April 3, 2021 • 41 mins
Unemployment is NEVER easy and thankfully there is a system in place that helps people with benefits when they lose their job. However, during this pandemic those systems have been overloaded with applications, low staffing and outdated equipment. We’ll take a look at the various notorious groups of people who are taking advantage of that dysfunction to the tune of BILLIONS of dollars.
Plus, there has been a constant battle between the freedom of companies to do business as they see fit AND those who want to protect the environment in the process. My guests say that both of those goals can be managed and achieved.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Follow the Profit is a production of ging which three
sixty and I heart radio. So unemployment is never easy,
and thankfully for all of us, especially right now, there's
a system in place that helps people with benefits when
they lose their job. However, this pandemic has shown us
that those systems really don't work when we need them to.
(00:21):
They're overloaded with applications, low staffing, and outdated equipment. We'll
take a look at the various groups of people who
are taking advantage of that dysfunction to the tune of
billions of dollars plus. There's always been a constant battle
between the freedom of companies to do business as they
see fit and those who want to protect the environment
in the process. My guests and I agree with them,
(00:43):
say that both of those goals could be managed and achieved.
I'm David Grosso, and this is Followed the Profit. You're
looking to get rich quick, Well, this isn't the podcast
for you. When you listen to Follow the Profit, We're
going to deconstruct what's happening in our world economically, politically,
(01:06):
and socially so that you can use your money to
help you. And when it comes to people helping people,
there's one real life raft that all of us depend on,
and everybody uses it, but it's so complicated to implement
and protect. I'm talking, of course, about unemployment benefits. And
it's very likely that you yourself or someone that you
(01:27):
know lost a job at some point through no fault
of their own. You know all the buzzwords around that furlough, downsizing, bankruptcy,
a disappearing industry, or more recently, a government mandated shut
down over a pandemic, and millions upon millions of people
lost their jobs. And if they had a gig that
(01:47):
paid into the unemployment system insurance program, they would get
a certain financial benefit. And because of COVID, the government
has extended and added more benefits to help those affected. So, oh,
that's all fine and dandy, but something happened along the way.
You know who else has been getting unemployment benefits to
(02:08):
the tune of billions of dollars fraudsters. Get this, During COVID,
more than six hundred and fifty billion dollars were doled
out to the millions of people that needed it. The
problem was is that they're doled out to the states,
and the states lead that distribution, and right here in
the state of Florida. We are no exception. Basically, everyone's
(02:29):
in our boat. We were overwhelmed by the number of applications,
and we were under staff and working with some pretty
crappy equipment, and that scenario contributes to another big problem.
There are estimates that ten percent of what we doled out,
about sixty three billion dollars was lost to fraud. And
(02:50):
you know, right now, there's been a bunch of new
money approved with numbers that are so big we fail
to understand nearly two trillion dollars. And what comes next, well,
zero accountability officials are expecting a new round of deception.
So while state governments are trying to minimize fraud, many
real applicants are finding that their files are being tagged
(03:13):
as suspicious, which means that regular people who need help
and who have paid into the system this whole time,
are being delayed or even outright denied. We've all heard
these stories and they're tragic and terrible. So how bad
is this fraud? Well, one expert says that about and
new claims are just good old fashioned I D. Theft,
(03:36):
usually done by organized crime or federal inmates. In Nevada,
In fact, in Beautiful State, more than seventeen hundred claims
shared one home address. Not suspicious or anything. And in fact,
the unemployment claims don't stop within the borders of America.
There have been claims tracked to Japan, the Middle East,
and as far as Africa, and California reported that scent
(04:00):
of the payments made through the pandemic unemployment assistance program
were fraudulent. Woof. So how does all of this bureaucratic
dysfunction get fixed? Well, first, I D verification has gotten better,
there's more law enforcement involved, there are more fraud investigations,
but many experts believe it will be difficult to minimize
(04:21):
the theft. Why do institutions not work anymore? It's a
very curious thing, right. We have a government, They take taxes,
and when we actually need them, they fail us. And
nowhere are they failing us more than when it comes
to the environment. And my next guests are going to
talk about that. So Earth's environment is a massive, impressive
(04:45):
network of ecosystems and they have their own checks and balances,
and you know, our Earth is able to evolve and thrive.
And for the longest time we kind of did whatever
we wanted, but we're kind of running up against a
wall now because of the speed of Hammer's new technology
and of course population growth. Humans have created some of
the greatest advancement in civilization and at times managed to
(05:09):
harm or even completely destroy portions of the environment. For instance,
in eighteen sixty four, the stockyards over in Chicago was
a six hundred acre holding pen for livestock before they
were butchered, and after processing, the animal waste was getting
thrown into the nearby river where it was decomposing and
creating geysers of methane that would of course stink and
(05:32):
from time to time get this light the river on fire.
Let's look at the nineteen hundreds when we saw the
expansion of oil exploration and drilling, and pick any decade
in any country ever since that happened, and you'll find
an environmental disaster that takes place because of the oil
industry that we all depend on. And then there's all
(05:53):
sorts of other stuff. There's chemical manufacturing accidents. You know,
there was a diox in leak in Italy in nineteen
seventy six, a tragic event in Bopaul, India the year
I was born, and a release of cyanide in Romanian
two thousand and We've had nuclear plant explosions most recently
in Japan, industrial waste dumps, mismanagement of mining, deforestation, and
(06:15):
all of these man made events have destroyed entire ecosystems
and rendered parts of our planet just basically useless. And
my next two guests really believe it doesn't have to
be that way, that people can be both entrepreneurial capitalists
prosperous while both protecting and preserving the environment and creating jobs.
(06:35):
My first guest is Trammels Crow. He's worked on many, many,
many residential subdivisions and leasing retail space. He's the founder
of earth Day Texas, the world's largest Earth Day celebration,
and he's joined by his friend Bill Shireman. He's the
co founder of In This Together and the CEO of
Future five hundred and He wrote California's Bottled Bill recycling law,
(06:56):
and is called a master of environmental entrepreneur realism. So
let's welcome you both properly. How are you both doing?
Trammel you first, feeling good, feeling good data. How about you? Bill?
How are things you know? I'm a happy guy. Yeah,
going back to Dallas. That's where you're from, Trammel. So
how did you fall into the real estate industry. I
(07:18):
was born into the it was your father, correct, worked
in the family business, grooming for the family business, and
then at an early age forty three or four retired
and decided to continue. So became invested in the environment
in such a place as Dallas was just natural. The
national press back in the sixties, when things did get
(07:42):
so bad that there was a need for a whole
new movement, environmentalism. I called the bug and believe that
environment was the essential issue of the age. And here
we are a few years later and it still is.
It's our biggest initiator travel, that's correct, and build. You've
jumped aboard this train and it's not really a train.
(08:04):
It should be our priority. So full disclosure, folks. I
was an environmental science major, so I have a little
bit of knowledge. Back before I became a journalist. This
was my field. But we always pin economic development against
environmental protection. So Bill, you've become an advocate of green growth.
How did you see an opening for that? You know?
