Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - Workers Revolt, Inflation, Xmas Shortages, Booster Shots, Suburban Women, IRS Monitoring, CNN Propaganda, Kellogg's Strike, and More!

Episode Date: October 14, 2021

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Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. First of all, John Deere workers, 10,000 members of the UAW strong are officially out on strike this morning after a strike vote at midnight last night. So that is big news this morning. Lots to get to though. A lot of big economic news. Huge. We're going to walk through all of it. Everything from the historic number of workers that quit their jobs in August. Is that a good thing? Is it a bad thing? What's driving that? The inflation uptick, what is actually driving those price increases? And what does it mean for you and your bank account? Is Christmas going to be canceled? Because the Biden administration is saying it is very possible because of the supply chain disruptions that some things that you want to get for Christmas may not be available.

We'll talk to you about that and also what they are doing to try to solve that problem. Some new news on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and especially with regards to booster shots, what they are recommending. FDA kind of like smacking down. Yeah, throwing some real shade at Johnson and Johnson for having some pretty weak data. So we'll talk about that. Democrats freaking out because women went back to brunch and are not particularly engaged in politics anymore. And of course, that was a key suburban women, a key part of the way that they won back the White House. We also have a worker on Trevor Bidelman. He is with Kellogg's. They are also

out on strike. And that is where we want to start this morning with what exactly is going on in the labor market. You had a historic number of workers who quit their jobs over this past year, but in particular in August. Let's go ahead and throw this Heather Long tweet up on the screen. A lot of Heather Long in this show today. She's been doing a good job working over at the Washington Post, economics reporter. So she says over 30 million Americans quit their jobs so far this year through August. We have never seen anything like that. Closest was 2019 when 28 million quit through August. This is the great resignation plus the great reassessment of work, something that she's been tracking. Leave that up on the screen just one more minute. For those of you who can see this, you see a gigantic drop in quitting during the Great Recession. And then you see it ticking up,

up, up, up, up as the economy slowly sort of starts to churn. Then you see another catastrophic plunge of workers quitting their jobs during the pandemic because, of course, you know, if you had a job, things were rough and you were trying to hold on to it. A lot of people getting laid off, a lot of people losing their jobs entirely. Then you see a massive spike to the levels that we are experiencing now. Heather wrote a piece that was very interesting, also in the Washington Post. She quotes a couple of experts here who say the four main causes of all these workers quitting are a backlog of workers who wanted to resign before the pandemic, but ultimately held on a

bit longer because they were worried about whether they'd be able to get something else. Burnout, particularly among frontline workers in healthcare, food service, and retail. Pandemic epiphanies, in which people experience major shifts in identity and purpose that led them to pursue new careers and start their own businesses. And an aversion to returning to offices after a year or more of working remotely. You've got a bit of a tight labor market. Workers feel like they have a few options available to them. They're sick and tired of being put on the front lines with low pay. They saw the way that their workers risked their lives during the pandemic, and they're doing something about it, Sagar. Yeah, it's stunning. I mean, and there was some speculation around vaccine mandates. The only actual place where that might apply is in the

healthcare worker. But as we discussed here, a lot of studies show that's actually pretty minuscule in terms of the terminations or the people who are resigning, although maybe they self-reported differently and they left their job. So it's certainly possible, but I don't think that you would see it. You would see it much more precipitously if that were the case. That's right. If you look at the chart, for those of you who are watching, you can see there's a continual gradual incline. It isn't like it's flat and the vaccine mandate comes into place

and there's a gigantic spike, which is what you would expect. And also, you know, it's very politically convenient. People who didn't care anything about the strikes that were going on, about what was going on in the labor market

until they could tie their political ideology to it. Save it. Luckily, we've been tracking this actually for a long time. We have. And for this month, this is really interesting.

So let's put this up there. August was the record month at which Americans quit their jobs, 4.3 million. And specifically, we can look at all of those segments which Crystal just talked about. 892,000 quits in food and accommodation. 720,000 quits in retail. 534,000 quits in health and social assistance. Now, I cannot help but notice that all of those involve something, dealing with other people. Right.

And it turns out that many of these jobs, many sectors in particular, where workers have been just treated like crap for a long time and been crapped all over by customers, bosses, for low wages are like, hey, you know what? Screw you. It's interesting. I've actually been hearing from some people who are like, hey, you know what? I worked these jobs where I was getting paid

like $11 an hour, and they were taking such advantage of us. And now because of the tight labor market and everybody wants wages, I went up to my boss. I said, screw you. Now I work 40 hours a week. I make $15 an hour.

Wow. Congratulations to you, that one person. That is anecdotal. But it seems to be happening to a lot of people. And actually, it's leading to one of the best things that I could see in a long time. Yeah, this is cool. Put this next one up there on the screen. This is actually from Axios, which is that as businesses have to reopen with slower service,

impatient customers are treating overburdened workers like shit. I'm quoting Kenneth Vogel there. It's more than just a disturbing side effect with classifications. It's threatening the recovery because it is driving workers to quit. So what's happening actually is that unruly customers and everybody has seen this guy, the guy or the girl. You know, there's many of those too. Plenty of Karens out there. Plenty of Karens who are like yelling at the grocery store clerk because they got to wear a mask.

Lady or sir, it ain't on Walmart or whomever, the Walmart worker. You know, it's on the state or it's on Walmart corporate. Not the poor guy or girl who has to enforce the rule. I've even seen this at the gym, people taking it out on the gym floor guy for no reason. Yeah, you think he's the one who had to come up with the policy? But the positive development of this is that the unruly customers, what did we always know in America? The customer was always right, even when somebody was badgering someone. That was when labor was much more replaceable. Well, now restaurants and other businesses are starting to stand up for their employees and saying, look, I can't afford to lose this guy. So sir,

screw you. You got to get out of here. And I would say that is one of the best things that has happened in a long time. We've had so many years of these entitled customers, and I've seen it. I'm sure everybody has. Some person who's on a power trip in Costco or whatever, taking it out on some poor person, and then the boss comes over and is like, oh, sir, we'll deal with this. And they reprimand that guy. Maybe he even gets fired because he's easily replaceable. Well, not so much anymore. We're really beginning to see that unruly customers, businesses were beginning to realize people were resigning from their jobs because they're like, I don't want to do it anymore. I'm sick of it. And so now they have to stand up on behalf of their actual employees.

That is a sea change in business and corporate thinking in America. And hopefully it will last. I mean, ultimately, like you said, their way in the cost benefit analysis here. They no longer feel like, oh, my workers are just sort of disposable. There's another thousand who I could replace this person with. So they're actually having to take their side. There's a really interesting quote in here from an analyst that they interviewed from the piece. They said, technology has insulated the upper classes from the physical labors that enables their lifestyle. And so the minute that there's a little bit of a hitch, right, the line's a little long,

they got to wear a mask and they don't want to wear a mask, whatever it is, they're freaking out and they're losing their minds. And I'll tell you, listen, we do a lot of, we don't really believe in shaming people here. It's all about hate each other less and hate the elites more. Let me tell you, if I see you abusing a service worker or retail worker, like, I am judging the hell out of you because that is a loathsome, classist, disgusting way to behave, treating someone as less than human, essentially just an object to be there to serve you. And the big picture here with all of this is that a lot of workers are saying, like, I don't want to be your servant anymore. I don't want to be your low-paid service worker, servant class person anymore. And I feel like I have maybe a few more

options than I did previously. That is an incredibly, incredibly positive thing, ultimately. And the other piece, I think, that goes right along with this that you've seen next to no coverage of in the mainstream heartland. I think Jonah Furman said this is the largest strike that we've had in two years. Let me check his largest strike in the U.S. in two years. Wow. So the backdrop here, you know, what they're striking for is in particular, and I've heard this across a number of the strikes that we've been covering, they've been dealing with this two-tier system where people who have been there, okay, they still get the covering, they've been dealing with this two-tier system where people who have been there, okay, they still get the benefits, they still get the wage scale, all of those things, but the company has imposed on them, okay, the new people that come in, we're going to

