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SPEAKER_00
Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, Experts on Expert.
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SPEAKER_00
I m Dan Rather, and I m joined by Modest Mouse.
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SPEAKER_02
Hi.
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SPEAKER_00
You re not really a modest mouse, but that is a great band, Modest Mouse.
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SPEAKER_02
It is a great band.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_02
I don t think I m a- Immodest.
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SPEAKER_02
Immodest.
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SPEAKER_02
It depends on the kind we re talking about.
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SPEAKER_00
Well, not in your style.
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SPEAKER_02
Not in my style.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
Me either.
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SPEAKER_00
I m in a beautiful, beautiful gray Burberry sweater that my friend bought me.
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SPEAKER_00
Who gave you that?
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SPEAKER_00
My friend.
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SPEAKER_02
Oh, your friend has great taste.
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SPEAKER_00
She has incredible taste.
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SPEAKER_00
She s so modest.
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SPEAKER_00
And I am so grateful for her immodesty in this department.
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SPEAKER_02
It s such a nice sweater.
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SPEAKER_00
It is.
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SPEAKER_00
I love it.
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SPEAKER_00
It looks great on you.
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SPEAKER_00
It couldn t be softer.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay, today s guest, kind of an ironic setup.
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SPEAKER_00
Shameful actually.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh my God.
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SPEAKER_00
Almost shameful.
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SPEAKER_00
We might have to cut all that.
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SPEAKER_00
No, we gotta keep it, it s funny.
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SPEAKER_00
Jesus.
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SPEAKER_00
Matthew Desmond.
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SPEAKER_00
Matthew Desmond is a Pulitzer Prize winning author and sociologist.
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SPEAKER_00
His books include Evicted, Poverty and Profit in the American City, The Racial Order, Race in America, and his newest book that s out now that we are here to talk about today is Poverty by America.
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SPEAKER_00
Great fucking book.
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SPEAKER_00
Hard, hard truths to confront.
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SPEAKER_00
And he is a sweet, wonderful person.
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SPEAKER_00
I loved getting to spend a few hours with him.
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SPEAKER_02
Yeah, and I wasn t here for this same day as Paul Giamatti, but it was really nice to listen and learn.
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SPEAKER_00
Please enjoy Matthew Desmond.
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SPEAKER_01
Cream top.
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SPEAKER_00
It s just coffee.
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SPEAKER_00
It s espresso.
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SPEAKER_00
It s pretty damn delicious, Matt.
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SPEAKER_00
You might want to give it a shot.
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SPEAKER_00
There s a line around the block.
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SPEAKER_00
I feel like I ve got to go in there.
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SPEAKER_00
And are you wearing a Shinola watch?
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SPEAKER_00
I am.
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SPEAKER_00
Look at this.
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SPEAKER_00
We re bound together.
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SPEAKER_00
You have to have one.
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SPEAKER_00
From Detroit?
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SPEAKER_00
That s right.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
And aesthetically, I would get one anyways, I think.
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SPEAKER_00
For probably the same reasons you did.
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SPEAKER_01
Oh, that s creamy.
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SPEAKER_00
It s an indulgence, for sure.
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SPEAKER_00
I ve got a Chanel watch wallet.
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SPEAKER_00
Is there anything functionally different about it that makes it?
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SPEAKER_00
Just a good stand-up wallet.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay, nice leather.
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SPEAKER_00
Brown leather wallet.
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SPEAKER_00
Had it for years.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh, wow.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay, so it s standing the test of time.
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SPEAKER_01
It is.
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SPEAKER_00
And you re originally from standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona?
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SPEAKER_01
Winslow, Arizona.
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SPEAKER_01
I was born in San Jose, California.
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SPEAKER_01
But really grew up in Winslow.
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SPEAKER_01
Railroad town.
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SPEAKER_01
You ever seen the show Cars, the cartoon?
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SPEAKER_00
Yes.
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SPEAKER_01
So that was modeled off of like our high school rival.
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SPEAKER_01
Oh really?
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SPEAKER_01
So kind of my town is like that, like a Route 66 railroad town.
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SPEAKER_00
Hence the Eagles song.
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SPEAKER_01
Standing on the corner.
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SPEAKER_01
Winslow, Arizona.
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SPEAKER_01
I think he was actually in Flagstaff.
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SPEAKER_00
Because Route 66?
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SPEAKER_01
But I think Winslow is better pentameter in the song, it flowed in the song, so I think the actual corner wasn t there.
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SPEAKER_01
But we ve made use of it.
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SPEAKER_00
I m telling you sincerely, Matt, I m delighted to actually meet someone from Winslow, Arizona, simply because of the song.
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SPEAKER_00
I ve traveled this planet for 48 years and yet to meet someone from Winslow.
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SPEAKER_01
Here it is.
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SPEAKER_00
Flagstaff s not a metropolis, so I can only imagine Winslow s even less of a metropolis.
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SPEAKER_01
Small town, one high school, right on the southern edge of the Navajo reservation.
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SPEAKER_01
You know, big industries there are railroad and the prison.
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SPEAKER_01
I think it was 10,000, 13,000 folks if you counted the prison population.
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SPEAKER_01
My high school was like majority Native American.
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SPEAKER_00
And dad was a pastor?
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SPEAKER_01
Yep.
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SPEAKER_01
It was the first Christian church in Whistler, Arizona, which is basically a Baptist church.
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SPEAKER_01
Small congregation.
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SPEAKER_01
And then he lost that job.
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SPEAKER_00
Was there impropriety?
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SPEAKER_01
There was no impropriety.
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SPEAKER_00
When you lose your job as a pastor, it does beg the question.
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SPEAKER_01
I m still kind of confused about what happened.
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SPEAKER_01
That was tough times for our family.
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SPEAKER_00
How old were you when that happened?
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SPEAKER_01
I was in junior high when that happened.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay, already a dicey time period, junior high.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
Some guys are 5 11 , like I was.
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SPEAKER_00
Other guys are 4 9 .
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SPEAKER_01
You were like the back row kid.
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SPEAKER_00
Every parent felt bad for my mom, like, this poor woman s kid has flunked like three or four times.
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SPEAKER_01
But this is the guy with the mustache back there.
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SPEAKER_00
This is the guy that rode up on a Harley smoking cigarettes.
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SPEAKER_00
So then you experienced for the first time some major economic insecurity.
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SPEAKER_01
We did.
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SPEAKER_00
And you bounced around from where to where?
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SPEAKER_00
You lost the family house because of this?
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, before it was all the rage.
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SPEAKER_01
Family declared bankruptcy, and then the bank foreclosed our home.
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SPEAKER_01
My childhood home was $60,000.
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SPEAKER_01
We just couldn t make payments.
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SPEAKER_01
So it was a small, tiny ranch home, and the family moved into a little tiny rental.
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SPEAKER_01
I was in college at this time, so I remember going back.
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moving my family into that place.
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SPEAKER_01
I remember being embarrassed.
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Of course.
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I remember blaming my dad.
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One of the beauties of my job is taking these personal problems and making them political problems.
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Be like, this isn t just on you.
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So this is paraphrasing C. Wright Mills.
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He was a great mid-century sociologist.
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This is basically the mission of sociology.
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SPEAKER_01
A thing you think is on you, that s your fault.
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SPEAKER_01
That s about something inside of you.
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To pull back the curtain and say, look, there s millions of folks
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SPEAKER_00
This is a societal thing.
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SPEAKER_01
There s a bigger game afoot.
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SPEAKER_00
Right.
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There s a system in place that s producing this outcome.
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SPEAKER_00
And so then questioning the system that results in that.
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SPEAKER_01
Right.
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SPEAKER_00
Despite all that, you found your way to college, to ASU.
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SPEAKER_00
Sun Devil?
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SPEAKER_01
ASU Sun Devil, my dad had a phrase, whenever we saw someone like digging a ditch or doing some really hard labor, he d turn to us kids and say, you want to do that for the rest of your life?
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SPEAKER_01
And then we d be like, no.
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SPEAKER_01
And he d be like, go to college.
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SPEAKER_01
But there was no plan.
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SPEAKER_01
It was just like an expectation.
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SPEAKER_01
And so when it was time for me to go to college, I applied for my in-state colleges in Arizona.
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SPEAKER_01
If you graduate at the top of your class, you get tuition for free.
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SPEAKER_01
ASU gave me the most financial aid.
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SPEAKER_01
That was my choice.
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SPEAKER_00
You arrived, though, after they had shut down Flaky Jake s, right?
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SPEAKER_01
Flaky Jake s.
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SPEAKER_01
Do you know Flaky Jake s?
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SPEAKER_01
I don t know Flaky Jake s.
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SPEAKER_00
I know Gus s.
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SPEAKER_01
I know Gus s, which is the best pizza in Tempe.
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SPEAKER_00
Yes.
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SPEAKER_00
But Flaky Jake s was like the original Fuddruckers.
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SPEAKER_00
I m obsessed with it.
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SPEAKER_00
I d go to Arizona as a kid because my stepdad was an engineer and he worked at the proving grounds.
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SPEAKER_00
And the big trip was to go to Flaky Jake s and build your own hamburger.
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SPEAKER_00
I have the warmest feelings for that.
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SPEAKER_00
But it was directly across the street from the campus.
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SPEAKER_01
I missed out.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh, man.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I had a hunch because I think I m three years older than you.
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SPEAKER_01
You know Philly B s?
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SPEAKER_01
You know Filiberto s?
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SPEAKER_01
The place you end up at two in the morning?
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SPEAKER_01
You know, big burritos?
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SPEAKER_01
You know Philly B s?
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SPEAKER_00
Okay, in Santa Barbara we had T.O.
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SPEAKER_00
Oberto s.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and I know what the two-pound burrito is all about.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so no one to really model this, but my mom did the exact same thing.
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SPEAKER_00
So there was a very wealthy area of Oakland County where we grew up and we would take pilgrimages out to Bloomfield Hills and we d pull into driveways and look at huge houses and my mom would go, these people went to college.
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SPEAKER_01
That s interesting.
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SPEAKER_01
You just knew you had to do it, but you didn t know how kind of thing?
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SPEAKER_00
No, she was really supportive.
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SPEAKER_00
When I graduated, I was like, I m not going to college.
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SPEAKER_00
I read on the road.
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SPEAKER_00
I m going to live in a car and write.
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SPEAKER_00
I don t understand why we would need to go to college.
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SPEAKER_00
Broke her heart.
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SPEAKER_00
I did find my way to UCLA eventually because it came with free rent.
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SPEAKER_01
The only ones for me are the mad ones, yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
Gotta love it.
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SPEAKER_00
So when you re there, you re originally, you major in communications.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and justice studies.
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SPEAKER_00
That s a triggering study for me.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
It was kind of a pre-law degree.
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SPEAKER_01
Oh, okay.
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SPEAKER_01
But it was interesting because, you know, if you wanted to be a sheriff or go into law enforcement, go into FBI, you took those classes too.
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SPEAKER_01
The students in those classes were really politically diverse.
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SPEAKER_01
You had folks that were very pro-law enforcement and you had folks that were much more kind of pro-social justice.
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SPEAKER_01
The conversations you had in those classes were really heated and interesting.
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SPEAKER_00
I bet, I would even guess that ASU is a little bit more politically diverse just as a baseline.
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SPEAKER_00
Yep, totally.
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SPEAKER_00
There s way more right people there.
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SPEAKER_00
I think I just read a statistic that only 20% of current students are conservative, but I would imagine at ASU it was more like 40-60 or 50-50.
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SPEAKER_01
When I was there, there was a lot of folks all across the political spectrum and we would just have it out in class.
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SPEAKER_01
And I value those conversations.
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SPEAKER_01
I took a class on critical race theory, the much heated, debated critical race theory hot button.
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SPEAKER_01
And it was taught by a law professor.
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SPEAKER_01
He s a law professor now, his name s Donald Tibbs.
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SPEAKER_01
And he started the class, it was just about tort law.
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SPEAKER_01
Boring.
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SPEAKER_01
And then one class, it just switched and it became about racial inequality.
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SPEAKER_01
Years later, I realized that what he was doing, he was making sure the drop deadline passed.
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SPEAKER_01
So the folks that needed to be in that class, you know, stayed in that class.
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SPEAKER_01
That was an important class to me.
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SPEAKER_01
That was one of the many classes I took where I was like, really, this is how it is?
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SPEAKER_01
And so we grew up where money was tight, but we always had the story of what America was like.
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SPEAKER_01
Story I got at my church and my Boy Scout troop.
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SPEAKER_01
It was the American dream story.
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SPEAKER_01
And I was one of those kids that went to college that was kind of having my mind blown.
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SPEAKER_01
And so when I wasn t working, I worked all through college.
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SPEAKER_00
Some fun jobs, by the way.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, some fun jobs.
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SPEAKER_00
Barista, firefighter.
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SPEAKER_00
Telemarketer.
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SPEAKER_00
I too was one of those.
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SPEAKER_01
Did you make a sale?
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, well, I had two versions of it.
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SPEAKER_00
One is my father invented subleasing in Michigan.
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SPEAKER_00
So it was right at the birth of leasing cars and people getting these six year leases and they wanted out of them, but there was no way.
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SPEAKER_00
So we would call people who are selling a car in the newspaper for 16 grand.
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SPEAKER_00
I would look at the Kelley Blue Book value.
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SPEAKER_00
I know they owed 18,000 and I d say, would you like us to take over the payments?
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SPEAKER_00
And I was 14 and I would be convincing these people to transfer ownership over to my father.
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SPEAKER_00
And then I was raising money for Hugs Not Drugs as a telemarketer.
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The thing that blew me away about telemarketing is it works.
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SPEAKER_01
And I d get folks on the phone and I remember my first sale and I was like, really?
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SPEAKER_00
But you re probably discovering something that now.
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SPEAKER_01
later comes into this book, which is you re probably noticing who says yes.
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SPEAKER_01
And it s heartbreaking.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, a lot of lonely folks say yes.
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SPEAKER_01
A lot of lonely folks, a lot of not-worldly folks, a lot of confrontation-adverse folks.
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SPEAKER_01
I think even me immediately was like, ugh.
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SPEAKER_01
You know, I don t love how I feel about the people that are saying yes.
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SPEAKER_00
That s right.
1
SPEAKER_00
It did make me feel good.
1
SPEAKER_00
But my truck broke down and I needed to fix it.
1
SPEAKER_01
That s right.
1
SPEAKER_01
Those old F-150s, they re troublesome.
1
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
1
SPEAKER_01
So what turns you on to sociology?
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SPEAKER_01
Why go get a PhD in?
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SPEAKER_00
I don t have a really clear answer.
1
SPEAKER_00
Law felt a little constricting to me.
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SPEAKER_00
Didn t feel like I fit there.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I was super confused about inequality.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I did have this growing hatred toward poverty and confusion.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I spent a lot of time with homeless folks around my university, not serving them, just literally talking to them, hanging out, just kind of like, what s this about?
1
SPEAKER_01
This is very peculiar and deserves a dig.
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SPEAKER_01
You would acknowledge that s a very abnormal thing for a college student to do.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I think there was part of me that was like, go to the street for your answer.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I think that instinct has served me pretty okay.
1
SPEAKER_01
But I can even relate to you a tiny bit right at this moment.
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SPEAKER_01
And we chose different paths, which is I had to do an ethnography on the homeless as part of my anthropology degree.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I went down to Skid Row, as we would affectionately call it.
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SPEAKER_01
I know there s 13 shelters there.
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SPEAKER_01
And you know, there s just thousands of people.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I milled around and I talked to people and I went in shelters.
1
SPEAKER_01
And my conclusion was, mind you, I m an addict.
1
SPEAKER_01
I m like, there s almost nobody here who s not an addict.
1
SPEAKER_01
This is an addiction problem.
1
SPEAKER_01
I just was like, this isn t me and my mom and my brother and my sister out on the street.
1
SPEAKER_01
That s not what this is.
1
SPEAKER_01
This is a mental health crisis and an addiction problem.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so many of them are on disability and they actually are housed with a relative until they get their disability check.
1
SPEAKER_01
And then they come downtown and they re just there downtown getting high until the money runs out and then they go back.
1
SPEAKER_01
Now, mind you, I only spent a month doing that, but that s my nature was to go like, oh, I don t even think we re talking about what the two problems are and I don t hear anyone proposing, what was it we re gonna do?
1
SPEAKER_01
Mass mental health, you know?
1
SPEAKER_01
And I just was like, oh, it s overwhelming and nothing can be done and it s not really about more houses.
1
SPEAKER_01
And you went a completely different way.
1
SPEAKER_00
I guess maybe.
1
SPEAKER_00
Have you read homelessness as a housing problem?
1
SPEAKER_01
No, I have not read that.