(08:27):
I think I was born a bit of a hybrid
from the beginning. I think I started trying to start
businesses at age five or something, and had my first
successful one at seven, and another, you know, successful one
at twelve, and so I learned pretty early how to
make money. But at the same time I was growing
up in the sixties, we had the Vietnam War, we
(08:49):
had the civil rights movement, and then we had the
environmental movement, and I became very concerned about the fate
of the environment. And I thought, Wow, I love business,
but business is destroying the planet. So how do I
reconcile that business and the profit motive as a very
positive force that if we are ignorant of it, can
(09:14):
get out of control and can move us in deadly directions. So,
you know, today we have people on the one hand
who say profit is always good and it leads us
in the right direction, and people who say profit is
always bad. And I like to see profit as a
tool that is mostly good, but we better keep our
eyes open when it leads us into a dangerous direction,
(09:38):
both because it will be disastrous and also because people
will be motivated to destroy the freedom that enterprise offers
us if we aren't eyes open to the negatives. So
travel it's really interesting because bills from California, right, which
has gone real hard on environmental protection, and you're from Texas,
(09:58):
so which you know Texas maybe is a bit more
las fair to be quite frank about environmental concerns. Are
these two extreme? Is there a right answer? What role
should business play? There's a lot to unpack there. They
are two extremes, aren't they. That was anomaly in Dallas
(10:19):
liberal from our circumstances and surroundings and build and often
times as conservative where he's at. So it's a pretty
good mixed for us. We both had to deal with
that clawback in Texas doing what we do. We learned
real quickly that only could be done with a pro
(10:39):
business approach. Trammel, tell your initial story of Garrett from
Container Store and so on taking a business sabbatical that
had turned into an early retirement, and how myself doing
civic things around the Dallas Fourth And then one day
two business people of coach me, David Lippman, the founder
(11:02):
of Hotel dot com and Garrett Boone, the founder of
Container Store, and they informed me of a battle that
was brewing with the power company t x U because
they were going to the Governor Perry for the application
for eleven coal fired plants with pretty dirty technology when
(11:24):
they really only needed to use a view of those plants,
and it was a permit grab, if you will. So
it turned out that the business community really did realize it.
As such, we formed this group called Texas Business for
Clean Air, which was the first time in the state
of Texas the words clean and business had been put together.
(11:46):
And uh with the signatures of about two in Texas,
real leaders in their own cities, just ordinary business people,
but giants in their field. With that roster of two,
we could go anywhere we wanted to in the state
capital and lobbied against this thing. It turned out that
(12:07):
it was defeated and that was really the work of
environmental groups working with business groups. Yeah, let me tell
you if the effects that Trammels and the and the
business community have had nationally, California is now the largest
consumer of green energy, Texas is the largest producer of
(12:27):
green energy, and Texas is the largest producer because steps
like that lead Texas to begin to lead in this
new era of renewable energy. California is good about walking
the walk, I guess when it comes to using it,
But we haven't created a good business environment to actually
generate clean energy. Texas has been able to create a
(12:51):
business environment that generates clean energy, and I think that's
a lesson for the rest of the country. So why
do we traffic in these extreme folks? So why do
we go from cities like where you are, Bill, San
Francisco that if you want to change the color of
your door, it probably takes, you know, ten years. I
did that, so I can tell you it's three thousand
(13:12):
dollars so right to Houston that literally has no zoning
and is famous for it. Right that you could build
a church next to a feed lot, next to a
stairway to heaven. It really doesn't matter. So why is
our society, from a public policy standpoint so extreme between states? Well,
(13:34):
part of it is human nature. Part of this an
early difference between this fellow and that fellow in different geographies,
but creatures of our circumstances, how we grow up. And
then what are the industries right there? Somebody might not
really care about the environment, they start working for a windmill,
a windpower plant company, before long their true believers. In
(13:57):
my experience, the reason that there are differences is quite natural.
Every community, I think is roughly half center right, roughly
half center left, and I think that is not a mistake.
There's a lot of theories out there on the right
about you know, the left being, you know, having some
(14:18):
kind of mental disorder, and there's a lot of theories
on the left giving some kind of mental disorder. All
these brain studies that people throw out there to say
there's something wrong with those people over there. But the
reality is conservatives are the protectors. Conservatives appreciate what we
have and want to protect it, and that's because they
(14:40):
have an outlook on the world that says that people
tend to be selfish and nature tends to be threatening,
and that's a healthy attitude to have because it makes
you watchful and appreciative. Progressives have the opposing worldview. They
think that people are mostly self less and that nature
is mostly supportive. So they have this optimistic outlook. So
(15:04):
I call them the liberators. Because you have the protectors
that want to keep things pretty much the way they
are because they appreciate how good they are, and you
have the liberators that want to release what's being oppressed.
Now that's a healthy combination in a society, but we've
divided those two communities into separate silos, and each of
(15:26):
those silos has gone a little bit crazy, with one
silo over emphasizing even the bad and the other silo
condemning the good. And that's an orchestrated outcome that leads
to profit in two industries, number one the political industry
(15:46):
and number two the media industry, particularly the politicized media industry.
It's very profitable to divide people into those two categories
for a lot of reasons. I'm the preserver or whatever
you call conservatives and are married to a protector. So
we're in a mixed marriage and it's healthy. Yeah, it
absolutely is. We complement each other, we fit together, and
(16:09):
that's one of the advantages of our system is that
it lets us do that. But what's happened is that
our political industry has followed the path of colonialism. You know,
the formula for colonialism was always that you enter a
new population and you divide that population. Is if you
can divide the population that you've entered into and give
(16:29):
power to a minority, then that minority remains dependent on
the colonial power. Well, the political industry has kind of
done that. The purpose of the political industry and these
are power brokers and lobbyists and strategists and polsters and
storytellers and so on. And these are all good people,
by the way, they're just following what the profit model is.
(16:52):
They have about a fifteen billion dollar a year industry
that is all about apportioning out the fourth point five
trillion dollar federal budget. So they manage, if you will,
that federal budget on behalf of the interest groups that
they represent. Well, if the people are united, the people
(17:14):
exercise a great deal of control over how that money
is spent. So if you've got a governing majority, the
political industry is kind of limited in what they can
do on behalf of the interest groups that they represent.
But if they can divide the people between their right
and left halves, and we can battle each other, then
the political industry is free to maneuver and manage that
(17:38):
four point five trillion dollars without the interference of a democracy.
And that effectively is what we've done now, with the
left and the right add odds with one another, fighting
their marriage partners, fighting their natural complementary opposites. The political
industry maximizes its profit, but the problem is that that
(17:59):
keeps things pretty much the way they are. It lucks
in power in a way that you would see more
in a socialist economy, and so we lose that vibrancy
of a free market democracy. And that's the problem that
we have today. We're gonna take a quick break. Here,
(18:20):
be right back. So trammell over in Texas. I moved
from the most conservative district in the United States, which
is around Amarillo, Texas, and I moved to New York City,
the most liberal district. In fact, there's a statistical correlation
called the Cook Partisan Index. So I went from being
accused of being a liberal to being accused of being
(18:42):
a conservative. So maybe you were accused of being a
liberal when you said, hold hold it, maybe we should
think about the environmental impact in Texas. What were those
conversations like for you? It was just that experience when
we don't go off to college in the Northeast. I
was considered a conservative and then come back home and
maybe a little bit it had rubbed off. I was
(19:04):
considered a liberal. Anyway, those are healthy two sides of
the coin. And we found what you're saying to be true,
justin in a microcosm a birthday Dallas. The first time
that we had started this birthday, which is now the
largest environmental gathering the world, by the way, and we
had two hundred nonprofit groups, environmental groups and corporations that
(19:29):
had sustainable procedures. And at the end of the show,
two fellas came up to me from an environmental group
and said, Trammel, we were placed right next door to
a corporation. And I thought they were angry about it,
and they said, no, no, this was fantastic. We always
wanted to know that corporation. We met him, we got
to know him, and now we're gonna do something together.
(19:52):
Right there in the first time we had an event,
So that was a lesson that was kind of a
north star for us ever after that, and getting the
corporations and the environment groups that had been opposed what
we wanted to work together. It's worth they've gotten to
know each other. So sometimes we just don't talk to
each other, right, and we have all the same goals
(20:14):
in mind because we have our differences maybe class differences, geography, culture, etcetera.
