Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/16/23: Saagar Reacts NASA UFO Report, Sinister Federal Reserve Inflation w/ James Li, UAW Strike Worker Interview w/ Max Alvarez

Episode Date: September 16, 2023

This week Saagar breaks down the NASA UFO report, James Li looks at something more sinister going on with The Federal Reserve's tactics to bring inflation down, and Max Alvarez interviews UAW worker Chris Falzoni as the strike against the Big Three begins.To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core. There are so many stories out there. And if you can find a way to curate and help the right person discover the right content, the term that we always hear from our audience is that they feel seen. Listen to Good Company on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before.

I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. Hey, guys. Ready or not, 2024 is here.

And we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. 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. As promised, I'm going to do a live breakdown of the NASA UFO report. Top line, just got to admit, there's nothing particularly revelatory. But there were some words from the NASA Administrator Bill Nelson about what the report found. Let's take a listen. And the top takeaway from the study is that there is a lot more to learn.

The NASA independent study team did not find any evidence that UAP have an extraterrestrial origin, but we don't know what these UAP are. Okay. So no evidence as usual, the line, no evidence of extraterrestrials, but we also don't really know what UAP, otherwise known as UFO are. Let's go ahead and put the report up there on the screen. I'll just give a very short breakdown for everybody that has it. Effectively, what you can see in front of you is that the NASA report is not really finding of anything. It's just an independent study team report about how to further gather more data. So the report is about 40 pages long. We've gone through the

entire thing here. It effectively has multiple different recommendations about how to use the space program and the satellites and other things that are available to NASA in order to gather as much data as possible about potential UAPs. They talk about the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning as it applies to the vast amount of data that NASA collects. And some of the bigger things that came out of the press conference from Bill Nelson as well was that they were having a dedicated administrator for the UAP phenomenon in-house. So overall, no finding. It's more of an intention to study UAP and the actual report is about setting up the procedures and the ways that we would go about collecting said data about it. They did mention a couple of the infamous UAP sightings. They talk about the go fast video where they imply

at the bottom actually of the report that they claim that the object may not be moving as fast as it appears. According to this analysis that's far too complicated for me to get into, you can go and read it yourself. They talk also about the Mosul orb, about how it does remain unidentified, and then a previous object that had been spotted, which they say that they believe was a commercial airliner. So look, overall, I guess there's progress. We've got reports. We've got coming out. We're going to gather more data, and we'll see what we find. But that's basically all we've got. I'll see you guys later. of a percentage point. The 11th such increase since March of last year brings rates to a range between 5.25 and 5.5%. The highest it's been in 22 years. Interest rates are the highest they've been in 22 years

and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has signaled that additional rate hikes are possible before the end of the year. Although inflation has moved down from its peak, a welcome development, it remains too high. end of the year. They say that rate hikes are necessary to tamp down inflation and restore price stability, but could there be something more sinister at play? Let's find out. The Federal Reserve, established in 1913, stands as one of the most influential

financial institutions in the United States, if not the entire world. The Fed's primary mission is twofold. First, to maximize employment, meaning to ensure as many Americans as possible have jobs, and second, to maintain price stability, meaning ensuring the money you have today holds its value tomorrow. To achieve these goals, the Fed can wield several tools, but perhaps none is as powerful or as often discussed as the interest rate, which we can simply define as the cost of borrowing money or the return earned from lending it. By adjusting these rates, the Federal Reserve can influence the pace of the nation's economic activity.

Lower interest rates encourage more borrowing and spending, which stimulates economic activity, and higher interest rates disincentivize spending by making borrowing more expensive, which in turn slows down economic activity. At a recent Fed retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Fed Chair Jerome Powell called inflation still too high and warned of further rate increases in the coming months. A byproduct of sustained interest rate hikes is, of course, a recession, which would put millions of Americans out of work and cause serious financial distress for many working-class Americans.

