David Dayan is a reporter for The Intercept, The Nation, and countless other magazines. You're a pretty great writer, and you have a couple of pieces in The Nation that I want to talk to you about. One is about Sinclair Media. They're a conservative TV network. They own all the local stations, and I guess the FCC is going to allow them to purchase Tribune. Tribune Media, which once held the LA Times in Chicago Tribune, but then sort of split off the newspaper business from their television business, that's company that owns WGN, and I believe PIX in New York and KTLA out here in Los Angeles, and about 42 stations all across the country. These are big stations. Big stations in the biggest media markets. Sinclair owns far more stations. Sinclair actually owns 173 television stations. Most of them in small and mid-sized markets, so they're a bit under the radar. And this acquisition would give them a foothold in 70% of the country, and we're talking about local television stations, all of which produce local news broadcasts. You talk about local news, and people think, well, nobody outside of their people in their 80s listen to watch local news. It's not true. It remains the number one source for people to get their news. You don't think about it too much, but particularly in areas where this is kind of the only game in town, local news remains an important source of information for people. That might be scary to say, but it's true. And Sinclair has a pension for using this power to present a significantly biased set of opinions, biased in the conservative direction. Like back in 2004. That's right. So, a couple things came up back in 2004. First, Sinclair, their affiliates of all sorts of television stations from ABC to CBS to NBC. Sinclair's ABC stations refused to air an episode of Nightline that merely listed the names of Iraqi war debt. That was seen as too controversial for Sinclair-owned stations. Then, during the election campaign between John Kerry and George W. Bush, Sinclair said that they were going to air a two-hour documentary presented, produced by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that called into question John Kerry's military service. And they were going to force it on all of their stations without commercial interruption and in prime time, two weeks before the election. I mean, this is clear electioneering on the part of Sinclair on behalf of George W. But what are the laws about that? Well, there was tremendous outcry. We didn't really get to the laws because there was such public outcry and in fact, concerted effort to tank the Sinclair stock that they backed off and they only ran portions of this documentary along with sort of a broader discussion. Although it wasn't that much broader because there was about 30 minutes of the Kerry documentary and about three minutes on George W. Bush's service with the Texas Air National Guard. There aren't really too many laws to answer your question about this anymore, not since the disappearance of the Fairness Doctrine, which was a previous law that forced some manner of equality in public affairs programming in terms of opinions. But that is no longer with us. And so you have Sinclair that's able to very quietly put together a very conservative news source. Now, you know how local news works is these are cash strap stations. They're always starred for content. And Sinclair produces content and basically tells its affiliates to run it all over the country. So it's the effect of a national news network, a box news, but it's being done at the local news level where people don't really have that thinking that there's some sort of bias to their local news program. Don't they have a corporate executive at Sinclair who delivers editorials right now? That's correct. That's correct. And they must run, right? They're must run. Their chief Washington political analyst actually served in the Trump administration for a little while. He got named Boris Epstein. He was a surrogate for the Trump campaign. And yes, their vice president, I believe delivers editorials that it must run. Even if these weren't must run their content, you know, it's like free content for these news stations. They're going to take it. So, you know, it creates this situation where all over the country, people are watching their local news, not expecting to be sort of indoctrinated in any way. And they're getting all this very one sided set of news and information. And that went right down to the Trump Clinton general election where Sinclair reportedly made a deal with Jared Kushner to get expanded access for the Trump campaign on these local news stations that were owned by Sinclair. And Sinclair said, you let us interview the president or the presidential candidate at that time, Trump, or your top advisors, and we'll just run it. And we won't give any commentary whatsoever. This was sort of an unmediated filter directly into these local news stations, which, as I said, is a key source of news and might even have more credibility than a national news source, which, you know, there's all these accusations of bias on Fox News or even on the other side. But, you know, this was a way to get these things on the local news, which just isn't seen that way. And it was obviously pretty successful. I believe the CEO of Sinclair Broadcasting rode in the presidential inaugural parade. So there's clearly a close relationship here. And what's important to understand is that Sinclair, just a few months ago, would not have been able to make this deal with Tribune that gives them this 70% footprint over the country's news viewers. And the reason is that laws were changed at the Federal Communications Commission, which had previously clamped down on the amount of stations one company could own or the amount of stations one company could own. We're getting ahead of ourselves for one second because I do want to talk about the FCC. But I want to get back to what I would assume you would call the astroturf of local news in that Sinclair is presenting what appears to be a grassroots opinion in a small town market, but it's secretly being dictated by a corporate overlord in Baltimore. Just think about it, David. I mean, when you're watching ABC and Lincoln, Nebraska, you have no idea that that is a station that's owned by Sinclair Broadcasting. You just know it's ABC. There's no recognition of this link between this right-wing propagandist and the local news that you're watching on your television. If anything, you think you're watching ABC News. That's correct. And that credibility is sort of lent over to that local news outlet. So the prestidigitation that's going on and the brainwashing that is going on is you live in Lincoln, Nebraska. You're watching a local television station that's owned by Sinclair, but it identifies itself as an ABC affiliate. It's running ABC content all day. Yep.  So they're running ABC Network News, but they're using their local news to push their conservative agenda, making it look like it's homegrown. Right. And now when some people looked at this Sinclair purchase of Tribune and all of these additional stations, they thought, oh, here we go. Sinclair is going to create their answer to Fox News. They're going to create a more conservative network and pick up Bill O'Reilly or they're going to do something like that. The truth is they don't need to. They've got the perfect thing going right now because it's just as you described. They borrow the credibility of these broadcast networks. They run their affiliate local news. They pipe in all of this very slanted programming into the news product that goes next to your local sports and weather. And they benefit from having this sort of unfiltered pipeline that doesn't have this any kind of understanding or recognition of bias on the part of the viewer that's able to put this agenda forward. It's really quite ingenious. It's scary because we are a nation incapable of critical thinking. Right. I don't mean to sound condescending, but it's true. You said two things and they don't make sense. You say that these local stations are cash strapped, but they're owned by Sinclair. Right. Well, the news budgets are.  Absolutely. Certainly, they could raise the product of the news value on those stations. But in the modern era, news has to bring a profit in the previous era. News didn't have to be a cash cow for any network. So, you know, most local news budgets, they don't have the budget to go out and have their own reporter in Washington, for example. They don't have the budget to have an international bureau. No local news program has that sort of budget. So that's kind of what I mean by cash strapped. So they are pleased to have a corporate partner that's able to give them that level of news programming and, you know, decently produce packages that they can just roll into their news, 11 o'clock news, and eat up that two to three minutes of time. I mean, this is really helpful for a local news station that has to be mindful of cost because it's simply the case that their budgets do not allow them to do massive amounts of national broadcasting and news gathering. Earlier you said Sinclair was publicly traded. It is, yeah. And do we know if it's profitable? It's wildly profitable. You're talking about a company that owns and operates hundreds of these television stations, you know, which are able to bring in all kinds of ad revenue. And, you know, think of how many television stations there are in a community. I'm talking about local television stations. I mean, it's not like there's a lot of choice there, right?  And in some places, they have more than one station in a given market. Now, there was a time when that was not allowed by the FCC. You weren't allowed to own two stations. Let me tell you- Now, you can own two, but not more than two. However, all of this could change with our new great and glorious Trump era. Let me filter it through something I experienced when I was young and TV was black and white. When I moved to San Francisco, I worked for K-R-O-N, which was at the time the NBC affiliate. And it was pretty much one of their flagship stations. It wasn't owned and operated by NBC, but they were very proud of their news organization because it was owned by the Chronicle family, the San Francisco Chronicle. Something happened. I don't remember what it was, but the Chronicle had to sell K-R-O-N because they weren't allowed to own- This is why Tribune broke up. You weren't allowed to own a television station and a newspaper in the same market, I think is the deal. And it was because they didn't want one family influencing a municipality. Which is public policy? There was a time when foreigners could not own a TV station. It was the great Senator Ted Kennedy who was instrumental in lifting the ban on foreigners owning a TV station so that Rupert Murdoch could buy it Fox Television, right? Interestingly, Fox was the other bidder in this process for Tribune media. They lost to Sinclair. And what is the thinking? We don't allow foreign governments to contribute to the Trump campaign, supposedly. And there was a time when we didn't want foreign governments owning television and radio stations. What were they afraid of? Well, I think basically the government has walked off the field with respect to all of these things, particularly antitrust concerns and concerns of foreign ownership. Look, in the Constitution, the president can't be born in a foreign country. There was long-standing suspicion and you could even say xenophobia over these kinds of matters. My personal view is not that foreign ownership necessarily represents something that should be feared and should give us concern. It's the concentration of power, in my view, that is a far more important issue at this point. And this is the area where Trump's FCC is operating to try to concentrate and consolidate media ownership more than we've seen in generations. I want to get to the FCC in a second, but I want to get back to cash-strapped newsrooms across America because journalism