So you two have an unlikely friendship, right, like, how
do you too meet each other and talk about environmental protection?
You know, the most important issue of our time. How
did that come up? I'm that rare breed. I'm a
(20:35):
San Francisco Republican. You know, I don't always reveal that,
but you know, I've always felt that if you want
to understand the problems, you look to progressives, and if
you understand want to understand the solutions, you look to conservatives.
They really do serve that use for each other. Progressives
know what's wrong because they expect everything to be right,
and if things are wrong, there must be an oppressor.
(20:57):
And conservatives think things are always going to be wrong,
and we got to make him right. So conservatives have
done a better job of figuring out the solutions. So,
you know, ten years ago or so, I thought, you know,
we really got to get Republicans more active in the
environment because we need solutions, and I looked around for
people who were Republican environmentalists, and Trammel Crow, you know,
(21:20):
popped right up. So about seven years ago, I think now,
I gave a call and I was invited down to
the office and Trammel comes in and invites me out
to barbecue, puts me in the behind the wheel of
his tesla, and we drive over and we have a
barbecue together. And really it was a wonderful match here.
(21:44):
Finally I've got another Republican environmentalist that we can partner with,
and it's been a wonderful partnership. Trammel created the largest
gathering of environmentalists anywhere in the world in Dallas, Texas.
Everybody is there, and what I brought to it then
(22:04):
was businesses. We brought in businesses and leaders to actually
engage to solve problems. So how can we kind of
take the best of both worlds. How do we create,
you know, environmental protection but not lose this spark. I
always tell people, young people specifically, Dallas is the number
(22:24):
one destination for any young person, not San Francisco, Bill,
San Francisco is terrible for young people. Dallas is where
you can get a job, a nice apartment, manage a budget,
excellent infrastructure. Texas gets a lot, Right, how do we
bring in this green culture into already a very prosperous
and stable place. So starting what we're doing in Dallas,
(22:50):
where we're not teaching to the require is kind of
step one. Let's go where we're needed to be and build.
Brought that Corporate Sustainability conference to the event. It started
that off so Bill, a lot of people from where
you are are going to where Trammell is and there's
(23:10):
it tends to be a migration from blue states to
red states. But the fear in the red states they're
gonna bring their politics with them. But some good stuff
comes to maybe some concern for the environments, and you know,
maybe we can turn out to have a nice, healthy,
hybrid political system emerging in these demographically changing states like Florida,
(23:32):
in Texas and Arizona and Nevada. You know, the reality
is that Americans across the red to the blue can
get along, can solve our problems. And it's really healthy
for the red and the blue to get together because
we can solve our problems. This angry extremism on both
(23:54):
sides is exaggerated by the other industry that makes a
lot of money for it, and that's the media industry
and social media have followed the profit model of politics.
They have discovered that they can effectively divide people into
these two cohesive, opposing communities by creating a left chamber
(24:17):
in which all we hear in San Francisco are the
very worst, most racist, most hateful ideas and statements of
the right and then a right silo where all they
here are the most arrogant and insulting statements of the left,
and so we're afraid to talk to one another. And
(24:37):
because we're just talking to each other, our extremes tend
to be amplified. And that's what's happening. It's great that
we've got more California is moving to Texas because as
soon as they get there, they're going to be in
a different media market, if you will, and they'll be
and they'll begin to change. I'll tell you a story.
Here in San Francisco, it's a religion that we wear
(24:59):
math asks. So if I walk outside my front door
without a mask to bring the garbage canon, I get
called on it, like you're not wearing a mask, and
I'm like, it's fifteen feet to the garbage can. I
think I could probably do it without, you know, without
infecting anyone. So here, it's a religion that you wear
your mask. I fly to Dallas and it's a religion
(25:19):
that you not wear your mask. So I flew to
Dallas after Governor Abbott issued his proclamation, you know, no
masks needed, and I was kind of piste, like why
are they going to force me to not wear a
mask when I get there, and I was about ready
to attack the hotel registration clerk, you know about this
when I got like, why are you putting me in danger?
(25:40):
And by the time I left Texas five days later,
I was the opposite. It's like, why are you forcing
me to wear this mask? And it all came from just,
you know, the people that I was hanging out with
in both those communities. That's what's happening to us, you know,
at a larger level. And that's why you got a
bunch of crazy people attacking the Capitol after the election
(26:03):
because they've been taught that the election was stolen. And
that's why you've got a bunch of people attacking the
police station in Portland constantly because they think America is
being stolen. We're not that bad, we're not that stupid,
but we are being played. How do we speak to
both sides? We have to legitimately change the language that
we use when we're speaking to each side, because we
(26:27):
traffic in these terms that alienate half the country. Oh man,
we need a lesson, a primer in that for both
the left and the right, because we literally defined terms
completely differently in the two silos. The term black lives
matter means something completely different on the left than it
does on the right. Antifa means something completely different, Intersectionality
(26:51):
means something completely different, diversity, conservative, progressive, all these terms,
and people attack each other because they're using the term
in the opposing way. And we've got to understand that
we are really being played on this, and to communicate,
we've got to cross that center, divide to the people
(27:12):
that we think are hateful and arrogant, and engage to
them as human beings and will pretty quickly discover that
we're actually each other's answers. We're gonna take a quick
break here, be right back, And to be completely frank
with you both, I'm a registered independent and I guess
this is my podcast, so I I can't say this
(27:34):
on TV, but I can say this here. I'm equally
disgusted by the way both of your states are run,
and it's just one extreme and the other, and it's
just like, really, like when the grid failed in Texas,
it's like, really, you're going to come up with excuses
for this? No power is a human right right and
over in California, I don't even need to say all
the things that are wrong in California. I mean it
speaks for itself. What an unmitigated disaster the home state
(27:59):
of my husband. They're just exporting their middle class every
day to other places. So the environment is of course
my number one issue, but there's a lot of other
issues too, and they're kind of all interconnected. Right, But
is there room for people like me who are equally
disgusted this is theater of the absurd, Like, maybe do
some things, maybe don't do others, and maybe don't completely
(28:22):
adopt one worldview or another. Yeah, it's not as hard
as it seems. It's just that we are trapped in
these communication vehicles that make us crazy. They emphasize are crazy,
and then they make us crazy, and we certainly have
gone crazy in California. We've taken a state that is
on a beautiful coastline, that has an extraordinary set of
(28:43):
natural resources, that has this technology that releases us from
being bound by finite resources, and we have created here
the greatest income gap in the country, the highest the
Mississippi Bill, worse than the six worst education public education system,
(29:07):
the highest poverty rate, and and homelessness that, as you know,
is justified as a human right of choice in San Francisco.
People want to live that way, we're told, and we
have to make it easy for them to do so.
We're not getting to the roots of these problems. Were
institutionalizing the problems. We're creating agencies that profit from managing
(29:31):
the problems. And yes, Texas and California can learn from
each other, and we do at Earth X. The magic
that Trammel has brought to Texas is this combination of
people from all walks of life and all political persuasions
that actually get together and discover, Yes, we love the land.
(29:53):
We want to protect it. Maybe we're hunters, maybe we're fishers,
maybe we're sports people, maybe we're birdwatchers. Maybe you were preservationists,
but we all love the land. We all appreciate the
life that is in our ecosystems, and we know that
we both have to protect it and we have to liberate. Yeah, Trammel, like,
(30:16):
I know a lot of fancy people over in Highland
and University Park and they couldn't keep the power on right,
So Texas is fabulous, But you brought up coal plants earlier,
like they can't keep the damn grid on. Do you
think they might have a problem over there. Well, that
was an oversight. So texting to say that that was
an oversight. You know how many times I got that
(30:38):
in an interview Trammel, I got that on tape like
twenty five times. What I mean is we did make
the short sighted mistake of not winterizing. But the charges
that the grid should be integrated into the east and
the west, I can't see that proved. And what happened
there in the big chill, we just weren't winterized. We're ready.