1
SPEAKER_00
You know, he does these analyses where he s like, is it drugs?
1
SPEAKER_00
Is it mental illness?
1
SPEAKER_00
And what you find is that there s a lot of folks struggling with addiction all across the country.
1
SPEAKER_00
A lot of folks that are suffering from mental illness, but that doesn t manifest as homelessness.
1
SPEAKER_00
It does in a place like LA because what it is, it s just rents.
1
SPEAKER_00
That s what the thing is.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s abject rents.
1
SPEAKER_01
So another shocking statistics that s come out about the LA homeless is that 40% are from the foster care system.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
Well, you said earlier too, is he s kind of failing systems.
1
SPEAKER_00
There s a system of addiction that we re failing at.
1
SPEAKER_00
There s a system of mental health treatment that we re failing at.
1
SPEAKER_00
And you know, for these young folks that are aging out of foster care that are given 500 bucks and a pat on the back.
1
SPEAKER_01
No, it s devastating.
1
SPEAKER_01
That s my issue is like, Oh, you want to say 35 years later when we failed all these people, we re going to give them an apartment and that s going to work out.
1
SPEAKER_01
To me, it seems a little naive.
1
SPEAKER_01
and a little unrealistic and not totally honest.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so for me, I donate the whole war chest to Upriver Solutions.
1
SPEAKER_01
I m a little pessimistic about the Downriver Solutions.
1
SPEAKER_00
The downriver solutions are tougher because, you know, for every day you re spinning outside, your problems get a lot worse.
1
SPEAKER_01
And the likelihood that you ll stay outside, right, increases.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
So the new study out of California that shows a lot of folks start taking drugs after they become homeless because it s scary.
1
SPEAKER_00
They want to stay up.
1
SPEAKER_00
They start juicing.
1
SPEAKER_00
So then their problem is accentuated and doubled.
1
SPEAKER_01
Can I add one thing I think is also the problem is we re using one word to describe what is 55,000 people in LA.
1
SPEAKER_01
I don t know what the number is, but it s something like that.
1
SPEAKER_01
And you have such specific groups within that.
1
SPEAKER_01
You have a lot of people, which your book addresses, people who are like two checks away from being evicted.
1
SPEAKER_01
That s one group.
1
SPEAKER_01
They re actively striving to have housing.
1
SPEAKER_01
I wish we could separate out these different groups a little more.
1
SPEAKER_01
surgically and delineate the difference between those groups that I do think exist within the overall group.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
Right policies for the right people.
1
SPEAKER_00
Some folks, they just need a pretty shallow intervention and that really matters.
1
SPEAKER_00
Some rent forgiveness for six months.
1
SPEAKER_00
Some legal aid.
1
SPEAKER_00
Some folks need a much deeper intervention.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
And it s hard because the policy is supposed to address everyone.
1
SPEAKER_00
In California specifically, a massive attack on the high level of rents would really make a difference.
1
SPEAKER_00
It seems like the evidence is there.
1
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
1
SPEAKER_01
But can I just push back a little bit?
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
The world s on your side.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I ll be the one that looks like an asshole throughout this.
1
SPEAKER_01
But I also have a little bit of an issue in this national debate, which is it ignores the market, the housing market, Adam Smith s invisible hand.
1
SPEAKER_01
So does everyone have a right to be housed in Beverly Hills?
1
SPEAKER_01
I think we would all on the surface go, no, that s kind of crazy.
1
SPEAKER_01
You don t have a right to live in Beverly Hills.
1
SPEAKER_01
Similarly, I think it s interesting that we have picked the most expensive places in the world to deal with this problem.
1
SPEAKER_01
So we re going to do it in San Francisco where that s the highest rent outside of Manhattan.
1
SPEAKER_01
We re going to do it in L.A.
1
SPEAKER_01
where that s the nature of the market, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
Everyone wants to live here.
1
SPEAKER_01
That seems fundamentally flawed.
1
SPEAKER_01
I don t know why the goal is to get all the people housing in the most expensive cities in the world.
1
SPEAKER_01
Let s not send them all to Tokyo and Singapore and Beverly Hills and San Francisco and LA.
1
SPEAKER_01
That seems really illogical.
1
SPEAKER_01
Does that make any sense to you, that objection?
1
SPEAKER_01
Tokyo is different.
1
SPEAKER_00
Tokyo is a pretty affordable city for the size and desirability it is.
1
SPEAKER_00
Our expensive cities don t have to be like this.
1
SPEAKER_00
And if you go to other countries, you see very desirable, very awesome cities without this level of homelessness.
1
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s already getting fun.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
What makes the difference is in places like New York, LA, San Francisco, people have just been completely priced out of their own communities.
1
SPEAKER_00
And that s the thing.
1
SPEAKER_00
So we used to think, okay, people are coming to San Francisco to be homeless.
1
SPEAKER_00
They re coming to Portland to be homeless.
1
SPEAKER_00
That s not true.
1
SPEAKER_00
So a lot of folks are coming to Portland because Portland s awesome, or coming to San Francisco because San Francisco s awesome.
1
SPEAKER_00
But I mean, a huge study came out of the San Francisco Chronicle last year that showed that most folks who are homeless in the Bay Area are from the Bay Area.
1
SPEAKER_00
Things happened, you know, and they just couldn t get back in.
1
SPEAKER_00
That s where their family is, that s the place they know, that s where their friends are, their networks are.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s a really scary thing, I think.
1
SPEAKER_00
to be thinking of like, hey, why don t you move to Cleveland?
1
SPEAKER_00
But homelessness is so bad and so traumatic.
1
SPEAKER_00
I do wonder why there s like a stickiness in super expensive cities.
1
SPEAKER_00
But the Beverly Hills thing is interesting because like, no, I don t think anyone has a right to live in Beverly Hills.
1
SPEAKER_00
But does Beverly Hills have such a right to exclude so many people?
1
SPEAKER_01
That would imply there s a nefarious overlord that s making that decision.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s just literally, what is the price of a house there?
1
SPEAKER_00
There are zoning laws.
1
SPEAKER_00
There are laws in most residential land that says it s illegal to build anything.
1
SPEAKER_00
To build a skyscraper in the middle of Rodeo.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, or to build decent multifamily housing.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s true.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so a lot of times these debates kind of ignore the fact that on most residential land, you literally can t build affordable housing.
1
SPEAKER_00
That s something that we have to confront too if we re going to get serious about this.
1
SPEAKER_00
And this is where California is like, are we in a progressive state here?
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, but look, I live here and you don t, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
And it s really relevant.
1
SPEAKER_01
I hear people be critical.
1
SPEAKER_01
And if I didn t live here, I would be too.
1
SPEAKER_01
I dropped my kids off at school.
1
SPEAKER_01
Literally dozens of times, there s people taking a shit right in front of the school.
1
SPEAKER_01
That s my life.
1
SPEAKER_01
We have thrown a ton of money at this.
1
SPEAKER_01
We have rent control.
1
SPEAKER_01
We have had liberal policies and we have watched the rate of homelessness increase, increase, increase, increase.
1
SPEAKER_01
So the approach isn t working.
1
SPEAKER_01
There s data in San Francisco that if you combine the state revenue and the philanthropic efforts, that they re spending an average of $60,000 on each homeless person.
1
SPEAKER_01
And it s increasing.
1
SPEAKER_01
So that can t be ignored.
1
SPEAKER_01
The policy, and I m going to add one thing that s going to infuriate you.
1
SPEAKER_01
Month four of COVID lockdown, driving around LA, and I notice and I say to my wife, where are all the homeless people?
1
SPEAKER_01
Literally, where are they?
1
SPEAKER_01
They re gone.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I thought, has there been a massive like FEMA?
1
SPEAKER_01
Is there a tent somewhere?
1
SPEAKER_01
Have they gathered everyone to take care of them during this lockdown?
1
SPEAKER_01
Start looking in the LA Times, researching.
1
SPEAKER_01
That doesn t exist.
1
SPEAKER_01
And all of a sudden I go,
1
SPEAKER_01
Oh, I know what happened.
1
SPEAKER_01
There s no one on the streets to panhandle from and humans aren t going to sit on the street and die of starvation.
1
SPEAKER_01
They went somewhere.
1
SPEAKER_01
They went to a relative.
1
SPEAKER_01
They left because they couldn t sustain without the panhandling.
1
SPEAKER_01
Just interesting that we have no support and they re gone.
1
SPEAKER_01
We have a ton of support and it s growing.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
I don t know what happened.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
I don t know.
1
SPEAKER_01
Anecdotal.
1
SPEAKER_01
I acknowledge that.
1
SPEAKER_00
I do know what happened in cities like Houston that have massively reduced homelessness.
1
SPEAKER_00
The Houston reduction in homelessness is a real thing.
1
SPEAKER_00
And it seems to have been driven by this massive coordination effort across social services industries in Houston and the fact that Houston has no zoning laws.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s the fourth biggest city in the country and it s way less expensive than other large cities in America.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so they re able to get folks housing quickly and efficiently.
1
SPEAKER_00
So my solution to this is look at Houston and look at
2
SPEAKER_00
all the evidence of the Housing First programs.
2
SPEAKER_00
You re right.
2
SPEAKER_00
We are spending so much money triaging this problem.
2
SPEAKER_00
The top 5% of hospital ER users consume half of all ER costs.
2
SPEAKER_00
Guess who they are, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
They re homeless folks with serious medical conditions.
2
SPEAKER_00
Just from a sheer, heartless, what are we spending our money on perspective, irregardless of the human moral argument, we have to get serious about this.
2
SPEAKER_00
My solution is housing.
2
SPEAKER_00
Now, housing isn t going to solve many of the other problems, but there is a lot of evidence that when you say, okay, this guy is dealing with a lot of stuff.
2
SPEAKER_00
Let s get him housed first.
2
SPEAKER_00
Let s start there.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then let s address addiction issues or health issues or mental health issues.
2
SPEAKER_00
That can really work.
2
SPEAKER_01
So another big pushback you ll hear from conservatives here is that we have tons of unfilled beds because people won t piss clean.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like if you got to piss clean to be somewhere, you can t be there.
2
SPEAKER_01
And we have a ton of empty places because of that.
2
SPEAKER_01
But I understand what you re saying.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like, well, let s just start here.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s not the housing first, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
Right.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s the get clean first.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so it s kind of like, all right, that s an issue we want to address.
2
SPEAKER_00
But the primary issue is let s get a roof over this person s head and then let s start on these other issues.
2
SPEAKER_01
I thank you for placating me.
2
SPEAKER_01
You ve won a Pulitzer writing about eviction and the housing crisis.
2
SPEAKER_01
I just want to acknowledge that.
2
SPEAKER_01
I appreciate you.
2
SPEAKER_00
I want to acknowledge this part, though, that you talked about, about living in California, because I think this is something that does get to the heart of it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it s also about this kind of recognition that poverty, it drags us all down.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I feel bad for the police.
2
SPEAKER_01
I feel bad for the city workers.
2
SPEAKER_01
I feel bad for them.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s heartbreaking.
2
SPEAKER_01
It puts you in this very bizarre position as a parent, which is you can t take it on.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s overwhelming to the kids and to you.
2
SPEAKER_01
So you put up a wall.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s weird.
2
SPEAKER_01
You re ignoring human beings.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like the whole thing is a mess.
2
SPEAKER_01
You re right.
2
SPEAKER_01
It impacts everyone.
2
SPEAKER_00
It diminishes us all.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
2
SPEAKER_00
For me, this is really important because a lot of times when we talk about ending poverty, we kind of say, hey, it s the right thing to do.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s also like, don t we want a safer, more vibrant, healthier country?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
My little girls will walk to the store and like they ll cross the street three times because there s someone fighting a bird scooter.
2
SPEAKER_01
Shit s popping at all times.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
But I agree with you.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s maddening to me that people won t acknowledge the downriver costs of not dealing with it, which is like you think you can just go we re not dealing with it, but you are unless you re going to change the policy at the hospital that we don t take people without insurance, which is never going to happen.
2
SPEAKER_01
Of course, we re not going to turn people away dying.
2
SPEAKER_01
So once you admit that, then you have to work backwards from that.
2
SPEAKER_01
What does that cost?
2
SPEAKER_01
And same with prison.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s very expensive to keep someone in prison.
2
SPEAKER_01
So all of these things, even if you re economically conservative, you should be able to acknowledge it s a much better investment to do it upriver with what we do with kids in foster care, what we do with helping parents who are struggling.
2
SPEAKER_01
It would be much cheaper and the outcome would be so lovely.
2
SPEAKER_00
The outcome would be lovely.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so this is where I m writing about public poverty and private opulence.
2
SPEAKER_00
A lot of rich people living alongside a lot of poor people that creates this momentum where the rich kind of withdraw from the public sector.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, build bigger walls, you know, by our own schools, by our own parks, by our own pools.
2
SPEAKER_00
And suddenly the public becomes degraded.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that actually affects everyone, including those of us pretty secure in our money.
2
SPEAKER_00
Cause our kids have to press us three, three times or because we can t enjoy our public parks like we used to, or because we just feel implicated right at icky.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s why I find there s this thing where people of privilege have this very patronizing tone with waitstaff and service workers, where they re overly nice and, oh, and how was your day?
2
SPEAKER_01
And how was your weekend, Gail?
2
SPEAKER_01
They don t do that to their doctor, because they know they re paying their doctor.
2
SPEAKER_01
They re like, we ll pay you.
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t have to fucking placate you.
2
SPEAKER_01
I witness it all the time.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, that s great.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s them feeling guilty.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think a lot of us don t want that.
2
SPEAKER_00
I really do.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think a lot of Americans want this conversation in part because they feel complicit and embroiled in these morally compromising relations and they don t know what to do about it.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then if I m being my most selfish person, I go like, well, I m giving half my money away.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m happy to do that.
2
SPEAKER_01
But also there s a frustration where it s like, well, I m giving half my money.
2
SPEAKER_01
What could fix it?
2
SPEAKER_01
It doesn t appear that money could, but we ll get there.
2
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
2
SPEAKER_01
All right.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think first we should define poverty because that s what the new book is.
2
SPEAKER_01
Greatest title ever poverty by America.
2
SPEAKER_01
So poverty by America, I think first we should know what we re calling poverty.
2
SPEAKER_01
And there s an interesting background with the government employee.
2
SPEAKER_00
So technically poverty is an income level.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so Johnson launches the war on poverty.
2
SPEAKER_00
We have no idea how many poor people are in America.
2
SPEAKER_00
Suddenly it s like, well, how do we know if we re winning the war?
2
SPEAKER_00
And so social security administrator named Molly Orshansky, she s like, all right, poverty is you can t afford basic things.
2
SPEAKER_00
There s nothing more basic than food.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so she takes this basic food budget, says if a third of more your income goes to food, you re poor.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that s literally our official poverty measure adjusted for inflation over the years.
2
SPEAKER_00
If you use that measure, family four falls below about $29,000 today.
2
SPEAKER_00
They re poor.
2
SPEAKER_00
There s 38 million Americans under the line.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
You said if our poor were a country, they would be more numerous than Australia or Venezuela.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
2
SPEAKER_00
But also like notice how low the poverty line is.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, $29,000 in LA, you can double that and you re still facing pretty significant hardship.
2
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely.
2
SPEAKER_01
You couldn t do it, realistically.
2
SPEAKER_01
But for what you re talking about and what you want to tackle, what will we add to that?
2
SPEAKER_01
Are we going to use that?
2
SPEAKER_00
No, we shouldn t.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s just the start.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s like what the poet Laila Long Soldier said, it s the oil on the surface.
2
SPEAKER_00
Poverty is like tooth rot.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s like your cousin getting roughed up by the police.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s the nauseating fear of eviction.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s giving your kids not enough food to eat.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s literally death.
2
SPEAKER_00
Come early and often, studies show that poverty is the fourth leading cause of death.
2
SPEAKER_00
in the United States.
2
SPEAKER_00
So for me, poverty is a pile.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s this problem on top of this problem on top of this problem.
2
SPEAKER_00
It all goes together.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so it s much worse of a problem than often we think.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s the reduction of people born for better things.
2
SPEAKER_01
And just to put it in perspective, I think the really reasonable question you re asking is, okay, so we have 38 million people living below the poverty line.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yet if you take our GDP, it is bigger than
2
SPEAKER_01
Two through seven combined, Japan, Germany, England, India, all of them combined, we are bigger than.
2
SPEAKER_01
So how is it that we could have both ends of this enormous spectrum?
2
SPEAKER_01
We re by all accounts, the wealthiest democracy of all time.
2
SPEAKER_01
And we have the most amount of per capita people below the poverty line.
2
SPEAKER_00
compared to other rich democracies.
2
SPEAKER_00
So that s the thing that makes America in a disgrace class all of its own.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like our child poverty rate, the share of our kids living in poverty, it s not just higher than other countries, it s double.