So, it's natural that the Fed's decision to hike interest rates has ignited a firestorm of online conspiracies, with theories ranging from the Fed intentionally inducing a recession to favor the wealthy, to the government altering the very definition of a recession, or even the Bureau of Labor Statistics manipulating metrics like the Consumer Price Index and unemployment figures, all seemingly pointing to the end goal of bolstering monetary policies that might predominantly serve Wall Street's interests. I have to say, is it possible for our government to lie to us? A thousand percent, of course it's possible. This is Christopher Clark, an economics professor at Washington State University. Recently, I spoke with him to explore whether or not there

is any credence to the idea that the Fed could be acting in nefarious ways, meaning that instead of setting monetary policy aimed at achieving their dual mandate, the raising or sometimes lowering of interest rates could actually be serving an entirely different purpose. Workers saying, I don't want to drive into the city an hour and a half and drive home an hour and a half every day. actually be serving an entirely different purpose. Nice little recession to get the workers back into line, and he's not the only billionaire CEO saying something to that effect. we have an inability to get the unemployment rate as high as the Fed would like. The unemployment rate is 3.5%. I think the Fed would like it to be higher. They won't publicly say they want it to be 5 or 6%. But there's a tight labor market. And because the market is so tight, they can't get

the unemployment rate as high as they would like. And that's a big problem for them. Hmm, they can't get the unemployment rate as high as they'd like, and it's a big problem for them, says the billionaire CEO, who would be happy if he lost her job, and who also just happens to be Jerome Powell's old boss at the Carlyle Group, one of Wall Street's largest and most influential private equity firms. Oh, and guess who's sitting across from the, a nice little recession to get the workers back in the line, billionaire CEO? Yes, the same guy, CEO and co-founder of the Carlyle Group, David Rubenstein. You literally can't make this stuff up.

So I don't think we can fault people for connecting these dots, pointing to the notion that the Fed seems to be setting monetary policy, not on behalf of the economy as a whole, but rather on behalf of their friends on Wall Street. There's certainly something to be said about a good old boys club

and the billionaire CEO who claimed that recessions are a good thing for getting workers back in line. Or it's a good thing for the macro economy because it would mean workers would be less lazy, would get better productivity. That is a tiny minority position among economists. While that might be true, Rubenstein has been on record outlining the potential advantages of elevated interest rates.

Quote, the greatest fortunes are made by professional investors when things are troublesome, he said. Right now, there are a lot of complications in the market. He points to one specific sector, real estate. You're going to see some real estate debt is going to be for sale at discounts to what it is today, he suggested. That's probably going to be the biggest opportunity over the next two or three years is discounted real estate debt in large commercial office buildings in big cities. So let's just be clear, while the US

economy is staring down a real estate doom loop, so to speak, a story Crystal and Sagar have been following here very closely on Breaking Points. Our guy Barry Sternlicht, who suggests that a recession could be good in terms of getting the workers back in the line, he happens to be the CEO of Starwood Capital, a private investment firm with a primary focus on global real estate. He is, I'm pretty sure, chomping at the bits. So it sure seems to me like the system is in fact rigged in favor of the capital owners and against workers and laborers.

Not only that, it seems like corporations as a whole have used inflationary conditions as an excuse to raise prices in excess of inflation. According to data from the Economic Policy Institute, between 2007 and 2019, corporate profits contributed to about 13% to prices. Since the second quarter of 2020, they have instead contributed to more than a third of price growth, while labor costs have been cut in half, meaning a direct one-to-one transfer of wealth from laborers to shareholders. So it's clear the richest and most powerful have benefited immensely compared to regular Americans over the past couple of years. The question is the Fed in on it?

You know, people have a sense of fairness. We want to think that there's a sense of fairness out there and that the system is for all of its problems. At least everyone's got an equal chance at some level so that that didn't happen. Now, I would say specifically on Jerome Powell, you know, he's not an academic. So we actually had some worry when when Jay Powell was nominated. Now, he had extensive experience at the Fed, so we knew that. But we were a little worried, like this is the first time we were having someone not from our world. Right. But I would say the reputation, at least by his actions, by his rhetoric. Professor Clark says that a common misconception is that the Fed is just one central bank,

but in actuality, the Fed comprises of 12 regional reserve banks spread across major cities in the US,S., each serving its specific district. These regional banks operate somewhat autonomously, reflecting the economic conditions and priorities of their respective areas. Together with the Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., this structure ensures both centralized coordination and regional representation, striving for a more holistic and responsive approach to the nation's monetary policy.

