11/13/25: WH Refuses To Post Job Data, Israeli Owned Landlord Behind Evictions, Wall St Hysterical Over Lina Khan, Starbucks Strike

Krystal and Saagar discuss WH refuses to publish job data, Israeli owned corporate landlord behind evictions, Wall Street hysterical over Lina Khan, Starbucks on strike. 

Starbucks Union: https://sbworkersunited.org/ 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
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Speaker 1 (00:25):
We need your help to build the future of independent
news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints
dot com. All right, let's get to the jib, shall we.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yeah, So, Emily and I covered yesterday this ADP report
that came out that said that there were, you know,
roughly ten thousand jobs being lost every single week in October,
and that report has taken on a lot more significance
because due to the government shutdown, we aren't getting government data,
so we have to rely on people like ADP who
are compiling data. So yesterday Caroline Lovett was getting asked about, Hey,

(00:56):
you know, when might we see some actual official government
jobs numbers? And she revealed we may just never actually
release the October jobs report.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
So let's take a listen to that.

Speaker 4 (01:06):
The Democrats shutdown made it extraordinarily difficult for economics, economists, investors,
in policy makers at the Federal Reserve to receive critical
government data. The Democrats may have permanently damaged the federal
statistical system with October CPI in jobs reports likely never
being released, and all of that economic data released will

(01:28):
be permanently impaired, leaving our policy makers at the Fed
flying blind at a critical period.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
So she's saying, not only are they not releasing those
past numbers, but they may have permanently damaged the systems.
Pretty wild, Sager, at a time when I think people
are very interested in what direction the economy has added.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
Yeah, they're like, oh, well, we just can't release the data,
especially after they've helped fire the BLS commissioner and now
their new commissioner isn't going to get the votes. So
it's just yeah, interesting, isn't it. Look? In general, even
with some of these it's almost not even necessary when
the only stat that matters is the consumer sentiment. Consumers
are saying that this is the worst economy in twenty years. Okay,

(02:10):
I believe them. Like, at the end of the day,
I don't think that people are delusional whenever it comes
to consumer sentiment, which is based on expectations and based
on reality as well as the lack of change over
the last five years, and every structural level life is shit.
I just think that that's basic, and it doesn't take
a genius or its a bls you know, month by
month data to look at it. And just look at

(02:32):
the basics of healthcare of home and daycare or childcare,
any of those three things, groceries as well, and be like, okay,
obviously things are not trending in the right direction. Also
at the same time, you know, the AI stuff just
hovers above all of us entirely, billions of dollars moving
and changing hands with no expectation of real profit and

(02:52):
the real expectation of a genuine crash put us up
around the screen, like, for example, just show you how
crazy shit is getting. So SoftBank Maso, she's SoftBank has
sold some five point eight billion in their stake in
Nvidia to pay for OpenAI deals. Okay, so he sold
his steak in n Video. According to their more recent
quarterly report in order to help fund their thirty billion

(03:16):
dollars spending plans alone just on open Ai. So they
sold at ai basic stock in order to fund other aideals.

Speaker 5 (03:26):
So this is billions and billions and billions and billions
of dollars. They were talking about one hundred billion alone
that's pledged just to spend on projects here in the US.
And the thing is is, remember with stocks, this is
what we talked about with palent here, with Nvidia and everything.
Everything is built on future value, on expectations. So I mean,

(03:48):
one of the things I just can't get away from
is this is not dot com and that some of
these companies, it's not that they're making no money.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Open Ai is making good amount of money. They're making
twenty billion dollars a year roughly on. But the thing
is is they have a trillion dollars that they have
to spend in the next ten years, and so for
their expectations to meet reality, they're making it so that
you have like a you know, a pretty successful company,
but the value, the inflated value that's propping the whole

(04:17):
market up and everything is about exponential growth for the
next ten years with an expectation of value of six
seven hundred billion in the future. That would be more
than any other company in human industry. So you're like, uh, okay,
I mean that's that's literally the delusion that you have
to believe. So I'm not saying it's dot com as in,
it's not diapers dot com or pest dot com or
any of these places where you know it's totally out

(04:38):
of whack. They do make a lot of money, but
the problem is that the valuation is made, so it's
not you can't just be successful, Like why can't you
just take the win. Yeah, we make twenty billion and
be valued normally. They have to be valued as if
they're a trillion dollar company. And so when you crash
even back to reality, all of us will still suffer
because of the because of the way that market ripples
interest rates. You know how many other oh my god,

(05:01):
I was reading today life insurance companies. A quarter or
something of life insurance is parked in some AI or
data center bets. Right, so yeah, people will die. Right,
we don't even and you have to pay that out
remember aig all of that, like, it's all nothing has changed,
It's all deeply interconnected.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
I honestly, I think it's vastly worse than dot Com.
I do because of the amount of money that we're
talking about here, and because of how much shitty our
economy is now. Like you know, back in two thousand,
we still there was more stuff that we still we
still had more of a real economy. Of course, right,
we were only partially in those neoliberal destruction of any

(05:41):
real actual economic activity. Now we're in this you know,
La la land of just complete financialization and fantasy, where
our entire economy is a bet on AI and so
and the center of the whole thing is in Nvidia. Right,
You've all seen the chart of like here's Nvidia, and
here's all the arrows going circular to this one and

(06:02):
back to that one and whatever. In Vidia is the
center of all of that. And so that's why when SoftBank,
who was a major player, major investor.

Speaker 3 (06:10):
In the space, like major investor in the space.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
When they're like, we're selling all of our stake in Nvidia,
people were like hmm. Now, as Sager said, what they're
saying is basically like, look, we need the cash because we're.

Speaker 3 (06:23):
Still all in on AI.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
This is we need the cash because we committed to
open AI that we're going to make this investment.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
So this is how we're doing.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
It has nothing to do with our insessment of in Vidia,
but it still was very head scratching for people at
a moment when a lot of analysts are looking at
what's going on in AI and saying, this looks like
a giant bubble, and just.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
Ask yourself this question.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
So I was talking about how much how wild evaluations
are and how much exponential growth in revenue they would
need to be able to actually like fund the build
out that they've committed to. We talked about this before,
would take like every single iPhone user on the planet
thirty four dollars of revenue for them for them to

(07:06):
meet revenue projections, et cetera. And then ask yourself the question,
ask yourself the different chat GPT models that are coming out,
are they exponentially better? They're like modest improvements one over
or another. And the story of AI is that as
it gets better, the improvement goes exponential because as the

(07:28):
AI improves and the AI can start to train itself. Now,
what you could say is, okay, well that only that
exponential curve that really happens when you hit AGI, and
then you've got the AIS training the other AIS, and
that's when you get to this exponential growth curve. But
you know, if you're looking for indications that the promise
here may not match the reality of where we are,

(07:49):
I think one very important indication is that after the
chatbots came online and the initial shock of like these
lms and how much improved they are over ordinary search
and like all the things they can do and all
the research that they're capable of processing and all of that, like,
they have not really improved that much. There's still tons

(08:10):
of hallucinations.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
You know.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
I was asking Grog yesterday for Hey, what's out there
that in the Epstein files that were just released that
connects that's like about Trump, Like just every reference that
has been flagged. Can you pull it for me? The
only things that pulled were the three initial emails that
the Democrats had released, and then when I pushed it, it

(08:31):
was like, no, this is it.

