Grubstakers - Episode 21: Ken Langone

Episode Date: June 25, 2018

The Grubstakers take on Ken "The Italian Stallion" Lagone! Andy Palmer read his book "I Love capitalism," but does it convince the reader? Don’t forget to pretend like you’re working, and strap in you got Grubstakers!

Welcome to Grubstakers. I'm Andrew Palmer, age 30, and this is my book report on I Love Capitalism by Ken Lingone, co-founder of The Home Depot, coming up right now on Grubstakers. I think we disproportionately stop whites too much. I taught those kids lessons on product development and marketing, and they taught me what it was like growing up feeling targeted for your race. I am proud to be gay. I am proud to be a Republican. You know, I went to a tough school in Queens, and they used to beat up the little Jewish boys. You know, I love having the support of real billionaires. Hey everybody, welcome back to Grubstakers. We got another exciting episode for you.

But before we get to it, I am Sean P. McCarthy, joined as always by... Steve Jeffries. Andy Palma. Yogi Poliwal. And this week, we got another special episode because one of us read a book. It started as a joke because we know Andy, as an ardent Jill Stein voting socialist,

does not love capitalism. So we wanted to put him... I beg to differ. We wanted to put him directly in the mind of a man who loves capitalism. And of course, we're talking about one of the co-founders of home depot ken lagone who wrote a book called i love capitalism that andy spent all of yesterday reading guys i i opened up ken lagone's i love capitalism it's a tale of love

betrayal and ross perot. It starts as the nice story of a boy who grew up in Roslyn Heights. Oh, actually it starts with two quotes from Ken Langone. The world belongs to risk takers and a kid once said to me, money doesn't buy everything. I said, well kid,

suck it to me. I was poor. And I can tell you right now, poverty doesn't do a very good job either um that's why i'm hoarding 3.4 billion dollars now uh yeah apparently poverty can't buy everything either so uh ken opens up the book with uh this book is my love song to capitalism capitalism works let me say it again it It works, and I'm living proof. I can work for anybody and everybody. Blacks and whites and browns and everyone in between.

I like how Ken Ligone is proposing a paper bag test for capitalism. Absolutely anybody is entitled to dream big, and absolutely everybody should dream big. I did. Show me where the silver spoon was in my mouth. I've got to argue profoundly and passionately, I'm the American dream. Just a note from Andy's reading of the book is apparently Ken Ligone's grandfather was a landlord during the Great Depression.

So Ken Ligone. Really? So when did they change their name to Langone, which is what everyone who works in Langone facilities calls him? Not important. Ken Langone was the rough and tumble son of Italian immigrants' children. His grandparents, they were fresh off the boat. So he was pretty much fresh off the boat when he started living, being born in Roslyn Heights in Long Island. One of his grandfathers realized the quickest way to the American dream, property.

So he bought up a bunch of property and then in 1932 was hit by a car and no one knows who did it. It was a hit and run. Right. And just kind of context. In 1932, you might be aware, was the Great Depression in the United States of America. And landlords, people who owned property, had a tendency to evict poverty-stricken people. So it is very possible that the silver spoon in Ken Ligone's mouth was found next to his dead grandfather after one of his evicted tenants ran him over. Now, he says here that they didn't see anything of those riches because there were tax bills on the properties.

Oh, FDR owned him. Yeah, yeah. So he grew up the son of a hardworking plumber. Of course. But, of course. And his mom was a high school cafeteria lady. Yes, and she made linguine so good that everyone loved her.

And then his other grandfather apparently really loved working with a shovel until his thumb got deformed from using the shovel. But he loved it so much that he died of a stroke while still working and that's inspirational. His father did? His grandfather. Oh, I see. How does

he deform a thumb from shoveling? What is that? I don't know. It got fucked up. There's even a picture where he's like, this is my grandfather. Look at how fucked up his thumb is in the picture section. All right. Okay. Okay. Good.

Oh, so that's why so many Home Depot employees get injured on the job now. It's inspiring. But his dad was a hardworking plumber, but he was in a union, and he was going around. He was getting all these jobs, and he got a sit down with one of the union guys who's like listen there's all these guys sitting here waiting for jobs to come in you're going out and getting them we don't care for that because at the unions they like to be lazy and play cards in their card room they don't like to go out and get jobs like an american also a rule that home depot stands by there's people outside waiting for jobs and they don't have a union. Those people don't exist.

They're not mentioned in this book by the Home Depot guy. So he does not thank the illegal immigrants who work outside of Home Depot once for his $3.4 billion fortune. They don't exist. So Mr. Langone, he's always on the hustle. All through his childhood, he's making a buck. He's running back and forth. He's going to a liquor store, taking their boxes, and then selling them for scrap to another guy.

Then he goes to college at Bucknell, and he almost gets kicked out because he... By the way, if you are offended, as we all are, by Andy's stereotypical accent, please tweet at him. We do not support discrimination against Italian-Americans. This is how I talk. I just like that Andy's doing a good job

of making his voice appropriately sound to Ken Langone's age. So later on in the episode, it'll be a much more gruffer and deeper Italian accent. Whereas right now, it's a fun, high-pitched, shrill Italian accent. Yeah, you guys just keep listening for an hour andy will be full

michael corleone it's gonna be a brief period i'm gonna be fucking veto you motherfucker he's gonna go from tony soprano to michael corleone veto corleone all right i don't refuse uh okay so he's in college at Bucknell. He's fucking around. He almost gets kicked out for trying to yank a toilet out of the ground at a restaurant. Well, his dad was a plumber. I mean, that's really, you know, that's where he got his roots from. He was trying to get the toilet seat to add to his friend's costume where he's going to dress as shit.

It's some college bullshit. He had just eaten linguine the night before, and the toilet had to come out. He had to put it directly into the sewer system. Back to his liquor store days, he just wanted to flip a toilet. He was like, you know, I can take a toilet from here and then sell it to the guys over there. The roots of his Home Depot empire

start with these toilet shenanigans. It's all about the hustle. So then he meets his wife. Clea. She's 16, he's's 18 he falls in love he says um this is still in his uh early his the first chapter he says she had a lot of friends she was very popular but the main thing i liked about her was that she was a free spirit she didn't judge me and i didn't judge her we enjoyed each other and we still do and then there's a break

and then supply and demand goes through everything in life. Early on, I conned to the fact and then he goes back into one of his college hustles. One of them was giving out cigarettes for free

to get people addicted to cigarettes. I love capitalism. I mean, he kind of lays it on the guy who had the job before him but you get the feeling that... Well, I have cigarettes which is the supply I love capitalism. I mean, he kind of lays it on the guy who had the job before him, but you get the feeling that... Well, I have cigarettes, which is the supply,

and I need people to be addicted to them, which is the demand. So I don't see what the problem is. Yeah. So then he leaves college. What if he didn't let his wife talk to any of his friends because he thought it was equivalent to unionization? No association between more than two people at a time. It's insulting to America.

No groups. So he does some shitty jobs after college. One of them is like basically being in a precursor to a credit rating agency. But he doesn't like judging people. So he just fakes everything and eventually gets fired. Oh. So wait, he committed credit fraud? Yes.

Because he's a good guy. Securities fraud because he didn't want to upset people. He would sit at home, watch The Price is Right, and fake analyses of people, and then he got fired. And then through sheer hard work and a connection through his father-in-law he gets a job at a uh what is it it's not a wall street now wait a minute though uh isn't he given all these quotes about like work your ass off and you can succeed in capitalism but his own admission is that he just faked his job and then watched the prices right and then through connections he succeeded in capitalism.

Friends and family all on his own. All on his own. He cared about those people, and he didn't want to give them bad reviews. And he got caught when he said that this guy was the head of a soccer thing and cleans his gutters out, and it turned out he was in a wheelchair, and that's how he got fired from that job.

