Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 5/12/23: Elizabeth Holmes Returns In NYTimes, Biden Tik Tok Kids Panic On Air, Netflix's Cleopatra Drama, Dianne Feinstein Returns, Spencer Snyder on American Financial Literacy

Episode Date: May 12, 2023

This week we discuss the Elizabeth Holmes profile in the New York Times that showcases her new persona "Liz", the Biden Tik Tok kids panic on the Tim Dillon show when they admit they'll lose followers if they criticize the Democrats, Netflix's upcoming show "Cleopatra" is sparking drama among Egyptians for casting a black woman as Cleopatra, Dianne Feinstein returns to her job in a wheelchair, and our BP partner Spencer Snyder takes a deep dive into American's lack of financial literacy. To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. I rarely am speechless, Ryan, but that's how I felt when I saw this. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. Elizabeth Holmes is being rehabilitated by the New York Times in a fawning new profile, which is so humiliating that they even acknowledge it in the story. They say,

I was admittedly swept up in Liz as an authentic and sympathetic person. She's gentle and charismatic in a quiet way. My editor laughed at me when I shared these impressions, telling me, Amy, you got rolled. The headline of the piece, Ryan, is the black turtlenecks are gone. So is the voice. As the convicted Theranos founder awaits prison, she has adopted a new persona, devoted mother. Liz Holmes wants you to forget about Elizabeth.

I mean, what did you make of this crap? Where basically they want to say like, oh, she's a mom and all this, erasing the fact that billions of dollars were stolen from investors. And worse, as I always say, she actually sold this technology knowing it wouldn't work to Walgreens. And people were misdiagnosed based on her fake blood technology, some of whom suffered severe health events as a result of her BS diagnosis. So that is, to me, the most unforgivable crime of this entire thing. But give me your impressions of this ridiculous profile. And I think there's nothing wrong with doing a profile of Elizabeth Holmes.

I would love to talk to her. If you can get that. But then you also interview a bunch of people about what it takes to be a sociopath in this world. Yes, exactly. Because it appears from everything that she was doing in her business world that she's like some type of a sociopath. Grade A narcissist,

no question. The fact that she's now admitting that she faked that entire voice is so disturbing that I think it could make for some deep

psychological exploration. Oh, I would love to talk to her one-on-one. I'd be like, so, you know, do you have any remorse whatsoever about those people? How do you feel about that?

What about people, like, at what point did you realize that people were going to be getting wrong diagnoses and you continued forward anyway because you just thought that you could keep juggling it and then eventually... Are you at peace with that

when you pose for cameras with your two little kids? How do you live with, yeah, I'd be like, how do you live with yourself? Could have been great. Instead, it takes the celebrity profile form and applies it to this.

Everybody has read a good Vanity Fair profile where an author spends like a day or an afternoon with a celebrity, writes a couple witty lines. We read it in the airport. Everybody has fun, and we all go home. Yeah, it's great. I was telling you. I just read a profile of Tom Hanks.

It was nice. Tom Hanks is a nice guy. I don't really think about it, but I was like, oh, yeah, Tom, real stand-up guy. Loves typewriters. That's cool. That's not the same thing. Right, killed 20 minutes. Everybody's happy.

They bring that to this sociopath. So the most celebrity profile line probably in the whole piece, but the whole piece is in that form. Amy Chozik writes, and we'll talk about who Amy Chozik is in one second. She writes, so to just say it, Ms. Holmes knows what that she had these two kids in the middle of the sentencing and the trial. Yes. That everybody assumes she had these kids in order to try to get out of prison. It's obviously true. She used her pregnancy as a shield at trial for sympathy.

It's so transparent. How do you not ask her that? Not even ask her. Press her on that directly. It's just so transparent. How do you not ask her that, not even ask her, press her on that directly? It's just, it's so absurd. And so the other interesting part is the identity of this reporter. So Amy Chozik, who has mostly gone away since 2016, it feels like, she was the beat reporter who was assigned to cover for the New York Times, the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2015, 2016. And her, her quite soft coverage of her,

I think, helped produce some of the delusions that the campaign operated under in a self-destructive way. So this kind of soft coverage that you do doesn't, in the end, often end up helping the person that you think it's helping because it prevents them from then actually doing the self-reflection that would be necessary to correct what's going wrong here. Now, kudos to Liz Holmes. She's now Liz. She doesn't wear the black turtlenecks. She doesn't have a deep voice anymore.