Speaker 3 (08:33):
So I mean, and.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
I'm sure you guys experience if you use any of
these chat gupt or Grog or whatever you use, they
hallucinate and make shit up all the time.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
So again, if this is going to be.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
If this is going to justify the spend and the
valuations and all of the hype in the hysteria and
the incredible mass bet that our society, that thanks to
our political leadership, our society is placed on these things.
You would think that they would be improving pretty dramatically
over this time period, and we just aren't really seeing that.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
I said yesterday, cure cancer or get out. You know,
it's one of the that's what you said was gonna happen.
But in the interim, if you're just doing pornography and
data se and like a glorified Google search, look, I mean,
let's not dismand let's not discounted too much. It's cool.
I like, especially for math, like I use chat GPT
for math a lot, but all of it is stuff
I could do an Excel. It's just that I don't

(09:29):
have to do the actual like formulas there, right, and
I specifically use it for like personal finance. But but
to say that you should totally trust it, I'm telling
you as you just said, oh absolutely, I'm talking about
basic shit like absolutely. I remember once I was like, hey,
when I was looking at Super Bowl statistics like some
NFL stuff, and I was like, well, who won the
Super Bowl in this year? They just said the wrong team.

(09:49):
I was like, that's not true, and you're like, oh, yeah,
you're right. You're like, what's possible. It's one of those
where like you'll say that's not true, recheck it, and
they're like, Yep, you're right. I've done that with math
all the time. It's should We're using like complex stuff
if you ever want to go and calculate. You know,
we talk about mortgages here all the time. So I'm
constantly in Chatchuby team like, oh if I have a
six percent mortgage and this, this and this, just to
be able to talk about it on the show. Their

(10:10):
math is wrong like twenty five percent of the time,
Like yeah, all the time, it's just totally wrong.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
Well, and it was these AI agents were supposed to
be like this huge game changer in terms of oh,
that's what's going to like, you know, really revolutionize and
you know in the corporate space and whatever, and we're
going to talk about it. I mean, I do think that
there is AI job loss, and I think they're in particular,
companies are assuming they're going to be able to use
AI to replace entry level workers. Even though they haven't

(10:36):
really figured out how to do that yet, So they're
just hiring fewer people based on their assumption they're going
to be able to figure that out. But in any case,
like the AI agents have not been, that's not been
a game changer either. So I mean, to me, the
best possible case is that it's you know, it doesn't
ever reach AGI, that it's sort of like self driving
vehicles where it gets up to a point and then

(10:58):
the growth and the traject really stalls out. It's very
difficult to solve that like last mile of the problem.
That's actually my hope because I think AGI is such
an incredible, like looming disaster for humanity.

Speaker 3 (11:11):
And Matt Wallas she apparently agrees with us on that.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
I thot him posting, well, my buddy John Coogan has
described it as He's like, Okay, maybe it won't be AGI,
but it could be like the credit card where you know,
like frictionless payments. Yeah, that was good, you know, and
then it creates more revenue and you know, the frictionless
payment means that some companies can accept. I was like, yeah,
that's all great, but that's not cure and cancer. You
know what I'm saying, well, and I'm fine with that. Actually,
I have no issue, like with a better math machine. Cool,

(11:35):
I like that better Google not worth where currently is,
and that's right.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
I mean my fear is that, I mean, my my
biggest fear is that they do achieve their goals and
try to replace all workers, because you know what what
is better than like a union busted, low wage workforce
that you can exploit and abuse is.

Speaker 3 (11:54):
No workforce whatsoever.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
That's the ultimate capitalist dream, and that's you know, that's
what they're aiming for. That's what they're driving for, is
to make all of us absolutely irrelevant. So I hope
that progress stalls out and that it never reaches that capacity.

Speaker 3 (12:09):
Puts C four up on the screen.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
This speaks to that, so Deep Seek leadership here, warning
that AI could eliminate most jobs in the next ten
to twenty years. Deep Seek, of course, being that Chinese
based LM, which really sort of shocked the world with
its prowess and operates much more efficiently requiring much lower
levels of compute, doesn't require all of this like mass

(12:32):
data center build out that we've seen here. In any case,
he says, during this period, societal structures will also be
greatly challenged. Tech companies should play the role of guardians
of humanity, at the very least protecting human safety then
helping to reshape societal order.

Speaker 3 (12:46):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
I'm not feeling too good about letting like Mark Zuckerberg,
Sam Altman and Elon Musk be in Peter Thiel be
the guardians of humanity. I'm not feeling great about that
direction me personally and.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
Everything to get CCP if they win the AI right right,
So like neither, I don't really want.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
Any any human being, even the best person I could,
most intelligent person I could think of, I don't really want,
you know, that kind of power consolidated in any one person.
So when you see, you know, someone making these sorts
of pronouncements, and he's far from the only one. You
can see this from any number of these tech barons
who are leading the charge here, this is this is
their expectation, and it's their goal, and they're talking openly

(13:26):
about how they are working to upend society completely. And
I think, you know, people are just starting to gain
awareness of what their long gain really is. And it's
hard to wrap your head around because it seems preposterous right,
especially when you're just like messing around with chat, GPT
and GROCK and it's given you bullshit wrong answers. You're like,
this stuff is never going to be that transformationial. I

(13:47):
hope that's true. But you know, the people who are
involved closely and working on this think think very differently.
We have to take that series, of.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
Course, you take it seriously on and I think just
the reason why AI is having so much backlash right
now is because, like people are just not happy with
the economy. Go put B eight up here on the screen.
They don't like the idea that tech titans they're going
to control their entire destiny. B eight please, just to
show everybody, So, how's the economy doing? Corporations say better
than ever, workers and consumers are saying, I'm in hell.

(14:16):
Corporate confidence in the economy is running close to a
twenty year high, while unemployment expectations are closing in on
a forty year high. You just can't get away from
this stuff, and in general people are correct, you know.
Just to back up your point what you were saying earlier,
can we put B six on the screen just to
show you if you read this JP Morgan Report to
drive a ten percent return on our modeled AI investments

(14:37):
through the twenty thirty would require six hundred and fifty
billion of annual revenue in perpetuity, which equates to thirty
four dollars and seventy two dollars a month from every
current iPhone user. Just let that think that's what they're
building their current pe ratios, and you know, investments on
it's just not going to happen. B seven then just

(14:59):
to bake up backup as well. The AI boom quote
is looking more fragile than ever where they look at
the currents versus the three month high, and they also
talk specifically about losses. Open ai is currently projecting that
losses will swell to seventy four billion in twenty twenty eight.
This is what I said earlier. You guys are making
twenty billion dollars a year, twenty billion. That's cool, right,

(15:20):
that's a big ass business. But your capex is seventy
four billion losses in twenty twenty eight, even with modeled
increase in your overall profit. And the journal you know
they're actually doing a great job just by highlighting all
of this is that you know, right now investors are
currently expected to stomach one hundred and fifty billion dollars

(15:42):
alone in open AI losses. One hundred and fifty billion
dollars alone in open AI losses. And that is where
the Chatchipts of the world and others are basically just saying, yeah,
we know it's not that great right now, but it's
going to get better. You have to bank on exponential
growth and all of this, and I'm just sorry, like
I don't buy it. I don't think a lot of

(16:03):
other people should buy it. And in the interim, what
will happen is a crash, like an epic crash. It
could be just like dot Com, or it could be
two thousand and seven. The ripple effects will be devastating
for everybody else. Remember the bankers were all mostly fine
after two thousand and eight. Nobody it's not even just
about jail. They're all actually rich, like if they just
if they held out, like, those are some of the

(16:24):
richest people in America right now. And so even people
who were like, well, I didn't have anything to do
with mortgage backed securities, or even if you never took
out a subprime loan, well, if your commercial paper got
screwed and you got laid off, you still got affected
by it. That's what's going to happen. That's actually what's
going to happen. And I talked about the life insurance stuff,
the people who are tied up in this pension funds.
If you think Dodd Frank fixed anything, I have a

(16:46):
bridge to sell it, or I have a car to
sell you a twenty five percent interest.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
Something I really was thinking about yesterday, and that the
Derek Thompson piece we had about how corporations are, like,
you know, they're feeling great. Their sentiment is an all
time high z sumer sentiment as an all time low.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
Is you know, used to be that.

