Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 10/23/25: Amazon Replaces Workers With Robots, Yang Says To Ban Phones In School, Zohran Debate, Health Insurance Death Spiral

Episode Date: October 23, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss Amazon replaces workers with AI bots, Yang says phones should be banned in schools, Zohran decimates Cuomo in debate, health insurance death spiral. Andrew Yang: https://blog.andrewyang.com/p/noble-mobile    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hey, I'm Cal Penn, and on my new podcast, here we go again. We'll take today's trends and headlines and ask, why does history keep repeating itself? Each week, I'm calling up my friends, like Bill Nye, Lily Singh, and Pete Buttigieg, to talk about everything from the space race to movie remakes to psychedelics. Put another way, are you? high. Look, the world can seem pretty scary right now. But my goal here is for you to listen and feel a little better about the future. Listen and subscribe to here we go again with Cal Penn on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about

what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere. else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. I had to do a little bit of it. I was like, Thursday here. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal?

Indeed we do. Amazon, replacing 600,000 workers with robots. That seems like a big deal. Andrew Yang is going to join us to discuss that and also his new cellular phone effort. Very interesting project that he's working on. He's also going to weigh in on the big debate last night. Zoran, Curtis Lewa and Andrew Cuomo taken to the stage. Once again, we've got some highlights, low lights, whatever from that. Also, Zoran went on with the guys over at Flegram. That was very interesting as well. We've got some new, really dire information about the way that health care costs are going up. So we've been covering here that if you are on the Obamacare exchanges, obviously those subsidies have been really critical. They have not been extended.

So that's been a dire situation. Now we're taking a look at the employer-backed health care plans as well. Those costs going up a lot too. So not good, not good at all for a lot of people out there. Israel, a lot of updates. But in particular, there was a big vote in the Knesset to Annex the West. Bank. While J.D. Vance was there, he had something to say about that as well, so we'll dig into that. We have another boat that was blown up as we seem to be marching increasingly

rapidly towards a regime change war in Venezuela. Saugger has some thoughts about the White House demolition slash renovation. Listen, Antifa, I'm ready. Draft me. Antifa Super Soldier. Antifa Super Soldier. Get me a blow torch. But for the record, for the United States Secret Service is a joke. It's a satire. This is, this is parody. It's a parody and it is satire. But, you know, if somebody were to sneak me back on the White House grounds and give me a blow torch and or be one of those tree hugger activists that could like chain myself to the original East Wing, I would be ready to. Apparently there's nothing left to change yourself. No, no, no. No, it's this weekend. The facade remains. All right. So we have a chance. By the way, this is, I will never be more nimbie than I am

today, but I'll outline it in the White House. So everybody can look forward to that, and I am taking a look at the whole Grand Platner tattoo, Reddit Gate situation. He got the tattoo covered up, everybody. We got an update there in case you haven't seen enough of this man's shirtless body. We've got more of that for you today. I never wanted to know the nipple shape and size of a U.S. Senate candidate, and I remain that way.

Welcome to 2025. That is 2025. Things you never could have imagined are now on the table. Yeah, it's dark out here. All right, let's go ahead and get to AI, shall we? Let's go and put this up here on the screen. This is major news from the economy. We have Amazon now planning to replace more than half a million jobs with robots.

And it sounds like it's out of a movie, except it's actually out of a press release. They say that the company has done more to shape the American workplace than Amazon. It is already, I think, the second largest employer in the entire United States. And they're now just openly saying they have built an army of robots, which they hope to replace more than half a million jobs with, and there's nothing really that you can do about it. There's no legislation, there's no politicians, nobody even really particularly cares. Amazon Automation expects the company can avoid hiring more than 160,000 people in the United States. It would otherwise need just by 2027. That would save 30 cents on each item that Amazon picks,

and delivers to customers, which at scale is multiples of billions. Executives told the Amazon board just last year, robotic animation would allow the company. to continue to avoid adding it to U.S. workforce numbers, and they will translate to more than 600,000 people that they do not need to hire. Amazon right now remains not only the second largest employer, one of the largest seasonal employers in the United States is one of the easiest ways for lower income folks out there to be able to get some seasonal work. And many of them rely on it. Famously, there was a movie. It was a Nomadland, if you remember, where they showed this

entire phenomenon. Now, I don't think it's a good phenomenon to even have seasonal worker, but it's better than nothing, and now they're saying even that itself is gone. So this is dark. It's very, very dark stuff in terms of, as usual, you know, when they announce this stuff on press calls and then the stock goes up, that's when it gets really dystopy. Yeah, because you're rewarded as a company, you're rewarded for replacing human workers. That is the reality. And so we've covered Amazon a lot over the years, a lot. And there's a reason for that.

It's because the saga just said they are the second largest employer. And a lot of ways, they have completely reshaped the labor market in the U.S. You know, they have lowered the standards, both in terms of wages and safety, and specifically the warehouse and logistics industry. We have, of course, covered the abuses of their delivery drivers. The way that they operate is they drive their workers until they can no longer physically do the tasks. They like to have a very high churn. Why?

Because they don't want you to stick around and have to like and want higher pay or elevate to to higher levels of management. I got plenty of issues with Walmart as well, but actually one of the things they do is they try to recruit from their own sales associates and elevate them up the chain. Amazon is the exact opposite. They have very high churn, and it's by design.

So what they're doing here is rather than laying off a bunch of workers, they're just going to let that normal churn run its course and not rehire. So they'll be steadily shrinking and shrinking and shrinking their workforce. 600,000 jobs, guys, That is a lot. That is a large percentage of their workforce here in the U.S. And here's the other thing.

Once they go down this path, they are trendsetters, not just their rivals in the space, but all sorts of companies, especially ones that work in any sort of warehousing and logistics, are going to be looking at this and learning and trying to copy whatever it is that Amazon is doing. This moment of AI job replacement, it is here. And it is shocking to me how few politicians talk about it. I heard Bernie start to talk about it, but there is so little discussion around this. And meanwhile, a handful of people hold all of our faiths in their hands. It's absolutely insane.

Yeah, absolutely. Let's stick actually with even within the AI labs themselves, to put this up here on the screen. So not only a robot's coming for AI jobs, and now appears to be coming for the AI jobs themselves. So you can see META has cut some 600 jobs in the AI jobs. AI superintelligence division. The layoffs will, quote, affect legacy teams, but not the company's brand new lab unit. The jobs will affect the company's teams focus on artificial intelligence, products, infrastructure, and long-term AI research. By reducing the size of our team, fewer conversations will be required to make a decision, and each person will have a more load-bearing

and more scope and impact, Alexander Wang, Meta's chief AI officer, said. So most of the affected employees will have the opportunity to, quote, be redeployed at the company. But what I think it does demonstrate to all of you is that even within the AI builders themselves, they have to grapple with their betting on replacing everybody. But in the immediate term, there's no profit. I mean, I can't get away from chat GPT. It's one of those where it's just so crazy when you consider the finances. And listen, yes, I understand scale. I understand exponential growth, et cetera.