Kudos to her for getting this coverage in The Times. But I don't think it's going to be enough because all it did is kind of lump Amy Chozik and The Times in with her rather than, I think, actually rehabilitate her. Because people can use their own common sense, be like, you got rolled, just like your editor said. People read it where we're not exaggerating, still can't even believe it's real. Incredible. Just an incredible moment where Tim Dillon had on two little Biden TikTok stars, clearly who have

been, they claim they're not being paid, but of course they're attached to some sort of agency. Tim doing the Lord's work, I guess, having them on and interviewing them about their process, which resulted in one of the best clips that I've ever seen yet regarding these guys. Let's take a listen. It's actually really hard in this space, right? Like we have like 45 seconds to record a video, keep people's attention. And a lot of the people on our side, like if they start hearing, like I've actually done it before.

I've criticized like Democrats, like specifically Hakeem Jeffries. And it all just went south. Like I started losing followers. Like it's bad, right? And I really want to be that person that like reaches the other side. Cause Democrats, I mean,

they're horrible at their jobs, right? They do a lot of shitty things. Although I'll vote for them all the time. But it's also hard in this space to criticize them. That's a good – can we clip that quote? They're horrible at their jobs. Please don't. Please don't.

Please don't clip that. No, no. Please don't clip that. Please don't clip that. Whenever I criticize them, the people get mad. That's a definition of propaganda and not of providing honest analysis. I mean, look, to be fair, these guys probably, they're so young, they probably don't even really realize like what they're caught up

in. But I think one of the things that you mature and realize, Ryan, as I'm sure you've had, and I have many times, is that pissing people off is actually a key part of the job if you want to remain intellectually honest throughout the period. Because I have been in the melee of some big social events and stuff. And so you've got to stick to your guns, man. And sometimes it works out. Sometimes you look like a fool. And then you think about that in retrospect. And you said, you know what? I was a little bit too hot in the way that I was thinking and talking about this. And this time around, because I remember exactly what was going on with that, at this time, I'm going to do this.

And then by doing that, you end up pissing people off who demand like loyalty and fealty from you. When in reality, what you realize over time is you got to try and stay true to yourself. But beyond that, you have to always try and say what you believe and explain it in a cogent and thoughtful process and trust that people will stick with you through it. And if they don't, you have to come to the conclusion it's on you and it's not on me. Yeah, and from the post-World War II on, corporate capture was the big risk when it came to media and to anchors and reporters and editors not being honest with their audience because it would run up against the corporate interests of the people that financed their entire operations. Read Manufacturing Consent, read, you know, well-trod terrain. What is becoming a big problem now is audience capture, and those kids are a perfect example of it. That they are afraid to say what they believe, which is that Hakeem Jeffries might not be the

most wonderful person on the planet, but if they say that, all of a sudden, it all falls apart as they start losing followers. It's what I love about this format you have because we don't have a monolithic audience. We don't have one hegemonic group. We've got people all over. People all over the place. Literally all over and you really see it,

especially when we do in-person events. It's so crazy. I remember the first time we did a real student loan debate. It was genuinely 50-50. And it's just so validating to be like, yeah, people really are, you know, all walks of life watch this show. Probably the thing that Crystal and I are the most proud here. And I love pissing people off. Yeah, it's fun.

That's the other thing people forget. Right. But if the audience all felt one way, I could love pissing them off all they want. But like at the end of the day, you're not going to be able to survive that if your entire audience like disagrees with you. And so there is that audience capture that you just, if you cultivate an audience that believes just one thing, like Democrats are amazing and Hakeem Jeffries is going to lead them to the promised land. You just have to keep saying that. You're not independent. And too many people describe themselves as independent today when they are not actually

independent of their audience. That's smart. That's a good way of putting it. I think about all the time, I've shared with you before, we took a big hit. A lot of people canceled their premium subscriptions during the withdrawal from Afghanistan. And Crystal and I looked at each other and we were like, we're not going to change a damn thing. We're just going to keep going. And actually, it was vindicating because in the long run, we got more by staying true to who we were.