is a sacred trust. We can't have a democracy with a well-informed electorate. We no longer have a well-informed electorate. The Russians are able to hack the DNC and spread disinformation because, as I said earlier, we are incapable of critical thinking. We can't tell what's real and what's fake. The justification for firing people at newspapers and in local television newsrooms is we are cash-strapped. Our television newsrooms are local stations really cash-strapped and, for example, the Los Angeles Times, which was owned by Mr. Zell from the Tribune, they were told were cash-strapped. But wasn't it really the... Yeah, I mean you're talking about a few different things there. If you're talking about newspapers and journalism, print journalism, it is the case that print journalism advertising has reduced significantly over the last 20 years and it's concurrent with the rise of the internet and the changes in that advertising. And that is a monopoly problem as well, something we're going to get into later, I think, in the show about the fact that Google and Facebook have cornered the advertising markets online and about 88% of them are in the hands of those two companies and they can dictate what the actual producers of journalism can receive in terms of advertising. And this has significantly constrained the ability of these newsrooms to survive with the same number of journalists they had in the past and to do the kind of very expensive enterprise reporting that they had been their hallmark in the past. That's true to a lesser extent with television news, particularly at the broadcast level. I mean you see less and less international bureaus, less and less long-form 60-minute style kind of enterprise reporting out of those outlets as well. It's a different, I think it's a different dynamic in the television space. It was more about how television news used to be a lost leader and the entertainment programming is what made the money and the television news outlet was the prestige part of that equation. And also it satisfied FCC requirements for public interest programming and public affairs programming and things like that. But those rules were relaxed. They were able to be fulfilled by other means. And over time the owners of television news decided well the news has to pull its weight along with the entertainment programming. And that's just asking too much of television news, which if you want to do it right is also very expensive to produce. But it's certainly easier to throw up three talking heads and have them shouted each other. And that doesn't cost very much money at all except for the camera and the microphone. So that really is how that all about then sort of the rise of cable news as a competitor to drive that you know drove the conversation which much much cheaper product. I think it was in the 80s where CBS got bought out I think it was Tish some tobacco magnate who said okay news has to make a profit. As I understood it he said that because they discovered that news could make a profit that 60 minutes was number one that there was money to be made with good solid journalism. Right. And that was certainly true in the case of 60 minutes. I think what happened concurrently was sort of the rise of CNN which had an international footprint but also had a 24-hour news cycle to fill and that became you know sort of a less sustainable scenario. And then it was about the nightly news trying to compete with the 24-hour news that was on all the time and figuring out how to do that the best. 60 minutes was obviously you know something that like you said was was number one for a long time and commanded huge athletes. But that was almost lightning in a bottle wouldn't you say. I mean nobody else really found that formula whether it was you know 2020 or some of these other programs to to really make that happen in such a way. And of course what other what other news outlets could not do that 60 minutes sort of as a legacy was allowed to do was really challenge corporate power to really challenge the forces that shape our lives and too much of programming news programming got influence whether directly or indirectly by advertisers. You know if you look at the nightly news you'll you'll see two major industries represented at pharmaceuticals or the defense industry because it's more about influencing what goes on the news than attracting you know eyeballs to the advertising. This is like it always amuses me when I walk through DC and you just see all entirely different kind of billboard advertising about you know niche bills it's just intended to to to attract the eyes of the staffs of congressional representatives rather than any normal human being. And I think that's a lot what happened with with television news. If the Justice Department enforced I guess it's the Sherman Act anti-trust laws yeah if the Justice Department protected communities from Wall Street all radio stations or most and most television stations would be locally owned and as I recall before they relaxed these ownership rules I think it was a telecommunications act of 96 or 97 there was a time when if you owned a radio station a television station locally and even a newspaper because they were enforcing anti-trust laws right it was a cash cow it was an absolute cash cow. What role does debt play in the decimation of the newsroom? The Los Angeles Times was a cash cow but this guy Zell bought it and racked up all this debt. Right well I was almost a private equity play yeah I mean that that's kind of what they do they take these companies private they saddle them down with debt and they use that as a means to extract value out of the the corporation that's because debt is preferred in the tax code of equity and there are whole variety of reasons oh yeah absolutely there are a variety of reasons why private equity works you just changed that that that wasn't preferred in the tax code a lot of the financial engineering uh that we see at the private equity firms would go away I'm sorry I didn't know this so if I'm a private equity firm I'm going to take a publicly held company right you're going to buy it out buy it out I'm going to have to do we're going to use debt to buy that out and then you're going to place that debt upon the company not upon your balance sheet but upon the company's balance sheet so the company then has to figure a way to dig out of that and meanwhile private equity takes its management fees from its private investors it takes all these tax credits that you can get when you're using debt because you can deduct interest and you can do all sorts of of debt plays it you know can can sell the real estate underpinning the corporation and then lease it back to the cut to the uh the particular corporation and and make them pay rent on this thing that they used to own uh there are all sorts of schemes that a private equity company can use uh that are are just ways to leak profits out of a corporation in the name of efficiency in the name of uh you know uh taking a failing company so so-called and and nursing it back to health what they're really doing is is field stripping that company for assets and uh yeah I think I think you saw that you know with respect to the LA Times with respect to what sam depp is always doing uh one thing I would add though is that there is a there is a culprit for this you know lack of enforcement of antitrust and it goes back to the 1980s actually goes back to man named robert bork who uh we dodged a bullet with him not being a supreme court justice which he almost was he was nominated for that position by president reagan uh however before that in the 1970s he became the most consequential figure in antitrust law in american history because without changing a word of the sherman antitrust act robert bork reinterpreted its meaning before robert bork uh the idea behind the sherman antitrust act was thought to be to prevent large companies from growing in size and dominating a particular field and what robert bork did it said nope nope nope don't have to worry about size don't have to worry about bigness you don't have to worry about uh individuals who want to uh display their talents not having any company other than the main company that that dominates a a particular space uh to to to work for all you have to worry about is consumer welfare as long as prices go down there is no problem with any company merging with any other company wow so as long as the prices fall uh that's all you have to think about and that has that simple idea which is not part of the sherman antitrust act has dominated the thinking around antitrust for the next 35 years wow how did he do what was he doing at the time he was teaching at Yale law school in fact the day the day after the election this year i was at the Yale law school giving a speech on my uh book and which is not how i looked yeah i looked up in the room and robert bork was looking back at me that was the room i was i was giving this uh talking um and there was a picture of him there was a picture giant giant portrait um he wrote a book called the antitrust paradox uh in the 1970s and this re invented uh what we know about antitrust law and then the Reagan administration in the 1980s um they they changed the guidance the official guidance in the justice department for how to look at antitrust cases at largely adopting robert bork's view of the case and that that essentially took uh the antitrust enforcement off off the the beat uh and and the country has really never been the same wow because i it almost has become doctrine that you always hear while the merger was approved because the the consumer will benefit from a real benefit right they talk about efficiency and consumer welfare and that is not what what john sherman uh actually put in his law as as what he wanted to safeguard against what was he trying to safeguard he was he was trying to stop bigness he was trying to stop the domination of sectors by certain individuals uh and and and corporations and trusts that would uh have consequential outcomes for uh income and wealth concentration which he talked about uh personal liberty and the ability to uh you know be an entrepreneur the ability to if you want to take your your your use your particular skills that you can do that in an industry that isn't dominated by someone else so you have a barrier to entry um there were all these other facets of uh the the sherman antitrust act that are not reflected in robert bork's interpretation because what he did was he turned it from a legal case to an economic case because you can always find an economist to make the case that there is a consumer welfare benefit to a particular merger and it's just math that they do and and and you can always sort of twist the statistics to make that case now interestingly there's some work that's been done recently that that actually does a retrospective look at a lot of mergers and finds that prices actually do go up of course these mergers happen of course so the entire even on robert bork's own terms uh this consumer welfare idea is ridiculous but it's especially ridiculous because he reinterpreted at a hundred year old law without changing a word of it legislatively just through interpretive guidance uh literally changed legal history as i see mergers and acquisitions i can't compete with you you're a threat to me you're going to put me out of business i'm going to buy you and then fire everybody and i'll take that's the efficiency right yeah that that's what's considered the efficiency um and and you're absolutely right and and we have seen this now in sector after sector of our economy uh in places you don't even think about you go into a supermarket and you look down the aisle and there seems to be all these choices in front of you and yet it's a handful of companies that own every one of those brands most of the toothpaste in this country comes from two brands all of the eyeglasses in this country are made by one company uh who's the company boss there are an italian company called