Well, it's interesting. I mean, we'll kind of get to Eliot Spitzer later, He was in a wheelchair, and that's how he got fired from that job. So then it gets— Well, it's interesting. I mean, we'll kind of get to Eliot Spitzer later, but he seems to think that Eliot Spitzer went after a Wall Street scandal where the analysts were essentially boosting in-house stocks that various banks were trying to do IPOs for, and he said that Spitzer was going after Wall Street to try and make a name for himself. So it's just interesting that he was an analyst,

but he clearly doesn't understand the analyst job is at least theoretically supposed to be independent from the core business that it works for. Maybe those analysts didn't want to hurt the stock's reputation and wanted to do good by them. So they just did a little bit of flubbing, and it was for the best for everybody. They're white lies Why they gotta be white They were in between lies

Thank you So He married rich too That's the other thing right He married a fellow with Wall Street Connection He married a lady Whose father had Wall Street connection. Not that he has

any problem with people being gay. He mentions he had a gay friend in the 50s, no less. He gets into one or another different investment firms, first like a bank and then he leapfrogs into a different

investment thing. He talks about his poverty at the time. He says he would have liked to have eaten lunch with the guys, but him and his wife were broke. They had to pay their $128 per month rent. They had to feed themselves. They had car insurance and their budget didn't allow for him to spend three bucks for lunch.

And also when he's talking about being broke, he's talking about having like an apartment in Queens with his wife. It's like, we know people who are married and still have to have roommates. Yes. And he's giving us this sob story about how he was struggling. And this is just his early 20s. It's hilarious. All of the baby boomer, I worked my ass off bullshit.

I mean, we've talked about this briefly. But essentially, this was an entirely different United states economy where unionization was near peaks average wages real wages in the united states peaked at 1973 they are below that current level while costs of living such as health care education etc are inflate or have increased vastly over inflation in that time period so it's a completely different economy that the capitalism that he loves. He was always working hard. He was always on the hustle. He had trouble getting into Wall Street

because there were the WASP firms and there were the Jewish firms. Hell yes. I knew he was going to go there. He was a plumber's son from Long Island, a rough and ready Italian-American kid. And what business did he have rubbing elbows with the

high and mighty let alone make deals with them uh so eventually he he managed to get into there was a downturn in 1960 and he figured the only thing that can happen is it goes up so he walks into a place asks for a job says you know what they're like we can't afford you he says you know what what's that secretary making? Pay me what she's making. And that's how he gets his foot in the door at a place called, I don't know, RL. Listen, I know you can't afford me, but what do you pay the women around you?

Don't take that wage. Take a broad wage for now. I'll take a lady wage. Work my way up to... A man's wage. An Irishman wage. Yeah, an Italian man's wage. Irishman wage An Italian man's wage You know what I'm having a lot of trouble believing

That there have been sexual harassment complaints At Home Depot Listen I don't deserve WASP money But come on a toots money why not So he starts At RW Pressbridge And that's where he kind of becomes A Wall Street whiz

First he starts uh doing doing little trades here and there but eventually by happenstance uh he's at some special engagement and he meets a guy who says um hey listen i got this company they want to go public how about you uh what do you and he's like oh that sounds great i want to get in on this um give me a call and the guy gives him a call and uh ends up connecting him with a little fella by the name of ross perot oh now uh this ross perot he doesn't like swearing and he's very punctual he he's very committed to time but he goes into ross bro ross talks his ear off for half an hour and he says listen i gotta go you said goes into ross bro ross talks his ear off for half an hour and he says listen i gotta go you said only half an hour and ross is like you know what

we can still talk and so then he says well okay the first rule was broken i'm gonna break the second rule and he's like listen those merrill lynch guys they're that's a load of bullshit i can get you to go public uh bada bing and so direct quote from the book by the way direct quote so uh he he uh he takes ross perot public including uh he has a and so he he uh they um he has the story of when they're just about to go public and what they their process for that for signing documents is because there are taxes in New York. They take a limousine under the Holland Tunnel and then they sign the papers when they first pull off into New Jersey. Wow.

And then they have the limousine driver be the witness. OK. limousine driver be the witness okay so they're driving through the holland tunnel and ross pro is like hey you know i i want to go a hundred times my company's uh net worth with these stocks it's something about like the company's going to be worth more in the future so they go a hundred times it's not worth with the ipo and is that normal is that a thing i guess i don't know it was it was i think it's a i think it's normal thing. And as they're going through the tunnel, Ken goes, Ross Pro goes, you know what, I was worried that all these other guys, they say you can't do 100, but I'm glad you're doing it.

And then Ken goes, well, you know, I can't do 100. And Ross starts yelling at him. He's like, hey, I knew you're just like all the other New York guys. You jerk me around. And then Ken says, listen, knew you're just like all the other New York guys. You jerk me around. And then Ken says, listen, if you want to do 100, we could do 100. And Ross is like, what did you want to do? And he said 115. And then they had a big laugh and were friends for life.

And then they went to the Bing and saw the stripper before she was murdered. Yeah. And then Ross Perot beat a stripper to death outside the Bing. I like the idea of them bonding over Lagone being like, hey, you know those people you hate? Well, I'm going to concentrate them outside of my stores in 20 years. So, let's see. You don't know this now, but you're going to have parking lot attendance for free.

It's not valet parking per se, but if you give a person your keys your car will be parked somewhere else those people don't exist yes well but but so taking i mean uh so that's his first big splash in uh wall street because it actually turns out to be a big success for him and that's what makes him a millionaire right is taking ross perot's company public i believe so and it makes ross perot a millionaire um and uh then he has brush with the SEC. And there's this great quote where he's talking about how the SEC started looking but they were trying to use it to use the stocks to buy out this other company, so the SEC gets involved. And so Ken says this about the SEC. I knew about these people. When they think there's something bad going on, they do an investigation, and if violations have occurred, they recommend corrective action and possibly punishment.

So basically, he's talking about how the SEC operates by just describing their literal job. Right, right, right, right. As though it's like he's got inside knowledge on what the SEC is trying to do. Yeah. Well, in fairness to him, law enforcement in this country has historically discriminated against Italian-Americans and Italian-Americans involved in financial transactions. It's an ugly stereotype. Listen, I know how these garbage men work, okay? People make trash.

They put it on the side of the streets. Garbage men show it up Thursdays or Saturdays, depending on your neighborhood. Pick up the trash. Take it to the dump. It's all the inside information you need to know. It's basically his description of the U.S. economy. Maybe we can play that drop in a bit.

To me? So during his time at Pressbridge, he ends up, people decide that they want to short Ross Perot's stocks, and so he decides, you know what? I'm going to beat that. I'm going to buy all the stocks they're short selling,

and it turns out he tanks Pressbridge, almost runs them into bankruptcy so he lays off a huge chunk of their workforce so he has to fire a bunch of employees because his dipshit like uh ross perot ass kissing uh right gets him to try and squeeze short sellers and he ends up losing millions of dollars yeah he ends up losing he's a fucking idiot but of course he loves capitalism. And he almost bankrupt... Well, listen,

you know, he sacrificed. They had to tighten their belts. Ugh. And then, like, shortly after that, he leaves the company. Because, you know what?

They work in bonds and that's not fast-paced enough for Ken. And it has nothing to do with the fact that he ran the company into the ground. They're making empanadas.

I'm making calzones completely different it's great though i mean it's like another recurring theme on this podcast is like you know they always talk about like the margin of error margin to fail or something but like if you're a home depot associate and you get laid off like you're fucked but if you're ken lagone and you run your company into the ground, well, don't worry. You'll be able to bounce back because you have Wall Street connections and a rich father-in-law and grandfather landlord during the Great Depression money. There's no amount of mistakes. They lost all that money. Fucking FDR.

Yeah, but they had the money. Listen. You should be rewarded for the risk you take in business. When he was a kid, he was driving by the nice houses in town. He was in the car with his mother, and his mother turned to him and said, you see that? You got to work for that. But here's the thing.

Never become a rat. Wealth, it skips generations. Your grandfather was rich. You're going to be rich. But you got to work hard. It seems like dipshits who lose all their money are a running theme in this family. Hey, Ken didn't lose all his money,

so he goes, he starts... As long as you gain more than you lose. Yeah, as long as you come out on top at the end. And he started a, what was it, an investment company. Oh, and just to put a date on it, he took Ross Perot's company public in 1968, according to New York Magazine. Oh, wow.

And he started on Wall Street, I think, in 62. Sorry, when did he say that he had a rent of $129? That was like 1960, 1958, something like that. That's a lot. Yeah. That's like $2,900, $3,000. What was it? In current dollars.