We would have, you know, business-wise, you could see how we're like, oh, we got to, you know, make sure that we, you know, they said, no, they said, we believe this. Being anti-war is core to the things that we believe. If we make less money as a business, so be it. And again, I think it worked out actually in the long run, but I know a lot of people in the business,

they would take an opposite move. They really would. And yeah, so you got to remain true to yourself. That's what I would say to these kids. You're 20 years old. You probably cringed at that clip in a few years. And that's okay. I cringe every time I watch old clips.

Me too. And it's not just YouTubers. Fox News, after the November election, did not believe that the election had been stolen. But started seeing audience bleeding out to Newsmax and these other places. And the orders came down. We need to play footsie with this stuff. Because they had become captured by their audience and had no choice.

Smart. As everyone who watches this show knows, I love history. So I hear, there's a new Cleopatra thing coming out. I say, oh, great, Cleopatra. What a fascinating era, the Macedonian Age, the declining intersections with the Rome. We've had all those famous, the Marc Antony stuff. I said, maybe that'll get into it. But then it turns out the huge controversy erupts because, let's put this up there on the screen, Netflix's new Cleopatra

slash historical series cast Cleopatra as black. Now, I personally had never thought about it. I mean, you know, it was a little bit weird, but it has caused enormous consternation, actually, in Egypt, because the Egyptians say that cast, and I'm not just saying the Egyptians, I'm talking about the Egyptian government is calling out the United States and Netflix

for casting a black actress to play Cleopatra. They claim that they are falsifying Egyptian history. We are desecrating their heritage, their government, their antiquity, their overall history that is not accurate and not true, which has now caused, Ryan, a great study into what was Cleopatra. It turns out that from 323 BC, we don't actually have a particularly good view into what the racial makeup was of some of these figures. It's like Jesus. We don't actually know all that much about Jesus. Some accounts say this.

Some accounts that say that. Well, same thing apparently is true of Cleopatra. The general consensus is that she had Persian ancestry of some kind. We know that she was Ptolemy, the Ptolemaic dynasty, that she had Persian ancestry of some kind, that she possibly had some intermingling ancestry involving slaves, but that to be a noble woman or whatever at that time very likely had the hue of what you would, you know, that you would relate an Egyptian person who's not black to be. Okay, so that's the general historical consensus, according to the Egyptians too. Okay. But again, you know, we don't technically know. Well, this then, what I love this is that this is peak Westerners in like putting their own BS onto other cultures and

then finding out that other cultures don't actually agree with us at all and actually get very angry. And it resulted in this New York Times op-ed that we showed you, Fear of a Black Cleopatra. Now, this was by an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Missouri and Dr. Gilbert, an assistant professor of classics at Mississippi State University. This op-ed is probably best noted as what actual critical race theory looks like. If people want to know critical race theory, they're always like, well, that's a graduate level. This is a pretty good view into what it is. And our friend Richard Hanania actually flagged, for me, my favorite part. Let's put it up there on the screen.

They say, quote, was informed by the views of Shelley Haley, who claims that although evidence of her ancestry and physical attributes are inconclusive, Cleopatra was culturally black. And so what does that remind you of, Ryan? That reminds me of Rachel Dolezal. And so as Richard so aptly puts it there, they basically are saying that Cleopatra is the ancient Rachel Dolezal, which is certainly something. So I'm curious what you make of this entire thing. Well, it's absurd. It's incorrect. Yeah, it's just wrong. That's why I'm like, what are you talking about? There was no such thing as black in Egyptian culture at that time. Not until later. Therefore, you can't be culturally black.

It's just false. Now, I was doing some research to get ready for this segment. And I looked into another historical drama called Hamilton. And what I have done. Great show, by the way. And I have uncovered a couple of disturbing facts. Okay. One is that George Washington was a character in the drama Hamilton.