But when you scale up a net loss, though, how does that work? This is what I'm trying to say. So ChatGPT has a revenue of $13 billion. That's a lot of money. That's great, actually. Awesome, awesome job, especially for a company that just launched its flagship product in 2022. But they have $1 trillion in outlays over the next decade. Now, those $1 trillion in outlays are not traditional cash finance deals.

We talked about this with David Dayn. They're either called round-tripping or vendor finance. I prefer vendor finance because it's a long term. It's a long-standing term that I think a lot of people can relate to, especially with the dot-com bubble. And it effectively relates to they're like, hey, we're going to buy X amount of chips from NVIDIA. NVIDIA is like, okay, and that's why we'll either grant you stock or you get some portion of our company, and then the two stocks simultaneously go up at the exact same time.

But the problem with that is that the future revenue that's booked for NVIDIA is based on a promise from chat, GPT, but no money has actually exchanged hands, but it's just based on the craze and on the expectation itself of value that both continue to rise. So there's no money that actually happened, but hundreds of billions of dollars in value have been created. This is not just NVIDIA. This is every major chip manufacturer in the world. Open AI has done five or six different of these types of deal, adding several billions, I think, almost a trillion dollars in market cap to many of these different companies, again, off of the $13 billion valuation. The problem with that is that if the growth stops even a little bit and you have a 50% cut down,

then that's the entire S&P 500. 80% of the stocks gains in 2025 so far are from AI stocks. 40% come from this expected value data center construction. So again, think about the housing, how much it was part of the GDP back in 2006 and 2007. Home building alone was like a huge portion. Well, the Great Recession hit and people stopped building home. Boom, you know, massive hit. Not only to the housing stock, but also construction, labor, materials, and there were all kinds of, you know, Nevada, I remember, had a horrible crisis in terms of housing and a shortage that took almost a decade to recover from. That's the stuff that I worry about the most. We have the job angle. You have the fact

that the profit's not there. That's why Meta is cutting some of these jobs. And then you have basically Sam Altman, who is like this master dealmaker, the Wall Street Journal now officially describes him as too big to fail, meaning if this comes down, we have to bail out. If we don't bail out, the entire economy will go down. We don't have a choice. And so we could see it all. Literally all of our eggs in the basket. And what concerns me is it's kind of like housing. Nobody in Washington ever made a decision that we're going all in on AI. They kind of just let it happen. They were like, yeah, okay, you know, with tax incentives. And now you just, it's just like subprime. You get to the point where, yeah, I mean, bailing out AIG is horrible.

Not bailing out AIG is also horrible. So we don't know what to do. By the way, we all know which way we're going on. I actually do think that this administration decided made an affirmative choice to go all in on AI. I mean, you remember the big announcement on the day after inauguration day, saying, oh, we're going to, you know, have all of this investment in AI. And that was, you know, part of why some of these tech guys flip to Trump is because, listen, the Biden administration wasn't doing a lot in terms of AI regulation, but they were doing a little bit. There was a little bit more of like a mindset towards, all right, let's have some safety, let's have some guardrails in here. Again, I'm not trying to,

I'm not trying to bump them up because it was also not sufficient. But the Trump administration has basically said, all right, off to the races, you know, we're in a race with China. You guys are in a race with each other. And everybody is just throwing billions and billions of dollars at this thing, hoping that they're going to be the one that achieves AGI fastest and achieves the market position fastest. So that is an affirmative decision that was made. I don't think it's the one that most of you all voted for. I don't think that was, like, featured heavily in the campaign trail. I don't think there was a lot of focus on that at debates.

I don't think there's been any sort of, like, a national small D democratic conversation about it. But there are a lot of elites here, and specifically, these tech oligarchs who've decided that this is the path that they want to go on. And so, you know, you've got their goal is to remake the social contract to make you and your labor completely irrelevant to free themselves from the burden of having to deal with annoying human, workers and their needs to like, you know, go to the bathroom or take a day off for their kids' birthday or school play or whatever. They want to free themselves from all of those constraints. And so you have that threat, which in many ways is here. And you also have the incredible financial concentration, which I think, I mean, I don't know how you can look at this and not think it's a bubble at this point. And by the way, Mark Zuckerberg thinks it's a

bubble. Jeff Bezos thinks it's a bubble. They've been talking about this openly. Now they have various cope around it. Zuckerberg says basically like, yeah, but, you know, that bubbles happen, and then there's still a lot of invasion that comes out of it. So still in that positive thing, like, that's the way that they're talking about it. But with the Nvidia thing specifically, you know, if the demand for these chips is really so high and so extraordinary, why do they need to round-trip these funds? Why do they need to subsidize the purchase of their own chips? That alone should make you question some of the storytelling that is coming out of of this industry. So I don't know. There are many different potential perils here and very hard

for me to see how we get out of this thing without some very ugly consequences. Yeah, let's go ahead and put this next one, please, up on the screen. I thought it was really interesting, a summary of Andre Carpathie, who is, you know, he was previously the director of AI over a Tesla, and he now has appeared on a podcast. And this was a summary of some of the points that he makes. He says, quote, LLMs don't work yet. They don't have enough intelligence. They're not multimodal enough. Two, when you boot them up, they start from zero.

They have no distillation phrase. There's no process where that happens get analyzed and written back into weights. Three, when it's stored in their weights, it's only a hazy collection of the internet. Go to the next part, please, just so we can continue to read some of these. What you really see broadly from a lot of the points that they make is that they're too good at imitation. They're terrible at going off of the data. They have too much memory and not enough reasoning. They've recreated, quote, cortical tissue,

learning in general, but still missing the rest of the brain. There's no hippocampus. There's no amygdala. There's no emotions. They memorized perfectly, but generalized poorly, anything truly new, code that has never written before, ideas that have no template, they stumble. So even the promises of some of this are not really materializing yet, and they're being sold as some great, great innovation. That's why I thought that Sam Altman's announcement, the chat GPT will be porn. That was like the biggest signal to me. I'm like, AGI is not coming, guys. Like the real AGI, it's not happening. Really what it is, is they recreated the internet. ChatGPT started its new browser. I don't know if you saw this yesterday, where you can download. What do you think you

do that for? It's like Google. Hoover up all the data. Make sure that you replace it. And then what? You make sure you spend as much time on the goddamn platform as possible. So we can sell you advertising, so we can have you addicted to pornography, and we can run your entire life from G-Cal to everything. It's just an ad-supported business. That's not the same thing that was sold to the public about we're going to create, you know, a new brain that's going to cure cancer. It's like, no, you're just, you just have porn, okay? I mean, that's, that's exactly what happened with the original internet. So I'm feeling very bleak this morning. I do think the job replacement could come, the robot stuff, because that's about rote labor and automation. But the real promises

of, oh, we're going to do that, we're going to create all these amazing new products. I don't see it. I don't see it on the horizon. I hope it fails. Personally, I do. I hope it fails because, I mean, I'm very concerned. Listen, like Sagar said, even with where they've gotten now, we're already seeing job replacement. But it could be worse. It could be a lot worse. And so there's there's that aspect. There's the water and energy aspect. And then there's the potential like most dystopian scenarios of which, yeah, I am genuinely concerned about. And by the way, the guys who are involved in this stuff are concerned about, they've just decided like, well, maybe if I'm the one that develops it. I can do it in a safe way. And my competitors are doing it anyway. So it's not