2
SPEAKER_01
One in nine Americans is, and then one in eight children are.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was shocked to read that a million
2
SPEAKER_01
School children right now are homeless.
2
SPEAKER_01
And that two million don t have running water or functioning toilets.
2
SPEAKER_01
Two million households.
2
SPEAKER_01
So, yeah, times however many people live in there.
2
SPEAKER_01
Those are staggering than when you look at the opposite of our wealth.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, totally.
2
SPEAKER_00
Economists have estimated that you need $4 a day to afford the very basic, bare minimum necessities in America.
2
SPEAKER_00
Five million of us get by on that.
2
SPEAKER_00
There s a lot of abject poverty in America.
2
SPEAKER_00
Just real, truly horrendous poverty in this nation of dollars.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that s the thing that s so confusing and raging to me, because it means that it s unnecessary.
2
SPEAKER_01
Do you think it s something that s accelerating in that as we get more segregated, we get less and less aware of it?
2
SPEAKER_01
Like I would imagine these will be shocking numbers as they were for me.
2
SPEAKER_01
And by the way, I m from a lower class area of Michigan.
2
SPEAKER_01
Half my childhood was hanging out in trailer parks and dirt roads.
2
SPEAKER_01
But even I wouldn t have guessed that 2 million people don t have running water or flushing toilets in the household, rather 2 million households.
2
SPEAKER_01
Or that a million kids are going to school, waking up in a car.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think the increasing economic segregation does blind us a lot to other people s poverty.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it s like what happened when Michael Harrington published The Other America 60 years ago, where it was really this way of revealing how many poor folks really were in America.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it shocked the American middle class and upper class.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I think that we should be shocked.
2
SPEAKER_00
still today.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, America for a chunk of the country works great and it can feel like it s really working.
2
SPEAKER_00
And when I hear folks say like, the American dream is real, you know, it s because you re in the front of the plane, bud.
2
SPEAKER_00
I do think that kind of chasm that s defined American life can really blind us to this other layer of what America is too.
2
SPEAKER_01
I, of course, am in that boat.
2
SPEAKER_01
I have achieved the American dream probably times 10.
2
SPEAKER_01
You have.
2
SPEAKER_01
You re a professor at Princeton and we re at Harvard.
2
SPEAKER_01
So you two have done it.
2
SPEAKER_01
And for our own story, it does feel threatening to admit that we aren t the rule worthy exception.
2
SPEAKER_01
That if you look at the gross data of how much actual vertical movement there is within socioeconomic categories, it s almost non-existent.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s a coin flip today, basically, whether your kids are going to do better than you.
2
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t like that in the 50s, 60s, 70s, but today social mobility has declined.
2
SPEAKER_00
There s like more American dream outside of America in some countries than in the U.S.
3
SPEAKER_01
So you write this great book, Evicted.
3
SPEAKER_01
You win the Pulitzer.
3
SPEAKER_01
You ve been studying forever.
3
SPEAKER_01
You ve been interacting with folks in poverty since you were in college.
3
SPEAKER_01
And A, you had no explanation for what was going on when you finished this, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
You had no idea of the theory of why it is this way.
3
SPEAKER_01
You left Evicted still with this question of what is actually causing this.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
And previously, every attempt at looking at this really focused on the poor.
3
SPEAKER_01
And you took a different approach.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
No, you re right.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, I was spending all of my time researching poverty.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was talking about it.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was teaching classes on it.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was just convicted.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, I was like, look, if someone stopped me in the street and was like, all right, Matt, break it down for me.
3
SPEAKER_00
Why do we have so much poverty here?
3
SPEAKER_00
How can we get rid of it?
3
SPEAKER_00
What would be my answer?
3
SPEAKER_00
I just felt like I have to have an answer to that.
3
SPEAKER_00
So in a way, like I wrote this book to get it out of my system.
3
SPEAKER_00
I had to get it down for myself.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I felt like for over a hundred years, we ve focused on the poor.
3
SPEAKER_00
We ve asked a million questions about their work ethic and their families and their welfare dependency and you name it.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I felt like there was bigger game afoot.
3
SPEAKER_00
And if you wanted to understand the causes of poverty, that s not where you look.
3
SPEAKER_00
You got to look elsewhere.
3
SPEAKER_01
Now, first, actually, I would love for you to do the analogy of the people jumping out of the burning building.
3
SPEAKER_00
Right.
3
SPEAKER_00
So this comes from Tommy Orange, California writer, and he has a novel there, there.
3
SPEAKER_00
And there s this line in the novel where he says, these kids are jumping out of the windows of burning buildings, falling to their deaths.
3
SPEAKER_00
And we think the problem is that they re jumping.
3
SPEAKER_00
Right.
3
SPEAKER_00
And when I read that line, I was like, that s the poverty debate.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it s just jumper after jumper after jumper.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s book after book after book, debate after debate.
3
SPEAKER_00
And we should have been focusing on the fire, who lit it, who s warming their hands by it.
3
SPEAKER_00
So this is a book about the fire.
3
SPEAKER_00
This is a book about how the other half lives.
3
SPEAKER_00
What we have to recognize is that the American poor live in the epicenter of global capitalism, and they have access to a bunch of cheap goods and services like the rest of us do.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so Michael Harrington once wrote, it s easier to be decently clothed in America than decently housed or fed or doctored.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think that s still the case.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s probably easier to have a 70-inch TV as well.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
You can get a 70-inch TV and a cell phone pretty cheap, but do you have a dentist?
3
SPEAKER_00
Right.
3
SPEAKER_01
It even screws with me growing up in the 80s, which is only rich people had this 27-inch Zenith color TV.
3
SPEAKER_01
Some people didn t have a phone line.
3
SPEAKER_01
So when I look around, I m like, well, people have everything now.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s kind of misleading.
3
SPEAKER_00
But you just can t eat a cell phone, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
Like you can t trade that TV in for a living wage.
3
SPEAKER_00
You can t trade those sneakers in for affordable housing.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so I think that social progress, technological progress gives us the impression that, gee, when I was a kid, no one had a cell phone.
3
SPEAKER_00
No one had a computer.
3
SPEAKER_00
I remember when our family got our first computer.
3
SPEAKER_00
And as those things have been more accessible, that can give us the impression that no one s poor anymore.
3
SPEAKER_00
But on these basic things, housing, healthcare costs, the cost of education, those things have gotten more expensive.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so the things that are the most important to our thriving have actually gotten further out of hand.
3
SPEAKER_01
Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.
3
SPEAKER_01
So given that that s the case, how are we assessing it and what is your personal opinion?
3
SPEAKER_01
Has it increased or decreased?
3
SPEAKER_01
Where are we at in the historical continuum for this country?
3
SPEAKER_00
Okay, this is a big question.
3
SPEAKER_00
So forgive me if I go into professor mode, okay?
3
SPEAKER_01
No, I love it.
3
SPEAKER_01
This is my free continuing education.
3
SPEAKER_00
So if you look at the official poverty measure, what the government uses, that measure has basically stayed the same over the last 50 years.
3
SPEAKER_00
But that measure is flawed.
3
SPEAKER_00
It doesn t account for government spending, like on food stamps or housing assistance, and it doesn t account for cost of living differences.
3
SPEAKER_00
So $27,000 in LA and $27,000 in rural Mississippi are counted the same.
3
SPEAKER_00
That didn t make a lot of sense.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s crazy, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
So in 2011, the government put out another measure.
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It s called a Supplemental Poverty Measure.
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SPEAKER_00
And it says, we re going to account for living expenses, and we re going to account for health care expenses, and we re going to account for government aid and transfers.
3
SPEAKER_00
So those food stamps, that housing assistance, if you get it, we re going to count that as part of your income.
3
SPEAKER_00
When they released those numbers, America officially gained 3 million more poor people.
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, that had to be counterintuitive.
3
SPEAKER_00
It was counterintuitive.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it was because the rising cost of health care and housing costs outpaced what the government was doing.
3
SPEAKER_00
And if you use that measure, the supplemental poverty measure, you still see a pretty flat line over the last 50 years.
3
SPEAKER_00
Now, this scares people because government spending on poverty has increased.
3
SPEAKER_01
37% from 98 to 2017?
3
237%.
3
SPEAKER_00
And what we re talking about, just to be specific, these are means-tested programs, per capita spending, and they re inflation-adjusted.
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SPEAKER_00
So these are things like Medicaid, food stamps, housing assistance.
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SPEAKER_00
Between Reagan and Trump, you get an over 200% increase in spending.
3
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Most of that s Medicaid, Medicare.
3
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Most of that s healthcare spending.
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SPEAKER_00
But even if you take that out of the equation, you still see an over 100% increase between Reagan and Trump.
3
SPEAKER_00
So,
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If you re spending more and poverty is not changing, that makes people super nervous.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think there s a deeper paradox.
3
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There s a ton of evidence that government programs work, they re lifesavers, they lift millions of families above the poverty line, but poverty is so persistent in part because the labor market isn t pulling its weight.
3
SPEAKER_01
Explain that a little bit.
3
SPEAKER_00
So if you think about when the War on Poverty and Great Society were launched in 1964, they made huge reductions in poverty.
3
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They basically cut the poverty rate in half.
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They did so by expanding food assistance, expanding Social Security massively, Medicaid and Medicaid were founded, Job Corps.
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These were deep investments in the poorest people.
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Cut poverty in half.
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SPEAKER_00
But they didn t do it by themselves.
3
SPEAKER_00
One in three workers belonged to a union back then.
3
SPEAKER_01
The middle class was thriving much more.
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SPEAKER_00
Wages were climbing.
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Even folks at the bottom of the market were getting pay raises consistently every year.
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We experienced the most economically equitable time in our country.
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SPEAKER_00
But as our jobs got a lot worse, as unions lost power, the job market has turned anti-poverty programs into something like dialysis.
3
SPEAKER_00
They help, but they don t attack the fundamental root causes of poverty.
3
SPEAKER_00
Right.
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There s also this thing that s happening where I feel we re spending more to stay in the same place.
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It s because we re not going to the root cause.
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So the Great Depression hits.
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SPEAKER_00
What do we do to address it?
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We strengthen the unions.
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We regulate the banks, right?
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We have an intervention that really tries to get at the heart of the problem.
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SPEAKER_01
We also have a ton of government funded industry, the WPA and all these different programs.
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But since then, we ve kind of turned to programs that aren t really intervening in these markets.
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We re just helping.
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Now, I want to be super clear.
3
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These programs are essential.
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They do really work.
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Like housing assistance or the earned income tax credit, which is like a bump, a pay raise for our poorest paid workers or food stamps.
3
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Food stamps are just incredibly anti-poverty.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s rare that you say a lifesaver and it s not a metaphor, but this is a literal lifesaver.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I think this is the paradox that we actually have to lean into and take into account.
3
SPEAKER_00
This all started because you asked me how to measure poverty.
3
SPEAKER_00
And there s also measures that show poverty is going down and we can talk about why they technically show that or not.
3
SPEAKER_00
But for me, let s look at actual hardship measures.
3
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So evictions have increased about 20%.
3
SPEAKER_00
Since 2000, the share of families visiting food pantries has increased about 19%.
3
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Since 2000, the number of homeless public school kids has increased by over 70%.
3
SPEAKER_00
Since the Great Recession, these are pretty troubling signs.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so it does suggest that something is really broken in our society.
3
SPEAKER_01
Let s look at what the book focuses on, which is the other half and how we profit from this, which I think would shock some people.
3
SPEAKER_01
Let s talk about 2008 really quick.
3
SPEAKER_01
You have a line, poverty was positioned as a cause of it instead of a consequence of it.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that s not ringing a bell because I probably didn t get the goal perfect.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m reaching, I m reaching.
3
SPEAKER_01
But anyways, this happens to be one of my, for whatever reason, a thing I got obsessed with in 08, during the collapse.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I started in a place that was probably like a lot of Americans, which is like, all these assholes went and fucking got these subprime mortgages and bought houses they can t afford, and now they re defaulting on the debt.
3
SPEAKER_01
Then I learned that there was some deregulation.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then I learned that the bank lenders were actively pursuing a class of borrower, full sales forces deployed to convince these people to take on these loans because of a regulation going away.
3
SPEAKER_01
And come to find out all those people that sold that paper didn t even keep that paper.
3
SPEAKER_01
So they re not even defaulting on these people who sold them the loan who they committed to.
3
SPEAKER_01
They bundled that up and they made mortgage-backed
3
SPEAKER_01
securities that they had then offloaded to Germany.
3
SPEAKER_01
Everyone made money along the way and Germany s holding a significant percentage of these.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then I come to find out, well, that whole mass of toxic loans really only amounted to something like $85 billion, or I forget what the number was.
3
SPEAKER_01
But then on top of that had been built two trillion dollars in derivatives of financial products, one of them being credit default swaps, where you can actually take out an insurance policy on an investment you don t even have and come to find out that
4
SPEAKER_00
$1.4 trillion was bet against all these stocks and mortgages and securities that they didn t even hold, that that s a fucking product in our financial system, and that that was the actual collapse.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that there are legions of people incentivized to make Bear Stearns go under because they own an insurance policy on if it goes credit default swap.
4
SPEAKER_01
See, that s making a personal problem a political one.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_01
I feel like you should get your honorary sociology degree.
4
SPEAKER_00
I came out of it at the end going like, Oh, none of the people at the bottom who are getting blamed for this have anything to do with the massive meltdown that s happening.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s not the toxic mortgages.
4
SPEAKER_00
And even those, the people who borrowed the money weren t truly at fault.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I have great empathy for everyone that suffered through that.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that was very eyeopening to me.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s actually one of the many things that pulled me out of being a libertarian.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m like, Oh no, no, we need a shitload of oversight on this financial sector.
4
SPEAKER_00
Because you should not be able to insure stock shares you don t own.
4
SPEAKER_00
That should not be allowed.
4
SPEAKER_00
You re incentivized to make a company go out of business.
4
SPEAKER_00
That can t be the way this system works.
4
SPEAKER_00
But it is how this system works.
4
SPEAKER_00
So maybe that was just one way that the haves profited on the have-nots.
4
SPEAKER_00
But you have this great statistic about the $61 million a day.
4
SPEAKER_00
This is criminal that on any given day, $61 million is being made on overdraft fees.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s right.
4
SPEAKER_01
So we re talking about overdraft fees from banks, payday lending fees, and check cashing fees.
4
SPEAKER_01
So this is just fines and fees that are allowing low-income folks to access their money or credit.
4
SPEAKER_01
So $61 million every single day.
4
SPEAKER_01
So like when James Baldwin wrote how expensive it is to be poor in America, I don t think he could have fathomed these receipts.
4
SPEAKER_01
So then this brings up the question of who benefits from this.
4
SPEAKER_01
And yeah, we can point to the banks and we can point to the payday lending industry and we should, but also like, no, I got a free checking account, but it s not free.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s subsidized by $11 billion in overdraft fees charged to 9% of bank customers every year.
4
SPEAKER_01
These are just normal banks.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
When people are predatory against low-income people, it is to me, the final ring of hell.
4
SPEAKER_00
It is so gnarly.
4
SPEAKER_00
I can t believe anyone can sleep at night.
4
SPEAKER_00
I don t really care if someone swindles a rich guy out of some money, but the many industries that are on the back, what about bail bondsmen, the prison industrial complex?
4
SPEAKER_00
There s so many that profit off of these folks.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I think that folks that are not poor, that are living quite secure, they often kind of see these decisions.
4
SPEAKER_01
They say, well, don t make stupid decisions.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, why are you taking that payday loan?
4
SPEAKER_01
The data show that most folks are taking out a payday loan for a normal expense, to pay their rent, to keep the lights on.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s not like a big emergency hits their life and they have to turn to this.
4
SPEAKER_00
They re not buying the iPhone 14 in most cases.
4
SPEAKER_01
Their whole life is an emergency.
4
SPEAKER_01
they re turning to these lines of credit because those are the ones available to them.
4
SPEAKER_01
It doesn t mean there s nothing we can do about that.
4
SPEAKER_01
There s studies that show when we regulate payday lending by showing clearly what people will probably pay, you know, like when you go to McDonald s and you see that big calorie count next to the burger, you re like, okay, all right.
4
SPEAKER_00
I won t get the triple.
4
SPEAKER_01
When we do that with payday lending, folks take out the loans less.
4
SPEAKER_01
But the problem is they re there for a reason.
4
SPEAKER_01
So when we close down one line of credit, folks go to pawn shops, folks go to auto loan.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so we need to find ways to open up, not close down these lines of credit.
4
SPEAKER_00
What are some other ways people are profiting?
4
SPEAKER_01
One way to kind of tell that story is to talk about Julio Péaz, who I talk about in the book.