Yes. Played by a black man. Was not black. Yes. He was white. True. Did you know that George Washington was white? I did not know that.

Oh, thank you. Aaron Burr. Ah. Also white. Right. Played by a black man as well. Hamilton, despite being born in the Caribbean, also white. Also white, right.

So I think we're going to need a pretty serious run of corrections in the way that they portrayed. I actually think this is a fair point, which is who cares at all. The only reason I think this is funny is because of the whole ancient Rachel Dolezal thing. And I don't know why they just didn't do what Hamilton did. The guy, what's his name, Lin-Manuel

Miranda, the way he wrote Hamilton, his explanation was, it's America before told by America now. I'm like, okay, cool. I was like, whatever. You're the artist. Yeah, yeah. By the way, it's a great show. I actually recommend people go and watch it. I know it sounds cringe, but it genuinely is a great show. The songs are fantastic.

It's fun. It's very captivating for two and a half hours. And the theater is also much smaller than you would expect when you're there. It felt much more intimate. It's a lot of fun, actually. My point being, there's a way to do that and just be like, yeah, it's not, you know. But, and I think this is where, in America,

I think the idea of a heterogeneous, multiracial society is much more baked into kind of who we are. Whereas in Egypt, not so much. And that was part of the problem, is that they were then trying to basically Western explain, like American explain Egyptian culture to Egyptians. And they were like, no, no, no, no, no. We're not going to be handling this.

So it's caused a global freak. I think they might actually ban it in Egypt, which is actually a whole other. You know, it's like, who cares, guys? Come on. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And I think most people know the barstool history of the production of race as a thing. But if people don't, you know, it comes from mostly, you know, South America and the Caribbean after the Spanish and then other European colonists came. And it was a way to basically implant a hierarchy because you had people who were born. So you had the highest in the hierarchy are Europeans born in Europe who have then come over to South America or to the Caribbean. Then below that, you have Europeans who are born in South America and in the Caribbean. But then they have their own pride because they're born there and they're calling themselves kind of native to this land.

But then you have intermingling. Yeah, mestizo. Mestizo and mulatto. You have, if you go to, say, Haiti or so, there's something like 15 different lists of like, all right, if you have one grandfather that's this, and they became legal. Now, the Haitians banned that

and tossed it after the revolution, but that's kind of where it comes from. I was about to say, I actually recommend, Dan Carlin has a series on Haiti and the racial obsessiveness. It makes me want to vomit when I listen to it because you're exactly right.

Everything was ordered by drops of blood. Like, they'd be like, oh, that's an octoroon, as in you have one-eighth of black blood. Then they're like, oh, that's an octoroon, as in you have one eighth of black blood. Then they're like, no, that's a quadroon, as in you have, it's like, oh, this is, reading it is literally repulsive because that's not only the way that their society was ordered,

it was the way that money was distributed and it was the way through which power and all of that worked, which all was obviously on top of the most horrific conditions of slavery literally in the entire world at the time, which led to the revolution. What was the name?

Toussaint, I forget his name. Yeah, Toussaint. Yeah, the name of the person, it's like the Haitian George Washington. He was just celebrated in France. Good. Macron went to the prison where he died in France. Really? Oh, that's interesting. Because Napoleon went and got him. That's right. Yeah. Which

actually that's kind of precipitated why Napoleon didn't want anything to do with the American colonies. Louisiana purchased. There's a lot of our own history actually intertwined with that. And you're right. I'm glad that you brought that up, which is that the way that we think about race today is much more a byproduct of the repulsive historical legacy of the Spanish and Portugal African slave trade than anything that happened 2,000, 3,000 years ago. Like the Moor of Venice is nobody in the play considers the Moor to be racially inferior. Oh, good point. Yeah. That's true. I hadn't thought about that.

Because it was right around that age of Spanish-American concept. People understood that some people had different skin colors, but that's not how they judged people. Now, there was plenty of tribalism, and you might have tribalist ideas about the Persians or about the Egyptians. But it only became codified by skin color thanks to the colonialists over here in North and South America. Well, shout out to them, I guess. I guess they're gone. I'm glad we're gone.