luxatica and and and they not only own the brands of eyeglasses but they own the stores in which they're sold um you know i could go on and on and on about this about the the increasing market concentration and we're finally starting to see a little pushback to bork and what is called the chicago school the the economist at the university of chicago that that really took up these ideas and adopted them um i was at a conference in chicago at the university of chicago in march uh where it was a real consequential challenge to this notion of consumer welfare to this notion that we don't have a problem uh with these large concentrations of wealth and power that we're seeing all throughout every economic sector and so things are starting to change a little bit but it's going to take uh you know a good amount of time and obviously what we're seeing right now with the administration uh the trump administration has come in is is a sliding back in the chicago school was hayek milton friedman strouse these were people who digler who who came up with the idea of regulatory capture uh and they believe they gave us the shock doctrine and they also gave us this belief in the free market that there actually is a free market and it's pure we know otherwise are among the other things they did is they adopted wholesale uh bork's ideas about uh market concentration and market power are they funded by corporate interests well it's almost that do they need to be i mean uh at the time you know i mean the universe chicago had its large endowment and they attracted all these scholars uh certainly you know i mean milton friedman uh worked in in all these all these different countries worked in chile and and and all over the world practically uh preaching this gospel which you know fit very well with uh the you know newly active ideas around uh corporations uh you know you think about the lewis powell memo in the 1970s and uh the idea that the corporation needed to exert its power in the political realm uh milton friedman of course was a favorite of uh the reagan administration so uh you know i think there was a synergy there i mean i i don't think you have to necessarily talk about funding colleges and universities get their funding from a variety of sources but uh there was certainly a lot of back and forth a lot of borrowing of ideas a lot of use of academics which we see to this day use of academics through funding uh to write reports favorable to business uh and and then you know it's just a very cozy relationship i know this sounds paranoid but if you do read the the powell memo lewis powell wrote this memo for the chamber of commerce going after ralph nader and young kids and telling corporations to fund think tanks and create pro business propaganda when you hear that there are tax advantages i didn't know this but that you just told me that there are tax advantages for somebody to take a publicly held newspaper take it private and then gut it when i read that clear channel buys up all another roll up there's another uh uh large concentrated uh media company that was at one point owned by romney's bane capital right and they have dumbed down the country while racking up debt well while not turning a profit but they succeed in making the country dumber i'm not paranoid but i do think people are out to get me but you describe local tv news as the number one source of news for most americans is it conceivable that the republicans are so terrified that people are going to be informed that they've all chipped in to destroy our ability to learn well i mean uh you know i by way of answering the question let me just give this very interesting instructive example that we're seeing here in real time because it disrupts the notion that uh that these corporations are just out to make a profit in their ruthless and and and you know and and uh all they care about is that last dollar and that protects us the public because they'll compete against one another et cetera et cetera so you know what's going on at ns nbc right well tell me so msnbc uh we know under the bush administration keith oberman uh became uh almost by accident became this sort of celebrated figure on the left uh they built up their uh their roster of left-leaning commentators and and news people uh and they continued that through some of the obama administration and now it's the trump administration and they have a new person in charge this guy andy lack who uh is an executive who um he he seems incredibly disinterested in uh maintaining msnbc's position sort of on the ideological spectrum as sort of left counterweight to uh fox news so you know over the last several months they have fired several hosts who were sort of left-leaning contributors to the network they've hired Hugh shewitt so they it looks like they're going to put him in a a show a weekly show to host they've hired george will they've hired uh they've played given a show to nicole wallace uh who is uh was was served uh and on the communication staff with sarah paleon um they have uh sought to rebrand and move to the right uh uh or at least to the center and the the the problem with this is that if you look at msnbc's ratings they are outpacing fox in the coveted 25 to 54 demographic among their remaining left-leaning hosts rachel maddow chris haze laurence or donnell those hosts are doing extremely well in the trump era as one would expect given you know the sort of uh feeling in the air and and and how how trump you know sort of brings these headlines um but andy lack is going against the very uh ideas that that the network should go with what is doing well in fact laurence or donnell's contract is up in like three weeks and he has not even been talked to about renewing that contract he's the number two uh person in cable news right now and and it looks like they're going to let him go we remember that during uh the early days of the bush administration before keith olmerman stumbled upon this formula phil donahue was the number one host at msnbc and he got fired for talking about the iraq war two didn't rosy have a show too i think she might have so and they did point is that if it was corporations only sir look out for their self-interest and if something is making money for them that's what they're going to do then you would see uh the building up of uh hosts in similar uh uh uh ideological uh interest as rachel maddow chris haze or so donnell you think the exact opposite at msnbc and and and it shows that it's not just about this corporate driver profit it's that there's a corporate class right and uh it's more important to be beholden to that corporate class and to be you know show fealty to that corporate class at least in the the business of television news then it is to make money is it just the corporate class or is it about making money one will facilitate the other i mean you might give up what uh a couple ratings points here but maybe your advertisers will come aboard to uh decide you know that you're you know fighting the good fight by getting rid of those left wingers off the television dial uh or maybe it's just that you'd rather put out news into the world that helps the cause of getting some large tax cut down the road so your personal interests outweigh the interest of uh the corporation in this case so i just think it's a really instructive kind of uh example uh of of how this this this idea and you know this is part of the board guide is that you know corporations are ruthless they'll go for their profit and we don't have to worry about them you know jacking up prices are doing all of these things because they they will they will compete uh because the free market the invisible hand of the free market will will will surely uh spread these benefits to everybody but it's not true yeah i was listening to bernie talk the other day i don't know what your politics are i suspect they're similar to mine and everything bernie says is spot on and i thought hmm here he is on meet the press the only way bernie would ever be allowed on meet the press is almost becoming president he was so undeniable that they had to put him on and when they put him on they couldn't shut him up because he almost became president and bernie sanders had a 25 year career prior to running for president where he probably appeared on on a sunday morning show uh two times right in that 25 years so uh that sort of answers your question is it the fairness doctrine that needs to be brought back or with with that fix it i doubt it right yeah i don't know if it's the fairness doctrine but it is about you know and look at the cinclair case for example so um like i said they wouldn't have been able to buy tribune if it weren't for uh changes in fcc law the already rolled back media ownership rules say that no company can own more than 39 percent can own uh stations nationwide that that broadcast the 39 percent of the country but then they came up with this thing that they called the u h f discount and the u h f discount was rolled back a long time ago and what it said was is that well if you have a u h f station you know what you remember u h f that was the the high stations on the dial that in tennessee well yeah in over the air television if you had a u h f station you could you can only count you can count half of the u h f stations you have towards this 39 percent number so the new fcc under trump's a handpicked chairman adjud pi reinstated the u h f discount in a time where practically everyone gets their television through a cable signal and there's no such thing as a u h f station that is high on the dial and inaccessible and and you know it it's ridiculous to bring back the u h f discount in this day and a but what that did for cinclair was it immediately brought their calculation of how much of the nation they cover from 39 percent to 25 percent so it immediately gave them more headroom to buy more stations and that's exactly what they did uh... first buying some stations in new york and then buying tribute now the assumption is now they've gotten so many stations that they're going to have to divest of some of them uh... however adjud pi is talking about relaxing media ownership rules even further the u h f discount was just the beginning of what he wants to do and uh... i suspect that that by the time the cinclair tribune deal closes that they won't have to divest of any of these stations they will come up with some other reason why uh... they can hold on to all of them and you just see the concentration happen further and further and further and further and further and when you put that into the perspective of cinclair made these deals to help trump get elected and now uh... trumps fcc is making policy to help cinclair buy more stations and concentrate their control over the television industry uh... you you begin to to understand why this is is so troubling and even a week last week where you know you had the firing of james comey and all of these uh... uh... you know human cry about uh... the office of the presidency and what's what's you know what's become of it i really thought the cinclair deal was was the the the the most ominous thing that we saw last week even more so than that fire you said the uh... c of cinclair road in the presidential motorcade and it reminds me of clear channel under the george w bush administration they're from san antonio and they were in bed with the bush administration thirty nine percent of the market share they have to have certain of yeah of households there's a percent of all households and is that the households that are available to watch television so i'd say let's say there are a hundred million households in the country they could only broadcast the areas where thirty nine million households could access them in theory but because of this u h f discount that changes that you know the calculation is is this sort of customized calculation that only they have to deal with right one of the things they do is they'll buy a couple of stations and run one to the ground they'll just turn it