He was really struggling, man. So why would you? All right, he's got some profitable spending going on there. He throws out these dollar amounts, and it's all like, you have no reference point for any of it. That's like what fucking 80-year-olds do when they talk. Like, oh, I went to the nickelodeon and i spent a nickel and now you kids watch the youtubes for free back in my day i had to walk 10 miles in the

snow to get to school well grandpa i get shot at so who gives a fuck well things were a lot cheaper before jimmy carter destroyed the economy that's very true and we get to that later okay uh so he starts an investment company that does medical stuff because he's very interested in medical. And so... Cloning, mostly cloning. Yeah, cloning, electric thermometers, that's his big thing, is that they're the wave of the future.

But eventually he gets this electric thermometer company and everyone's fucking everyone uh in the company like apparently that there's actually a fun little anecdote in here where it's like the guy who is the ceo of the company a guy walks in and catches him fucking the guy's wife and the guy's like you know what don't do it again buddy and so the ceo leaves and then the guy he's like a car salesman he comes home again and catches the guy fucking his wife and he's like hey i told you not to do it again and the uh ceo's like hey listen how about this i offer you a job at my company and that's you know that's great so eventually ken offered the dude fucking his wife a job no he the guy fucking his wife offered the dude whose wife was fucking a job. So, so.

Not a bad job there. Yeah. So the CEO guy, he turns out to be a huge fuck up and Ken fires him. But then he finds out the story when he's like going through the personnel. Like, how did this guy who was a car dealer, like, get this job because he sucks? And so he calls up the CEO, he fired him. And the guy was like, you know, it was the only way I could find out where he calls it the ceo he fired and the guy was like you know it was the only way i could find out where he was all the time which for all of for all of ken's uh bullshit

that was a good story so it's like uh you did really you know it's it's fortunate he did that in the days before workplace shootings were commonplace. Right, right. Because that's a bit of a cucking move. Yeah, it was ultra-cucking. Might psychologically damage your employee. So Ken gets involved. He finds out about this company that turns out to be making a lot of money. In the garment district of New York. They're making triangle shirtwaist.

And so it's this company out in California. The Gambino family. What? district of New York. They're making triangle shirt waist. It's this company out in California. The Gambino family. They're making a bunch of money but they're owned by another company that's just bleeding money. The company that's making money, it's run by this guy, Bernie Marcus.

The company that he has is called Handy Dan's and they're a home supply store. And so he starts investing in Handy Dan's, but he only gets 20 percent and ends up in this kind of feud with the guy who owns the parent company of Handy Dan's, eventually forcing the guy who owns the parent company to buy him out of this company so they can go private and have total control. And eventually they fire the guy, Bernie Marcus, and threaten to put him in jail because apparently Bernie had a labor law violation. Because in San Jose, he explained, there was and still is, it's still a big union town, a very liberal city with a big General Motors assembly plant and a heavy UAW representation. And so there was an effort afoot to unionize two San Jose handy dance stores.

One of the stores was going to have a union representation election, and a group of employees went to Bernie and Arthur Blank and said they wanted to decertify out of the union. And Bernie and Arthur transferred to San Jose a number of employees from Phoenix who they knew would vote against the union. And so it was they basically stuffed the ballot box to union bust. Well, it's nice that Ken Ligone would go on to be such an ardent supporter of unions through the rest of his career. So he just casually mentions his buddy, Bernie, who he treats as a saint throughout this book, like very early on. It's like, oh, yeah. and he also did some union busting um yeah and and so um just to put a date on it I believe it's

1978 where he starts investing in what would become Home Depot um uh yeah well Handy Dan's uh yeah so Handy Dan's uh Bernie gets fired from it he uh is not uh prosecuted for this union busting um and so yeah they decide to start for this union busting. And so, yeah, they decide to start. Unlike today, where union busting is, of course, punished. It is treated. By the full extent of the law. Ruthlessly. So it's May 1978, and they want to start this company.

But Ken says the problem in May 1978 was that the business climate was lousy. Jimmy Carter was president, and national confidence was sagging. Oh, man. Well, I've got good news for this guy. In two years, all of his problems will be gone. Oh, man. You have no idea. Oh, and so, yeah, you mentioned Bernard Marcus and Arthur Blank.

They were the two other. They are both billionaires as well. And those two, along with Ken Ligoni, are the three co-founders of Home Depot. All three are billionaires, so we will be returning to Bernard Marcus and Arthur Blank at a future episode. And for the listeners, it's Arthur Blank is his name. We're not hiding his last name. Arthur Blank was not happy about how he was let go from the Home Depot. They started calling him that after he was unable to conceive a child.

So first they go, they want their money for Home Depot. Who do they go to first? But Ross Perot. RP. They have their meeting with Ross Perot. They're talking about what cars they're going to drive, and Bernie mentions that he drives Cadillac

with 100,000 miles, and Ross Perot goes off on him and says, Cadillac with a hundred thousand miles and and uh and ross perot goes off on him and says cadillac what over here people who work for me they drive chevrolet's and bernard marcus was like is is there somebody talking to me i just i don't see anyone at my current height making making noise right now and so uh they realize that Ross Perot is probably too fucking nuts, so they get other investors. So wait, weren't you saying, Andy, that throughout

this entire book he's constantly kissing Ross Perot's ass? Yes, this is the one time that Ross Perot was wrong. I just like the idea of the giant sucking sound is Ken Ligone talking about Ross Perot. That's definitely present throughout the IPO. So they're about to set up this company.

They're trying to get investors, but it quote, it was a dicey moment. The economy was in recession. The market was in the crapper. Ronald Reagan had just become president, but Reaganomics hadn't yet worked its magic. And that magic, of president, but Reaganomics hadn't yet worked its magic. And that magic, of course, being reducing the highest income tax rate from 70% when he took office to 28% when he left office. It's magic. So we go through, eventually, they start the Home Depot, and it's a roaring success. So that's about the first half of the book, which is a real... humdinger it's a real norman rockwell painting of um his background and then in chapter seven there's a chapter called guy

walks into my office and we go from norman rockwell to harmonious bosh it's it starts out with this guy who walks in and says hey i invented the laser um but i can't get my patents to work and get my money from it so then he took a meeting with dr evil so so then he starts just he's like he gets this great idea and he like plays it up like ah ah uh and he just opens up a patent troll firm that just like they don't love capitalism they don't produce anything they just extract money from all the people who use lasers um and then he's like are you able to talk a bit about patent trolling because it's like we should get into it more in a future episode but essentially people just like patent various technologies and then as soon as anything appears that uses anything even

incidentally related to this or that technology they just file lawsuits to extract rents from them right i mean it produces nothing productive for the economy it was uh yeah that will accompany was even called patlex which stood for patent litigation you know i i will admit like having done a small bit not as much as andy but a small bit of research on ken ligone i do respect his just complete balls i mean i don't really like capitalism so much as i like ken ligone yeah he just i mean this guy's always on the hustle like it's it's funny because the he had this other guy you should call it i love the court system he he talks about having a um a collaborator basically a ghost writer and it's clear like the ghost writer knew to do the hero's

journey all the way up to when he starts home depot but then it's clear he's no longer this rough and tumble kid so he's like all right so it was it was nice of his ghost writer to uh brush all the spaghetti sauce off the transcripts that were submitted to him. Canola oil. This makes the pages stick together. I just like that the story goes dark in chapter seven, the morally bankrupt chapter. Yeah. It's like, I can't make this guy rough and tumble.

Now he's just like this asshole billionaire who's just like yelling at everyone so uh we take a brief side trip to ross pro's 1992 presidential campaign cool where uh ken said ken says he almost changed the course of u.s history and then he says take note of that word almost so there was a story in usa today that speculated at the time that if ross pro won our boy kenny would have been the secretary of the treasury. Wow. And so he basically, he would help Ross Perot by doing spin on all the networks, on Larry King Live, Crossfire, all the 24-hour news networks. And he would also smooze with reporters after the debates. And apparently he saw a Bush official go into Ross's dressing room and didn't know what they were talking about.