That's why the Egyptians are like, what are you talking about? Yeah, the Egyptians are like, we don't do this over here. Okay, all right. We'll see you guys later. Senator Dianne Feinstein returned to Washington after a three and a half month absence. She'd missed a lot of votes. Ryan, everyone hoped that she was in good health. And look, I want to say this at the top. As I've said here many times, I got nothing but compassion for elderly people who are in the last days of their lives. Nothing. Who are private citizens. But I have nothing but disgust for narcissists who are unable to do their jobs,

who continue to cling on to power. And the photo I'm about to show you is genuinely disturbing. This is what Senator Feinstein looked like when she got out of the car after arriving in Washington. I mean, what are we doing here, Ryan? This is someone who, I mean, she literally looks like, like this, like days away. Like the queen looked better two days before she died. If you coupled that image with either an indication or even reports of a crisp mind, then you'd be like,

Yeah, sure. Then you'd be like, okay. As in, she can get better. I don't think so. Not looking at that. Yeah. This whole get well soon, then you'd be like, okay. Right, as in she can get better. I don't think so. Not looking at that. No, this whole get well soon, when the person has dementia, now she's also suffering with shingles,

which is extraordinarily painful. I feel very bad for her. I'm like, please retire. You have $200 million. Go sit in a palace in wine country and be surrounded by your loved ones. And what makes it doubly important is that she sits on the judiciary committee, which can't move judicial nominees. Like the one thing that the Biden administration can still do unilaterally because they control the Senate,

make nominees the executive branch into the judicial branch, moving through the, move them through the floor of the Senate. Republicans can't stop them. Because Feinstein's not there on the Judiciary Committee, everything has been just ground to a halt. And it brings to mind for so many people, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who launched an entire girl boss campaign in 2011, 12, 13 to push back on the pressure for her and Breyer to step down. Successfully so, and as a result, wound up flipping the Supreme Court. Yeah, and very likely making sure that Roe v. Wade was overturned. I actually fully believe that if it had been 5-4

that Roberts would not have fully overturned Rovers to Wade. I think it would have kept some remnants of the Casey architecture and then we wouldn't be where we are today. But because it was 6-3 and he would be outnumbered anyway, he went ahead and joined. Right. Yeah. I really believe that. I think you're right that Roberts would be unlikely to be the fifth vote for that. But he's happy to be the sixth one.

Exactly. Well, he's like, oh, it's not on me. Right. He doesn't want to be the fourth against it. Right. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, that's the, like, I mean, she was a narcissist, too. She said, I'm the notorious, even though I've had cancer, like, five times, and I'm going to die on the bench.

And as a result, fulfill the greatest legacy and the greatest dreams of the pro-life movement and of the conservative movement. So, I guess, you know, for them, they're like, yeah, RBG is a hero, just not the hero, though, that the liberals wanted to make her. And this is the thing, too, about Feinstein. Put this up there on the screen. She says, quote, even though I've made significant progress and was able to return to Washington, I'm still experiencing some side effects

from the shingles virus. My doctors have advised me to work a lighter schedule as I return to the Senate. What is a lighter schedule? I return to the Senate. What is a lighter schedule? From zero. From zero. And also, you're a senator. You're barely within your right mind.

She ain't working that hard. She ain't going anywhere. What is she doing? Within the last several years, when you would talk to her in the hallway, her staff would constantly have to remind her of what you're asking about. What you're asking about, what you're doing.

Remember when she didn't remember that they put out a statement saying she wasn't going to run again? She literally didn't. She forgot. She didn't know what was going on. So, look, end the farce. It's not right. There's 40 million people who live in California. They deserve representation.