into a shell right to save money and because when fewer stations compete against these are owned by the american people well the airwaves are sure and and we we sell those airwaves and spectrum options all the time and that money goes into the u.s treasury but but we don't we don't put as many conditions on that purchase as we used to and and and you know the the idea that these stations operate in the public interest they're supposed to provide public sources of information part of the fourth estate part of you know creating a well-informed citizenry all of those things have have really gone out the window and and the public interest has been subsumed you know purely by commerce and uh... that that is a tremendous change that we've seen in this country over the last you know thirty forty years uh... and uh... you know look look who we've gotten from a public policy standpoint uh... after after that uh... change was made in the nation you have a piece about jonathan taplin's new book move fast and break things how facebook google and amazon cornered culture and undermine democracy mm-hmm do we need to break up facebook google and amazon i mean when you look at the i believe so yeah i i i do believe so and uh... you know google has has sort of reoriented themselves an hour called alphabet right and they have all these separate business lines under alphabet and so it's almost that alphabet has given us the tool by which to break up google into all these different business lines and i think the first thing you have to do with respect to google is sever the relationship between the search engine and the advertising outlet when google bought double click which was a big advertise online advertising uh... company uh... that was the beginning of the end right there because now you have a company where they control the platform they're a uh... what is known as a platform monopoly they control the platform for search engines virtually all search happens through google and they control the advertising so uh... if people are searching for a product or searching for for an entertainment option and the same company where they're searching you know the same storefront also manages as a gatekeeper who can advertise to those people uh... this is why the profits of google uh... in in terms of gross revenue have gone up uh... in a straight line year after year and and now are over seventy four billion dollars uh... they obviously have this massive concentration they they buy a a a company of week uh... uh... if they don't have it in house they they they purchase it uh... you see a company like amazon they also have our platform monopoly for e-commerce uh... they invite all these other companies to sell things on their platform in their store and these other companies have no other choice to reach people than to go on amazon and amazon collects all the data that is uh... uh... in terms of what people are purchasing on their website and they use that data to build competitors to these very people who are uh... coming on their platform to sell products uh... the same with google collecting the data of all of their customers and using that to sell it to advertisers that's that's actually as much as it is the advertising itself that's the source of the revenue is to sell these customized ads uh... based on everything you do online that and and facebook does this as well uh... to you know give premium uh... spots for advertisers that are dynamic that are based on they can be based on where you are walking in the in the neighborhood uh... that you live in and they can say hey there's here's a coupon for a pizza shop that you're about to hit in ten seconds because i know where you are because of your geolocation data on your google phone this is where we're getting to uh... and uh... you know what tafflin's book is really talking about is cultural he was the manager tour manager for the band uh... in the nineteen late nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies uh... he then became an executive uh... he worked with sony uh... he he's he's done he's produced films for people like martin scorsese and win-winters he has an insight into what happened in the music and movie business uh... in terms of when the google's and the facebook's and the amazon's of the world came in and what they've done to the ability for non superstar artists to make a living and he tells the story about leave on helm who was the great drummer for the band and how at the end of his life he had to give concerts at his house to pay for his medical bills uh... while you know corporate executives were making untold amounts of money off songs from the band so is that because what they do is they change the technology well he he describes a number of factors number one obviously is uh... you know uh... file sharing and apster and things like that uh... but it's also the fact that uh... google's youtube for example uh... uh... you know practically every song known to existence is streamable to touch of a button with uh... youtube and royalties from uh... this was an amazing statistic i can believe it in 2015 royalties from vinyl were higher as overall number than royalties from streaming uh... on places like youtube what do you mean by that i mean that that an artist that artists in the aggregate received more money as a percentage of vinyl record sales in twenty fifteen then they did from streaming streaming on youtube represents fifty two percent of all streaming uh... of music that is done and something like four or ten percent of the of the profits from streaming uh... they google has this tremendous power to digitize all of this information and then not pay the artist back even though uh... they're attaching ads to these uh... these pieces of music for example or or or you know movies or whatever uh... and and so the put the changes in technology as you describe it is is is exactly it but the the money does not flow through to the artists in streaming whether you're talking about spotify or whether you're talking about youtube or whether you're talking about uh... any of these sort of uh... next level kind of sources of income uh... and superstar artists can handle it they can make their own deals they can uh... come up with uh... ways innovative ways to uh... uh... make sure they're getting paid but below that level it becomes almost impossible to survive as an artist uh... in this day and age and uh... you know if you basically have we've returned to sort of a traveling troubadour kind of lifestyle where the only way that you can really uh... keep keep that living going is by playing endless gigs and uh... the the money if somebody is making money off of this music that's playing out there in the world it's just not the artists is there any way to audit google and find out what they're making off a leave on helm song well i mean we know that they're making little to nothing and and if you ask them uh... they'll say well this is what the market will bear and and uh... you know it's it the problem is that whereas you know tower records had a thousand cd's or something let's let's just use a round number well google has everything ever been digitized or ever been ever been put to down on a tape and so they don't have to take more than a tiny portion of each song and still make billions millions of dollars but you know for that artist out there that's competing with every other song in the known universe they're simply not going to make that kind of value it's spread out over everybody you know so what is tapplin what does he say has to be done i he talks about using the antitrust laws to break up these companies uh... to to make sure that your data uh... which is so lucrative i mean these are these he called these uh... resource extraction companies and it's it's not oil it data that's that's what they're making their money from and he says that that that should be able to be either freed or that should be uh... there should be opt-outs uh... people to not give up their privacy i i i know i've taken up a lot of your time but very quickly what is like i always hear about they're getting consumer data that's worth a fortune what do they have on me that would be worth anything they have every email you've ever typed they have every website you've ever visited they have every google search you've ever made your more you're more intimate with your computer that you are with anyone in your life you will tell you will ask to search for things on your your your google search that you would never say out loud they have a tremendous amount of information on you and what is that can be used for what you format for a particular advertiser that's looking for a particular type of person uh... to to you know move this particular message and marketing tour so uh... it's tremendously lucrative on the part of uh... these platform monopolies and let me just say one more thing that that tapplin points out and i think it's really really important he says that the patent that uh... uh... google has or facebook has for all of these different innovations should the weight bell labs was in the nineteen fifties uh... there was a famous court case in nineteen fifties uh... uh... eighteen t was a monopoly uh... they they ran all the phone service throughout the country and the justice department said all right well you can do that but you have this arm called bell labs where you're coming up with new innovations and ideas all the time all of the patents for bell labs what you're coming up with need to be able to be licensed by any company for a nominal fate and what this did was create the electronics industry in america it created uh... what eventually led to the internet in america it created all sorts of positive uh... benefits for society and it created the very competition that uh... inevitably led to uh... uh... you know what we see today and in many of these markets so if google if you did the same thing to google so they're trying to make these self-driving cars all right well the patents for that now can be licensed to any company and every company can have this self-driving car technology and they can uh... build a market and they can they can they can compete with one another on price and quality and and and quality of service and uh... google doesn't yet get to just hold on to that that is one of the key recommendations that tappan makes and i think it's a very important one well i'm kind of all over the map about the future my new hope is we have a guaranteed income and all of us are given a robot who goes out and does something makes a little money for us and then whatever the robot can't do the government fills in the gap and then the rest of us spend our waking hours consuming for the corporations instead of working for the corporations our job is to consume buy things eat things and convince ourselves that we're artists right i think uh... there there are there's almost two strains of thought on this there's the idea of a universal basic income and then there's the idea of a job guarantee and i guess what i've gone back to is what's the first thing we say to a child when you meet a child you say what do you want to be when you grow up i think there's an inherent value still in this in this country to the value of the work that you would have to get over in order to really reorient society in the way that you're talking about i also think that there's a lot of work to do you know the idea that robots are going to come on board and and you know this place all of the jobs in in the country is number one not born out by experience i mean we went from punch cards to the personal computer and somehow we still have these tremendous needs within the country we have infrastructure that's absolutely falling apart we have if you're going to put together self-driving cars you are going to have to engage in the biggest road project in the history of mankind to fix every road in america to make sure that it's available for use for a self-driving car because they're simply too haphazard