(31:02):
The definition of climate change as a non event made
it here we go, made it politically difficult for Texas
politicians to make decisions to weatherize the energy system because
doing so would acknowledge climate change. So then you know,
the state falls into this problem because it's not willing
(31:24):
to be open to that. Not the state, but a
few politicians. So and then we get into a feeding
frenzy of blame afterwards about well it was the wind
power that caused it, No, it was the it was
the all in gas that caused it, When it was
really our politics that cost him. What happened was undeniable,
(31:44):
and the mentalities are changing. Texans are much more aware
of environment, much more aware of climate, much more willing
to admit various degrees of global warming. So it is changing.
Try well them, tell them a bit about you know,
you're dawning realizations about your political contributions, billions and billions
(32:08):
of dollars being spent by the right and the left
to defeat each other, and us getting together the donor
round Table as an antidote to them. So it really
has had an effect on a lot of people, directly
two kids. Uh. But the event is so diverse that
(32:29):
Bill saw a way to bring in the Dotor round Table,
which is a very small event but aimed just at
these problem solvers, these realists. So we've got the green
Republicans and all kinds of Democrats which are inevitable at
or something like ours, working on the political solutions together,
(32:52):
if you will. Trammel invited some of his friends. I
invited some of my friends to come to a round table.
We brought Republican donor, Democratic donors, independent donors together. These
are people that had spent millions and even billions of
dollars trying to defeat each other. But the polls and
we said, why are we battling and we said, well,
(33:14):
let's begin to put our money together to advance solutions
and recruit a middle ground of Americans, American problem solvers,
progressive problem solvers, conservative problem solvers to work together for solutions,
and we're going to start with the environment because that's
(33:34):
the low hanging fruit, that's that's the common ground that
we all literally stand on. So now we have a
wonderful group of political donors and issue donors that have
come together to create in this together America dot org,
which is a an organization to unite the left and
(33:54):
the right to protect the planet, and we're launching a
recruitment drive to bring five million people together across the
left and the right. That's five percent of the voting population,
so that instead of elections being decided by extremists, elections
are decided by people who are problem solvers in the middle.
(34:16):
You're channeling right into the zeitgeis there because you're describing me,
You're describing all my friends, You're describing my mission at
what I do every day, which is trying to talk
to everyone, try to stop fighting a lot of times
with our own families, we forget why we're even fighting
in the first place. Becomes a Red Sox versus the
Yankees game, and it's like, I don't like you because
(34:38):
you're from a different city that houses a baseball team,
And I think we have to really remember that. And
in the end, it's always the environment that suffers. Like
in the end, like the political class gets their money,
the media makes their money, and then now my backyard polluted.
So we got to change that reality because nobody's speaking
(34:59):
up for Hannity. So you're both doing God's work because
that's really, really, really important right now, not just from
a cultural standpoint, but for the survival of our very species.
Let me make a suggestion to your listeners here, and
you know, we need alternative media and we need alternative
politics that bring us together. Earth x TV is launching.
(35:22):
We've got programming and partnership with bowld TV. We're looking
forward to bringing people to these platforms where we can
all communicate across the aisle and understand the wisdom that's
on the other side. And places like in this Together
dot Org allow people politically to get on the same
page on issues that really matters. So thank you David
(35:46):
and all your folks. I know you guys are working
like crazy to make this alternative available to people. And
we really want a partner with everybody that's listening to this,
you know, and make America united and sane again. Who
I can get behind that. But Bill, there's one little caveat.
We have a little social media problem, and since you're
(36:07):
right there in San Francisco, we might be calling you
for some help because your friends over there down the
street from you are not our friends anymore. We want
to work with you on that. Man. We are ready
to work on that because we're trying our best to
play ball. But oh my god, Like, you can't play
a game when the rules are not disclosed. So normally,
(36:31):
you know, in a card game, Trammel, right, you know,
Texas holding poker, you know exactly what you're doing, right,
Imagine playing it with a blindfold on and you don't
even know where the cards are. That's social media these days,
and you know, and what we need to remember as critics,
we get so angry with the people and the institutions
that are profiting from this, but the reality is these
(36:54):
are good people and they're good institutions that have good purposes,
but they've been trapped in this system and they're trapping themselves.
And yes, they could do more, there's no doubt about it.
But we think we can work with those enterprises to
create the kind of you know, follow the profit incentives
(37:15):
that will bring them back to being a full service
to people. And that's where we want to get to.
It's not about destroying people or institutions or tearing down
the systems. It's about correcting the systems at their route
so that we grow more verdant social outcomes. Yeah, we
(37:37):
got to cancel canceling, that's for sure, that's definitely part
of them. So so Travel Wins. The next Big Earth
Extravaganza over in Dallas again to the world's biggest environmental
event is April of two thousand and twenty two year now.
But meanwhile, meanwhile, folks, you can tune into earth x TV,
(38:00):
website and social media. Well, on that note, gentlemen, we
really appreciate your time and we love the work that
you're doing, and you know, please stay in touch and
we'll be talking soon. Thank you, thank you. Thanks to
all of you for joining me as we follow the profit.
And a very very big thanks to tram Ls Crow
(38:20):
and Bill Shyerman. They were great, They're my aspirational new
friends and their inside into how to be entrepreneurial and
make money while not, you know, completely destroying the planet
was probably the most important podcast I've ever done. And
in the meantime, I'd like to thank our team of
producers of course, Emi Leano Lemon over in San Diego, California,
(38:43):
Scott Handler over New York City, and Cheyenne read right
across the River in New Jersey. And I'd be a
miss not to mention our executive producers, former Speaker of
the House, New Gingrich and his right hand lady, Debbie Myers.
I'm your host, David Grasso. If you're enjoining the show,
please give us five stars. We read those reviews, I
actually personally do so that we can learn what this
(39:03):
show should be about. Follow the Profit is a production
of ging Ridge three sixty and I Heart Radio. For
more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All opinions
expressed by David Grasso and his guests on the show
(39:25):
are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions
of Gingrich three sixty or affiliates, and may have been
previously disseminated by David Grasso on this podcast, television, radio, Internet,
or another medium. You should not treat any opinion expressed
by David Grass so as a specific inducement to make
a particular investment or follow in particular strategy, but only
(39:46):
as an expression of his opinion. David Grass's opinions are
based upon information he considers reliable, but neither ging Rich
Productions nor its affiliates and or subsidiaries warrant its completeness
or accuracy, and it should not be relied upon on
as such. David Grasso, ging Ridge Productions, its affiliates, and
or subsidiaries are not under any obligation to update or
(40:06):
correct any information provided on this website. David Grasslow statements
and opinions are subject to change without notice. No part
of David Grasso's compensation from ging Ridge Productions is related
to the specific opinions he expresses. Past performance is not
indicative of future results. Neither David Grasso nor ging Rich
three sixty guarantees any specific outcome or profit. You should
(40:27):
be aware of the real risk of loss in following
any strategy or investment discussed on this website or on
the show. Strategies or investments discussed may fluctuate in price
or value. Investors may get back less than invested. Investments
or strategies mentioned on this website or on the show
may not be suitable for you. This material does not
take into account your particular investment objectives, financial situation, or needs,
(40:49):
and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for you. You
must take an independent decision regarding investments or strategies mentioned
on this website or on the show before acting on
in nation on this website or on the show, you
should consider whether it is suitable for your particular circumstances,
and strongly consider seeking advice from your own financial or
investment advisor.