like me staying out of the race. And I'm thinking specifically of Elon Musk, who really had a lot of safety concerns to start with and then realize, like, well, I guess everybody else is doing it. So I'm just going to get in there and make mine anti-woke. And I guess that'll fix everything. They are concerned about like the most dire scenarios as well. So I think the best case scenario is that they never achieve AGI, that it ends up just being sort of like a glorified Google search the way it is and an ability for you to make your own personalized, customized porn or whatever, and that that's where it stops. To me, that is the most hopeful possible scenario and it's still not a great one. See, I don't think it's hopeful because that

just means AI centered at degenerate activity already on the internet and amplifying it and making it worse. I'm not saying it's good, Sager. Oh, okay. I'm just saying it's better than the alternative. I see what you're saying. I don't want it to go further than it already has. We have Andrew Yang standing by to weigh in, OG friend of the show. Let's get to it. In the heat of battle, your squad relies on you. Don't let them down. Unlock elite gaming tech at Lenovo.com.

Dominate every match with next level speed, seamless streaming, and performance that won't quit. So you can push your gameplay beyond performance with Intel Core Ultra processors. For the next era of gaming, upgrade to smooth high-quality streaming with Intel Wi-Fi 6E and maximize game performance with enhanced overclocking. Win the tech search. Power up at Lenovo.com. In the new podcast, Hell in Heaven, two young Americans moved to the Costa Rican jungle to start over.

But one will end up dead. The other tried for murder. Not once. People went wild. Not twice. Stoned. but three times. John and Ann Bender are rich and attractive and they're devoted to each other. They create a nature reserve and build a spectacular circular home

high on the top of a hill. But little by little, their dream starts to crumble and our couple retreat from reality. They lose it. They actually lose it. They sort of went nuts. Until one night, everything spins. out of control. Listen to hell in heaven on the I-Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The forces shaping the world's economies and financial markets can be hard to spot. Even though they are such a powerful player in finance, you wouldn't really know that you are interacting with them. And even harder to understand. Donald Trump's trade war, 2.0, is only accelerating the process of de-dollarization, which in a way is jargon for people turning away from the dollar. That is where the big take from Bloomberg podcast comes in, to connect the dots. How unusual is a deal like this? Unprecedented.

Every weekday afternoon, we dive deep into one big global business story. The biggest story of the reaction of the oil market to the conflict in the Middle East is one of what has not happened. Katie, you told me that ETFs are your favorite thing. They are. Explain that. Why is that the case? And unpack what it means for you. Our breakfast foods are consistent consumer staples, and so they sort of become outsized indicators of inflation.

Listen to the big take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We just talked a lot about AI, but now we're going to talk about smartphones. And Andrew Yang, a great friend, maybe the foundational friend of the show. is going to join us now. A bedrock. Bedrock friend of the show. Andrew Yang, you have a new project out that you're advertising. It's great to see you, my friend. But first, let's play your announcement, and then we're going to get your reaction. Let's take a listen.

Our phones are amazing, but they're taking something from us. Our time, our focus, the moments that matter most. Have a great day. Are you fucking serious? Put your phone down. Watch where you're going. Look up. Hey, guys.

Just left the West Village. And I'm on the highlight. Oh, hello. Yes, yay! Wait! Put your phone down. You're here to scroll at a ball. And Noble, we don't want you addicted to your phone.

We want you to live more. That's why we'll pay you to use your phone less. So for heaven's sake, please do yourself a favor and put your phone down. All right, Andrew. So what is this project about? Sager, I've noticed that Americans are miserable. And we're miserable for a couple big reasons. reasons. Number one, we're not saving enough money. We're paying Verizon AT&T twice as much as people

in other countries pay for their wireless services. I was paying Verizon 140 a month. Now I'm down to about 46 a month. And then the second is that we're being bombarded by these negative emotions through what Hassan Minhaj calls are rectangles of sadness, our cell phones. And so I thought, well, geez, if we can solve those two problems, we'd go a very long way. And folks, who follow me know that I'm deeply concerned about polarization, and that's a lot of it through social media and our smartphone. So Noble Mobile, the first carrier that will actually pay you if you use your phone a little bit less, it's $50 for unlimited, but if you use a little bit less data, we'll give you up to $20 cash back every month and then pay 5.5% interest on any savings,

so your phone plan becomes your friendly angel nudging you to doomscroll a little bit less. I like it. I like it. So this comes at a moment when there's obviously heated debate over screen time and cell phones in schools. There's actually a little bit of new research out that I wanted to get your reaction to with regard to the school cell phone bans, which my kids public schools just implemented last year. So this is the second year where we've had a cell phone ban. They're very opposed. I'm very supportive. You can put this up on the screen.

So schools banned phones saw surprising results beyond fewer distractions. And what they found is that initially there was an adjustment period. Disciplinary issues spiked because kids were getting in trouble for having their phones and using their phones when they weren't supposed to be. But they said by the second year, suspension rates returned to normal and test scores actually rose significantly. According to the researchers, student scores in the school district notably increased by about two to three percentiles in the second year of the ban compared to the year before the ban. So what do you make of this study and do those sorts of results surprise you? Crystal, I'm so glad that you're trying to get smartphones out of your kids' middle school or junior high. I'm friends with Jonathan Haidt, who obviously has made history with the anxious generation.

And any parent knows, I'm a parent. We used to think that the internet and these phones would help your kids learn, but the truth is it's shortening their attention span. It's making it harder to retain new information because they just think they can get it from the internet at all time. So if you circumscribe smartphone use, your kid reads more, gets smarter, not surprised at all, and thrilled that so many schools are making this move. They're finding astounding results generally within one or two years. Yeah, one of the things that we looked at, not only with the studies, is that there has been a bifurcation, in my opinion, Andrew, which I'm a little worried about. I think higher-income parents are pretty aware of this dynamic.

people who are a little bit more neurotic, private schools and others are taking charge. But I haven't yet seen it, you know, in terms of the statistics, it does look like it's still widespread use of iPad, smartphone, as well at the lower levels and of ages. So what is the way societally to attack this problem? Is state regulation the only answer, as some states are currently saying, saying they're banning it statewide in all schools? What's fun, Saeger, is that someone called this the last bipartisan issue because parents that are conservative and parents that are liberal are both freaked out about what these devices

are doing to our kids' brains, 39 states red and blue have moved to get smartphones out of schools. And I think it's going to keep going up. I mean, you might get to all 50. And imagine that in this day and age where you have literally a shutdown Congress and the states are just making this happen because so many families can see it every day. I'm a parent and we all feel outgunned by these screens. Andrew, I wanted to get a little bit of your reaction, too, to the discussion we were just having on AI, because, I mean, these are separate, but obviously incredibly related issues. And I just want to know your sense of where things are heading and what the solution is,

because on the one hand, you have Amazon announcing they're going to replace 600,000 workers with robots, which, hey, is something you've been sounding the alarm about for a few years now at this point. On the other hand, you see some people coming out and say, you know what, AI is not really living up to the promise. It's certainly not living up to its, you know, financial like expectations at this point. These LLMs still really clunky, even, you know, played around with SORA still has a lot of limitations. So what do you think of this tech, where it's going and how we should be thinking of it as society? Crystal, you're totally right. I was sounding the alarm back in Iowa in