Speaker 2 (17:04):
I think there was a good case that you could,
like good free market case you could make that like
if you give the corporations what they want, they're going
to grow. There's going to be more jobs. That's going
to benefit America more broadly. What it was like, what's
good for GM is good for America? Like that that sentiment.
It wasn't total leidu, but it had some true.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
It was a lot more true than AI is now.

Speaker 3 (17:26):
Now.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
The best thing you can do as a corporation is
to lay off your workers, right I mean, it's always
been the case that those sort of cost cutting is rewarded.
But I think the relationship between how your average American
is doing and how corporations are doing it's not only
not correlated anymore, they're actually directly at odds with one another.

(17:46):
So the better that corporations are doing in the stock market,
the worse that your average person is doing. And AI
makes it so that that is like dramatically obviously true.
We can put C five up on the screens talking
about these like gen Z workers who are coming into
the job market right now, and they talked to you know,

(18:09):
one of the bosses gave the New Yorker this quote,
there's just no reason to deal with young employees.

Speaker 3 (18:14):
AI is taking entry level jobs.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
What happens when gen Z ers can't start their careers
starts off with this truly like heartbreaking story about this
guy who you know, did the whole thing, went to
good college, gets the job at the consulting firm.

Speaker 3 (18:29):
And what is his job.

Speaker 2 (18:30):
His job is to go in and help different companies
like Automate use implement AI to automate certain processes so
that they don't need as many workers. And then lo
and behold, he automates himself out of existence. You know,
it's the modern day version of It reminded me of
that ad that Obama did famously against Mitt Romney, where

(18:51):
the guys like build built the stage on which their
own layoffs were announced.

Speaker 3 (18:56):
It's sort of like the AI version of that.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
He built out the automated process that allowed his own
firm where he was a high performer because he was
really great at using a you know, building out these
AI price processes for different companies. He built out the
process that replaced himself. And so, like I was saying before,
even if companies haven't totally figured out how to replace

(19:20):
entry level workers.

Speaker 3 (19:20):
With AI, they assume they're going to.

Speaker 2 (19:23):
And they're very uncertain about the state of the economy
right now anyway, the tariffs and Trump and you know,
things feel a little wobbly and not sure that we
want to like bring on a bunch of people right
now anyway, So, you know, the the zoomers are coming
out of college increasingly, there just isn't that entry level work.
And so if you never go through that process of
doing the you know, the shit work of the I'm

(19:45):
going to compile the spreadsheets and do the analysis and
crunch the numbers for the higher ups. How does that work? Like,
what does that even? What does that even look like
in terms of a workforce. So you know, these are
dynamics that are already taking taken hold at a time
when the I promise has not reached it's full fruition
or anything close to what is being ultimately.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
Yeah, exactly with the Scott work. Yeah. No, like the
whole no, all entry level work is Scott and the
whole reason is not to gain skill. It's to acclimatize
to the workplace. Is to like learn basic norms about
how to send emails and what it's like to be
an adult. Like that's ninety five percent of it, you know,
And what you do is through osmosis. You see other

(20:24):
people do a little bit more complicated work, and you're like, oh,
that's how you approach that, and then slowly you get
handed a little bit of responsibility. But I mean, what
does everybody whoever wants to join the workforce say, I
just need an opportunity to learn a little bit of something. Yeah,
that's what you're ultimately hiring for, especially when you're looking
at a twenty two year old straight out of college
or an eighteen nineteen year old who's coming out of
trade school. When no one's hiring you for your skill,

(20:46):
it's for your ability to learn, that's it. And so
if you take that out, it's devastating, you know, I
think for a lot of younger people. Okay, let's move
the landlord shall We been wanting to cover the story,
I just think I mean again classic just nobody wants
to touch it because of spooky labels around anti semitism, etc.

(21:07):
Let's just say from the top, this is not in
any way anti Semitic. What we're trying to do is
just cover the story of housing, which the Nation highlighted
in a way that I have seen very rarely reported
on from the New York Times or from anybody else.
So they're the people who did the work, and so
they're going to get the credit for it. And of
course the only reason that it's not being able to
be published anywhere else is because people are afraid of

(21:29):
being criticized. So let's put this up here on the screen.
What the Nation did is highlighted quote the eviction Kings,
one of Israel's biggest companies, how is taking over huge
swats of us real estate and how tenants are paying
the price. So they specifically highlight these stories about how
a company, for example, they highlight this one person who
went down and during an eviction hearing and they say,

(21:51):
how did you get to court? Quote. He could have
told her about the company that brought Conrad at Concord
Mills in Charlotte, North Carolina in March of twenty twenty two,
the one that they had installed a new slew of
gadgets that he said he didn't need before raising rent
by nearly four hundred a month. He could have told
her about eviction notices that the company kept filing against him,
the ones that came, he says, with an onslaught of
fees that virtually guaranteed he'd never be able to fully

(22:12):
back into his feet. He could have told her about
the accident that ended up tearing up his leg two
weeks prior, causing him to need help just to get
from his park truck into the courtroom. Talked about going
through it because he had nowhere else to go. In
the eyes of the court, it didn't matter he owed
money that he didn't have, so he was thrown out
May of twenty twenty four and spent the following months homeless,
showering at rest stops, sleeping in his truck. And what
he specifically talks about is this company, referred to as

(22:34):
American Landmark, a major corporate landlord with some thirty four
thousand units concentrated in one hundred and eleven mega complexes
like Conrad across eight southern states North Carolina, Florida, and Texas,
nearly two thirds of properties purchased after the COVID pandemic began,
and the company with private equity structure that allows investors
from all over the world to bet on the growth
of real estate portfolio. It is now America's thirty fourth

(22:56):
largest landlord. They say based on a review by the Nation,
entire investigations of thousands of records from dozens of properties,
as well as an interview with its CEO, it's clear
that the company model inevitably leads to frequent displacements of tenants,
and specifically, what they all do is they look at
some forty three different tenants who faced eviction notices from
across the American South and the Sun Belt. They report

(23:18):
a wide array of issues that they say led to
their case and specifically to get to the Israel connection.
What they say is that because American Landmark is owned
entirely almost by Elco, one of Israel's largest corporations. For years, Elco,
via its electric superbrand, has done extensive business quote in
Israeli settlements in West Bank and East Jerusalem, and they

(23:41):
drive many thousands of Palestinians obviously from there. Elgo has
maintained deep ties to the Israeli military and of course
has been long part of like the Israeli establishment. You
can say all of that objectively. This is an objective
fact that you have a landlord here which is operating
in the US. And one of the reasons I think
that this is worth highlighting is the problem of corporatized
landl organization. In the first place, no one is saying

(24:02):
Israel controls everything. I want to be very clear about that.
It's the thirty fourth largest landlord, but it's emblematic to
me and I thought of this nation story in the
same way that we can worry about Chinese purchases of
large swats of farmland or any foreigners. By the way,
anybody ever go down to Miami. Do you know what
percent of Miami is owned by people with foreign addresses.