Apparently Ross kept talking about how this rumor that the ambassador to Iraq supposedly gave Saddam Hussein a wink to imply that it was all cool to go into Kuwait. And so apparently the Bush administration official was trying to set the record straight with Ross on that one. But by wondering what they could have been talking about, he got the idea that if he goes,

holy shit, I thought, if we can think of a way for Ross and Bush to join up, we win. We could kill everybody in Iraq. So then he goes on his harebrained scheme because throughout all the book, he keeps talking about how he's like, and then I got this idea, and I called Johnny over in finance, and Johnny in finance said, I love it. Let's go over to Jeff in analysis and marketing,

and then we worked the deal, and we made $50 million. So at this point, he keeps that tone, but it's him just calling senators without explaining how he has all these connections. So it's like I called up Arlen Specter and I said, hey, Arlen, what if we get – if you got a connection in the White House, we get Ross to drop out. He endorses George Bush. We win this thing. And it's like Arlen Spect what if we get, if you got a connection in the White House, we get Ross to drop out, he endorses George Bush, we win this thing. And it's like Arlen Specter was crazy about the idea. So then Arlen Specter gets, he gets another guy involved. Who's the other guy? Oh, he gets

Bob Dole involved. And Bob Dole loves it. Actually, Bob Dole just liked to hear Bob Dole talk about Bob Dole. And finally, he talks to the White House. I like more my version where Arlen Specter dies of cancer so he doesn't have to keep listening to Ken Ligone's stupid ideas. By the way, I love bringing this up, but right before

Arlen Specter died, after he resigned from the Senate, his retirement career was in stand-up comedy. And I'm not bullshitting you, there's a CNN documentary where it shows him doing stand-up at Caroline's just bombing with his

bill clinton jokes and what year would this be uh this is right before he died so like 2011 or something he's doing clinton jokes in 2011 of course he's bombing yeah and so they interview him in his office this like manhattan office and he's sitting at his table and they're like so do you want to like tell us one of your jokes from your process? And so he reads off this joke and no one laughs. And then you get to see one of the most powerful people, former most powerful people in America go like, yes, you know, I still have to kind of work on that. We're going to go over some of the material that you're planning to use on Monday night at Caroline's, correct? These are possibilities. These are candidates. When I was recuperating from Hodgkin's,

the doctors told me to spend some time in a hot tub. So I was in this hot tub, Then comes Ted Kennedy, 283 pounds, in his finest, his birthday suit. And like a walrus, he plops into the hot tub. And you know the old story about rising tide lifts old boots? My head hit the ceiling. Newt Gingrich, I've known Newt a long time. In fact, I've known Newt so long, I knew him when he was skinny. I've known Newt so long, I knew his first wife. As John Furman said in his deep South Carolinian accent,

Nancy and I have sex almost every night. We almost have sex on Monday. We almost have sex on Tuesday. I don't know if this is fit for CNN. It's pretty embarrassing when you're a Make-A-Wish kid stand up and you still can't get a laugh. That's so funny. So they try to get Perot to team up, but apparently the White House guy leaks to Goldman that there's a move to get Ross Perot there.

And someone from Goldman Sachs asks Ross Perot about it, and Ross Perot decides that he can't trust the Bush administration, so he doesn't go with it. And that bombs the whole thing. And years later, apparently, Ken meets Baker, the guy who was the Bush official who kind of blew the thing up. He says he met him at a Bohemian Grove gathering. Right. There's a video of Alex Jones confronting Baker outside of a Bohemian. Or like, no, he confronts him about the Bohemian Grove. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And Bohemian Grove, for those who don't know, is just, it's this, it's where rich people walk around in the woods.

And I guess just network on how to control America. Isn't it, like, West Coast based where Skull and Bones is East Coast based? No, no, no. Skull and Bones is a Yale thing. But Bohemian Grove is for, like, I guess it's like former skull and bones types but it's basically just like billionaires and former presidents and senators um so then then we get into kind of the meat of the book uh which is our boy elliot spitzer and it turns out uh kinlingone oh excuse me it was david gergen is another bush slash clinton official who attends bohemian grove and there is a video of alex jones confronting him uh what's great about that video is Alex Jones clearly full of cocaine.

Supplements. Cocaine supplements. Cocaine supplements. I got more energy. I feel more crazed than when I was 20. It doesn't have to be approved by the FDA if it's a supplement. Before we get to Spitzer, I do just want to do one poll quote that Mr. Lengone gave on his press tour to promote this book. He gave Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal woke up briefly from her Percocet haze to interview this guy,

and he gave a quote that I would just like to share with you guys. He says, In 2016, I saw Bernie Sanders and the kids around him. I thought, this is the Antichrist. We have the greatest engine in the world. And just to put that in perspective, Bernie Sanders' proposals are basically less radical versions of what Franklin Delano Roosevelt proposed in 1944.

The economy, of course, that Ken Ligone made his fortune around was the New Deal coalition that has been slowly eroded in the decades since. But again, it's like this social Democrat is the fucking antichrist to him. Oh yeah. By the way. So the book's called, I love capitalism.

It's all just like an autobiography except the very end. And occasionally he'll like pepper in words about how much he loves capitalism, but it's just, it's mostly mad men followed by a bunch, settling a bunch of grudges. And so we get to this section of the book. Sorry, one other thing from that Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal.

He says, the wealthy have an obligation to help others. He says, quote, where would we be if people didn't share their wealth? I got 38 kids on Bucknell scholarships. They're all colors of the rainbow. Some are poor kids rough around the edges. It's capitalism how many are in betweens paper bag tests for his scholarships too but it is just like again this guy according to forbes as of june 2018 3.4 billion dollar net worth only 38 uh his yeah his

giving back is funding 38 scholarships this is a drop in the bucket of his bottom line. But he gave $100 million to NYU Med School. So they would charitably name the medical center after him? It wasn't his idea. They said to him, hey, if we put your name on it, more people will want to give. But now he gets a swell of pride every time he sees his name even though he knows that pride is a mortal sin oh he loves god by the way oh big fan of god he's a he's a catholic uh loves god it's always nice when uh people love god without reading one word jesus

wrote oh he references he references the bible at one point and uh that's where i got the idea to have elliot spitzer followed with private investigators that didn't happen he's he's got his own story uh where's his bible quote oh and just like another thing while we're on the subject he's also a romney bundler he's been a bundler for a lot of different republican candidates he maxed out his personal donation to donald trump and voted for the guy but he gave hundreds of thousands uh according to Mother Jones, to Karl Rove's American Crossroads, American Action Network, another dark money super PAC. And of course, he loves giving.

Yeah, he got he was a bundler, which is he got a lot of other millionaires and billionaires together to raise money for Mitt Romney in 2012. So as well as Rudy Giuliani in 2008. Womp, womp. He just cares about the underdog. In 2011, he was critiquing Obama for not wearing his suit jacket in the Oval Office, and this is what his quote said,

Ronald Reagan would never go into the Oval Office without his jacket on. That's how much he revered the presidency. This guy worked like hell to be president, okay? He's got it. Behave like a president. I'm pretty sure Ronald Reagan didn't even know he was president by the end of it. He didn't know if he was wearing a jacket or not. Now, that doesn't sound like the Ken Langone in here who said that it doesn't matter what you wear as long as you do a good job. He asked, he was going to invest in a place. He asked the lady who ran it, what's the clothing policy And she said

Well As long as the people wear clothes And he was like That's how I knew It was a good place to invest in But Also Barack Obama should put on a jacket

He says There's a parable in the bible About a farmer who needs workers He hires a guy At 8 o'clock in the morning The guy works until 6 o'clock p.m. You know the Bible where they reference American Standard Times?

And the farmer pays him for the whole day. But at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, he hires another guy who works one hour. I'm sure that was in the Bible, one hour. And the farmer pays him for the whole day. The first guy bitches. The farmer says, hey, I didn't take anything away from you. It's my money. That's the essence of capitalism.

Wait, did he say bitches? Yeah, he says bitches. Oh, yeah, he uses swears when quoting the Bible. He's paraphrasing the Bible. Did you guys know that if you're worth $3.4 billion, you're allowed to tell your editor no? What's great here is that even when quoting the Bible, he's so plugged into the capitalist idea of hourly wages that he has to translate something where it was probably like sun up to sun down into 6 p.m. until 8 o'clock in the morning until 6 p.m. This other guy, he works an hour.