treat them basically like second-class citizens. And these workers, many of them who have been there for a long time are saying, no, we don't accept that. We don't accept you paying our younger brothers and sisters who are newer to the plant. We don't accept you paying our younger brothers and sisters who are newer to the plant. We don't accept you paying them less. So a lot of what they're fighting for is exactly that. There's also been, I think, part of why you've had this massive wave of strikes across the country and all kinds of different industries, whether it's blue collar or white collar or service sector jobs. I think it also has to do with the fact that people were so stretched and strained during the pandemic. And now after the pandemic, being forced to work all these overtime hours,

being forced to work without being able to take breaks and being able to see their family and all of these just basics of life, and they're done with it. They also saw the way that their corporate bosses profited handsomely during the pandemic, and the workers are saying, we see you're doing really well. Maybe give us some slack. Maybe cut us in on the deal a little tiny bit. And if you're organized in a union,

you have the power to be able to fight for those things and be able to put some pressure on your employer to be able to win this. Yeah, no, look, I think it's an incredibly positive element. If you're Jamba Juice and, you know, you're trying to pay somebody $7.25 an hour to deal with annoying people who want, like, nine different additions to a smoothie but don't want to pay extra, you're kind of screwed. You're probably going to have to pay a little bit more money if you're one of the people who was going to work at Jamba Juice, but now you have, you know, an array of options. Hey, I think that's

good. I'm always going to stand up for those people. They've just been crapped on for so long. The Axios data in particular about businesses having to stand up for their employees is just such an incredibly positive development given how little or how much replaceability we've had amongst the labor market for so long. And this is just going to continue. The biggest strike at John Deere, we see that we have a Kellogg worker on today. I predict this will be one of the biggest stories of the next 20 years. And what's really interesting too is that this is

the first time in about 30 years that we've seen the real ability for labor in order to bargain for a higher wage and actually have some real leverage in the market and see how people are freaking out about it. I mean, I think that's another part of the story. They can't take it. They cannot take the fact that some of these people have power. Look, are there some bad actors, these teachers unions on vaccines or whatever? Yeah, 100%. Don't get me wrong. But really what it is, is that all collective action, we see this everywhere, is beginning to have a lot more adverse impacts on employers. That is a good thing, in my opinion. Whether you think the Southwest Airlines strike had something to do with vaccine or not, whether it's people standing up for their wages, what is forcing you to do

is businesses having to care what their actual employees think. We haven't lived in that country in a long time. Since what, 1980? I mean, Amazon has taken that customer is always right mentality. Every time. To the extreme, right, where their workers are tracked and monitored. Everything is about making sure that the customer gets their thing as quick as possible. And it doesn't matter if, you know, delivery drivers don't have a chance to go to the bathroom. What matters is that the customer gets their thing as quick as possible. And it doesn't matter if delivery drivers don't have a chance to go to the bathroom. What matters is that the customer gets their thing 10 minutes earlier.

So to see a change and a shift, even a small one in that, is remarkable. And look, we don't want to overstate things. Game is still rigged in favor of the big players and the corporations and the bosses, no doubt about it. But for decades now, the scale has been tilted in favor of them, and every year, more and more the case. Absolutely. So the fact to see things rebalanced, even the tiniest bit, and headed in a better direction where workers have at least a modicum of say and power in their workplaces, that you see them very courageously, by the way, exercising, that's really encouraging. courageously, by the way, exercising. That's really encouraging. It's really heartening to see.

Absolutely. Just like that Walmart worker who quit on the loudspeaker. Oh, that was amazing. You guys loved that too. Okay. Let's get to the potential downside, at least. The hottest segment that we'll cover today, inflation. People like to say, Crystal, that you and I were very wrong about inflation. So the inflation numbers came out yesterday. And let's put that up there on the screen. Where are Americans seeing inflation? We saw a 5% jump in inflation. It's the highest on record over 13 years. Sounds scary. Well, here's where there is inflation. Rental cars are up 43% over last September. I can attest to that personally. Gas, 42%. Used cars, 24%. Bacon, 19%. Hotels, 18%. Beef, pork, and eggs, this is where things are concerning because it hits a

grocery store. 18% for beef, 13% for pork, 13% for eggs, 13% for TVs, kids' shoes, furnitures, new cars at 9%. Yeah, I was wondering that. I think it has something to do with China, given how much of it comes from over there. It's a highly replaceable product. Chicken at 8%, apples at 8%. Restaurant prices at 5%. That's because of food costs. Electricity at 5%.

Rent at 2.9%. Obviously, rent, food are going to be the most important ones. So this has sparked a lot of discussion. Now, Crystal, here's part of the question. There was a big question of whether there was something called transitory inflation or sustained inflation. Transitory would presume, hey, we're living through this really crazy time here in America. It's all this pandemic. Things got shut down. Now they're back. Turns out when you shut down the global supply chain for like an entire year,

some crazy stuff happens in terms of prices. That was a transitory school of thought. Now people are saying that because that has been lasted now for months longer, it's not transitory. Transitory in those people's minds is supposed to mean like two months or three months. Well, I'm here to piss off everybody and actually say, I actually think the team transitory won. And I'll tell you why.

And I already know core CPI, which is the consumer price index, is not the correct way to track inflation. But in the way that you're talking about it, in terms of what is actually impacted by the money supply, well, it looks like team transitory won. Put this next one up there on the screen. This is for the people who are just listening. What you're seeing here is a wild fluctuation in core CPI that happened between January 18th and January 20th, largely because of the pandemic. Well, it turns out that our core CPI is actually back to 2.09%, which is the baseline. However, where are we still seeing inflation? Inflation

being defined as increase in price relative to previous. Well, we're seeing, as I previously stated, in the rental car market, in hotels, gas about spending, not a single one of these things has to do with increased spending. Rental cars, yeah, you know why the price is up relative to September? Because nobody was driving last September. Why is gas up? Well, it's because OPEC is not pumping in enough gas, and it turns out that when people don't drive for a year, and then they start driving again, and you have to readjust supply, well, it takes a little while to catch up. Used cars, same thing.

It's because you can't buy a new car because there's no semiconductors. Bacon, well, actually there's new animal welfare regulations out in California. You can stand by it or not. It's totally fine. Whichever way you stand, that's actually disrupting our pig market. Also, we had to slaughter a ton of pigs back in 2020 because they couldn't keep up with the meatpacking plants and the demand. Because there was massive COVID outbreak. Right. So we have an artificially restricted supply. Also, the Chinese, it turns out, eat a lot of pigs. So they're buying our pork as well, which means there's an increase in price. I know some people don't want to hear this. I don't really know why. I actually think it's a fascinating and nuanced conversation around supply chains, what exactly happens whenever

you shut down an economy and reopen economy. But yeah, we have high inflation, quote unquote, on certain goods, especially on food and more. But almost all of it can be rooted back to the supply chain. I'm not diminishing this for people's pocketbooks who are at home. If you're out there and you're buying groceries, listen, you ever try to buy a steak recently? It's like, what the hell is going on? However, I would just encourage you to say, doesn't have a lot to do with spending because you are falling into the traps that a lot of people are who are trying to push against basically the government doing anything for anybody and scaremongering instead of focusing on where the

real issue is, which is our globalized idiotic supply chain. I feel like a lot of people have a weird investment in inflation. They really do. I don't get it. And I'm not talking, look, for individual people who are seeing their grocery bills go up, who are struggling to get the gas tank filled up, this is not to diminish your concerns and the real pain that this causes. And even as wages have actually for the, you know, significantly increased, like a couple of percent, pretty crazy stuff, the inflation of things like food, things like rent, things like gas, that's obviously going to significantly eat into any wage increases that you may be

experiencing. We're just trying to follow the numbers of what's actually going on. Yes. And so you have a group of people who are very ideologically invested in inflation being high because they want to prove a political point. And a lot of these are the same people who have been predicting hyperinflation for more than a decade now. Literally, the quantitative easing is going to cause hyperinflation. They're saying that in 2009. Yeah. So, you know, they finally like see a little uptick in one measure of inflation. They're like, yes, we were right. And it's like, yeah, but you've been wrong for more than a decade now.