(24:23):
It's crazy New York City, San Diego, Los Angeles, Chicago.
Here in DC. Foreign ownership of land is a huge problem,
and especially when it turns into a financialized instrument, like
in these big mega towers across the Sun Belt. One
of the promises of the Sun Belt is it's cheaper
to live there as well. A lot of people move
down there. Well, you know what's happening is they're all

(24:45):
getting rolled up into these giant you know, equity investments
for private equity that's yielding money now to who knows who,
from Israeli companies to Chinese companies, Russian companies, sketchy Brazilian companies,
money laundering from all across the world. And the people
paying the price are us who have to pay a
couple of thousand dollars a month to run and who

(25:06):
are having gadgets and all these other things put in there.
So I thought, I thought it was just a good
piece to demonstrate how when you have this financialization plus
internationalization of America's housing market, this is the end result ultimately.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
And the other connection here, I mean the fact that
this company is so deeply involved in what are illegal
settlements in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem. Think of
what they're doing there, They're actively pushing Palestinians off of
their land. And then think of what they're doing here,
which is what the Nation documents is they're using all

(25:41):
these additional fees and tricks to push Americans now out
of their homes and at nine times the rate of
your average landlord. And you know, this is what a
lot of big management companies want to do. They like
to push people out of their houses. Why because in

(26:02):
a lot of places you have restrictions on how much
you can hike the rent. So long as someone is
occupying that apartment, when they leave, you can jack up
the rent much further. We've actually seen this with some
of these ice raids, like the apartment building in Chicago.
There's some indications that what happened there is you had
a sleazy slumlord from out of state, not out of country,

(26:24):
but from out of state who wanted to kick a
bunch of tenants out of the building to make it
easier on them so they could, you know, reset the rates.
And so what they did was effectively like call in
ice to clear everybody out of that building. And you know,
that appears to be part of what it looks like

(26:44):
that may have been the story too with the whole
trender Ragua apartment building in Colorado as well. So there
are lots of tricks that landlords use to try to
kick people out of their apartments so that they can
hike up the rent even further than they would.

Speaker 3 (26:59):
Otherwise be allowed to do.

Speaker 2 (27:01):
And what this documents is this Israeli company is apparently
like they have really innovated in terms of the tactics
that they use, the predatory, exploitative tactics that they use
to make it so people cannot stay, cannot possibly afford
the fees and the add on additions in order to
stay in their apartment, and so they end up out

(27:23):
on the street.

Speaker 3 (27:24):
I mean, this is why.

Speaker 2 (27:25):
When we talk about the first of all, I think
it's a moral to work with a company that is,
you know, participating in the illegal settlements in the West Bank.

Speaker 3 (27:35):
That's number one.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
But number two, you know, when we talk about the
housing market and we think about like the abundance style
solutions where you're just you know, trying to relieve permitting
issues and build out more, it's like, yes, that is
part of the problem. But if you're not confronting these
issues with you know, entrenched capital interests, then you're only
dealing with one sliver of what the issue is here.
You have to tackle all of these problems, and this

(27:58):
is certainly one of them. The other one, you know,
that we've talked about before is like the algorithmic price
fixing in the rental market as well. And you know,
the rental market and the home ownership markets can be
deeply connected in terms of what people are able to afford.
So in any case, you know, there you go, this

(28:19):
Israeli company that works in the settlements kicking Palestinians off
of their land, also working here at home to kick
you and other Americans out of your head.

Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah, and I think what it highlights is just how
you know, structural it is, how difficult it is, you know,
to even get your foot in the door here. You
just have to be extraordinarily lucky. Like if you want
to make it in a high cost of living today,
good luck man, seriously. And I hate to say that,
I really do, because the promise of cities was that

(28:47):
people could come here if they wanted to. Unlike Ben
Shapiro not saying you have to leave, you know, if
you're but the promise always is it's like this is
where the action happens and the network effects and you
get to meet people. But you can't do that and
then stay for a while. If you make it so
that only the top point one percent are the people
can afford to live there, that's sick. Actually, it's right.

Speaker 2 (29:10):
You have to move when you have kids because there's
just no way that you could afford to raise a family. Yeah,
I mean, I mean that really hollows out the heart
and soul of place. One of my buddies is just
completely childless.

Speaker 1 (29:19):
I was just talking to one of my buddies. All right.
Here in northern Virginia, we have the most expensive county
for the first five years of daycare. Daycare cost right
now Arlington, Virginia is one hundred and forty six thousand
dollars over five years, one hundred and.

Speaker 6 (29:35):
Fifty grand for five years.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
All right, what's the point of even fucking working at
that point? What's your after tax income? Whenever you look
at daycare and then oh but if your wife doesn't
work that twenty or your husband, I don't judge, you know,
whoever doesn't want to work. Whoever doesn't want to work,
Oh well, then good luck saving up for your down payment.
And if you do happen to have a down payment,
guess what. The boomer down the street, he's got cash
in this portfolio and he's going to buy you out,
and he's going to make sure they we don't even

(30:00):
have a chance. And then you're gonna end up living
ninety five minutes outside of town in a three bedroom
rancher built in nineteen sixty with the luck of living
on a quarter acred lot if you can afford it,
and if you overcome everything I just discussed. Put D
two up here on the screen. For example, the median
age of a US home buyer is now sixty one

(30:20):
years old. Okay, sixty one, all right? The share of
first time buyers has now fallen to a record low
twenty one percent. Does anyone want to riddle that one
for me? And you know, everybody gets mad at me
about my war on boomers and talking about property tax
on this is why sixty one that's the median? Does
everyone remember median from elementary school? So what does that

(30:42):
tell you about the number of people over the median
who are over the age of sixty one who are
purchasing houses and how skewed the market is. This is
like call this is literally the grounds for like violent revolution.
Whenever we talk about landlords property ownership, and you people like,
I'm the nice version of what's coming, just so you
all understand, Like, and they're trying to pass this stuff
exempting themselves from property tax and from school tax to

(31:05):
make so that not only do you not afford a house,
but they don't have to pay for your children's school.
Like they don't get it. Sixty one is insane. That
is the sign of the sickest society on earth that
prioritizes people who are on their way out making instead
of the people who are you know, on their way in.
And it's not just for me, okay, I'm okay, but
I know too many people who are not okay, who

(31:28):
have to make really difficult choices, and very often they
either have to leave their job or leave the place
where they actually want to live because it's way too
expensive and structurally things are not designed for your flourishing
whenever you have children versus when you're older in the country.
You cannot look at that chart and tell me otherwise. Yeah,
And this landlord story is definitely part of it. I

(31:49):
mean here in Washington people I literally know people paying
three four thousand dollars a month in rent forty eight
thousand dollars a year after tax income. I'm talking not
that like two three bedrooms all right, not big And
these corporatized places, it's the same thing. They slap it
with all these fees and you know they're console gym

(32:10):
in a pool and all this other stuff. And the
next thing you look, know, if you look at the
itemization of all this stuff, if your increase in rent,
that's where it all goes. It's and then apparently it's
being pushed by all of this. How are you supposed
to work your way out of it? I genuinely don't
see a way that you can. And these are people
that are all making good money, that's the craziest part.
So what if you're not making good money? Then what
do you do?

Speaker 7 (32:28):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (32:29):
You just will do what leave?

Speaker 2 (32:30):
And then they're like, I can't believe these young people
voted for Zoron. He's such a radical, Like you're lucky
that that's what they're You're lucky is a nice version,
the mean version, Yeah, hopefully we're not going to find out,
but at least Trump is solving it with the fifty
year mortgage, So then that's going to make everything better.

