We were at an airbnb. This friend at a semi sensitive job, and they were sitting on the porch. They were talking about something from work, and I stopped him and I said, hey, don't forget most airbnbs they have ring cameras. You never know if the owner is watching.
Sure enough, we looked around and in the corner there was a ring camera. Now would the owner care enough to really look an even eavesdrop? Who knows. But it's a reminder of something that just seems omnipresent these days. Anything with a battery or an Internet connection is dual use. It can make your life more convenient. It has plenty of legitimate use cases It's also an entry point for higher authorities to abuse if they want to. I kept thinking about this in the light of a new story
that is rocking the gun world right now. Liberty Safe, long known as one of the gold standards of firearm safs safes has priced accordingly, has been caught in a tremendous scandal that seems to fly in the face of everything that they supposedly stand for. Started a few days ago when the news broke that the FBI arrested an individual named Nathan Hughes for crimes related to January sixth.
Hughes was arrested while out at a shopping center, which coincided in the search warrant raid on his home, including for the gun safe. Now in the Hodge Twins telling quote, the FEDS called the manufacturer of his Liberty gun safe and got the passcode to get into it.
Now.
Immediately, flags went up all over the gun world. Hold on a second, what are you talking about? Is that even possible? Not only is it possible, it's true. Liberty confirmed the news in a statement yesterday, saying, quote, on August thirtieth, twenty twenty three, Liberty Safe was contacted by the FBI requesting the access code to a safe of an individual for whom they had a warrant to search
their property. They continue, quote, our company protocol is to provide access codes to law enforcement if it warn't grants some access to a property.
Parse that again, if the FEDS have a search.
Warrant just for your property and there happens to be a gun safe on said property, the company is not required by law at all to turn that code over. Yet they hand over the key to the freaking safe. The safe again is sold as impenetrable, meant to hold constitutionally protected guns. What's especially galling though about liberty decision is they did not even fight this request, and who knows how many others in the past. Apple famously in twenty sixteen told the FBI kick rocks when they were
asked to unlock the San Bernardino's terrorist iPhone. Their correct rationale was, well, if we do it, or we show the FBI how to do it, they could do it for all their products, and thus it was vital to preserve customer privacy not provide the government a backdoor to any of their devices. And that's Apple, one of the
most liberal companies in the United States. Here you've got a freaking gun safe company who is constantly posting about well regulated militias and everyday carries that apparently does whatever the FBI just asked them to do.
Even though they absolutely.
Could have fought any such requests and one in court as Apple did against the FBI. The reason I am doing this is not just talking about liberty guns or that situation, is because it connects back to what I started with. Electronic locks are convenient, and that's why people use them or buy them. It's all fun and games until the company can just give the FEDS a backdoor into your nearly ten thousand dollars GUS safe that you bought with a full expectation that only the owner can access.
And to circle back to the beginning, Ring cameras are really easy to use and set up too. And there's a bit of a catch though that the people over wired a flag that I've been dying to talk about over here for a while. Since twenty twenty one, Amazon has signed a partnership with more than two thousand police and fire departments across the US, as well as broad.
With the UK. It has now been revealed that Ring owners.
Footage has on multiple occasions been turned over to law enforcement authorities without the explicit consent of the owner of the footage or of the camera. Furthermore, the owners of said cameras and footage did not even know that that data was turned over. Flipping on the head the idea of who owns these things in the first place. Ring at that time said quote it may hand over data without permission in emergency situations where there is imminent danger
of death or serious harm to a person. If you're a cop, obviously, what do you say whenever you want some data. It's imminent, it's an emergent situation. The guys onna lose boom. You don't even need a warrant and camera footage is on its way. And look, in some cases it is volunteering. If officers want footage of Ring cameras, then in some cases Ring will ask you if you want to share it, and if you do.
Go for it. That's your choice as a citizen.
But involuntary is where I draw the line from dash cams to door cams, to gun safes to smart homelocks. We are creating society where it is easier than ever for the police and law enforcement to get access to the most private areas of your life without a warrant and only having to call up the company to get access. And the worst part, as I said, there's really only so much you can do about it. You can have a dumb home, sure, but you still have to go
out in public. Every time you walk your dog, you're probably captured by more than a dozen doorbell cameras.
If you live in a semi urban environment like I do, or.
Visit an airbnb or drive is it captured on someone else's dash camp. Perhaps we don't have a legal expectation of privacy in each one of those situations, but we should have some moral one as a society, and we can push our lawmakers to actually do something about this. Otherwise, the pace of technology and government and try is only going to increase, and the main victims will be us who have to choose between convenient convenience and surveillance.
I mean, the gun safe thing is actually nuts.
And by the way, and if you want to hear my reaction to Sagres's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com.
Hey everyone, apologies, we had a scheduling conflict with Anthony Fantana, but we're going to set it up well. We'll get the segment done as soon as he's available. We appreciate everybody for watching. As we said, we've got the focus group coming over the weekend, lots of travel.
It's going to be a new Hampshire. We're really excited about it.
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