Follow the Profit is a production of ging which three
sixty and I heart radio. So unemployment is never easy,
and thankfully for all of us, especially right now, there's
a system in place that helps people with benefits when
they lose their job. However, this pandemic has shown us
that those systems really don't work when we need them to.
(00:21):
They're overloaded with applications, low staffing, and outdated equipment. We'll
take a look at the various groups of people who
are taking advantage of that dysfunction to the tune of
billions of dollars plus. There's always been a constant battle
between the freedom of companies to do business as they
see fit and those who want to protect the environment
in the process. My guests and I agree with them,
(00:43):
say that both of those goals could be managed and achieved.
I'm David Grosso, and this is Followed the Profit. You're
looking to get rich quick, Well, this isn't the podcast
for you. When you listen to Follow the Profit, We're
going to deconstruct what's happening in our world economically, politically,
(01:06):
and socially so that you can use your money to
help you. And when it comes to people helping people,
there's one real life raft that all of us depend on,
and everybody uses it, but it's so complicated to implement
and protect. I'm talking, of course, about unemployment benefits. And
it's very likely that you yourself or someone that you
(01:27):
know lost a job at some point through no fault
of their own. You know all the buzzwords around that furlough, downsizing, bankruptcy,
a disappearing industry, or more recently, a government mandated shut
down over a pandemic, and millions upon millions of people
lost their jobs. And if they had a gig that
(01:47):
paid into the unemployment system insurance program, they would get
a certain financial benefit. And because of COVID, the government
has extended and added more benefits to help those affected. So, oh,
that's all fine and dandy, but something happened along the way.
You know who else has been getting unemployment benefits to
(02:08):
the tune of billions of dollars fraudsters. Get this, During COVID,
more than six hundred and fifty billion dollars were doled
out to the millions of people that needed it. The
problem was is that they're doled out to the states,
and the states lead that distribution, and right here in
the state of Florida. We are no exception. Basically, everyone's
(02:29):
in our boat. We were overwhelmed by the number of applications,
and we were under staff and working with some pretty
crappy equipment, and that scenario contributes to another big problem.
There are estimates that ten percent of what we doled out,
about sixty three billion dollars was lost to fraud. And
(02:50):
you know, right now, there's been a bunch of new
money approved with numbers that are so big we fail
to understand nearly two trillion dollars. And what comes next, well,
zero accountability officials are expecting a new round of deception.
So while state governments are trying to minimize fraud, many
real applicants are finding that their files are being tagged
(03:13):
as suspicious, which means that regular people who need help
and who have paid into the system this whole time,
are being delayed or even outright denied. We've all heard
these stories and they're tragic and terrible. So how bad
is this fraud? Well, one expert says that about and
new claims are just good old fashioned I D. Theft,
(03:36):
usually done by organized crime or federal inmates. In Nevada,
In fact, in Beautiful State, more than seventeen hundred claims
shared one home address. Not suspicious or anything. And in fact,
the unemployment claims don't stop within the borders of America.
There have been claims tracked to Japan, the Middle East,
and as far as Africa, and California reported that scent
(04:00):
of the payments made through the pandemic unemployment assistance program
were fraudulent. Woof. So how does all of this bureaucratic
dysfunction get fixed? Well, first, I D verification has gotten better,
there's more law enforcement involved, there are more fraud investigations,
but many experts believe it will be difficult to minimize
(04:21):
the theft. Why do institutions not work anymore? It's a
very curious thing, right. We have a government, They take taxes,
and when we actually need them, they fail us. And
nowhere are they failing us more than when it comes
to the environment. And my next guests are going to
talk about that. So Earth's environment is a massive, impressive
(04:45):
network of ecosystems and they have their own checks and balances,
and you know, our Earth is able to evolve and thrive.
And for the longest time we kind of did whatever
we wanted, but we're kind of running up against a
wall now because of the speed of Hammer's new technology
and of course population growth. Humans have created some of
the greatest advancement in civilization and at times managed to
(05:09):
harm or even completely destroy portions of the environment. For instance,
in eighteen sixty four, the stockyards over in Chicago was
a six hundred acre holding pen for livestock before they
were butchered, and after processing, the animal waste was getting
thrown into the nearby river where it was decomposing and
creating geysers of methane that would of course stink and
(05:32):
from time to time get this light the river on fire.
Let's look at the nineteen hundreds when we saw the
expansion of oil exploration and drilling, and pick any decade
in any country ever since that happened, and you'll find
an environmental disaster that takes place because of the oil
industry that we all depend on. And then there's all
(05:53):
sorts of other stuff. There's chemical manufacturing accidents. You know,
there was a diox in leak in Italy in nineteen
seventy six, a tragic event in Bopaul, India the year
I was born, and a release of cyanide in Romanian
two thousand and We've had nuclear plant explosions most recently
in Japan, industrial waste dumps, mismanagement of mining, deforestation, and
(06:15):
all of these man made events have destroyed entire ecosystems
and rendered parts of our planet just basically useless. And
my next two guests really believe it doesn't have to
be that way, that people can be both entrepreneurial capitalists
prosperous while both protecting and preserving the environment and creating jobs.
(06:35):
My first guest is Trammels Crow. He's worked on many, many,
many residential subdivisions and leasing retail space. He's the founder
of earth Day Texas, the world's largest Earth Day celebration,
and he's joined by his friend Bill Shireman. He's the
co founder of In This Together and the CEO of
Future five hundred and He wrote California's Bottled Bill recycling law,
(06:56):
and is called a master of environmental entrepreneur realism. So
let's welcome you both properly. How are you both doing?
Trammel you first, feeling good, feeling good data. How about you? Bill?
How are things you know? I'm a happy guy. Yeah,
going back to Dallas. That's where you're from, Trammel. So
how did you fall into the real estate industry. I
(07:18):
was born into the it was your father, correct, worked
in the family business, grooming for the family business, and
then at an early age forty three or four retired
and decided to continue. So became invested in the environment
in such a place as Dallas was just natural. The
national press back in the sixties, when things did get
(07:42):
so bad that there was a need for a whole
new movement, environmentalism. I called the bug and believe that
environment was the essential issue of the age. And here
we are a few years later and it still is.
It's our biggest initiator travel, that's correct, and build. You've
jumped aboard this train and it's not really a train.
(08:04):
It should be our priority. So full disclosure, folks. I
was an environmental science major, so I have a little
bit of knowledge. Back before I became a journalist. This
was my field. But we always pin economic development against
environmental protection. So Bill, you've become an advocate of green growth.
How did you see an opening for that? You know?