4
SPEAKER_01
He s a young man I met in Emeryville, California a few years ago.
4
SPEAKER_01
Julio clocked in at 10 p.m.
4
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at night, worked the overnight shift at McDonald s, got off at 6 a.m., had two hours, and he d clock in again at Aerotech, going anywhere the temp service sent him between 8 a.m.
4
SPEAKER_01
and 4 p.m.
4
SPEAKER_01
He d sleep as much as he could and then was back to McDonald s.
4
SPEAKER_01
Each job paid minimum wage.
4
SPEAKER_01
Julio was like, I got to do this to afford my little apartment that he shared with his mom and his younger brother.
4
SPEAKER_01
And one day his younger brother, who was eight at the time, was like, hey brother, I m saving up my money.
4
SPEAKER_01
And Julio was like, why?
4
SPEAKER_01
And his younger brother s like, I just want to buy an hour of your time.
4
SPEAKER_01
How much for an hour to play with me?
4
SPEAKER_01
Who benefits from that kind of labor exploitation that folks like Julio are profiting from?
4
SPEAKER_01
So shareholders and bosses, they can benefit.
4
SPEAKER_01
But many of us are shareholders.
4
SPEAKER_01
Half of the country is invested in the stock market.
4
SPEAKER_01
Don t we benefit when we see our savings going up and up and up, even when it sometimes comes at a human sacrifice, like the kind Julio has to pay?
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
You know, Warren Buffett shined a good light on the difference between the capital gains tax and the income taxes his secretary was paying, famously, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
He said, it s pretty crazy that I m paying half the rate, or maybe even less.
4
SPEAKER_00
But there s other interesting tax things afoot that would shock people, I think, to find out that people below the poverty line are paying more tax.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I think we got to think really hard about taxes.
4
SPEAKER_01
For me, that s the thing.
4
SPEAKER_01
Everyone left, right, and center, we kind of talk about it in the same way, which is like, shit, I got to pay my taxes.
4
SPEAKER_00
Well, sure, sure.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s never fun to give away half of what you make.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s never fun.
4
SPEAKER_01
Reagan famously said taxes should be hard, and they are hard in America.
4
SPEAKER_01
They re often painful.
4
SPEAKER_01
But look, if we get a tax deduction that costs the government money and that puts money in our pocket, we got to count that as part of what the government does for us.
4
SPEAKER_01
The government sends $1.8 trillion on tax deductions every year, which is like double what we spend on the military.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s an enormous part of the welfare state.
4
SPEAKER_00
Great.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_00
Define the welfare state.
4
SPEAKER_00
Because I think we have a traditional way of thinking of the welfare state, but I want you to include everything that s actually in the welfare state.
4
SPEAKER_01
I think everything the government does for us is the welfare state.
4
SPEAKER_01
So part of that is means tested programs, food stamps, housing assistance, things we usually think about when we think about welfare.
4
SPEAKER_01
But we also should think about social insurance, like Social Security, which a lot of Americans will get or are getting today.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then we got to think about tax breaks.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s got to be part of the conversation about what the welfare state does.
4
SPEAKER_01
And if you add all that stuff up and you say, you know, what s the average family in the bottom 20% of the income distribution get?
4
SPEAKER_01
They get about $26,000 a year from the government.
4
SPEAKER_01
But the average family in the top 20% are richest families.
4
SPEAKER_01
They get about $35,000 a year from the government.
4
SPEAKER_00
So like $9,000 more.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s almost a 40% difference.
4
SPEAKER_00
And you re right.
4
SPEAKER_00
By the way, I m, I m guilty of this.
4
SPEAKER_00
So it s like, yeah, you can deduct your mortgage interest.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it cost us a lot.
4
SPEAKER_01
By one estimate, it cost us $190 billion a year in homeowner tax subsidies, which is way more like triple the amount.
4
SPEAKER_00
And by the way, it s really funny.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m sure many people are like, why should that person get free rent?
4
SPEAKER_00
Or why should that person get free food when I don t have to, but then they re never going like, well, wait, why do I get all this money back?
4
SPEAKER_01
Why do I get to deduct the interest of the mortgage for my second home?
4
SPEAKER_01
Why does my nice house in a nice neighborhood need to be subsidized by the government?
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, a mortgage suburban home and a 15 story public housing complex are government subsidized and we should face that.
4
SPEAKER_00
Can we make the argument?
4
SPEAKER_00
I m trying to be generous.
4
SPEAKER_00
Do you think the reigning philosophy when that was enacted was,
4
SPEAKER_00
this will create more home ownership, which will fuel the economy and create more building and buying and everything.
4
SPEAKER_00
Do you think that was the premise behind allowing people to deduct their interest?
4
SPEAKER_01
No, it was an accident.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh, great.
4
SPEAKER_00
Tell me.
4
SPEAKER_00
You actually know the history.
4
SPEAKER_00
I love it.
4
SPEAKER_01
It was like, you know, the mortgage interest deduction started to like spur small business owners.
4
SPEAKER_01
It got into the tax code in the early part of the 20th century.
4
SPEAKER_01
Then we enter into World War II, we get the GI Bill, we get a massive investment in veteran mortgages.
4
SPEAKER_01
A year after the GI Bill comes out, over 40% of mortgages are VA mortgages.
4
SPEAKER_01
It builds the homeownership society in America, the suburbanization in America.
4
SPEAKER_01
Suddenly we re like a homeowner society.
4
SPEAKER_01
And suddenly the mortgages deduction is baked into a lot of budgets.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so then the federal government s like, oh crap,
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, it got bigger than they expected.
4
SPEAKER_01
This is a thing now.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then a lobby forms around it.
4
SPEAKER_01
And that lobby is called the Realtors.
4
SPEAKER_01
And they re the second biggest lobby in the country based on the number of dollars contributed.
4
SPEAKER_01
Their number one issue is protecting the mortgage interest deduction, because that makes your house and my house more expensive than it would have been if it was just market dynamics.
4
SPEAKER_01
It does nothing to spur homeownership.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s straight up subsidy.
4
SPEAKER_00
I know it s hard to admit that s a straight up subsidy.
4
SPEAKER_01
And if you look at the data, it s straight up to the upper class.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s not even a middle class benefit.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s interesting historically how some things get started, like even entitlements.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m like, how did entitlements start?
4
SPEAKER_00
And there was a spending freeze, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
You couldn t offer more wages at Ford, I think.
4
SPEAKER_00
And they wanted better employees that would stay around longer.
4
SPEAKER_00
Like, okay, we can t give them more money per hour per the government.
4
SPEAKER_00
So we ll give them a retirement package.
4
SPEAKER_00
That doesn t count.
4
SPEAKER_00
We ll give them this.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then all of a sudden that spending freeze is lifted and then they re stuck with entitlements forever.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t think it makes a lot of sense
4
SPEAKER_01
that I get the mortgage interest deduction when there s a million public school kids that are homeless today.
4
SPEAKER_01
I feel we got to talk about that.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I feel like the next time tax season rolls around and your neighbor leans over the fence or you re at your kid s soccer game and someone s like, taxes, geez, my God, I think we have to start having a very awkward conversation.
4
SPEAKER_01
I think we have to be like, I know I get the 529 college savings tax deduction, which is only for people that can squirrel away money for college.
4
SPEAKER_01
And this just doesn t make a lot of sense or look at my
5
SPEAKER_00
I got the mortgages deduction for this thing.
5
SPEAKER_00
And we re evicting people by the millions.
5
SPEAKER_00
I wrote my congressperson being like, you should wind this down for folks like me.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s a very different conversation.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s an awkward conversation.
5
SPEAKER_00
But I feel like that s how we change the common sense of America.
5
SPEAKER_00
And we ve done this for other issues.
5
SPEAKER_00
There was a time where you could saddle up next to your buddy and say a racist thing, or saddle up and say something that s not- Definitely sexist.
5
SPEAKER_00
Sure, absolutely.
5
SPEAKER_00
Shifting that aperture, changing that common sense.
5
SPEAKER_00
But with these issues, it s still very sticky.
5
SPEAKER_01
It is.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s the only thing that unifies everyone is they hate paying taxes.
5
SPEAKER_00
A lot of times when we talk about taxes, we re talking about the tax brackets.
5
SPEAKER_00
We re talking about increasing taxes on the wealthy.
5
SPEAKER_00
We got to talk about enforcement, just literally collecting taxes.
5
SPEAKER_00
The IRS chairperson told Congress last year that we lose a trillion dollars a year, a trillion with a T, just on uncollected taxes because of corporate shenanigans and the kind of tax maneuvers by ultra wealthy families in the country.
5
SPEAKER_00
So even if we just left the tax brackets exactly where they were and just made sure people pay the taxes they owed, that could make a world of difference.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
I think the total budget of the government is something like $3 trillion.
5
SPEAKER_01
So you re talking about adding 33% more to the kitty?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
A study came out a few years ago that showed that if the top 1% of Americans just paid the federal income taxes they owed, that it would raise $175 billion a year.
5
SPEAKER_00
$175 billion a year is almost enough to close the poverty gap.
5
SPEAKER_00
Really?
5
SPEAKER_00
So for me, when I hear like, we can t afford to do more or like in a world of scarce resources, I m like, that s not our world.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s not our country.
5
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
5
SPEAKER_01
What is TANF and how does it work?
5
SPEAKER_00
TANF stands for temporary assistance to needy families.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s cash welfare.
5
SPEAKER_00
You remember Clinton reform welfare in the nineties, it was kind of a deal with the Gingrich Republicans.
5
SPEAKER_00
And he turned what was a cash entitlement, like a guaranteed cash program into a block grant.
5
SPEAKER_00
And a block grant is just a wonky way of saying, okay, California, okay, Missouri, here s a chunk of cash.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s intended for poor families, but you ve got some freedom about how you spend it.
5
SPEAKER_01
That seems like a terrible idea.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
So prior to that, the federal government was in charge of physically distributing this?
5
SPEAKER_00
Prior to that, you were guaranteed access to a basic level of cash assistance if you met certain requirements.
5
SPEAKER_01
Right.
5
SPEAKER_00
You are no longer guaranteed access to that.
5
SPEAKER_01
OK, now, so one out of every dollar given by the Fed, of that dollar, only 22 cents makes it to the person.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
5
SPEAKER_00
In terms of cash in their pocket, the thing they need the most.
5
SPEAKER_01
Where is this other 78 cents?
5
SPEAKER_00
You name it, abstinence only classes, Christian summer camps in Maine, child protective services, juvenile delinquency, a whole host of things that states spend the money on.
5
SPEAKER_00
They justify it in some way, but it has very little to do with poverty reduction or just easing families  hardship.
5
SPEAKER_00
We re talking about kids not having enough to eat because they re not getting that money.
5
SPEAKER_00
We re talking about kids getting evicted because they re not getting that money.
5
SPEAKER_00
So there are real costs to the decisions that states are making.
5
SPEAKER_00
And this is not just a red state or blue state issue.
5
SPEAKER_00
Tennessee, the last time I checked, literally didn t spend the money.
5
SPEAKER_01
700 million.
5
SPEAKER_00
700 million.
5
SPEAKER_00
But Hawaii, our blue estate, was sitting on so much unspent TANF funds, they could give every poor kid $10,000.
5
SPEAKER_01
What was their explanation?
5
SPEAKER_00
I didn t ask them.
5
SPEAKER_01
Okay, let s get them on the phone.
5
SPEAKER_01
Has Tennessee issued any kind of explanation for that?
5
SPEAKER_00
I didn t ask them either, no.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s just a lot of state discretion and states are doing a lot with that money that doesn t have anything to do with helping poor families.
5
SPEAKER_01
And one of the misconceptions you point out is that a lot of us are afraid that poor families are taking advantage of the programs.
5
SPEAKER_01
And we think of welfare dependence, but that in point of fact, there s probably a bigger problem of welfare avoidance.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
Welfare avoidance is the idea that billions and billions of dollars in unused aid is left on the table every year because families that are eligible for programs do not take advantage of those programs.
5
SPEAKER_00
So about 7 million Americans who qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is this pay raise for our poorest paid workers, they pass on it.
5
SPEAKER_01
How does that work?
5
SPEAKER_01
That s if you make below this amount of money, you get to take this huge deduction off.
5
SPEAKER_01
So virtually you pay no federal income tax.
5
SPEAKER_01
I remember when I made eight grand a year for 10 years, I never paid any federal income tax.
5
SPEAKER_01
I was always below that.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
The earning of tax are a little different, but you get a benefit around tax time and it s kind of a windfall that comes.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s usually for working parents.
5
SPEAKER_01
In the way of tax forgiveness or an actual checks?
5
SPEAKER_00
You get a check.
5
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
5
SPEAKER_01
So there s, do you say how many people?
5
SPEAKER_00
How many people pass on this incredible big benefit?
5
SPEAKER_00
About 7 million people a year, which means they pass on about $17 billion in EITC funds.
5
SPEAKER_00
And if you add that up with the amount of money that goes unspent because people who could receive food stamps don t apply for them.
5
SPEAKER_00
because people who could get government health insurance doesn t apply for it, could get supplements of security income, which is kind of a payment for folks that are below a certain income level that have a disability or that are blind or old.
5
SPEAKER_00
If you add all that up, what you re talking about is over 140 billion, billion with a B, dollars in unused aid every single year.
5
SPEAKER_00
So that s not a picture of welfare dependency.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s not a picture of the American poor somehow figuring out how to nickel and dime everything for the government.
5
SPEAKER_00
This is a different thing.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, and let s be honest, there is fraud, but what s more likely to happen is if there is some fraud perpetrated, it s going to be on every single news channel.
5
SPEAKER_01
It might amount to $800 million, yet we re ignoring this $170 billion that s not getting news.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s definitely more newsworthy when there s some kind of fraud.
5
SPEAKER_01
Fraud.
5
SPEAKER_00
I wish the fraud at the top got more news than the fraud at the bottom.
5
SPEAKER_00
Right?
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, that s like so much more consequential.
5
SPEAKER_00
Look at COVID.
5
SPEAKER_00
We roll out paycheck protection program.
5
SPEAKER_00
We spend $800 billion on the paycheck protection program.
5
SPEAKER_00
Most of that money just gets captured by the top 20% of income earners.
5
SPEAKER_00
It didn t protect a lot of jobs.
5
SPEAKER_00
It went to shareholders and owners of businesses that are fine already.
5
SPEAKER_00
And what did we talk about?
5
SPEAKER_00
We talked about that unemployment insurance, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
We talked about those laid off workers that were staying home.
5
SPEAKER_00
What fraud do we care about?
5
SPEAKER_00
You know what I mean?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
5
SPEAKER_00
So this isn t to like say that these programs are perfect or no one ever doesn t take advantage of these programs.
5
SPEAKER_00
Right.
5
SPEAKER_00
But it s kind of like, gosh, there s just bigger game afoot out there.
5
SPEAKER_01
You re looking at the pennies and not the dollars in that situation.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so what are the deterrents?
5
SPEAKER_01
Right off the bat, people would guess maybe it s some kind of pride that they wouldn t go and apply for it, but it s much deeper than that.
5
SPEAKER_00
I think so.
5
SPEAKER_00
Have you ever been to a welfare office?
5
SPEAKER_00
No.
5
SPEAKER_00
I have, and it is a terrible experience.
5
SPEAKER_00
Take the GMV and multiply it.
5
SPEAKER_00
You know, you re spending four hours in the waiting room for a 10 minute appointment.
5
SPEAKER_01
And as you point out earlier, poverty is this huge ball of things.
5
SPEAKER_01
So people in there, much higher per capita rate of chronic pain, addiction.
5
SPEAKER_01
Everyone in there is already suffering.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
Taking a day off work means losing money.
5
SPEAKER_01
They have kids with them, I m sure.
5
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely.
5
SPEAKER_00
So there is something about stigma, there s something about pride, but there s a deeper issue.
5
SPEAKER_00
And the deeper issue is the just red tape bureaucracy.
5
SPEAKER_00
So if you look at food stamps, in Oregon, almost all the folks in Oregon who qualify for food stamps receive them.
5
SPEAKER_00
But in California, it s only about 63%.
5
SPEAKER_00
So it s not like food stamps are more stigmatized in California.
5
SPEAKER_00
What it is, is you got to answer 200 questions
5
SPEAKER_00
to apply for food stamps in California.
5
SPEAKER_00
Some states, you got to get fingerprinted and photographed to apply for welfare.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s just all this government bureaucracy and wrap up to these programs.
5
SPEAKER_00
And for me, that s both very hopeful, like, oh, okay, we can fix this.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it s also like super enraging because if our country does one thing well, it s like marketing stuff to people.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, yeah, they re the best at it.
5
SPEAKER_00
Why can t we do that for young moms that need formula?