2019. Imagine standing at the truck stop saying AI is coming. Back then, folks weren't, let's say embracing that reality. But now it is real. I wrote in a Waymo a number of weeks ago. And it was a trip the first time you get in, but then the second or third time, and I did use it multiple times, you start to get used to it. So the AI tools definitely have their problems and limitations, but they're also getting better all the time. And they are going to replace tons of warehouse workers, customer service workers, analysts, lawyers, unfortunately. I have friends who are partners at law firms who say they're going to hire fewer associates. So both things are true, I'd say that these tools have problems, but that they're finding commercial applications

that are going to do a number on unfortunately millions of American workers. And when I ran for president, I said, look, we need to just start putting money into people's hands. I mean, it's one reason I started Noble mobiles, like, I can't get $1,000 a month into your hands, but I can save you about $1,000 a year and get you looking up more. And that seemed like a direct approach to try and solve this problem while I'm not president, obviously. I mean, if I were president, then you guys would be, I suppose, I don't know what the equivalent is. It takes an administration rolls in the Yang president. Yeah, I was just saying, but you might be press secretary, Crystal, and then Sager, you could do whatever you wanted.

Okay. I'll take that role. Yeah, administer at large under the Yang administration. In the heat of battle, your squad relies on you. Don't let them down. Unlock elite gaming tech at Lenovo.com. Dominate every match with next level speed, seamless streaming, and performance that won't quit. So you can push your gameplay beyond performance with Intel Core Ultra processors.

For the next era of gaming, upgrade to smooth high-quality streaming with Intel Wi-Fi 6E and maximize game performance with enhanced overclocking. Win the tech search. Power up at Lenovo.com. Lenovo, Lenovo. In the new podcast, Hell in Heaven, two young Americans moved to the Costa Rican jungle to start over. But one will end up dead.

The other tried for murder. Not once. People went wild. Not twice. Stoned. But three. Three times. John and Anne Bender are rich and attractive, and they're devoted to each other.

They create a nature reserve and build a spectacular, circular home high on the top of a hill. But little by little, their dream starts to crumble, and our couple retreat from reality. They lose it. They actually lose it. They sort of went nuts. Until one night, everything spins out of control. Listen to Hell in Heaven on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The forces shaping the world's economies and financial markets can be hard to spot. Even though they are such a powerful player in finance, you wouldn't really know that you are interacting with them.

And even harder to understand. Donald Trump's trade war, 2.0, is only accelerating the process of de-dollarizing. which in a way is jargon for people turning away from the dollar. That is where the big take from Bloomberg podcast comes in, to connect the dots. How unusual is a deal like this? Unprecedented. Every weekday afternoon, we dive deep into one big global business story. The biggest story of the reaction of the oil market to the conflict in the Middle East is one of what has not happened.

Katie, you told me that ETFs are your favorite thing. They are. Explain that. Why is that the case? and unpack what it means for you. Our breakfast foods are consistent consumer staples, and so they sort of become outsized indicators of inflation. Listen to the big take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Andrew, I do think while we have you, though, we would love to get your reaction, since you did run for mayor of New York to the current mayoral race. Before we get you to react to some of the clips, what's your general assessment of the race here so far? No, I see the same things you all see. Zoran is on track to win. To me, the question really is whether he gets a majority

against both Cuomo and Sliwa, which I think would be very helpful for him to have a mandate to head up to Albany and say, look, guys, I'm the new mayor. Let's get some stuff done. If he gets less than 50.1% in the November, election, then it's going to be easier for folks to push back and say that he doesn't have as broad support. So to me, he's going to be the next mayor, and the question is the margin of

victory. So let's take a look a little bit at they had a debate last night. So on stage, you had Zoran, you had Cuomo and you had Saliwa as well. And Zoran, let's start with this one, Zoran having a good moment here, knocking Cuomo for his former leadership of the state of New York. Let's take a listen. Shame on you. No, it is always a pleasure to hear Andrew Cuomo create his own facts at every debate stage. We just had a former governor say in his own words that the city has been getting screwed by the state. Who was leading the state?

It was you. Governor Hockle. You were leading the state for 10 years, screwing the city. You cut homelessness funding. You cut funding for the MTA. You did all of these things, my friend. That's the past four years. It's the past four years.

I mean, there's a few things to say about it. First of all, he's just really good at this, right? Second of all, he's using the fact that this guy, you know, had lots of experience as a weapon against him. Like the idea that, oh, you come in with all of this pedigree and all this resume and that's going to set you up, which is clearly what Cuomo thought. I mean, he thought this was a shoe in. He thought he'd barely have to show up and they would just coronate him as the next mayor of New York City. That dynamic has flipped on his head. So I wonder what you made of that moment in some of those dynamics in general.

It is fascinating, Crystal, because Cuomo has sky high name ID, but not all of it's positive. I mean, if you look at the numbers, there's a very deep ambivalence about Cuomo's time as governor. And so when he runs on that experience, it is something of a double-edged sword that Zoran can use against him as we saw in that clip. It is interesting to me as someone who was on that particular debate stage, I mean, sometimes physically, where there was a time when you're, you kind of know people are going to come after you. You know, you know attacks are coming. And then you literally talk to the folks on your team to say, okay, if they come at me with this, like, what am I going to respond with? But Zoran clearly both has that and he also has spontaneity. I mean, some of the stuff he's coming up with in the moment.

One of the things I'm curious for your view, Andrew, having run in the race, is that the You ran in the Democratic primary. The Democratic primary base seems much more open to an outsider than, let's say, at the time that you ran. What happened? Why do you think that that is? No, I think these last four years have not been kind to establishment candidates or a sense that things are going well and that there's a constant recipe for someone who might

represent a turning of the page. That's a stronger argument now than it was a number of years ago. And I will say I walk the streets of New York, obviously, I live here, and people are very enthusiastic about Zoran, and people also talk to me about, like, there seems to be like, you know, a pro-outsider sentiment in the air. And that does not bode well for Andrew Cuomo, who seems like the consummate insider because of his, you know, his ubiquity over the last number of years. So another issue that was significant at the debate was how they would approach Donald Trump. And we've got a bit of a mashup here.

Cuomo talking about that and Zoran talking about it as well. Let's take a listen. Donald Trump, I believe, wants Mandami. That is his dream because he will use him politically all across the country. And he will take over New York City. Look, Donald Trump ran on three promises. He ran on creating the single largest deportation force in American history. He ran on going after his political enemies.