It has to be in terms of hourly wages because he can't conceive of a world without that if you set aside all the stuff about Jesus said about don't jack off and shit, if you set that aside the vast majority of his quotes are like you need to literally give every

single dollar you own to charity in order to enter heaven he references that in his last chapter and he struggles with it he doesn't know uh it's the chapter called network i struggle with going up to 39 bucknell scholarships jesus says he literally cannot get into heaven if you have any wealth left when you die yeah and he says i mean should i give more i don't know but i have to think about it. He also translates all non-capitalistic, master-servant, common-law relationships into those.

Oh, wow. Yeah. So any story from the Bible about anyone performing any service or work turns into an employer-employee. But he gives so much of his money away. That Bible story really opens a guy going to Home Depot to hire a day laborer. Like, once a guy showed up to work a full day's work away, it's like, buddy, you know what we're talking about here. Listen, he's always thinking that there's got to be a greater meaning to his life than all the money he's made. The Bible says there's a better chance of a camel getting through the eye of a needle than a rich man making it into heaven. Okay.

Okay. to philanthropic causes. I signed Warren's Giving Pledge years ago, but in my case, it was academic. I'd already given away more than half of my net worth. Okay. Should I follow the Bible? I'll be honest. I'm not giving everything away. Why? Because I love this life.

I love having nice houses and good people to help me. I love getting on my airplane instead of having to take my shoes off to wait in line taking the commercial flight. If you want to accuse me of living well, I plead guilty. You know, I struggle with religion, but I promise you, Jesus, I will go to church every Sunday if this guy burns in fire for eternity. So let's dive into Spitzer. So this all starts when he's part of the uh new york stock exchange which apparently

is a not-for-profit company it was a not-for-profit was it was a not-for-profit company when the trouble arose and what happens is there's this guy there and they have a rule dick grasso dick grasso was the ceo of the new york stock exchange at the time the non-profit yes and they wrote a rule that gave every employee retroactively a pension of 2.5% times the compensation for every year of service. So if you've been there for, say, 10 years, you get 25% times your current compensation as your pension. So what happens is this guy, when he's finally going to retire uh uh let's see ken claims or he gets get he gets 140 million dollars and ken claims that this is that calculus just going into how he's paid and he also likes to if i could just uh jump in here there's a good fortune magazine article

on this uh i'll link on the tumblr whenever i get around to updating that but i'll link to it on the tumblr but um uh so basically an interesting thing about the New York Stock Exchange at the time is the board of directors who, of course, set the compensation for the CEO. Many of them come from, this is according to Fortune, many directors came from the securities industry, which of course, Grasso as the CEO was a regulator of. So you can see where the conflict kind of comes in, where these people who represent Wall Street firms that the New York Stock Exchange does regulate are having to set the compensation

for the very man who regulates them. So you can see why that might be. Carl McCall, who had previously been comptroller of the state of New York in the compensation committee. And so, okay, so, Landgown claims that the New York Stock Exchange, they're a not-for-profit company, which is completely different than a non-profit company.

Not according to New York state law, but all right. With no shares or shareholders, all the revenue that the exchange earned went straight back into exchange expenses, including Dick's pay. Dick Grasso. Yes. And just one other thing from the Fortune article. So basically, during his first four years as CEO, Grasso made about $6 million a year, approximately. Like in 1998, he made $6 million.

He made about $15 million for his first four years. But of course, these, you know, $6 million a year, this is pennies. This is not enough for this guy. Dick worked so hard to Y2K bug proof the New York Stock Exchange. He rang that bell after 9-11. Yeah, he could have. Nobody could have done that. He could have brought it up and going on 9-12.

But you know what? The city said, you know what? Wait until the next Monday. His original plan was to keep it running through the attack. Oh, yeah? That's how hardworking he is. And so just one more quote from this Fortune article. To Langone, it was a matter of simple fairness.

Grasso had single-handedly preserved the exchange, and the board needed to make him feel appreciated. Here's the quote. You don't wait to go home one night and find your wife in bed with the painter, he says. You need to show her how much you love her every day. And apparently, six million a year is not enough to show your wife

how much you love her. Wow. Listen, the... This was right after Enronron and people were really mad at corporations i wonder why and so the papers couldn't stop talking about the big pay package that ken had pushed for general electric ceo jack welch and when he was on the compensation committee when he was on the compensation committee at ge and the rich contract he'd gotten for bob nardelli at Home Depot as CEO back in 2000. But as Ken says, what they never mentioned was the basic equation of capitalism. Welch and Nardelli

had earned the money by creating value. Oh, yes. I pay people for performance. Now, what he's leaving out of this is that, of course, as we mentioned, the board of directors... Basic equation of capitalism. The board of directors for the New York Stock Exchange were many CEOs of companies that were regulated by the New York Stock Exchange. But you'll see that in a lot of things, like, for example, Elliot Spitzer previously investigated the analyst scandal in which Wall Street analysts for various firms were giving high ratings to companies that their firms were trying to launch IPOs for and do business with. And in one case, they actually indicted a guy over. Essentially, he agreed to give AT&T a buy rating in exchange for AT&T's CEO helping his company on a board fight on another board.

So basically what they never mentioned with these board fights is that the compensation is determined by CEOs and board members who have huge conflicts of interest and is really nothing to do with market forces. It's nuts. Yeah. It's a straight up, hey, scratch my dick, I'll suck your dick. Entirely They pay for value And these guys were contributing value And also Spitzer had aspirations to be the first Jewish president

And that's why he did it He just wanted the media attention Yeah so He wanted to be the Jewish king The messiah He wanted to be the Jewish boy in the yard Who didn't get bullied Now so basically

like in 2003 i believe yes 2003 uh it's announced that grasso is going to be walking away with 140 million dollar severance package um and then there's media outcry you know the new york post is screaming about this and whatever and so elliot spitzer launches he sues the New York Stock Exchange for two reasons. One is that New York State law says that, right, so under New York State law, it bars not-for-profits from paying anything more than what is, quote, reasonable and, quote, commensurate with services performed. So he sued them for that. And then he also sued— He added value. It was reasonable and then he also sued grasso and lengone for duping the board about the ceo's pay

because they kind of did it in like an underhanded way where again this is kind of in the fortune article but uh the ceo of goldman sachs at the time who later went on to become the treasury secretary hank paulson was against this and so they waited until he went on a vacation after receiving personal insurances that they wouldn't go through with this pay package. And then they voted on it when he was out of the country. And so, you know, they sued him. I mean, Ken would agree to disagree. And so they sued him for these two things.

And again, just more Langone wisdom from the fortune. He says, quote, they got the wrong fucking guy. And he said this during a series of incendiary conversations with Fortune magazine. He says, quote, I'm nuts, I'm rich, and boy, do I love a fight. I'm going to make them shit in their pants. When I get through with these fucking captains of industry, they're going to wish they were in a Cuisinart at high speeds. You know, I went to a tough school in Queens.

They used to beat up the little Jewish boys. And he also says, quote, if Grasso gives back a fucking nickel, I'll never talk to him again. Because originally, Spitzer just wanted Grasso to give back the majority of his $140 million severance package. Oh, and he also says, just a fun quote about Hank Paulson, he says, Paulson is the guy that's going to have not only egg, but shit all over his face. So, you know, I do respect him for threatening to shit all over Hank Paulson's face. Whatever our other differences, I think we can both get behind that. Well, Ken didn't want to settle with Spitzer.

It was a matter of pride. And once someone asked him if he wanted to settle and he felt offended because that meant they didn't know him. Because as he says, anyone who really knew me knew that I'd sooner jump off the Brooklyn Bridge than settle with that weasel. Please. Well, I can certainly tell you my preference between those two options. But yeah, so basically this kind of winds its way through the courts and uh spitzer runs for governor in 2006 so he's not as interested but originally the new york state uh it causes uh langone a lifelong republican uh to throw his support between Tom Swoozie, a Democrat. He liked Tom, but he'll admit his main motivation was to stick it to Spitzer. Nice of him.

But so in 2006, the New York State Supreme Court ordered Grasso to repay a significant amount of it. But then they appealed. And in 2008, the New York State Court of Appeals dismissed all claims against Grasso on the grounds that because New York Stock Exchange was at this point a subsidiary of Intercontinental Exchange and is now a private corporation, New York State law regulating nonprofits didn't have any hold over it. But of course, this ignores... Not for profits. Not for profit. But of course, this ignores that at the time this compensation package was devised, it was a not for profit.