5
SPEAKER_01
Yes, and is it your opinion that it is calculated to prevent giving out the money, or do you think, again, to be generous, they think it s an attempt to prevent fraud?
5
SPEAKER_00
So there s a great new book called Recoding America, and the author makes a case that a lot of these programs are embroiled in this red tape, not out of any sort of nefarious intentionality, but because the reward structures in government agencies is about butt covering and not about delivering.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so you don t want to make a mistake.
5
SPEAKER_00
You want to kind of cross your T s, dot your I s.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s how you keep your job.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s how you advance.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s not really about, hey, we re delivering this outcome.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so the argument in that book, and I think it s right, is we need to change the reward structure and delivery system for these programs.
5
SPEAKER_01
This is a bizarre analogy to bring in, but I just happened to be reading the Isaacson book about Elon Musk.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it s like, literally what he s been able to do with space travel is solely because he wasn t working for the government.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s interesting.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
That 90 plus percent of the costs that NASA was dealing with were the reams and reams of oversight and ass protecting and this and that, that were completely unnecessary.
5
SPEAKER_01
It can be pretty stark.
5
SPEAKER_00
But we know how to get out of this.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s a study that s literally, if you change the font on a program announcement about the earning of tax credit, people sign up for it more.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s a study that shows that if you just send a mailer to older Americans who qualify for food stamps, like, Hey, you might qualify for this, call this number.
5
SPEAKER_00
And when they do, a person with a pulse picks up the phone, spends a half an hour on the phone, walking them through, big take-up rate.
6
SPEAKER_00
So this is low-hanging fruit.
6
SPEAKER_00
This is the very least we can do.
6
SPEAKER_01
And again, that s not even asking for more money.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s just asking that we help get to the people who it s been designated to.
6
SPEAKER_00
Let s deliver.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s right.
6
SPEAKER_01
Where s all this money going that gets unspent and unclaimed?
6
SPEAKER_00
I don t know.
6
SPEAKER_00
But it does mean like a dollar in the budget doesn t mean a dollar in someone s hand.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s very, very terrible.
6
SPEAKER_01
22 cents.
6
SPEAKER_01
Now, so I heard you talking about COVID, and I guess on some levels, this is a pretty dynamic experiment that was run for someone on your position, I would imagine.
6
SPEAKER_01
This was likely to never occur, and yet it did, and there s some amazing results.
6
SPEAKER_01
So what happened during COVID?
6
SPEAKER_00
Most Americans were financially better off in COVID than before COVID, which is crazy.
6
SPEAKER_01
It is crazy.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I would imagine too lopsided for the lower end of the spectrum of income.
6
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely.
6
SPEAKER_00
So we have three historic relief bills in COVID, two under Trump and one under Biden.
6
SPEAKER_00
The one under Biden is called the American Rescue Plan.
6
SPEAKER_00
The American Rescue Plan is unquestionably the most important thing the government s done for low-income families since the Great Society and the War on Poverty.
6
SPEAKER_00
It was a game changer.
6
SPEAKER_00
One of the things it did is take a tax credit called the child tax credit and tweak it a little bit and make it something called the extended child tax credit, which without getting into all the wonky details meant that basically if you were a middle class, working class or poor American with kids, you got serious money for those kids.
6
SPEAKER_00
$3,600 per kid for very young kids and then $3,000 for a little older kids.
6
SPEAKER_00
Like serious money.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
6
SPEAKER_00
That small intervention lasted six months.
6
SPEAKER_00
That cut the poverty rate by 44%, the child poverty rate.
6
SPEAKER_00
So that took it from one in eight to one in five-ish?
6
SPEAKER_00
Five million more kids were pulled out of poverty because of that intervention.
6
SPEAKER_00
This is just one part of the rescue plan.
6
SPEAKER_00
We had something called emergency rental assistance, which is like, okay, we have this eviction moratorium, but when it ends, what s going to happen?
6
SPEAKER_00
So the federal government allocates about $46 billion to help tenants in arrears.
6
SPEAKER_00
It reaches 10 million families and it drives evictions to the lowest they ve ever been on record, ever.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I know this because I m the guy that collects all the eviction data that knows this.
6
SPEAKER_00
Just drives down eviction in expensive cities and cheap cities all across the country.
6
SPEAKER_00
It worked.
6
SPEAKER_00
And so one of the lessons of COVID is anyone who says that government action, bold relief, cannot make a difference.
6
SPEAKER_01
They re ignoring real data.
6
SPEAKER_00
They re ignoring reality.
6
SPEAKER_01
Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare Okay, now if I put on my conservative hat yeah, there s no question it definitely had a huge impact you d be willfully ignorant if you denied the impact all those relief checks had and
6
SPEAKER_01
However, however, our interest rate now is 7% and it s 7% because of that.
6
SPEAKER_01
We made money valueless.
6
SPEAKER_01
We caused inflation to go through the roof.
6
SPEAKER_01
And now we have a fed that has to have interest rates at 7%.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s caused a whole other problem down river.
6
SPEAKER_01
So I would just flag.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it works, but where s the money come from and does the bill come due?
6
SPEAKER_01
And it appears that the bill came due.
6
SPEAKER_00
So there s a massive debate in economics right now about the source of inflation, because everything happened all at once, right?
6
SPEAKER_00
Like Russia invaded the Ukraine.
6
SPEAKER_00
We had supply chain breakdowns.
6
SPEAKER_00
There is a lot of evidence about corporate markups, corporations capturing this and driving up prices themselves.
6
SPEAKER_00
And there s a debate about the extent to which the government overheated the economy.
6
SPEAKER_01
I totally agree with you.
6
SPEAKER_01
As soon as supply chain s broken, now your basic supply and demand dynamic is largely impacted by the supply side.
6
SPEAKER_01
So of course, demand and prices are going to go up.
6
SPEAKER_01
But we also printed a ton of money.
6
SPEAKER_01
We just invented money and put it into the system.
6
SPEAKER_00
$5 trillion in aid relief over the next 10 years.
6
SPEAKER_00
So not all of it went out already, but a lot of it did.
6
SPEAKER_00
But I don t think that inflation is a necessary or automatic result
6
SPEAKER_00
of these deeper interventions.
6
SPEAKER_00
Like we could keep some of the more effective programs that we saw during COVID and not have the inflationary pressure that we had.
6
SPEAKER_01
Because we ran the grand experiment and we know now what works.
6
SPEAKER_00
And we know it didn t work.
6
SPEAKER_00
And what was kind of wasteful, the Small Business Administration who administered the Paycheck Protection Program is estimating that $200 billion of that money was probably fraudulent that didn t need to go out the door.
6
SPEAKER_00
So the Extended Child Tax Credit, that was about $100 billion program.
6
SPEAKER_00
And if you look at other countries that make deeper investments in poverty and just public services in general, it s not like they re all sacked with inflation regularly.
6
SPEAKER_00
So I don t think it s automatic.
6
SPEAKER_00
It doesn t mean that these things don t have consequences, right?
6
SPEAKER_00
And that the economy is a fine-tuned machine.
6
SPEAKER_00
I don t think the inflationary response means that we can t do anything more.
6
SPEAKER_01
Right.
6
SPEAKER_01
So now I m going to put my progressive hat back on and say that I don t think we can just invent money.
6
SPEAKER_01
I agree.
6
SPEAKER_01
And those programs are necessary.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I think you got to get realistic about one in $3 collected going to the military.
6
SPEAKER_01
This is a thing that no one wants to talk about at all, especially in this moment where there are two wars raging and it s a very scary world we re confronting right now.
6
SPEAKER_01
But you go, here s the pool.
6
SPEAKER_01
Now granted, yeah, let s definitely clamp down and enforce the tax code because that could be another trillion.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s the budget of the military and Homeland Security.
6
SPEAKER_01
I think all that adds up to about $1.4 trillion, something like that.
6
SPEAKER_01
But if you re looking around and going, where s this money going to come from?
6
SPEAKER_01
To me, the most obvious thing that no one wants to talk about is that 33 plus percent of it is going to this.
6
SPEAKER_01
You want to talk about, we have an economy that s the same size as two through seven.
6
SPEAKER_01
We also have a military that s the size of two through 12.
6
SPEAKER_01
So that s where I feel we got to address what we re spending money on.
6
SPEAKER_01
When you say you want more taxes and less tax credits, I m like,
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, or let s not buy these fucking jets that don t serve any purpose.
6
SPEAKER_01
Everything s drones now.
6
SPEAKER_01
Why do we have the, you know, like, let s get realistic about the fucking $800 billion spent on all this machinery that we don t need.
6
SPEAKER_00
We spend a lot more on tax breaks in the military though.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s pretty bonkers.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
Let s meet in the middle.
6
SPEAKER_01
Let s cut the military in half and then you can get half of your tax breaks.
6
SPEAKER_00
So there s a part of me that s like, a lot of us want to talk about the military cause we re not in it and we re not affected by it and our kids aren t in it and we don t think our kids will be in it.
6
SPEAKER_01
But let s be honest, the personnel expense of the military is not the expense.
6
SPEAKER_00
You get no argument from me on this.
6
SPEAKER_00
Like I m totally open.
6
SPEAKER_00
I feel like I m a little over my skis on this.
6
SPEAKER_00
Like I just don t know where it would come from, but I m very comfortable talking about, okay, what about all this corporate tax revenue that s lost because Facebook says that thousands of their employees are employed in Ireland?
6
SPEAKER_00
What do we do about that?
6
SPEAKER_00
What do we do about the fact that a lot of top earners are effectively paying the lowest?
6
SPEAKER_00
And so for me, there s an argument here about the pay for, which is about rebalancing the safety net.
6
SPEAKER_00
And what I want to is not just a point to the guy that s a little richer than us.
6
SPEAKER_00
I want to point to myself and be like, how am I benefiting from this unbalanced safety net?
6
SPEAKER_00
Not because I think that move is sufficient, but it matters.
6
SPEAKER_00
I think it matters for building the political will.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m so tired of arguments about poverty that let me off the hook.
6
SPEAKER_00
I don t want to be left off the hook anymore.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
I do want to answer, because there ll be some right-wing people that ll go like, if you care so much, why don t you give all your money to it?
6
SPEAKER_01
And I just want to answer, I see this as a pushback all the time, like Warren Buffett.
6
SPEAKER_01
Oh, if you don t like that, then why don t you give all your money?
6
SPEAKER_01
Because the goal is to correct the problem.
6
SPEAKER_01
An individual giving all their money to the government is not going to correct the problem.
6
SPEAKER_00
You ll notice there s no sentence in my book that asks the reader to give any money away.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m asking the reader to often take less from the government.
6
SPEAKER_01
Uh-huh.
6
SPEAKER_01
Less of your subsidized lifestyle.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m asking the reader to shop and invest in solidarity with the poor.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m asking the reader who lives in a segregated community to show up at those zoning board meetings and be like, we should build this in my community.
6
SPEAKER_00
So that s what I m asking.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
Can we sidebar for one second?
6
SPEAKER_01
It won t serve any purpose other than we re here.
6
SPEAKER_01
I want to be fair to everyone.
6
SPEAKER_01
This shit is complicated as hell.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s so complicated.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s complicated.
6
SPEAKER_01
So when you look at like corporate taxes, yes, obviously it s preposterous.
6
SPEAKER_01
Unless you reverse engineer from the reality that these companies can exist in any country.
6
SPEAKER_01
We re in a global economy and that people will just relocate.
6
SPEAKER_01
So you can t be naive and think we can have a 30% business tax rate.
6
SPEAKER_01
and that everyone won t go to England or they won t go to wherever.
6
SPEAKER_01
So you re trying to really balance this thing where we re keeping America a very appealing place for businesses to start and thrive because we re competing with the globe.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s even the AI debate is affected by this.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s like, well, we can t even enact a policy here.
6
SPEAKER_01
We might all agree with morally because Russia s not gonna.
6
SPEAKER_01
And what are we going to be behind?
6
SPEAKER_01
You know, you got to be realistic about what are the options on the table that doesn t drive
6
SPEAKER_01
Microsoft into fucking Ireland.
6
SPEAKER_00
Totally.
6
SPEAKER_00
But there are, I mean, there s research on like the millionaire tax and it turns out when you increase taxes on high earners, they don t suddenly flee the country.
6
SPEAKER_00
There s a lot of sunk costs about being in America and a lot of benefits.
6
SPEAKER_01
I hear that term a lot, sunk costs.
6
SPEAKER_01
Will you explain that to me?
6
SPEAKER_00
If you create a company here, it s just hard to pick up and move it to Bangladesh.
6
SPEAKER_00
Now you could overdo it, right?
7
SPEAKER_01
that you could overreach and you can have these kind of externalities or capital flying away that would hurt everyone.
7
SPEAKER_01
But I do think that that doesn t mean we have to settle for what we have now.
7
SPEAKER_01
I think there can be some more fine tuning of the machine.
7
SPEAKER_01
A lot of times we hear in Washington, well, how can we afford it?
7
SPEAKER_01
And that s the thing that drives me nuts because it s just so clear that this rich country could afford it, but we d have to do a lot more to fight poverty and a bit less to protect fortunes.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, we do do a lot to protect fortunes.
7
SPEAKER_00
We do.
7
SPEAKER_00
Now, I ve heard you talk about how race plays into this, and we kind of touched on it with the segregation.
7
SPEAKER_00
I think that deserves two seconds, but I also, I m weirdly interested in what you think about women s reproductive rights and this cycle of poverty and what s happening in the notion that the Supreme Court s about to hear a case about the morning after pill.
7
SPEAKER_00
How does that play into that to me seems to be one of the more just demonic aspects of it, which is you can t have an abortion.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s off the table and we re not going to help you at all.
7
SPEAKER_00
We re going to sentence you to a life of poverty.
7
SPEAKER_00
And then when your kid ends up in the criminal justice system, that s the only time we ll pay for it.
7
SPEAKER_00
And we ll pay 33 grand a year to keep them.
7
SPEAKER_00
Then all of that seems so medieval.
7
SPEAKER_01
In the debate around Roe falling, people were talking about this more and more as an economic justice issue.
7
SPEAKER_01
But I admit that before that debate, I didn t think about it a lot as a poverty issue.
7
SPEAKER_01
And we weren t talking about it at our conferences, in our policy debates.
7
SPEAKER_01
It wasn t really on the table.
7
SPEAKER_01
I m glad it s become on the table.
7
SPEAKER_01
And I felt like I needed to see for myself.
7
SPEAKER_01
So I visited an abortion clinic right before Roe fell.
7
SPEAKER_01
and talk to doctors, talk to folks that are basically trying to get money for folks seeking abortions.
7
SPEAKER_01
Saw the folks there that day, and they just looked so much to me like the folks that are in eviction court, that are at bus stops, that are in welfare offices.
7
SPEAKER_01
They were poor.
7
SPEAKER_01
and read this amazing study called the Turnaway Study.
7
SPEAKER_01
It was a demographer and she basically followed women who sought abortions and those who had abortions and those who were turned away just because they were just days or a few weeks over the cutoff, the gestational period.
7
SPEAKER_01
And she followed both sets of folks.
7
SPEAKER_01
So it s this really rigorous design.
7
SPEAKER_01
and shows that the women who were denied abortions much more likely to be cast into poverty, their kids much more likely to grow up in poverty than the kids that the women had later after their abortions.
7
SPEAKER_01
And so I don t really know how to have this conversation on a moral plane or a religious plane, but just as a concrete economic justice issue, the fall of Roe is going to create more poverty.
7
SPEAKER_00
Generational.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s going to perpetuate a cycle.
7
SPEAKER_00
I mean, a lot of people are walking in there because financially they cannot do it.
7
SPEAKER_00
They re barely supporting themselves.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
And that s plain to see for anyone who s been in those waiting rooms.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
I think of Crystal from your book.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
A, heartbreaking from beginning to end, and something I witnessed nonstop.
7
SPEAKER_01
I think about Crystal a lot when I hear easy or glib solutions about poverty.
7
SPEAKER_01
When people say, well, why don t people just go get a job?
7
SPEAKER_01
So Crystal is born because her mom is stabbed.
7
SPEAKER_00
11 times in the back.
7
SPEAKER_01
Right.
7
SPEAKER_01
It induces labor.
7
SPEAKER_01
She s born into violence.
7
SPEAKER_01
That wasn t the first time her mom was stabbed.
7
SPEAKER_01
For as far back as Crystal can remember, her dad beat her mom.
7
SPEAKER_01
Her mom was addicted to crack cocaine, so was her grandmother.
7
SPEAKER_01
By the time Crystal s five or six, she ends up in foster care.
7
SPEAKER_01
She s molested as a young girl.
7
SPEAKER_01
She bounces between places.
7
SPEAKER_01
She lives with her aunt for five years.
7
SPEAKER_01
And then her aunt returns her.