Speaker 6 (32:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
Yeah, Well, apparently the idea was so terrible we put
C three up on or D three up on the screen.
Apparently the idea was so terrible that even like you know,
within the White House, they were like, what the hell
are we talking about here? Proposal wasn't fully vetted by
top Trump administration officials. Apparently this guy what's his name, Polty,
the same guy, yeah, Bill Poulti, who's like scouring records

(33:13):
to find how Letitia James like checked the wrong box
one time on some mortgage application, and he's using that
to jump charges against Trump's enemies. That same guy as
the one who came to Trump with this meme about
FDR did the thirty year mortgage, and so you're going
to do the fifty year mortgage and you're both great presidents.
And Trump just saw that and was like, oh, yeah, great,

(33:34):
love that love that idea. And I don't know if
I've ever seen such immediate sort of horror, visceral horror
at a wonky policy proposal from across the ideological spectrum
as I've seen at this.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
Yeah, well, I mean, first of all, we're coming off
of the cost of living twenty twenty five backlash, who
is Zaura Mumdani election in New York City? And what
we're also looking at here is this is the question
of our time. Like, I really am coming back to this.
Can we pull over an element I didn't get to
it in our last block C three, Please just pull

(34:07):
it over here. I've referenced it a couple of times
here on the show. But this is that study which
says that rising housing costs have cost some fifty one
percent of the total fertility rate decline between the two
thousands and the twenty tens, and some seven percentage points
fewer young families in the twenty tens. That will only
be compounded by a factor of like five, considering the
fifty percent increase in housing that has come since twenty

(34:28):
twenty one alone, and from gen Z and younger millennials
people like myself. So if you put that together and
you can just see the existential nature through which lack
of property ownership, lack of stake, and lack of hope
for people have for a foundation of the future. It
is not a surprise of not only politics, but of
like everything. And you know, I have all these boomers

(34:48):
in my replies. We're always like, well, you have no
idea if you look at you know, housing and costs
and all that. Guys, Look, facts are real. You can
go and look. The average home home buyer in nineteen
eighty five was twenty nine years old. I've remember that
graphic I used to put up all the time about
nineteen seventy one, where if you look at the median wage,

(35:10):
medium home price, medium cost of car, and everything, it
was just dramatically more affordable. Like, I won't be lectured
by people who were literally able to buy a home
in the nineteen eighties and then experience the bowl markets
of the nineteen nineties and made an absolute shit pot
of money, and then are using the political system to
their own benefit into lobby for property tax deduction, free
social security, free health care, and every other free thing

(35:32):
that they can possibly think of. So I don't know,
I look at that study, I look at the you know,
the modern election. Like you said with Zora on their
calling of radical, I mean, in my opinion, like it's
nothing compared to what is.

Speaker 2 (35:46):
Coming I mean his policy platform actually is quite moder
or like if you pull the entire population, every single
one of the things that his core promises that he
ran on and gets the majority support, So he is
actually the median, like the moderate in terms of where
the population is. I think you have another update for
us those dager Oh yes, Israelly influence on ourselves.

Speaker 1 (36:07):
I've been wanting to I've been wanting to cover this
for a while since we broke that story about Alexandrovitch.
Just an update for everybody. Let's put it up here
on the screen in case anybody I have not forgotten. Please,
I've not forgotten about the story. I do still track
it and I have people in Vegas who send me tips.
A little bit about this. Put D four up there
on the screen just so I can break it down.
You'll remember Tom Alexandrovitch, the Israeli cybersecurity official who was

(36:30):
ensnared in a bust where for Las Vegas PD and
HSI at the Homeland Security at the Homeland Security Agency
teamed up where they were chatting with men on these
apps proposing as underage as underage teenagers in this case
a fifteen year old girl and basically luring these individuals

(36:51):
in for an operation to try and get you know,
people would be pedophiles off the streets, and so this
is really official. Tom Alexandrovitch was taken into custody. He admits,
under waves his miranda rights, he admits in the interrogation,
starts dropping all these hints about meeting with the FBI,
meeting with the NSA, immediately flies back to Israel after

(37:14):
posting bail. He appears via zoom in court from Israel,
and his most recent defense all hinges on APP verification. Okay,
so the lawyers, by the way, very pros were lawyers
who are representing this man in Vegas are challenging the
undercover officer because they're saying that because the APPS terms

(37:35):
of service say that you have to be eighteen to
use it, that he had reason to believe that the
person he was chatting with was eighteen years old. Belies
the fact that in the transcript they're like I'm fifteen.
Like say like, I am fifteen years old, and he
under again, you can go and read the docs that

(37:55):
I released. He waves his miranda and basically admits to
it while he's testifying or not testified but he's been questioned,
presumably not under THEE in the interview with FBI officials.
It's all out there, you know, directly. A second officer
testified that a source shown to Alexandrovitch in the video
call said they said, quote of age just over eighteen.

(38:15):
The decoy literally said, quote, I'm only fifteen. I'm only fifteen.
I'm not allowed in over since I'm only fifteen. Said
it twice in the transcript, according to the grand jury
documents that have been released. So during the interview, Alexandrovitch
is saying, oh, well, she pushed me to show up
in an uber with a condom in my pocket. Okay,

(38:35):
let's take her to circ to Sole. So good luck
with that in court. I don't know, I mean could work.
He has remained out of custody and out of the country.
He's on a ten thousand dollars bail and the Clark
County District Judge will be hearing petitions on November twenty fourth.
Trial is scheduled for March, so we'll see, we'll see
how it goes. And remember, all of this is happening

(38:56):
to all of this is happening in absentia. He's not here.
He's not committed to coming back. It's all coming by zoom.
The judge actually admonished the lawyer earlier for not for
not appearing even via zoom and saying that the lawyer
needed his her needed permission for all of this. So
we're still following the case and these Raelis and other

(39:16):
people are just hoping this stuff will go away. But
we will continue to keep you guys updated.

Speaker 2 (39:23):
All right, Well, we were talking about zoron before. Let's
go ahead and check in on how the Wall Street
types are handling his victory in New York City.

Speaker 3 (39:31):
Here is the.

Speaker 8 (39:31):
NBC wealthy who might be looking for a therapist after
yesterday's election, and more importantly, we're looking for therapy when
they heard that Lena Kham was joining the transition.

Speaker 7 (39:43):
Team, which just goes to show you looking back at
the Biden administration. I mean, she had a very important
job in the and we had her on all the time,
and her I think we should have her back and
talk about let's just let's just know, okay, so as
long as we know, I mean, she is a sure no,

(40:04):
but that's why she was running a very important yes.

Speaker 8 (40:09):
Well no, I wonder what I wonder what it pretends
for business in New York. It was funny, it's a
great business. A number of business leaders in New York
reached out to me yesterday. I was traveling back from London,
and it wasn't even the election result itself, it was
when it was when this Lena Khan announcement was made.

(40:30):
It was like they were sort of like frozen in
place and talked. I mean, some of the texting and
back and forth was more about sort of what it
happened to the merger business, and obviously there's a lot
of bankers in this city, financiers in this city, and
sort of what the approach is. I don't know if
she's gonna have a role in the future, Can she

(40:51):
do though future group or not?

Speaker 6 (40:53):
What my question was, this appears to nationalize a city
mayoral staff, right, instead of saying we're going to operate
the city as good managers, which is what the mayor's
job is. It somehow makes it seem like we're going
to be a platform for some national ideological I don't know.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
The way Lena Khan freaks these people out is absolutely amazing.
And of course they're referring there to the fact that
she's been named to be part of the Zoran transition team.

Speaker 3 (41:22):
And I mean it's just wild soccer because like.