But hey, whatever. So eventually he wins in court. And then he has an interesting role in the downfall of one Eliot Spitzer. Now, for years there had been whispers, some talk louder than whispers, that in his desire to get back at Spitzer, he hired a private detective to shadow him, and that it was his detective sleuthing that ultimately led to Spitzer's downfall. But the following is Ken Lugone's story and he's sticking to it. He said in March 2008, I came to attend another dinner.

This one at the Tribeca Grill in honor of Medal of Honor recipients. Dick Grasso was going to be the host. I love that video game. I wasn't told there would be a dinner i just played the game for fun i didn't know that ken lagone would be honoring me ken langone logged on freaking no scope he uh got a call from a friend of his who said uh a couple or someone lowered his voice and said i got a call today from a friend of mine who told me a couple of months ago he was waiting in line at the grand central post office and who was standing in front of him but the governor of

the state of new york elliot spitzer and when spitzer's turn came he bought a two thousand eight hundred dollar money order so then they were like, well, what could this mean? Because what's the governor doing at a post office on his own getting a $2,800 money order? What's he need that for? And of course, fucking prostitutes.

Yes, of course, he announced while he was buying the order, I am the governor of New York and this is for a prostitute. But yes, so as Andy is mentioning, this is kind of an infamous moment, and it's also documented

in a great documentary on Netflix, Client 9, which is about Eliot Spitzer. So CNBC interviews Ken Langone right after the news about Spitzer comes out, because of course they were old adversaries, and you can't really find the clip online, so I'm just going to read the transcript. CNBC asks,

Would you say that you were surprised by this news? Langone says, not at all. I had no doubt about his lack of character and integrity. It would only be a matter of time. I didn't think he would do it this soon or the way he did it, but I know for sure he went himself to a post office

and bought $2,800 worth of mail orders to send to the hooker. CNBC, how do you know that? Langone, I know it. I know somebody who is standing in back of him in the line and of course he claims that this was just a friend and not a private investigator that he hired to tail elliot spitzer because you know those like coincidences where you're just standing in line behind the governor of new york while he's's ordering fucking twenty eight hundred dollars of postal checks for his escorts. And you just happen to call up your friend.

And one other thing on this. Roger Stone, of course, a famous Republican strategist, is possibly going to be indicted by Robert Mueller. But we'll see. For fucking too much. Robert Mueller's like, I didn't like in that Swinger ad with your wife where you excluded smokers. I thought that was very discriminatory, and I'm included former AIG chairman Hayden Greenberg, another person who Spitzer filed lawsuits against, and Home Depot financier Ken Langone, all Major League Spitzer haters. So Stone denied this to The Atlantic, but essentially The Atlantic reports that Spitzer, sorry, Stone told a group, told a Republican blogger that Langone, among others, had hired him to do dirty work on Eliot Spitzer, and he almost certainly hired a private investigator

to follow Eliot Spitzer around. It was just a lucky coincidence. Now, the tragedy of all this for Ken Langone is that the basic tenet of his faith is forgiveness. By the way, guys. But he can't find it in his heart to forgive Elliot Spitzer. Listeners, if you're ever in the post office and you happen to be in line behind Andy Palmer and you see him ordering $2,800 worth of cashier's checks, please let us know about

this horrifying coincidence. So, um, at the end of all of this Spitzer stuff, he says I have no problem admitting my mistakes. I'm loaded with them. But I never bought a pencil without an eraser on it. And God invented erasers on pencils for people like me.

God invented them? Looks like he's never used a pen. That's how he ends his Home Depot chapter. This is probably why he thinks the Bible has the word bitches in it a bunch. So let's go into Home Depot. He's got the word ass in it a lot. So he's got his whole...

He's got his whole Home Depot thing where he just talks about how he loves Home Depot's employees, but CEO after CEO kept screwing the pooch on these employees. and letting them sit down during their eight-hour shift where they walk 15 miles while carrying 60-pound bags of shit that they'll get fired if they accept tips for. Home Depot pays $2 over minimum wage with the possibility of bonuses. Oh, that's good. And they don't have to do that. So what's this about Home Depot and unions? Well, so interesting story, and I spent at least two hours yesterday trying to find this video.

But Home Depot has, for a while now, forced employees to watch anti-union propaganda videos. There was one in October 2010 that it was mandatory for employees to watch. It was a 14-minute anti-union video. It leaked in 2011. But since then, Home Depot has filed copyright claims to pull it from both YouTube, Dailymotion, everywhere. You cannot find this video online.

I tried. If you're a listener and you know where this video is, please send it to me because I would like to play some of it on a future episode. But just an interesting thing about this anti-union video, it uses some of the same actors and similar points from a Walmart anti-union video uh it uses uh some of the same actors and similar points from a walmart anti-union video wow and interestingly enough many of these actors are of

course union actors um but uh so uh uh just a a daily coast blogger again i'll link to this on the tumblr did actually transcribe some fun parts from this anti-union video that was of course mandatory for Home Depot employees to watch so and I'll just try to read some of this in the cheery upbeat voice you might hear an actor read a script to Home Depot employees well of course wearing the Home Depot Union uniform and acting like they actually worked there quote that's why we don't believe it would be in the best interest of our associates or our company to have outsiders interfering in our associate relationships or the way we manage our company. The video you're about to see is about outsiders, unions specifically. At some point, you might be approached by someone interested in bringing a union to Home Depot.

And, of course, notice the way they're calling unions outsiders. When just for anyone not... Triple parentheses. Yes. Foreign elements. There might be globalists. The only group we can truly describe as international elements. They wake up one day in Vienna and the next day in Paris.

They are unions. You may be confronted with Russian elements while at work. And so another quote from this, you're not the only one trying to get your foot in the door at Home Depot. You may have heard stories in the news or read in the paper or seen on the internet. Labor unions are very interested in Home Depot and other large companies and have spent millions of dollars trying to grow their membership and then they interview one fake employee for this propaganda video and the fake employee says the thing i remember most about the unions they took dues money out of my paycheck before i ever

saw it just like taxes wow the other thing I remember about the union representative didn't know my name or anything about me. The thing I learned about unions is they need money from people like you and me. So the reason why big unions are pushing hard for associates like ours is simple. Just follow the money. And of course, I really, you know, satire is just beyond dead when have a big corporate anti-union propaganda telling you to just follow the money if the union had the money for it and put out like a video warning you about the employer they're like you might see someone who can control your every move for eight hours a day and dictate whether or not you can feed yourself independently. You might want to keep an eye out for that.

Well, okay. Just one other thing. In doing research for this, I stumbled over to the Home Depot Reddit, and if you were wondering why Home Depot employees might want a union, one of the top posts as of yesterday is, quote, had my availability deleted last week without notice, now being scheduled over court-ordered child visitations. And they told me I just have to find someone else to cover my shifts from now on.

So basically, Home Depot is notoriously bad to their employees. And we can read some of those stories as well in a minute. Well, okay. So Ken says that they hired this guy, Bob Nardelli. And he was the CEO, but he was all about numbers. So eventually, Ken rallied up the board and got Bob fired. And they brought in this guy, Frank Blake, and he understood the people at Home Depot and made everything better after all this damage that Bob did for six years as the CEO of Home Depot.

Because he didn't understand the employees, but now they treat them good. Oh, that's good to know. Because they're their most valuable asset. And so Hamilton Nolan, a reporter at Splinter News, in response to this book that Andy read, he compiled stories from various Home Depot employees about their experience there. So just a couple like fun quotes here. My real play with my job is the metrics, aka how many poor souls have been financially ruined by that 21.97 APR credit card

I signed them up for because corporate told me to. So basically, Home Depot associates are pressured to sell credit cards with 22%, 23% interest rate to customers. And of course, these associates are, according to Glassdoor, average cashiers making $10 an hour, average sales associates making $11 an hour. That's more than minimum wage, Ken would like to remind me. Right. You know, for a job where, according to one associate, on the average day, I walk approximately 15 miles while I work.