we have we have roads that don't have the the lines painted on them we have we have you know in some more rural areas dirt roads gravel roads you're going to need to to you know make some of the infrastructure uniform in order to to ensure self-driving cars can actually operate and and if you do that you're talking about the largest infrastructure project in the history of mankind so i just don't believe that there's nothing left to do or that there will be nothing left to do in the next century let's say uh maybe after that we we can talk but i i just don't think that uh i i think that the a better idea is to say if you need a job the government is willing and able to step in to give you that job and that job and and and whatever you're going to be working toward will benefit the public at large uh whether it's a you know wpa style uh... uh... the kinds of things that we saw civilian conservation core and the new deal uh... war it's you know these construction and road projects that need to be done uh... to ensure that we have uh... you know are available to move around i agree with you a hundred percent and i blame the republicans they just refuse to invest properly in our economy it's a sickness their justification is rooted in fallacy that being said i do believe that a hundred years from now we will talk about america's puritanical sloth ethic and that we will celebrate doing nothing that people i i i'm all for it because it's it's a lot of what i do in my personal life but i'm i'm not sure that i mean look at it this way the the uh... one area of the country where you see uh... a lot of sloth and a lot of uh... uh... you know inability to uh... have a job is is in is in these areas that have this terrible opioid crisis and it creates this despair um... you know obviously if you're getting a universal basic income maybe that that you know that those idle hands don't necessarily go toward you know this this very tragic situation but i i fear that it does i fear that there's this need uh... in human nature and it's really a question about human nature right uh... for you know some project of self-worth to to point to and be able to say that that you are making a contribution and uh... if we get away from that uh... i'm i'm concerned about what that unleashes well you're a writer and nobody has a greater work ethic than a writer a writer is haunted every second of the day i should be right now i should be writing i should be productive should be writing i'm not writing i'm right but most people most people are very comfortable lying on their back playing a video game watching television thinking about food thinking about shopping i genuinely believe that jobs and the idea of work is a new idea it's maybe it's a couple hundred years old most americans given the choice will easily i i'd say most people i know would say if i had to go to work or if i had a sit and binge watch netflix i'll choose netflix that's what's being offered and we're getting into inception territory where people will take the drug or the the video but see i think that's a problem i do too but most people don't right well anyway you've been this is great this has been so much fun david dayan writes for two of my favorite periodicals the nation which you need to subscribe to and donate money to it and the intercept glenn greenwald's magnificent internet news gathering operation they do real investigative journalism real investigative journalism it's a great resource for just figuring out what's going on and david dayan you could not have been more generous with your time please come back absolutely thank you thank you


I'm particularly happy even more than anyways all the time for a special reason to have you back to this or a show thing take a wise human human architecture is happening to be the 312 episode that you're watching. Hopefully you watch from the day one and number one. And this one has to do with these numbers 7 and 10 because that multiplied means 70 and this is a very special twin duo double anniversary show and me is Martin this bang and you the solo brown what is that number about that you're very familiar with. Well, I am very excited to say that I just celebrated my 70th birthday and the same month of January, 2024, the breakers hotel in like he celebrated its 70th birthday. So, in honor of these 2, 70th birthday celebrations, we're doing a show about the breakers hotel in like he. Because it's a not only historic hotel from the 1950s, but it also has a lot of aspects to it that we really like and we want to praise it. We've talked about it before, but we're going to talk about it again to let you know how special it is. And I personally as a historian because that's my job at the museum where I am right now. I'm particularly enthusiastic and happy that the breakers has survived in such good original condition that you can go and visit it and see what a 1950s authentic. Hawaiian hotel Waikiki hotel is like. Yeah, and we always try to keep things real so we want to share that you're almost dripping and exhausted because you rushed to your Bishop Museum workplace and you came from home. We were doing the follow up show of to this one here because this one was supposed to be very special how can it be any different because your birthday. We wanted to do it in your birthday buddy breakers and we did and Apple the manager who you see her business card here somewhere we let these run through so you get an impression already where we were and what we all saw and to prove that we were really there. The little thing that's left from what didn't work old man's a new technology speaking about myself of course, having been the reason we're going to walk you through in a little video towards the very end. Yes, so let's talk about why it is so special because these days they talk a lot about gray energy so how you build buildings and then how you operate buildings and then also that you don't care buildings down on all these levels the breakers is an absolute winner because was built out of wood to begin with and then it stayed around almost unchanged and it's it's basically operated in an easy breezy way as we like to say so this is really. We also going to be with the students next Monday with Apple and show them that and these are not the architectural students but our additional travel industry management. And so this is also not the first time we've been reporting about it in the very first slides if you remember, we've been show quoting both think take Hawaii and docomomo shows with our fellow board members, many of them being excited about some of them as having lived in Edwin Bauer's buildings, who's the architect of that one, and then then be fostered that one sort of summarizing all of that about the tragic end of Edwin Bauer who was then basically lost no one he had the men show so many summers and no one saw him anymore but that is the only bad node all the other nodes are absolutely great that the building is just as it was in 54 and it just looked just as good as young as happy birthday again you do. So, but let's go into the little specifics because on Ethel's business card that looks very vintage to she says it's why he keys most distinct resort. Definition wise distinguish between a hotel and resort what's the difference. Well the resort is usually described as a place where you can stay on the premises and all these different amenities are offered to you and you don't have to go other places. So what the breakers offers first of all of course it has a swimming pool so if you choose not to go to the beach and go swimming in the ocean you can swim. Secondly, there is a restaurant on the grounds so there is food available there if you want to buy that, but also the beach walk neighborhood that this is located on the beach walk street is a quiet street even though it's in wiki it doesn't have a lot of traffic, and it does have convenience stores nearby. So you can purchase food outside very easily with a short walk. In addition, the beach walk contains kitchenettes and this is an innovation of the 1950s for hotel rooms in wiki key to have cooking facilities so that again you don't have to eat out you can eat on the premises. And furthermore amazing in wiki key. It has free parking and there's not a lot of it, but parking in wiki key is difficult as everybody who lives here knows, and also in the bigger hotels where there may be a whole parking building. They charge you for parking and the breakers doesn't charge for parking so not only is it a 1950s resort in the way it's designed and the way it still exists but it still has amenities that other hotels no longer offer free. Yeah, and let Ethel show this to us so this is slide 44 and then we can show 43 42 41 and 40 39 Michael as well, because this is Ethel basically having walked us through and basically demonstrate all that so not only is the hotel the architect to original but also it's inferior, not necessarily the furniture you can move around that has been changed at some point but it's also been a while, but we're talking the builds in things that are fixed, and they are still original in many of the units and that's absolutely it speaks about a time when America was like made in America means I last, just like Deutsche Werter by men. Okay, that's good German stuff that lasts, which is unfortunately in none of our two cultures the case anymore with stuff they manufacture today. So these things are still there is still work, and they look beautiful yeah that picture if you can stay on that one. We had a chance to check the situation I was actually not happy with this picture to begin with but there's always a good thing about everything bad so the reason that way you had the chance to be there made us, you know, check on things more. So what looks like boo boo it's been changed to AC. Yes, because some of the guests require that that's what they're conditioned to use to they want that. But when Ethel's staff led us into the room. The default was oh let's switch that machine on. We went there and switched it off immediately and it was very windy that day, and the curtains were blowing so I, we look behind and the the jealousies are actually still working. They're not only working there but tell us how they worked in on the other side. The really dramatic or interesting thing about the breakers rooms is the rooms that face onto the central open area where the swimming pool is and where you can lounge around on the on the paved deck. Those entire walls are jealousies and those work perfectly. So you can open there they are and you can open that entire wall of jealousies up and receive the breezes coming through naturally. And that's what we always say we love the term easy breezy meaning you can make use of natural wind and natural air movement and you don't have to have air conditioning and you don't have to use electricity. You don't have to use fossil fuels. You let the natural environment take care of your needs. Absolutely and go back to the resort definition that it's so proudly rightly so carries. Again, the kitchen nets, which is what other resorts by the way of newer kinds don't have anymore you need to get out to be ripped off in Wanky key where everything is expensive while here, you can go and shop somewhere where it's not that expensive and bring it home and cook your food on top of that and that would be slide twenty seven and twenty eight please they grow your food. There is basically use in Guzman who I met as well. He is the as a little kid he was trained by his father this is tradition of the hotel to do the landscaping. He used and took over and he plans these baby pineapples on your planter trough that we're also very familiar from the killings with body of work. I always do that integrated vegetation into the Belastrade.  