Speaker 1 (41:24):
Yeah, you would think she was some swashbuckling corporate destroyer.
Like look, no offense, Lena. I'm a fan. You know,
you definitely did some good work, but let's be honest
about what really went out undid administration.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
Like I think by any reasonable metric, she was the
most effective Biden administration official. Yeah, like genuinely like trying
to deliver even if they're small victories for consumers. Also,
you know, involved in these big you know, pushback on
these giant mergers. And that's why they absolutely hate her.
I mean the war on her for the Wall Street
Journal that Matt Stoler tracked was unhinged. And so now

(42:00):
not only they have Zoran, but they have Lena Khan
in New York City and they are just losing their minds.
And I mean they ask a good question like, Okay, well,
what is she actually going to be doing, because when
she's at the FTC, like that makes sense, you're dealing
with all of these giant mergers and pushing.

Speaker 3 (42:13):
Back on them.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
But what are you going to do at the new
York City level, and there's reporting from Somemophore this morning
from Ben Smith that says, I'll just read you what
they write here about how she's seeing.

Speaker 3 (42:25):
Her role in New York City.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
Lenacon thinks beers at Yankee Stadium are too expensive and
that she has a law on her side. Since the
progressive antitrust crusader was added to Mayor Alexor on mum
Donnie's transition team, the business community she harangued as Chara
during Joe Biden's Federal Trade Commission has been puzzling over
what she might be up to local politics. After all,
it is a strange soapbox for trustbusting or federal law
reigns well, people familiar with the transition have an answer.

(42:50):
Khan has been scouring city and state laws, some overlooked
by past mayors and some too new to have been
tested yet for legal footing for Mom Donnie's priorities. It's
a skill set the Yale trained lawyer wielded while running
the FTC, where she dusted off laws some dating from
the early twentieth century and food companies under novel theories
of harm. Excavating and enforcing the law is how one

(43:10):
transition advisor put it. Leaner herself spoke some to this recently.
Let's take a look at that.

Speaker 9 (43:15):
Coming from the FTC, I'm going to be especially focused
on things like how do we make sure that we
have a full accounting of all of the laws and
authorities that the mayor can unilaterally deploy. I think one
thing that was really shocking to me at the FTC
was just how much dormant and unused and under used
authorities had just been on the books, Like literally, Congress

(43:38):
had passed laws sometimes saying things as uncontroversial as it
should be illegal to say your products are made in
America when they aren't, and sometimes they had just been
ignored by the FTC and not really enforced. So, you know,
I want to make sure that to the extent that
the city has a robust set of laws that the
mayer can enforce, that we're going and understanding what is

(44:00):
the full authority.

Speaker 2 (44:02):
And I think it's I think putting her on the
transition team is very important, both substantively and as a signal,
because what she is good at is, like she said,
they're like scouring the laws to figure out where Zoron
actually has power and what he can do to deal with,
you know, even things like he talked about, like the
hlal cart issues and the soccer tickets being too expensive

(44:23):
you know for New York residents, and those sorts of
things that can improve quality of life and push back
on some of the power of some of the local
interest holders. So in a sense, I think they're they're
kind of right to be freaked down about her.

Speaker 1 (44:35):
Yes, and no. I mean it's one of those where
look for them. I don't know, I don't understand these
Wall Street guys. Did you guys not get filthy rich
under the Biden administration? Like what do we all do
if they literally act as if like she decapitated them.
THEES and P was up like eighty percent under the
Biden administration.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
Yeah, but you're all very wealthy merger bonuses, Okay, I mean,
and that's what I mean, that's a big part of
why they hated her.

Speaker 3 (44:57):
And I mean she was like, on the one hand,
and you.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
Know, we still live in a shitty like system with
terrible rigged rules. Her view, though, was somewhat revolutionary. I mean,
we had had this counter revolution in terms of anti
trust law basically being dormant, where as long as you
could show that like you were lowering prices for consumers,
then it didn't matter how big you were, It didn't
matter how exploitative, it didn't matter if you were Amazon
and screwing over all these third party sellers. The only

(45:22):
relevant thing was price. And her view was no that
you have to look at the broader picture here and
see the way that these consolidations of power have important
impacts not just on price, but on labor, by on markets,
on the ability for small businesses to compete. And so

(45:43):
that was a dramatic change. I don't think they're wrong
to feel like, you know, this was someone who was
a real enemy, especially since she did not any longer
but did have some purchase both with the Democrats and
with the Republicans.

Speaker 3 (45:55):
So I'm interested to see what she has to do.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
We can also check in on the Upper East Side
moms who are equal freaking out in a totally hysterical way,
apparently on Facebook group chats about Zoron's election. Put E
three up on the screen. This was part of an
entire article. E three guys up on the screen. This
is part of an entire article, I think from New
York magazine digging into these these Facebook groups and their reaction.

(46:20):
Upper east Side famously, very very well where Jeffrey Epstein
had his mansion and went for Cuomo pretty solidly, and
so this they write here.

Speaker 3 (46:31):
After New York City mayor race.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
Was called for Zoran the night of November fourth, the
mothers of the Upper east Side began to panic shocked
when Facebook user wrote anonymously in the Moms of the
Upper east Side group, which has thirty five thousand members,
with all my love for New York City, I can't
believe fifty percent plus of the city voted for this joker,
wondering who's actually leaving to wear Florida. Residents of the
neighborhoods synonymous with Gilded Age mansions and tony private schools,

(46:56):
had voted for Cuomo, a staunch support of Israel, who
campaigned on a tough on crime jot to buy a
twenty four point margin. The more than three hundred comments
responding to that anonymous post are full of mothers looking
for property in New Jersey or Florida, predicting that Mamdani's
promise to make buses free will lead criminals to rape
and kill innocent passengers.

Speaker 3 (47:13):
And airing their worries that New York City.

Speaker 2 (47:17):
Is on its way to becoming nineteen thirties Germany. I mean,
the level of hysteria, like you can never point to
a single thing this man has done or comment that
he's made that would make you think he's some Sharia
law implement implementing is longest gie hottist who just like

(47:38):
hates Jews and is going to massacre that. I mean,
it's just completely hysterical, insane thinking. And yet like I
think they actually believe some of this crime, Like I
think they have bought into the green Blatt Adl line
about who zoron Mamdania.

Speaker 1 (47:52):
So I'm gonna say, let me well, first of all, okay,
let me split the difference, because the free bus thing
is actually fair in terms of talking about criminals all
over the New York City subway system. It's exactly peachy
in terms of homelessness on the New York City subway
right now, So let's put that one to the side.
Although even then again, saying raping and killing is like,
I mean, it's we can calm down.

Speaker 2 (48:11):
We could say that they're still aren't riding the freaking
bus anyway, These wealthy ladies on the Upper East Side.
I guarantee you they haven't seen the inside of a
public bus.

Speaker 1 (48:19):
In New York.

Speaker 3 (48:19):
They're on the top ofly in their entire fair point.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
So let's just say, let's protect poorer residents who rely
on the bus from criminal homeless people. Okay, let's say that.
And by the way, that will be a genuine problem
for Zoron if the whole place gets overrun with a
bunch of fentanyl addicts, that will actually be something that
people should focus on now on the nineteen thirties subway
or the nineteen thirties point. This is, in my opinion,

(48:43):
a massive indictment of the ad L and of the
liberal Zionist media project in general, the free press, the
ADL and all this because by the way, all these
ladies they're probably Democrats, okay, or at least voted Democrat
like I voted for Cuomo. They probably voted for Obama
in two thousand and eight, and Eric Adams right exactly, So, like,
let's let's be very clear about like who these people are.