(08:27):
I think I was born a bit of a hybrid
from the beginning. I think I started trying to start
businesses at age five or something, and had my first
successful one at seven, and another, you know, successful one
at twelve, and so I learned pretty early how to
make money. But at the same time I was growing
up in the sixties, we had the Vietnam War, we
(08:49):
had the civil rights movement, and then we had the
environmental movement, and I became very concerned about the fate
of the environment. And I thought, Wow, I love business,
but business is destroying the planet. So how do I
reconcile that business and the profit motive as a very
positive force that if we are ignorant of it, can
(09:14):
get out of control and can move us in deadly directions. So,
you know, today we have people on the one hand
who say profit is always good and it leads us
in the right direction, and people who say profit is
always bad. And I like to see profit as a
tool that is mostly good, but we better keep our
eyes open when it leads us into a dangerous direction,
(09:38):
both because it will be disastrous and also because people
will be motivated to destroy the freedom that enterprise offers
us if we aren't eyes open to the negatives. So
travel it's really interesting because bills from California, right, which
has gone real hard on environmental protection, and you're from Texas,
(09:58):
so which you know Texas maybe is a bit more
las fair to be quite frank about environmental concerns. Are
these two extreme? Is there a right answer? What role
should business play? There's a lot to unpack there. They
are two extremes, aren't they. That was anomaly in Dallas
(10:19):
liberal from our circumstances and surroundings and build and often
times as conservative where he's at. So it's a pretty
good mixed for us. We both had to deal with
that clawback in Texas doing what we do. We learned
real quickly that only could be done with a pro
(10:39):
business approach. Trammel, tell your initial story of Garrett from
Container Store and so on taking a business sabbatical that
had turned into an early retirement, and how myself doing
civic things around the Dallas Fourth And then one day
two business people of coach me, David Lippman, the founder
(11:02):
of Hotel dot com and Garrett Boone, the founder of
Container Store, and they informed me of a battle that
was brewing with the power company t x U because
they were going to the Governor Perry for the application
for eleven coal fired plants with pretty dirty technology when
(11:24):
they really only needed to use a view of those plants,
and it was a permit grab, if you will. So
it turned out that the business community really did realize it.
As such, we formed this group called Texas Business for
Clean Air, which was the first time in the state
of Texas the words clean and business had been put together.
(11:46):
And uh with the signatures of about two in Texas,
real leaders in their own cities, just ordinary business people,
but giants in their field. With that roster of two,
we could go anywhere we wanted to in the state
capital and lobbied against this thing. It turned out that
(12:07):
it was defeated and that was really the work of
environmental groups working with business groups. Yeah, let me tell
you if the effects that Trammels and the and the
business community have had nationally, California is now the largest
consumer of green energy, Texas is the largest producer of
(12:27):
green energy, and Texas is the largest producer because steps
like that lead Texas to begin to lead in this
new era of renewable energy. California is good about walking
the walk, I guess when it comes to using it,
But we haven't created a good business environment to actually
generate clean energy. Texas has been able to create a
(12:51):
business environment that generates clean energy, and I think that's
a lesson for the rest of the country. So why
do we traffic in these extreme folks? So why do
we go from cities like where you are, Bill, San
Francisco that if you want to change the color of
your door, it probably takes, you know, ten years. I
did that, so I can tell you it's three thousand
(13:12):
dollars so right to Houston that literally has no zoning
and is famous for it. Right that you could build
a church next to a feed lot, next to a
stairway to heaven. It really doesn't matter. So why is
our society, from a public policy standpoint so extreme between states? Well,
(13:34):
part of it is human nature. Part of this an
early difference between this fellow and that fellow in different geographies,
but creatures of our circumstances, how we grow up. And
then what are the industries right there? Somebody might not
really care about the environment, they start working for a windmill,
a windpower plant company, before long their true believers. In
(13:57):
my experience, the reason that there are differences is quite natural.
Every community, I think is roughly half center right, roughly
half center left, and I think that is not a mistake.
There's a lot of theories out there on the right
about you know, the left being, you know, having some
(14:18):
kind of mental disorder, and there's a lot of theories
on the left giving some kind of mental disorder. All
these brain studies that people throw out there to say
there's something wrong with those people over there. But the
reality is conservatives are the protectors. Conservatives appreciate what we
have and want to protect it, and that's because they
(14:40):
have an outlook on the world that says that people
tend to be selfish and nature tends to be threatening,
and that's a healthy attitude to have because it makes
you watchful and appreciative. Progressives have the opposing worldview. They
think that people are mostly self less and that nature
is mostly supportive. So they have this optimistic outlook. So
(15:04):
I call them the liberators. Because you have the protectors
that want to keep things pretty much the way they
are because they appreciate how good they are, and you
have the liberators that want to release what's being oppressed.
Now that's a healthy combination in a society, but we've
divided those two communities into separate silos, and each of
(15:26):
those silos has gone a little bit crazy, with one
silo over emphasizing even the bad and the other silo
condemning the good. And that's an orchestrated outcome that leads
to profit in two industries, number one the political industry
(15:46):
and number two the media industry, particularly the politicized media industry.
It's very profitable to divide people into those two categories
for a lot of reasons. I'm the preserver or whatever
you call conservatives and are married to a protector. So
we're in a mixed marriage and it's healthy. Yeah, it
absolutely is. We complement each other, we fit together, and
(16:09):
that's one of the advantages of our system is that
it lets us do that. But what's happened is that
our political industry has followed the path of colonialism. You know,
the formula for colonialism was always that you enter a
new population and you divide that population. Is if you
can divide the population that you've entered into and give
(16:29):
power to a minority, then that minority remains dependent on
the colonial power. Well, the political industry has kind of
done that. The purpose of the political industry and these
are power brokers and lobbyists and strategists and polsters and
storytellers and so on. And these are all good people,
by the way, they're just following what the profit model is.
(16:52):
They have about a fifteen billion dollar a year industry
that is all about apportioning out the fourth point five
trillion dollar federal budget. So they manage, if you will,
that federal budget on behalf of the interest groups that
they represent. Well, if the people are united, the people
(17:14):
exercise a great deal of control over how that money
is spent. So if you've got a governing majority, the
political industry is kind of limited in what they can
do on behalf of the interest groups that they represent.
But if they can divide the people between their right
and left halves, and we can battle each other, then
the political industry is free to maneuver and manage that
(17:38):
four point five trillion dollars without the interference of a democracy.
And that effectively is what we've done now, with the
left and the right add odds with one another, fighting
their marriage partners, fighting their natural complementary opposites. The political
industry maximizes its profit, but the problem is that that
(17:59):
keeps things pretty much the way they are. It lucks
in power in a way that you would see more
in a socialist economy, and so we lose that vibrancy
of a free market democracy. And that's the problem that
we have today. We're gonna take a quick break. Here,
(18:20):
be right back. So trammell over in Texas. I moved
from the most conservative district in the United States, which
is around Amarillo, Texas, and I moved to New York City,
the most liberal district. In fact, there's a statistical correlation
called the Cook Partisan Index. So I went from being
accused of being a liberal to being accused of being
(18:42):
a conservative. So maybe you were accused of being a
liberal when you said, hold hold it, maybe we should
think about the environmental impact in Texas. What were those
conversations like for you? It was just that experience when
we don't go off to college in the Northeast. I
was considered a conservative and then come back home and
maybe a little bit it had rubbed off. I was
(19:04):
considered a liberal. Anyway, those are healthy two sides of
the coin. And we found what you're saying to be true,
justin in a microcosm a birthday Dallas. The first time
that we had started this birthday, which is now the
largest environmental gathering the world, by the way, and we
had two hundred nonprofit groups, environmental groups and corporations that
(19:29):
had sustainable procedures. And at the end of the show,
two fellas came up to me from an environmental group
and said, Trammel, we were placed right next door to
a corporation. And I thought they were angry about it,
and they said, no, no, this was fantastic. We always
wanted to know that corporation. We met him, we got
to know him, and now we're gonna do something together.
(19:52):
Right there in the first time we had an event,
So that was a lesson that was kind of a
north star for us ever after that, and getting the
corporations and the environment groups that had been opposed what
we wanted to work together. It's worth they've gotten to
know each other. So sometimes we just don't talk to
each other, right, and we have all the same goals
(20:14):
in mind because we have our differences maybe class differences, geography, culture, etcetera.
So you two have an unlikely friendship, right, like, how
do you too meet each other and talk about environmental protection?