Where's the like, where's the reckoning over that? There's just this, it's a very ideological way of looking at these things. For those of you who don't know, core price inflation is just cost of goods and services, the change in those prices, minus those from the food and energy sectors, which are always the most volatile. So the whole idea of it is you sort of strip out the ones that go up and down the most. What's the core price inflation when you take out those most volatile things? And that's what that metric ultimately is. Now, in terms of your pocketbook, what they're effectively taking out

are the things that are most relevant likely to you and to what your household bottom line is. So I don't want to dismiss the concerns. I don't want to say it's nothing. I don't want to say that, you know, it's irrelevant and it's going to be back to normal next month. But I think it's just really important to take a look at the numbers and what they're saying and also take a look at the factors that are driving it, one of which we're about to cover, which is this massive supply chain disruptions, which are making it very difficult to actually get goods on the shelves. So you have more money chasing more goods than are able to be available. Well, yeah, that's going to cause

a spike in inflation. Hopefully, those supply chain disruptions are temporary and don't ultimately last. There is one small silver lining here that we can throw up on the screen here, which is that senior citizens are getting a raise. American seniors on Social Security will get a 5.9% increase in their payments. That is the highest increase since 1982. I saw it's something like $90 a month more that seniors will be receiving. So that's not nothing. Of course, you know, you got to balance that with the fact that they're probably paying higher prices at the pump, paying higher prices in the grocery store.

But ultimately, Social Security will be going up. And then this is kind of funny and kind of, I mean, it's sort of pathetic, honestly. Let's throw this next tear sheet up on the screen. The Biden administration knows they have a big problem with all of this, especially with gas prices, which presidents don't really have a lot of control over, if any control over whatsoever. But that doesn't mean that it's not politically extremely damaging to them when energy prices are high. The White House is asking U.S. oil and gas companies to help lower fuel costs, according to some sources. This is a Reuters article here.

How do you think that's going to work, Zahra? Do you think they're going to nicely be like, oh, sure, we'll cut down on our profit margins. No problem. We'll get right on. I think I really am, and this will segue very well to our next segment, is that I think that this winter is going to be a disaster for them. Number one is gas prices continue to stay high. Two is that natural gas prices right now are sky high because supply was reduced during COVID.

Europe and Asia are also reopening, and we have all sorts of supply problems whenever it comes to that. So guess what we use a lot of natural gas for? Heating your house, which means your heating bill, I would not be surprised if it's two or three times what it normally is, and people are going to freak out about that. Bad news. And it's terrible news because what happens?

People get their heat shut off in the cold. It's going to have a lot of terrible stories. The elderly in particular. Elderly in particular really need to have their heating and gas. By the way, if that starts happening, please send us those stories so that we can highlight it because that should not be happening, especially if there's a massive supply crunch and all that. And we can get to that later, but you're going to have high gas price. You're going to have high heating price and Christmas, not going to be able to get your goods. Hey, so remember how we told you how awesome premium membership was? Well, here we are again to

remind you that becoming a premium member means you don't have to listen to our constant pleas for you to subscribe. So what are you waiting for? Become a premium member today by going to breakingpoints.com, which you can click on in the show notes. Let's get to the next segment here. Christmas and the inability, at least from the White House right now, to guarantee that you're going to be able to get your goods on time and for gifts. Now look, are cheap Chinese goods from China really the embodiment of the Christmas spirit? No, but this is America's hyper-capitalist consumer society. And let's be honest, that's what a lot of people love. So the White House is recognizing that they should probably start freaking out about this. But the time was, I don't know, maybe like nine

months ago, not yesterday. The White House yesterday pressed on whether they can guarantee Christmas gifts are going to get there on time. Not a great answer. Let's take a listen. Based on everything being announced today, can this administration guarantee that holiday packages will arrive on time? We are not the Postal Service or UPS or FedEx. We cannot guarantee. disposal to reduce delays, to ensure that we are addressing bottlenecks in the system, including ports and the need for them to be open longer hours so that goods can arrive. And we can continue to press not only workers and unions, but also companies to take as many steps as they can to reduce these delays. So not a particularly encouraging answer there, Crystal. Why is she so snarky all the time?

I don't know. I really don't know. She's always had to be. This is like a really legitimate question. It's a great question. But of the things that she talks about, that's probably the single most relevant piece to people's lives. But for those of you who were just watching the clips, what we previously talked about in the inflation segment was that natural gas prices are very high, which means that people's heating bills are going to be higher. They've already got high gas prices. On top of that, Christmas gifts not being able to come on time. This is a political problem. We recently covered that independents turn on Biden. They recently did a focus group

with swing voters, and they found that Biden was not rated higher than a C- amongst all the respondents. And one of them, one woman in particular, said, hey, I wanted to buy a new car and I literally can't. These are the types of things that the administration is going to get backlash on, regardless of whether you like it or not. Marshall and I did a segment earlier this week on the port of Los Angeles in particular, where you see these like 56, 58 ships waiting to be unloaded, stuff sitting on the docks for literally months. Biden, I want to give him credit, I think far too late, actually did come to a deal to try and keep that port open. And he had talked a little bit about it yesterday. Let's take a listen to what he said.

Los Angeles and Long Beach are home to two of the largest ports in America. And together, these ports are among the largest in the world. And the best way to make that point is that 40 percent, 40 percent of shipping containers that we import into this country come through these two ports. And today we have some good news. We're going to help speed up the delivery of goods all across America. After weeks of negotiation and working with my team and with the major union retailers and freight movers,

the ports of Los Angeles announced today that it's going to begin operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This follows the Port of Long Beach's commitment to 24-7 that it announced just weeks ago. 24-7 system, what most of the leading countries in the world already operate on now, except us, until now. This is the first key step toward moving our entire freight, transportation, and logistical supply chain nationwide to a 24-7 system. Yeah, so look, I mean, it's late, but I think he's doing what he can. There are a lot of questions about how much of empty shifting container before collecting a full one.

So there's all these complications that make it so that just extending the hours. And by the way, I also want to give them credit. They worked with the Teamsters to make sure the workers are taken care of and paid extra for working overtime and all of those things. But it may not have as much of an impact as we would like, especially because, you know, the unloading at these ports is not the only issue that is rippling through the economy ultimately. I mean, look, politically, I think it's a good look for him to seem like he's taking charge. But the reality is you're talking about

those focus groups. One of the things I found the most interesting is that it really didn't matter whether they were talking to a Democrat or Republican or an independent. They all had very similar concerns and very similar experiences in this economy where they felt a lot of uncertainty and they did not feel like that core. We're going to be back to normal promise that Biden really ran on and leaned into has been anywhere close to fulfilled. This is perhaps the best sort of like incarnation, the most obvious manifestation of the way that things are not back to normal. I mean, obviously also the fact that you still have a pandemic and you still have to worry about that and schools and masks and all of those things. But the fact that you're still having to worry about whether you're going to be able to get goods for Christmas, whether you're going to be able to,

you know, you've been waiting to buy a car, now you can't do it, or the price has gone sky high, or you're trying to buy a house and those prices have gone sky high or you're going to the grocery store and you're seeing shelves that are bare or prices that are going up, that all has contributed to some, you know, catastrophic looking poll numbers for Joe Biden and the Democrats. Yeah. And, you know, it's interesting. I've been thinking about it. If I was Biden, this is what I would focus on every day. I mean, I would have high level meetings. I would have the king of Saudi Arabia on a plane and sitting in the Oval Office and be like, what's going on here? Why aren't you pumping more gas? I mean, that's something that you would first have to do.