(49:04):
They are consuming a large like media apparatus which is
built on exploiting as much fear of their past as possible.
And I think that that's really irresponsible and drained, and
that's what's led to a lot of this, Like they're
they're actually spreading stuff saying like that. And by the way,

(49:27):
it's not just about Zoran these are it's also about
people like me or you know, like any others who
speak out against the State of Israel. They're like they
are straight up anti Jewish, Okay, that's that's what they, like,
they really believe, like the pogrum stuff, and like they're
buying guns or like afraid for their lives, and like,
I think that's really dangerous because the point that everyone's

(49:48):
been trying to make from the beginning is like Christmas
of the State of Israel is not Christman Jews like period,
And no matter how many times you say it, you
still get branded as a literal Jew hater. And like
I have experienced this, like actually lost like people in
my life and others who are like, dude, you hate Jews,
And it's like I don't, like, what do I have
to say to convince you otherwise? Nothing? Actually, it turns
out like no matter what I say, criticizing the Strait

(50:11):
of Israel actually just whips them up into like such
a state level of hysteria. I guess because of the
way they were raised about you know, Israel is the
only place that we're safe and all, which I get,
but you know, like that doesn't mean that I have
to buy into it. Yeah, I know, it's like but
then yeah, that's the whole problem. It starts to break down.
It's like, guys, you all live here, like, you know,
it's a bit so safe, and why don't you leave.

(50:32):
Nobody's saying you have to stay. You know, it's like, yeah,
if that's your homeland, then go. You know, we don't care. Actually,
but the whole point is just that they have whipped
themselves into a level of hysteria where they actually believe this.
It's so deeply irresponsible. And the ADL and those all
those other people they absolutely are to blame also because

(50:53):
they're whipping them up, you know, the ADL and others
for their own like they have a self interested reason,
like because they're I think a bunch of donations they want,
Like do you guys see how they actually prosper whenever
people are afraid. That's the issue that I have with
all of these like groups is that they've created the
situation where some rich lady in the upper west Side

(51:15):
or East Side is like actually worried about the Jewish children.
I'm sorry, I don't think that that's a major concern
with soorma mini or frankly, in any major American city.
I'll say it. I'll say it, Okay, I don't think
it's a big problem. If it's about an Israel thing,
that's a little bit different, but it's not. You know,
most people, nobody really cares that much whether you're Jewish
or Hindu or whatever. You can mostly walk down the street.

(51:36):
I've traveled the whole country and that mostly never had
an issue. I don't know, like it's like, is that
really why? Why does that feel so that feels transgressive
to say at this point, like they want you to
believe that. It's like being whipped up to a crazy.

Speaker 2 (51:49):
At this point. I think there's genuine rise of anti Semitism.
I think it has everything to do with the practices
of the ADL and the insistence that every Jewish person
be conflated with this genocidal state of Israel, and the
insane censoriousness around any legitimate criticism of Israel whatsoever. Yeah,
I do actually think that that is fueling a significant
rise in anti see the rise of Nick fuent Does
on the right and how many young conservatives buy into

(52:12):
his genuinely neo Nazi views, Like you know, these ladies
and their hysteria are a small subset of what helps
to fuel that genuine anti Semitic rise and sentiment. And
like I said that the insistence that every Jewish person is,
you know, that Israel's are number one issue and that
they're absolutely committed to these genocide that is being committed

(52:34):
against Pallace.

Speaker 1 (52:35):
But that's why that way of fuel actual reasons. That's
my point about the ADL is that there they like
it that way. They want people to be charismatic because
that's their business.

Speaker 3 (52:42):
That's the only way they can make money their business model.

Speaker 2 (52:44):
I mean, that's Israel's entire business model, Like the only
way that like, the more anti Semitism there is, the
more they can make their argument about. That's why we
have to say they have the Jewish state, et cetera.

Speaker 1 (52:54):
So Thephesi incentives, by the way run and everything. How
many years have I been talking about BLM, ac LU
and all these other places who profit off of like
you know, It's like the Human Rights Campaign. They were
dead after the gay marriage happened. Oh and then the
trans thing became their billion dollar new call. This is
the case for all of these bullshit nonprofits just by
the way, and so like that's my issue is that

(53:15):
they're basically doing the exact same woke playbook that they
allegedly criticize people for all over the years. In a
lot of ways, these people are the biggest snowflakes that exists.
Look at read this shit. This is snowflake behavior. And
by the way, if you if you don't want to
worry about public buses, nobody forces you to live in
New York City. Okay, nobody forced you to live in
New York. You chose to actually live in an urban

(53:36):
area you don't want to, right, if you don't want
to worry.

Speaker 2 (53:40):
About to do it, I just promise you the rest
of the city will not work.

Speaker 1 (53:43):
You can live in a suburb and nobody would carry
And I'm not saying, look, everybody has a right to
feel safe and all that. And like I said, I
think that the free bust thing, you know, the left
is going to have to contend with what it's like
to actually have to live in a society and to
police like violent thug behavior for people who are repeat criminals.
Good luck with that, Zorn. We'll see if the BLM

(54:03):
activists actually let you govern the city properly. But that
is actually a very separate question than then whether Jews
are safe in New York City or not. The question,
by the way, again, it should be, is everyone safe
in New York City? Why can't we just say that? Like,
why can't everybody just be safe in New York City?
And of course it's like this, it's like this victim
mentality that has been totally totally propped up by this

(54:28):
entire like NGO industrial complex, which by the way, again
feeds this victimhood. It's sick actually because you know what
why it's bad is you know, I almost feel bad
for them, like they're they're living in a state of
hysteria like online. That's horrible. That's a bad state of
mind to be in. Anybody who's living that way, like
you need help for real. I don't know I blame

(54:49):
anybody about it. I mean, yes, you're also right, by
the way, can I just say Tony's private school? What
a great word? I forgot the use of that word,
the word tony tony as describing aristocratic. That is a
real throw bus. That's some good lexica writing there, vocab.

Speaker 2 (55:06):
All right, well, speaking of class dynamics, I guess we'll
say we've got joining us now a spokesperson for the
Starbucks Workers United union to make a big announcement.

Speaker 3 (55:18):
Let's get to that, all right, guys.

Speaker 2 (55:19):
We've got some big breaking labor news this morning, and
so joining us to make a significant announcement is Michelle Eisen.
She's the national spokesperson for Starbucks Workers United.

Speaker 3 (55:30):
She's also a more than fifteen year plus barista at
the Buffalo store.

Speaker 10 (55:34):
Correct, Michelle, Yes, I was at the Buffalo location, the
first one to organize in the US back in twenty
twenty one.

Speaker 3 (55:41):
Amazing.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
Well, welcome to the show, and why don't you just
let people know what you guys are up to?

Speaker 10 (55:46):
So this morning, Starbucks baristas went out on our largest
unfair labor practice strike on the campaign to date. There
are over one thousand baristas right now in front of
their stores picketing, protesting the company's refusal to return to
the bargaining table with new proposals that meet our remaining
demands and they're vicious union busting, and we are in

(56:09):
over forty cities currently and prepared to escalate accordingly if
the Starbucks, if Starbucks does not respond to our demands, and.

Speaker 1 (56:17):
So tell us a little bit about you know, it's
been several years. We covered the origins of the Starbucks
unionization movement here. What's the life like been with the company,
you know, acquiescing to certain demands that they're been union busting.
What's the relationship for like right now with management?

Speaker 10 (56:32):
Okay, well, it's been a wild ride. It's been four years.
You're right, it has been a significant amount of time.
It's unfortunate that I have to report that the company
spent most of that time union busting, violating US labor
law left and right. They are the most egregious violators
of US labor law and modern history. That's not debatable.