You know, the most important issue of our time. How
did that come up? I'm that rare breed. I'm a
(20:35):
San Francisco Republican. You know, I don't always reveal that,
but you know, I've always felt that if you want
to understand the problems, you look to progressives, and if
you understand want to understand the solutions, you look to conservatives.
They really do serve that use for each other. Progressives
know what's wrong because they expect everything to be right,
and if things are wrong, there must be an oppressor.
(20:57):
And conservatives think things are always going to be wrong,
and we got to make him right. So conservatives have
done a better job of figuring out the solutions. So,
you know, ten years ago or so, I thought, you know,
we really got to get Republicans more active in the
environment because we need solutions, and I looked around for
people who were Republican environmentalists, and Trammel Crow, you know,
(21:20):
popped right up. So about seven years ago, I think now,
I gave a call and I was invited down to
the office and Trammel comes in and invites me out
to barbecue, puts me in the behind the wheel of
his tesla, and we drive over and we have a
barbecue together. And really it was a wonderful match here.
(21:44):
Finally I've got another Republican environmentalist that we can partner with,
and it's been a wonderful partnership. Trammel created the largest
gathering of environmentalists anywhere in the world in Dallas, Texas.
Everybody is there, and what I brought to it then
(22:04):
was businesses. We brought in businesses and leaders to actually
engage to solve problems. So how can we kind of
take the best of both worlds. How do we create,
you know, environmental protection but not lose this spark. I
always tell people, young people specifically, Dallas is the number
(22:24):
one destination for any young person, not San Francisco, Bill,
San Francisco is terrible for young people. Dallas is where
you can get a job, a nice apartment, manage a budget,
excellent infrastructure. Texas gets a lot, Right, how do we
bring in this green culture into already a very prosperous
and stable place. So starting what we're doing in Dallas,
(22:50):
where we're not teaching to the require is kind of
step one. Let's go where we're needed to be and build.
Brought that Corporate Sustainability conference to the event. It started
that off so Bill, a lot of people from where
you are are going to where Trammell is and there's
(23:10):
it tends to be a migration from blue states to
red states. But the fear in the red states they're
gonna bring their politics with them. But some good stuff
comes to maybe some concern for the environments, and you know,
maybe we can turn out to have a nice, healthy,
hybrid political system emerging in these demographically changing states like Florida,
(23:32):
in Texas and Arizona and Nevada. You know, the reality
is that Americans across the red to the blue can
get along, can solve our problems. And it's really healthy
for the red and the blue to get together because
we can solve our problems. This angry extremism on both
(23:54):
sides is exaggerated by the other industry that makes a
lot of money for it, and that's the media industry
and social media have followed the profit model of politics.
They have discovered that they can effectively divide people into
these two cohesive, opposing communities by creating a left chamber
(24:17):
in which all we hear in San Francisco are the
very worst, most racist, most hateful ideas and statements of
the right and then a right silo where all they
here are the most arrogant and insulting statements of the left,
and so we're afraid to talk to one another. And
(24:37):
because we're just talking to each other, our extremes tend
to be amplified. And that's what's happening. It's great that
we've got more California is moving to Texas because as
soon as they get there, they're going to be in
a different media market, if you will, and they'll be
and they'll begin to change. I'll tell you a story.
Here in San Francisco, it's a religion that we wear
(24:59):
math asks. So if I walk outside my front door
without a mask to bring the garbage canon, I get
called on it, like you're not wearing a mask, and
I'm like, it's fifteen feet to the garbage can. I
think I could probably do it without, you know, without
infecting anyone. So here, it's a religion that you wear
your mask. I fly to Dallas and it's a religion
(25:19):
that you not wear your mask. So I flew to
Dallas after Governor Abbott issued his proclamation, you know, no
masks needed, and I was kind of piste, like why
are they going to force me to not wear a
mask when I get there, and I was about ready
to attack the hotel registration clerk, you know about this
when I got like, why are you putting me in danger?
(25:40):
And by the time I left Texas five days later,
I was the opposite. It's like, why are you forcing
me to wear this mask? And it all came from just,
you know, the people that I was hanging out with
in both those communities. That's what's happening to us, you know,
at a larger level. And that's why you got a
bunch of crazy people attacking the Capitol after the election
(26:03):
because they've been taught that the election was stolen. And
that's why you've got a bunch of people attacking the
police station in Portland constantly because they think America is
being stolen. We're not that bad, we're not that stupid,
but we are being played. How do we speak to
both sides? We have to legitimately change the language that
we use when we're speaking to each side, because we
(26:27):
traffic in these terms that alienate half the country. Oh man,
we need a lesson, a primer in that for both
the left and the right, because we literally defined terms
completely differently in the two silos. The term black lives
matter means something completely different on the left than it
does on the right. Antifa means something completely different, Intersectionality
(26:51):
means something completely different, diversity, conservative, progressive, all these terms,
and people attack each other because they're using the term
in the opposing way. And we've got to understand that
we are really being played on this, and to communicate,
we've got to cross that center, divide to the people
(27:12):
that we think are hateful and arrogant, and engage to
them as human beings and will pretty quickly discover that
we're actually each other's answers. We're gonna take a quick
break here, be right back, And to be completely frank
with you both, I'm a registered independent and I guess
this is my podcast, so I I can't say this
(27:34):
on TV, but I can say this here. I'm equally
disgusted by the way both of your states are run,
and it's just one extreme and the other, and it's
just like, really, like when the grid failed in Texas,
it's like, really, you're going to come up with excuses
for this? No power is a human right right and
over in California, I don't even need to say all
the things that are wrong in California. I mean it
speaks for itself. What an unmitigated disaster the home state
(27:59):
of my husband. They're just exporting their middle class every
day to other places. So the environment is of course
my number one issue, but there's a lot of other
issues too, and they're kind of all interconnected. Right, But
is there room for people like me who are equally
disgusted this is theater of the absurd, Like, maybe do
some things, maybe don't do others, and maybe don't completely
(28:22):
adopt one worldview or another. Yeah, it's not as hard
as it seems. It's just that we are trapped in
these communication vehicles that make us crazy. They emphasize are crazy,
and then they make us crazy, and we certainly have
gone crazy in California. We've taken a state that is
on a beautiful coastline, that has an extraordinary set of
(28:43):
natural resources, that has this technology that releases us from
being bound by finite resources, and we have created here
the greatest income gap in the country, the highest the
Mississippi Bill, worse than the six worst education public education system,
(29:07):
the highest poverty rate, and and homelessness that, as you know,
is justified as a human right of choice in San Francisco.
People want to live that way, we're told, and we
have to make it easy for them to do so.
We're not getting to the roots of these problems. Were
institutionalizing the problems. We're creating agencies that profit from managing
(29:31):
the problems. And yes, Texas and California can learn from
each other, and we do at Earth X. The magic
that Trammel has brought to Texas is this combination of
people from all walks of life and all political persuasions
that actually get together and discover, Yes, we love the land.
(29:53):
We want to protect it. Maybe we're hunters, maybe we're fishers,
maybe we're sports people, maybe we're birdwatchers. Maybe you were preservationists,
but we all love the land. We all appreciate the
life that is in our ecosystems, and we know that
we both have to protect it and we have to liberate. Yeah, Trammel, like,
(30:16):
I know a lot of fancy people over in Highland
and University Park and they couldn't keep the power on right,
So Texas is fabulous, But you brought up coal plants earlier,
like they can't keep the damn grid on. Do you
think they might have a problem over there. Well, that
was an oversight. So texting to say that that was
an oversight. You know how many times I got that
(30:38):
in an interview Trammel, I got that on tape like
twenty five times. What I mean is we did make
the short sighted mistake of not winterizing. But the charges
that the grid should be integrated into the east and
the west, I can't see that proved. And what happened
there in the big chill, we just weren't winterized. We're ready.