The second thing, you have to make it look at least like you're trying to do something. This Port of L.A. deal, it's okay. And like you said, the more I read about it, the more I thought, oh, well, cranking the port 24 hours is great, but look, the people who are actually in charge here, they say it only works if the trains, the trucks, and the warehouses all do the same. Well, Long Beach truckers don't want to work from 3 a.m. to 7 a.m., not because they're lazy, but because they have nowhere to take the containers at that hour, which means that the people that they're delivering to would have to open up between 3 and 7 a.m. So the railroads are at 24-7, but they're not necessarily at full capacity. The real problem we have is that it's just a massive supply crunch.

And if Biden were really serious, it would be one of these things where it's not just some deal here. It would have to be like almost every single day. Here's what we're doing to get the ports out on time. I mean, hell, like we have the Navy, the FEMA, like all of us. You can even declare a natural disaster, whatever. We've had this happen before with the railroads and more. All I'm saying is treat it as the crisis as it is, and Americans will give you credit. But if they don't, here's how many people heard that announcement?

How many people are also, how many people are listening to this show and making the connection between, oh, the port of LA means higher prices, which means that my stuff doesn't come on time. And also there's a worker shortage. And also, you know, all this other crazy stuff is happening. Look, at the end of the day, really how it manifests in your life is, oh, this thing I ordered is not here. That's it. Or I went to the grocery store. I usually pay $50 a week. Now it's costing me $90. What's happening? I haven't had a steak in three weeks because it costs like $1,000 for a decent thing. I'm exaggerating, obviously. And you put all that together, it's a problem for the president. I do think that the lack of vigor in trying to... The main thing that those people faulted him for

was we're not back to normal. That's the number one thing. And there are actually some reasons behind this that are positive reasons, which is people have money, a little bit of money in their account. That's true. So they can buy goods. A lot of savings. They want to buy things. That's part of why you have huge demand for a wide variety of products. And listen, Wall Street and these corporate executives, they've been freaking out about the worker shortage, but we know that that actually, in a lot of ways, is a good thing. Absolutely. More money in people's pockets. The fact that you have a large number of openings, the fact that you have workers who are being

able to be choosier about where they do their labor and for what price and what benefits come with that. Those are also good things. So there are some good things that are underlying these issues, but that doesn't mean that they're not still issues that people are feeling and experiencing and giving them a sense of sort of chaos, uncertainty, and we're definitely not back to the normal that we thought we were promised and that we thought we would actually be back to now. Yeah. I mean, you could put it all together. That's why we put these three segments back to back to back, which is that the worker revolt, the higher prices, and the supply chain are all interconnected. They are all a result of a

dramatic change happening within the U.S. economy. It was cliche to say COVID was going to change everything, and it did. A lot of people had re-evaluations in their life, decided to take different jobs. It shut down global supply chain. It made us realize how vulnerable we are. If we can take away one thing, I just wish it were this. Do we really need China to make everything?

Not just China, Vietnam or the Philippines, Japan, South Korea. Right now, Apple have the new iPhone. Shout out to me. Well, guess what? Apple has had to restrict by 10 million orders the number of iPhones that they're making. And you know why, Crystal? Because of semiconductors. And because we don't make any semiconductors here in the US. So Apple, who already has their plants over in China,

well, they're ninth. Apple, one of the largest supplier purchasers there is like, oh, sorry, you're not on the list. I even heard that Detroit is trying to design stuff that will eventually go into your car, but just not put it in there. They'll leave empty slots. So that way you can buy your new car, and Detroit is like, yeah, yeah, yeah, when we get the chips, we'll put it in there. That's funny. That's how desperate people are right now. That's funny.

So look, if we can take one thing away, let's make some stuff here, folks, then we won't have that problem anymore. And I'll put one more takeaway. And we're going to try to get Matt Stoller on next week. Yes, about monopolies. Shout out to him in addition to shout out to you. He launched his newsletter, is now a paid subscription. I already signed up, paid subscriber.

He's done phenomenal work tracking monopolies and how important they are and how many problems they've caused in our society around the world. And that's the other part of the problem. And I'm sure what he can explain to us as well about part of the supply chain disruption is when you have these gigantic monopolies in control of huge sectors of your economy, whether it is shipping and logistics or whether it is, you know, tech or whether it is agriculture, every single segment effectively in American society is dominated by one or two or a few very large players, that also makes you incredibly fragile. Because the problem at one of those things is cascading effects throughout the economy. So it makes your society and it makes your economy extremely fragile when you have monopolies dominating these different sectors.

So you have that. You have the fact that in favor of a couple more pennies on the dollar profit margin, we send all these critical industrial capabilities overseas, mostly to China, but to other places as well. And you get, I mean, the pandemic was, I don't want to call it a little hiccup. It was more than a little hiccup. But you get one issue and it has ripple cascading effects that are very, very hard to deal with in the short term, which is why, you know, look again, I'm glad Biden's doing the thing he's doing with the ports. Do I think that it's going to have a really significant, noticeable, immediate impact? I think we should all be pretty skeptical of that. That's right. Make America autarkic again. That's your SAT word for the day. Speaking of the pandemic, obviously you can't forget what's going on there. Some really

fishy stuff going on with Johnson & Johnson. It's not me saying this, it's actually the FDA. So let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. So people who have received a J&J vaccine, according to the FDA, may be better off with Moderna or a Pfizer booster. So that all comes from a downstream questioning by FDA scientists of data submitted by Johnson & Johnson, Johnson & Johnson recommending a second dose of its vaccine for a booster shot. So they went ahead and submitted that to the Food and Drug Administration.

But then the finding was then done by a new study, a federal clinical trial, that found mixed reviews by the FDA of the exact case made by Johnson & Johnson for the authorization of its booster, which is a big debate given that 15 million Americans actually got Johnson & Johnson for the single-dose vaccine. This matters because we actually covered a lot of this at the time, was that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as a single dose is the one that disproportionately went out to the poorest and most vulnerable amongst us. Homeless people, you know, the people who were very difficult to reach in the first place, people who might have been in an ER and they're like, hey, you want a vaccine? And they were able to get that one. I think it disproportionately went to black people as well. Again, poorer Americans. The reason being

that, you know, the single shot, easier in order to schedule, you don't have to see somebody twice. Also, it actually went to a lot of people who didn't want an mRNA vaccine because people said, oh, I don't want mRNA. I trust this technology. Exactly. More traditional vaccine, all of that, even though it wasn't that as effective as Moderna and Pfizer in terms of your protection against the alpha variant of COVID. Okay. You put all that together. There are 15 million people out there who got that. And, you know, given that they only had 70-something protection against Alpha,

well, what do they have against Delta? I mean, nobody really knows, but probably a lot less. Still, though, very high protection against hospitalization and death. Absolutely. Which is the most important thing, the metrics that we want to stress. So Johnson & Johnson, don't be concerned

if that is the vaccine that you got. It is still very highly effective against hospitalization and death. The interesting thing is you kind of read between the lines here of this article. The government was very not impressed with Johnson & Johnson and felt like they were kind of being snowed on the data that Johnson & Johnson had sent them from their trials. They said that a key test that was used by the company to measure their immune response of a six-month boost known as a PSVNA assay was not sensitive enough for the task. That's what the government analysis said. The agency also questioned whether the increase in immune response was as big as the data suggested. I mean, that's very...

That's code for... We don't think you're being straight with us. You're trying to spin us that your thing works better than it actually does, is what these government scientists are saying. The FDA stated it's likely the results seen are due to the low sensitivity of that type of test they use. Regulators also said they didn't have enough time to independently review much of the raw data from the company's trials. So pretty interesting, the FDA pushing back on Johnson & Johnson saying, look, we think you're kind of trying to spin us here. We don't see the response that you're telling us that this has.