And, you know, just like Amazon warehouse employees, these people are walking 15 miles on concrete. But they do make more than is legally required. Yes. And Ken cares about that. Yeah. According to another employee, I only earn two hours of sick time a month. If I am sick, I have to find someone to cover for me, or it counts as a strike against me. Just lots of really fun stories. Oh, Home Depot policy is

immediate termination if you get involved with any union activity. Again, according to the Wagner Act, passed under FDR, it is illegal to fire fire people for trying to unionize but in all these at-will jobs they will find an excuse to fire you um and of course home depot employees get no discounts uh another well that's because they buy straight from the uh suppliers instead of going through a middleman so all their products are already at discounts that's how they're able to stay competitive in the market just like uh lots of employee stories about having to just take tons of painkillers after work, having to apply bandages and everything else because, again, they're walking 15 miles on concrete. They're lifting 40 to 60-pound bags all the goddamn time.

And just like another one more uh fun little quote here from uh one of the splinter stories from an employee uh i've worked for home depot for almost three years so far and to date have received two increases in pay total of 75 cents an hour my starting base pay nine dollars with another increase of a dollar to keep pace with other retailers starting pay to 10 75 they've recently raised starting salary another dollar to $11 for new hires. And that's the rate I'm at now, $11. That's the same rate after three freaking years as a new hire novice gets starting today.

So Home Depot values their employees. A year ago, this article came out about a Home Depot co-founder gets worked up about people supposedly using food stamps to buy marijuana. Is that Ken Ligone? Yeah. It shows how out of touch he is. He's literally like, you know, I don't mind the fucking food stamp being cut out because they can buy things like marijuana and cocaine with that and other legal goods. It's like, what? Well well let me tell you this uh

phil morelli uh he started at home depot 19 years ago as an hourly associate at a couple of bucks an hour more than minimum wage and he was a lot boy helping people load their carts and pushing the carts back to the parking lot today he's a district manager in charge of eight stores he makes more than 250 000,000 a year. But I'll tell you why I came to see you today, he said. He looked at me. I want you to know last spring I paid off my parents' mortgage.

In December I paid mine off and yesterday afternoon I got a call from my Merrill Lynch broker telling me that my account is now worth over a million dollars. So I'm a millionaire. Nobody really tells you the good stories that the Sonderkommandos went through. I mean, it is kind of like where I was thinking about that again, you know, maybe some people are offended by the comparison, but it's like essentially the way that

Nazi labor camps were able to operate was that they gave special privileges to some inmates to boss around and abuse the other inmates. And so you kind of see that in a lot of capitalist firms where you get $14 an hour, but you have to crack the whip and cut hours and fire people when it comes close to our share reporting time. Counterpoint, when capitalism works the way it should, it works for everybody.

It's like the tide. All boats get lifted uh and then parent parenthetical maybe uh and if you don't have a boat you drown but oh and uh just a couple other splinter quotes and then i'll be done with this but uh so one person says uh basically every time it comes uh near the end of each fiscal half uh they have to like drastically cut labor to juice the stock price and he just says i encourage you to go to a home depot in a big market towards the end of each fiscal half and notice the amount of coverage the store will have uh that is employees like uh you know he says like uh during those times uh if anyone calls out we weren't allowed to call in other associates to

fill in the gaps you know so essentially and you just have to like reduce part-time hours etc etc give people the option to leave early so it is just kind of like again juicing the numbers for the stock price and uh but it's like you know and just recently home depot uh, well, the stock price fell on bad news, like a weak quarter. And Ken Longone, among others, blamed the weather. But, you know, it is just interesting to me where I think a union would actually help this store in that they have horrific employee turnover. And multiple employees have said that there is absolutely no training. You're expected to learn everything on your own.

These employees are abused, ground down for $11 an hour. And, of course, lots of them quit. So it's like, you know, maybe a union would actually give you a dedicated workforce that could build a sustainable stock price instead of this current slide that they're on. Yeah, and McCarthy mentioned Nazis a moment ago. In 2014, he was quoted as saying, I hope it's not working. Ken Legone, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot and major GOP donor said of populist... Right, he was comparing hatred against billionaires to Hitler or something. It's kind of a running theme here.

I'm so sorry. Said of populist political appeals, because if you go back to 1933 with different words, this is what Hitler was saying in Germany. You don't survive as a society if you're encouraged and thrive on envy or jealousy. If you go back to 1933 where my grandfather was evicting people during the Great Depression, you'll notice that there was a lot of populist sentiment in the air for some reason. Well, okay, socialism would say that Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank and I shouldn't have been lavishly rewarded for the fact that people can go into a Home Depot and get better deals and make more affordable repairs to their homes because of what we did.

Yes, of course, if they were killed in the street tomorrow, Home Depot would cease to exist and you would no longer be able to walk into a Home Depot. These people are not at all parasites who just kind of extract capital and are just totally unnecessary to the process of an actual Home Depot employee These people are not at all parasites who just kind of extract capital and are just totally unnecessary to the process of an actual Home Depot employee's day-to-day life.

And how, really, how different are their stores from, say, their biggest competitor, Lowe's? It's like a complete, almost the carbon copy store design. Yeah, they even have the same thing. They even have the same anti-union videos. Because of efficiency,

they have to compete against each other. Right, right. Well, maybe socialism is right about us, but we know capitalism brings better lives than socialism does. I'll take you to any socialistic country, to Russia, to Romania, to Hungary, and you can see for yourselves. You know those modern socialist countries, Russia, Romania, and Hungary? I love when they leave out Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland. Again, social democracies, but still, that's basically

what Bernie Sanders advocates for. Well, he has a thing to say about Bernie Sanders, but we'll quickly brush... Wait, wait. Oh, okay. One last story from Splinter. Central AC in all Home Depot stores

is controlled from the headquarters in Atlanta. What? And I would just like to quote this full one. He says, from Splinter News, It is true about the climate control. I always wondered why there was always an empty hot dog

warmer turned on under the thermostat in my store. Well, it is so corporate in Atlanta who controls our air realizes it's hot out. It gets over 100 degrees in summer and the store manager still has to plug in the hot dog warmer so someone 3,000 miles away will turn on our AC. Yep.

Well. I love capitalism. Capitalism gets a bad rap these days. Madoff didn't help. The financial crisis didn't help. Oh, and he kind of likes to claim that he smelled Madoff coming just because Madoff tried tried to get some money from him and it was kind of sketchy as depicted in the hbl movie wizard of lies where madoff was excellently played by robert de niro um you know these italians they look out for each other give de niro a shout out so is there a video of ken lingone smashing his robert

de niro uh pictures in his home after he said fuck Trump at the Tonys or whatever? So when Bernie Sanders campaigned for the presidency in 2016, I'm afraid he got a lot of college kids to believe that capitalism is bad and that America is headed or should be headed towards

something that in my mind resembles socialism. Guaranteed income, free college tuition single payer health care i disagree period strongly period guaranteed income where's the incentive to do more or do better if the money you get is detached from the work you do and the effort you put into it i can imagine people like gradually cheering louder as yeah louder as he lists those things. You pay for your health care. You pay for your college.

You pay for your child care. So hold this in your mind. Where's the incentive to do more or to do better if the money you get is detached from the work you do and the effort you put into it? Just remember that. Free tuition. Sounds great. But where's that money going to come from? The answer, people like you can. And then single-payer health care, how are you going to feel about going to a hospital with a serious condition when you have no choice about where

to go to? You know, like when you're in an ambulance unconscious. Right, right. And if you could just play this clip, Steve, it's his kind of understanding of how the economy works. And I would just like to have Steve react to it real quick. He doesn't worry about how do I stay relevant. Let me actually just set this up. He's talking about essentially Paul Krugman, Keynesian economist, is talking about we have to deficit spend to help a weak economy. And this is Ken Legone's answer to this on Bloomberg. And again, this guy's a

billionaire, and just see his understanding of how the economy works. I'm in whatever I'm in, okay? I have no trouble. But understand one thing. You either take taxes from people who earn money, and if you think that's not high enough,

you can go to wherever you want. The one thing I know about the 1%ers like me, Good idea. Yeah. Better idea. get there but the only way the government meets its bills is the way you and you and i do we pay somebody money oh my god oh hell yeah the money either comes from taxes or other activities like revenues and fees and stuff or a willing and compliant fed saying how many bonds you got a billion turner presses on give us a billion dollars worth of currency here it is and compliant fed saying, how many bonds you got? A billion? Turn the presses on. Give us a billion dollars worth of currency.

Here it is. This is simple stuff. My problem with the Krugmans of the world is they're brilliant. Wait, wait. They just may be too brilliant. There's one other part of this. Okay, I don't take a thing away from his intellect. But this is simple stuff.