I don't think monetary policy is the tool that the billionaires have enriched themselves. I don't think that's it. I don't think there are macroeconomic powers that be. So if there is no conspiracy, what is actually going on? Why does it feel like the decision to raise, maybe sometimes lower, interest rates are not made for the collective good, but for a select few. Who benefits from low rates? Who benefits from high rates? Honestly, this is not, I don't think this is very settled, the income distribution question.

To pick on Robert Reich a little bit, when rates were low, he would say, oh, we need to raise them because it's benefiting rich. And then when the Fed was raising rates, Robert Reich went out and said, ah, they keep raising rates. It's harming the working class. You know, so he just, he kind of, he had a consistent, a consistent person he was caring about,

but he kept telling the Fed to do the opposite, depending on the current situation. Wow, and this is the revealing point in that the underlying motivations of institutions like the Fed almost doesn't even matter. The truth or falsity of a conspiracy becomes somewhat irrelevant when the reality is that the outcomes are always bifurcated. Regardless of which monetary policy is being pursued, the result is that more and more Americans are living paycheck to paycheck,

wages are stagnant, credit card debt is at an all-time high, buying a house is out of reach for most, and renting is increasingly becoming more unaffordable, while at the same time these capital owners with their vast resources and influence always manage to exploit and benefit from the current system. So how do we put an end to this? This is the role of Congress. This is Congress's job. I mean, politically, we can look back to the progressive era with Teddy Roosevelt and that whole movement to reign in monopoly power to increase the safety standards for food. I mean, the FDA was created during that time. That's the kind of political project you have to have to fight inequality. Something from the progressive era, an FDR New Deal kind of a thing.

And the power that does that is Congress is going to do that. That's the institution that has to do it. That's right. In the landscape of American politics, few decisions have reshaped the power dynamics as drastically as the Supreme Court's 2010 ruling on Citizens United versus the FEC. This ruling opened the floodgates for unlimited corporate spending in politics, enabling billionaires and large corporations to exert unparalleled influence over our democratic processes. By allowing so-called super PACs to raise and

spend unlimited amounts of money, the voice of the average American is increasingly drowned out by a cacophony of corporate interests and the interests of the ultra-wealthy. At this juncture, we absolutely need congressional legislation or a constitutional amendment to end such corrosive practices. But if you pay close attention in the run-up to 2024, you'll hear almost zero mention of this topic in mainstream media, and that is by design. Billionaires and big businesses are among the top contributors to political campaigns and often do dictate the public conscience, influencing not just consumer choice but also

public opinion. So in the end, even if the conspiracy is wrong and the Fed isn't intentionally shaping monetary policy to benefit the wealthy, the real danger in my opinion to America isn't the conspiracy theories themselves. It's the growing perception that our institutions are biased towards the richest and most powerful and how much longer these institutions can endure under such skepticism before they inevitably collapse inward. That is all for me this time. What are your thoughts about the Fed? Inflation? Interest rates? sound off in the comment section below if you enjoy these beyond the headlines segments i would encourage you to

check out and subscribe to my youtube channel 5149 with james lee the link will be in the description below i'd really appreciate that and as always keep on tuning into breaking points and thank you for your time today hi i'm maximilian alvarez I'm the editor-in-chief of the Real News Network and host of the podcast Working People, and this is the Art of Class War on Breaking Points. In our last Art of Class War segment, which we published at the end of August, I spoke with Nick Lievik, a General Motors autoworker and a rank-and-file member of UAW Local 31 in Kansas City, about the high-stakes, intensifying contract fight between the United Auto Workers Union and the Big Three automakers, Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis, formerly Chrysler.