It's a it's a piece of toast well it's a piece of bread that's got what cheese and a slice of pineapple or doesn't have ham and cheese on as well. I can't remember. I think it's got all of those and you toast it. I guess under a broiler or in a microwave not in a microwave but under a heat source. That's a German delicacy toast. So you can you can create that. You can create that right there. No thing your culture did not know that did not have that in order to have dairy or cows or anything to that extent right but so it's a purely made up thing by cookie Germans as you rightly call us who mid century. We're craving for being not in the cold anymore but in the tropics and they invented that thing and these Germans. As you will point out in the follow up show you saw an anti slip warning sign and they also have it in German so they come here. They might want to make the Hawaii toast and they can't. And no other glitzy fancy expensive and let's get to that part let's go to slide number 53. Not only and we know all this from from Ethel who will then show on slide nine after that but let's stay on this one here. She also told us that all the staff was basically kept so sustainability happens on all levels. Not just on you know building sustainability operational sustainability you know passive system versus active systems but also social work ethic sustainability. They kept all the staff. She convinced the owner that we get to next to basically keep everyone and the rates are not. Yeah. And there we see the woman in red is Ethel the manager since the beginning of the hotel and thanks to Ethel again all these things are still practiced the way they basically were. And on the previous slide you saw the room rates right there. They're they're still pretty moderate 150 bucks to begin with. Next to it is the we almost don't want to talk about it because of politics. The Trump Hotel Trump International Hotel. The rates started 400 and go to the thousands in an obnoxious way. Well. Let's point out to that the Trump Hotel name is about to be dropped. So. Oh wow great news. That is great news and they will be disassociating themselves with Donald Trump. I also want to just point out that when this hotel opened the rates for a low cost hotel like this range from five to eight dollars a day.  And then people got paid you know and then an apple cost only a fraction of what so they needed to raise it according to inflation. But it's still again an absolute numbers. This is affordable. Right. And the next following slides Michael are going to give us hope that it will continue to be around because while great news about the Trump name dropped. But capital creditor or creditor capitalism is still going on around it. There's the been the very scouting creeping up on it pretty badly on the other side on the Malca side. So you might think well it might be swallowed up. No. There's hope because not the original owner but the one who bought it fairly early from the original orna according to Ethel. They are the most. You know most famous ceremony masters in Japan. And in fact there is a building that's number 59 which is a key house they build later on the premise. And they come there and do periodically and do their ceremonies. So they're in a financial position to not be vulnerable to some indecent offers from anyone. They basically keep it and it includes the premise around it. The previous slides if we go back to 57 I make the keyword delicious Japanese chocolate to poke you. Yes. Well because in this neighborhood as I said along Beachwalk a lot of original buildings are still there there has been a lot has been sustained since then as we've been saying. And in this small building which is just a short distance away from the breakers hotel there is this high end Japanese chocolate shop. It's just to the right in the same building of what we're looking at right now. And I have made a point to stop there a few times in recent months to pick up some of their special chocolate which I believe this is the only place in Hawaii where that particular brand of high end Japanese chocolate is available by retail. So I make it a point to go down there sometimes and pick up some treats.  That's great. There is also however and that's on the slide 60. There is a restaurant on there that is now a sushi place. And we heard and we addressed this in the next show and actually show you that we heard there was actually a Tiki bar in there which makes total sense because we're talking Polynesian pop here. That one has is gone and has sort of redirected itself. I guess one can say a couple of blocks further away that we will talk about. So these are all great amenities. You know and it sounds like we're on the payroll of the hotel. We're not. We have our own employers Bishop Museum and you age pay my students pay decently enough more than decently enough so no we're not. This comes from true sympathy.  So that's that's fair to say. But go back to the very beginning when when Ethel basically told us that this is how vintage the place is. I mean Henry J. Kaiser hardly anyone knows the name anymore and no one knows that Hawaii is not any Hawaiian name but comes from Kaiser and and all other things that we have covered in many previous shows. And she tells us that Henry J. Kaiser was sitting down there and saying hey this is actually not bad what I did here because he also did the neighboring hotel which he likes this one here better and you agree with him. And then he was saying you know and actually I like it that much that I'm going to do you know stuff like that just over there which was the Kaiser Hawaiian village just next door which is long change. He sold it to Hilton you said pretty soon we have to blame him pretty soon after that predator capitalism but then he basically did entirely different things that went high rise. As you rightly say, and there's none of that old Hawaii if that's fair to say feeling around it anymore. But in this one here absolutely. Yeah, and Henry J. Kaiser opened the Hawaiian village complex in 1955. So, when he was able to come and visit the breakers in 1954. He was already getting started on what he wanted his resort to be but I think you're absolutely right. It's very likely he was influenced because as he continued to build in the 50s. It looked a lot more like what the breakers still looks like but as you also just pointed out everything that was original to the Hawaiian village complex is all been demolished and replaced by newer high rise buildings so there's nothing left of all of that. Yeah, yeah, and that would be slide six if you can look back into that quickly here that's going to portray that kind of situation we're sitting there in the previous show in front of that and down there is the all the other Kaiser things that he did. But the next slide. I number seven I stole from one of your leading segue into this shows where you were talking about small hotels in Waikiki for a doko momo playlist and I took the right to transform it a little more because I grayscaled even the picture he took recently and also cropped it a little bit more. So this is actually looks like these are both historic pictures there are not one is, and the other one is contemporary by the Soto Brown, and he also excited about the signage and we should go to that respective slide here that is number where is that where did that go. Well, the breakers on on its facade to the right of its entryway has brass metal lettering or copper or brass metal lettering custom made that say the word it says the word breakers in a script. That's the original sign that script sign is original from 70 years ago. And that's one of the most remarkable things the breakers has not changed his name. And it still has its original sign and again, as a historian, things like that are very rare. It's very, it's very unusual to find things that have survived that long and I'm really, I find that wonderful. I do that from the point of view of a sustainable architect because that's true sustainability. Everything else is green rush blah blah blah and the turnover of six to seven year what our exotic is. All the experts is on it tells us every six to seven years they throw everything out. They do a renovation or remodeling. They resist this and slide 62 and 63. This is how it used to look like. And only because of the sort of second skins how we call clothing. You can identify that this is actually of course because of the stamp and you are collector of things like that you know immediately this is all right. And if you just say, you look at the architecture of the third skin and the first skin which is the skin we were born with you know they still look the same. You know, human beings will forever look like with that skin that we have on, and these buildings you know they're just timeless. The only the wardrobe so to speak what people wear but they're also very easy breezy dress right. So the previous slide number 61 Apple is kindly showing people around this is this is our students that you had hosted to last semester at your museum we've been covering that. So Apple has been you know is welcoming and she's welcoming us next week kindly. I'm really surprised to see a much larger crowd because this was a small studio now we got 24 students but we'll all fit in somewhere and and again, the legacy is to be continued. That's just, that's just really awesome. This is, if not our favorite, you know, piece of showing off, you know to the world that that Polynesian pop is basically very profound, you know, and besides all the discussions that we will continue next week about, you know, some issues with sexuality and gender issues and discrimination that some young, you know females, rightly so to feel whatever they feel and how they feel have. But we want to add to that and basically said well, you know, here, there's really nothing wrong here on on all levels, everything is actually really right. So why not, again, celebrating that and that's what we're doing and this very special double dipping birthday so show so happy birthday again to you and to you the breakers and to you the solo. And so I think we're at that point to say goodbye but not without walking you around. So this is us in real thanks to Michael been worked into this here in the showing around and give you a better, even better feel and make you go there by yourself and that's right spent spent the weekend there. Staycation if you're on a walk, have a staycation at the breakers staycation and make your own Hawaii toes with Houston's pineapple. Bye bye. Bye.


I have a song for you today, let me get it, here we go, and I'm going to push sideshow and it's not the first song, it's not the second song, here it is. This song talks about my morning routine, the things I do in the morning. Listen to me sing it. After I get up, after I get up, I get some coffee, I drink some coffee, and after that I check my email, I check my email, and after that I leave for school. I'm out the door, I drive 20 minutes to get to school, I like to go to school. I have the melody, not quite perfect, so I'm gonna try again. Let's see if I can do a better job. After I get up, after I get up, I get some coffee, I drink some coffee, and after that I check my email, I check my email, and after that I leave for school. I'm out the door, I drive 20 minutes to get to school, I like to go to school, that was better. Let's do it one more time and I'm excited to see if I can do a really good job. Do you want to try it with me? After I get up, after I get up, I get some coffee, I drink some coffee, and after that I check my email, I check my email, and after that I leave for school, I'm out the door, I drive 20 minutes to get to school, I like to get to school. Do you see the words I'm using? I have the word after, and after that, and I use after that again. This time let's sing it quickly. Do you want to sing with me? After I get up, after I get up, I get some coffee, I drink some coffee, and after that I check my email, I check my email, and after that I leave for school, I'm out the door, I drive 20 minutes to get to school, I like to go to school. Thank you for taking part in the song with me. I really enjoy singing. Have a great day. Listen to this again if you'd like.