Losing weight is not a very scientific endeavor. It's simple. You consume less calories than you burn, and you lose weight. You consume more calories than you burn, you gain weight. That's it. This is a man, again, $3.4 billion, and he thinks the functioning of the modern economy can be compared to calories and weight gain.

Yeah, I mean, well, for one thing, what he's complaining about Krugman isn't actually the reality of Krugman's argument. He says, like, well, there actually are limits, and he kind of agrees with Ken Langone. Wait, wait, so you're saying that Ken Langone doesn't understand opposing arguments to his own so i disagree with socialism he's right it actually is very simple it's just not his simple explanation right i disagree with socialism

not as you might believe because i'm a rich guy trying to hold on to my money. I disagree because socialism is based on the false notion that we should all be exactly equal in every single way. You know, just for old time's sake, we should let him read that as his final statement before he is put under the guillotine. I just like the idea of like Karl Marx's entire work. Everyone should be exactly equal. He's like, he starts out with his list of things that

are terrible he's like you want to tax people like me the one percent a hundred percent our income hell yes all right okay it just grows from there yeah and then he's like uh well if you tap us out then you're gonna have to take our assets too it's like whoo yeah no vince mcmahon getting more excited dot gif yeah yeah no each after each question is one panel of like the galaxy brain the relator says capitalism capitalism is brutal it's survival of the fittest what's a successful business more money coming in than going out it's like okay so basically it's survival of the fittest what's a successful business more money coming in than going out it's like okay so basically it's survival of the fittest he's blatantly advocating for social darwinism um but but he supports people of all colors andy with his bucknell scholarships 38 in between people

he supports 38 people of all colors capitalism's brutal because there's no place for losers but there shouldn't be okay so um yeah that's the homeless it's not that bad that people are homeless um so in conclusion capitalism is a land of contrasts one last thing i want to mention uh before we wrap up here is uh uhout Catholic Ken Langone picked a fight with the Pope recently. Basically the Pope at one point said like hey rich people stop money laundering through the Vatican through the mob

and which is kind of a good thing for the Pope to say hey stop being shitty let's help the world and Ken Langone was like fuck that noise what if I stop donating to the church Pope and ken langone was like uh fuck that noise uh what if i stopped donating to the church pope and ken langone was like uh jesus never said anything about money changing or money laundering right before the bible thing he uh says uh and that's capitalism should the should these people

who've made a bunch of money for home depot uh with their good ideas uh not have gotten bonuses because the other kids in the stores didn't come up with a brilliant idea should Dick Grasso not have been paid 140 million for adding tremendous value to the New York Stock Exchange and then there's a parable in the Bible goes straight

from his getting sued by Spitzer to like in the Bible thing also he right before the end of this he gives this anecdote he's like there's a par, in the Bible thing. Also, right before the end of this, he gives this anecdote. He's like, there's a parable in the Bible. The U.S. economy is a lot like a fat person trying to lose weight. You just have to like, less calories. Calories in, calories out.

He gives this anecdote about El Salvador where people are getting- Moses came down from the mountain. I have 10 food pyramids. He says these people from El Salvador were making $4,000 a year. So he decided... Killing nuns for Ronald Reagan. He decided to be generous

because he realized they couldn't live on $4,000 a year. So he decided, let's pay them $5,200 a year. And then he basically brags about how delighted they were when they heard the news and how angry other corporations were that he was raising wages in El Salvador to $5,200 a year. So in conclusion, it's not about the money. Yeah. Ken Langone,

he loves his work. He says, and he closes the book with this, I still love my work today. All of it. At 82, I'm still excited to get out of bed in the morning, still charged up about what the

next deal might bring. And though the money my enthusiasms have brought me has enabled me to live well and help others, I can honestly say that if it came down to it, I would pay to go to work every day. How many people can say that? Certainly not your thousands of Home Depot employees. Yeah, I would say nobody who has to work for a living but it's also like earlier he's like i also like what are people gonna do if they have no money incentive and then here he's saying like yeah right i'd pay to do my job

he's advocating more than socialism with that quote yeah yeah i also like uh when he said enthusiasms he uh beat somebody to death with a baseball bat at his board meeting. Oh, and one other thing before I forget here. He's famously a Trump supporter, as we mentioned, but he does have kind words to say about our current governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo. He went on Fox News and said that Andrew Cuomo was his favorite governor. And I would just like, so he went on Fox News at one point, I believe in 2011, and praised Andrew Cuomo as one of the smartest governors of his lifetime. And if you're wondering why he might have done that, if you go over to Subsidy... Us Italians have to stay together. Pasta sauce gobicle.

If you go over to SubsidyTracker.GoodJobsFirst.org and you look at Home Depot, you'll be surprised to find that the number one state to give subsidies to Home Depot is New York State, which has given them more than $49 million going back to 2001. And again, this is a company that pays its employees garbage wages and abuses them. The second largest state subsidy is Illinois with $26 million. So, you know, maybe the reason he loves Andrew Cuomo so much has something to do with the almost $50 million that New York State taxpayers have given.

Pizza sauce talking with your hands. Everyone should gesture with their hands when they talk Three times more than they usually do Except the fucking Pope That fucking socialist commie bastard It's unfortunate he didn't confess to having a Gumar in the book No, because he was horrified

That Eliot Spitzer had done such a horrible thing to his family by sleeping around. A guy in finance who clearly never sees anyone else who sleeps around on their wife. Only Eliot Spitzer. How dare. So, Palmer, what's your review of the book? One out of five stars. Yeah, you should make an Amazon review. You did read it.

You are a verified purchaser. And do you like, love, or loathe capitalism? Yeah, you should make an Amazon review. You did read it. You are a verified purchaser. And do you like, love, or loathe capitalism? I now love capitalism. I give it five out of five stars because I think that writing a bullshit book with a ghostwriter is a great way to make money, and I respect that. One other fun thing from the Splinter thing,

Amazon has, or sorry home depot has voice of the associate scores which are basically internal surveys of the associates and managers receive a lot of pressure to juice these scores to make the associates look like they're happy and they say uh anything less than four is bad which is like i believe out of 10 like neutral is bad so people are afraid to lose their jobs if the surveys don't come so there's a lot of pressure on the associates to be like yeah you love it here so just remember andy when you're reviewing this book for amazon anything less than four is bad and with that i love capitalism do you want to do your list of people you want to oh yeah if

you're listening to this before uh, June 26th, New York has a primary coming up. Zephyr Tichat for AG, Cynthia Nixon for governor. I think Dylan Radigan for Congress, New York 21. Alexandria is in... Ocasio-Cortez, she's in the 14th district running for Congress. Anyone else?

There's someone... Everyone that's... Deez Nuts is a very prominent politician I'd like to support. Really though, just write in Deez Nuts is a very prominent politician I'd like to support really though just write in Deez Nuts for all categories

I see Wiener also a really big if you hate billionaires give this list a chance really what you should do is stand in line in the polls

and tell people about our podcast you don't even have to vote if you want to make a change, vote Grubstakers. God almighty. And with that, this has been Grubstakers. Thank you very much for listening.

We appreciate all of your support. With that, my name is Yogi Pollywalt. I'm Andy Palmer. I'm Steve Jeffries. I'm Sean P. McCarthy. Check out the book, I Love Capitalism. Andy Palmer gives it 5 out of five stars, and he recommends you read it too. It's a book offer you can't refuse.

I challenged my cable bill for my apartment. Not a lot of money, but I said, you know, how do they get to that number? It was a couple of hundred bucks. It's not that I'm cheap. It's just that I want to make sure I don't squander money. I won't spend money frivolously. I don't think there's anything inconsistent

with having been successful and also being frugal. I love to buy my wife nice things. I love to do things with my family. I love to travel. I like to go to nice restaurants. I love the theater. My palette is pretty simple. I like meatball loaf. I like meatballs and pasta and a bagel

with olive cream cheese on it. I like candy, cheap candy. Jujy fruits, good and plenty. Nibs. I'm not a Starbucks guy. I'll go to a greasy spoon and get a cup of coffee. It tastes good. Going out and getting a pizza and seeing a good movie. No, it's none of my business. None of my business. What they spend with their money is their business. Who the hell am I to decide it's a waste of money?