And some conservatives are like, why are you cheering for this? Here's the thing. Look, California's going to elect a Democrat anyway. And my point is that it's not fair to those people who need constituent services. They need someone in their corner. Like right now, you only have the junior senator. If you had somebody with her level of seniority, she can make stuff move, man. If you're a California business, you've got a problem with the tariff, she'll call the agency on your back. You probably used to 15 years ago. Today, nope. And that is fundamentally wrong in terms of representation. She got 40 million constituents, the biggest state in the union, in the whole country. They got gas problems. They got housing problems. They got so much going on. You deserve somebody in the chamber who's actually

doing something for you. something right if you add up You know, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho There's eight eight serving senators for like 17 people. That's right and California with What 60 70 million? So I say that's like one. It's I think it's 39 million is whatever Well, I mean, it's like almost 10% of the entire nation. I remember when I first started covering the Senate in in as the it was clear that he was just completely out of it. And eventually, it took a long time, but eventually they're like, look.

And you and I missed the whole Strom Thurmond thing, who literally served in the 100. And also, it was gone. He was totally gone from everybody I've spoken to who knew and interacted with Strom Thurmond in his later years. They're like, he was basically a living corpse. And guess what?

That also wasn't right either. And put his own personal history or whatever aside. That still is not right to the people who he was serving. It's not, you know. I mean, look at Chuck Grassley. He's like, what, 90 years old? At least he, when you talk to him in the hallway, he's not who he used to be. Yeah.

But you can tell he's totally there. Still with it? Yeah. I don't know about that. You don't think so? Listen, I'm just, call me an agent if you want. The thing is, he could be gone tomorrow, given the way that these things work. Yes. And also you have good days and bad days. Yeah, exactly. So Feinstein, it's time to go. We'll see you guys later. You've probably seen headlines like this. Lack of financial literacy cost 15% of adults at least $10,000 in 2022.

Financial literacy is essentially the idea that if you understand the mechanics of personal finance, you will make better financial decisions and have a more prosperous life. You might be thinking, that sounds like neoliberal nonsense. The problem is not that people don't understand money, it's that they don't make enough money. And you're definitely right. You're totally right about that. People who write headlines like financial illiteracy is an epidemic should all be uniformly ignored. They do not get it. But as I researched this, I realized financial literacy doesn't have to be a completely stupid idea. It might even be worth taking seriously in the right context. Here's what I mean.

If you don't have enough money, decrease your expenses and then your money will go further. If you don't have enough money, try spending less money. Now, when I think of the topic of financial literacy, I think of charlatans like her. People who totally discount systemic reasons for financial woes and instead write about things like lifestyle creep, which is basically going out to dinner too much as a core reason

so many people are living paycheck to paycheck. You see this in annoying articles asking, are you financially literate? Here are seven signs you're on the right track. Or baiting you into reading about how financial literacy matters for your retirement savings. As if knowing just how to work the numbers is gonna matter as much as simply making enough money. And the advice they give is often frustrating and demeaning. Credit cards and loans might seem like easy solutions to our money problems. Not knowing how to manage them wisely can often leave you struggling.

With financial literacy, you can better understand the terms and conditions. Well damn, are you telling me that by financing my lifestyle with credit cards that I'm only able to pay off with other subsequent credit cards, thus commencing an inexorable accumulation of debt that I have no hope of ever escaping, are you saying that that's ill-advised somehow? Because apparently, only 24% of American adults have a basic understanding of financial literacy. And I may not be one of them. But when they say financial literacy, what exactly do they mean? Because the annoying advice money gurus give is pretty different from the questions that researchers ask to actually measure financial literacy. Now, personal finance training as part

of U.S. policy goes back to at least the 50s. Yes, Ralph has a budget and a method of saving that shows results. There was even a financial literacy and education commission established in 2003. This is an ongoing concern of the government. We actually spent a quarter billion dollars a year on this. And if you think some of that money is being wasted, you are not wrong. Because some of that money went to the FDIC to create this horrible game. Select a round to start earning coins. Welcome to round one. You may want to save money for your goals, to build wealth, for emergencies,

to cover times when you have less income or more expenses. And of course, the banks are in on this too. Resolutions were just passed in Congress making April Financial Literacy Month. You just missed the barbecues. And this was supported by the Credit Union National Association. Well wait, banks are fans of financial literacy? Wouldn't it benefit them to have financially illiterate customers? Turns out, they are huge believers in education. Charles Schwab helps bring financial literacy to kids as young as 4 or 5.