7
SPEAKER_01
The longer she lived, anywhere after that was eight months.
7
SPEAKER_01
She goes through like 20, 25 different placements.
7
SPEAKER_01
At 16, she drops out of high school.
7
SPEAKER_01
She starts fighting with girls in the guest rooms of foster care.
7
SPEAKER_01
She gets a scar across her face.
7
SPEAKER_01
She picks up an assault charge.
7
SPEAKER_01
She s diagnosed as a kid with... This list is impossible.
7
SPEAKER_01
Bipolar disorder, affective detachment disorder.
7
SPEAKER_01
You know, just on and on it goes.
7
SPEAKER_00
Some kind of borderline intelligence thing.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
So she ages out of foster care.
7
SPEAKER_01
She hits the private rental market at the age of 18.
7
SPEAKER_01
She cannot get into public housing, not only because of the waiting list, but because of that assault charge.
7
SPEAKER_01
So she can t take advantage of this program.
7
SPEAKER_01
She rents a really crummy apartment at the bottom of the market, but it still takes over 70% of her income.
7
SPEAKER_01
She s soon evicted.
7
SPEAKER_00
She s on disability for 700 bucks a month or something at this point.
7
SPEAKER_01
On and on it goes.
7
SPEAKER_00
She goes off of disability.
7
SPEAKER_01
She gets kicked off her disability.
7
SPEAKER_01
She burns through her ties.
7
SPEAKER_01
She can t get back on.
7
SPEAKER_01
And she eventually ends up street homeless and turning to prostitution.
7
SPEAKER_01
This is a church going woman, but that s what she did to survive.
7
SPEAKER_01
So you go to Crystal and you say, just get a job.
7
SPEAKER_01
Just finish high school.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
Don t be 11 on the ACE scale.
7
SPEAKER_01
Play by the rules.
7
SPEAKER_01
And I feel like those kind of statements are so far away from the reality.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s kind of like, have a different life, Crystal.
7
SPEAKER_00
I know.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s hard to recognize just how many benefits we ve all had.
7
SPEAKER_00
Even when it was rough, there s still 20 more rungs down the ladder.
7
SPEAKER_00
Like I m reading Crystal s story and I m like, yeah, I ve had that abuse.
7
SPEAKER_00
I ve had this, but fuck me.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I didn t bounce.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
My dad didn t stab my mom.
7
SPEAKER_00
I mean, there s so many more.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I can barely function.
7
SPEAKER_00
I ve had to be in therapy and all this shit.
7
SPEAKER_00
You know, what on earth would this young woman do?
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
This reality of America scares a lot of us, that there s always a further you can fall.
7
SPEAKER_01
And I feel that that causes us to just clutch on to whatever advantage we can have that leads to a discourse in America where there s a lot of people that are just blind to their own privilege and affluence.
7
SPEAKER_00
And you get empathy fatigue.
7
SPEAKER_00
There s like these Paul Bloom studies, right?
7
SPEAKER_00
Or these other studies where it s like you show one kid starving in a country and people will donate.
7
SPEAKER_00
You show two people and a little less people donate.
7
SPEAKER_00
You bring it up to like 15, 20 kids on the poster that are starving, all of a sudden it drops down a significant percentage.
7
SPEAKER_00
And you re like, oh, that s weird.
7
SPEAKER_00
But yeah, once it feels overwhelming and insurmountable, it s easier to just look away and ignore.
7
SPEAKER_01
Right.
7
SPEAKER_01
So it can t be insurmountable.
7
SPEAKER_01
And so we have to push against this hopelessness that I think is gripping the country.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s even like a chic nihilism.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s somehow safer or even cooler to be kind of nihilistic.
7
SPEAKER_01
That makes me very nervous.
7
SPEAKER_01
And I feel like this book brings hope.
7
SPEAKER_01
This book brings an answer.
7
SPEAKER_01
All this poverty in our midst, it s unnecessary and it s totally solvable.
7
SPEAKER_01
And so I m not hopeless.
7
SPEAKER_01
I feel that hopelessness is kind of useless.
7
SPEAKER_01
I understand hopelessness.
7
SPEAKER_01
I do, but I kind of have to reject it because I just feel like it s part of the mission to reject it.
7
SPEAKER_00
Well, it s a beautiful book and it s the last topic I wanted to talk about, but it s so good that I enjoyed everything I learned.
7
SPEAKER_00
And the reason I don t want to know about it is because I don t want to have to, I m in that group where it s like, it feels overwhelming and I don t know.
7
SPEAKER_00
And yeah, and it s scary.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I just feel that there s something amiss today in American life, though, that more and more of us are fed up with all this poverty and inequality.
7
SPEAKER_01
Most Americans think poverty is a result of unfair circumstances, not a moral failing, including most Republicans.
7
SPEAKER_01
Interesting.
7
SPEAKER_01
Most Americans think the rich aren t paying their fair share of taxes.
7
SPEAKER_01
Most Americans want a higher minimum wage.
7
SPEAKER_01
Something s happening.
7
SPEAKER_01
In the book at the end, I tell this little story about this protest that One Fair Wage had at the Albany Capitol in New York City.
7
SPEAKER_01
It was mostly black and Latino women service workers fighting for higher wages among tipped workers.
7
SPEAKER_01
And it s the same day there s a Stop the Steal rally.
7
SPEAKER_01
And so the guys in MAGA hats come over and say, what are you guys protesting?
7
SPEAKER_01
And the One Fair Wage folks are like, we re fighting for higher wages.
7
SPEAKER_01
And the Trump supporters are like, we want higher wages too.
7
SPEAKER_01
And they shook their hands and they joined the protest.
7
SPEAKER_01
I think that the country is riven by a lot of issues, but on this issue, on more economic justice, I think there s a lot of us pining for it.
7
SPEAKER_01
And I think that s exciting.
7
SPEAKER_01
And now the challenge is how to translate that into actual political action.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yes, because you re right.
7
SPEAKER_00
So many of these polls, you just scratch your head of like, how could policy be this if these polls are real and to be trusted?
7
SPEAKER_00
And yes, there s many of them right now.
7
SPEAKER_00
Or it s like, well, America feels this way.
7
SPEAKER_00
Well, take Roe v. Wade.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s like up in the 70%.
7
SPEAKER_00
So how on earth is this happening in a democracy?
7
SPEAKER_00
Or the unjust treatment of low-income people and then turning your head at the white-collar criminals.
7
SPEAKER_00
Everyone, it s unanimous.
7
SPEAKER_00
So what the fuck?
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I mean, Citizens United was a disaster on this score, right?
7
SPEAKER_01
And all the money flowing into politics and the lobby power is substantial, right?
7
SPEAKER_01
Just counting the lobby flex in terms of dollars of the top five corporations is much more than all organized labor spends.
7
SPEAKER_01
on lobbying, right?
7
SPEAKER_01
It s just outgunned, outmatched.
7
SPEAKER_01
But this is also where I feel we ve got to step up.
7
SPEAKER_01
We ve got to commit ourselves to poverty abolitionism.
7
SPEAKER_01
We ve got to get skin in the game.
7
SPEAKER_01
And so I don t want to point the finger at Congress.
7
SPEAKER_01
I don t want to absolve them, but I don t want to absolve us either.
7
SPEAKER_01
I often think of the 60s, and so Julian Zelazar, the historian, has a great book called The Fierce Urgency of Now, where he talks about, all right, in the 60s, Congress was a mess.
7
SPEAKER_01
The Dixiecrats were aligning with Republicans to block reform.
7
SPEAKER_01
Government inaction was the goal.
8
SPEAKER_01
And he s like, but we got major pieces of civil rights legislation and we got the war on poverty and great society.
8
SPEAKER_01
So how do we do that?
8
SPEAKER_01
And his answer is just massive social pressure from the labor movement and the civil rights movement.
8
SPEAKER_01
And I feel that there s a lesson for us.
8
SPEAKER_01
I m just glad that folks in those movements didn t look at Congress and be like, well, we ll wait for the next election.
8
SPEAKER_01
Maybe we ll get them next time.
8
SPEAKER_01
I feel like we got to jump in no matter what Congress looks like.
8
SPEAKER_04
Well, again, part of the apathy and turning your head is absolving your own responsibility in the process.
8
SPEAKER_04
And so you just tell yourself you don t have a role in it.
8
SPEAKER_04
It s easier.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
Or you blame the other political party or you blame your favorite group to blame.
8
SPEAKER_01
You point to government dysfunction and you have this kind of, I m with you, but I don t know what to do.
8
SPEAKER_04
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_04
It s just confirmation bias.
8
SPEAKER_04
It s just, it s one more piece of data to prove you re correct about your opponent.
8
SPEAKER_01
At the end of the day, does that help any more than just what your opponent is doing?
8
SPEAKER_01
What this book is trying to do is give everyone a clear roadmap about how they can get involved in little ways and in big ways.
8
SPEAKER_01
Look at the holiday season.
8
SPEAKER_01
We bought a lot of stuff.
8
SPEAKER_01
Did we pay attention?
8
SPEAKER_01
to where our money was flowing.
8
SPEAKER_01
Did we support companies and businesses that were doing right by their workers, or did we just not, you know?
8
SPEAKER_04
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_04
I m so embarrassed to ask you this, but like, how would I know?
8
SPEAKER_04
You got to do your homework.
8
SPEAKER_04
Is there like an easy to use website?
8
SPEAKER_01
There is.
8
SPEAKER_01
There is?
8
SPEAKER_01
There is.
8
SPEAKER_01
What is it?
8
SPEAKER_01
So you can go to B Corp.
8
SPEAKER_01
They evaluate businesses in terms of economic and environmental standards, and they give them grades.
8
SPEAKER_01
And so you can reward companies that are doing right by their workers.
8
SPEAKER_01
And that s effortless.
8
SPEAKER_01
You re going to spend your money somewhere.
8
SPEAKER_01
Just do a little homework.
8
SPEAKER_01
Take a little step.
8
SPEAKER_01
You can go to Union Plus, which curates lists of union-made products.
8
SPEAKER_01
You want to buy some sneakers.
8
SPEAKER_01
You want to buy some candy.
8
SPEAKER_01
You want to drink a beer.
8
SPEAKER_01
This is union-made stuff right here.
8
SPEAKER_04
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
I wish companies bragged about this more.
8
SPEAKER_04
Yes.
8
SPEAKER_04
Why do you think they don t?
8
SPEAKER_04
Maybe it s polarizing.
8
SPEAKER_04
I think it makes them left.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s woke Snapple now.
8
SPEAKER_04
It s woke, yes.
8
SPEAKER_01
You walk down the streets of London and there s these stickers on doors and they re like, this shop pays a living wage.
8
SPEAKER_01
Our doors, we have a lot of stickers.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
8
SPEAKER_00
But often we have no idea how much the workers are getting paid.
8
SPEAKER_00
I gotta tell you, I feel great when I go to Costco because I shot a movie in a Costco.
8
SPEAKER_04
I got to know all these people that work there.
8
SPEAKER_04
I found out that they re all making very good money in New Mexico.
8
SPEAKER_04
They have the lowest turnover.
8
SPEAKER_04
They don t lose any employees.
8
SPEAKER_04
The manager s making like 300,000 a year in Albuquerque.
8
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, this fucking company rules.
8
SPEAKER_00
Somehow you can do it and it doesn t go under.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yes, it s still affordable.
8
SPEAKER_00
And it s profitable.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
8
SPEAKER_00
I m not paying any premium to shop there.
8
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely.
8
SPEAKER_00
So we could do that.
8
SPEAKER_00
And then we can talk about it.
8
SPEAKER_01
That matters.
8
SPEAKER_01
We saw this with environmentalism.
8
SPEAKER_01
We got big congressional action, like the Inflation Reduction Act.
8
SPEAKER_01
Would we have got that action if millions and millions of Americans weren t like, what are you eating?
8
SPEAKER_01
What are you driving?
8
SPEAKER_01
You need to take that flight?
8
SPEAKER_01
And I think that builds up.
8
SPEAKER_01
So that s one little way that we could start becoming a poverty abolitionist just by voting with our wallets.
8
SPEAKER_04
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_04
Oh, well, Matthew, I enjoyed this so much.
8
SPEAKER_04
I m so delighted you wrote poverty by America and I m glad that, you know, unlike me, you didn t walk away from Skid Row and just go like, yeah, that s an addiction.
8
SPEAKER_04
I m delighted.
8
SPEAKER_04
There s people much better than me on the planet and you re one of them.
8
SPEAKER_01
Thanks for having me.
8
SPEAKER_01
Thank you so much for this conversation.
8
SPEAKER_04
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_04
All right.
8
SPEAKER_04
Well, be well.
8
SPEAKER_04
I hope everyone reads Poverty by America.
8
SPEAKER_04
You will love it.
8
SPEAKER_04
It ll be eye-opening.
8
SPEAKER_04
It ll be jarring, and it ll have solution, which is almost never available in a book like this.
8
SPEAKER_03
So thank you so much, and good luck with everything.
8
SPEAKER_03
Stay tuned for the fact check so you can hear all the facts that were wrong.
8
SPEAKER_02
One of my keys doesn t work well.
8
SPEAKER_02
The H.
8
SPEAKER_04
I mean, you don t need an H. You obviously don t type.
8
SPEAKER_04
I just was typing, as a matter of fact.
8
SPEAKER_02
Let s see.
8
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, H was the very first letter I used.
8
SPEAKER_02
Exactly.
8
SPEAKER_04
In the document I just printed.
8
SPEAKER_04
Could you replace it with back-to-back I s?
8
SPEAKER_04
No.
8
SPEAKER_04
Okay.
8
SPEAKER_04
Well, anyone that loved you and did business with you would come to know, oh, her computer s broke, so.
8
SPEAKER_02
It could be a cool thing about me.
8
SPEAKER_02
Two I s means H. Unfortunately, a lot of people I m communicating with don t love me yet.
8
SPEAKER_04
Okay, but.
8
SPEAKER_04
They don t know me yet.
8
SPEAKER_04
But, they don t need to love you, they could be incentivized to deal with you in a business capacity.
8
SPEAKER_02
They should.
8
SPEAKER_04
Also, as you re typing, it d be cool to go, I-I for your age, pop pop, like pop pop.
8
SPEAKER_02
No, I. Okay.
8
SPEAKER_00
Or like I-N.
8
SPEAKER_02
Ooh.
8
SPEAKER_00
I lower, capital I lower case N. Whatever, okay.
8
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
8
SPEAKER_02
This is, I need a new computer, I guess.
8
SPEAKER_02
I m coming across an H again.
8
SPEAKER_00
Are you emailing right now?
8
SPEAKER_02
I was, yeah, cause yeah, I was just checking my emails.
8
SPEAKER_04
Well, hello.
8
SPEAKER_04
You and I are so sensitive.
8
SPEAKER_04
Like that was just sensitive that I said, are you sending an email?
8
SPEAKER_02
We also know each other.
8
SPEAKER_02
Let s be real about that.
8
SPEAKER_04
Sure, so I just was curious what you were typing and you took it as, why aren t you concentrating on the fact check?
8
SPEAKER_04
And then you said, well, I was sending, checking my emails, which was saying you were late.
8
SPEAKER_04
Like all that happened in one second.
8
SPEAKER_02
It did.
8
SPEAKER_04
And then, yeah, and then we re just gonna blow by it, but.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, we should have blowed by it.
8
SPEAKER_04
No, I don t wanna blow by it.
8
SPEAKER_02
But there s no reason, we don t have to, I don t know, in 2024, I don t think you have to dissect everything.
8
SPEAKER_04
Okay.
8
SPEAKER_02
Because some things are just fine to blow by.
8
SPEAKER_04
Assuming the person really blows by them, and it doesn t taint anything going forward.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, exactly.
8
SPEAKER_04
I m about to be on someone s podcast as a guest.
8
SPEAKER_04
Tonight?
8
SPEAKER_04
No, but soon.
8
SPEAKER_04
And you eat in the podcast.
8
SPEAKER_02
I ve done that.
8
SPEAKER_02
Oh, you have?
8
SPEAKER_02
Uh-huh, probably not the same one, but I ve done a podcast where there s eating involved.
8
SPEAKER_04
And I m just like, I m kind of overwhelmed with like, why don t they have to deal with people at Missofonio and we do?
8
SPEAKER_04
Like, we can t even have nuts on here.
8
SPEAKER_02
I know.
8
SPEAKER_04
And I m going to go have like a big juicy hamburger and french fries and a salad.
8
SPEAKER_02
Look, everyone has their own hurdles in life.
8
SPEAKER_04
I guess it s cool.
8
SPEAKER_04
They just go like, yeah, this show s not for you if you have misophonia, but we still want to do more chowing down.
8
SPEAKER_02
They might not know how many people have it, which is a lot.