The UAW's current contracts with the big three covers around 150,000 auto workers, and those contracts are set to expire just before midnight on Thursday, September 14th. Now, we are recording this interview from the Real News Network studio here in Baltimore on Tuesday, September 12th. As you guys know, Breaking Points' partner segments publish on the weekends. So by the time you are watching this, it is very likely that workers at one or more of the Big Three will be on strike. As Jeff Shirky reports at In These Times magazine, quote, the big three have made a combined nearly quarter

trillion dollars in profits in North America over the past decade, including 21 billion dollars in the first six months of 2023 alone. The company's shareholders and executives have been richly rewarded through stock buybacks and exorbitant salaries. Meanwhile, the workers who actually make the cars have seen their real wages plummet by 30% over the past 20 years. In what was once a middle-class career, some auto workers now make as little as $15.78 per hour, often working overtime to earn enough to support their families, end quote. Now, as we have covered here on Breaking Points and at the Real News Network, the UAW is not messing around at the bargaining table right now. Among other things, the union

is demanding 46% raises in general pay over the next four years, a shorter work week without reduction in pay, ending the tiered wage system for factory jobs that allows the company to pay workers radically different amounts for doing the same jobs. The union is also fighting for the restoration of cost-of-living pay raises and defined benefit pensions for new hires, things that the UAW and its members gave up to help save the auto industry from collapsing 15 years ago during the Great Recession. If auto workers walk off the job later this week, what will that look

like? What will it take for workers to win this fight and secure the contract that they deserve? And what role do we all have to play in that fight? To talk about all of this and more, I'm honored to be joined today by Chris Falzoni, a rank-and-file UAW member who works at the Stellantis Assembly Complex in Toledo, Ohio, after recently transferring from the Shuttered Belvedere plant in Illinois. Chris, thank you so much for joining me today on Breaking Points, man. I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Now, you know, we are going to be releasing this over the weekend. As I said, you know, it's very possible that you and your co-workers will be on the picket line by that point.

So I want to just really hit the ground running here and ask, as we are approaching this contract deadline just before midnight on Thursday, how are you and your coworkers feeling right now about a potential strike? Like, what's the vibe in your local and across the union? What are you hearing from folks? So the vibe is very positive. We've been seeing a sea of red shirts every day we go into work. People are just excited. So we used to get offered overtime to work through our lunches and breaks and people aren't taking it anymore. We're not working through lunches and breaks. We're not going above and beyond for the company since they won't go

above and beyond for us. They won't even do the bare minimum for our temps who are only making 15 bucks an hour. And they're being forced to work seven days a week on call, which is completely unfair. The people on the floor were ready. We're excited for this. And I mean, you talk about going above and beyond. I've been interviewing more of your union siblings for my podcast, Working People. And what I've been hearing from folks is just like the incredible amount of work that y'all have been doing, even through the pandemic, like the speed ups, the reduction in allotted time to complete your tasks. Like it just feels like y'all are just constantly going, you know, 100% or 110% with forced overtime. I mean, I've been hearing about folks working like seven days a week,

12 hours a day for like three months without a break. Yeah, we have SEs right now that are, some of them are forced to work up to almost a month straight. If they're a low SE, they'll have to, they'll have to just go and work and they have no ability to call off they can't say hey i want to spend tuesday with my family no there's no way for them to get any time off of work and when you're talking about the speed ups right now chrysler has been cutting jobs just viciously they've cut about half of our quality jobs and then they want to come to us and be like, why is quality worse? We can't control quality when you cut our jobs and then you push out bad product and then you spin it in the media narrative. These people are overpaid. No, when you're doubling jobs up and people are struggling, they can't get a sip of water when it's hot out,

that's not fair. Well, let's talk about that, you know, because of course, like they did ahead of a potential railroad strike last year, and like they did ahead of a potential UPS strike this summer, the corporate media is crapping its collective pants right now over the quote-unquote economic impact that an auto strike would cause. And, you know, folks like Jim Cramer are out here trying to paint the UAW president, Sean Fain, like he's Che Guevara or something. So I want to focus on that for a second. And I want to ask if you could talk directly to folks out there who are being bombarded every day by all of. You're breaking your back, you're moving heavy hoists, picking up heavy parts, bending into the engine compartment. Think about doing that work for 12 hours for $15 an hour. Try to think about what it would be like when you're not getting to spend time with your family. You're being forced to be in there five, six, seven days a week