What's good Josh? Well, Ross back again with another video. So Finally just getting home after the WrestleMania backlash live streaming and reactions on the intercuss page Hopefully you guys was there and I was able to watch it with us. We had a good time Quite enjoyable for the most part Gotta give my thoughts and opinions on this pay-per-view and overall I enjoyed this. This was fun I kind of expected it to be a an enjoyable pay-per-view just with the match card itself I didn't expect it to be bad and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it for what it was I'm gonna give my rating of the over of the overall pay-per-view at the end But we got to go down the list talk about things that happen tonight. Let's get right into it I am so glad they started off the show with Seth Rollins versus Cody Rose Love that match.  This was really really good nice follow-up to their WrestleMania match I like the WrestleMania match more. I think the moment was just bigger obviously So I like the WrestleMania match a little bit more But this was a great follow-up. I love the story They were telling within this match of basically Seth Rollins coming off like he's much more prepared He's prepared for all of Cody Rose is like his offense. He knows what to think You know, I mean, he knows what's about to happen And that's how they were kind of building it up Cody was having a tough time really getting Ahead of Seth Rollins in the beginning of this match. But as the match started, you know changing tides You can kind of see Cody starting to get some offense starting to get some rhythm. It was great, man Seth Rollins is enjoy. He's great enjoyable as a heel. He needs to remain that way. I love his heel work him mocking That's Cody Rhodes father Dusty Rose in the ring like my mocking his punches and stuff beautiful He'll he ah man. This was this was very fantastic, man I enjoyed this for what it was. I like the one another spot I can think of He is Seth Rollins doing the super flex off the top row He's going for the falcon arrow and it get turned into the crossroads. Oh Oh, that was so good. So good. So we get to the end of the match end of the match Obviously cause some controversy um We get a uh roll-up on Seth Rollins is rolling up, uh um He's rolling up, uh, Cody rose But he's pulling the tights so the ref can't see it. So Cody ends up rolling up Seth Rollins And he starts pulling Seth Rollins tights and the ref doesn't see it. He gets the one two three pin And that's how the match ends with with the roll up I know some people in the chat was feeling like they didn't like the ending the ending was it came out of nowhere kind of anti-climactic, but I get why it happened And Seth is livid. He's pissed. Cody's like two. Oh, I beat you twice I see what they're doing here.   You had the opportunity to get some get back get the win And you chose not to because you wanted to be morally good well in this situation Cody knew Seth was trying to cheat. He was trying to cheat the win So guess what he did it then he cheated to win He he beat Seth Rollins at his own game and cheated and beat him And I'm okay with it He's still a baby face. I'm okay with it It creates another match Now, I don't know what the match is gonna be probably gonna be some type of stipulation It is gonna be hell in a cell I hope they don't put this match in the hell in a cell I think they may unless if they build it up, right And they make it very intense and very personal Okay, but I think they probably will put this match in hell in a cell And I still give the win to Cody you want to know why? Cody doesn't need to be losing He doesn't it doesn't make sense for him to lose You need to build him up and somebody got that ultimately can beat Roman because if he loses He loses momentum Cody needs to win. Seth can take granted it's weird booking because this would be Technically if Seth does they do have this match at hell in a cell This would be Seth third rock loss in a row. So I don't know Maybe someone gets involved and that causes Seth to lose. I don't know maybe but I like what they did there. You don't really see baby faces cheating like that. So I was okay with it They couldn't maybe came up with something different to end the match that way But overall I like what they did. I know they extended the feud and I enjoyed the match either way So I gave that match. I'm not sure what I gave that match other 10 I think I said like an eight out of 10 or something like that But definitely I enjoyed that match. That was definitely fun. So Let's get into the next match of the night. I believe the next match was uh, omos versus Bobby Lashley was I really interested in this match? Not so much And I figured that um That omos is going to win with uh with um With uh MVP's help. I know originally I said biggie Not biggie. Bobby Lashley was going to win the match in my preview and predictions but after looking at it And realizing that Bobby did beat him at WrestleMania They were going to have they were going to give him the win. I know 50 50 booking, but they were going to give omos and win here Obviously because uh MVP got involved and smash was okay. It was nothing really memorable It was decent. Had some nice moments. I like uh, I believe it was like a power slam or some sort or like I don't know It was some type of slam that bobby had hit on omos, which was pretty impressive But for the most part, uh, it was it was okay And I think I probably gave the score a little bit higher initial. I said like seven out of ten But I had to really think about it. It's just a match. I would actually want to go back and see Probably not. So I I dropped it down to like a six out of ten. It was okay It wasn't the best. It wasn't the worst coming off the Cody and Seth Rollins match. It's gonna be hard to follow that but it was okay. So I gave it a six out of ten Wasn't too much that happened in that match where I was just like, oh, you know, I'm saying Really notice we talk about I'm not a real big fan of omos is like moveset. He just he gives me the great carly vibe He's just big for the sake of being big big But I don't really like his matches seem kind of one note boring to me because it's just I don't know. I don't I don't know. I'm just not really feeling Oh bosses moveset because it just gives me colleague vibes, but it is what it is It was it was serviceable at best. So the next match after that AJ Styles versus edge Damian priest banned at ringside This match was fun. I enjoyed this. This was fun. I like the intensity AJ had at the beginning of the match He was giving the work to edge man.   It was it was fun. It was entertaining I loved how that might started then it started to make it a little bit more slow more methodical And then things started to pick up and I think a lot of people will be talking about what happened at the end of this match So Damian priest comes outside To ramp to the ramp at the end of the ramp. He's not by ringside. So that's the technicality. He's not by ringside Then Finn Balor comes out nowhere starts beating the crap out of him On the outside And then you see someone in a hooded Like like under a hood or whatnot. They got all black on their under the hood And AJ Styles is at the top of the Of at the top turnbuckle. She ends up causing him to fall I say she but I mean a lot of people kind of figured who it was But this person ends up causing uh AJ style to fall from the top rope and um edge puts uh Puts I want to say it's like it was like a it was it wasn't a cross face But he ends up putting him in like some type of choke. Oh, he's just choking him out. AJ Styles passes out And under the hood, which I think a lot of us kind of predicted happening Yeah, Ripley Real Ripley has joined edge and Damian priest She's part of the faction man She she will be giving out judgment day Whoopins ass whoopins to the women's division and um, I'm okay with it I think this is something that she needs something fresh for her character and I'm I am it It fits real Ripley's character I think they did a perfect job adding her so she's part of it And I think what they're probably gonna end up doing I can see AJ Styles getting some help so Someone mentioned it in uh in the comment section on our live stream That it will probably be Liv Morgan because you know, she's beefing with Rhea Liv Morgan femme baller AJ Styles versus real Ripley Edge and Damian priest I can see that at hell with himself At the hell in cell paper being and I think that'll be a fun match. I think that's probably what they'll do Um But I I'm calling it the right person one edge needed to win You don't have edge lose by himself in that situation to build up a faction So he needs to win there. He definitely won. I am looking forward to what they're doing I think they're just gonna go through people and eventually if they do it right Cody ends up beating Roman Reigns for probably the WWE championship and then we get a few with edge versus Cody Sign me up So I think that would be some pretty cool booking right there But enjoyed the match before everything went went went down and definitely enjoyed that match that match was fun. Um Was it better than the WrestleMania match? I actually liked this a little bit more than the WrestleMania match I think the pacing was better The WrestleMania match was kind of more slow and methodical The pacing was a whole lot better In this match in my opinion, and I enjoyed it and the ending was cool. So yeah, this is definitely Solid match definitely worth checking out. All right. So the next match after that, which thank god It was it was so much better than the WrestleMania match Charlotte flair versus Ronda Rousey was so much fun. I enjoyed it I enjoyed it That was fun. I don't even that match was a million times better than a WrestleMania match. That was fun Chaos and carnage. That's all I wanted to see and they delivered I didn't care about their feud. I didn't care about their feud build up This match Was exactly what I wanted it to be. The only thing it was missing It's a couple of flaming tables and maybe some barbed wire bats. That's all it was missing But this was fun You don't really see too many I quit matches and I enjoyed it I enjoyed this.  It was just just fantastic. This is This is what I wanted to see man. And of course the nice little ending segment of ronda putting the arm bar through the chair and Charlotte not tapping and then all of a sudden ronda's like We're not giving up and ronda's like I was guy. I was hoping he was gonna say that and just went to work And then uh, charlotte ends up saying I could I could have quit Enjoy every bit of this ronda is your new Smackdown women's champion. Hopefully bailey can come back and be the perfect Heal for her to face man. I'm hoping uh bailey can come back, bro Soon because I I think that will be uh a nice first opponent for charlotte And for uh ronda rousey is bailey. What do you guys think? Do y'all think that would be a cool opponent for her if bailey came back to face ronda rousey for the smackdown women's championship I think it would be pretty cool. Um, I guess they went I don't know how true this was some of y'all in chappels saying she's legit got a broken Broken arm or something like that. But they went with the storyline of charlotte something that's wrong with charlotte that's broken so, uh Pretty much she's not gonna be on television for a while. I think that was just them Writing a way off for her to not be on television, which you know what i'm okay with if charlotte's not on television for a while I'm okay with it. I i'm not really dripping. I don't think a lot of people are if it's a real injury I don't think it is hopefully it's not but I do believe it's just a storyline injury So yeah, she's gonna this was her their way to write her on television potentially So she won't be on smackdown for a while. All right So but not honest honestly fun match very very very fun match Definitely go check this match out. This is 10 times better than the match. They had a wrestlemania my goodness all right This was easily the lowest point of the show I can't tell you how bored I was during this match mad cap moss versus happy Corbin boring Boy ring if y'all know blame truth He's a call of duty youtube content creator.  