We don't even think that you use the right sensitivity of this test in order to get the right response here. So that's pretty fascinating. The other thing I wanted to mention here, and of course fits in with a couple big overarching stories that we've been covering. Number one, there just isn't proof that normal, healthy people, younger people, people who are not elderly, people who don't have a lot of other comorbidities, there isn't really data to say that they need boosters. That's the FDA and the CDC YouTube, just by the way. Yes, exactly. And so, and there's of course been a political and public health fallout where top scientists resigned after the Biden administration seemed to be using politics rather than the science to push forward

with boosters when the data didn't justify it. There does seem to be some indication that for people who are elderly, that they could benefit from a booster. So that's why this conversation about, okay, if you got the J&J, what should your booster be? Should it be J&J again? Should it be Pfizer? Should it be Moderna? That's why this is super relevant. The other thing that I wanted to mention this morning, though, which is really great news, is that coronavirus cases are significantly down in America. And that's fantastic. And look, you never know whether this is ultimately going to last. But we now are under 100,000 cases, which is great.

We've had nationwide the U.S. is averaging 91,000 new cases per day. That's a 19 percent drop. Over the past two weeks, deaths are declining also, but more slowly. Of course, that'll take more time because that's a sort of lagging effect. But, you know, these are encouraging signs that maybe we will be ultimately moving beyond this. Million caveats here. Weather's getting colder. People are going indoors. All of those things are certainly the case. But I don't want to fail to tell you the good news that we are actually experiencing a pretty significant decline in cases right now, which is awesome. My hope would be, look at what happened in India. I mean, India, Delta ripped through the whole country. Look, cases there are dramatically low. And the reason why is because they both have a ton of natural immunity and they have a decent amount

of their population who's vaccinated. That is frankly the best outcome in my view. So look, have we had now a burn through the population? I, listen, I do not wish COVID on anyone. It happened to me, but now I've got both vaccine and natural immunity, which according to like Johns Hopkins is like the best, uh, immunity that you can have. If you look at and combine vaccine immunity, booster immunity with the elderly, natural immunity for everybody else who got it, you're starting to get to a decent level of being able to control spread. And if we get the cases, if we start to see that precipitous decline, and I hope we will, I do think it will sustain through the winter just because natural immunity and vaccine immunity lasts for several months. The vaccine immunity decreases a little bit over time. The natural immunity decreases actually much less than the vaccine immunity over time. So you keep those two things together, and it gives you several

months of protection. And hopefully that's what we can use in order to get out of this thing in the future. I do wish there was more discussion of that, you know, in the public square around all of this and the acknowledgement here around the boosters, which is, I think this is one of the biggest screw ups of the entire Biden administration. The White House comes out and as y'all need a booster, FDA scientists resign. Then the FDA panel comes out and says, no, actually, only elderly people need a booster. And then the CDC of criticism of that, which is, look, the FDA, people there have now resigned over the booster. They've spoken out against Biden, pushed back against the president, and now they're pushing back against Johnson & Johnson. Same thing. I have Merck's COVID pill, which I'm very optimistic about. At the same time, the data is only from Merck, like, right, only from the company. We need to know some federal studies here.

Yeah, some non-corporate sponsored research, for sure. Exactly. And this is exactly why we need real evaluation of these drugs. This actually gives me more confidence in the previous mRNA process. For those of you who may be on the fence, which is, look, they're not unwilling to call out these companies if they're lying. So there you go. Yeah. No, that is encouraging. And the other thing that's, you know, that's extraordinarily sad at this point is that we've had hundreds of thousands of deaths and a lot of the most vulnerable people have died. So, you know, you have these number of factors that are contributing

to potentially we are turning a corner. Potentially we are going to see these numbers continue to decline. And whether it's because people got vaccinated or people who didn't get vaccinated have natural immunity now because you have had the virus burn through so many parts of the country, potentially we could be coming out of this thing. But it's too early to say that for sure. That much I know. Another political story that caught my eye here about women and the Democratic Party in particular. So the whole idea of the Biden campaign was effectively like get the orange man out. That was what it was all about. And then you can go back to brunch. And it looks like for a lot of those suburban women, they took that to heart.

And that is exactly what they are doing. Let's throw this tear sheet up on the screen from The Washington Post. This is an opinion piece from Karen Tumulty. It says, more women are tuning out politics, a danger sign for Democrats in Virginia and beyond. Particularly a problem for Democrats in Virginia because this is a very suburban state. And the way that Democrats have been able to turn Virginia blue was by running up numbers in the suburbs. And, you know, in particular, women have been a key part of that. So the lead to this says,

a raft of evidence suggests that female voters whose engagement and activism fueled the gains Democrats made during Trump's presidency are increasingly tuning out politics. In one survey conducted in May by the Democratic super PAC American Bridge 21st Century, nearly half, half of women in key swing states said they were paying less attention to what happens in Washington than they were when Trump was there. That was particularly true among female Biden voters who were independents under the age of 35, college grads and city dwellers. Focus groups in Pennsylvania and Arizona found much the same thing. There's

a couple key quotes here. This is from, I think this is from Celinda Lake, who's a well-known Democratic pollster. She said, people are exhausted. We have people deliberately saying, I'm just taking a break enough. And while enactment of that draconian Texas abortion law sort of stirred women briefly, in Celinda Lake's words, voters nationwide decided Texas is not going to happen to you in you name the state. There's another one. This one is really telling. Another key problem for Democrats is black women in particular are sort of tuning out and very disappointed, frankly, with where the Biden administration is at this point. They were the most cynical in these focus groups. And they said, quote, it doesn't matter who we elect. It is all the same. Well, how much did you hear about suburban women during the Trump years? You could

not turn on MSNBC without suburban women, these courageous suburban women, The Women's March over and over again. Well, part of the problem when you gin up a bunch of voters based on a single issue, who was Donald Trump, who, look, I mean, an od gonna go back to brunch. That's exactly what happened. Iremi Osei-Frimprong, great friend of the show, always points to that one sign, which was at the Women's March, which was like, we should be at brunch right now. And it's like, well, now you are. Congratulations. I hope it's going well, and I hope it tastes good. But if you're gonna peg all of your political strategy based upon turnout among this group, I'm not denigrating. Like, look, people vote for a variety of reasons. I'm more talking about who gets the most attention, who gets the most coverage, who gets the most lifted up, prioritized by the Democratic coalition, by the media. It was these people. Right. It turns out they're not politically engaged

kind of whatsoever. And now Dems could be really screwed. There's actually a lot to say about this because, you know, I don't really blame these women as much as I blame a party that's just like really not about anything. And this is, there's been this whole debate, David Shore's talking about this idea of popularism, which is just kind of interesting, which is just literally like talking about issues that are popular. But, you know, the rejoinder to that is the issue isn't talking about the wrong things. The issue is that you haven't delivered on any of these things. Like you've been talking about prescription drug prices.

David Dayen had a great piece on this. You've been talking about prescription drug price reform since 2006. Yeah, literally since the past, like Medicare Part D. Since 2006. So, and you've had control at various points of the House and the Senate and the White House, super majorities, all this stuff. And you keep finding an excuse not to do something that's supported by 80% of the people. I can't really blame voters for saying that, like, well, the only thing that really mattered to me was getting Trump out. Because you can't possibly believe these people are actually going to do what they say. Right. So, I mean, I think about the Virginia race, like Terry McAuliffe, and this is not a top concern of most white suburban women, but Terry McAuliffe has already said, no, we're not going to get rid of right to work. I mean, it's not going to be significantly

different whether it's Terry McAuliffe or Glenn Youngkin. So is it super motivating for people to go out and vote and really, you know, get on board with the Democratic train when Trump is no longer on the ballot? No, not really, because they've made politics all about cultural war signaling and just sort of trying to make your opponent into an existential threat rather than making promises and actually delivering on them in a way that people see and feel in their lives. So this is what you get ultimately. They haven't given people a reason to be excited about them or believe in any of the various promises that they've ultimately made. They created this system and it's one of the worst. And actually, I would say, I would

posit even at this point that when you do even start to deliver for people, they just don't trust it. I mean, I don't know what can happen because we saw that with the child tax credit, right? Which is that even Republicans who say that they like the child tax credit blame, don't either, don't give Democrats or Joe Biden credit for it or don't want it to be permanently extended, even if they say that it's something that's important to their life or they're not going to consider it whenever they vote for Trump. And it's like, or if they're going to vote over Trump versus Biden, it's like, you've made people so cynical that they, even when something is given to you, this is why I don't even think policy at this point can penetrate so much of the culture war. You saw how much of this did you see during Obamacare during like Medicare expansion, red