for $15 an hour. That's poverty wages. I make $31.77, which sounds like an amazing wage. But when I started, the top out pay was $28 an hour. We've only gotten $3. dollars in 15 years. And that's not fair to us either. When I started, a car cost about twenty five thousand dollars. Now it costs fifty thousand. But my wages haven't doubled. We've only gotten three dollars an hour. We're not greedy auto workers. We just want our fair share of the profits. Oh, yeah. And, you know, let's not forget, as we discussed in the last Art of Class War segment with Nick Livick, you know, we are talking about an auto industry that looks very different from what we saw in 2008, 2009, right? We all know we were all there in the Great Recession. It sucked, right? I mean, my family lost everything, like so many millions of

other families. I know that your union siblings gave up a lot of concessions to help keep this industry afloat. And the taxpayers, fellow working people, we bailed out two of the big three automakers to the tune of $80 billion. And y'all were promised at that time that the concessions you were giving up would be given back when the auto industry turned things around, when these companies were back in the black. And over the course of the past decade, what we have seen instead of that is these same companies not only turn massive record profits, which y'all are making for them, to the tune of billions and billions of dollars. They got massive windfall

profits from giant tax cuts a couple years ago. And they have responded with more layoffs, more plant closures, which you yourself have experienced, and they've been jacking up their own executive pay and shareholder dividends. Like, am I am I wrong? Am I going crazy here? Because it feels like like if they wanted to get the public on their side, maybe stop being so openly greedy and screwing over your workers. Yeah, we we are bearing the brunt of their greed. The jobs have been doubled up. The thing is, when they'll talk about our profit sharing, they'll say things like,

we spent $600 million on profit sharing. That's how much my company spent. But they gave $6 in in stock buybacks. As we know, this is not, you know, your daddy's UAW, right? This is a new day for the union that, you know, the leadership was voted in after you and your fellow union members fought for a one-member, one-vote system that allowed you to more democratically and more directly elect your union leadership, which y'all did. Electing Sean Fain, backed by the reform caucus, Unite All Workers for Democracy. And now we've got, you know, like a much different tone at the bargaining table and amongst the membership, I think. So I wanted to ask, like, with all of this going on, what would a strike look like if indeed one happens at one or more of the big three automakers this week? What can folks out there do if there is a strike to stand in solidarity with y'all?

And when it comes to approving a final contract, what will a victory for workers look like here? What people can do to help us is when we're out there picketing, if you drive by us, you wave, if you honk, that's amazing. Just show your support. If you want to come to the picket line, anyone who's an adult can be on the picket line. If you want to show our show your solidarity by coming and standing with us, we would appreciate it. We understand that the public's on our side and that we're going to win this fight. We have the moral backing of the American people. 80% of people back us. And it's because people are tired of being beaten down by our bosses, by them making record profits, but not giving us any wage increases. A victory for us in the UAW means that we don't have tiers anymore. We don't have second class citizens working right next to

us, making half our wage. second class citizens who don't have the same health care as us. And I technically am a second class citizen compared to the other workers. I don't have a pension. I don't have medical benefits for when I retire. If I do 30 years, when I retire, I'm quitting. It's not that I'm leaving, you know, on good terms with the company and retiring with a pension. I'm quitting my company after 30 years of service. And that's not fair to us, the workers. So we're trying to give ourselves justice, justice for the hard work and the profits that we've made for these companies. So that is Chris Falzoni, a rank and file UAW member who works at the Stellantis Assembly Complex in Toledo, Ohio, after recently transferring from the shuttered Belvedere plant in Illinois. Chris, thank you so much for joining us today on Breaking Points, ma'am, and solidarity to you and your union siblings, whatever happens this week. Thank you. You have a good day now. Thank you for watching this segment with Breaking

Points, and be sure to subscribe to my news outlet, The Real News Network, with links in the description to this video. See you soon for the next edition of The Art of Class War. Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Solidarity forever. I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures and your guide on good company. The podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi. We dive into the competitive world of streaming. What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core.

There are so many stories out there. And if you can find a way to curate and help the right person discover the right content, the term that we always hear from our audience is that they feel seen. Listen to Good Company on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country

with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family.

They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,

and the Ad Council. This is an iHeart Podcast.