And he ran on lowering the cost of living. If he wants to talk to me about the third piece of that agenda, I will always be ready and willing. But if he wants to talk about how to pursue the first and second piece of that agenda at the expense of New Yorkers, I will fight him every single step of the way. So, Andrew, we've already had some big Trump admin shows of force. There's a big immigration raid on Canal Street. Trump is threatening to pull any sort of funding that goes to New York City. If Zoran is elected, mayor of New York, which she very likely is going to be, you know, as not only a former mayoral candidate, but as a New Yorker, what are some of your concerns about this, you know, almost inevitable clash, I think. that's coming between Zoran and Trump. Yeah, it's not good, Crystal, because the reality is that there are a lot of relationships and resources that you actually could use if you are the mayor of New York and you don't want to be on the other side of a battle line with the head of the

federal government. But I think this is one of the potential hazards of not just this era, but also of, and the truth is Andrew Cuomo is going to present himself also as like a Trump foil or antagonist. So I'm not sure if this is a negative case for Zoron in particular, but the Democratic base is not going to want you to work with Trump or his administration in any way, shape, or form. And I do think that Trump is going to enjoy trying to stick it to whoever the mayor is, if the mayor is not bending the knee. And obviously, if you bend the knee to Trump in this city, then your political life as a Democrat is going to be short-lived. Yeah, totally agree.

One more for you, Andrew. Let's take a look. Zoran was on with the guys over at Flagrant. I had a fun moment. I don't know if you were aware of the whole bench press situation with Zoran. What was the amount of way that he was trying to best bench press? 135. I guess it didn't work out and all that well.

In any case, they were joking around about it on the podcast. Let's take a look at that. Joey, bring in the bench press because he has to do it. every year every year I'm going to do one pound more next year

136 let's go let's go more you got it I was like you fucked up man let me tell you you shouldn't have done it

I knew I fucked up when I saw you think I thought you think I thought I was gonna kill it I knew it was a problem and this guy was like you gotta do it

I was like I really don't You should have put the big 10-pound weights on. You know the big 10-pound? That was trying to get it. But next year, 136. Okay. Watch it.

Hey, watch your camuses I can keep. 136. 136. You didn't keep 135. Strike that from the edit. I promise I could. 136, the Zoron challenge. I mean, I think there's a lot of me that's interesting about this, but I mean, it's

crazy to me, Andrew. Like, the dream is always to change. the electorate and bring out more young people and be able to appeal now the conversation how do we appeal to young men? And here you have a candidate who does it, right? He's charismatic. He built this grassroots movement, started at 1% in the polls, skyrockets and destroys Andrew Cuomo, is able to go on these podcasts, that there's all this hand ring. Oh, my God, Democrats can't go on these podcasts anymore. He's able to do it, make fun of himself, be very charming, et cetera. And you still have Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer and others who refuse.

to endorse this man who is the Democratic nominee and is probably the most interesting and charismatic figure that you have in the entire party? Like, is this self-sabotat? What is going on here? How is this in any way sensible? I have to admit, I was fascinated by the entire bench press thing. I don't know. And I'm thoroughly out of sense of humor about it because when you're a candidate, people are constantly putting pressure on you to do things. And And sometimes you're just like, oh, no, I really don't want to do this. But it's almost impossible to say, I don't want to do this because then you seem like a dud. And so I used to joke with my team that it's like the presidential Olympics where, you know, you just do whatever the event is, whether it's like corn dog eating or, you know, or like feats of strength or whatever the heck it is.

And so when Zorn was in that situation, I was like, oh, my God, I've been there. Like, I've been in front of that bench, figuratively speaking. I mean, heck, when I ran for mayor, they were, like, I was at a gym. And then they, like, challenged me to do pull-ups. And then you can't not do them because you're like, oh, God, like, you know, I don't want to seem like a win. What did you do? And that's the question, Zaire. And I was like, how many effing pull-ups am I going to be able to do?

I think you could do one right now. I don't know. And so that, but then you also get adrenaline in you because they're filming it. Yeah, right. Um, so, so I felt Zoran's pain deeply, um, and, and bench, benching is something that, like, you either are experienced in doing or you're not. It's like, if, if you're like a normal person who is not bench pressed a lot, then it's going to be really hard to bench press like, you know, 135. And people will be like, oh, 135, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like,

anyway, I mean, Saga, you probably can relate to this. But it's like when the first time you go to the gym, you can't bench press anything. No, nothing. And then eventually if you, if you, do it for a while, they're pretty much guys who bench and guys who don't bench. And asking a guy who doesn't bench to bench is very, very bad, bad look for that guy. So I felt Zoran's pain because it's like, oh my God, like he had no choice but to say yes. And then, but I'm just thrilled that he has a sense of humor about it and that he can joke about it. To your point, Crystal, it's like, that's what people want. You know, the word that gets bandied around a lot is authenticity. And the disease is like, you literally have consultants being like, how do we get

authenticity. So if you have a candidate who has it, then you have a candidate who has it. And to your point, that's very, very powerful in 2025. It's very powerful. And it's, again, insane that Democratic leadership wants to stand back this guy and refuses to endorse. Again, the Democratic nominee, and is, I guess, you know, low-key holding out for the guy who was accused of sexual assault by 13 different women and had to resign a disgrace and killed old people in nursing homes, et cetera. You know, I mean, it is the party primary. You guys know that I'm for opening up the primaries, but to me, this means that they're really

like flavors of Dems in New York. And so the pitch I'd make is like, look, like, your problem is that you probably should be different parties. Right. But, you know, but totally agree with the fact that, look, you know, like this guy is super talented and before this primary. end of the season. You would have been trying to dream up someone like him. There you go. Thank you very much, Andrew. We appreciate your analysis, ma'am.

Great to see, Andrew. Great seeing you guys. Let me, and check out Noble mobile for the two of you. I don't know who you're using right now, but we could definitely save you some money and maybe get you off free Wi-Fi on an airplane. It's game over, bro. All right. See you later. Bye, guys. In the heat of battle, your squad relies on you. Don't let them down. Unlock Elite Gaming Tech at Lenovo.com. Dominate every match with next-level speed, seamless streaming, and performance that won't quit, so you can push your gameplay beyond performance

with Intel Core Ultra processors. For the next era of gaming, upgrade to smooth, high-quality streaming with Intel Wi-Fi 6E and maximize game performance with enhanced overclocking. Win the tech search. Power up at Lenovo.com. In the new podcast, Hell in Heaven, two young Americans moved to the Costa Rican jungle to start over.

But one will end up dead. The other tried for murder. Not once. People went wild. Not twice. Stunned. But three times. John and Ann Bender are rich and attractive, and they're devoted to each other.

They create a nature reserve and build a spectacular circular home. high on the top of a hill. But little by little, their dream starts to crumble. And our couple retreat from reality. They lose it. They actually lose it. They sort of went nuts. Until one night, everything spins out of control. Listen to Hell in Heaven on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The Big Tick podcast from Bloom, News dives deep into one big global business story every weekday. A shutdown means we don't get the data, but it also means for President Trump that there's no chance of bad news on the labor market. What does a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich, reveal about the economy? Our breakfast foods are consistent consumer staples, and so they sort of become outsize indicators of inflation. What's behind Elon Musk's trillion dollar payout?