States expanding Medicare. And, uh, you would still have, you still have a lot of voters who would not identify that with the law whatsoever. I'm not calling these people stupid at all. I'm just pointing out that culture, whenever you make it the only sole determinant in politics, it actually nukes everything. It makes it so that delivering is harder. It makes it so that even if you do, it's going to get culturally coded. And it makes it so that what does Glenn Youngkin really have to do if he gets elected governor? Ban critical race theory? Okay, great. But like, what are you going to do the next day? Right? You know, it's interesting. And listen, I can't stand critical race theory. But you pointed out that thing to me about how there was a Fairfax County school board around cutting the budget and nobody showed up. Right. And listen, that's going to have a lot. What is going to have an impact on your kids? Is learning America systemically racist bad? Hundred percent, in my opinion. And I would listen if I was one of those parents, I would freak out,

too. But I'd also freak out if I was a lower income student and my kids getting bad services and Zoom and my teacher doesn't want to come back to school. Oh, and, you know, one thing that's really bothering me is we kept telling me about this PCR test for children. How are these families supposed to afford a $150 pop on a PCR test per time? That's impossible for most people. Most people don't even have $500 in savings. You get a couple of those in a classroom and that's everything. What parent isn't going to do the best for their child? We've got to figure that out. I mean, there are all kinds of these things which just make life so impossible. And then you have these idiotic issues which the politicians love, you know, in order to prop up. Even Terry McAuliffe. What is that guy going to do when he's governor? Has he told you? No. His only case is that the other guy likes Trump. Okay, fine. I mean, this is the type of politics you deserve then if you're going to prop it up. Yeah, I mean, I was at my parents' over the weekend. I live in Virginia too, but I don't really watch TV. But I was hanging out with my mom and all the ads were coming out on the TV.

That would have been terrible. I mean, because, yeah, every Terry McAuliffe one is Glenn Youngkin said Trump is a big reason why I'm running or something like that or what I stand on. I don't remember the exact quote. But anyway, something about Trump and how much he likes Trump. And all the Glenn Youngkin ones are taking that one stupid comment Terry McAuliffe made about, like, I don't want parents telling teachers what to do. Oh, man. Yeah, but that's got people's ginned up, right? Right. I mean, so it's just a battle of

what are those two ads? It's a battle over, like, how can I freak you out the most about my opponent? Not, what am I going to deliver for you? How am I going to make the state better? Or any of that. So, can't really blame suburban women or anyone else for being like, eh, I don't really care. That's right. I will vote for any

Virginia candidate who wants to extend highway entry lanes, but that's a very local issue. Those used to be the sorts of things that actually mattered in these types of campaigns. Listen, I'm a single-issue voter if I lived in Virginia. All right.

Wow. You guys must really like listening to our voices. While I know this is annoying, instead of making you listen to a Viagra commercial, when you're done, check out the other podcast I do with Marshall Kosloff called The Realignment. We talk a lot about the deeper issues that are changing, realigning in American society.

You always need more Crystal and Saga in your daily lives. Take care, guys. All right, Saga, what are you looking at? Well, by now, if you're conservative or if you consume any sort of conservative media, I'm sure you've heard this. Joe Biden wants to spy on your bank account, require regulatory reporting of any annual deposits or withdrawals over $600. Given that just about every single person in the United States has

deposits or withdrawals annually up to about $600, it's a pretty important policy choice if that's true. So I thought that I would get to the bottom of it. Let's start with the facts. As Democratic lawmakers are cobbling together their version of whatever this reconciliation bill is, the Treasury Department and the IRS put out a new proposal. It's asking Congress to please include a provision requiring bank accounts with at least $600 to report annual inflows and outflows to the IRS. Look, I've actually done a lot of segments here, either at rising or on breaking points, about unpaid taxes, especially amongst the billionaire class. Crystal and I have done endless segments about how unpaid taxes of billionaires who legally owe them simply just don't pay them.

And the other ways that many of the wealthy dodge what they owe. But the reasoning behind this rule, or proposed rule, strains credibility. The IRS says don't be scared. This isn't about targeting. Instead, they say that people are more likely to report their income, including W-2 income, if they know the IRS can independently already verify what they have. Well, I guess that may be true. But if the concern here is that wealthy people, why does this make any sense to target at $600? Current financial regulations already require banks to report interest, dividend, and investment income to the IRS.

And if the IRS is concerned enough to do an audit, they can actually get your bank information during that process. For a while, it looked like the House Democrats were going to drop this proposal. But then Speaker Nancy Pelosi got asked yesterday, here's what she had to say. Speaker Pelosi, one of the pay-fors in the Build Back Better bill that's been proposed is IRS cracking down on some unpaid taxes. Banks are starting to get calls from customers, and they're reporting these calls. They're concerned about this tracking of transactions that is greater than $600. So Americans are starting to be worried about this. Do you think that this pay-for

of giving the IRS more money to crack down on unpaid taxes is going to stay in the reconciliation bill? What do you say to Americans who are concerned about that? Yes. I mean, with all due respect, the plural of anecdote is not data. I've said that before here. Yes, there are concerns that some people have. But if people are breaking the law and not paying their taxes, one way to track them is through the banking measure.

I think $600, but that's a negotiation that will go on as to what the amount is. But yes. There are two reasons Pelosi said that. Number one, the IRS wants the Democrats to do it, including Joe Biden. They've been holding up the fact that IRS enforcement has actually been off the charts this year, something I fully support. But two, the reason they want to do this is because it would raise an estimated $460 billion over the next decade, which is something they need so they can claim all the social spending in the reconciliation bill is fully paid for. Number one, I am not opposed to social spending, and I am not opposed to higher taxes. But I think

the way that this whole thing is going is a perfect illustration of who gets screwed and who doesn't because they don't have power during the lobbying process. Ordinary Americans who have 600 bucks in their bank accounts will have their inflows and outflows reported. The IRS is going to go to bat for that. But guess what some of these Democrats left out of their House bill and which the White House has currently not pressured Congress to put back in? Well, you actually heard it here before on Breaking Points. It's called the Carried Interest Loophole, which is literally a tax break for millionaires and billionaires in venture capital or private equity, which allows them to effectively pay nothing on hundreds of millions of dollars paid annually.

Raising the carried interest loophole alone as normal income for the billionaires and billionaires in private equity would raise $180 billion. That's half of what the $600 proposal wore. Or let's just take a basic fairness system here. The proposal for the $600 payment, according to the Treasury Department, would let the IRS look at the inflow and the outflow and compare it to reported income. They say it would be targeted at millionaires. Should you believe them? You know who also often has income that isn't reported and often doesn't match what's in their bank account?