8
SPEAKER_04
Rob, type in what percentage of the population has misophonia.
8
SPEAKER_02
This is, because you have to self-report.
8
SPEAKER_04
No, because at this point, they actually would know from the data set of people who have- Only people who have done 23.
8
SPEAKER_04
Which is now millions of people.
8
SPEAKER_04
So you could make a pretty damn accurate guess.
8
SPEAKER_04
Estimated to be close to 20%.
8
SPEAKER_04
Oh my Lord.
8
SPEAKER_04
Well, they just said goodbye to 20% of their audience, I guess.
8
SPEAKER_02
I guess maybe they just want their audience to be people who love the sound of food eating.
8
SPEAKER_02
The opposite of misophonia.
8
SPEAKER_04
What freedom though?
8
SPEAKER_04
Just be able to chow down all the time.
8
SPEAKER_04
Like if you and I, if we weren t conscious of this misophonia crisis epidemic, we d be snacking all the time during these fact checks.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, we would.
8
SPEAKER_04
I might even like bring my lunch in.
8
SPEAKER_02
Definitely.
8
SPEAKER_04
When I m under a time crunch.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, so often I don t eat because we re in the weird timing.
8
SPEAKER_04
Well, there s another thing you and I share in common with our sensitivity, and maybe it s related.
8
SPEAKER_02
Oh, angry?
8
SPEAKER_04
We ll just go forever without eating.
8
SPEAKER_02
I know.
8
SPEAKER_02
I wanna be better about that in the new year.
8
SPEAKER_04
Okay, lay that on.
8
SPEAKER_02
Like blowing by things, I also wanna be a little more on top of making sure I have energy, calorically.
8
SPEAKER_02
Oh, right, right, right, okay.
8
SPEAKER_02
I think it s adding to why I slept till 10 today.
8
SPEAKER_04
But wait, that s related to blowing by things?
8
SPEAKER_02
Well, just like in 2024, these are things I do.
8
SPEAKER_04
Oh, okay, so this is added.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_04
Okay, to the list.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_04
It s growing.
8
SPEAKER_04
I know.
8
SPEAKER_02
The further we get away from the new year.
8
SPEAKER_02
And, of course, haven t read my book.
8
SPEAKER_04
Ooh.
8
SPEAKER_02
Or written.
8
SPEAKER_04
So.
8
SPEAKER_04
Don t throw in the towel yet.
8
SPEAKER_04
We re still early on.
8
SPEAKER_02
I m not, and I, this is the problem with resolutions.
8
SPEAKER_02
If you don t do it the first couple days, often you re like, well, fuck it, and then you don t even try.
8
SPEAKER_04
Uh-huh.
8
SPEAKER_02
As opposed to being okay with
8
SPEAKER_02
Not a full 100%, but.
8
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, I missed a day.
8
SPEAKER_04
So I m supposed to be back to writing prose at least a page a day in the morning.
8
SPEAKER_04
And I definitely missed a day.
8
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, my first thought was like, well, now that s ruined.
8
SPEAKER_04
And now it s all gonna crumble.
8
SPEAKER_04
And then the next morning I woke up and I said, that s ridiculous, you re gonna write today.
8
SPEAKER_04
And then three days in a row I have, so it s fine.
8
SPEAKER_04
But I can t have that policy with them.
8
SPEAKER_02
That s true, how s it going?
8
SPEAKER_04
Good, I m on day eight.
8
SPEAKER_02
And how do you feel?
8
SPEAKER_04
I feel good.
8
SPEAKER_04
If I had to give it out of 10, four or five.
8
SPEAKER_02
Like it s how you feel or how?
8
SPEAKER_04
No, like how hard it is.
8
SPEAKER_02
Oh.
8
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, there s like a handful of moments a day where I m like, I need a punch of nicotine, not this stupid two milligram bullshit.
8
SPEAKER_04
I ll tell you where I really miss it the most.
8
SPEAKER_02
Where?
8
SPEAKER_04
Duty time.
8
SPEAKER_04
because that is just.
8
SPEAKER_02
You love it there.
8
SPEAKER_04
Nicotine s a very powerful ball activator.
8
SPEAKER_04
That s the clinical and medical term for a ball activator, BA.
8
SPEAKER_02
Wow.
8
SPEAKER_04
And this is now fucking with my morning routine because normally I plot it all out.
8
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_04
I generally am on the can.
8
SPEAKER_04
I give myself 10 minutes on the can before I drive the kids to school.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_04
Plenty of time.
8
SPEAKER_02
10 minutes, it flies by actually.
8
SPEAKER_04
It really does, especially if you re zipping through Instagram or something.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, exactly.
9
SPEAKER_00
But that used to be no sweat.
9
SPEAKER_00
But now that I don t have that punch, that pop in the morning of a couple hundred milligrams of nicotine, as I m journaling, I m like, where are the pangs?
9
SPEAKER_00
I need that frantic, because when I dip,
9
SPEAKER_00
As I m journaling, generally like I ve got four or five lines left and I m like, I gotta get these lines out.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I have a superstition about pausing to go to the bathroom.
9
SPEAKER_00
And then I do occasionally in a real disaster, I bring the journal with me.
9
SPEAKER_02
You might get poop particles on that.
9
SPEAKER_00
I m not terribly concerned about that.
9
SPEAKER_00
My issue is more to write on your lap.
9
SPEAKER_00
You have to have your knees very close together.
9
SPEAKER_00
And when I do my private business, I like to be a little more splayed out than that, probably 35 degrees.
9
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, knees together is an actually good posture for evacuation.
9
SPEAKER_02
Because you re supposed to be squatted, hence the squatty potty.
9
SPEAKER_00
Right, unless you re my height, again, not to fucking have to run all through this.
9
SPEAKER_00
But my knees are at the angle yours are on a squatty potty, naturally.
9
SPEAKER_02
I m not so sure.
9
SPEAKER_02
We d have to take a picture and see.
9
SPEAKER_00
We ll take some pictures.
9
SPEAKER_00
Rob will take them.
9
SPEAKER_00
But I think it s comparable.
9
SPEAKER_00
I think mine are higher.
9
SPEAKER_02
That s the point, is to get it.
9
SPEAKER_00
Elevated.
9
SPEAKER_00
My legs are enormous and they re above.
9
SPEAKER_02
Why is your floor that high?
9
SPEAKER_00
Do it like it s a real floor.
9
SPEAKER_00
I can t because this fucking lazy boy s about 13 inches higher than me.
9
SPEAKER_02
Okay, so is it, it s probably like the toilet.
9
SPEAKER_02
Well, we have a toilet with the door open.
9
SPEAKER_02
Why do you think we even have this?
9
SPEAKER_02
This is perfect.
9
SPEAKER_00
This is where we ll take the photos.
9
SPEAKER_02
Just go sit there for a sec.
9
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
9
SPEAKER_02
I wanna see.
9
SPEAKER_02
Oh, this is great.
9
SPEAKER_02
Okay, yours looks very 90.
9
SPEAKER_00
I d say it s above my anus.
9
SPEAKER_02
Well, sure, sure, it s above your anus, but your leg is very much at a, no, don t cheat.
9
SPEAKER_02
Cheater.
9
SPEAKER_02
Okay, mine are not at 90.
9
SPEAKER_02
They are like this.
9
SPEAKER_00
That s certainly brought up.
9
SPEAKER_00
Well, you go sit now on the toilet.
9
SPEAKER_02
Well, there s no squatty potty.
9
SPEAKER_00
I know, I just wanna see what angle you re at.
9
SPEAKER_02
A regular angle.
9
SPEAKER_02
It s actually not that different.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s virtually the same, which is really hard to understand because my legs are so much longer than yours.
9
SPEAKER_02
But then look, the potty.
9
SPEAKER_00
Where are you?
9
SPEAKER_00
Where are you guys?
9
SPEAKER_00
Where s everybody?
9
SPEAKER_00
Monica, someone had to be on the microphone.
9
SPEAKER_02
Let me show you about where the squatty potty is.
9
SPEAKER_00
This is an auditory experience.
9
SPEAKER_00
All right, you want to take a look?
9
SPEAKER_00
OK.
9
SPEAKER_00
That s absurd.
9
SPEAKER_00
You re not supposed to get it above your areolas.
9
SPEAKER_00
Uh, for the listener, Monica s knees on the squatty potty are above her shoulders.
9
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, this is about right.
9
SPEAKER_00
Well, hold on, okay, I m back.
9
SPEAKER_01
You can sit in my seat.
9
SPEAKER_01
Her knees are higher.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, much.
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh, look, we did an experiment.
9
SPEAKER_00
Real time experiment.
9
SPEAKER_01
That was cool.
9
SPEAKER_02
What, why?
9
SPEAKER_00
Oh, because my knees are in such tremendous pain, it s insane.
9
SPEAKER_00
Oh.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s truly a once in a lifetime body pain.
9
SPEAKER_02
Do you wanna tell people?
9
SPEAKER_02
It s once in a lifetime, you say.
9
SPEAKER_00
I think it s worse than all the broken bones I had and yeah, just like real time pain and, and then being woken up all night long, like every 12 minutes.
9
SPEAKER_00
Cause I either have a new cramp or a new sharp pain.
9
SPEAKER_02
Oh boy.
9
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
9
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s because my birthday party was this weekend and.
9
SPEAKER_00
My very favorite communal sport is grass volleyball, which is very specific.
9
SPEAKER_00
Sand volleyball is not for me.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s too hard to jump.
9
SPEAKER_00
Too much work.
9
SPEAKER_02
Although your knees might feel better today.
9
SPEAKER_00
Hard to know.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so I love on the grass volleyball.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s what we did at every family reunion.
9
SPEAKER_00
This entire yard was designed with the intention of having a volleyball court.
9
SPEAKER_00
I put pretty over-the-top outdoor lighting up years ago.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
And the contractor was like, what are you doing with this stadium lighting?
9
SPEAKER_00
Stadium lighting.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I said, well, it s my dream to have nighttime volleyball tournaments all, like Keith Raniere.
9
SPEAKER_02
Oof.
9
SPEAKER_00
I know, I just thought that was like, someone s probably remembering that that was his obsession too.
9
SPEAKER_00
Haven t played it in, ooh, at least 15 years.
9
SPEAKER_02
Oh, wow.
9
SPEAKER_00
Put up the net Saturday morning and proceeded to play, and you witnessed this.
9
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I was there, I didn t participate.
9
SPEAKER_00
I was very sad about that, but.
9
SPEAKER_00
I m sorry.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s okay, I still love you and you should feel no judgment.
9
SPEAKER_02
Well, I don t, I don t, because I don t think you want me to participate in something I don t want to participate in.
9
SPEAKER_00
But the problem is I think you think you wouldn t enjoy it and I m pretty certain you were because I ve never seen anyone who tries it who doesn t love it.
9
SPEAKER_00
But you have a peer pressure thing.
9
SPEAKER_02
No, no, I ve played volleyball many times and I really don t like it at all.
9
SPEAKER_00
Because the gym is different and so is the sand.
9
SPEAKER_02
Okay, maybe not the grass.
9
SPEAKER_02
It s not that part that s bad.
9
SPEAKER_00
Can I tell you why the grass is perfect?
9
SPEAKER_00
Okay, yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s firm enough that you jump and you actually, you don t lose yourself in the sand.
9
SPEAKER_00
And then it doesn t hurt when you fall down.
9
SPEAKER_02
Yes, it does.
9
SPEAKER_00
Asterix, next to that.
9
SPEAKER_00
But depending on from how high you jump.
9
SPEAKER_02
How we started this conversation is you ve never been in more pain in your entire life.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yes, but again, I don t think it s from falling, although I did fall a ton.
9
SPEAKER_00
I dove so many times from like full height.
9
SPEAKER_00
arms extended as if I don t, as I don t even worried about my bones.
9
SPEAKER_00
Um, but proceeded to play 13 games in a row with only like a two hour gap.
9
SPEAKER_00
I was already stretching my back during the first game, middle of the first game.
9
SPEAKER_00
I started trying to loosen my back cause I realized it was, this is tight already.
9
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_02
You didn t do any stretching.
9
SPEAKER_00
Right, because Lane Norton had recent posts where they did all the meta analysis and stretching has absolutely zero impact on injury.
9
SPEAKER_00
But so for me, I wouldn t have stretched beforehand.
9
SPEAKER_00
You reject that, I see on your face.
9
SPEAKER_02
I haven t read it, so I don t know.
9
SPEAKER_00
So at any rate, then there s a whole thing that could be way too long, but.
9
SPEAKER_00
It was amusing everyone because we have a big thing with all the boys who we all exercise together.
9
SPEAKER_00
Occasionally someone will start doing stretches in the middle of a weightlifting workout.
9
SPEAKER_00
And we ve come to find out you re already injured.
9
SPEAKER_00
Like you re like, oh, I just need to loosen my back before I do more squat.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s too late.
9
SPEAKER_00
If you have the impulse to stretch at the gym, you need to leave the gym.
9
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
So of course, everyone was laughing quite a bit at the fact that I was stretching mid game first game.
9
SPEAKER_00
But anyways, I think that s my favorite birthday party I ve ever had.
9
SPEAKER_01
Great.
9
SPEAKER_00
I had so much fun.
9
SPEAKER_00
Suffice to say, I wouldn t even say the next morning.
9
SPEAKER_00
That evening, I was like, I am in such major trouble.
9
SPEAKER_00
My knee was clicking.
9
SPEAKER_00
You know, I m like the balls way over my head.
9
SPEAKER_00
I m jumped in the air and I just hyper extend my arm behind my head and then as hard as I can bring it forward.
9
SPEAKER_00
I don t do that.
9
SPEAKER_00
That range of motion.
9
SPEAKER_00
ever in real life.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
Plus she had in the dives and this and that.
9
SPEAKER_00
So anyways, yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
So over the last few days, all I ve been trying to do is like rehab.
9
SPEAKER_02
But is this making you want more dip?
9
SPEAKER_02
Because like it could ease some of this pain.
9
SPEAKER_00
The suffering.
9
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
No.
9
SPEAKER_02
That s good.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_02
Maybe volleyball can be your new dip.
9
SPEAKER_00
That is how the addict s brain works.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s like, well, I have an excuse now for something because I now deserve this because I m suffering.
9
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, some suffering from the birthday party.
9
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, but I m glad then that s great that you re not doing that.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
Oh, this is the last thing I ll add on my campaign to get people to start playing grass volleyball.
9
SPEAKER_00
The reason the game is so wonderful is like all the kids were playing.
9
SPEAKER_00
Like what game can you all play where everyone s playing as hard as they can and having maximum amount of fun?
9
SPEAKER_00
And it s the same game and there s nine-year-olds serving.
9
SPEAKER_00
You can t play pickup basketball with children.
9
SPEAKER_00
It would be not fun.
9
SPEAKER_00
You d either be just mowing them over.
9
SPEAKER_02
Right, that s true.
9
SPEAKER_00
But everyone s got their little zone, their position, and they play it.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, God s game, that s what they call it, God s game.
9
SPEAKER_02
They do?
9
SPEAKER_00
Mm-hmm.
9
SPEAKER_02
Wow, I m learning so much.
9
SPEAKER_00
God bod s game.
9
SPEAKER_02
Probably not God bod s game because it s trying to tear apart the body, the God bod.
9
SPEAKER_00
But just, can you even imagine how strong my body s gonna be after like a month of playing nonstop?
9
SPEAKER_00
I think I m gonna be impervious to everything.
9
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
9
SPEAKER_00
I ll be able to throw my body in any crazy position.
9
SPEAKER_00
That s interesting logic.
9
SPEAKER_00
With full commitment.
9
Okay.
9
SPEAKER_02
We ll see.
9
SPEAKER_00
Last thing, promise.
9
SPEAKER_00
Also, I played side by side with my little Lincoln all 13 games.
9
SPEAKER_00
We played right next to each other and she did a very, very good job.
9
SPEAKER_02
Good.
9
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_02
She ll probably want to keep playing.
9
SPEAKER_00
She played last night.
9
SPEAKER_02
Great.
10
SPEAKER_00
There s a lot of treats, your favorite treats.
10
SPEAKER_01
All my childhood favorite meals.
10
SPEAKER_01
Meatballs, tuna noodle and beans, twice baked potatoes and wedges.
10
SPEAKER_00
And shit on a shingle.
10
SPEAKER_01
And shit on a shingle.
10
SPEAKER_01
AKA shitty biscuits.
10
SPEAKER_01
AKA hanky pankys.
10
SPEAKER_00
That was the original name.
10
SPEAKER_01
That s what they re actually called.
10
SPEAKER_01
My family always called him shit on his shingles.
10
SPEAKER_01
Bree forgot the name and accidentally said shitty biscuits, which is so cute.
10
SPEAKER_01
We kept it.