Oh my god I I could I could care less about that match. I wasn't sitting there. I don't care about that feud I don't care about this match. I don't really care about them wrestling wise character. I just don't care The right person won in mad cap mods because he needed to win there. Obviously you're trying to build them up I just didn't care the crowd crickets Dead after they just had this fun match ronda and charlotte. I mean, yeah ronda and charlotte flair Imagine I'm saying ronda charlotte flair fun match. So let's you know The gravity of the situation the fact they had a fun match and then We back door with this people were just ready for the main event I gave this match a two out of ten and I'm sticking with it. The only reason I gave it a two is because They made the right book in this issue. I I didn't care I couldn't care less I hope this is a one and done feud or maybe mad cap moss can get into something better because I just don't care sorry More match Lowest low point of the pay-per-view lowest point of the pay-per-view. Um, and we finally get to the main event. Whoo The triple threat match. I mean triple threat the six man tag I said this is I've been saying this I knew for a fact this match was going to be fun and entertaining I knew this was gonna happen. I still probably would have preferred the uh The uh unification of the tag titles, but apparently fox network said no, uh, you're not doing that So this is why it didn't happen. Apparently fox was like No, y'all can kick rocks. We're not doing that which I guess but This match was just it was just fun, bro. This was so great This is this is this is I would say this They ended off the pay-per-view in a very fun way The ending surprised me because I was expecting it to go another way, but I hey either way, I had a great time. I think my favorite part of this match Is and this was so beautifully set up Randy Orton was Definitely the crowd favorite out of all the babyfaces out of everybody tonight Randy Orton was the big crowd favorite tonight Randy Orton doing his trip, you know traditional Randy Orton themes The camera is looking at him As he's in the ring And he's setting up. I'm not sure who it was at the time. I'm I'm not sure if it would I'm not sure who it was. It could have been jimmy may have been jay correct me if I'm wrong But he was setting up one of the usos for the RKO And bro when I say Don't wait a camera person with his position You didn't see roman, but you saw somebody go in for a spear just for a quick second and Randy turned it into a RKO And literally sent roman range to the gulags when I say that was one of the coolest spots Because of how it was set up.  Whoop Send him to the gulags. He sent roman range to the gulags in that precise moment. It was great Now it's so fun. This whole match was enjoyable Top to bottom it started off slow and in in the ending it just got better roman range Doing some of the best work in his career I love when roman and drew finally was able to get into the ring and go against each other You know, they're setting it up for hell in a cell This this was fun, bro This is this is exactly what I was expecting it to be and roman pinning uh, he roman comes in Uh ends up Spearing the hell Out of matt riddle ends up pinning him one two three I was expecting the baby faces to win maybe pin one of the usos and We was gonna get that happening, but no They won We're enrolling at the pin any in and they beat them.   I want to know who they're gonna potentially feel with as well So but overall that match fun very enjoyable and a great way to end off the show um And overall as a whole this pay-per-view Short and sweet and straight to the point There was only one match that did not need to be on the show and that was the baren corbin mad cat moss If they would have took that off the show all this this would have been even better That match did not need to happen on this pay-per-view, but outside of that everything else was solid to enjoyable to great And I have to be honest I'm probably gonna give this pay-per-view I'm i'm gonna have to give it I'm leaning towards a seven and a half to eight out of ten Because this this was fun This was a pay-per-view. It was fun, bro majority of the matches that I saw there was literally only like maybe The the mad cat moss match Boring as hell didn't I care for it and omos and bobby lashley was okay at best serviceable at best That's about it. There was only two matches. I didn't care for but the other matches Enjoyed it I enjoyed all uh, I mean there was a total of six matches and I enjoyed four out of the six Thoroughly like actually really well, so Yeah I'm gonna give this a seven and a half to eight out of ten. This was this was a cool pay-per-view. They did they think that They didn't it was great, man I think they they they're on the right track and hopefully they can continue to build pay-per-views that Short simple straight to the point Not too many filler matches not too many unimportant matches that don't need to be on the pay-per-view card Keep building it like that. Hopefully helen and sell is more or less like that, man But comment down below. Let me know did you guys enjoy this pay-per-view? What you rate this pay-per-view on a scale of one to ten and what huge and build-ups Are you looking forward to seeing at helen and sell? Um, I believe it's next month. So let me know down below But I appreciate all the love and support Road to adk appreciate y'all kicking me. See y'all next week. Peace


In this presentation, we will take a look at multiple choice questions related to the statement of cash flows. First question, cash equivalents are, A, investments readily convertible to a specific amount of cash? Support accounting instruction by clicking the link below giving you a free month membership to all of the content on our website broken out by category further broken out by course. Each course then organized in a logical reasonable fashion, making it much more easy to find what you need than can be done on a YouTube page. We also include added resources such as excel practice problems, PDF files and more like QuickBooks backup files when applicable. So once again, click the link below for a free month membership to our website and all the content on it. B, investments that mature in less than a year. C, monopoly money. D, our assets that are not very liquid. E, cash in in the bank rather than physical money. So we'll go through this again and see if we can use the process of elimination to narrow this down. Cash equivalents are, A, investments readily convertible to a specific amount of cash. So that seems fairly reasonable. If we don't know exactly what it is, I'm going to keep that for now and go through the rest of them. B says investments that mature in less than a year. And we might think, well, if it matures in less than a year, then that's more liquid than if it was more than a year. So I'll keep that one for now. C says monopoly money. And that's probably not true, since that's like a game. And then D says our assets that are not very liquid. Now, if we if we understand the concept of liquidity, then we would think that we would have something that would be very liquid because cash is very liquid. So if we want it to be something like cash or equivalent to cash, then we would think it'd be very liquid, not unliquid. So I would think D would not be correct. And then E says cash in the bank rather than physical money. So again, if we didn't really know what cash equivalent is, that might seem reasonable might say, well, you know, cash in the bank is that different than money cash. So we'll keep A, B and E for now. Go through it again. Cash equivalents are A, investments readily convertible to a specific amount of cash. B, investments that mature in less than a year. Or E, cash in the bank rather than physical money. Now, if we narrow this down between A and B, notice that that B is kind of A is kind of a subset of B, meaning like, if we say that B are investments that mature in less than a year, and A says investments that are readily convertible to cash. So B basically sets a time limit of a year. And A seems like it's almost setting a more specific time limit saying that, you know, it's we can convert it to cash really soon. So if we were to say that B would would be a cash equivalent, then we would think that A would definitely be a cash equivalent, A being kind of more of a stringent requirement than B. So on the other hand, if B is a cash equivalent, then it doesn't necessarily if A is a cash equivalent, it doesn't necessarily mean that everything will also be a cash equivalent for B, because A is going to be more restrictive. So because A is a more restrictive definition, I'm leaning towards A would probably be, you know, more restrictive given it's a cash equivalent, as opposed to this one, B, which is actually for current assets. This is the definition or close to a definition of what a current asset is, something that's going to be maturing within a year. So it's not going to be B. I'm going to choose A over B. And then E says cash in the bank rather than physical money. Now this would even be more of a stringent kind of requirement. This would would say that a cash equivalent is basically a digital cash, as opposed to physical cash. But that's not really what the difference is if when we think of cash, if it's digital cash in the bank, that's still cash. I mean, the checking accounts in the bank, and we call that cash. So the equivalents are something different. There are going to be some types of investments that are very, very liquid. So we're going to go with the answer being A. So cash equivalents are investments readily convertible to a specific amount of cash. Next question. The statement of cash flows. A includes assets, liabilities, and equity. B includes income and expenses. C include operating, investing, and financing activities. D, the accounting equation. E, retained earnings, net income, and dividends. So let's go through that again. See if we can use the process of elimination. The statement of cash flows either A includes assets, liabilities, and equity. Now assets, liabilities, and equity is basically the balance sheet. So the statement of cash flows is not the balance sheet. So I would think that that would not be correct. So I'm going to cross that out. B says includes income and expenses. And that's basically what's on the income statement. So again, I would think that it wouldn't be exactly the same as the income statement. So I'm going to say that's probably not it. C says includes operating, investing, and financing activities. That sounds reasonable because that's not the balance sheet income statement or equity statement. D says the accounting equation. That's basically going to be the balance sheet again, assets, liabilities, and equity. So that's not it. And E says retained earnings, net income, and dividends. And that's kind of like what's on the statement of equity. So it would be a company's equity if we have retained earnings here. So it's common stockholders equity. So I don't think it's E. I would think that C then is what would just be there from the process of elimination. And so the final answer then would be the statement of cash flows. C includes operating, investing, and financing activities. Next question. The statement of cash flows is A, another name for the balance sheet. B reports the change in equity. C reports the change in cash by category of operating, investing, financing activities. D reports the change in cash by revenue minus expenses. E, not useful. Let's go through this again. The statement of cash flows is A, another name for the balance sheet. That's probably not the case. Statement of cash flows different than the balance sheet. So I'll cross that out. B says reports the change in equity. And it has a change in change but it's not I don't think it's equity but I'll keep that for now. C says reports the change in cash by category of operating, investing, and financing activities. That sounds pretty reasonable. I'll keep that. D says reports the change in cash by revenue minus expenses. Now that one's a little tricky because it says the change in cash and that's a cash flow statement but then it says it's revenue minus expenses and that's net income. So the reason that's a little tricky is because revenue is not on a cash basis. That's on a cruel basis. So revenue and expenses are typically thought of as a cruel basis terms whereas we're looking at cash flow. So it's actually not D and then E says not useful and we hope it's useful if we're making it. So it's not E. So we're left with B and C. So let's go through this again. The statement of cash flows is either B reports change in equity or C reports the change in cash by category of operating, investing, and financing activities. So B is going to be the statement of owner's equity, statement of equity, or stockholders' equity. So it's not going to be that. It's actually going to be C and that'll have our list here. Note oftentimes when we have a problem that's an answer that has a longer answer, sometimes that's because it's trying to be more specific and eliminate any kind of possibility of being wrong. So if we see an answer that's a little bit longer, then we might think if we have no other idea, maybe that's going to be it because maybe they're trying to eliminate any possibility for incorrectness within the answer and therefore that takes a little bit more lawyer speak, a little bit longer answer. Any case the answer will be C. The statement of cash flows is C report change in cash by category of operating, investing, and financing activities.