People who are poor and work in the service industry and are not WT workers, handymen, bartenders, servers, some of the most vulnerable people in our economy. Right now, the IRS is pushing this law. It is three times, yes, three times more likely to audit a person making less than $25,000 a year than to audit the income flows of the richest 1% of Americans. So they can claim all they want that this will be a way to target millionaires. And I'm sure that some of the people would in fact be ensnared by it, but it would actually give them a tremendous amount more leverage

over those folks making less than $25,000 a year, very likely to have irregular income and thus be a target of the agency we already know is going after them at a much more disproportionate rate than the ultra wealthy. Speaking of, by the way, the wealthiest 1% of Americans, will they really pay more under the Biden proposal? The answer is that while taxes may go up in one area because of the rich giveaway known as the salt cap deduction, they actually wouldn't pay more at all. Bloomberg's analysis of tax rates in the bill remains static, show that the top 1% would effectively pay the exact same under Biden's

proposal because of the SALT deduction. And actually, some people in the highest state and local tax areas would pay even less. Now, what about those very, very, very rich Americans, the 1% of the 1%? Don't worry, the current plan actually leaves them alone too. If you are worth a cool $100 million and you leave your kids' assets, they don't have to pay a dime on that until they're sold. If you never sell, you never have to pay taxes, and you can just borrow against it to live a very lavish lifestyle. Their current calls and plans do nothing to dent the pockets of these super rich. Now, you think their transactions are getting more transparency? No. And where's the IRS calling for that? Are you beginning to see

how it all works? Normal Americans who don't have a lobbying firm to make sure that the proposal most likely to show visibility of our data is actually left out of the bill. But if you're a private equity lobbyist, you can make sure the carried interest loophole doesn't show up in there. If you're a millionaire in New York or California, you make it so a member of Congress literally says he will not vote for a bill unless that tax break is in there. Right now, the IRS could even change a rule on its books requiring private equity giants to pay more, and they won't do so. If they want to raise trillions of dollars in taxes, I'm all for it. But until the people who are literally at the very, very top have to pay more than 8% a year, as it is currently, and until the people who sucked normal Americans dry for profit and ship jobs to China pay more than the average

wage earner, and until an actual tax increase on the rich happens, and until the IRS can prove it won't use its newfound powers to target those of us who are the poorest amongst us, I'm going to say hell no to all of this. And Crystal, I think that's where a lot of this is getting lost, which is people are like, what, you're against tax enforcement? Of course we're not. One more thing, I promise. Just wanted to make sure you knew about my podcast with Kyle Kalinsky. It's called Crystal Kyle Kyle, and Friends, where we do long-form interviews with people like Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, and Glenn Greenwald.

You can listen on any podcast platform or you can subscribe over on Substack to get the video a day early. We're going to stop bugging you now. Enjoy. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, folks, you will not be surprised to learn that CNN is paid propaganda.

But a new report from Adam Johnson and Gabe Levine-Dryzen spells out just how direct the link might be between money and so-called reporting. Suffice it to say you are not going to see any of this reporting anywhere in the mainstream media, but here is that bombshell piece of journalism over on Adam's sub stack called The Column. The headline is, CNN won't say if it's running undisclosed PR for a Gulf dictatorship. CNN's Dubai Now section has been publishing as straight news scores of cartoonish puff pieces for the UAE, an absolute dictatorship that imprisons journalists and activists. Now, they go through in this post

106 different feel-good stories about how tolerant and innovative and just plain spectacular the UAE is. Here's a little bit of a sample so you can get a taste. A video segment gives us a glimpse into doing yoga in Dubai's rainforest with a bunch of mostly Western-looking women in sports bras rolling out mats inside a fake rainforest dome. So that's one piece they did there. Here's another one that's just straight-up tourism advertisement. Emirates offer a free hotel stay with your Dubai layover. Some really hard-hitting journalism there. Great job, CNN. This is my personal favorite. The UAE has announced its first female astronaut. Nothing like a repressive autocracy that tolerates so-called honor killings dabbling in a little identity politics. And just in case you were wondering, the piece contains zero language about the UAE's atrocious

record on women's rights. In fact, if you read or watch these pieces, you can see exactly who they're ultimately pitched to. The women in them are either actually Western or dressed in Western garb with maybe a little touch of Arab flair. The focus is on progressive concepts, things like sustainability, wellness, tolerance, equality. The message is, come rich white people, spend your tourist dollars and open your businesses here. We're not like those other repressive petro-states that you've heard about. We're different. We absolutely won't flog your women or stone your gays to death. So in their extensive investigation of 106 different UAE puff pieces, Adam and Gabe found precisely one which had any sort of indication that it might be paid content. That one contains a vague and frankly indecipherable disclaimer that says,

CNN series often carry sponsorship originating from the countries and regions we profile. However, CNN retains full editorial control over all of its reports. Good to know that y'all fully stand behind all of these amazing works of journalism. But that's it. No other indication that this propaganda is, in fact, directly paid propaganda, which is the only logical conclusion based on the nauseating quality of every single one of these pieces. CNN naturally refused to comment. They are correctly calculating that no mainstream outlets will cover this outrageous breach of ethics.

But Jesus Christ, what a bunch of hypocrites over there. It is incredible. The UAE is literally ranked last in the entire world in terms of press freedom. And yet CNN president Jeff Zucker and his stable of anchors routinely run around moralizing about the sanctity of a free press. There seem to be some major car bounce there, though, for, let's say, Julian Assange and apparently anyone who's willing to pay CNN enough money. CNN's media reporter Brian Stelter has been particularly preachy about good reporting in journalism lately. Just listen to a bit of his comments on the topic while keeping in mind,

again, that his news outlet is running cover for a dictatorship that jails journalists. What's the nutritional value of the content? Is it produced by reporters or by repeaters? So at the risk of repeating myself a little bit, okay, repeaters are the talk radio shouters who tell listeners to hate the other side. They're on TV and radio telling the same story every day. Repeaters are outlets like One America News, which replays Donald Trump's lies on a loop and runs random news packages made by other companies. Repeaters are all over Facebook in hyper-partisan private groups that cherry-pick stories and confrontational memes and make you really rageful. Repeaters are Twitter trolls who anonymously amplify propaganda and try to wear the rest of us down with their repetition.

In the meantime, all of us need to see the difference between reporting and repeating because reporting adds value and repeating often subtracts value. So Brian, what would you call, let's say, a news outlet churning out dictator-friendly propaganda for a bag of cash? What category does that one fall into? What an absolute joke. And what I can't stop thinking about is all of CNN's feigned concern for the women and girls of

Afghanistan. All conveniently, of course, in the service of keeping us endlessly at war. Now, I'm not saying the UAE is as bad as the Taliban as far as women are concerned, but it's not exactly a feminist dream. Women have been criminally convicted for extramarital affairs as punishment for coming forward with rape allegations. Spousal rape is not recognized. You've got to get permission from a male guardian to do basic things. UAE law includes a gigantic carve-out that effectively permits domestic violence in service of disciplining your wife. And a woman can be cast down altogether if she won't have sex with her husband often enough. But by far, the worst treatment is reserved for the domestic workers

who make up around 80% of the population and about 90% of the workforce. Now, these are typically impoverished migrants, often brought in by traffickers from a lot of South Asian countries, places like Bangladesh and India. These workers are treated as less than human. Physical and sexual violence is common. Low wages, outright wage theft, long hours, terrible conditions are the norm. Their employer often confiscates their passport so they can't leave even if they want to. That is the land of tolerance and progress that CNN is shamelessly selling you on here. Now, it would certainly appear that for the right price, CNN will print whatever you want them to print,

record whatever propaganda videos you want them to record. And as Adam and Gabe point out, this is not even the first time that CNN has been caught taking cash in exchange for covering up for repressive Gulf dictatorships. Glenn Greenwald actually exposed how they pulled a hard-hitting piece on Bahrain, apparently because they were getting too much money from that particular kingdom as well. CNN will whitewash human trafficking. They will ignore in-person journalists. They will look the other way as the LGBTQ community is criminalized. But God forbid you say something mean Jim Acosta because that would really cross a line. And Sagar, it's pretty amazing. Look, a lot of news outlets have these like paid pieces. Yeah. And they're supposed to. Okay, guys, we've been bringing you lots of news on the different strikes that have been roiling the country.

Of course, the most recent one is those 10,000 John Deere workers who voted to strike last night. But another one we've been tracking closely is workers at Kellogg. So joining us now to break down what exactly is going on there. We're very lucky to be joined by Trevor Bidelman. He is president of local 3G BCTGM. Great to see you, sir. Thanks for joining us. Good to see you, Trevor. Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah, of course. So talk to us about what's going on. Where are you in the strike and sort of what are you hoping to push for here? Well, this strike here really is about the future. We are fighting for our future. Our future isn't for sale. The company has been insisting upon pushing to this two-tier benefited system and taking away the path of some of our current employees to have the premium health care that we have and also the pensions that we have that they already have coming to them. They want to take that away and also take that away for future workers. And, you know, really the climate of what's been going on the last 20, 30 years has been to do that.