10
SPEAKER_01
And only to find out last year that the technical name for him is Hanky Panky.
10
SPEAKER_01
What s really funny is like right before Christmas, we were trying to remember the name because it was because we only cook them at Christmas.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
And then my birthday.
10
SPEAKER_01
And so as it was approaching, Kristen was like, we gotta get, we gotta find the little rye breads for the shitty biscuits.
10
SPEAKER_01
And then we were like, wait, what s the name of the, and the whole family s trying to remember.
10
SPEAKER_01
And I just goes, yeah, I think they re called like Oopsy Daisies.
10
SPEAKER_01
And everyone s like, yeah, is it Oopsy Daisies?
10
SPEAKER_01
Because Hanky Panky is very close to Oopsy Daisies.
10
SPEAKER_00
They re kind of onomatopoeias, but they re not.
10
SPEAKER_01
And they mean nothing, either of them?
10
SPEAKER_01
Oopsie-daisies?
10
SPEAKER_00
Well, hanky-panky means... Funny business.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
The devil s workshop.
10
SPEAKER_00
Hanky-panky s also the brand of an underwear.
10
SPEAKER_01
It is.
10
SPEAKER_01
Pricey panty.
10
SPEAKER_01
High-end pankies.
10
SPEAKER_01
I did my kind of semi-annual MeUndies order, like a refresh.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
And I noticed they re making a size now that is in between my normal boxer.
10
SPEAKER_00
Oh.
10
SPEAKER_01
whatever the fuck they call the other one, the trunk or something.
10
SPEAKER_00
Oh, yeah, yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
And a tidy whitey cut.
10
SPEAKER_01
There s now a midway point.
10
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, I m gonna try these, because they can bunch up a little bit on my thighs when I get super active.
10
SPEAKER_01
This might alleviate that.
10
SPEAKER_01
So I got a big bundle of those.
10
SPEAKER_00
And how are they going?
10
SPEAKER_01
They re pretty sexy.
10
SPEAKER_00
You like them?
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
They re certainly, if I m gonna be moving a lot, are ideal.
10
SPEAKER_01
I had this whole fantasy where I was, because we got to talk about Jeremy Allen White.
10
SPEAKER_01
He s got a Calvin Klein underpanty.
10
SPEAKER_00
He does.
10
SPEAKER_01
Underpanky campaign.
10
SPEAKER_00
He does.
10
SPEAKER_00
Campaign.
10
SPEAKER_01
And I m so overwhelmed with how gorgeous his body looks.
10
SPEAKER_01
And it s treading this weird line between like, most of the time when you see a body that good, it just reeks of, well, that person s in the gym nonstop and they only eat perfect.
10
SPEAKER_01
And they re a model.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
His though, and it s because he s got like the perfect amount of hair.
10
SPEAKER_01
And you can almost convince yourself that he just genetically looks that way.
10
SPEAKER_01
Of course he doesn t.
10
SPEAKER_01
But you know what I m saying?
10
SPEAKER_01
He just did that wrestling movie, which I think why he got that shame.
10
SPEAKER_00
Iron Claw, that him and Zac Efron, they both look like that.
10
SPEAKER_01
Jeremy s is still in the zone of it, like a man that works outdoors a lot might look like that.
10
SPEAKER_01
Should we get Rob McElhinney on the phone?
10
SPEAKER_01
And Kumail?
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, we do.
10
SPEAKER_00
We need to do another Men s Bodies.
10
SPEAKER_00
Round two.
10
SPEAKER_00
Part two.
10
SPEAKER_01
We got some new entrants.
10
SPEAKER_00
We do, we do.
10
SPEAKER_00
Jeremy and White, though.
10
SPEAKER_00
Calvin Klein looks great.
10
SPEAKER_01
It makes you hearken back to Marky Mark.
10
SPEAKER_00
Sure, good old days.
10
SPEAKER_01
Right, that was kind of the last really memorable earthquake launch of a panky.
10
SPEAKER_00
A male s panky.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yes, and he s a very short gentleman.
10
SPEAKER_01
And I was thinking, in the same way that I learned in that model s doc, that they want him tall because they actually need to show the fucking outfit better, right?
10
SPEAKER_01
That there s like a science to it.
10
SPEAKER_01
And Mamie s, I was like, mind you, there s only two data set points, marky mark.
10
SPEAKER_00
I m gonna throw one in you aren t gonna like.
10
SPEAKER_01
Kutcher?
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, he s 6 3 .
10
SPEAKER_01
Very tall, very tall, and was an underwear model.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that ruins the whole thing.
10
SPEAKER_01
I won t even proceed.
10
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
10
SPEAKER_01
But I did start wondering, do shorter men look better in tighty-whities?
10
SPEAKER_00
I don t think so.
10
SPEAKER_00
I think it just depends on what they look like.
10
SPEAKER_01
Their proportions and their thighs?
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, proportions make a big difference.
10
SPEAKER_00
I think everyone looks great.
10
SPEAKER_01
You do?
10
SPEAKER_00
Mostly, yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
Oh.
10
SPEAKER_00
Most of the time.
10
SPEAKER_00
If you re confident, you, you kind of look great.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
That s a hundred percent true.
10
SPEAKER_01
I believe in that.
10
SPEAKER_01
I didn t finish my thought.
10
SPEAKER_01
When I saw those, I thought like, I m going to call me panties.
10
SPEAKER_01
Me undies.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
That s my bet.
10
SPEAKER_01
That s my brand.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
And I m going to say, we need to do something photoshoot wise, but with me undies.
10
SPEAKER_00
Sure.
10
SPEAKER_01
Right.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
Like the underdog and a different take on it.
10
SPEAKER_00
Huh, that s interesting.
10
SPEAKER_00
Go ahead.
10
SPEAKER_00
No, what s your like, pitch it.
10
SPEAKER_01
I don t have it yet.
10
SPEAKER_01
I just know that like, that was such a thing.
10
SPEAKER_01
There does feel like a great opportunity for some counter-programming of that thing.
10
SPEAKER_00
Sure, that s true.
10
SPEAKER_00
That s true.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
So would they be joking?
10
SPEAKER_01
Well, no, you would never make the product look bad.
10
SPEAKER_00
Right, that s the trick.
10
SPEAKER_01
But maybe the activity would be ridiculous.
10
SPEAKER_00
That they re in their underwear.
10
SPEAKER_01
Because even, and I am, I m number one Jeremy Allen White fan, and I think I m the horniest for these pictures.
10
SPEAKER_01
I was so excited, I called you immediately if you ve seen these pictures.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and you brought it up again recently.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and I m now bringing it up here again.
10
SPEAKER_01
So number one fan, but I m also, they re so awkward.
10
SPEAKER_01
It s like, okay, Jeremy, so you re gonna run over here and then run, have you seen the video?
10
SPEAKER_01
There s a video.
10
SPEAKER_01
And I was thinking like, oh yeah, you re gonna have to like climb this ladder and you run over here and then pop your shirt off and then get your pants halfway down and sit.
10
SPEAKER_01
Like none of it makes any sense other than because it s in an underwear commercial, but yet they re trying to make it make sense.
10
SPEAKER_01
And then I just thought, God bless this dude.
10
SPEAKER_01
I know what that day was like on this shoot.
10
SPEAKER_01
And that was probably a hard one to commit to.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
So running up some stairs.
10
SPEAKER_01
And now he s on a catwalk.
10
SPEAKER_01
He s got to get rid of his top.
10
SPEAKER_01
And now he s going to do some pull-ups.
10
SPEAKER_01
That s why he took his pants and shirt off, which is semi.
10
SPEAKER_01
And now he s got to climb.
10
SPEAKER_01
This is what I was thinking of.
10
SPEAKER_01
He s got to climb the staircase to get even higher so that he can climb up to this couch, stretch out, get the lats loosened up so that he can ultimately, I think, does he lay down on the couch?
10
SPEAKER_00
Oh yeah, now he s got to lay down.
10
SPEAKER_01
So, I mean, my hat is so off to him.
10
SPEAKER_01
He did such a great job.
10
SPEAKER_00
He did do a great job.
10
SPEAKER_01
He did a great job, full commitment, but that s a hard shoot, right?
10
SPEAKER_01
So I saw the video and then I thought, can t me undies, AKA me pankies and I capitalize on this moment.
10
SPEAKER_00
You could, you gotta be careful not to make enemies with Jeremy, because you don t want to make it seem like you re making fun of.
10
SPEAKER_01
But I m being so vocal that I am the biggest fan of this campaign.
10
SPEAKER_01
It is like got me so excited.
10
SPEAKER_01
I love it, he looks so radical.
10
SPEAKER_00
He does look really good.
10
SPEAKER_00
Okay, now this is for Matthew Desmond, and I was not here for, it was the same day as Paul Giamatti, so I was not here for this one.
10
SPEAKER_01
back-to-back solo interviews.
10
SPEAKER_00
Mm-hmm.
10
SPEAKER_00
And he was great.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I found his statistics to be so mind-blowing.
10
SPEAKER_00
I ve been repeating nonstop some of the- He was really compelling, I thought.
10
SPEAKER_00
He says, like, this book isn t
10
SPEAKER_00
telling people to give any money.
10
SPEAKER_00
Right.
10
SPEAKER_00
Which I liked.
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It wasn t like, give all your money away or things that people just won t do.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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Felt a little more practical.
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And he seemed very lovely.
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I was sad to have missed him.
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Yeah.
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I liked him a ton.
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Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
Um, also Paul Giamatti won his golden globe.
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Big congrats to him.
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And also if you re in the listening community and you re, you re campaigning now for an Oscar, I mean, it s, we got a good track record going.
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SPEAKER_00
That s what I said.
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SPEAKER_00
It s like, if you want to get your nom on there.
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Willem got nommed right after.
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SPEAKER_00
He did.
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And then Giamatti won, not after, but he had done it.
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The gods knew he had done it.
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SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
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I am so happy he won.
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Yeah.
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the photo of him after at the In-N-Out with his golden glove.
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SPEAKER_00
No!
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That s great.
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Eating with it at the table with him.
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Oh, that s so cute.
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Fun.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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Matthew, Matthew Desmond.
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So I felt like I learned a lot, which I really liked.
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I did too.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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I mean, the thing that I have been repeating nonstop is the notion that the US economy is bigger than two through 10 combined, including Japan, Germany, England, like it s bonkers.
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Cause we re, if you re here, you already know this, but if you re outside of the country, which we have lots of listeners outside, our most, some of our most valued are in India.
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SPEAKER_01
Ding, ding, ding.
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SPEAKER_01
Thanks India.
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We are internally being told and have been told
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since I was born that we are losing our footing.
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At first, when I was a kid, when I was very young, it was Russia.
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We were in the height of the Cold War and it was Russia.
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They were gonna surpass us in all these ways.
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And then next was Japan.
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And in the wake of Japan, you had, oh, they were cheating at the Olympics, all these like allegations.
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Then you had Rising Sun, the Sean Connery movie.
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You had the Japanese were buying Nakatomi Tower and die hard.
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We had like total Japan phobia.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s true.
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SPEAKER_01
And they were telling us Japan was gonna blow past us economically.
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SPEAKER_01
Oh, and they were buying up all of Hawaii.
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That was the other thing.
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And we all like, you just buy into it.
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You re being told this on every, you know, fucking media outlet there is.
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And then yeah, for the last 10 years, it s been China s gonna blast by you guys.
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And it s like, it s just all to get us more fucking neurotic about working even longer and harder.
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This fear of losing first.
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It s true and the reality of some of these other countries is that they ve changed a ton.
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they have changed a ton, but now when you look at what s happening to China s economy, which if anyone had a not fear-based evaluation of it over the last 10 years, they d be like, yeah, that writing was so on the wall.
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They have like a very old population.
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They haven t been having, like, all this stuff is, any first year economist would be able to look at that and go, they re not passing you guys.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but India has a very young population.
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They do.
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They re expected to pass China s economy soon.
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But again, put it right there.
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India s in the fucking other nine that you can add up that aren t as big as ours.
11
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It s so colossal, yet we re being told we re losing it and it s slipping away and we don t manufacture and all this stuff.
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So that to me was the most shocking, like, really?
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Yeah.
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Also, because India s gonna be doing so well, it s really good that they re listening to us.
11
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I hope they keep listening more and more and more.
11
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Me too.
11
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Okay, the Eagles song, Take It Easy.
11
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Because standing on the corner of Winslow, Arizona...
11
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Don t let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy.
11
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Lighten up while you still can.
11
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Don t even try to understand.
11
SPEAKER_01
Just find a place to make your stand.
11
SPEAKER_01
Take it easy.
11
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There it is.
11
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Oh, slowing down to take a look at me.
11
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What a tableau he painted.
11
SPEAKER_00
What a great song.
11
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That is so fun to have your hometown in a song.
11
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, especially when your hometown is, like I ve been- Small.
11
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Yeah, it s tiny.
11
SPEAKER_00
It s cool enough when it s your state.
11
SPEAKER_02
Right, that ll get it done.
11
SPEAKER_02
Sweet Home Alabama, that s enough.
11
SPEAKER_00
George on my mind.
11
SPEAKER_02
Right.
11
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I can only think of one song about Michigan.
11
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Although Bob Seger s songs are all about Michigan.
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SPEAKER_00
Right.
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But where it s actually said.
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Which is the wreck of the Edmonds Fitzgerald.
11
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Michigan seems like a young man s dream, it s aisles and it s bazaar for a sportsman.
11
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Sufjan has a whole album, Sufjan Stevens.
11
SPEAKER_02
Stevens, I like Sufjan Stevens.
11
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Gradients from Michigan.
11
SPEAKER_00
Oh, that s cool.
11
SPEAKER_00
Well, I have Chattahoochie, there s lots of songs about the Chattahoochie.
11
SPEAKER_02
Oh, the Hoochie Way Down, yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you love that one.
11
SPEAKER_02
Remember when we were in Georgia, I listened to it nonstop.
11
SPEAKER_00
When we were in Georgia?
11
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, when you were very first babysitting.
11
SPEAKER_00
Oh, God.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
I don t remember that.
11
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I remember babysitting, but I don t remember you listening to the song.
11
SPEAKER_00
I don t think we, we didn t know each other that well then.
11
SPEAKER_02
That was the first kind of clue that you were very special, which was the date lines.
11
SPEAKER_00
Oh, I cataloged.
11
SPEAKER_02
You cataloged all the date lines.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
And I was like, okay.
11
SPEAKER_02
I m sure it was trying to impress you.
11
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It worked.
11
SPEAKER_02
As we sit here, it worked.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yo, there s so many, and you need to know which, because you only like certain ones.
11
SPEAKER_02
I really need Keith Morrison involved.
11
SPEAKER_00
You do.
11
SPEAKER_02
I love him so much.
11
SPEAKER_02
He s a friend of the pod.
11
SPEAKER_02
I mean, he s, people often ask this.
11
SPEAKER_00
He s a voice of the pod.
11
SPEAKER_00
They do?
11
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
11
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, stay tuned if you dare, is Keith Morrison.
11
SPEAKER_00
That s right, of Dateline fame.
11
SPEAKER_00
Oh, Pew, not Florence, but Pew Research.
11
SPEAKER_00
Party affiliation among college graduates by state.
11
SPEAKER_02
Party affiliation.
11
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Of college students, because I think you guys had said 20% of current students are conservative.
11
SPEAKER_02
Right.
11
SPEAKER_00
Does anyone wanna pick a state?
11
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Connecticut.
11
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34% are Republican or lean Republican.
11
SPEAKER_02
Oh, of the, not the college graduates.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, among college graduates by state.
11
SPEAKER_02
That data is for people who live in Connecticut who graduated from college.
11
SPEAKER_00
Oh, yeah, that s true.
11
SPEAKER_02
And they re adults, and adults slowly become Republican as a curve.
11
SPEAKER_02
So it s really the campuses is what s vital for that conversation.
11
SPEAKER_00
OK, let s see.
11
SPEAKER_00
Let s add on campus.
11
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Or college students.
11
SPEAKER_00
College students didn t work.
11
SPEAKER_00
Among Gen Z, so this is in 2020.
11
SPEAKER_02
Great.
11
SPEAKER_00
Among Gen Z, the breakdown is 42% liberal and 19% conservative.
11
SPEAKER_00
You said 20.
11
19%?
11
SPEAKER_00
And then the current number of homeless people in LA, and this is as of June, 2023, 75,518.
11
SPEAKER_02
That is like a very good sized city all over the country.
11
SPEAKER_02
I know.
11
SPEAKER_00
Anyway, well, I thought it was a great episode.
11
SPEAKER_02
Me too, I loved it.
11
SPEAKER_02
And I think he s a wonderful human being.
11
SPEAKER_00
And that s it.
11
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I love you.
11
SPEAKER_00
Love you.