There's a sort of concerted effort to message. that Musk is coming back. He's putting politics aside. He's left the White House. And what can the PCE tell you that the CPI can't? CPI tries to measure out-of-pocket costs that consumers are paying for things, whereas the PCE index that the Fed targets is a little bit broader of a measure. Listen to the big take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Turning now to health care. There's been a lot on the horizon. This talk about Obamacare subsidies that are expiring. That's part of why the government is shut down right now, at least the Democratic justification. But behind the picture, it's not just Obamacare. It's a genuine health care crisis in the U.S. It's going to put us up here on the screen. The average cost of a family health insurance plan is now $27,000. So you can watch here that employer and worker contribution has dramatically gone up from some $10,000 back in 2010 to $27,000 today in addition to an increased worker contribution and employer contribution. This is hurting the businesses, the smaller businesses

in particular that have to increase the amount that they give in, and as well as the workers who are paying large parts of these premiums. So let me just read here. This is from the Kaiser Family Foundation survey. A 6% increase in healthcare just from the year before, outpacing inflation builds on two prior years of 7% gains. So you have 7, 7, and 6. The cost is rising faster than inflation, and they say it will bite into employment and wage growth. That's pretty obvious statement. If health care costs go up faster than the economy in general, that means there's no money left over to go to wages, which is exactly what's happening. They are facing, in some cases, a 15% health insurance increase year-over-year increase.

They say that from their survey of their detailed snapshot, that the family premium has gone up 6%. Worker earnings has gone up 4. Overall inflation has gone up 2.7%. Now, the actual, this is what I was talking to Matt Stoller about this, because how is this possible? And because there's a sell here about health insurance and even with Obamacare and all of that in the system, is that when you consider where the costs are going, you should say, well, it should make sense with health care prices, with hospitals. Now, what I talked to Stoler about was that if you look at drug prices, hospital prices, and others, there has not been that dramatic of an increase. So why is it so dramatic? And what he calls it is, let me get the exact

term, because I really liked the way that he phrased it. He said it's corporate sludge. And so, for example, he talks about how private equity and others who have taken over hospital billing departments and they will scrap for a $1,000 increase in services because their billing fee is some $10. But at scale, that's billions and billions of dollars. The $1,000 in cost is passed along to you, the consumer. It's also passed along to the health insurance company just passes on obviously to everybody else, but it's just so that these people can make a profit. The other thing that they flag in there, which I thought was fascinating, is GOP-1 drugs. So the cost of these of semi-glutide drugs is very high, obviously,

because these are very profitable drug companies. Everybody wants them. So health insurance is covering them or they're finding different ways, doctors and others to negotiate. Ironically, there was a theory that all of these GOP-1 drugs would reduce the amount of health care services

in the long run because people would be less obese. But in the immediate term, it's actually driving up the price dramatically of overall health services. I also, as I have people know, I never let the doctors off the hook here because what they talk about is that healthcare providers are now negotiating higher wages for themselves through the hospitals and the hospitals are passing that on to the insurance. Now, it's not the

doctor's fault. I get it. You guys have hundreds of thousand dollars in debt. It's not necessarily on you, but that financing structure, the American Medical Association and the cartel of residency, which they've created artificial scarcity in so that they can all get paid more to pay off their enormous debt is also being passed on to us. It's just like when you put it all together from the drugs to GLP1 to hospital services, this can't last. Like $27,000 is crazy. The average family income is less than $100,000 per year. So after tax income, yeah, I understand, you know, employer contribution and all of that, etc. But, you know, it's 27K for the workers for a family premium in addition to a $2,000 to $3,000 deductible, which is the normal amount that people

have in savings for a rainy day, which means you're dead, right? And then, you're you and I are on Obamacare. I've shared this family of three, Obamacare. I think it's like $9 to $10,000 per year. About $14,500 deductible. Like you're dead if you ever get hit with something like that. Yeah, childbirth, boom, all right? That one hurts in particular. And then think about that for all of these other people who are out there. So this is just more of a value neutral thing of like, this can't go on. Like somebody has to do something about this. And Obamacare is not the answer, as we are all learning, because the health health care subsidies that are expiring are making it dramatically unaffordable for every person

who's actually on the plan. The only reason it worked is because they started throwing money at the plans during COVID. But before that, the reason there wasn't uptick is because it was crazy expensive. I think what's going to happen is a vast number of people will just go uninsured. Like we talked about, I was talking about this Ryan. There was a couple who was 60 years old. They make 80K. Their premiums are going to go up 18,000. I'm like, yeah, you know, if you're relatively healthy, I'm rolling the dice till Medicare for five years. That's not a a good place to be, right? If you get hit by a bus, it's not going to be good. But it's $25,000 a year in disaster insurance really worth it? Not really. Ask people in San Francisco own homes. A lot of them

don't pay for earthquake insurance for this exact reason. It's crazy high. This is what happens. It's insane. And that's a really bad outcome. I don't know if you remember back during the Obamacare debates, but we talked all about this like death spiral potential. And we, like, the scenario you're sketching out is what leads to that death spiral because what happens is people who are younger and healthier, they say, like, Zogger's like, I'm not paying for this. This doesn't make sense. And so the younger, healthier participants get out of the pool. You're left with more, like, older people with more chronic illnesses who are much more expensive. And guess what that means? Everybody's premiums go up. And then when those premiums go up, then the next layer

of people who are like, you know, some relatively healthy and relatively young are like, you know what, I'm not doing this either. And then the premiums go up again. So we are, facing that sort of a death spiral situation. And let's keep in mind, like, we're covering the people who have employer, they get health insurance through their employers. Like, those are the lucky ones. And still, it's unaffordable and unsustainable. And so, you know, listen, I'm long been to Medicare for all gal back when the Obamacare debate was happening. I was very much pushing for a public option. Like, our health care system at every level is so fucked. I mean, like you said, even just starting from the way that doctors are trained, all the expense and the debt that they

have to take on. We have a shortage of doctors, too, by the way. You know, go and try to get an appointment any kind of specialist or even a general practitioner, go to the hospital and try to get care. You're going to be facing a long line. We are, all these rural hospitals are going to be closing because of the big, beautiful bill, quote unquote. You have these subsidies that are going away that are going to make all of this hit home very aggressively. I was just looking at some polling. You've got four in ten Americans who say they are deeply concerned. about being able to afford health insurance, care, and the prescriptions that they need. And what happens to when people go with, how does it work when people go without insurance?

What that means is that they don't go to the doctor. So any conditions that come up, they're waiting until they are, you know, in a dire circumstance, and then they go to the emergency room. And then that is the most expensive care that you could possibly get. So that's how we end up. That's one of the reasons why we end up with the system where we spend more than any other country on healthcare and we get worse results than virtually any other developed nation because every aspect of this for-profit system is broken. So, you know, the trajectory that we are on

is fundamentally unsustainable. Someone is going to have to actually address. They're going to have to confront the insurers. They have to confront private equity. They're going to have to confront the hospital system, like they're going to have to radically transform this system if we're going to get out of this death spiral. I totally agree. And, you know, before we, you don't even have to, I know you're a medical for Medicare for all person. Yeah. There are many countries, even with universal-ish health care, stolar again enlightening me. In Japan, apparently, they have tons of private insurers, if you want them. But the government has a literal list. This is how much a treatment costs, right? MRI, flat rate. You can be in Kyoto.