It's been to protect themselves and let the future go. And we are standing firm on this to kind of reverse this trend and stop this cycle. Yeah. Can you explain that two-tiered system a little bit more? As I understand it, what the company wants to do is hire people as quote unquote transitional workers to deny them all the benefits that you guys had previously agreed on. And then even worse is move some legacy workers into the transitional period and deny benefits. Am I understanding that correctly? Not quite entirely. The legacy term, we really hate that term. They kind of came up with that. But it wouldn't actually move any legacy into that transitional. However, we do have 30% of

our workforce that is in this transitional that is supposed to transition into this quote unquote legacy. So what you have is the bulk of us legacy employees are actually turning down things to fight for the future. Again, we have 100-0 healthcare. Yes, that's very rare. However, if we let that go, not only will it be rare, it will be non-existent. So really, when we talk about the fight that we're having, this isn't just about future workers in these facilities. This is really about a broader movement, about standing up and fighting for middle class America and making sure these things are attainable for everyone. So, yeah, again, I don't want to get it construed that they are moving legacy to transitional. However, they are removing transitional's path and also any future workers' path to have what we have. And it's just it's not acceptable.

I think it's a really important point that you're making, too, that some of you are fighting not so much for yourselves, but for your brothers and sisters, not just at your union either, but across the country. Because we've seen these two-tier systems put in place in a lot of places. I believe it's one of the issues that the John Deere workers are striking over as well. When did these start to come into place and what is the sort of impact on them in terms of the labor market, in terms of what workers can look forward to for benefits and wages? Well, again, if you look at this from a Kellogg standpoint anyway, this goes all the way back to the late 90s when they first started shipping jobs to Mexico. They came in with what was a casual workforce in our facility. They were supposed to be a lower

waged employee without benefits. However, they were supposed to work anywhere from two to three days a week. They were supposed to be for relief a little bit from the extended schedules. Eventually, the company got to where they were exploiting that so bad that in 2014, we probably had 75 casual workers that were working over 3,000 hours a year and denied being a full-time employee. That was kind of how they pulled the rug out underneath of us. And that was kind of how the transitional piece came into be, was we were trying to keep that from happening. The lockout, the illegal lockout in Memphis from 2013, that was where the company was trying to completely lift all the caps on casuals whatsoever

and make casuals the entire future workforce. So a lower wage, no benefit. So that's what they took a 10 month lockout for fighting for all of us who at the time couldn't really help them. So again, this union, these locals, we've been fighting this for a tremendous amount of time. And now we finally are in a position where all four of us can fight them at once and stand up to stop this trend. I do believe that it's been going on for 15, 20 years kind of across the board. I do believe it's what leads to, you know, both parents in a house having to work 60 hours a week just to make ends meet. And at some point in time, we have to

reverse this. Otherwise, middle-class America, as we know it, is going to be gone. I do have children myself ranging from the ages of 15 down to five. And I think about it every day, about what kind of atmosphere and country that my children are going to get to grow up in. And if I don't play a role, stand up to stop this, I don't know who else is going to. Like I try to say, if it's not us, who? And if it's not now, when? That's a great point. And Trevor, from what I understand, what lengths have the company gone to to try and break your strike? I mean, what type of pressure are they putting on you guys? Well, they keep trying to make this narrative that there's the employees, there's the company, and then there's the union.

Like the union is some kind of abstract thought that we are forcing these Kellogg employees to do things that they don't want to do, which is absolutely not the truth. The company speaks about the membership never voting on this offer. Well, first off, the offer was illegal. However, the company spent a good 72 hours explaining that offer to our entire membership. Anybody that would listen sent them stuff in the mail at home, direct bargaining with them, stopping them in the hallway, direct bargaining with them. So really, our strike permission vote was a referendum on what they were offering. And it was overwhelmingly rejected over 90% willing to go on strike over what was there.

They're also bringing in third party workers, which I know it's already been explained a little bit. Our concern there is not so much that they can run the facilities. Bottom line, we're the best at what we do. We're not concerned that they can replicate that. We are concerned from a food safety standpoint. This is the group that they brought in during the lockout, and they stole everything that wasn't folded down.

They had people in there taking lunches from supervisors to where supervisors had to lock themselves inside doors. Even worse is a gentleman urinating in the product while they were making it. Oh, my God. Yeah, that gentleman actually has a three-year sentence for what he did. The company's aware of that, and they're still bringing in the same group. So, you know, we really struggle with what they're doing. I can say, you know, the company's got more money than sense.

I can assure you they will lose more money doing what they're doing than what they would have if they just, you know, gave us what we were asking for. Can you talk a little bit more about that piece? How is Kellogg's doing financially? Well, I do know that right now that their stock prices is taking a big hit. I do know that they're going to start incurring fees from Walmart shelf space if they're not getting to. I can say, though, you know, they come to the table and they tell us that they made, you know, just under $500 million in profit in cereal. And they also try to tell us how that's not sustainable

so again this kind of goes back to the elite you know you got people that have enough money to park a boat inside of a boat and uh there's too much money being generated by all these corporations for them to tell the workers that are actually making these products that create this profit for them that we just have to keep taking less. Again, we're done with that downhill slide. Trevor, what can folks who are listening and watching, what can they do to support y'all? If you're anywhere near a picket line, come on out and support us. A lot of people are really enjoying the community support and all the outside entities that are coming and letting us know that we are fighting the right

fight. Also, there are some GoFundMe pages that are posted as well. And right now, we can just avoid buying any cereal from the Kellogg company. That would be greatly appreciated. Well, there you go. You guys heard it here first. I'm sure a lot of people are going to listen to that. Trevor, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it. We both really stand with you guys 100%. Thanks, Trevor. Great to have you. Thanks again. Absolutely. Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate it. We've been transparent now this for a couple of months just because this is how we have to be. But, you know, we are watching a precipitous decline in our YouTube revenue,

specifically because of demonetization, copyright, or whatever. And I've really thought about it, Crystal. It doesn't make any sense to have a system for us to be able to present the best show possible while having to be mindful of all of these different constraints. And thinking about that, the only way around it is if you guys can support us becoming a premium member and more. It makes it so, once again, I see a 40% drop. I'm like, all right, well, it is what it is. We can pay our bills.

It's not an issue. That's what leads to all of these crazy workarounds that people have to try and do in order to talk and just give people the best possible show that they can. The cable companies don't have to worry about any of this stuff, but apparently we do. And that's okay. We have our business set up that way, but it only works if you guys can support us. So link is down there. You get all kinds of benefits, but really what is it about is making sure that we don't have to worry. So thank you very much. Yeah, we love you guys. You've made it so that we don't have to worry about it whatsoever. And just a couple of programming notes. So we have that new segment with Daily Poster.

That'll be posted tomorrow. We'll have more great content for you guys over the weekend. And we will see you back here on Monday for a full show. Check out over the weekend, too. We've been doing these. I don't know if you guys have seen. We've been doing these mini shows. Mini shows and your podcast app.

All of our extra content together in one show with the daily poster segment as well. And those are being posted on the podcast apps as well. So look for that too. People seem to be enjoying them. Love you guys. We'll see you back here for a full show on Monday. See you Monday. Thanks for listening to the show, guys. We really appreciate it. To help other people find the show, go ahead and leave us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

It really helps other people find the show. As always, special thank you to Supercast for powering our premium membership. If you want to find out more, go to crystalandsauger.com. DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John. Who's not the father? Well, Sam, luckily it's your not the father week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This author writes, my father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my son, even though it was promised to us. He's trying to give it to his irresponsible son,

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