(56:52):
They have found liable guilty over four hundred times. ALJA
judges across the country have found themty of violating workers
rights over four hundred times. There are over seven hundred
pending unfair labor practice charges that have yet to be litigated,
and just this year alone, they committed one hundred and
twenty five more so back in twenty twenty four, the

(57:13):
company approached the union and said, hey, we're done fighting.
We want to reach an agreement. We are promising by
the end of twenty twenty four to reach a fair
contract deal with our unionized workforce, as well as resolved
the outstanding legal issues. They have failed to do both
of those things and instead continued to fight workers every
step of the way and violate us labor lot and

(57:34):
workers are absolutely tired of it. There are a few
remaining demands after nine solid months of bargaining back in
twenty twenty four, that the company has just refused to
give us any real proposals or solutions on, and those
are more take home pay, like making sure their workers
can pay their bills, fixing the staffing issues in our stores,

(57:56):
which are just atrocious. If you've gone into a Starbucks
anytime recently, you'll see very under staff stores. And at
the meantime, at the same time, barisas are not being
given the hours they need to pay their bills, and
then continuing to violate the law and refusing to resolve
any of these unfair labor practices that are just hanging
over their heads and really hurting the brand reputation hurting

(58:17):
their workers, and workers are ready to escalate. Accordingly, we
set a time for the company. We launched the strike
authorization vote a couple of weeks ago. We said you
need to return to us with some resolutions by November thirteenth,
which is Red Cup Day. It's an iconic day for
the company. Here are our demands which have been very

(58:39):
clear to you for the last six months, and they
failed to return. So workers are in action right now
and they're going to stay out there and they're going
to get bigger and stronger until the company does return.

Speaker 3 (58:50):
How many stores do you have unionized at this point, Michelle.

Speaker 10 (58:53):
We have won over six hundred and fifty locations in
forty five states and DC. But unfortunately the company he
did announce that large round of store closures about a
month ago. So there are currently five hundred and fifty
open union locations, and that's over eleven thousand Starbucks baristas
that are unionized.

Speaker 2 (59:12):
And how is the treatment of the unionized stores in
barist as compared to the non unionized.

Speaker 10 (59:19):
Quite honestly, every Starbucks barista is suffering right now. Yeah,
all of the policies that have rolled out under Brian
Nickel have only made workers jobs harder, and they have
not improved the environments in these stores. They have not
improved the customer experience at all, which is why we've
actually only seen our organizing increase under the reign of
Brian Nickel. We've organized over one hundred and sixty stores,

(59:41):
I think just so since he stepped into that role.
So non union or union workers are recognizing that this
company is not willing to step up and take care
of them. They are willing to invest millions upon millions
of dollars in other places, like ninety six million dollar
pay package that Brian Nickel got just the first four
months of his employment with the company. They spend eighty

(01:00:03):
one million dollars on a four day manager's conference in
Vegas this past June. So we know the company has money.
They are obviously not hurting for money, but unfortunately they're
not investing in their hourly workforce, the people who bring
in that revenue, the people who create those relationships with
the customers that get them to come back into these
stores and spend money every single day. They're just they're

(01:00:27):
not putting the money in the right place, and the
unionized workers are fighting very hard to improve this business,
like we want the company to be successful. We want
the company to succeed. It would be counter productive for
us to not want that, and we've presented a lot
of options to the company to help fix these issues.
Wouldn't it be nice to walk into a Starbucks for

(01:00:48):
your peppermintmocha this holiday season and not have to wait
forty minutes, not have to see two or three baristas
running around doing the job of five or six people
because they simply have not allotted enough labor to cover
the business that that store is doing. It's wild to
me when we see or I hear a store manager

(01:01:09):
say something like, oh, well, you know, people just don't
want to work. There are baristas who are dying for hours,
who are begging to be scheduled so that they can
pay their bills, so that they can qualify for these
amazing benefits the company so says they offer, and they're
just simply not being scheduled. So this is not a
matter of not having enough workers. It's a matter of

(01:01:30):
not scheduling these workers enough to cover the needs of
the business and to make sure that they have the
ability to qualify for benefits and pay their bills. So
many Starbucks baristas depend on Snap and Medicaid. Why is
a multi billion dollar corporation have employees that are subsidized
by the government that doesn't. That just doesn't compute. Yeah, great,

(01:01:52):
and so we're just we're done waiting around. Baristas are tired.
This will get bigger. It will be the biggest in
law lounguest strike in company history if the company doesn't
return to meet the demands. And we're asking our allies
to stand with us. For every single barista who's out
there on the strike line, a dozen allies have committed

(01:02:14):
to not cross the picket line and not shop at
Starbucks while workers are on strike. That equates to tens
of thousands of people who are not going to spend
their money at Starbucks this holiday season. So this, this
is a very clear message, and we are We're ready.
We're ready, We've been ready for months, We've been ready
for years. Really to settle this contract. We know it

(01:02:37):
can be done for less than a single day sales.
It will cost less to settle a multi year contract
with the union than less than one single day salves
for this company, less than they paid Brian Nickel by
millions of dollars for the first four months of his employment,
less than they spent on this four day manager's conference
in Vegas, which was over eighty million dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:02:57):
Michelle tell us a little bit more about the those
those allies who have committed to standing in solidarity with you,
and then also, finally, what are you asking of the public.

Speaker 10 (01:03:08):
So we had a sign on letter that went out
from a bunch of different organizations. I believe the total
number was in the tens of millions of of They
represented tens of millions of people, and they all said,
you know, the folks we represent are committing to not
cross the picket line should workers have to go on
an unfair labor practice strike. And here we are, and

(01:03:31):
we're not going to spend our money at Starbucks. We're
not gonna buy gift cards for our kids teachers, We're
not going to go get our peppermint moca, you know,
while we're doing our holiday shopping. We're just going to
stay away from Starbucks will workers or on strike. And
so we've got student activists at their colleges doing the
same thing, talking to their fellow peers, talking to their
administrations about not having Starbucks products on their campuses and work.

(01:03:56):
And we've got labor allies. We've got, you know, the
entire US labor movement, we've got the global labor movement
standing behind these workers because you know, we're all the
working class. Unless you're in the top one percent, you
are a worker and you rely on your employer to

(01:04:18):
to compensate you fairly for your labor, you know. And
so they have just pledged to not cross the picket
line and to not spend their money at Starbucks. And
so what we're asking is that people uphold that we
have a site, no Contract, no Cooffee dot org. You
can go there, you can get up to date information
on striking locations. You can sign our pledge to not

(01:04:42):
cross the picket line and to not spend your money
at Starbucks while workers are striking, and you can join
us on the picket line. Workers are making a sacrifice.
This is the holiday season we are you know, workers
are sacrificing their time with their families, They're sacrificing wages,
they're sacrificing potentially, you know, losing benefits over not going

(01:05:05):
into into work being on strike to protest this company's
failure to return with new proposals that solve these issues,
and failure to resolve these legal issues. And so say hello, honk,
if you see them on strike, join for a little bit,
drop off donuts. Just there are There will always be
more workers in this country. Then there will be CEOs

(01:05:28):
and we have to stand together. So this is this
is that moment, and this isn't This is an easy win,
and I think the company ultimately will see that this
can be settled. This can be settled so quickly. We
could get back to the table tomorrow. We could solve
the issues, We could improve workers' lives, we could improve
the experience for the customers, and overall it will improve

(01:05:48):
the company as a whole.

Speaker 2 (01:05:50):
All right, Michelle, no contract nocoffee dot org is the website.

Speaker 3 (01:05:53):
Couldn't agree with you.

Speaker 2 (01:05:54):
More about the importance of working people being organized. The
lack of that organization, I think is one of the
big things this country is suffering from right now. So
thank you so much for your commitment and the work
that you've done on this front.

Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
Thank you, pleasure, Thanks for watching, guys, We appreciate it.
Friday Show tomorrow, See you then,