You can be in Hokkaido, wherever you are. This is how much the... So there's no pharmacy, what is it, the PBMs and all these middlemen. Price controls. Yeah, there's literal price control. You're like, this is how much... The MRI costs. Figure it out.

I'm even willing to give you cost of living inflation. So it can be higher in New York City than it can be in Wichita. I'm even fine with that. But right now, the price of a drug itself is not even set. It's negotiated between the health insurance people, the pharma people, the drug people, and that's how people get priced out of, you know, their cap on the amount of prescription drug care. This is another reason why, I know this is long-winded, but on the Medicare point, right, this is why I'm like, I'm not willing to sign up for any, first of all, put the cultural questions aside, like illegal immigration and trans. I'm saying even in the current way that we are right now about Medicare, we cannot live in a system where we allow these people to bilk the federal government.

So, for example, I've talked about dialysis. 1% of all U.S. federal spending is dialysis. That, people do not understand hundreds of billions of dollars spent on dialysis and end-stage renal disease. That is astronomical. It is a huge percentage of all Medicare spending. Now, a big part of that is people are fat. Another part of that is that a lot of people are poor. A lot of people are also irresponsible.

They don't take their insulin for some reason. But at the end of the day, we end up paying for it. There's also cardiac, what is it, failure, like heart failure alone, one of the most expensive phases of health care could be, you know, dealt with through, could be dealt with through preventative care, which obviously I support. But at the very least, like, why does nobody come in? You know, this is the whole point about Medicare negotiating prices. And like, yo, if we're going to pay 1% of dialysis spending, like we're setting some prices here. If that's going to be 1% of the U.S. federal, but that's more than we spend on like the national weather stuff that, you know, does a lot. lot of things. They're actually good for the country, right? So that's why I'm like,

I mean, these cartels, they need to be broken to the ground. Yes. Support. Support that comment. I will say Medicare and Medicaid do negotiate on the price of care. They do not negotiate by large on the drugs, which is outrageous. And Biden, they pass like, okay, we have a list of 10 drugs we're now going to negotiate on, which is so characteristic of them. Like, we'll make some progress, but not nearly, you know, do what is required. But yes, that's one of, that would be one of the benefits of moving to a Medicare for all system. And I don't have like a total philosophical objection to having the ability to, you know, if you don't want to be on Medicare to purchase a private plan or whatever for wealthy people will want to do that. You just want to make sure that the pool

is large enough so that the government can benefit from having healthier people in the pool so you can benefit from those economies. And also the exactly what you're saying, if you have a large Medicare pool, it makes it so you have so much more pricing control and power. Yeah. In terms of controlling costs at every single level. So, but yeah, it's, I don't know. It's funny because this, you know, healthcare was really back burner during the last presidential election. And nobody really very, remember Trump got asked about, he said he had a concept of a plan. So we'll have great health care. Yeah. And I think, I don't know, I guess it's, I guess it's because there were so many other things going on. Kamala Harris didn't really make it a focus or an issue because she kind of

was left in no man's land. You guys will recall in 2020 when she thought it was the thing to do. She signed on as a co-sponsor to Bernie's Medicare for all. Then when she got pushed back from rich donors, then she, like, ran away from that. It became a real weakness for her in terms to Democratic primary. You have a Biden administration that didn't, he ran on a public option. Of course, they didn't even try. Like, as soon as he got the nomination, he just stopped talking about health care altogether. It was clear he never cared about doing anything with regard to, you know, any sort of significant transformation of the system. So she really didn't raise it as an issue. and it just went unresolved, and now you can see what an incredible mess it is and how something dramatic does have to be done here at some point.

Yeah, well, I hope so. I don't know, because everyone says that every year and, you know, it just continues to go up. Or things will just get, you know, get worse and it'll become just like a luxury for the ultra-rich. Well, let's stick with that because I can't tell you how much this bothered me. Let's go and put this up here on the screen. And this is, by the way, if you're a Democrat, this is why you should be mad. So, Amy Klobuchar put out her example of rising Obamacare premiums. She says, early retirees like Bill and Shelley will see their health insurance premiums increase nearly 300% from $442 to $1,700 per month.

If Congress refuses to extend the enhanced tax credits, that's an extra 15K a year families cannot afford. Put the article up because this is why it's so perfect. Could you not find literally anybody else than two early retirees who are, these are Gen Xers in their 50s who apparently are early. retired, earning a six-figure pension income. Now, I want to be clear, I don't begrudge anybody for early retirement, but you're not exactly a sympathetic test case for why we should be paying more in ACA premium. So this is the current messaging. I saw the same thing actually

from Jeff Merkley, where they find some boomers who are like right on the edge around Medicare and look, oh, these poor people are going to have to pay more for health care. I'm like, yeah, you know, get a fucking job. Like at a certain, but like, I'm sorry. I don't feel sorry for you whenever the family health insurance premium is going up to some $27,000 per year. Like, and actually the least sympathetic people in the world are early retirees who presumably, if you're willing to retire at some 50 years old, you have $130,000 a year pension income. You're sitting on some serious assets, not only your homes and your stocks. This is the issue that I find with a lot of the current messaging is that they have found

like these least sympathetic test cases of elderly folks when even people who are not on Obamacare, let's say the average family of foreign making 110,000, less than the pension income of these early retirees, their premium is up to is some $27,000 for a family. So that's just my personal thing. And she was getting dunked on quite a bit for this. But like, I'm sorry. I don't want to hear about the plight of the early retired middle class, upper middle class, rich. Like that is not the sympathetic test case for who we should be thinking about. Fair. Could have chosen a better example. Yeah, but this is, like, this has been multiple of these.

But, like, what you're describing is actually, I would not to go to, like, deeper philosophical or overthinking or whatever, but this is actually the core problem with neoliberalism. It's like, when you have this, this piecemeal system where some people benefit and some people don't benefit, and it's not universal, then, yeah, you can create a lot of resentment against Bill and Shelley, who retired early and want to be able to travel more and are about to get hit very hard with high premiums and their lifestyle is going to be curt. And people are like, well, fuck them. I don't want to have to subsidize their lifestyle. The idea of a universal program and why social security is so popular, why Medicare is so popular, is because everyone, by and large, benefits. Everyone feels like they pay in. Everyone feels like they benefit.

And so it doesn't create these, like, weird resentments, which allow people to, you know, divide and conquer. Because that then gets used to say, well, then we shouldn't extend the subsidies for everyone. Well, you're mostly going to be not hurting Bill and Shelley. they're actually going to be okay. You're mostly going to be hurting a lot of other people who are just going to be kicked off of health insurance because they cannot afford it. We're going to end up with some catastrophic situation in the emergency room. And by the way, it's pennywise and pound foolish because we're going to end up paying at the end of the day

just for the care that's wildly more expensive than it would be if they had just been in the insurance system. So that's why we need to support universal programs and not this like piecemeal nonsense of like, you know, Obamacare is a good example of like a neoliberal solution, which by the way, Obamacare, which is a disaster, is still better than what we had before. You know, in key ways, it is significantly better than what we had before. But it's still wildly insufficient and still creates, you know, these insane incentives. And at bottom is a for-profit system that's completely failed people. See, the thing is when people say that, what they mean is in the aggregate.