(31:02):
The definition of climate change as a non event made
it here we go, made it politically difficult for Texas
politicians to make decisions to weatherize the energy system because
doing so would acknowledge climate change. So then you know,
the state falls into this problem because it's not willing
(31:24):
to be open to that. Not the state, but a
few politicians. So and then we get into a feeding
frenzy of blame afterwards about well it was the wind
power that caused it, No, it was the it was
the all in gas that caused it, When it was
really our politics that cost him. What happened was undeniable,
(31:44):
and the mentalities are changing. Texans are much more aware
of environment, much more aware of climate, much more willing
to admit various degrees of global warming. So it is changing.
Try well them, tell them a bit about you know,
you're dawning realizations about your political contributions, billions and billions
(32:08):
of dollars being spent by the right and the left
to defeat each other, and us getting together the donor
round Table as an antidote to them. So it really
has had an effect on a lot of people, directly
two kids. Uh. But the event is so diverse that
(32:29):
Bill saw a way to bring in the Dotor round Table,
which is a very small event but aimed just at
these problem solvers, these realists. So we've got the green
Republicans and all kinds of Democrats which are inevitable at
or something like ours, working on the political solutions together,
(32:52):
if you will. Trammel invited some of his friends. I
invited some of my friends to come to a round table.
We brought Republican donor, Democratic donors, independent donors together. These
are people that had spent millions and even billions of
dollars trying to defeat each other. But the polls and
we said, why are we battling and we said, well,
(33:14):
let's begin to put our money together to advance solutions
and recruit a middle ground of Americans, American problem solvers,
progressive problem solvers, conservative problem solvers to work together for solutions,
and we're going to start with the environment because that's
(33:34):
the low hanging fruit, that's that's the common ground that
we all literally stand on. So now we have a
wonderful group of political donors and issue donors that have
come together to create in this together America dot org,
which is a an organization to unite the left and
(33:54):
the right to protect the planet, and we're launching a
recruitment drive to bring five million people together across the
left and the right. That's five percent of the voting population,
so that instead of elections being decided by extremists, elections
are decided by people who are problem solvers in the middle.
(34:16):
You're channeling right into the zeitgeis there because you're describing me,
You're describing all my friends, You're describing my mission at
what I do every day, which is trying to talk
to everyone, try to stop fighting a lot of times
with our own families, we forget why we're even fighting
in the first place. Becomes a Red Sox versus the
Yankees game, and it's like, I don't like you because
(34:38):
you're from a different city that houses a baseball team,
And I think we have to really remember that. And
in the end, it's always the environment that suffers. Like
in the end, like the political class gets their money,
the media makes their money, and then now my backyard polluted.
So we got to change that reality because nobody's speaking
(34:59):
up for Hannity. So you're both doing God's work because
that's really, really, really important right now, not just from
a cultural standpoint, but for the survival of our very species.
Let me make a suggestion to your listeners here, and
you know, we need alternative media and we need alternative
politics that bring us together. Earth x TV is launching.
(35:22):
We've got programming and partnership with bowld TV. We're looking
forward to bringing people to these platforms where we can
all communicate across the aisle and understand the wisdom that's
on the other side. And places like in this Together
dot Org allow people politically to get on the same
page on issues that really matters. So thank you David
(35:46):
and all your folks. I know you guys are working
like crazy to make this alternative available to people. And
we really want a partner with everybody that's listening to this,
you know, and make America united and sane again. Who
I can get behind that. But Bill, there's one little caveat.
We have a little social media problem, and since you're
(36:07):
right there in San Francisco, we might be calling you
for some help because your friends over there down the
street from you are not our friends anymore. We want
to work with you on that. Man. We are ready
to work on that because we're trying our best to
play ball. But oh my god, Like, you can't play
a game when the rules are not disclosed. So normally,
(36:31):
you know, in a card game, Trammel, right, you know,
Texas holding poker, you know exactly what you're doing, right,
Imagine playing it with a blindfold on and you don't
even know where the cards are. That's social media these days,
and you know, and what we need to remember as critics,
we get so angry with the people and the institutions
that are profiting from this, but the reality is these
(36:54):
are good people and they're good institutions that have good purposes,
but they've been trapped in this system and they're trapping themselves.
And yes, they could do more, there's no doubt about it.
But we think we can work with those enterprises to
create the kind of you know, follow the profit incentives
(37:15):
that will bring them back to being a full service
to people. And that's where we want to get to.
It's not about destroying people or institutions or tearing down
the systems. It's about correcting the systems at their route
so that we grow more verdant social outcomes. Yeah, we
(37:37):
got to cancel canceling, that's for sure, that's definitely part
of them. So so Travel Wins. The next Big Earth
Extravaganza over in Dallas again to the world's biggest environmental
event is April of two thousand and twenty two year now.
But meanwhile, meanwhile, folks, you can tune into earth x TV,
(38:00):
website and social media. Well, on that note, gentlemen, we
really appreciate your time and we love the work that
you're doing, and you know, please stay in touch and
we'll be talking soon. Thank you, thank you. Thanks to
all of you for joining me as we follow the profit.
And a very very big thanks to tram Ls Crow
(38:20):
and Bill Shyerman. They were great, They're my aspirational new
friends and their inside into how to be entrepreneurial and
make money while not, you know, completely destroying the planet
was probably the most important podcast I've ever done. And
in the meantime, I'd like to thank our team of
producers of course, Emi Leano Lemon over in San Diego, California,
(38:43):
Scott Handler over New York City, and Cheyenne read right
across the River in New Jersey. And I'd be a
miss not to mention our executive producers, former Speaker of
the House, New Gingrich and his right hand lady, Debbie Myers.
I'm your host, David Grasso. If you're enjoining the show,
please give us five stars. We read those reviews, I
actually personally do so that we can learn what this
(39:03):
show should be about. Follow the Profit is a production
of ging Ridge three sixty and I Heart Radio. For
more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All opinions
expressed by David Grasso and his guests on the show
(39:25):
are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions
of Gingrich three sixty or affiliates, and may have been
previously disseminated by David Grasso on this podcast, television, radio, Internet,
or another medium. You should not treat any opinion expressed
by David Grass so as a specific inducement to make
a particular investment or follow in particular strategy, but only
(39:46):
as an expression of his opinion. David Grass's opinions are
based upon information he considers reliable, but neither ging Rich
Productions nor its affiliates and or subsidiaries warrant its completeness
or accuracy, and it should not be relied upon on
as such. David Grasso, ging Ridge Productions, its affiliates, and
or subsidiaries are not under any obligation to update or
(40:06):
correct any information provided on this website. David Grasslow statements
and opinions are subject to change without notice. No part
of David Grasso's compensation from ging Ridge Productions is related
to the specific opinions he expresses. Past performance is not
indicative of future results. Neither David Grasso nor ging Rich
three sixty guarantees any specific outcome or profit. You should
(40:27):
be aware of the real risk of loss in following
any strategy or investment discussed on this website or on
the show. Strategies or investments discussed may fluctuate in price
or value. Investors may get back less than invested. Investments
or strategies mentioned on this website or on the show
may not be suitable for you. This material does not
take into account your particular investment objectives, financial situation, or needs,
(40:49):
and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for you. You
must take an independent decision regarding investments or strategies mentioned
on this website or on the show before acting on
in nation on this website or on the show, you
should consider whether it is suitable for your particular circumstances,
and strongly consider seeking advice from your own financial or
investment advisor.
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com