Here are a bunch of teacher-submitted lesson plans you can borrow to teach your third grader about sustainable financing. Bank of America volunteers helped Boys and Girls Club interns learn about budgeting and saving. Goldman Sachs donates $500,000 to Youth Financial Literacy Initiative. Of course banks do this. It's positive PR and it helps teach kids that being poor is their fault for not knowing how to balance a checkbook. You think they should teach things like balancing a checkbook? We don't even teach kids how to balance a checkbook.

Balancing a checkbook. But I do even teach kids how to balance a checkbook. Balancing a checkbook. But I do teach my kids how to balance a checkbook. No, we don't teach people literally how to balance a checkbook because that was made obsolete with online banking. But we do teach financial literacy. Now, the US spends a quarter billion dollars a year on this. That's not much in the grand scheme of things,

but it's almost double, for example, the National Endowment for the Arts. And that is quite unfortunate, because apparently, financial literacy training doesn't really work. Loyola Law School professor Lauren Willis concludes that financial education does not demonstrably improve financial well-being, and a meta-analysis of more than 200 studies found that educational interventions explained only 0.1% of the financial behaviors studied. Also, as far as I can tell, we don't even know how much money is actually lost to financial illiteracy. If you're looking up figures on financial literacy, you will very likely come across this report that estimates $352 billion were lost to financial illiteracy in 2021.

The two articles I referenced in the intro for this video referenced that report. The report is from the National Financial Educators Council, and how they conducted the study was by asking people one question during the past year about how much money do you think you lost because you lacked knowledge about personal finances. They then multiplied the average amount by the 250 million adults in the U.S., and that's how we have 352 billion. So the question is, one, how reliable are these personal reports? And two, are people losing money because they're not financially literate? Or are people losing money because they were maybe bilked? Or how many people feel like they lost money because they lack personal finance education, but actually it's because they simply didn't have enough money

and there was no way to avoid the overdraft fee or paying interest on a credit card or whatever? We have no idea. According to this report, a common financial illiteracy mistake is luxury spending. Apparently, luxury spending costs Americans $65 billion. Scroll down to the section on luxury spending, and all it says is that Americans spent $65 billion on luxury items in 2020. It offers no insight as to what percentage of that $65 billion was spent by people who couldn't afford what they were buying.

And then it offers some wisdom. While you may need a purse, do you really need a Louis Vuitton? Scroll a little further down, personal impact on financial illiteracy, 29.6% of Americans are in poverty or low income. But they established no concrete relationship between these two things. This could just as easily be, Tom DeLonge leaves Blink-182. 29.6% of Americans are in poverty or low income.

Well, thank God he rejoined the band. Clearly, this report is problematic. But somehow, its results are finding their way into mainstream outlets like CNBC and Yahoo. And finally, what actually constitutes financial literacy? These are known as the big five questions for financial literacy. You can pause the video and read them, but something tells me that regardless of whether or not you know the relationship between bond prices and interest rates, it's not going

to be enough to lift you out of a low-wage job. Okay, but if we take a slightly more serious approach to this, it is possible that the sense of public urgency over the level of financial literacy in the population is a reaction to a greater personal financial responsibility in the face of increasingly complicated financial products. When I started asking people about this, no one told me they wish they were taught the concept of saving money earlier. No one said they wish that risk diversification had been more emphasized in kindergarten. People told me, actually, that essentially they wish they had been warned, and upon leaving high school, maybe gotten some practical lessons on navigating a

predatory financial system. And if people were interested in reframing personal finance education like that, that's obviously not a solve for the predatory system itself. But I don't think that is a completely ridiculous idea. But the fantasy that some people have that financial literacy is the antidote to poverty, as if poor people just missed the lesson on budgeting, is idiotic and wrong. All the speak about using your money to maximize wealth or differentiating between needs and wants, that's all just worthless. Because in reality, any actual need we have for personal finance training should be held up to emphasize how opaque and cruel and unequal the financial system is to the average person. And that will do it for me.

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