So, yeah, it's better that more people are insured. But then everybody else's prices are higher. And that's the issue, you know, broadly why people get mad. I take your point about universalism, but having seen how politics progresses, Bill and Shelley get everything they want, okay? Bill and Shelley are getting their property tax. Their governor of the state of Florida is comparing property tax to buying a television and renting it from Best Buy. That is the level of intellectual analysis that we have on their behalf. They get tax breaks in every state in the country and all their Social Security.

Now they literally get Social Security tax-free, which is crazy. So it's like you get tax-free Social Security, you get free health care from the government when they eventually becomes 64, bottoms, the limited pocket, or unlimited pockets when it comes to dialysis, end-of-life care, cardiac health insurance. If you have a family of four with two children, you're paying $27,000. In theory, it'd be nice if we had some sort of universal coverage. But in practicality, what it always comes back to is Bill and Shelley and I shouldn't call it by. Are you arguing then that the subsidy shouldn't be extended? Like, what are you actually are, what's the point you're making? To be honest, in the interim, from the data that I have seen,

while there are families that will benefit from it, a huge portion of the benefit pool actually are boomers. Like, they're boomer retirees, people exactly like this. And I do really philosophically, I'm like, man, I don't want to be subsidized. I'm just sick of pain for these folks. You're talking about 15 million people who will lose their health insurance. But see, that's in the aggregate. So then let's look at the aggregate. Yes, but let's look at the data for a lot of these early retiree types who, to be honest, again, probably paid off health care, probably have paid off house, probably have decent number of stock portfolio. Yeah, it's hard to stomach.

When people who are families are paying $27,000 through $30,000 in health care. But again, the fact that like it's all a mess, right? So you just want them to suffer more so that we all suffer? Well, I think it should have to pay more. The thing you're ignoring, too, though, is let's say that, you know, the 15 million that cannot afford health insurance because the premiums hike, and it's not just boomers, And it's not just, you know, people who are not particularly sympathetic. You're talking about families.

You're talking about small business. You're talking about a lot of people, right? Talking about you and your family, you know? Those people get out of the system. Prices are going to go up for everyone, for everyone, including the people you find sympathetic. And like I said, you're not saving money because ultimately they're going to end up in the emergency room. You're receiving the most expensive care. So that's what I'm saying is like they picked a poor example.

Sure. But this is a problem that has to be dealt with. And in the interim, the best thing we can do at the moment is extend the subsidies so that we don't have this, you know, mass sort of casualty event. And it doesn't look like that's happening. It looks like the premiums are going to go up in an astronomical way. I think it's going to be Democrats are betting that it's going to be politically disastrous for Republicans. It may be, I don't know. I don't know how politics works anymore.

We'll see. But, you know, there's no doubt that it's going to create pain like across the. board, not just for the people that you, like, hate and have contempt for. Yeah, it's not that I have contempt. It's that they, oh, okay, maybe I do. Yeah, I mean, I just, I continue to watch people who I know who are my age of unaffordable health care, unaffordable housing. And then I see these people take to the CNBCs and the MSNBCs of the world lobbying for no property tax, lobbying for more free health care, lobbying for free dialysis. I'm like, man, this is making me angry because they get every single thing that they want. And a lot of the people I see struggling don't really

Get it. And it just seems that the system is designed for the people who are old. I would also say, though, it just makes me mad. I would also say, though, that the precariousness is creeping up and up. Like, with education being so expensive, with health care being so expensive, with housing being so expensive, you're right. Boomers who were able to establish themselves in their career, go to college at a time when it was wildly less expensive, and get a house when it was much less expensive. Like, they are doing better than younger generations. but that precarity, with the cost of food, with the cost of energy going up, that is really creeping up not just ages, but in terms of also income levels.

Yeah, that's true. And so you have more and more people who you would look at their income and be like, oh, they should be fine. Who are struggling? Because the cost of everything, no, are they the most sympathetic case? No. But in a lot of ways, they're not in such a different boat than, you know, a lot of people that, you know, people would find to be more compelling.

again, which is why I think we need universal programs so that you don't have the ability to pit different more or less sympathetic groups against each other in order to block any sort of a beneficial solution for everyone. Because if the subsidies go away, it's going to be bad for almost everyone. The ultra-rich, of course, they're going to be completely fine. But for people across the income spectrum, it's going to be a real problem for them. And, you know, another another big blow to our health care system. I don't dispute it. You're right. It's going to be bad for the health care system. I just, I'm more thinking broadly.

Like, to be honest, I think that these people should have to pay the most. I think that if early retirees, people who are in the 60s and all, they should pay more than people who are families. I think that, especially if you already have your kids out of the house paid off out and the casualty or whatever is coming from your ability to travel, I'm like, who, man, I do not want to hear that. When I could see people who are 25, 28, can't buy a house, not able to afford anything. I'm like, somebody eventually does have to pay for something.

It can't all just be kumbaya where they're okay and, you know, these people down at the bottom are all supposedly exactly the same. At the end of the day, like if we want to talk about who the subsidies should come from, right now it's bottom up, quite literally from a generational level, and I think it should be fit. But they lobby dramatically against it. How about we reverse all of the tax cuts to the rich from the one big beautiful bill? and we use it to pay for health care subsidies

so that everybody can afford. Well, here's the irony, though. Who's the rich in this country? It's old people. They're the ones who are going to lobby against it the most. Look at their overall net worth. Everything they do. That's why it's more important to have a class analysis

than an age-based analysis because there are plenty of people who are older who are struggling as well. I'm not, you know, in terms of accuracy, just in terms of like understanding the structure of society and who we should actually be positioned. ourselves against and what sort of divides we should be striking. I don't think it's a generational

war. It's a class war. Now, you're right. Boomers tend to have more, you know, more wealth accumulated. Certainly the billionaire class. It's not even like, I'm not even sure I could say the billionaire class is disproportionately boomer, probably. But in any case, it's, I'm thinking some of the tech guys, like Elon and Zuckerberg and whatever. But, you know, that's, the people who get their way, especially with this administration, are the oligarchs. That's who actually has the power. And so those are the people that we need to be taxing more. Those are the people whose power we need to be constraining. This goes back to the AI conversation as well. Yeah, I think that's true, but a little bit limited. Because it's not all going to come from them.

It's like I said, I mean, you have this entire state of Florida who is run by a cartel of elderly, who do everything in their power to bilk the federal government for health care, for bailouts every time they get hit by a hurricane and doing everything in their power on the state level to make sure that families visiting Disney have to subsidize their entire way of life, and they don't have to pay a dime in property tax, in school tax, in nothing. As long as those people are also included in this, then I guess all... You want to hit on Florida. I will join you in that crusade. Okay, good. Great, great. All right. All right. Let's get to Israel.

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